The principal remaining question about Mr Nixon is whether it is better that he should resign the Presidency, or that he should be dismissed from it following an impeachment...

From Brigadier M. Calvert Sir: In 1940 whilst working for Military Intelligence Research I was once brought in to confront the leaders of a British clandestine organisation...

Sir: We find Richard Cecil as ambiguous as he is articulate. While we have no reason to question his bona fides we feel that we must take him to task for his article (May 11)....

personality attacks on the various Northern Irish MPs now in Westminster, with the presumed message as to what a grand guy Faulkner is, and how the moderate support he has is so...

Sir: Last week Mr Shalghem wrote that Colonel Gaddafi was misinterpreted by the press over Libya's "alleged involvement with terrorist groups." He said "The official Libyan...

Sir: I should like to express . rrlY appreciation of the leading article 'Disposable Ethics,' in the current issu of The Spectator. e i There is indeed grave apprehension n, I...

From Professor H. C. McLaren , children are not circumcised may I Sir: Lest readers of Dr John Ling' later's article are worried if the reassure them. 1 Cancer of the male penis...

t h r: Messrs Peters and Unwin intimate 10t David Holbrook's opinions 3 D t4 Present so insignificant, ignorant and erile a minority, so jejune and im becilic an attitude, that...

permissi've behaviour and its unashamed flamboyant portrayal may be self-extinguishing? If it's naughty to be naughty, naughtiness is accepted as a postulate, as the Danes have...

Sir: Mr Logie :Bruce Lockhart, headmaster of Gresham's School, makes a series of modest disclaimers about any supposed superiority of the public schools, but cannot bring...

Sir: What refreshing commonsense Dr Rhodes Boyson talks about education! His articles are like draughts of clear, cold water after the turgid verbosities of the sociologists and...

Sir: In the final analysis the value of any share must reflect the expected future dividends receivable thereon. Thus, if gilt-edged are yielding 14 per cent per annum the only...

From Mrs A. C. Bramwell Sir: The unrepentant Humphry Berkeley, having played a major role in destroying British power and prestige abroad, and the morale of English people in...

The Cosgrave declaration Patrick Cosgrave Mr Harold Soref, the vice-chairman of the Monday Club and former Tory Member of Parliament for Ormskirk, is not a politician with...

the proposal ' th ,.st it should be compulsory for all Members Parliament to register their business ' In terests. Such a step would be helpful for 1 . ! those whose business...

Seconds out—the next round Keith Raffan Electoral defeat is a depressing experience — but only momentarily so. For it brings opportunities in its wake — opportunities to...

bouglas Jay 't ) the people have been slow to notice the I t haior fall in world grain prices during the last months, which has exploded the only ,uligument left to the...

Defending the middles Graham Jones "Anyway," an undergraduate closed his letter to the paper for which I work, "I find this cult of the working class quite perverse. Everyone...

La peau de Chaban Nicholas Richardson "If we don't make fools of ourselves," one senior Gaullist exulted some time ago, "we'll still be in power in the year 2000." "Gaullism,"...

round their Ilecks Larry Adler T he White House hath an Oval Room s Designed with cunning care , Who happens to be resident ‘-an ne'er be cornered there. It looks as if the...

The end of the road? Cecil King The government has changed and we now have the colourless Merlyn Rees in place of the lack-lustre Pym in charge of Northern Ireland. The policy...

Gun law and a bishop Rawle Knox LondonderrY We are back this month with the differenc e , between the word and the deed, a universa l divide which grins more nastily in...

Were Puzzle a religious fellow he would choose a text for the week gone in politics with singular good sense from the Apocrypha, in the Book of Ecclesiasticus, where it refers...

Ian Harvey "It is a disgusting lead for the town to set and I believe that there are limits below which we should not fall." This profound statement was made last year by an...

Four days a week Bill Grundy I feel that if I have to write another word about the crisis in Fleet Street, I'll scream and so will You. I propose not to, therefore; at least...

Mr Big comes clean Whodunnit? Who masterminded the legal coup of the year? I mean, of course, the anonymous payment of £65,000 to the In dustrial Relations Court on behalf of...

Laying it on the line Philip Kleinman So how many MPs do make money out of public relations? The answer to that burningly topical question'will be provided not only by the...

Free offer Martin Sullivan There is a sense in which the teaching of Christ about freedom turns all His followers into rebels. He set Himself decidedly against the tradition...

Early warnings John Linklater The first signs or symptoms of serious disease may often be surprisingly trivial and painless, thus tempting patients to delay a visit to their...

Bird's-nesting is not as popular with country boys as it used to be, which is certainly a very good thing. There are more than enough threats to the common and the uncommon...

Journalistic books are much in vogue nowadays — a throwback to the heyday of the academic journalists, or journalist academics, like Andrew Lang at the end of the nineteenth...

Osbert Lancaster Diary of a War Artist Edward Ardizzone (Bodley Head £4.00). Confronted with the facts of war the artist has, until comparatively recently, adopted one or...

bavid Holden Alive Piers Paul Read (Alison Press/Secker and Warburg 0.00) Finding, as I do in my advancing middle age, growing difficulty in sustaining faith in anythi ng save...

Llew Gardner Maundy Gregory Purveyor of Honours Tom Cullen (The Bodley Head £3.00). To my knowledge I have only met two outand-out rogues and have ever after remained amazed...

' THE UNIQUENESS OF THE INDIVIDUAL • by P. B. Medawar. Lady McAdam, 9 Douglas House. Maida Avenue, London W.2. THE COLLECTORS BOOK OF BOOKS by Eric Quayle 11971). Sharpe, 138...

Clive Wilmer The last ten years or so have seen an extraordinary burgeoning in the art of verse t ranslation. At first sight — given the c ongenital insularity of English...

Richard Usborne The Seven Ages Christopher Hollis (Heinemann £3.60) I Know What I Liked Vernon Bartlett (Chatto and Windus £3.50) Christopher Hollis is seventy two, Vernon...

Growing up with Grass Peter Ackroyd From The Diary Of A Snail GUnter Grass (Secker and Warburg £2.75) Iron Earth, Copper Sky Yashar Kemal (Collins and Harvill Press £2.75)...

Leo in the ascendant Benny Green The reprinting of Isaiah Berlin's The Hedgehog and the Fox (Weidenfeld and Nicolson £1.30) suggests that people are still buying it, and...

Bookend What do these people think they are playing at? Without so much as a by-your-leave the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, and the Society of County...

The Bewitched by Peter Barnes; Royal Shakespeare Company (Aldwych, in repertory) That Championship Season by Jason Miller; with Broderick Crawford (Garrick) Table Manners by...

A touch of paranoia Duncan Falluwell The Silent One Director: Claude Pinoteau, Star: Lino Ventura. Studio One, 'A' (113 minutes). Spring Into Summer Director: Pascal Thomas....

Georgian glories Evan Anthony Looking around the Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace, from the balcony (inside the gallery), a colleague waved his arm, embracing all the eye...

Waspe There has been some speculation in the trade (Wasoe's trade, that is as to how the National Theatre would diplomatically solve a teasing little matter of nomenclature in...

books and bookmen J. B. PRIESTLEY ENOCH POWELL AUBERON VVAUGH SIR HAROLD ACTON EDWARD CARPENTER PAUL FOOT GAVIN LAMBERT DORIS LESSING LORD BOOTHBY A. L. ROWSE KAY DICK TARIQ...

Thanks for the memory Clive Gammon At some time during the last episode of The World at War (ITV), which went out last week, Laurence Olivier said, of one or another of the...

Nicholas Davenport In his brilliant essay on Socialism Now,' which should be made compulsory reading for the militant Marxists of the Labour coalition, Mr Anthony Crosland, now...

The Concorde muddle, I hear, goes on, and on, and on. The latest news is that Battling Tony Benn, friend of the workers, is standing practically alone in the Cabinet in favour...

Charles Stahl With the rediscount rate at a record 8 per cent, the prime rate at 11 per cent, and possibly headed higher, there is no denying that the Federal Reserve System is...