The National Institute's latest quarterly review of the country's econoniy comes as a timely antidote to the euphoria generated by the improved July trade outturn—a single...

In last week's SPECTATOR Sir Alec Douglas : . Home suggested that the Americans should eventually be prepared to hand over responsi- bility for ensuring the self-determination...

A stormy week in the East: in Vietnam Americ 4 an pilots bombed targets ten miles from the Chinese border, in Tibet the Panchen Lama languished in jail, and travellers reached...

Wish you were here . POLITICAL COMMENTARY ALAN WATKINS The Prime -Minister to the Chancellor of the Exchequer My dear Jim, How are things with you in your cottage on the...

Dear Harold, Thank you for your letter. I now see things in a slightly different light. However, I would like to suggest a modification of one of your ideas. How would you like...

My dear Jim, I am so glad you confirm my view of Alice Bacon. About Shirley Williams I will have another think. I cannot tell you how much value your advice on subjects such as...

Dear Harold, Many thanks for your letter. It was good to hear from you again, although I can't pretend that you offered me much comfort personally. You and I have known each...

CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS The spider's web—how exquisitely fine To weave a web for Radio Caroline. Menaced by higher frequency of waves, The Manx stand firm, the Britons wilt like...

AMERICA MURRAY KEMPTON Anzagansett, L/—Colonial government is an art of balancing the benediction with the curse upon the natives, and we seem in our in- decision to be tipping...

NIGERIA MICHAEL ORR 'From bad to worse' might well be adopted by the Organisation of African Unity as a motto to sum up not only its own disarray as an inter- national body but...

FRANCE PATRICK COSGRAVE In his broadcast last week General de Gaulle not only described his recent and much- criticised actions in the field of foreign policy but gave also the...

VIETNAM JO GRIMOND, MP I find Sir Alec Douglas-Home's article in last week's SPECTATOR in some respects bold but in many respects frightening. I disagree with his diagnosis of...

From the 'Spectator.' 17 August 1867—The Reform Bill became law on the 15th inst. Lord Derby on Monday advised the Peers to accept the Commons' amendments without further dis-...

NON-PROLIFERATION LAURENCE W. MARTIN Laurence Martin is Professor of International Relations at the - University of Wales at Aberystwyth and Defence Correspondent of the...

D. W. BROGAN The editor of the SPECTATOR has told us of the sufferings he has endured by being con- fined to this island and by having to read the English press at its silliest...

THE ENVIRONMENT GUY TOPHAM The staithe is, and always has been, without a squire, a parson or a doctor of its own. The bland, Georgian squirearchal hall was (until it became a...

TELEVISION CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS 1 was taken one day to a Kikuyu school a few miles outside Nairobi. At a desk in the front row at that school was seated a young boy who was...

THE PRESS DONALD McLACHLAN When I read in the Daily Mail sport pages on Saturday the four-column headline 'Poison Pen Goads Fred,' I deduced that a furious Fred Trueman, goaded...

PERSONAL COLUMN SIMON RAVEN I was ,first introduced to Jesus Christ in my nigh , . t-napery, where he appeared in a pic- ture Which hung above my bed as an insipid and...

MARTIN SEYMOUR-SMITII It is too easy to sneer at John Galsworthy, who was born a hundred years ago on 14 August 1867. But can D. H. Lawrence's lively . and devastating attack...

JOHN WELLS Movie Man David Thomson (Seeker and Warburg 42s) Every profession engaged in the realisation of fantasy. like writing or working on a con- struction site, always...

(Hutchinson 63s) Strange alliance .1 D. C. WATT This, the fifth volume of Mr Maisky's memoirs. takes him into perhaps the trickiest waters of contemporary Soviet...

DAVID LODGE The Novel Now Anthony Burgess (Faber 25s) This book is subtitled 'A student's guide to contemporary fiction' and Mr Burgess says-in his preface that it is not...

LAURENCE LERNER Not yet a man, although no more a child, He climbs the hill, and turns below to stare. The sun looks tired, the vegetation wild. 'Come down, or let me pass,'...

LORD EGREMONT (mem Douses of America Henry Lionel Williams and Ottalic K. Williams (Weidenfeld and Nicolson 7 gns) Hold on to your coffee tables, ladies and gentlemen, here...

i he Da Bari y Inherimm•e Marion W a rd What to and Windus 30s) - After the death of Louis X\" the Du Barry retired to the estate at Louveciennes, about ten miles from Paris,...

Age-old dilemma KAY DICK Freedom Ceremony Roland Starke (Triton 25s) The Minority Man Charles Elliott (Hamish Hamilton 25s) The Chosen Chaim Potok (Heinemann 30s) Yoshar the...

ELAINE MOSS Three Centuries of Children's Books in Europe Bettina Hurlimann translated and edited by Brian W. Alderson (ouP 45s) In Stockholm in the year 1900 an extra-...

DANCE CLEMENT CRISP Short of being shot from a gun, I can think of no more exciting entry on stage than the thimnokAa, the Kathakali 'curtain-look' cur- rently on view at the...

HILARY SPURLING Joe Orton, who died last week, was often said to be a black comic, an anarchist, genial freak and minor talent of undoubted promise..Also a follower of Pinter,...

DESIGN MARIO AMAYA Remarkable advances in British -styling are being made today by young furniture designers, who have effected a revolution in English interiors the likes of...

OPERA CHARLES REID Mozart has us all by the ankle. Every time I think I'm getting away he yanks me back. The itew Magic Flute at Sadler's Wells (where the `autumn' season...

HARRY G. JOHNSON When a person is extraordinarily effective in_ performing his responsibilities, so much so that he appears indispensable to the organisation that employs him,...

CUSTOS Better-than-expected trade figures stemmed the drift in equity prices and on Tuesday the tone was much better. Meanwhile two influential firms of brokers have...

CONSUMING INTEREST LESLIE ADRIAN A few years ago the Shell Chemical Company published an ldentikit of wild flowers and plants under the title Farm Weeds. It is a beautiful...

JOHN BULL The City is under attack from respectable academic quarters again. In Equity Issues and the London Capital Market (published by Longmans at 42s) Professor A. J....

LETTERS From A. Menshausen, Professor Richard Ash- craft, John T. Sladek, The Countess of Laudei- dale, W. H. Gear, M. G. K. Pierson, Colin Welch, James Mottram, Ales Orga....

Sir: Anyone who has glanced at a newspaper in the last two months must concede that race relations in the United States present a serious threat to the normal workings of the...

Sir: Despite this not being the year for Mr Fischer to visit Greece, he has decided it must be for the rest of us. He has to be kidding. The only hard reason he can offer is...

Sir: The Government is proposing to introduce legislation which will make it an offence for any- one to refuse to employ, house or perform a service for a person of another...

Sir: What Christophei Booker writes in his Article (4 August) has much force and validity, but he is very far from the realities of the matter when he makes religion and 'the...

Sir: Did I really suggest, as Mr Shendy sug- gests, that 'the only argument for freedom is the non-rational conservative one'? If so, God help me. I admire, perhaps...

on Greece last week. My husband and I booked for a two-week coach tour last November, due to go at the end of May shortly after the coup. Our friends asked, 'Shall you still...

Sir: Mr Rex Malik's observation at the end of his piece on London's traffic that 'this is only to scrape the surface of a complex subject' is something of an understatement....

Sir: I was interested to read Charles Reid's com- ments on Penderecki's St Luke's Passion (I August). but may I point out that the final chords of the work are in fact in E...

JOHN WELLS No doubt for her own purposes, Mother Nature has implanted in us a deep conserva- tive instinct. Presumably in the interests of order, beauty and harmony, -she has...

Across 1 Henry James's brother was philosophically in- clined to it (10) 6 Feature of a gigantic pile-up (4) 10 Ohe Caledonian makes a meeting (5) 11 Trade union in love with a...

Solution to Crossword no. I2.86. Across. 1 Potman 4 Dragoons 10 Remover 11 Vintage 12 Relinquish 13 List 15 Intrude 17 Tidings 19 Spoleto 21 Drugget 23 Lots 24 Left-winger 27...

PHILIDOR Specially contributed by R. Hancock (Iver. Bucks). White to play and mate in two moves; solution next week. Solution to no. 347 (Oudot): R - Kt 6, threat Q-B 6. 1 B-K...