T here was a widening of the trade deficit and an increase in the prices of manufac- tured goods according to official figures; headline inflation rose to 1.8 per cent; the...

The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone: 071-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 071-242 0603 NEVER SURRENDER hcre never was a Churchill,' said Gladstone 'from John...

How unfortunate that almost all the Rightists are mad MATTHEW PARRIS T he evening before Lady Thatcher was to make her entrance on the platform at the Winter Gardens last...

DAVID ENGLISH I had a bellyful at Blackpool last week. The entertaining of ministers by the press has now reached such orgiastic proportions that I cannot understand why neither...

Can K still stand for civilisation? CHARLES MOORE K enneth Clark's television series Civili- sation is being repeated, but nothing like it could be made today. In his first...

Simon Heifer argues that reports of an outbreak of unity in the Conservative Party, and of a shift to the right, are exaggerated PARTY CONFERENCES, particularly Tory ones, are...

Matt Frei reports that the war in Bosnia is degenerating into gangsterism as battle lines break down Sarajevo LAST WEEK a colleague of mine was flabbergasted to see a car in...

Richard Brookhiser on how the Clinton presidency is reviving American conservative politics New York WHEN THE conservative monthly, the American Spectator (no relation),...

William Cash on how British aristocrats find liberation in California Los Angeles IT TOOK a while before the blue-eyed, Oxford-educated Lord Alexander Rufus Isaacs — a...

The Kabaka of Buganda describes how he is striving to lead his people out of tyranny Buganda IN THE SUMMER of 1982 I made my customary journey from London to Paris. I had...

David Burnside on the threat to the Union presented by the latest Ulster peace initiative Belfast We take the view that a prime minister should not be evicted from Number 10...

I HAD MEANT to write about minims this week, but my eye was caught by a newspaper advertisement for Felix cat- food, showing a playful scamp of a piebald pussycat with the...

persist.. . I READ a book not long ago which maintained that the essential difference between Man and the animals was that Man had a concept of the future, which allowed him to...

THE GENERAL idea is that Birming- ham is, of all English towns, the most thoroughly civilised, that its finances are in excellent order, that the security of life and property...

OROR How 51 trips . . . The to save yourself to the library or over £35 on Spectator If you're forced to share The Spectator with fellow students, then you'll know how...

Sexual harassment in a cold Oxford climate PAUL JOIINSON I n one university in Ohio, where Political Correctness reigns, male students, in their sexual transactions with...

Sir: Regarding his review of Lucian Freud's show at the Whitechapel Art Gallery (Arts, 18 September), it would surely have been in bad form for me to name Giles Auty as one of...

Sir: The Arts Council does not need to apologise, as Rupert Christiansen suggests (Arts, 25 September), for its commitment to making high-quality opera available to a wider...

Sir: I was absolutely amazed by the article written by Tabitha Troughton (`The smack of firm governesses', 9 October), about her visit to the Torture Garden club. Why should Ms...

Sir: Events in Armenia and Azerbaijan have moved on since Baroness Cox began her brave missions to bring relief to the Armenian population of Nagorno- Karabakh. Lord Pearson's...

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Sir: I must respond to your leader article in the issue of 25 September. I will ignore the rather offensive tone of the article and the many factual errors it . contains, but I...

Garden 4th Birthday Party but, unlike your correspondent, I saw the best part of 1,000 stunningly dressed and happy people of all sexes determined to have a superb night out....

Sir: Alan Watkins (Diary, 2 October) regrets the death of 'friends and acquain- tances from politics or journalism who failed to reach 60'. His list of names makes me ask if one...

Sir: I'm surprised Daisy Waugh found it so hard to get into Holloway CA day in hell, 25 September). All she had to do was com- mit an offence — and get caught. Know what I...

Sir: While I was at the Serpentine Gallery recently enjoying the Agnes Martin paint- ings that were so crushingly dismissed in last week's Spectator (Arts, 2 October), a man...

The longest journey James Buchan O f all those who have explored Antarctica, said the skipper of the Nimrod as he watched Shackleton and two compan- ions trudging over the ice...

man Gabriele Annan MR BARRETT'S SECRET AND OTHER STORIES by Kingsley Amis Hutchinson, £14.99, pp. 224 T he undergraduate heroine of the sec- ond story in this collection...

Philip Warner A HISTORY OF WARFARE by John Keegan Hutchins - on, £20, pp. 432 T here have been numerous histories of warfare, varying from absurd picture books to scholarly...

Anita Brookner THE ROBBER BRIDE by Margaret Atwood Bloomsbury, £15.99, pp. 470 M argaret Atwood is unusual among feminist writers in that she holds the view — and propounds it...

Special breaks for Spectator readers Shown here are just three of the nearly 200 hotels, inns and private country houses that are offering Spectator read- ers the opportunity...

Anthony Blond 21 PICADOR AUTHORS CELEBRATE Picador, £4.99, pp. 282 I f you've been publishing for 21 years what do you do to honour the event? Some houses continue unblinking...

Ronald Segal IN NO UNCERTAIN TERMS by Helen Suzman Sinclair-Stevenson, £1799, pp. 310 by Helen Suzman Sinclair-Stevenson, £1799, pp. 310 H elen Suzman spent 36 years, from 19...

Peter Parker A DANCE BETWEEN FLAMES: BERLIN BETWEEN THE WARS by Anton Gill John Murray, £19.99, pp. 304 DIVINE DECADENCE: FASCISM, FEMALE SPECTACLE, AND THE MAKINGS OF SALLY...

David Wright CAITLIN: THE LIFE OF CAITLIN THOMAS by Paul Ferris Hutchinson, £20, pp. 277 B iography was still regarded as a gentlemanly business' when, soon after the poet's...

Tom Shone VISITING MRS NABOKOV AND OTHER EXCURSIONS by Martin Amis Cape, £13.99, pp. 274 A his new collection of journalism shows, exaggeration has always been one of Martin...

John Mortimer LONG DISTANCE RUNNER: A MEMOIR by Tony Richardson Faber, f17.50, pp. 313 T ony Richardson was at the forefront of the most significant theatrical movement since...

Ian Thomson STRANGE PILGRIMS by Gabriel Garcia Marquez Cape, £14.99, pp. 188 I t must be the most lively burial place in all Europe, the subterranean golgotha built by Capuchin...

to a friend and we wi I give you a full size bottle of ten year old Glenmorangie Single Highland Malt. But hurry, we have only a limited number of bottles to give away. A gift...

Exhibitions Buried treasure Giles Auty Thomas Eakins (1844-1916) and the Heart of American Life (National Portrait Gallery, till 23 January) Francis Hewlett: The Empire,...

DIARY 1994 £12 Plain £13 Initialled T he Spectator 1994 Diary, bound in soft burgundy leather, will shortly be available. With a new layout and a whole week to view, Monday to...

Specially early Peter Phillips I found myself in a quandary at the Gramophone Awards last week. The event took place, for the third year running, in the ballroom of the...

Cornet Christoph Rilke's Song of Love and Death (Glyndebourne Touring Opera) Safe and comfy Rupert Christiansen Y ou could almost hear the audience's collective sigh of...

Keyboard Skills (Bush) The Piano Lesson (Tricycle) Taking dictation Sheridan Morley A s a kind of feminist footnote to the David Hare political trilogy at the Nation- al,...

Raining Stones (`15', selected cinemas) The Young Americans (`18', selected cinemas) The Secret Garden (`U', selected cinemas) True Romance (`18', selected cinemas) Last exit...

Woodman, spare that tree? Ursula Buchan T he first thing we decided on moving to a new garden was that we would cut down some of the trees in it. The second thing we decided...

Bad advice Martyn Harris M ark Lawson bought a book called How To Write A TV Play before his first effort last week (The Vision Thing, BBC 2, Wednesday, 9.25 p.m.), but...

Below the belt Taki S . amuel Johnson once said that it was Impossible to criticise unresisting imbecili- ty, but the good Doctor had never met a modern Greek. Four years ....

On the rack Jeffrey Bernard A t last I have reached the age where it is almost impossible to be unhappy. It is true that anxiety and boredom walk hand in hand through this...

Paddling my own canoe Nigel Nicolson W andering around Canterbury last Sunday, 1 came suddenly to a branch of the River Stour. It creeps almost apologetically through the...

The Restaurant LIKE HIS fellow artiste Madonna, with whom he also has in common Italian ori- gins and a mother who died young, Marco Pierre White takes evident pleasure in...

Oomph and panache Auberon Waugh T he price of the mixed case, which aver- ages out at the rather high figure of £5.89 the bottle, has been upset by the Sancerre Domaine du...

12 Helmet Row, London EC1V 3QJ. Tel: (071) 251 4051 Fax: (071) 608 1373 Price No. Value White Aldridge Semilion Chardonnay '92 12 Bots. £60.00* Bourgogne Chardonnay...

SPAIN'S MST CAVA .CDIDt: I CHESS SPAIN'S FINEST CAVA Dr Van Helsing Raymond Keene NIGEL SHORT appears to be out for the count. After 15 games Kasparov had notched up a sixth...

PUKE MALT . - .COTCH WHISK% All together, flow Jaspistos IN COMPETITION NO. 1800 you were invited to supply a candidate for inclusion in the Parliamentary songbook which the...

CROSSWORD W (GRAHAM'S PORT A first prize of £20 and a bottle of Graham's Malvedos 1979 Vintage Port for the first correct solution opened on 1 November, with two runners-up...

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Paul Gascoigne apparently writes verse as well as plays football. You are invited to provide some Gazzaesque lines (maximum 16) on the subject of soccer. Entries to `Competition...

Unseemly scrambles Frank Keating THOSE OF an age and a particular inclina- tion remember it as the night the presump- tions and certainties still hanging over from the...

Q. My family and I have moved into a 'Vic- torian Executive Stable Block Develop- ment'. Though we are on the edge of a town, the ten separate properties comprise what is...