London is to get riot cars. L abour MPs shouted 'U-turn' when Mr Paul Channon, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, announced that the Government had abruptly dropped the...

NOT enough attention has been paid to the response of the Chief Rabbi, Sir Immanuel Jakobovits, to Faith in the City, the report of the Archbishop of Canter- bury's Commission...

NO NEW LEADER T he next general election is now near enough to disturb the minds of many Tory MPs, but not, unfortunately, to concen- trate them. In a general way, the prospect...

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The perking up of Mr Edward Heath FERDINAND MOUNT C abinet government is back. The news that 'collective responsibility is working again' travels like wildfire from Mendip's...

CHARLES MOORE M r Heseltine has invented a disgust- ing concept called 'caring capitalism'. Mr Biffen does not like people being `raucous'. Mr Hurd thinks that collective...

A journey into the water that is under the earth AUBERON WAUGH 0 thers have lost sisters before. Every . day people lose husbands, wives, parents, children and friends they...

Peter Paterson explains how the electricians, far from being punished, are forcing change upon the trade unions HISTORY does not record what happened to the guardsman whose...

London, usually so tranquil, has been excited and alarmed this week by a most serious riot. A meeting of the unem- ployed had been called on Monday, in Trafalgar Square, and was...

Richard West on Filipino reactions to last week's crooked elections Vigan, Ilocos Sur IN THE mood of doubt and bitterness after last Friday's crooked election, the Philippine...

Charles Glass on the opening of the trial of 474 suspected Mafiosi Palermo LENT has come to Sicily, as to the rest of the Catholic world, with prayers for the dead and the...

Dhiren Bhagat sees signs that the Pope favours more freedom for Indian Christians Bombay THE Pope may not be keen on the liberation that Fr Boff has in mind but the liberation...

Ronald Payne on how the Soviet Union wins in exchanging prisoners 'SPY-SWAP' is a cruel and terrible game devised and executed with ruthless cyn- icism by the Soviet Union....

Ludovic Kennedy on the surprising pleasure of inspecting one's insides THE consultant and I were looking at an X-ray of my colon. 'Those two white blobs,' he said, 'are...

Student magazines: Paul Johnson on the predilections of undergraduate editors ANYONE glancing through the 1985-86 Crop of university papers might well con- clude that...

Caution: Westminster's industrial strategists at work JOCK BRUCE-GARD YNE T he detailed examination that is now under way may. . . suggest that a compre- hensive merger of the...

Why Rupert wants to sell the stately house of Hambro CHRISTOPHER FILD ES T he merchant banks of England, how Opulent they stand, to give the founder's kinsmen positions of...

page as Mr Alastair Forbes's. If you can fit it in. Charles S. Jennings PO Box 309, Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands

Sir: In answer to your correspondent David Watkins (Letters, 25 January), Macaulay was a great set-speaker but Croker was better at impromptu debating. That Macaulay's fury at...

Sir: Pray allow me to make most energetic protest at what I consider to have been rather questionable editorial judgment on your part in having permitted Auberon Waugh (Another...

Our peculiar habits Ferdinand Mount MARRIAGE AND LOVE IN ENGLAND 1300-1840 by Alan Macfarlane Blackwell, £19.50 h e English are different. It is a fright- ful thing to say....

Shirley Robin Letwin THINKERS OF THE NEW LEFT by Roger Scruton Longman, £9.95 P rofessor Scruton's book is an un- ashamed attack on 'the Left'. Since he regards the Left as a...

John McEwen • AN AESTHETIC OBSESSION: A PORTRAIT OF SIR WILLIAM EDEN, BT by Lyall Wilkes Oriel Press, £12.95 T his book is as slim as a sandwich, and like one too in that...

Frances Donaldson CHRONICLE OF FRIENDSHIP: VERA BRITTAIN'S DIARY OF THE THIRTIES, 1932-1939 edited by Alan Bishop Gollancz, £12.95 S omeone — I think Cyril Connolly — said...

Philip Glazebrook BIZARRE BRITAIN: A CALENDAR OF ECCENTRICITY by Roy Kerridge Basil Blackwell, £12.50 T his is a delightful and amusing book of wanderings, packed with...

Francis King ADVENTURES IN THE ALASKAN SKIN TRADE by John Hawkes Chatto &Windus, £9.95 T he 'skin trade' of the title of John Hawkes's rich, robust, tumultuous new novel is...

Catalpa trees converse in summer wind. Imagine that they whisper hurricane as leaves display their sequin sides and spin wildly around, portending violent rain. Our oldest...

Opera Second time round Rodney Milnes Faust (Covent Garden) W hen Jonathan Miller's production of Mozart's opera was first staged in Glasgow three years ago I rather...

Dangerous Moves (PG', selected cinemas) All in the game Peter Ackroyd F or those whose knowledge of chess is confined to the back pages of the weekly magazines, the game...

Women Beware Women (Royal Court) Sex and money Christopher Edwards T homas Middleton's best known play — certainly it is his most admired — is The Changeling. It was of this...

Top of the pops Alexander Chancellor L ast Sunday Channel 4 started a new series called My Britain, in which people offer an individual view of what this country means to...

Oil spoil Taki New York The only time (and I mean it) I can watch American television is when I'm flat on my back suffering from a severe case of flu. Everyone who is anyone...

Every modern inconvenience Alice Thomas Ellis I always thought I didn't like the Mo- dern much and I was right. I don't like reinforced concrete or formica or Andy Warhol, and...

Sensitive areas Jeffrey Bernard I arrived at Waterloo the other morning after a day in the country to be greeted by an illuminated sign which displayed the latest figure of...

Infectious Quixotry P.J. Kavanagh W hen you come across a new word you start finding it everywhere you look. In the same way I, having mentioned the interest Ezra Pound took...

Past glories Raymond Keene T he inaugural Hastings tournament of 1895 could lay claim to being the most powerful chess contest held up to that time. Competing were the...

Title given Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1407 you were in- vited to write a poem to fit the title 'Sonnet found in a Deserted Mad-House'. The anonymous gem, which I promised...

A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or a copy of Chambers Dictionary, price now £12.95 — ring the words 'Chambers Dictionary' above) will be awarded for the...

You are invited to write a farewell letter on retirement to colleagues or team-mates, giving it to them straight from the shoulder for the first time. Maximum 150 words. Entries...

under the square, 1A, 39, 8 & 21 could have been LICENCES, INTENT, PEEP & RE - PULSED; 'doubled' lights are 14/40, 18/34, 19/11, 30/42 & 38/37. Winners: R. A. England, London...

Rhone me over, lay me down Auberon Waugh Being slightly harder than the 1983s, the 1984s do not show quite so well at the very cheapest end of the market, since it is a...

Redpath & Thackray Wines, Common Lane, Sawston, Cambridge, CB2 4HW Tel: Cambridge (0223) 833495 1. C.Stes du Ventoux (St Marc) 1984 2. Rasteau (Girasols) 1984 3. Crozes...