Cheating the State No prospect more displeases the tax-paying and lawabiding majorityof people in the country than thatof cheats and scroungers doing nicely out of the Welfare...

Political commentary Anatomy of a Wet Ferdinand Mount According to the Prime Minister, Jim Prior is very, very sorry and very apologetic. Well, no, actually, I don't think he...

Notebook My source for the following information is that lively newspaper The Militant. The Borough Council of Ballymena in Northern Ireland has voted by 13 votes to none to...

Another voice Mad dogs and Englishmen Auberon Waugh After a strenuous week touring the Midlands and. the North to promote my book about the Thorpe trial (which journalistic...

Rhodesia: the last masquerade Xan Smiley Salisbury In Hampstead the news from Zimbabwe looks bad. In white Rhodesian eyes, equipPed with different though equally tinted...

The conservative challenge Henry Fairlie Washington Following on the heels of Iowa and Maine, New Hampshire did as much as one expected. It gave President Carter an...

The conclave at 'Le Monde' Sam White Paris Inevitably, the election of a successor to Jacques Fauvet as editor of Le Monde has become a major political event in France, and...

No garrets in Sweden Peter Ackroyd Stockholm The cafe was crowded with Swedes; they were sleek and purposeful, like porpoises in a Warm sea. 'Hello. You are dressed as if for...

The battle of the Maoris Leo Abse Poor passionless Kiwis. In these cold winter months, when you may dream of escape to paradisial isles in the Antipodes, do not Put it to the...

Profile The Supertoff 'It's the broad view against the narrow view, dear boy.' 'It's toffs versus yobs, lad.' Thus two interpretations of the split in the Cabinet which has...

Sir: Christopher Booker's curious combina- tion of psychology and metaphysics ('The erring female instinct', 16 February) does little to advance the anti-abortion cause one...

Letters ?M Being a human Sir: Christopher Booker's 'rational view' that the human being exists only from birth (16 February) would provide an argument for aborting at eight...

Lady Houston's contribution Sir: I am an incorrigible pedant, and wish to point out to Mr McEwen (Postscript, 23 February) that the woman who enjoyed playing about with...

Devolution: a reawakening? Sir: If recent newspaper reports are to be believed there appears to be an illusion current in London that the Scottish devolution question has 'gone...

Animadness I Sir: As an oracle Mr Booker may indeed consider himself a modern Tiresias. Were he to continue on his monomaniac quest for the man in woman - and vice versa - I...

The Croatian connection Sir: Richard West (16 February) is less than elegant in asserting that, prior to the formation of Yugoslavia, the Croats 'had for centuries lived' under...

What a difference a gay makes Sir: I was interested to read Alexander Chancellor's comments in the Notebook on the London Weekend Television programme Gay Life (16 February)....

Books Talking about Uganda Richard West Lovers on the Nile Richard Hall (Collins Throughout the second half of the 1 9th century the British reading public enjoyed a...

Superwhig? Enoch Powell The Last Edwardian at Number 10: An Impression of Harold Macmillan George Hutchinson (Quartet £6.50) 'Edwardian' is too insubstantial a concept for...

Stewpot Nicholas von Hoffman The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expecta- tions Christopher Lasch (Norton £6.95) the Culture of Narcissism is...

Grand Old Man of letters Alastair Forbes The Arms of Time: A Memoir Rupert Hart-Davis (Hamish Hamilton £6.95) The Lyttelton-Hart-Davis Letters Vol 11 1956-57 Ed. Rupert...

Lost boy Benny Green The Lost Boys: A Television Trilogy Andrew Birkin (BBC £4.50) The publication of these three exhaustive television scripts is timely indeed, not just...

Obstetricks Francis King Puffball Fay Weldon (Hodder £15.95) There are women novelists and novelists who happen to be women. Fay Weldon belongs, along with Jean Rhys and...

Arts On the road to nowhere Peter Ackroyd - Messidor (X', Academy) Female Trouble (Scala Cinema Club) The driver, having picked up two hitchhikers, asks them where they...

Opera On tour Rodney Milnes The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro (Opera 80) Undine (Nottingham University) The Duenna (University College, London)...

Art Wholly Irish John McEwen Scene: cottage in west of Ireland during a rain-storm. Tourist: 'Why don't you mend those big holes in the roofo Pat: 'Wud your honour have me go...

Television Wh itewash Richard Ingrams I see the Archbishop of York, Dr Stuart Blanch, has been sounding off from the pulpit on the subject of television. His Grace complains...

Low life Foreign bodies Jeffrey Bernard The one thing that I was constantly aware of in Barbados was the hideousness of the tourists. It's a sad fact that most of us look so...

High life Action replay Taki New York Watching a bunch of amateurs beating the best paid and most talented professionals in the Soviet Union can be as uplifting an...

Postscript Stern rebukes Patrick Marnham Last week The Times published an obituary Of Nathan Yalin-Mor, described in the heading as 'former member of the Stern gang' Oddly...