I n his Guildhall speech this week the Prime M inister spoke, once again, of his 'determina- t ion for human rights, a detestation of dis- cri mination based on race or on...

Sir Leslie O'Brien is not the most discreet of central bankers, and on the eve of devaluation he produced some expensive hesitations be- fore the television cameras. But the...

The Government's proposals for reform of the House of Lords have been widely acclaimed, if not on all sides, at least in the hallowed middle ground that lies between them. Yet...

of Algeria began to cause serious alarm in Paris, Russian military equipment continued to pour into Nigeria, accompanied by technicians and cultural advisers. Construction of a...

POLITICAL COMMENTARY AUBERON 'WAUGH Readers of this column will be sophisticated enough not to be impressed by rumours of a possible Government defeat in the Commons when Mrs...

AMERICA-1 MURRAY KEMPTON New York—`And what were they going to do with the Grail when they found it, Mr Rossetti?' Mr Nixon has been inconspicuous since his election. His...

AMERICA-2 WILLIAM JANEWAY America has made a habit of solving its social problems by ignoring them. That is, it has over- come social conflicts and met new demands through the...

POLITICIANS-1 ANGUS MAUDE, MP The aim of the television and broadcasting services, one must presume, is to make the material they present interesting and attractive to their...

POLITICIANS-2 STUART MACLURE It is seven months since Edward Short suc- ceeded Patrick Gordon Walker as Secretary of State for Education and Science. He has had time to become...

CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS No one, of course, would dare complain Of scrapping the Lord Chamberlain. And all of us are glad to see Speech on the stage at last is free. Nothing indeed...

J. W. M. THOMPSON One day some academic researcher, tired of less obvious subjects, may give us a paper on the timing of embarrassing official documents. If so, the report on...

THE LAW R. A. CLINE It is obviously difficult to be dispassionate about the legal profession. Until a few years ago people became dreamy about the law at the drop of a hat;...

PERSONAL COLUMN MERCURIUS OXONIENSIS Being a Letter to Mercurius Londiniensis FRIEND LONDINIENSIS, Yours of the 28th ultimo, bearing news of the utter failure of the...

SCIENCE PETER J. SMITH It has long been accepted as an article of faith in this country that our educational system, at all levels and in most disciplines, is superior to that...

THE PRESS BILL GRUNDY Mr Richard Gott of the Guardian has been attacking English newspapers. Using the Queen's visit to Chile as a peg, he hung on it some pretty devastating...

MEDICINE JOHN ROWAN WILSON Lord Todd has let me down. It's a very sad business and I haven't completely recovered from it yet. Ever since he announced the report of the Royal...

From the 'Spectator', 14 November 1868 — The - elections of next week may or may not do much directly to "make history," but they will certainly do very much indirectly.. . ....

TABLE TALK DENIS BROGAN I firmly resolved some weeks ago to make no comments on the American election. So I turn once again to the more stable political life of Ireland: In a...

BOOKS RONALD BINGLEY In 1962 Alexander Solzhenitsyn published his One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Though a work of fiction, this has proved to be the first and only...

DENNIS J. DUNCANSON The Red Book and the Great Wall Alberto Moravia translated by Ronald Strom (Seeker and Warburg 25s) Hanoi Mary McCarthy (Weidenfeld and Nicol- son 25s)...

Heavy duty BARRY COLE Poor Clare L.P. Hartley (Hamish Hamilton 25s) London End J. B. Priestley (Heinemann 35s) The Sleep of Reason C. P. Snow (Macmillan 35s) Something to...

Slapers & wakers HENRY TUBE A Change of Skin Carlos Fuentes translated by Sam Hileman (Cape 42s) High Thomas Hinde (Hodder and Stoughton 35s) The Quick and The Dead Thomas...

HARRY G. JOHNSON In this excellently lucid and informative book, the tenth to be published in the Atlantic Policy Studies series sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations,...

RODNEY ACKLAND A rather odd book, rather disconcerting. Like a trendy film, it continually poses questions about truth and illusion, dream and reality, fairy-tale and fact;...

Stress symptoms WILLIAM SARGANT Robert Jay Lifton (Weidenfeld and Nicolson 65s) Before writing about this interesting book, it is necessary to give one's own qualifications...

The Complete Bolivian Diaries of Che Guevara and Other Captured Documents edited by Daniel lames (Allen and Unwin 42s). We have already had two English versions of Che's...

ROY STRONG . In these troubled days, when the general public must be thinking that the art trade is little better than a tarted-up branch of the Mafia, it is a pleasure to...

Back track PENELOPE HOUSTON Charly (Odeon, Haymarket, 'A') Funnynian (Academy Two, 'A') The `r . ' in the title of Charly is written back- wards, for the fairly unbearable...

ART PAUL GRINKE Looking back to those interminable discussions on the theme 'Is the camera the friend or foe of art?' which the late Victorians loved to chew over, it is quite...

THEATRE Stranger things HILARY SPURLING stead Theatre Club) The Beard (Royal Court) The Hero Rises Up (Roundhouse) Wonder (Ica Nash House) The Cocktail Party (Wyndhams) It...

OPERA CHARLES REID For reasons that will be apparent in a moment, I would not have missed the Rosenkaralier re- vival at Covent Garden for worlds. In the ordinary way Richard...

MONEY NICHOLAS DAVENPORT The investment world is going mad about `per- formance.' In the old days the manager of a trust fund would set himself a modest goal— to preserve...

PORTFOLIO JOHN BULL Sir David . Brown's shipbuilding and engineering firm, Vesper, has been badly jolted by some heavy losses (announced last week). But be- cause I believe...

CUSTOS Equities have been in much better form this week. Turnover has been reasonably good, the business has been satisfactorily two-way, and prices have firmed up quite...

Sir: 'Ian MacGregor's' articles interested me very much, and I find that I agree with most of what he said (18 and 25 October, 1 November). May I make some observations from the...

by-elections' (8 November) lies in his failure to take account of votes cast for Liberals and other minor party and Independent candi- dates. The same reasoning that leads him...

LETTERS From Professor Hugh Trevor-Roper, David Butler, Hugh Herrington, Sam Wiggs, R. E. B. Duff, Obi Ohanenye, Angus Buchanan, T. C. Skeffington-Lodge, Joseph Chapman, Dudley...

Sir: All unsophisticated psephologists and poll- sters must have been fascinated by Mr Lawson's contribution (8 November) to the analysis of recent by-elections. But perhaps he...

Sir: Since correspondence on the 'demo' con- tinues in your columns, it may be of interest to record the opinions of the patients in a large ward of a major London hospital in...

reminding me that 'abuse is no substitute for civilised and logical argument' then immediately assails me for lack of education and also for what he calls twisting the truth....

Sir: During the visit of Mr Yuri Gargarin to Sierra Leone, he was asked by a schoolboy whether he saw God and the angels when he was in Heaven up there. 'I did not see any of...

Sir: Yorkshire in Britain has sometimes been compared with Texas in America. There is, I think; some truth in the comparison, though scenically our largest county is much...

AFTERTHOUGHT JOHN WELLS Banshee screams of angry recrimination, the slow dissevering rip of sweat-rotted corsets and the monotonous splash of fat women falling into the...

me, like other writings, still ignorant on the Precise iniquity of dealers' rings. (I am not a dealer, only interested life-long in pictures.) I do not know, either, what is...

but I think Mr Lennox of Antrim (Letters, 8 November) is in error. My recollection is that prior to 1850 the modern clerical collar was unknown in England. However, in about...

Sir: I would respect Sir Herbert Merchant more if he himself had a better respect for language. I distrust on principle people who reach for words like psychopath. He accuses...

Sir: Sir Denis Brogan's long article in your issue of 8 November can be reduced to two simple points. 1. People who are not personally involved in the bitter controversies of...

COMPETITION Competitors are invited to use the ten following words taken from the opening passages of a well-known work of literature, in the order given, to construct part of...

PHILIDOR Black White II men 10 men I. A. Schiffmann (3rd Prize, West Sussex Gazette, 1930). White to play and mate in two moves; solution next week. Solution to no. 412...

Trevor Grove reports: Competitors were invited to write an octet hymning Shove Ha'penny, Skittles, Darts, Bingo, the Sack Race, or indeed any other of our less notorious...

Across 1 Make an attempt about the finish to be with it (6) 4 Woolly kissers! (8) 10 Ennobled eponymous hero, though not in • Debrett (4, 3) 11 'Out of the — bird's throat, the...