It would be a mistake for European politicians and commentators to dismiss President Nixon's present Middle Eastern tour — and the Moscow summit which is to follow it — as...

;here can be no denying the anxiety which the est report of the Community Relations 4 ' u oun1ssion, Unemployment and Homeless will reasonably give rise to, especially in far as...

The succession of Mr Whitelaw to the chairmanship of the Conservative Party will be welcomed. Lord Carrington has been a poor strategist and his talents did not lie in...

The death of the Duke of Gloucester — the last surviving son of George V — takes from the life of his country a man who, until his illness a few years ago, represented at its...

From Douglas Jay, MP Sir: Mr Wistrich seeks to deny the demonstration in my article of May 18 that world food prices are falling, that many have fallen below EEC levels, and...

Sir: It has long been forecast by many anti-Marketeers (including Nicholas Kaldor) that capital would migrate from the peripheral regions of the EEC to its 'Golden Centre.' The...

attention on a very important matter. The "huge slush funds" devoted to EEC promotion are in sharp contrast to the pittance upon which the "antis" operate. This anomaly must be...

Sir: The implication in Mr Shrimsley's letter (May 25) is that this Society's co-operation in the Sun's "animals for prizes" competitions carries with it a measure of approval....

From L A. S. Gibson, MRCVS Sir: It is annoying to find in a thoughtful journal such a thoughtless comment as John Linklater's "treatment is often cursory, and sometimes at a...

Sir: Philip Kleinman's article in your June 1 issue on the International Advertising Association's World Congress in Teheran, misses the point. In his obsession to find ignoble...

Sir: When the inquiry is held I hope you will draw attention to the slack ness and lack of discipline in the British labour force. It is significant that the explosion took...

Sir: The letter appearing in your issue dated June from the Rev D. Nadin of.Harlow, Essex, is more than amazing. Coming from a clergyman it is indecent. If the Church founded...

it is perhaps foolish to challenge the verdict of one who is clearly an authority on confused thinking, I must, in the interests of fact against fiction, do so. Only in the...

Patrick Cosgrave. It is almost universally agreed among political journalists (there is at least one distinguished exception) that Mr Harold Wilson is personally a very nice...

Lord 0 • Neill of the Maine It was in 1947, a few months after I arrived at Stormont, that I had a conversation which could not have taken place anywhere else in the United...

Nicholas Richardson This has been the season of miracles in France. There has been a reported cure at Lourdes, a rumoured appearance of the Christ at Castelnau-de-Guers, even...

Libertarianis -an alternati* Philip Vander Elst The assumption that there is an urgent 11 for a Tory rethink has become a c ° , monplace. The fact that it has taken an toral...

There are such wild inconsistencies in the thoughts of a man in love that there really should be no reason for allowing him more liberty than others because he is possessed with...

The Squadron Leader has been grounded 30 years now. Like many wartime pilots who suffered serious and permanent injuries, his flying days ended when he was shot down in World...

)ef The scene is a London tube sta o t lon. Among the passengers wait i ng on the platform is a young an of about twenty-three. He is s tanding near the electric board Which...

h i s motto, • s h Is motto, 'No Surrender.' b inds himself in solemn pact 1,1 1 km the Constitution Act. 4 41 ' we not ask of this to-do, 'Etet lY what he's loyal to?...

Champagne Perry Bill Grandy I remember that just after a former incumbent of this column, Mr Donald McLachlan had died in a car crash in Scotland, I was, as is my wont,...

Suicide by hunger strike Is murder to the IRA Who say they'll make the British pay. But when Irish bullets strike, They see them in a different light As exploits in a hero's...

Caveat emptor John Linklater The most reassuring aspect of a new report (Health Care: The Growing Dilemma) which is shortly to be published bY McKinsey and Company Incor...

Wedding of the year Some weeks ago the Sunday Mirror printed an interview with Dr Elizabeth Rees, an Englishwoman who claimed to have become President Gaddafi's third wife in a...

Sweets— and sour words Philip Kleinman One thing about advertising which you might think its practitioners ought to be glad about — but which, human nature being what it is,...

Virtue and vice Martin Sullivan So will I turn her virtue into pitch; And out of her own goodness make the net That shall' enmesh them all. So honest Iago springs the trap to...

Out of place Peter Quince Although the June sunlight makes any patch of woodland glow with colour, my eye was caught the other day by an unaccountable patch of brilliant...

My dear Kenneth, I will tell you that the Slave trade is abolished. I have read Homer, Virgil and Pindar. . . . I am reading Rollin [Histoire ancienne des Egyptiens], the sixth...

A. L. Rowse Lord Byron. Accounts Rendered Doris Langley Moore. (Murray £6.75). Byron's Daughter Catherine Turney (Peter Davies £3.75). The Byron Women Margot Strickland...

Antony Flew Academic Freedom Anthony Arblaster (Penguin Educational Special 50p) Anthony Arblaster wrote Academic Freedom "at the request of the Executive Committee of the...

POEMS by H L Stevenson, including I.:nderwoods Ballads and Songs of Travel. THE NEBULY COAT, by J. Meade, THE CLINTONS OF KENCOTE, series, 4 vols., by Archibald Marshall.—Mrs....

Leo Abse The Akenham Burial Place Ronald Fletcher (Wildwood House £3.95) The melancholic Schopenhauer has told us "we expiate our birth firstly by our life and secondly by our...

Consumer durables Peter Ackroyd Thirty-Four East Alfred Coppel (Macmillan £2.75) The Radish Memoirs Terence de Vere White (Gollancz £2.25). Why is it always in the socialist...

Think thin Benny Green Reading The Thin Man (Penguin Crime 30p) again after so many years is like finding my adolescent brain standing on the shelf of a long-forgotten...

When you are on holiday, at home or abroad, you can still receive your Spectator. Send Your address and 19p per copy to the Sales Manager, The Spectator, 99 Gower Street, London...

Bookend Everyone seems to be talking about the World Cup, due to start in Munich this week. It is difficult to see why when here, on our very own doorstep, we have in prospect...

The Norman Conquests, a trilogy by Alan Ayckbourn (Greenwich Theatre) Cymbeline by William Shakespeare; Royal Shakespeare Company (Stratford-upon-Avon) Tooth of Crime by Sam...

What did you do, Daddy? Duncan Fallowell Lacombe Lucien Director: Louis MaIle. Stars: Pierre Blaise, Aurore Clement, Holger Lowenadler. 'AA' Curzon (137 minutes). Alvin...

Highland peak Clive Gammon The most ludicrous piece of journalistic enterprise I was ever involved in was a few years back when Cutty Sark whisky offered a million pounds to...

Actress Moira Lister turned up dutifully at Radio 4's Start the Week studio this week as directed by the hard-working press-agent for her new play, a Michael Pertwee farce...

Nicholas Davenport Capitalism in Britain is once again in a state of crisis, as we all know. It is not necessarily approaching its end. Indeed, if it remains true to form it...

Donald Cowie It seems fairly certain now that the people do not want money to be inherited any more. No objections were raised when the Conservatives started to investigate an...

Once more Lord Goodman haS been the recipient of . a mysteriously generous recognition for his services to the Arts Council and the Tate Gallary by an anonymous donor paying...