16 APRIL 1977

Page 3

Garden of futility

The Spectator

Reform and repeal—or rather reform by repeal. That would be no bad precept for any political party to follow (and they are all contemplating their electoral programmes)....

Page 4

Political Commentary

The Spectator

One man's conversion John Grigg When we were lunching together the other day Patrick Cosgrave reproached me for having never given a full explanation of my reasons for...

Page 5

Notebook

The Spectator

The latest to attack the Li b-Lab coalition is .Lord Beaumont. He reminds us that social i sm and liberalism are—in his characteristically ca ll) , trite words—'very different...

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Another voice

The Spectator

Spreading the rot Auberon Waugh Itiontmaur, Aude, France Escaping for a week from all the horrible things which are happening in Britain to the wild flowers and pastoral smells...

Page 7

From secrecy to 'sunshine'

The Spectator

Nicholas von Hoffman Washington Twenty years ago in the Eisenhower - Dulles e ra the failure to reach a Soviet-American acc ommodation was automatically blamed Oil the...

Page 8

Russia against the Tupamaros

The Spectator

Peter Kemp Last week I considered the impact of the Cuban revolution and the influence of the Catholic Church on the rise of the revolutionary Left in Latin America during the...

Page 10

Steaming to the Cape

The Spectator

Richard West One of the pleasures (if sometimes not unmixed) of travel by train in South Africa is the chance it gives of meeting the Afrikaner half of the white population....

Page 11

Mr Bhutto under fire

The Spectator

DiliP Niro Karachi Asitlluck would have it, the Pakistanis have en their first general election under a civi'Ian government deteriorate into the worst crisis faced by their...

Page 12

A social democrat for the new Europe

The Spectator

Jane McKerron David Marquand, forty-two, Labour MP for Ashfield since 1966, is the latest victim of the Westminster brain drain. His bespectacled, loping presence will shortly...

Page 13

Gold rush, Irish-style

The Spectator

Peter Paterson Dublin A few years ago Mr Liam Cosgrave, the Irish Prime Minister, could say, with just a trace of self-pity; 'In this country we have few natural resources...

Page 14

Beyond the riddle

The Spectator

Christopher Booker There is a view, so common that it must be regarded as the implicit orthodoxy of our time (admirably reflected in the recent lecture by Stuart Hampshire on...

Page 16

Horrific and appalling

The Spectator

Jeffrey Bernard One of the most horrific things about people and one that appals me is the way in which they are so easily appalled and horrified. I'm not talking about...

Page 17

The anti-democrats

The Spectator

George Szamuely Why should Britain, with its long tradition Of political stability and where notions of liberty, justice and freedom of the individual have such strong roots,...

Page 20

A chip of literary history

The Spectator

J. D. Scott In 1954,1 was literary editor of the Spectator. The circulation was not behaving as it should, and one day in the autumn, the editor, Walter Taplin, gave the staff...

Page 21

Looking into the future

The Spectator

Nicholas Davenport The budget euphoria did not last long. Nor was it to be expected. Mr Healey's speech was mainly welcomed because it did not contain any further socialism,...

Page 22

Understanding Corbusier

The Spectator

Sir: In his letter in defence of Le Corbusier (9 April), Mr Stephen Gardiner expresses two common reactions by modern architects to the popular dislike of their works. First,...

By hand

The Spectator

Sir: I wonder how many of your readers were affected in the same way as I was by Mr Tom Jackson's letter (2 April) under the title 'Unrecognised': Mr Tom Jackson, wellknown to...

Call it off

The Spectator

Sir: I have been mulling over in my mind for the past few weeks the problem of President Amin; and a possible way to keep him from attending the Commonwealth Conference in...

Medical scheme

The Spectator

Sir: The proposals that are floating around about finding the money for the Health Service by having people pay LI for a surgery visit and E2 for a home visit may make economic...

The Scotch The Scotch

The Spectator

Sir: Permit me a reply to my critics. if Robert Burns prefers the word 'Scots' (1"la rl ii Wishart, 2 April) then that is good eno ug for me. If the people of Scotland have...

Page 23

Books

The Spectator

A non-U Mitford book Alastair Forbes A Lite of Contrasts Diana Mosley biamish Hamilton £5.50) N early a half-century ago, at one of Lady Cunard's after-opera suppers, 'Lytton...

Page 24

Trick or treat

The Spectator

David Pownali The Pleasures of Deception Norman Moss (Chet° and Windus £4.95) Taking self-deception as the first of all pleasures (in agreement with Voltaire) it does not...

Page 25

Miss Lonelyheart

The Spectator

Richard Shone The Lonely Hunter: A Biography of Carson McCullers Virginia Spencer Carr (Peter Owen 28.50) In The Member of the Wedding the little girl Frank ie Addams—the...

Page 26

Child labour

The Spectator

Benny Green The sudden revival in the fortunes of William Brown, long moribund at the back of the cupboard under the stairs, is a brutal remind' er that, like it or not,...

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Waste lands

The Spectator

Peter Ackroyd Sunrise Dominic Cooper (Chatto and Windus 0.95) Shadows on Our SkinJenniferJohnston (Ham ish Hamilton £3.50) Dominic Cooper's first novel, The Dead of Winter,...

Page 28

Variations on a theme

The Spectator

Simon Collins Unfinished Journey Yehudi Menuhin (Macdonald and Jane's £5.95) Yehudi Menuhin has achieved considerable popularity as an elegant and articulate speaker; there...

In vision

The Spectator

Jan Morris Visions of Courtly India W. G. Archer (Sotheby Parke Bernet Publications E10.00) You may be forgiven if you don't much care for miniatures; and excused if you don't...

Page 29

The pantheism of light

The Spectator

Ter ence maioon It is a nice coincidence that two Frenchmen should have been neighbours in Rome in the mi d - seventeenth century, Poussin and Claude. Two more diametrically...

Page 30

A lot of night music

The Spectator

Bryan Robertson When I returned to London in the winter of '75-'76 after four years in America, the liveliest and most spectacular innovation seemed to be the establishment of...

Page 31

Cinema

The Spectator

Happy nature Clancy Sigal J oseph Andrews (London Pavilion) Joseph Andrews (AA certificate) is Tony R ic hardson's best picture in years. It's a bit of a mess, but so is Henry...

Jubilee joke

The Spectator

John McEwen There is no shortage of humour among artists but few of them express it in their work. Of these few, at least in Britain, Bruce McLean is unrivalled. He is a...

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On the road

The Spectator

Ted Whitehead Strawberry Fields (Cottesloe Theatre) The National's experimental theatre, the Cottesloe, is clearly aimed at a radical young audience, because in its little bar...