Tuesuays ministerial statement on the future of Chrysler UK was followed immediately by a full-dress debate on the British motor i ndustry, for this pairing of events underlines...

From Sir Christopher Masterman. Sir: General de Gaulle was surely right in telling us that we should never be good Europeans. In failing to secure for Britain a separate seat...

From Air Commodore P. B. Hine Sir: Your criticism of RAF personnel Management in 'Spectator's Notebook' on October 25 is totally inaccurate. The facts are as follows.' A...

While brokers watched their stocks each day, All standing in a ring, The PM's messenger came down The White Hall's news to bring. "Fear not," said he (for mighty dread Had...

Sir: The letter from Mr Stooehouse in your last issue stated that the selection of a new candidate hY th e Walsall North Constituency Labour Party has been condemned as being...

From Mrs A. Gilmour Sir: Having read Keith Kyle's article on t he , Palestianians published in your issue of December 6, am prompted to write to you on two aspects. Mr Kyle...

From Group-Capt C. E. Williamson Jones (Retc1) Sir: Socialists say they are keen on equality by Wh icil they should mean equal justice, equal opportun g and equal liberty, but...

Sir: As a member of the Anti-Slavery Society , I W u as greatly interested in Rawle Knox's article on e 4 Nagas of India (December 6). A report was publishe,' a year ago by the...

of politicians and bureaucrats alike in "le Private and family affairs of the citizen, which has f ,iverl rise to the agitation for a Bill of Ri g hts." — Mr atrick Cosgrave (...

Sir: Whilst finding your publication admirable in most respects, I was unable last week ( December 6) to a g ree with your article 'No to the death penalty.' The writer of your...

Sir: Your editorial arguin g a g ainst capital punishment for terrorists missed what is surely an important point. I refer to the virtual certainty that, nowadays, the j...

Sir: Iceland, supported by overwhelmin g scientific evidence that her cod stocks face extinction without extended limits and essential low-catch allocations to all nations...

Mr Varley, this is your life Patrick Cosgrave Nothing has become Mr Eric Varley so ill as his failure to leave office. He has always seemed, to those who know him, a decent...

The divisive election Mungo MacCa,llum Canberra Although the Australian electorate swung massively to the right last Saturday, there are some signs that, even before it...

Back to barracks Susanna Ross Lisbon "We've got a new commanding officer," e , 3t Plained the military policeman to a man who MI:mired at the barracks what had happened to...

Trial without jury David Levy Moscow By Soviet law, a person arrested and charged within the required forty-eight hours under the criminal code of the USSR or of any of the...

Deaths behind bars Judith Acton In November 1970 an inquest was held on the death in Salisbury prison of a Rhodesian, detainee and prominent African leader, Leopold Takawira....

The politics of the bourgeoisie Russell Lewis In an earlier article I suggested that the middle, classes, instead of revolting against socialism, are in large numbers adapting...

Killing the geese Sir David Renton When fourteen busy and experienced people work hard for two years to produce the first report for 100 years on a matter of major importance,...

Questions of nonsense Rawle Knox I like the Belfast woman the other day telling a BBC interviewer she thought that the bomb which had just gone off was terrible and that the...

Peter Ackroyd Striking The Pavilions of Zero John James (Ian McKelvie Editions, £1.50) The Mountain in The Sea John Fuller (Secker and Warburg £2.40) High Pink On Chrome J. H....

Pat Rogers The Social Milieu of Alexander Pope: Lives, Example and the Poetic Response Howard Erskine-Hill (Yale University Press £9.75) The call to devotion is a mysterious...

Kenneth Griffith The French Colonel. Villebois-Mareui/ and the Boers, 1899-1900 Roy Macnab (Oxford £10.50) 'During September 1899 Jan Smuts, then a vetY youthful State...

Philip Mason Culture Abdul Halim Sharar; translated by E. S. Lucknow: The Last Phase of an Oriental Harcourt and Fakhir Husain (Elek 02.50) Lucknow was the capital of Oudh...

Hugh Lloyd Jones Jerome: His Life, Writings and Controversies J. N. D. Kelly (Duckworth, £10.00) John Calvin: A Biography T. H. L. Parker (I M. Dent, £5.95) Jerome counts,...

Simon Raven A Life of One's Own: Childhood and Youtit Gerald Brenan (Jonathan Cape £5.95) A Life of One's Own is the first volume of Gerald Brenan's autobiography, covering...

Richard Luckett John Aubrey and the Realm of Learning Michael Hunter (Duckworth £12.50) The first British historian did not write with the intention of supporting a dynasty, of...

Passed on Benny Green Over the years more than one worried man has suggested that "Death, where is thy sting?" is not after all the rhetorical question we assumed it to be,...

Admirers of James Herriot will be pleased to hear that the literary vet has delivered a new manuscript to his publishers Michael Joseph. This was an event of some note, as the...

Education A question of size Rhodes Boyson The standstill and eventual cut in public expenditur e is beginning to affect local authoritie s and a very large proportion of...

Dutch taste Denis Wood When in Holland a few weeks ago I was interested to see some of the old formal gardens, examples presumably of what became known as the Dutch Taste and...

Theatre National disaster Renneth Hurren Hamlet by William Shakespeare; National Theatre Company (Old Vic) There is something sardonically apt in the fact that the most...

Shark tactics Kenneth Robinson Jaws Director: Steven Spielberg Stars: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss 'A' General London release, Boxing Day (122 nuns.) Barry...

Paul Nash John McEwen One of the cornerstones of Surrealism was Rimbaud's affirmation: "We must be absolutely modern!" Surrealism was a revolutionarY movement founded, on what...

Full Marx Rodney Milries When the English National Opera announced a new production of Salome for the London Coliseum, some doubts were expressed as to Whether it was strictly...

In season John Bridcut When you've seen one carol concert, you've seen them all. By Christmas there will have been more than twenty-five of these jolly occasions in central...

Advice to the Bank Nicholas Davenport The economic commentary of the Bank of England Bulletin is much more readable than that of the National Institute of Economic and Social...

Lord Ryder may be playing a deeper game than one gave him credit for. When he produced his original report on British Leyland, it was disappointing that although he proposed al'...

Charles Stahl The predictions I made in this column that in 1975 stock prices in the United States would move substantially higher and that the dollar would recover from its...

In praise of devolution Bernard Hollowood Homer said, "It looks as though Britain is cracking up." "You mean devolution?" said Cartwright. "Of course," said Homer. "After...