History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. It is apt that Karl Marx's disciples should validate his aphorism. The repression of the Hungarian revolution in 1956...

In a sense it is no doubt true that there is a struggle now going on for the soul of the Tory party. But if so it is a good deal more complex than the terms in which it is cus-...

Twenty years after the Prague coup d'elat and the death of Jan Masaryk, the government of Czechoslovakia was struggling once more for a measure of independence from Russian...

POLITICAL COMMENTARY AUBERON WAUGII Mr Heath was to have launched his great opposition offensive on Tuesday, at Wembley. Undaunted by the chance that he might have been...

AMERICA MURRAY SEMPTON New York—Governor Rockefeller has so far visited forty states in his pursuit of Mr Nixon, bringing to the chase all the dash he seems able to summon up...

CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS An aged politician has no doubt There are too many people round about. Children when born are generally a curse And a grave burden on the public purse, And...

M. LLEWELLYN-SMITH Athens—Mr Papadopoulos released the new draft constitution of Greece last Thursday to an audience made lethargic by a heat wave in which the temperature...

King speak out HELEN VLACHOS Just two weeks had passed after the coup of . 21 April 1967, when the colonels declared that their first and foremost decision was to revise the...

DEFENCE DESMOND WETTERN Mr Healey's assertion at the time of• the January defence cuts announcement that the East of Suez withdrawal would allow tre - rp's northern and...

THE PARTIES JOHN BRAINE John Braine, author of 'Room at the Top' and other novels, published an article before the 1964 general election entitled, 'Why Labour must win.' He...

J. W. M. TIIOMPSON The big retrospective exhibition of Henry Moore's work which opened at the Tate this week is a breathtaking experience, an astonish- ing testimonial to the...

PERSONAL COLUMN SIMON RAVEN A barrack square of yellow sand under a yellow sun; in the middle of the square two pie-dogs, back to back yet still joined at the fundament,...

From the 'Spectator', 18 July I868—The House of Lords has taken a very decided step to prevent Rail- ways from demanding an increase in their maxi- mum fares. It agreed on...

TELEVISION STUART HOOD Lord Hill's reasons for announcing on one and the same day the dates when the eac's three top executives are to retire (one of them before his term) arc...

PUBLIC SCHOOLS PETER PARTNER Peter Partner is a master at Winchester. Anthony Sampson in his Anatomy of Britain concluded that public schools were one of three things...

TABLE TALK DENIS BROGAN I have just run into an academic acquaintance of mine who is from a distinguished 'liberal arts' college in upstate New York. Since this is a college of...

S. W. ROSKILL One cannot but marvel at the sustained industry and fecundity of Professor S. E. Morison. As though to celebrate the start of his eighty- second year this week he...

JEAN FRANCO Garcia Lorca Edwin Honig (Jonathan Cape 30s) Students wanting to study Spanish at university often give Garcia Lorca as their main reason. He is Mediterranean light...

J. ENOCH POWELL, MP There are two kinds of politicians; indeed, two attitudes of men to politics. For one kind, human nature is something given—the datum line at which the...

CHARLES STUART The baleful influence of the German army in the high politics of the last hundred years, whether in matters of foreign policy as in the push towards war in 1914,...

Politic tales AUBERON WAUGH Sauveterre Jean Larteguy translated to■ Fielding (W. H. Allen 30s) Strayhorn William ,Herrick (Weidenfeld ,- Nicolson 25s) The Conspiracy Robert...

Janeway (Staples Press 45s) War and growth HARRY G. JOHNSON There is a well-established tradition among financial advisers and commentators, especially in the United States,...

MARTIN SEYMOUR-SMITH Nathan Weinstein felt that to 'be Jewish was irrelevant. Perhaps this more than anything else explains why American critics have neglected him in his...

STUART HOOD In 1937 1 won a prize of fifteen shillings for designing a poster. It was my first and last attempt at design. The theme was 'Food for Spain.' Perhaps I drew my...

A History of Children's Reading and Litera- ture Alec Ellis (Pergamon Press 35s). Concise, informative and sobering account of working- class education, the books available for...

BRYAN ROBERTSON One of my favourite images of any artist is of the eighty-two year old Matisse seen standing sideways in the middle of his hotel-studio at Nice, dressed in...

Catcalls NIGEL LAWSON Summer (Fortune) Time Present (Duke of York's) Romain Weingarten's l'Ete was the great success of Paris last year, running for nineteen month's and...

Heavy brigade PENELOPE HOUSTON Hour of the Wolf (Cameo Poly, 'X') Playtime (Odeon, Haymarket, `U') The White Bus (Paris Pullman, 'A') There's stiff competition this week,...

FESTIVAL MARTIN SEYMOUR-SMITH The centre of the Hardy Festival is the 'Hardy Was Here' pavilion at Kingston Maurward Park, which is situated approximately be- tween his...

EDWARD BOYLE The 1968 City of London Festival opened at St Paul's last Monday week with a strange, partly unsatisfctory, yet fascinating concert which will live in one's memory...

CHRISTOPHER FILDES Do you hear that deep rumble of content from Holborn and points east—like a dragon purring over its hoard? That comes from the underwriters; the insurance...

BUSINESS VIEWPOINT MICHAEL IVENS Michael hens is director of the Industrial Educational and Research Foundation. Hundreds of millions of pounds are spent annually by British...

PORTFOLIO JOHN BULL What to do about Brayhead? I bou g ht 1,000 shares, you will remember, for my second, speculative, portfolio a few weeks a g o at lOs lid each. I was...

SAVINGS LOTHBURY I t is g enerally a g reed that there are three s tandard ways of losin g money, of which racin g - the q uickest, women the most a g reeable, and f arming the...

Market report Excitement on the takeover front has kept the equity market happy, with the Financial Times index breaking new ground in the upper 480s. American Tobacco's...

From: Geo f frey Birch, Iris Stansbury, Dr C. G Elliott, G. A. Picot, George Smith and John Martin, Claire Meyer, Jean Sargeant, Andion t Gibbs, Nicolas Walter, K. P. Dbank,...

Sir: Dr John Rowan Wilson (28 June) gives an impressive list of medical 'musts' for those courageous travellers who venture into darkest Europe. I tremble at the thought that...

Sir: Everybody who is in favour of the Race Relations Bill must believe we have a race rela- tions problem. And everybody believing we have this problem must seek to limit the...

Sir: Science deals with the question 'How is the world constructed?' Religion asks 'How shall a man live?' It is an option open to any man to take as his example the life and...

Sir: Wi:h the horrifying events in Biafra gaining mpetus every week and the children—innocent victims of all wars—likely to die in millions f aid does not come soon, your fine...

tions from the philosophers of both Mr Allsop and Mr Hogg make, if I may say so, direct thought on the existence of God more difficult than it need be (21 June). I believe it is...

ir: While 1 would agree with much of John owan Wilson's account of the first twenty rs of the NI-IS, I really must take issue with over, his view that the future of general...

Sir : Leslie Adrian (12 July) has made the mis- take of thinking that we advocate a consumers' political party in our book The Consumer In- terest as the best means of...

Sir: It has been suggested that the Law Courts might house a permanent exhibition illustrating the history of legal costume and appurtenances in England and Wales. Among the...

Sir: I should like to raise one or two points in connection with Mr Raven's article `Homo- sexuality without cant' (14 June). He states: 'when Christianity arose inhibi- tion...

Sir : It is puzzling that Mr Waugh, who admits that he is `no close student of Indian affairs,' should be chosen to review three books on the American Indian rather than, say,...

Sir: Answering my letter last week (12 July), Mr Grundy tried to throw a smokescreen over the plain facts that (a) he had written that he could 'find no mention' of Vietnam in...

Sir: It is perhaps worth adding to Tibor Szamuely's excellent account of • Alexander Solzhenitsyn (12 July) the point that three extracts from Solzhenitsyn's novel The Cancer...

Sir : It is with much regret that I am telling out newsagent to stop sending me the SPECTATOR. It is tragic that a paper with such long and honourable traditions should have so...

.AFTERTHOUGHT DAVID LAZELL In the September of 1927, a Mr A. H. Lane stayed at a Southsea hotel, and, as he subse- quently related, suspected the head waiter of being a Berman....

Trevor Grove reports: Judging from the entries this week James Joyce's inimitable and intimi- dating prose is not the easiest source material for a Word Game; decidedly tricky...

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 as...

Across 1 Spoil the takings, in the resort (7) 5 This, seasoned, one among the proverbial pigeons is for their good (4-3) 9 Prosaic little piece (7) 10 'And what should I do in...

PHILIDOR Black White 5 men E. Umnov (Shakhmaty v USSR, 1945). White to play and mate in two moves; solution next week Solution to no. 395 (Hermanson): Kt - Q 3, threatQ-B 5. 1...