The election of Mrs Margaret Thatcher as leader has done a great deal more than save the Conservative Party from what might have been a much longer and more damaging internal...

It would be a great mistake to assume that the declaration of a ceasefire by the Provisional IRA was — as he assumed in his statement to the House of Commons on Tuesday — a...

Those who applauded the fall of the Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, who descanted on the evils and inadequacies of his system of government, and who praised the emergence of a...

Derek Marks of the Daily Express, who died peacefully last weekend, was one of the verY greatest of British political journalists. Again and again he excelled his rivals in the...

Referendum Sir: In all the discussion which has taken place on the q uestion of this country's continued membership of the EEC, there is one aspect of the matter looked. Over...

Sir: After a very brief period of rejoicin g for the departure of Edward Heath, I the ea g erly scanned ea g erly scanned neWsPapers and television screen to see What reward...

Sir: Mr L. E. Weidber g (February 1) seems to share the same misconceptions about Professor H. J. Eysenck's views on the possible link between smoking and lun g cancer as I had...

1) that in my review of Illich's book 1 "smu gg led in a parenthesis" to the effect that we can blame ourselves for health troubles because, inter alio. we d o n't stop smokin...

Sir: I can only trust that Mr Bevins's thou g ht is more profound than its expression (February 8). It would be difficult to ima g ine a diatribe less worthy of serious...

Sir: I must a g ree with Madeleine Simms (February 1) that it is a woman's ri g ht to decide whether or not to have a baby. At the same time I would defend the ri g ht of any...

Sir: No one would wish to diminish the pity due to Mr Beverley Nichols (February 8) or the value of such an account to medicine, but were you wise in publishing the movin g...

Sir: Bill Grundy takes me to task for the mis-spellin g of a word (February 8). believin g that 'a ferra g io' should have read 'a farra g o'. Certainly, there was a slip of the...

Patrick Cosgrave Last week I said that Mr Ian Gilmour who is incomparably the best thinker on what has come to be called the 'left' wing of the Conservative Party had, in all...

The first ballot for the selection of the Tory leader was predictably preceded by many e x ci ted - schoolboy gatherings and little dinners given by the pudgy young acolytes...

Never have I witnessed such scenes of prep. school high spirits as gripped Tory MPs upon the Announcement that Master Heath had been toppled from his perch by Mistress Thatcher....

Jonathan Guinness The new leader of the bewildered Conservative Party will not, at least immediately, be in any meaningful sense the winner. It is already clear who that is: Mr...

The real case for reform Lord Beaumont of WhitleY Most arguments about electoral reform tend to centre around the problem of the injustice t° minority parties on the one hand...

A continuing series of articles dealing with matters relevant to British membership of the EEC and the forthcoming referendum Nicholas Faith on blind faith Edward Heath ' s...

Geoffrey Bocca Arriving in London from New York, I looked in with an engaging smile on my tailor, Doug Hayward in Mount Street, and invited myself to his weekly party to watch...

TODAY Education The worst teachers money can buy? Rhodes Boyson, MP The Hqughton Committee recommends a £432,000,000 a year increase in salary for our 460,000 teachers on...

Leading questions Bill Grundy The ins and outs of the Tory leadership struggle are no concern of mine. I leave that to the learned Doctor Cosgrave, my venerable colleague. But...

Philip Kleinman Advertising abounds in theories and even in philosophies, philosophy being the word which the more pretentious ad agencies use to denote whichever gimmick they...

Criminal responsibility Bernard Dixon You have a baby son who was born with a genetic abnormality that could make him more than averagely prone to 'antisocial behaviour' and...

Martin Sullivan The question of state aidfor historic churches is being raised again. -The General Synod of the Church of England is suggesting a modest subvention of £1...

Lay-out artists Denis Wood Furor Hortensis is the title of essays published in memory of Frank Clark who died in 1971 while head of the courses in Landscape Architecture at...

Lord Hailsham on trials without errors This book by two, I would think, relatively young professionals, the one a practising journalist, and the other a solicitor specialising...

Brigid Brophy Night's Black Angels The Forms and Faces of Victorian Cruelty Ronald Pearsall (Hodder and Stoughton £4.75) "Yes," says Hesione Hushabye when Boss Mangan calls...

farce Al Capp The Seventeenth Degree Mary McCarthy (Weidenfeld and Nicolson £6.00) Mary McCarthy is an American novelist who' was known, chiefly, to a small band of other...

Denis Donoghue Ireland in the War Years 1939-1945 Joseph T. Carroll (David and Charles £4.50). Hell or Connaught: The Cromwellian Colonisation of Ireland 1652-1660. Peter...

Benny Green "Literature is a 'luxury," says Chesterton, - fiction is a necessity". If we skate over the gross intellectual deceit of that remark, which attempts to fob us off...

Bookend If Bookbuyer were to claim the credit for getting the Post Office to modify its proposed increases on overseas book post, he would doubtless be charged with...

Kenneth Hurren on the expiring theatre Babies Grow Old devised by Mike Leigh (ICA Terrace Theatre) Stallerhof by Franz Xaver Kroetz (Hampstead Theatre Club) Aspects of Max Wall...

Mugger's game Kenneth Robinson Death Wish Director: Michael Winner Stars: Charles Bronson 'X' Paramount (95 minutes) The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3 Director: Joseph Sargeant...

Low profile Robin Young You pay a lot of money to get into the Royal Opera House. It does not follow that you necessarily see very much. A diminutive American next to me at a...

The stock market and Mr Benn Nicholas Davenport After its very sharp recovery the stock market is now back into what the chartists describe as a 'consolidation' phase. The FT...

The making of a leader Bernard Hollowood I was recycling a few Eurodollars the other day when my attention was drawn to an advertisement for ILP or International Leadership...

David Nicolson's renewed promise of no redundancies at British Airways, of which he is chairman, must have made hearts sink at Whitehall. As the ex-management consultant put in...

I asked Mr Otis whether objections to nepotism were as common in other countries as in Britain. "Heavens, no," he said. "Why in the States we cultivate nepotism as a business...