Last week we suggested, tentatively and from a distance, that Israeli politicians would be best advised if they attended more to the underlying unity of their state, to the...

The cunning cowardice of such liberals as Mr Jenkins was never better demonstrated than in the Home Secretary's announcement of his decision to allow an amnesty for illegal...

Even in an age already dulled by the puling and selfish insensitivity of university students, it comes as something of a shock to find the National Union of Students, in...

In the latest edition of the civil service magazine, Ti-line, we are told that the mandarins and servants of Whitehall are thoroughly fed up with yet more changes in their...

Sir: That piteous, bleating cry from Coombs "Why didn't they vote Tory!!??" (March 30) astounded and disgusted me. Just another proof of the complete lack of understanding of...

Sir: In seeking to assess developments in Pakistan, Mr Kuldip Nayar (The Spectator March 30) appears to have allowed his perspective to be distorted by the recurring conditions...

Sir: Your warning against the present trend towards the disestablishment of the Church of England (April 6) is both welcome and timely. The General Synod has shown itself to be...

points about the Archbishop of Canterbury. For example the Rt. Rev. Cyril Bulley recommended that bishops should not cling to power and their privileges so that men with greater...

'Established, ec umenical, evangelical' (April 6). This has long needed saying, and many of Us for some years have been saying the same, but out voices have been ro . wned by...

'Sir. Having plodded for some months Inv through the many column-inches kyards, by now?) of 'prep-school' t sstianity as proffered by Martin e Ll ,llivan, how delightful to read...

the Broadcast festival judges not expected, as they would be in ■ t o e°11 n of law, to lean over backwards ti t avoid any imputations of favourij u ' r n." In fact, they are...

The author of the following personal reminiscence is one of The Spectator's regular letter-writers who, on this occasion, is allowed a discreet anonymity. This is a cautionary...

Patrick Cosgrave In any party there is, after an election defeat, a strong tendency to denounce inadequacies in the organisation and structure of the party machine. This...

Every station of life has duties which are proper to it. Those who are determined by choice to any particular kind of business are indeed more happy than those who are...

Partition is disagreeable to our easy-going and matey generation. There is an Afrikaans word for it, and neither the race nor the word is much loved. Yet the British are the...

Tactics against terror Joel Cohen Although the Easter outbreak of terrorism in the Middle East tends to overshadow the outrages at home, there is no question but that Britain...

Jonathan Bradley A robust backbench voice which was unheard nationally during the general election, but which commands respect in the House of Commons is that of John Biffen....

J 1 0 UR.NAL In oar mo ctern Usages we still pay Heed to the. Christian Easter. What could be more liKe to recallto a 'Man the, Harrowing cl Hell than, to plume Ltto the Tragi...

More than public ownership 1 A f ttnthony Crosland talks to Llew Gardner Permission of Thames Television, we print below extracts from the interview to be screenod " Thursday,...

Why didn't they eat cake? Sudha Shenoy What do they know of poverty, who onl; twentieth-century British poverty knoWi From the viewpoint of an Indian developmel l , economist,...

Bring the experts in Clement Cave The difficulty about any inquiry into broadcasting that might be set up by the Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins, is that his precarious Government...

A morning with Borges Nicholas Shakespeare On the hottest day of the Argentine summer, in what must surely be the hottest capital of the Southern hemisphere, I was fortunate...

Public School Co-education With prayer and the pill? Lugie Bruce Lockhart For some time now, the most determinedly male chauvinist headmasters of the most obstinately...

Look! never learns Bill Grundy Somebody once said — it was me, I think — that the press is your original two-backed beast, dealing as it does with the tremendous and the...

Below the line Philip Kleinman The American Hanes Corporation wanted to launch a new line of women's tights into an already overcrowded market. It found an ingenious — and...

The return of Easter gave rise once again to the hope of immortality, which is latent in all of us. The pictures we have been given, interpreted literally, have caused many...

Top marks for sex John Linklater It is hard to understand the reasoning that underlies the government decision to extend its free french-letter service to include children of...

Double, double, oil and trouble, Is it but a North Sea Bubble? Must we, more particularly, Pay.regard to Mr Varley? Or is it just a passing kick-up? Shall we shortly see a...

Rabbits galore Peter Quince There is a good deal imore - fluctuation in the numbers of different species of birds and animals than the casual observer might suppose. We are...

Richard Luckett on a critic of the modern Solicitude for a critic is almost always Misplaced, though few critics are likely to reject it; nevertheless it is hard to think...

Larry Adler Adventures with D. W. Griffith Karl Brown (Seeker and Warburg £4.00) The book is more than its title, being a collection of yarns about some extra-ordinary...

Gyles Brandreth Friends and Friendship Kay Dick (Sidgisiel ( and Jackson, £2.95) Meeting a personal hero face to face leads all too often to a sense of anti-climax. Heroes in...

Peter Ackroyd The Eighty -Minute Hour Brian Aldiss (Jonathan Cape £2.25) The Boys Henry De Montherlant translated by Terence Kilmartin (Weidenfeld and ,Nicholson £3.25). And...

Diana Holman-Hunt South From Granada Gerald Brenan (Hamish Hamilton E2.75) This is a re-issue of an absorbing book on Spain, first published in 1957, when it won much praise...

Jan Morris • TI!e. Adventures of an Emigrant in Van Diemen's Land William Thornley (Robert Hale £2.80) Of all the parochial attitudes that characterised the General Election...

Duncan Fallowell Astrology Aleister Crowley (Neville Spearman £2.75) Behold the resurrection of the antique sciences and the primal arts, fear neither demons nor angels for...

Benny Green The other morning at breakfast, sitting there slumped and dressing-gowned amid the alien cornflakes, I reached out for the Times and, with the unerring aim of a man...

"We have had very good union relations so far and we don't anticipate any trouble," said Lord Allan, chairman of Longman Penguin last week. He was giving what Lord Hill later...

Christopher Hudson on New World lyrics, Old World tunes I never bring to mind The Great Gatsby without remembering a university friend, an American lawyer, who felt it was his...

Still life Kenneth Hurren With his latest piece, Life Class, offered at the Royal Court, David Storey puts in a keen entry for the Most Boring Play of the Year Award. It's...

Persian blues Robin Young Maurice Mart is reckoned to be the great showman among the present-day ballet impresarios. His sense of theatre exerts a strong appeal to the young...

Wunder boy Clive Gammon Finbarr Nolan, seventh son of a seventh son from County Cavan (though purists object that since girl children intervene in his family pattern he is not...

AND THE CITY Sterling in the money market Tim Conway Flexible exchange rates and flexible interest rates are two sides of the same coin. To have one without the other makes...

There is no need to be a remorseless logician to discern that inflation is not being reduced by measures in the last two Budgets so much as by the effect of the stock market and...

The decision of the Midland Bank to invite Sir William Armstrong, the permanent head of the civil service until June 30, to join their board and to become chairman next year is...

Ralph Harris and his friends at the Institute of Economic Affairs perform a worthy function and, in their own words, "specialise in the study of markets and pricing mechanisms...