The Government has emerged from what was bound to be an awkward phase look- ing rather battered. The difficult patch be- tween the arrival of the new Ministers at their...

Sir Alec stranded PETER PATERSON If diplomacy is war pursued by other means, Sir Alec Douglas-Home faces annihilation. In one over-eager stroke he has undermined the Prime...

The ghost of a policy GEORGE GALE ince the immediately postwar days of nest Bevin, it is doubtful whether Britain can be said to have possessed, sought to f ormulate, or put...

A chance for Mr Maudling GILES PLAYFAIR Nothing seems to be known about Mr Reginald Maudling's views on penal policy, apart from the fact that he voted against the abolition...

CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS It is reported that the young son of Mr Jim Prior, the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, has put in a claim for an increase of pocket money on the...

A season of lost virginity JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE, MP Now that the House of Commons has risen for its summer holidays, it may be a tactful moment to broach the subject which I...

Architecture: the lost horizon LIONEL BRETT This is the first of a series of articles by Lionel Brett (Lord Esher), the distinguished architect and writer. His appointment to...

In the grip of the system PETER J. SMITH Earlier this year I opened a personal account with the National Giro. A friend of mine, informed of this simple fact, stopped dead in...

From the 'Spectator,' 30 July 1870—Brilliant Prospects. By R. L. Johnson. (Griffin.)-- Is it fair to criticize a book the whole of which one has not read? Any one who saw our...

Soft option LESLIE ADRIAN It seemed to be in a spirit of desperation more than of optimism that Mr Maudling re-introduced Mr Callaghan's Misuse of Drugs Bill. The major...

Sabbath fare DONALD McLACHLAN For eighteen months or so I have got along nicely on Sundays without the • three populars; but last weekend, on the instruc, tions of the editor,...

The new fashionable complaint JOHN ROWAN WILSON No,' said my Egyptian guest regretfully, 'I'm afraid I can't eat strawberries. They're bad for my back.' I was instantly...

GEORGE HUTCHINSON One of fain Macleod's most endearing quali- ties, as many have testified since his death, was loyalty—loyalty to friends and to prin- ciples alike. I have...

Tribal lore DENIS BROGAN When the future Lord Beaconsfield attribu- ted too much importance to race, he was probably not thinking of race in the modern and real or...

MAX BELOFF When President Kennedy entertained at a White House dinner the Nobel prizewinners of the Americas, he remarked that his guests constituted 'the most extraordinary...

MICHAEL VREELAND Local Anaesthetic Gunter Grass translated by Ralph Manheim (Seeker and Warburg 35s) Gunter Grass has given up the drum for the television set. His reasons...

J. H. PLUMB The Letters of Sir William Jones Garland Cannon (our , 2 vols, £1210s) Sir William Jones, judge at Calcutta, was probably the greatest oriental scholar of...

GEORGE EWART EVANS Fenland Molecatcher Arthur Randell edited by Enid Porter (Routledge and Kegan Paul 21s) When a man talks about his craft, especially if it is one he has...

PETER J. SMITH The Ultimate Folly Richard McCarthy (Gol- lancz 48s) To a citizen of any other country, the open- ness of American public affairs is a perpetual source of...

RONALD HINGLEY Farewell Gul'sary! Chingiz Aitmatov, trans, fated by John French (Hodder and Stough- ton 28s) From time to time, apparently on some form of rota, writers from...

Martin SEYMOUR-SMITH George Meredith and English Comedy V. S. Pritchett (Chatto and Windus 21s) Meredith had a hard time establishing a repu- tation—even at the height of his...

G. D. RAMSAY Scholars and Gentlemen: Universities and Society in Pre-Industrial Britain 1500-1700 Hugh Kearney (Faber 50s) Dr Kearney has not compiled a glossy chronicle of...

ROBERT CUSHMAN The Two Gentleman of Verona (to say nothing of the dog) was the play chosen to inaugurate Peter Hall's regime at Stratford in 1960. It was by general consent a...

The People's Rights Winston Churchill with an introduction by Cameron Hazlehurst (Cape 30s). First published in 1909, Churchill designed this book (a personal edition of some of...

Night of love JOHN HIGGINS Nicholas Maw's new opera for Glynde- bourne, The Rising of the Moon, is a Con- duct Unbecoming for the lyric stage. It is a popular piece, it is...

Black humour PENELOPE HOUSTON Watermelon Man (Cameo-Poly, 'X') The Sicilian Clan (Carlton, 'A') Among comedy subjects not to be touched with a bargepole, I'd rate fairly high...

Star turn PAUL GRINKE New York painting of the last decade owes a considerable and by no means unacknow- 'edged debt to Jackson . Pollock, who was one of the first to...

NICHOLAS DAVENPORT The body economic is sick enough: there is no need to make it sicker by prescribing clan , gerous quack medicines devised by too clever monetary doctors....

JOHN BULL There is a lot more noise coming out of Rolls-Royce these days than just the ticking of clocks. It's still just as impressive as ever to own one of their cars but...

Sir: It is sad, though not surprising, that Lord Beaumont, on sitting down to write a reasoned delence of the Liberal party (Letters, 18 July), should find it necessary to rely...

From D. A. N. Jones, B. Engerl, Sir Frederic Bennett, MP, John H. MacCallum Scott, John Field, Nicholas Alderson, Alan Ross. T. St. John Barry, Patrick Middleton, Antony Walker,...

Sir: Quite apart from any other points of disgruntlement with Giles Playfair, I must take up the wholly false antithesis in his letter in your issue for 18 July. As he...

Sir: Oh Christopher Hollis, why art thou raving? Thou wast not present at G. Dennis's speaking Nor heard him speak both high and low; He said not that a wife came second (Then...

Sir: I am sure that many of your better- informed readers will have written to thank you for 'South Africa: A Survey' (18 July), but I feel that I, as a previously ill-informed...

Sir: May I offer a trifling correction to Sir Denis Brogan's 'Table talk' of 18 July? The Scottish judge he refers to was indeed the son (the eighth son) of an eighteenth...

Sir: Your correspondent N. J. Ogbuehi asks (Letters, 25 July) 'how can Dr Bowers hope to get away with the conclusion that the anti-apartheid campaign is based entirely on...

Sir: Mr Jenner's letter about Afrikaans (25 July) is unjust both to South Africa House and, by implication, to my organisation. Here at Language Studies we have a full pro-...

Sir: The recent correspondence on metrica- tion mania seems to have overlooked its relationship with Great Britain's attempt to get into the Common Market. In the 1950s neither...

Sir: I'm afraid that Mr Hollis, in his witty parody of 'The Sash' (25 July), perpetuates yet another common English error about Ireland. We do not mispronounce 'fine' so as to...

Sir: Denis Brogan writes ('Table talk,' 25 July) that the Crimean War was the 'silliest war in the nineteenth century'. One could conceivably reply that his article is the...

Sir: After reading Christopher Hollis's excellent article on cricket (25 July), I find there is one point he made which calls for comment. It is suggested that Yorkshire's...

Another kidney JOHN WELLS a, new mystery kidney disease which can affect the pigmentation of the skin is caus- i ng havoc among immigration officials at London Airport, it is...

No. 615. The bare truth The 12th World Naturist Congress meets shortly at Orpington. Competitors are invited to submit a 100-word extract from the open- ing or ;losing address....

PHILIDOR W. L. Barclay (Problemist, January 1970). White to play and mate in two moves; solution next week. Solution to No. 500 (Hartong-8/13K1p4/p4plq(...

Across 1 Tom goes east and is bewitched! (6) 4 Not the kind of welcome Leander got? (8) 8 Chaps agree in the upper storey (8) 10 What's the smell on the way up? (6) 12...