Sir: As Mr Humphry Berkeley says, there is a strong case for the forthcoming EEC referendum, although few people who believe in the supremacy of Parliament would want that...

Sir: As the BBC camera panned its way around the audience at Mr Heath's harangue in Trafalgar Square who can have failed to observe, apart from his grim-faced co-speaker, Mr...

went into Europe' by way of Normandy in 1944 are as maddened as I am to see and hear this term deceitfully used by the pro-Marketeers to 'sell' the EEC? As a former 'Naval...

Sir: You should be aware of two serious errors of fact which appear in Air Vicemarshal Bennett's advertisement 'Operation Out' (May 3 and 10). In the section, Defence, the...

Sir: Since taking up the post of Secretary of State Dr Henry Kissinger has become universally acclaimed as a kindly new Messiah bringing peace to the world's trouble spots. In...

Sir: Mr I. C. Snell's letter (May 3) raises an interesting point. I have long felt that at least some of the money for the arts in this country should come from a national...

Sir: Perhaps I could add a footnote to Thomas Gadd's comments on the confusion surrounding motivations to smoke or not to smoke which, if their consequences were not so grim,...

Patrick Cosgrave It is easy to see why members of the Labour Party should be pathological in their fear of coalition, or of any talk about coalition. It is not merely as Mr...

A farmer's view Christopher Harrisson Many farmers are against the UK staying in the Common Market because, first and foremost, this country should be master of its own...

Conference diary Molly Mortimer If Ottawa found informality, Jamaica was plain relaxed. It was hard to be anything else at a steady 85°F and total humidity. Kingston, curled...

0, for the wings • • • Jonathan Guinness "You," I am frequently asked, or told, "are very right wing, aren't you?" It is not always easy to find a satisfactory reply to this,...

After the referendum is over, on June 9 to be precise, a new sound will be heard in the land, the sound of the House of Commons at work, since it is then to be broadcast for the...

SOMEONE has said that Peregrine is a snake in the grass sailing too close to the wind so I would like you to know of my one charitable act for this week. Walking to Waterloo...

Monday, the fifth day of May 'Tis being shouted abroad that Master T. Benn, having placed himself at the head of a Mob of Fanaticks, Know-Nothings, Footpads, Traitors in the...

It would be hard to find a film actor who feels more strongly than Frenchman Jean-Paul Belmondo about the suffering that television is inflicting on the cinema, or more incensed...

Assiduous readers of the Financial Times 'Appointments' column may have been mystified by the briefest of brief announcements early last month. A Mr Spencer, we were told, had...

What has made London the kind of city that it is? A city of infinite variety, a jumble of different periods, a mosaic of historic street patterns, a resolutely unplanned city...

Eric Lyons Evolution of the House Stephen Gardiner (Constable £4.95) Stephen Gardiner's book is about the history of the House a story that "starts with a hut in Mesopotamia...

Please let THE SPECTATOR know when you have received from a fellow subscriber the books that you required. GIBBON: DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE (Methuen 1909-14) edited...

Barry Norman Eadweard Muybridge the Father of the Motion Picture Gordon Hendricks (Secker and Warburg £7.50) If we are to look determinedly on the bright side, at least we can...

Joyce Grenfell Birds of Town and Suburb Eric Simms (Collins £3.50) As its title implies this is a book written about birds in London and other cities, and inner and outer...

Traditional Peter Ackroyd A Division of the Spoils Paul Scott (Heinemann £4.90) First Love, Last Rites Ian McEwen (Jonathan Cape £2.50) Paul Scott's new novel opens with a...

The comedy of a dead soul Benny Green Ever since Maurice Baring dubbed him "the greatest humorist of Russian literature" more than sixty years ago, there has been a tendency...

A matter of bad faith John Linklater Two years ago The Spectator published an article* which accused the Government of deliberately lowering the standard of medical care in...

Bias and the Beeb Bill Grundy There are, I am reliably informed, more ways than one of killing a cat. There are also more ways than one of making a fool of yourself, and Mr...

Definitions of religion abound but I have chosen one which is simple and comprehensive: a relation towards God. Such a relationship has at least three components. There is the...

Siege economy is proving to be positively enjoyable, if only because it is bringing us back into tolich with some of the ancient crafts of husbandry. Now that the kitchen garden...

Springboard into gagland Kenneth Hurren The Sunshine Boys by Neil Simon (Piccadilly Theatre) Dear Janet Rosenberg, Dear MrKooning by Stanley Eveling; and Oh, If Ever a Man...

Shakers and jade Ernie Money The Shakers were a Quaker-type sect who emigrated from England to America in 1774, in the persons of Ann Lee, daughter of a Manchester blacksmith,...

Bitter Schon Kenneth Robinson The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder Stars: Margit Carstensen, Hanna Schygulla, Katrin Schaake 'X' The Gate...

Ravel revealed John Bridcut When in 1908 Vaughan Williams felt "lumpy and stodgy" and in need of "a little French polish", he sought advice in Paris from a man three years his...

Nicholas Davenport What is economic progress and how is it measured? It usually comes about when some technological innovation enables manufacturers to dispense with certain...

Removing the boredom Bernard Holloviood Forget all you've heard about job enrichment: the latest news from the industrial research front is that nearly all work, manual and...

It takes time to piece together information from parliamentary answers — to find out what has happened to numbers in the Civil Service since 1969 one had to look at written...