It must be seriously doubted whether this country any longer possesses a government —except in the sense of over a hundred more or less amiable men and women drawing high...

Lord High Executioner Wilson finally steeled him- self to cut some heads off: all the expected victims fell to his axe. The largest savings were on defence: the F 1 1 ls were...

POLITICAL COMMENTARY AUBERON WAUGH More Members turned up for prayers on Tues- day than at any time since Suez. Cynics may argue that they were merely anxious to reserve seats...

CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS One could endure the joys of life these days; Find even entertainment entertain, If just for once they had some Wednesday plays On people who were moderately...

THE CUTS-2: HEALTH JOHN ROWAN WILSON What on earth will the history student of 2068 make of all the present fuss about prescription charges? To the historian with a sense of...

THE CUTS-1: DEFENCE JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE `There are,' according to Lord Curzon, `two constituents of successful diplomacy . . . one is knowing one's own mind, the other is...

THE CUTS-3: EDUCATION JAC L. WILLIAMS Jac L. Williams is professor of education at the University College of Wales, A berysiwyM. People who like to regard themselves as enthu-...

THE ECONOMY J. ENOCH POWELL, MP Being a prophet of doom is money for old rope. But being a prophet of non-doom is an unrewarding and ill-rewarded occupation. Still, what can...

AMERICA MURRAY KEMPTON Sacramento, California—Ronald Reagan, the visitor soon decides, is not especially relevant to the government of California. He has been able to alter...

RUSSIA TIBOR SZAMUELY The fifty-first year of the communist regime in Russia has opened with a bang. Never before, from the moment Lenin seized power, through all the years of...

, J. W. M: THOMPSON Sacred cows aren't just cherished objects : they're cherished, expensive, useless objects. People have used the term very loosely in recent days, allowing...

PERSONAL COLUMN KENNETH ALLSOP There are twenty million pets kept in Britain. Most of them—it has seemed to me at gloomy moments—live with- me. Just after income tax had...

From the 'Spectator,' 18 January, 1868—Mr Fawcett delivered a lecture on Tuesday to the Reform League on the condition of the agricul- tural population, whom he described as...

THE PRESS DONALD McLACHLAN A year ago some Fleet Street managements were smarting under the sharp criticism of their methods made by the Economist Intelligence Unit Report....

CONSUMING INTEREST LESLIE ADRIAN Did you play that educational game with Cliff Michelmore last week—the mammoth quiz in which he proved our legislators to be no more...

TABLE TALK DENIS BROGAN Colorado Springs—Much have I travelled in the realms of gold, i.e. the American West, but I never get used to the size of the country. I suppose I...

SIMON RAVEN Some years ago, G. P. Putnam's Sons of New York and Elek Books of London combined to put out in several volumes 'the first com- plete and unabridged English...

A peak in Darien HENRY TUBE A Smuggler's Bible Joseph McElroy (Deutsch 35s) The Third Book About Achim Uwe Johnson translated by Ursule Molinaro (Cape 30s) Kinsman and Foreman...

PATRICK ANDERSON T. H. White was a big, bearded, rather hand- some man whose prominent bright-blue eyes were often bloodshot with drink; in middle age he began to resemble a...

(ouP 55s) Turn for the better RICHARD RATHBONE Politicians and Politics: An essay on politics in Acholi, Uganda, 1962-1965 Colin Leys (East African Publishing House 12s)...

PAUL GRINKE English Gardens and Landscapes, 1700-1750 Christopher Hussey (Country Life 63s) Water-Colour Painting in Britain Martin Hardie (Batsford 126s) We can modestly claim...

Policy Sir Denis Brogan (Hamish Hamilton 25s) II Americans W. HORSFALL CARTER At the end of the 1920s that dauntless apostle of liberalism, Salvador de Madariaga, penned his...

TERENCE BENDIXSON For centuries architecture's richest and most influential client was the church. Then came the owners of great landed estates, followed in turn by the...

Great ape HILARY SPURLING The more one considers the ape, the more it appears that Kafka was right about apes, as he was about most things: the ape—seedy, shambling, morose,...

BALLET CLEMENT CRISP Noel Coward's reported recipe for continued freshness in the theatre was: 'Always come out of a different trap,' and it might have been Ashton's too: Sir...

TELEVISION STUART HOOD These are days when one may see strange sights. Michael Peacock and Donald Baverstock in the Muzak-drenched hall of ATV House, for instance. It is a fair...

NICHOLAS DAVENPORT The stock markets have had a sharp attack of hysteria but are now convalescing. Before the listing of the cuts they had become far too jumpl , and jittery....

PORTFOLIO JOHN BULL Good news from Phoenix Assurance since 1 last wrote: the group has decided to raise its dividend for 1967 from 125 per cent to 140 per cent. On the...

BUSINESS VIEWPOINT JACK FRYE The young ladies of Surbiton who started their 'We Back Britain' campaign with the idea of a free half-hour's work a day for Britain have caught...

I could observe that dignity, like Sir Leslie O'Brien's ex-officio top hat, is not improved by being stood on. But more is at stake. Time was when a few men in the City thought...

CUSTOS This remains a political market; as its astonish- ing performance on Tuesday made crystal clear. On the Prime Minister's statement the Financial Times index rose sixteen...

SAVINGS LOTHBURY This week the'Trustee Savings Banks launch their long-awaited Unit Trust—or rather, seventy-six of them do ' the seventy-seventh, York' County, isn't...

Sir: Mr Joe Chapman's article (1 December) is a strange hotch-potch of generalisation, exaggeration and lack of logic. Mr Chapman's thesis seems to be that there will be no...

Sir: I could follow the letter from the assistant secretary of the Press Council throughout its length (12 January) but you could not spare the space so I will deal only with...

LETTERS From Dr Marjory E. Plumb, L. E. Weidberg, Leonard Cottrell, G. Armstrong, R. A. Cline, D. M. Llewellyn Smith, Brigadier F. E. C. Hughes, Margaret Mole, K. E. Crawley,...

Sir: Mr Service's interesting letter (5 January) is quite a good example of the kind of British double- think to which I referred. Contrary to what he suggests, I do not myself...

Sir: I was sorry to see your contributor John Rowan Wilson, whom I usually enjoy so much, indulge (29 December) in the familiar medical self- delusion that patients used as...

Sir: As I inadvertently started this correspondence (Letters, 8 December), which has brought forth a large amount of private replies, besides those you published, may I be...

fictionalised chapter of autobiography Saturnine was when the hero coughed up a worm. Mr Heppenstall has now done it again (Letters, 12 January) in response to my challenge...

Sir: Whilst appreciating that almost any editor of The Times will please Mr Churchill (12 January) better than Sir William Haley, how can he possibly claim that it is 'a better...

Sir: I am only an uneducated old soldier with no training in logic or theology, so I honestly seek enlightenment regarding Mr P. E. Mallon's letter in your issue of 5 January in...

Sir: We are sorry if our criticisms of his article (Letters, 5 January) should have upset poor Mr Heppenstall, who dismisses them in his letter (12 January) as 'childish...

Sir:The tiger carrying the young lady of Riga, mentioned by Mr Auberon Waugh (12 January), was created not by Edward-Lear but anonymously, and was portrayed by H. M. Bateman in...

AFTERTHOUGHT JOHN WELLS The resignation last Sunday of Dagobert Frilling, the fourteen year old pop-dancer, front his position as 'Rector' of the Daily Telegraph Memorial Home...

Sir: May another Saxon suggest to Sir Denis Brogan that he is wrong to attach so much im- portance to a letter to the Daily Express (5 January)? Only cranks write to newspapers....

Sir: As you know, all the St Kitts prisoners (see SPECTATOR, 20 October 1967 and subsequent letters) were acquitted by the Supreme Court of the West Indies on 27 November....

Sir: It is true that, as David Williams writes (12 January), 'Not unprofound, not ungrand, not un- moving—but unpoetical' is a 'comment' of Matthew Arnold, but not a comment...

Sir: It is possible for surviving relatives of men in the Fifth Army to feel put out by Sir Denis Brogan's article of 15 December. One English county battalion died where it...

PHILIDOR N. G. G. van Dijk Mt prize, Die Schwalbe, 1961). White to play and mate in two moves; solution next week. Solution to no. 369 (Goldschmeding): P - K 4, threat Kt - B...

Competitors were asked to compose an octet on one of The following subjects: a New Year resolution, Twiggy takes the veil or an ad- vertisement for a tranquilliser. The first...

COMPETITION Competitors are invited to compose an eight- line poem or stanza of a poem on any one of the subjects given below, using four of the following five pairs of words...

Across I Everybody after 50 in bed looks mashed out! (8) 5 A rod for the playgrounds (6) 9 The cradle of 24? (5-3) 10 The one and only Victoria in short in a nice coat (6) 12...