It is no criticism of the one or two jurors who disagreed W ith the majority verdict on Mr Peter Hain last week to say that the prosecution was a disgrace and should never have...

Mr Denis Healey's 3 per cent pay policy had a bad first ten days. Equity, the actors' anion, was the first to reject it formally, followed by the Tribune group. Mr Arthur...

The lions of the left Patrick Cosgrave Every political event, and every sequence of events, contains within itself the germ of the unexpected. Napoleon once threw up his hat in...

British Leyland must face its new troubles Without the help of Mr John Barber, Lord Stokes's heir-apparent, and without the large sum of money which Mr Barber has taken out of...

Back to the front Auberon Waugh Liverpool Living as one does, or tends to do, in rather a large country mansion surrounded by its own meadows, lakes and wooded pleasure...

Charles Foley Los Angeles 'When I get out I'll be able to tell you all 1 ,Sityls of stories you just wouldn't believe. I Intend to issue a statement from a revoluti °nery...

Roy Macnab Johannesburg As the last of the South African troops came back over the Cunene River and out of Angola, their Defence Minister P. V. Botha, watching them return,...

John Ardagh Paris President Valery Giscard d'Estaing is a worried man—and the Left are exuberant, now more keenly than ever scenting victory in the 1978 general election....

Dick Wilson Why did Mao Tse-tung appear recently Without his usual trusted interpreters ? We do not know for sure, but one plausible answer would be that the radicals in his e...

Alastair Best Dockland is one of those intractable parts of London—like Piccadilly Circus—which seems impervious to planning. The latest, and by far the most ambitious strategy...

Alan Stewart Crossgar is a small town of some 2,000, about fifteen miles south of Belfast. Most traffic tends to pass straight through. But on Saint Patrick's Day it stopped....

Christopher Booker Now that he is at last safely tucked away on the back benches, it is perhaps appropriate to draw attention to one of Mr Wilson's most remarkable achievements...

Denis Wood When I stopped for bread and cheese apd a glass of stout in Tipperary the bar was empty—'It's the prices,' they said. Indeed on the way down, at Thurles, I had paid...

Why the sterling crisis? Nicholas Davenport The negative response of the trade union leaders to Mr Healey's rabbit-out-of-the-hat legerdemain did not throw the Stock Exchange...

Sir: I enjoyed Jim Higgins's article on the Troon conference of the Scottish Labour Party, pardon, The Council of the Labour Party in Scotland. I note with surprise, indeed...

Sir: As Anthony Storr suggested in a recent lecture (which, I hope, will see the dark of print), Freud, at his worst, was an artist. Professor Eysenck at his own worst is...

Birth of Zimbabwe', Xan Smiley reports that 'the once independent Rhodesia Herald, the country's main daily, now splutters a froth of sycophantic pro-government drivel'. This...

informing your readers of the existence of a movement which advocates total individual liberty and the free market. However, we wish to correct three erroneous impressions left...

Sir: May I correct Auberon Waugh on a Point he raised rather lightly, in his recent article `Aux armes, citoyens' (13 March). Far from having won their point against Michel...

the metre is not based on the stride either of Latins with duck's disease or Of anybody else. With devilish scientific Conning, it was originally intended to be one te n -...

in your review (6 March) of Wilfred and Eileen by Jonathan Smith. Since this is a true story, as your reviewer notes, and since the subjects of it are my parents, I would not...

'sprung . . . in utterly abnormal circum stances'. (Mary Kenny, 'Keeping abreast', 27 March.) These women attend weekly ante-natal classes in the last two months of pregnancy...

neuterisation of gender is not. Dos Stahlfabrik ! Come, come. Charles W. Bell The White Cottage, 19 Lennox Drive East, Helensburgh, Dunbartonshire

Sir: I am writing a book about the Indian Mutiny. I would be most grateful if you could spare room for this request for the use of any unpublished letters, diaries or memoirs...

Sir: I have been authorised to write a biography of Michel Saint-Denis and I would be grateful if any of your readers would loan any letters or papers or send me reminiscences...

A star is born John Terraine Montgomery of Alamein Alun Chalfont (Weidenfeld and Nicolson £6.50) In August 1942 Britain urgently needed a new legend. The famous 'Few' of...

Robert Blake Peel Norman Gash (Longman £6.25) S ir Robert Walpole Betty Kemp Meidenfeld and Nicolson £4.25) Lord North Peter D. G. Thomas (Allen Lane 26.00) C astlereagh John W....

Patrick Cosg rave As must be the case nowadays in three out of four reviews, I have to start with the women. Michele B. Slung's Crime on Her Mind, a collection of early stories...

Duncan Fallowell Snow and Roses Lettice Cooper (Gollancz £3.95) Wild Grow The Lilies Christy Brown (Seeker and Warburg £3.90) Ah, poetry at Oxford, a villa in the Chianti Hills,...

Benny Green Vineg ar Puss S. J. Perelman (Weiden%Id and Nicolson 23.95) The destiny of those who start out in life as a Young man's fancy is well known and n afortunate. When I...

How to be good Hugh Lloyd-Jones Arthur Schopenhauer: Philosopher of Pessimism Frederick Coplestone, S.J. Second edition (Search Press £4.50) Wittgenstein and Religious Belief...

Leo Abse St Paul Michael Grant (Weidenfeld and Nicolson £5.95) When my grandfather spelt out to me the Hebrew words for good and evil, 'tobh' and ra', characteristically,...

SILVICULTURAL SYSTEMS by R. S. Troup. 2nd Edition. OUP 2 copies. P. D. Ellis, 23 Homers Croft, Greenlays, Milton Keynes, MK12 508. COMPLETE BOOK OF THE AMERICAN MUSICAL, David...

Timothy Beaumont Albert Schweitzer James Brabazon (Gollancz £6.95) Public reactions to the great and good, and I speak not of potential chairmen of Royal Commissions but of...

Nick Totton European Witch Trials: Their Foundation in Popular and Learned Culture, 1 300-1500 Richard Kieckhefer (Routledge and Kegan Paul £5.25) The Alchemists Ronald...

A tardy revival Colin MacInnes The death of a famed artist usually heralds a time of temporary eclipse, lasting often for a generation or so, after which his reputation either...

Indian mutiny Kenneth Hurren Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare (Stratford-upon-Avon) It was, I confess, with some sinking of the heart and some rising of the...

Islam festival John McEwen Mohammed was over forty when he became the self-proclaimed messenger of God (Allah), but in the remaining twenty years of his life he laid the...

Anniversary Rodney (\Alines The Welsh National Opera is thirty years old this week, and I suppose it was only inevitable that the two new productions for the birthday season at...

Nationwide Jeffrey Bernard 'Good evening. Did you know that over 100,000 people in Britain go to bed wearing their vests? Or did you know that if you dip a peacock's tail into...