The Church giving moral guidance T he strike at Ford ended with the management withdrawing its insistence on a three-year pay and practices deal. Work- ers will now receive a...

EURO-BANG The actual deal on the Community budget and the CAP is of course a messy one. Yes, she conceded points that she had more or less adamantly declared . she would never...

SUBSCRIBE TODAY - Save 15% on the Cover Price! Please enter a subscription to The Spectator I enclose my cheque for £ (Equivalent SUS & Eurocheques accepted) RATES 12...

Battling it out on the playing fields of Eastbourne NOEL MALCOLM T he teaching of moral values, said Mr Baker at last weekend's Young Conserva- tive conference, is the most...

PETER LEVI B eing fussy about food can get you into trouble though. The noble Utopian Con- dorcet was recognised and promptly ex- ecuted in the French Revolution because he went...

The assumptions of the expanding Health Service 25 years ago have since been profoundly modified. J. Enoch Powell looks back on the surprises and achievements of his last...

Charles Glass on the PLO's unsuccessful attempt to hijack Israeli history Athens SOME day, an Israeli intelligence officer will write his memoirs. In them, he will recount his...

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard weighs up the importance of the snake factor in the presidential race Washington `YOU'VE voted for tax increases 600 times in your career. How can you...

James Buchan traces the strange collapse into bankruptcy of the Texaco oil company New York DOWN in Texas, as everybody knows, they do things big: high hats, tall women,...

Tony Paterson reports on the East German refusal to espouse glasnost Berlin EAST Germany is these days rather like a giant version of one of those workers' holiday camps...

Anthony Daniels runs into trouble in Honduras and Nicaragua I SHOULD like to write at some length of the situation in Honduras, but unfortu- nately the brevity of my...

Margaret's men: a profile of Jocelyn Stevens, newspaperman and rector of the RCA This is one of a series of profiles of men the Prime Minister admires. HOSTILE epithets can...

Myles Harris joins the non-stop demonstration outside South Africa House THE picket steward outside South Africa House wore two thin gold rings in each ear, and had the manner...

the new Guardian but finds it an ominous portent WE ARE now witnessing a hard-fought battle for readers among our five posh national dailies. By their standards a great deal of...

`SIR Kenneth Berrill: alarming level of complacency' was the caption, in the City pages this week, to a picture of the Securities and Investments Board's chair- man. This severe...

Somebody's got to be summonsed, And it was decided upon CHRI STOPHER FILD ES T he first John Ritblat knew of the Department of Trade and Industry's in- quiry into his share...

A DIRE report reaches me from Wall Street of a bond salesman in trouble sacked by his firm, wiped out on his personal dealings, sued by his wife, in- formed that his mistress...

FORD of Britain is reaching for reverse gear and backing away from the barri- cades, where its 32,500 employees have quite plainly faced the management down. Which was the last...

Sir: In his article on the Yugoslav province of Kosovo (Two-faced buzzards', 12 De- cember) Richard West makes it plain that he has walked into one of the most troubled...

Sir: In his letter (23 January) replying to mine on foetal development, Quentin Crewe accuses me of 'waffle', then waffles himself about calling me 'Ms' — though that is not my...

Sir: In 'Austria's Nixon' (23 January), Robert Rhodes James alleges that Kurt Waldheim is a war criminal and lied about his war record. Unfortunately prevarication was neces-...

Sir: The total frustration of CND's strategy against cruise missile deployment in Bri- tain has clearly taken its toll of Bruce Kent (Letters, 23 January). No one disputes his...

Sir: Your analysis of the present crisis in the Church of England (Leader, 12 December) is faulty, because it is based on a misunderstanding of the historical pro- cess which...

Sir: In reply to Mr Smith and Ms Nicholson (Letters, 23 and 30 January), of course a cause may be so loathsome that it should be denied PR. But then, it must have been at least...

Sir: What's so special about Chaim Ber- mant ('What the papers pay', 30 January) that he feels hard done by getting £21.95 for half an hour's cosy schmooze with a charming and...

Sir: I am writing with reference to Aube- ron Waugh's articles of 9 and 16 January. These disgraceful pieces not only con- tained a vindictive personal attack on Mr Peter...

should not grumble too much. In the summer of 1946 The Spectator published an article of mine about our troubled times in Palestine where I was stationed. For this, the then...

Sir: I'm glad that Mr Simon Courtauld (Diary, 9 January), has brought the busi- ness of British Rail adding 'Parkway' to some of its stations on the Western Region to the...

Sir: I am afraid that Christopher Fildes's reference-checker has let him down. (City and suburban, 16 January.) It was not Soapy Molloy who was the inefficient spitter, but his...

Quite wise during the events Richard Cobb PARIS NOTEBOOKS: ESSAYS AND REVIEWS by Mavis Gallant T here are a good many moments in modern French history that it would have been...

Anita Brookner YOU MUST REMEMBER THIS by Joyce Carol Oates Macmillan, £10.95 I f I had had my way I should have been re-reading Elizabeth Taylor's At Mrs Lip- pincote's, but...

Denis Hills POLITICAL TRIALS IN POLAND 1981-1986 by Andrzej Swidlicki Croom Helm, £25 A ndrzej Swidlicki, a journalist with Radio Free Europe in Munich, has written his book...

Francis King WHAT HETTY DID by J. L. Carr Quince Tree Press, £3.95 I t is easy and tempting to present J. L. Can as a gifted amateur. Now 72, he came to novel writing —...

Brian Martin WATCHING THE DETECTIVES by Andrew Brown Hodder & Stoughton, £10.95 T hank God for the police, and particu- larly the Metropolitan police. In the au- tumn of 1985...

Duncan Fallowell WILLIAM WALTON: BEHIND THE FACADE by Susana Walton OUP, £12.95 T his is a very surprising book. William Walton was a minor composer of engaging, derivative...

Patrick Skene Catling BURNING PATIENCE by Antonio Skarmeta, translated by Katherine Silver Methuen, f9.95 A ntonio Skarmeta is a passionate Chilean novelist and dramatist who...

John Zametica CHURCHILL'S WAR: VOLUME I: THE STRUGGLE FOR POWER by David Irving Veritas, f16.95 T he underlying theme of this book is that Churchill was a man Britain could...

I think I know where I am. A rumbling train shivers the ants in the grass, a branch shifts and groans, my cheek is creased by a rug of folded hills. I cannot make my eyes...

Photography Roger Fenton (Hayward Gallery, till 17 April) Master of light Francis Hodgson I f Roger Fenton's name is known at all outside the small coterie interested in...

Acts of sadism Rodney Milnes 0 pera 80 has for eight years been performing the valuable function of tour- ing fully staged and orchestrally accompa- nied performances to parts...

The Best of Friends (Apollo) Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Lyttelton) Doodles of a master Christopher Edwards H ugh Whitemore has put together a slight, at times rather twee...

RoboCop (`18', selected cinemas) Good clean violence Hilary Mantel I n the Detroit of Paul Verhoeven's black and gruesome comedy, the world news takes three minutes to read:...

Whistle while you rock Marcus Berkmann A perk of this pop punditry nonsense is that I now get to see as many live bands as I wish to, which luckily for my ears isn't that...

Degas (Grand Palais, Paris, till 16 May) Van Gogh in Paris (Musee d'Orsay, Paris, till 15 May) Paris remembered Giles Auty T his is a time of year when I often find myself in...

Love stories Wendy Cope 0 nce upon a time a young woman took a job in a sub-post office in the west of Ireland. She had only worked there for a few days when a young man...

Emperor of Slough Taki I hone for the fish-knives, Norman' is the only thing that comes to mind after three days and nights in the Big Olive. If Betjeman were here he would...

Misspent time Jeffrey Bernard T his is the sort of thing that comes through the letter-box: 'Dear Sir, I've been reading a few things of yours in The Spectator, not a lot but...

Colour problem Alice Thomas Ellis It was most invigorating to enjoy an evening out. And I met P. J. Kavanagh whom I hadn't seen since he was a little boy at his school in...

I CAN reveal what a splendid destination Cadiz makes for a weekend food outing without the slightest danger that hordes of Spectator readers will descend on it. It is massively...

Valentine Jaspistos I N Competition No. 1510 you were invited to write a Valentine of some sort in the form of a sonnet of some sort. `The connection of lovers with Valen-...

Prodigious Raymond Keene S o often future stars . definitively announce their presence by scoring a not- able result against the world champion in a simultaneous display, in...

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You are invited to produce a plausible piece of prose (maximum 150 words) in which the following non-existent words appear to mean something: dawlish, per- zundle, gradge,...

A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or, for UK solvers, a copy of Chambers Dictionary, value £13.95 — ring the words 'Chambers Dictionary' above) for the first...