There is no reason to doubt the substantial truth of Mr Heath's words, uttered significantly at Glasgow last weekend, that the country's prospects for growth—" and substantial...

This week the Government has published, in its White Paper on pension reform, the outline of what may come to be judged the most important strategic move in its domestic policy....

I am not particularly certain why, but I discovered myself to be moved by Nikita Khrushchev's death and the manner of his burying. Since Lenin, Russia and the world have...

The Liberal party survives for reasons which by themselves give the party no claim to be considered a national party. It binds no region to the centre, it is not responsible for...

BY A STEEL ECONOMIST The Brtish Steel Corporation is in a bad way. Its financial performance has turned out to be far more disastrous than anyone expected and the prospects,...

Taxation reform JOHN BIFFIN, MP The wide-ranging reforms contained in this year's Finance Act are an ample token of the Government's determination to transform the basis of...

Battle joined DENNIS HACKETT Monday morning front pages can be difficult. The Sundays have mopped up the weekend news and a talent for making bricks without straw is often...

The solicitor and the policeman NORMAN FOWLER Although the debate on the handling of complaints against the police seems to have been going on for an unconscionable time the...

The Pugwash Conference, 1971 LESLIE MALLORY In the pleasant and spacious airport building, completed for President Nixon's visit in 1969, the traveller spots the first clue to...

Illiteracy as she is taught PATRICK COSGRAVE Last week nearly all the children went back to school; and a large number started secondary education. What their parents don't...

Oliver Edwards once said that he had always wanted to be a philosopher, but Cheerfulness kept breaking in. It sounds flippant, but I think he was stating a real dilemma. It is a...

Birds of America Mary McCarthy (Weidenfeld and Nicolson £1.75) I do not know if there is a name in psychiatric medicine for the illness which afflicts nearly all mothers when...

The History of Working-Class Housing: A Symposium edited by Stanley D. Chapman (David and Charles £4.75) Education in Evolution: Church, State, Society and Popular Education...

Victorian workers was concentrated not on putting workingclass homes up but on knocking the more insanitary of them down. While health measures, railway building, and urban '...

The Music Lover's Companion edited by Gervase Hughes and Herbert Van Thal (Eyre and Spottiswoode £3.00) Most writing on music bears about the same relationship to music as the...

The Complete Poems Elizabeth Bishop (Chatto and Windus £2.25) Robert Lowell dedicated Imitations and the poem 'Skunk Hour' from Life Studies to Elizabeth Bishop. His praise of...

The Long March 1935: The Epic of Chinese Communism's Survival Dick Wilson (Hamish Hamilton £3.00)

heroism and so crucial for world history has been relatively neglected by writers and scholars." So writes the author of this book about the famous migration of the main army of...

The World of Rembrandt Robert Wallace (Time Life Books £3) A series of essays, richly Illustrated with colour and black-and-white reproductions, on such topics as Rembrandt's...

Piece de non-resistance DOUGLAS JOHNSON By its length (nearly four and a half hours), by its subject (the life of a French town, Clermont-Ferrand, during the German oc...

Men on the make CHRISTOPHER HAMPTON Mike Nichols's new film Carnal Knowledge ('X,' Leicester Square Theatre) is a conversation piece about the friendship and sex lives of a...

Hands' turn KENNETH HURREN The Royal Shakespeare Company have made some rewarding raids on the theatrical vaults in recent seasons (Boucicault's London Assurance and...

You may have thought that the 'Ballet Mum,' immortalized by Halevy in literature and by Duvivier on film, was a dying breed. There is, though, one with a formidable reputation...

Sir: The conclusion drawn by Mr Eric Jacobs (September 11) that the Transport Workers are lawabiding men because they are ready to pay taxes has no validity. The income tax on...

From Mrs H. E. Gledhill Sir: In his book reviews Mr Auberon Waugh has more than once expressed his feelings of revulsion on first seeing photographs of his favourite authors. I...

Sir: Your column ' Bookend ' (August 28), suggests that writers of specialist books have the least need of a literary agent, except i.erhaps as a status symbol. As an agent...

Sir: I notice that a letter from the Literary Editor of The Spectator appeared in the Times in connection with an article recently published in The Spectator. I would like to...

You write in your Notebook (September 11) that you now admit that you were wrong to print Tony Palmer's very funny piece about Princess Anne. Why was that? Because a few of your...

intelligent, and independent (more so than some which more ostentatiously hawk their social consciences but give little evidence of caring for anything but themselves). You do...

Sir: While welcoming the more moderate tone of Geoffrey Rhodes's contribution to the Common Market debate (August 28) one must nevertheless deprecate the tendentious selective...

Sir: Are we to assume from your editorial comments (September 11) on the BBC's action in demoting Mr MacKenzie that employees of the BBC should be placed in the Privileged...

Sir: It would be so much easier contents of The Spectator if only for us all to read the fascinating in the right order more often. you could manage to get the lines Dennis...

of Messrs M. Gershlick and S. Shipton (September 4) sound exactly now as apologies of Stalinists against those who tried to tell the truth about what happened in USSR, did...

sorry state that it is absolutely essential for the thinking public to receive balanced presentations on issues of international importance. Here The Spectator invariably plays...

in 1948 had " no organization, practically no equipment, and no training at all." Leaving aside the gross insult to Glubb Pasha and other British officers of the Arab Legion,...

The film crisis NICHOLAS DAVENPORT THE quiet Heathian revolution goes on. At long last the government is withdrawing from the finance of film production. You may recall that...

I was at a wedding many miles from Doncaster when Piggott and Athens Wood made certain of at least one 1971 classic success, but my Jonah touch appears to be just as effective...

National Trust An old friend in Yorkshire who says he has little time left though he's only seventy-seven worries that he cannot pass his small fortune to his unmarried...

Gastronomic writers sometimes write recipe books. More often they flutter, with increasingly pointed claws, the pages of books sent to them for review. For alas, few of the...

The desk at which I sit is one of those genuine imitation antique affairs with a red leather top and gold leaf edging. We bought it at Liberty's a few years ago with a sack of...

It has always puzzled me why people rush into print, be it in the form of a column like this or in the form of a novel. Such a vast diarrhoea of words must have been poured out...