Nodding in Noddyland Members of Parliament have just been congratulating themselves upon the valuable public work they do, by way of justifying the cosy new system which will...

Political commentary Not quite the end of empire Ferdinand Mount The astonishment should not be allowed to fade away. The overwhelming electoral triumph of the Patriotic...

Notebook Who said the followin A' 'Politicians are trying to control us. If only they would just accept that sport and politics do not mix. In any case they have no right to...

Another voice Puppet, bandit or baboon? Auberon Waugh 'Watching breakfast television in Berkeley, California, is a delightful and informative way of observing American...

Great expectations Henry Fairlie Washington While the primary campaign is still wintering in the South, so to speak, we have a good chance to run our eyes over the Republican...

Mugabe - puppet or boss? Xan Smiley Salisbury If there is anything to prove that the average white Rhodesian is a political sheep, it is not just that he has unabashedly...

Giscard woos the Gaullists Sam White Paris Having begun his presidential term by trying to win over sections of the Left, President Giscard is ending it by trying to win over...

The law against naughtiness Desmond Stewart Cairo A biographer of Nasser, P.J. Vatikiotis, concludes a wobbly comparison of the late Egyptian president to Alcibiades with a...

Overstepping the Oriental mark Richard West Hong Kong The coroner's court inquiry into the death of Inspector John MacLennan has caused the biggest scandal in Hong Kong since...

Bill Sirs at Spion Kop Peter Paterson Reading Thomas Pakenham's brilliant and entertaining history of the Boer War at the same time as the steel strike continues its voyage...

Fiscal fallacies Anthony Rudd Budgets are often a bore. Most boring of all are those which are, in fact, unnecessary; like that which Sir Geoffrey Howe Will present on 26...

The landed gently James Hughes-Onslow When Mentmore opens next Wednesday (19 March) for the first time as a stately home visitors will find that Lord Rosebery's vast billiard...

Letters Gilmour and the PLO Sir: I think that perhaps the most revealing aspect of your profile of Sir Ian Gilmour (1 March) was not so much what you said about him, but...

Scots and toffs Sir: Perhaps you will be kind enough to allow one of your predecessors to congratulate you on your amusing and sympathetic sketch of another of your...

Want of decency Rir. ze . If the literary standards of the once Clilised Spectator are exemplified by the efecations of the yahoos who set and conQbuted to your Competition No....

Sir: What a splendid piece of Victoriana was Leo Abse's article (1 March) on New Zealand! With his air of lofty disdain, his imperious arrogance, his Olympian judgments, his...

Opera 80 Sir: I read with pleasure Rodney Milnes's review, in the Spectator of I March, of Opera 80 at Crewe. Some of the people whom he saw 'struggling to get in' before the...

A punishment for scroungers Sir: In your leading article on social security scroungers ('Cheating the State, 1 March) you write: 'We could do with a punishment which is both...

Finnish facts Sir: A pity Peter Ackroyd seems to have based most of his observations on Finland (8 March) mainly on a visit to a disco and some punk rock programme on...

Poms and zombies Sir: Mr Abse's malignant attack on the New Zealanders (1 March) adds little to the solution of that country's racial problems, and merely justifies more fully...

Books Palestinian myths and realities Edward Mortimer The Question of Palestine Edward W. Said (Routledge £8.50) To me this is a disappointing book. I say 'to me', because...

Puritans, politics and pay John Kenyon The Rise of the New Model Army Mark A. Kishlansky (Cambridge £15.00) What a blessed relief to find a book on the Civfl Wars which...

Home fascists Hugh Cecil British Fascism: Essays on the Radical Right in Interwar Britain, Ed. Kenneth Lunn and Richard C. Thurlow (Croom Helm £1 2.95) Interwar Fascism in...

Gnosis Nicolas Walter The Gnostic Gospels Elaine Pagels (Weidenfeld £7.95) 'What is truth? said jesting Pilate.Despite Bacon's sneer, Pilate's question is a good one. What,...

Marketeers Shirley Robin Letwin Free to Choose Milton Friedman and Rose Friedman (Secker £7.95; £4.95) The Friedmans do not pretend to have written a political philosophy....

Conquest Jeffrey Meyers Letters, vol. 11, 1875-1883 Henry James Ed. Leon Edel (Macmillan £15) The formal, sober, sometimes prudish letters in this concisely edited volume...

Cheesed off Francis King Life Before Man Margaret Atwood (Cape £5.95) Unlike that of the biographer, who at best has a reason and at worst a pretext for invading lives that...

The Rich Boy from Chicago Derek Mar- lowe (Weidenfield £5.95) Nocturnes for the King of Naples Edmund White (Deutsch £3.95) Wild Cats Jacob Epstein (Alison Press: Secker...

Arts Ex-anarchist at the Tate Pat Gilmour When he was given the job of Director of the Tate Gallery last year at his second attempt and after more than 15 years nursing that...

theatre Life and deathly Peter Jenkins Pvr Lives (Greenwich) (W mfltal Death of an Anarchist YOL hung Writers Festival (Royal Noel Coward's plays are the natural classics Of...

Cinema All that glitter Peter Ackroyd The Electric Horseman ('A' Empire, Leicester Square) Drama of the Rich ('A' Curzon) 'A lot of people hated publicity. Albert...

Opera Disturbance Rodney Milnes Eugene Onegin (Cardiff) There has been no shortage of good productions of Eugene Onegin in this country - Peter Hall, Jonathan Miller, David...

High life Caligula Taki New York After an extended stay in this modern-day version of Sodom and Gomorrah, 1 thought it safe to see Caligula, the film that everyone among the...

Television Story-tellers Richard Ingrams Frederick Raphael specialises in Oxbridge-educated media-folk - writers, Publishers, contributors to the New Stateslaf, etc, the sort...

Low life Hard lines Jeffrey Bernard I sat opposite an Indian tramp on a tube train the other day - the first Indian tramp I've ever seen - and he looked to be in very bad...

Postscnpt Bridge too far John McEwen 'British volunteers join Afghan freedo° fighters.' (Stop press) Pof Far below them in the valley, a IlOL- v Mikoyan 125 gunships...