The Indo-Pakistan war had its origins in the attempt b31. Pakistan to assert its authority in East Pakistan. The violence used against the Bangla Desh insurgents was such that...

The British Army is not an appropriate instrument, nor are military and dictatorial operations appropriate methods, to clean up the Irish mess. This ought to be as generally...

The journalistic and political flap over the Environment Department's supposed ' rigging ' of parliamentary questions is extremely tiresome, not merely because of the errors and...

A distinguished psychiatrist once warned me of the dangers of institutional neurosis. He explained that there were people in his mental hospital who had arrived perfectly sane,...

A view from the South Tim Pat Coogan Let me first point out some of the things that have happened since the Conservative and Unionist (remember in the Irish context that part...

Eminent Bogy Kevin O'Connor The remarks of the Irish Prime Minister in London last week that the Constitution of the Republic is ' negotiable ' ignores one weighty presence in...

Bernard Dixon The debate now raging around Lord Rothschild's report on government-sponsored research and development, published at the end of November, underlines once again...

Insane arrogance Derrick Oxley The insane arrogance of the Roman emperors (Wodehouse claimed) was due to their ignorance of golf: the arrogant interbellic dictators were even...

Rich in great captains the British army is nonetheless singularly lacking in a sense of gloire. That this is so is probably due to the fact that this country has traditionally...

It is another city, but she knows By heart already the insidious dusk Through which she must return from monuments And galleries, and each heroic pose, To the small space where,...

Ernest Gellner Modern British Philosophy Bryan Magee (Secker and Warburg £3) This volume contains some fourteen broadcast conversations, which however "have been revised...

Roger Scru ton Crossing the Water Sylvia Plath (Faber £1.25) Winter Trees Sylvia Plath (Faber El) It is seldom useful to judge a poet's writing in terms of his character, but...

breathe or Achoo. . . "). One of the finest features of her later style — the use of multiple metaphors — is here seen at its most effective. At first the poet is a foot, poor...

Barbara Hardy The Savage God: Study of Suicide A. Alvarez (Weidenfeld and Nicolson £3.25) I once gave a talk on Sylvia Plath after which someone asked me if I was a voyeur. An...

Norman Stone Death of a Generation Alistair Horne (£1.05); Suicide of the Empires Alan Clark (£1.50); Twilight of the Habsburgs Z. A. B. Zeman (Macdonald and BPC Library of the...

The Day of the Grocer William Rushton (Deutsch 95p) Recently the News of the World ran an absorbing series about people's fantasy lives. Most involved nudity, rape, sexual...

Olympia Press, that most censorable of publishing set-ups, has been discovering that not all publicity is good publicity. After a lengthy interview of Maurice Girodias in the...

Sir: The servile betrayal on the inshore fishermen after the positive pledges given to them shows only too clearly the depths to which Mr Heath is willing to descend to satiate...

our territorial waters, and indeed to our very shores, will not only make vast inroads in our harvest of fish food and increase prices, and reduce our underwater acreage, of...

Sir: In connection with Mr Samuel's letter on fair rents, it must be pointed out that the market value of rented accommodation is by no means determined . by immutable causes,...

feeling that in considering an early general election the Government can discount unemployment, since "it tends to occur in regions such as Scotland and the North of England...

From Professor H. R. G, Greaves Sir: In view of the references (published in your correspondence columns of December 4) to "political agitation" and "publicity stunts . . . to...

Wick Crest, Devizes, Wiltshire Sir: " Pride burns fiercely in this thrice humiliated people and they will not lie down." So writes Martin Short in 'Assassination in Cairo'...

Sir: Your readers may be interested to know that I have it on the authority of a famous American pundit who is very close to Edward Kennedy that Mr Heath is preparing to do to...

bovine incomprehension of a wounded Bull. Your editorial ' " For war it is ", it it?' (November 20) illuminates the darkness with such brilliance that perhaps it cannot fail to...

From Dr F. Kellerman Sir: In January you were good enough to print a letter of mine in which I pointed out the damage caused by the sad example set by the members of the medical...

From Colonel Aram Bakshian Sir: 'View Gallool,' your Christmas offering by Mr Jasper Budenny (November 27), has evoked the following response from an anonymous member of the...

From Miss J. A. Stocks Sir: If D. S. Fraser Harris's letter on the Peter Hain Fund (December 4) were not so malicious its ridiculous inaccuracies and omissions could be...

From Dr J. L. Insley Sir: One wearies of Mr Clarke's (November 20) increasingly violent attacks on child care in South Africa and me, but I should appreciate one last...

Sir: Mr Watson-Smyth's suggestion of the early date of the composition of Gray's Elegy, is perhaps given some support by a previously unnoticed passage in an obscure poem, The...

From Mrs Margaret J. Cornwall Sir: I very much enjoyed Yvonne Brock's 'Margarine with a very hard " G ",' particlarly as I think I must have been her ' Maggy Ann.' I remember...

Sir: I must say that what impresses me most about the saga of CMQ 50 (Spectator's Notebook, December 11) is the sheer buckpassing effrontery of Conservative Central Office...

Giving voice Hugh Macpherson There are few better ways of carrying out the weird heathen customs of Christmas than by giving records as presents. And there are few better...

Old victim Kenneth Hurren The hopes I had reposed in the National Theatre production of Oliver Goldsmith's comedy, The GoodNatured Man, began to nibble the dust barely ten...

Theatre Christmas Shows: Next week's additions to the holiday shows already playing in the London theatre are Sooty's Christmas Show (May Fair) and Toad of Toad Hall (Duke of...

Good learner Tony Palmer Gumshoe ('AA' Warner, West End) is a prolifically inventive film by a new British director, Stephen Frears. Everything else about it, however, feels...

The ITA's plea for the fourth channel is of a piece with the bookmakers' representations about the Tote subsidy. Neither Mr Chataway nor Mr Maudling can feel flattered by the...

Lloyd's used to be the place to put your boy. The sort of chap who is "a good Mixer and gets on with people." It is true he had to ante up £15,000 if he was to be a Working name...

Do not miss the Extraordinary General Meting on Friday, December 17, at 100 Wood Street, London, EC2 at 11.30 am. The meeting is to authorise the acquisition of the loss-making...

Nicholas Davenport It is good to see the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street becoming as bullish about the economy as the Government — much has been done," she says, "by means of...

The small man and property bonds John Plender In property bonds the small investor is getting just what he deserves — a mediocre investment that will neither make him nor...

Dear Host and Hostess of yestereve, You've kindly invited me often, you've expended time and money on your parties, and you flatter me by saying you're constant readers of...

I had fondly imagined it second nature for the Gloucestershire world to converge on Cheltenham, but having contrived a weekend barely twenty miles from that hallowed course, the...

Settings for Christmas Carol Wright Somerset Maugham believed the only place to be on Christmas Day was travelling across France on the Blue Train. He said no one else...