Three months a ,b we argued here that the absurd 'cod war should be ended. Those months have seen an In tensification of hostilities and in every respect a d e terioration of...

First the crucifixion, then the second coming. After months of what he considered a Ca mpaign of persecution by the Press, and what had certainly been a story relished by F leet...

Strange death of the Liberals John Grigg A hundred years ago the Liberal Party was a profoundly anomalous coalition of Whig magnates and urban radicals of the Joseph...

M r Jo Grimond's principal task as care-' taker will be to direct the search for an acceptable way of choosing a new leader of the Liberal Party. The problem could hardly be,...

Between Hell and Hepburn Auberon Waugh Of all the horrors and indignities of the Heath regime—the refusal to honour P. G. Wodehouse on his ninetieth birthday, the villainous...

Max Egremont New York Historians may possibly declare that Pennsylvania did for Jimmy Carter in 1976 what West Virginia did for John Kennedy in 1960. Certainly Carter's victory...

Paul Neuburg Helsinki Mr Taisto Sinisalo, fifty-year-old deputy chairman of the Finnish Communist Party and head of its Stalinist wing, is both a curse and a blessing to others...

Keith Kyle Reichsbahn': The anachronistic sign of the Imperial Railway hangs on every station of the old-fashioned, rackety overhead line which carries you everywhere in West...

George Hutchinson An uncommonly large number of former Prime Ministers are knocking about at present. I am not sure that we have ever known so many. As to 80 per cent (or...

Arnit Roy W . hat was the real reason for Alex Lyon's d ismissal as Home Office Minister? It was said at the time that he was a bad Minister — Whatever that might mean. But...

Andrew Alexander 'Without precedent' was the rapturous comment I heard a Labour MP make about last week's Treasury-TUC accord. The poor fellow, like so many other MPs, was...

Joseph Egerton °Il e of the most complicated arenas of Political contention at present is student Politics. The student unions—and especi ally the National Union of...

Hugh Macpherson In 1970 a worthy academic, Jeremy Tunstall, published a solemn work on The Westminster Lobby Correspondents. It was quite useful in its way, but clearly out of...

Against investing abroad Nicholas Davenport The fact that the fourth estate of the realm has agreed to share responsibility with Parliament for maintaining our economic...

of the case for an independent Scotland you have given cause for gratitude to us all—not least to Scottish Conservatives who are meeting in conference at Perth. For Mr Kennedy...

outruns even the zealots of his own party; for he would undo not only the Parliamentary Union of 1707 but also the Union of Crowns of 1603. I fear that he may be exposing...

? I read in last week's Sunday Times that a letter written by Mr Jeremy Thorpe to another man displayed a degree of affection which was unusual between two men. If the meaning...

in the prevailing state of virtual educational chaos. Their sponsorship of the 'new' primary schooling is at last being called to account—although the apologetic manner in which...

Sir: I would be the first to admit that my book Britain's imperial Century is controversial, even provocative in places: it is meant to be. But John Terraine's review...

Sir: There is much talk at present of 'world food shortages', but little of food cartels. The most obvious food cartel operating at the moment is the Common Agricultural policy...

Sir: No one likes being rudely shaken into the bleak, grey world of hard reality when slumbering fast in the depths of a golden dream, so when a journalist of liberal persuasion...

Sir: Having just finished Professor Knights' book Encounter 3, and having just read Peter Ackroyd's article in the 6 March issue of the Spectator, may I say I think Professor...

Sir: While I. appreciate that Penelope Houston at the end of her fine review of Elizabeth Sussex's The Rise and Fall of British Documentary might not wish to classify us as a...

The woman in white Hilary Spurling The Life of Emily Dickinson Richard B. Sewell (Faber, Two volumes, £17.50) The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson edited by T. H. Johnson...

William Trevor A New Life of Chekhov Ronald Hingley (Oxford University Press £8.75) The old cliché that everyone has a story to tell is true, and more often than not it's a...

I. A. Richards The Complete Poems of Thomas Hardy Edited by James Gibson (Macmillan £6.50) After Hardy's 'earliest known production in verse, Domicilium'—descriptive rather...

Duncan Fallowell

T wo Much! DohaId E. Westlake (Hodder and Stoughton £3.75) What do morphine, explosives, voodoo, Sharks, moray eels, rape, murder, mutilat ion, Spanish treasure, forgery,...

Benny Green Wisden's Cricketers' Almanac (Sporting Handbooks £3.00) To attempt to review Wisden would be an impertinence, so I will merely record the arrival of the one hundred...

A. L. Rowse The Protestant Duke: A Life of Monmouth Violet Wyndham (Weidenfeld and Nicolson £4.95) Many years ago I was lucky enough to penetrate the most exquisite house in...

Simon Courtauld Gallipot Eyes Elspeth Huxley (Weiden feld and Nicolson £4.25) I played cricket at Oaksey last summer. It was a timeless occasion—the weather and the tea were...

Patrick Campbell The Irish Thomas J. O'Hanlon (Andre Deutsch £3.95) O'Hanlon, who wisely lives in New York !hough born in Wexford, says that his book IS an objective portrait...

Patrick Cosg rave The Art of Warfare in the Age of Marlborough David Chandler (Botsford £6.95) War is a human condition: art does—and should—attend its arrangement. In the...

FIRST EDITIONS, particularly early, Evelyn Waugh, John Tidey, 22 Pattison Road, London NW2. BELLS RING . BACKWARDS by Oliver Onions. Johnson, 46 York Road. Liverpool 23. ELSIE...

The lure of the West John Spurling People who hear that I'm engaged on a series of visits to provincial theatres tend to make sympathetic noises, as if only masochism, poverty...

Beyond Bach Rodney Milnes Of the two operatic genres that, from the Performance point of view, remain virtually closed books—French opera of the Baroque and Revolution...

Music master Kenneth Hurren Side by Side With Sondheim (Mermaid) Gigi by Colette and Anita Loos (Fortune) Endgame by Samuel Beckett (Royal Court) At the riverside Mermaid they...

Sick sex Ian Cameron In search of something more promising than the week's official menu of press shows, I have been trying my luck with the double bill of Canadian horror...

Winning John McEwen There are several shows worth a visit at the moment but Howard Hodgkin is the man of the hour with a retrospective at the Serpentine (till 31 May), an...

Melancholy Jeffrey Bernard Homosexuality—Towards a Christian View (Thames Television) was a short sharp reminder at the ungodly hour of 12.40 am that the Almighty is keeping...