THERE OUGHT to be nothing at all startling in the thesis which Mr Enoch Powell stated in Stockport last Friday and further developed and elaborated in radio and television...

A footnote is needed to our political commentary last week, which mentioned the Transport House veto on Roy Hattersley's speech criticising the National Executive Committee's...

The case for an October election Patrick Cosgrave I wrote, just after the first round of the local elections, that it was perfectly possible that Mr Heath could call an autumn...

Adam Watson Surprisingly, Australia today is a nation in search of identity. The image of the swagman in the outback camping by a billabong, the craggy Dominioner who fought at...

Poreigners go home Douglas Brown Switzerland, by tradition, is the very model of racial and religious toleration, Her citizens do not form a cultural entity, but speak three...

John Vaizey The recurrent and by now tedious discussion on capital punishment deals almost exclusively with its effects, moral and practical, on murder. As a matter of fact...

Results and report The Spectator offered a prize of £250, to be awarded either to an outright winner or to be divided at the discretion of the judges among a number of winners...

another Golden Age? Francis Mace "When ideas usually confined to religion and morals are raised to a political level, then there will be another golden age," said Paul. We...

Benny Green

It is not, I hope, disrespectful to that great director Georges Bresson to reflect on the sad paradox that his compatriot Bernanos should be best known in Britain through the...

Michael Bentley The Fall of Lloyd George: The Political Crisis of 1922 Michael Kinnear (Macmillan £5.95) Sympathy goes out at once to an author Whose conclusions, through the...

J. Enoch Powell Alexander the Great .1, R. Hamilton (Hutchinson University Library £3.00; paperback £1.50) It is no wonder that the eleven years between 334 and 323 BC, in...

D. C. Watt tban Robert St. John (W. H. Allen £5.00) My People Shall Live: The Autobiography of a Revolutionary Leila Khaled, edited by George Hajjar (Hodder £2.50) One of the...

Tony Palmer Experiment at Proto Philip Oakes (Andre Deutsch £2.25) A Distant Likeness Paul Bailey (Cape E1.60) The Time of the Crack Emma Tennant (Cape £1.60) To write a good...

Tie paperback may not yet be quite the queen of all she surveys, but we think it high time to introduce a regular column devoted to the best and the brightest of the weekly...

Bookbuyet The Society of Authors will no doubt be gratified that 184 MPs have so far signed the early Day Motion " That this House, mindful of the injustices suffered by...

The World Theatre Season is . . nn it was a gift-horse — a menagerie of gift-horses. This is true fl more senses than one, includ'ng the personal aspect that a resident foreign...

Lord Goodman, when not occupied with his legal commitments. his financial deals and the multifariously ' fix-it ' activities to which the state is pleased to call him, is a...

Christopher Hudson! This will do as well as any time to describe an average week of new releases, a fully representative cross-section of the mush being doled out month after...

Clive Gammon Sufficiently forewarned by advance publicity which proclaimed it to be concerned with coppers, I was able to avoid Hunter's Walk, the new ITV Monday-running...

Rhodes Boyson A transcript of the evidence of the headmaster of Highbury Grove School to the Bullock Committee on Literacy My concern for reading standards arose from my...

Denis Wood As everyone knows, the Conspirators' Club between the Reform and the Travellers has a large, twenty-acre garden. Overlooking this and running the length of the...

Pamela Vandyke Price Summer is a-comen in and so, certainly as far as London is concerned, are the tourists. As one who actually has to spend weekdays working there, I admit to...

Nicholas Davenport A funny thing happened to gold on my way to the City — via Majorca. It jumped 40 per cent in price on the free market. This was in a matter of weeks and it...

John Bull The interim figures of Walmsley (Bury) are due shortly. They should show that the group has made good progress and with possible encouraging noises about the future,...

I often have a lot of fun with illiteracy in advertisements. The latest gem to come my way is an ad for a drink called Bierritz. It says that the drink is "deceptively strong."...

Mr Wotherspool My poor client, Mr Wilde — I had expected to hear praises about the performance of his portfolio during his absence. Alas! he is no ordinary dealer in shares....

Sir: Innumerable anti-Common Marketeers of all political shades will welcome Mr Enoch Powell's unequivocal declaration concerning Britain's withdrawal from the EEC. Any...

From Dr R. Eban Sir: May I pay a tribute to John Rowan Wilson, whose death you record in your issue of June 2? Of all the writers on medical matters in the press, his was the...

From Dr John Linklater Sir: Elected representatives of the British Medical Association at Folkestone last week decided by a massive majority that under no circumstances would...

Sir: Mr Jones (June 2) argues an impeccable case but the effect of local newspaper monopolies is also corrupting local newspaper's commercial relations. Advertisers — thousands...

Apart from one blissful, baking afternoon at the Derby, last week had little to recommend it. Winners are what's wanted and the losing punter is notoriously uninterested in...

Sir: 1 have seldom read such hot-headed vapourin g s in an over g round paper hs appeared in your issue of June 2 under the name of Dorothy Becker. Is she the same person as the...

Sir: I was vastly amused to see myself described by Henry Adler (June 2) as an "insecure bluestocking ", but, while I do not mind this wildly inaccurate description. I do object...

Sir: It seems that Mr David Levy (June 2) cannot even see what was objectionable in his remarks about Pyotr Yakir. May I recapitulate? First, he gave an account, highly abusive...

Sir: I have just returned from an extended post-Easter break, to London and my back-copies ot The Spectator. Lo! What do I find in your issue of April 28 but 'Confessions of...

Sir: Contrary to popular belief the first object of the Francis Bacon Society is to study - Trancis Bacon's works "as philosopher, statesman and poet." The second object is to...