`One day, son, this redevelopment will be yours.' r Neil Kinnock returned to the task of trying to move the Labour Party away from its unilateralist stance on nuclear weapons...

The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WCIN 2LL Telephone 01-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 242 0603 SATANIC SENTENCE T he Ayatollah Khomeini says that 'the author of The...

THERE will be a Memorial Meeting for Dhiren Bhagat in the Art Workers' Guild, 6 Queen Square, London WC1, at 11.30 a.m. on Monday 20 March. All are wel- come to attend.

SUBSCRIBE TODAY - Save 15% on the Cover Price! RATES 12 Months 6 Months UK 0 £49.50 0 £26.00 Europe (airmail) 0 £60.50 0 £31.00 USA Airspeed 0 US $99 El US$50 Rest of '...

The unpalatable taste of water on the rocks NOEL MALCOLM W oe betide the minister whose bill is described as a 'flagship' of the Govern- ment's legislative programme. This is...

CHARLES MOORE A couple of weeks ago the Londoner's Diary of the Evening Standard carried a lead story about our contributor Charles Glass. It said that he had separated from his...

Beware of the scum which collects on the middle ground AU BERON WAUG H I learned my campaigning tactics in the rough training ground of politics,' says 33-year-old Gavin...

British nationalism and a hatred of all things foreign seem to be on the upsurge. Ferdinand Mount asks if this makes sense, in art or politics ARE we seeing a serious revival...

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard explains why the President must prevail in the Tower affair. Washington THINK back to last August and imagine the fiasco that would have followed if...

Timothy Garton Ash looks back at what the Queen, Stalin and Mrs Simpson have in common THIS year Time copped out. In its 'Man of the Year' slot it coyly named 'the earth',...

Kenneth Griffith has made a film about racial prejudice. Television won't touch it. Gillian Faulkner reports KENNETH Griffith, for more than 40 Years one of our most...

A NUMBER of rumours have been transmitted to London this week from St Petersburg. According to them, the Ameer of Afghanistan is on the frontier with 30,000 men; he demands the...

Outsiders: a profile of Sir Richard Body MP, scourge of the big farmer AS A breeder of prize pigs, cattle and bloodhounds, Sir Richard Body has often been heard to speak of...

Michael Heath

Des Wilson explains how a long campaign has at last become respectable THE QUEEN was there. So were many more of the Great and the Good, Lord Goodman, Marmaduke Hussey, Sir...

Patrick Leigh Fermor looks back on the life of the writer, who died last month `YOU never told me he was a schoolboy!' exclaimed a friend. Carried away by On the Black Hill,...

English spiritual writers. It will run throughout Lent. ON 20 February 1595, Robert South- well stood before the Queen's Bench, charged with entering the country as a priest....

The press: Paul Johnson looks at the struggle among the Sunday qualities EASILY the most fascinating aspect of the national newspaper scene at present is the circulation war...

A marketable idea for Mrs Thatcher JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE S ir Leon Brittan, our eponymous senior man in Brussels, is a downy bird. His predecessor, Lord Cockfield, took a...

Noah and Company test the water and have doubts about floating CHRISTOPHER FILDES Y ou and I are directors of Noah and Company, a family business dating back to the Flood,...

:HOW'S the advertising campaign going?' Starts this week. Soft-Sell. Water power- ful, water friendly, water good for you, Pictures of lakes, swelling music from 01' Man River —...

'SO what's young Howard's answer?' He keeps thinking up regulations. He's got a thing called the K Factor, which is the limit on how much the companies can put up their prices...

A LEONINE roar was the first I heard of Dick Wilkins. I was being towed around by the gentle Donald Constant of the Times, who, putting his head round the door of the partners'...

Sir: In his kind review of The Diamonds and the Necklace (11 February) David Wright takes me to task for saying that Bosman's books are not much liked by South Africa's...

Sir: Michael Trend's survey of the way the right to baptism is being taken from the English people (`Trickling away', 4 Febru- ary) sets out a situation which caused our...

Sir: I am interested by Anthony Howard's barrister friend who restricts her prosecut - ing briefs to 'middle class oafs who had attempted to assault meter-maids' (Diary, 14...

Sir: Charles Clover's article 'Green thoughts for the blues' (4 February) con- tained inaccuracies about Greenpeace. In the latest of a series of attacks on our work, Mr Clover...

Survival of the nicest Conn Welch SELWYN LLOYD by D. R. Thorpe Cape, £16, pp.504 I t was one of the greatest moments of my years of Parliamentary reporting. It was at once...

Anita Brookner THE ROAD FROM DECADENCE: FROM BROTHEL TO CLOISTER: SELECTED LETTERS OF J. K. HUYSMANS edited and translated by Barbara Beaumont The Athlone Press, f25, pp.273...

A. L. Rowse CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE AND CANTERBURY by William Urry Faber, £12.95, pp.184 D r Urry knew more about the history of Canterbury and, by consequence, Christopher...

Knowing you will not calm down Till I am half mad myself, I concede to you that our life Is half worthless and full of Terror. Nothing left for show, We drink, two old...

Kevin Sharpe THE CIVIL WARS OF ENGLAND by John Kenyon Weidenfeld, f14.95, pp.296 0 ne of the casualties of narrow scho- larly specialisation is a failure to see the obvious....

John Henshall HOBSON'S ISLAND by Stefan Themerson Faber, £11.95, pp. 196 W hen Stefan Themerson died in Lon- don last September, aged 77, the event was hardly major news,...

James Lees-Milne FIGURES IN A LANDSCAPE: A HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL TRUST by John Gaze Barrie & Jenkins, £16, pp.336 T his is a painstaking work — a full- b lown history of...

Exhibitions The Last Romantics (Barbican Art Gallery, till 9 April) Many a bosom bared Giles Auty L ess than a quarter of my way round The Last Romantics, the vast show on...

The Wars of the Roses (Old Vic) Magnificent seven Christopher Edwards T his magnificent venture by the English Shakespeare Company deserves high praise. Last week I...

Un re in ascolto (Covent Garden) Communication chords Rodney Milnes Y es, yes, but what's it about?' seems to have been a widespread reaction to the British premiere of...

Call her madam Marcus Berkmann I t's good to have something to review at last — judging by the record companies' release schedules, January is a purely conceptual...

The Good Mother ('15', Odeon Haymarket) Bag and baggage Hilary Mantel L eonard Nimoy's film begins with an evocation of idyllic childhood summers at a lakeside house: sun...

The hounds of spring Ursula Buchan L ike most gardeners, I have a notor- iously unreliable memory. Why else do I insist that the wisteria took seven years to flower when my...

Wendy Cope T his week I must begin with Wish Me Luck (ITV), the drama series about British agents in occupied France. Having given a lukewarm reception to the first episode of...

Absinthe friends Taki ne of the good things about life in the Big Bagel is the horrible people one reads about in the gossip columns. The worse they are, the easier it is to...

Devil's food Alice Thomas Ellis I can't decide whether the possession Of a religious temperament is a curse or a blessing. Since God does exist I suppos e it's just as well to...

the best restaurant I've eaten in all year may not mean much, but the chances are that I shall be saying the same thing in ten months' time, because Jeremy Blake O'Connor's...

Chess in Venice Raymond Keene G ustav von Tascherischach was absorbed in his copy of Dreihundert Schachpartien, that classic work by the Praeceptor Germaniae, Dr Siegbert Tar-...

Dream themes s aspistos I n Competition No. 1561 you were in- vited to describe, from the point of view of an ingenuous visitor, two bizarre new 'theme parks' in this country...

896: Rusinurbe by Doc A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or, for UK solvers, a copy of Chambers English Dictionary — ring the word `Dictionary' above) for the...

A ten (or more)-line piece of verse, please, with only one rhyme, and that of two syllables. The rhyme words can, of course, be of any number of syllables (e.g. you could rhyme...

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