ationalism There is no good reason why this country, in its handling of North Sea oil, should treat the multinational giants of the oil industry with a great deal more...

As we go to press the agriculture ministers of the EEC are locked in dispute on matters concerned with the functioning and purpose of the Common Agricultural Policy. The...

One of the advantages, from the point of view of international peace; of the colonels' regime in Greece has been that the dictators were strong enough to resist the temptation...

Battle is now seriously joined between the Secretary of State for Social Services and the medical profession. In desperation rather than as a result of any predetermined policy,...

The recent illness of Mr Chou En-Lai has emphasised how uncertain is our understanding of modern China, and of her new policy of openness towards the outside world. There is no...

Sir: With regard to Mr Douglas Jay's recent letter in reply to Mr Wistrich's comments on his article, may I, as a practising economist dealing with EEC matters, add some...

From Sir David Renton MP Sir: Dr Linklater's article, 'Every Granny a Wanted Granny' touches on half a dozen major subjects and he lays about him with gay abandon, mixing fact,...

Sir: Lord O'Neill's notes on Ulster may bewilder as much as they enlighten. True he began by recalling the familiar charges of discrimination against certain of his former...

Sir: Mr Wilson may know more about football than he does aboutpolitics; one Only hopes that The Spectator knows more about politics than about football. The eulogy accorded to...

Sir: I seem to have touched your theatrical critic, Mr Kenneth Hurren, on a raw nerve some two years ago when I wrote to The Spectator welcoming his bad review of my play Don't...

Sir: No doubt there are still plenty of people like Mr Chowdharay-Best who will go burbling on about what St Paul and other heroes of ancient and sacred texts are alleged to...

Sir: Dr Margaret White, that staunch pillar of the Mothers' Union, asks me for yet more statistical evidence of Catholic wickedness. I never like to refuse a lady! As recently...

rates" prompted H. L. Edwards (July 6) to make light of it all, including 90,000 women from abroad, 1970 to 1972. My letter (December 8, 1973) made clear how the spiritual...

Sir: Over many years and through successive governments of both parties, single people have been made to bear an unfair share of the tax burden. I most willingly pay my taxes...

Telling the truth about inflation Patrick Cosgrave In a democratic society it is above all difficult for a politician, even one of courage and honour, to tell the truth,...

Havin g to do TV at Stratford-upon-Avon for a film later on, while han g in g about the church, churchyard, g rammar school and birthplace, this miserable summer, cold and wet,...

Weaknesses and alternatives A Senior Officer The Spectator has recently published informed and authoritative articles on the present direction and disposition of Britain's...

(with apologies to A. A. Milne) Hush! Hush! Let nobody stare; Christopher Mayhew is saying a prayer: "Oh Jeremy, bless you. Pray let me become Another disciple. I promise I'll...

The West in disarray Gerald Segal Brussels Disarray seems the most apt word to describe the current state of the western world — whether viewed through the larger framework of...

Charles Fletcher-Cooke My dear Enoch, In your Norwich speech you again recommend the Labour Party to the voters at the forthcoming general election. You argue that the first...

Nothing but tears John Peyton, MP If you go on peeling an onion for long enough you will be left eventually with nothing — except tears. If we in this country continue...

David W. Wragg In these difficult times, one might be excused for considering a 121/2 per cent increase in railway fares and the promise of a further £1,500 million from the...

Kuldip Nayar The dingy, dilapidated Press Club in Dacca is one place in Bangladesh where everyone is free to have his say. Here newspapermen discuss frankly what they cannot...

It had been my intention, at the request of many readers, to examine the implications for the Whigs of the defection to their ranks of Mr Christopher Mayhew from Woolwich. As 1...

When private eyes are blind lain Scarlet "There are times when it's part of my job to be seen about and recognised for what I am," said the house detective to whom last week I...

Red-pencilled Bernard Dixon Had you been a Russian scientist, browsing in the library through a recent issue of New Scientist, you would have ,found something substantially...

Peter the Rock Martin Sullivan That saintly blunderbuss, Peter, has just been honoured in the Christian calendar. It must mystify him, as he looks at the worship and honour...

That's no lady, that's a trap Sex is a dangerous game, as a number of public men have found to their cost. It's especially dangerous when mixed with espionage, and we all know...

A page is a page Philip Kleinman The future of the press and broadcasting — the media as everyone now calls them, without stopping to think why — is a subject of universal...

Jacarandas Denis Wood When I went with members of the Garden History Society to Spain in the early part of June we spent a day looking at gardens near Marbella before going on...

Pie in the sky Pamela Vandyke Price One form Qf temporary relief from self-perpetuating ills (such as politicians pursuing their careers while the rest of us burn, the English...

"I think," observed Hitler in 1944, "it's pretty obvious that this war is no pleasure for me. For five years I have been separated from the rest of the world. I haven't been to...

Simon Raven Arnold Bennett Margaret Drabble (Weidenfeld and Nicolson E4.95) "I believe," Arnold Bennett once asserted, "I could fart sensational fiction." It is this kind of...

THE PROTESTANT BISHOP by Edward Carpenter (Longman 1956). The Bishop of London, 19 Cowley St., London SW1P 3LZ. THE GREAT PHILOSOPHERS by Karl Jaspers. A. Fullbrook. Tel.:...

Praful Patel Genera) Amin David Martin (Faber and Faber £3.50) To many Britons, General Idi Amin is a funny fellow, a bit of a character whose crazy public utterances about the...

Norman St John-Stevas C. S. Lewis: A Biography Roger Lancelyn Green and Walter Hooper (Collins £3.50) C. S. Lewis was the sort of man who presents almost insoluble problems to...

Colin Wilson Obedience to Authority, Stanley Milgram (Tavistock £2.50) In 1958, Dr Paul J. Reiter of the University of feepidnhagen produced a book called Antisocial or...

Peter Ackroyd Chimera John Barth (Andre Deutsch £2.75) The Voice of the Crab Geraldine Halls (Constable £2.75) There is nothing particularly ignoble in a novelist being...

Work in Progress Benny Green If there is anything more pathetic than a completed novel which remains.unpublished, it is a Published novel which remans uncompleted. In one way...

P art of where the hand ties has an instigation of minerals, vapors and popish substances There is the head Whose variousness contains calm like sand and the profile resembles...

Bookend Saxon House is a newish general publishing imprint owned by the American-backed firm of D. C. Heath. They launched themselves last year with a party On the River Thames...

a catamite among the pigeons Bloomsbury by Peter Luke (Phoenix Theatre) The Marriage of Figaro by Beaumarchais, translated by John Wells; National Theatre Company (Old Vic) The...

Ever since Eden Gill Pyrah There is an old story that the first thing Eve did when Adam came home at night was count his ribs, and ever since Eden writers have been...

Are you sitting comfortably? Duncan FaHowell The Conversation Director: Francis Ford Coppola. Star: Gene Hackman. AA' Universal, Regent Street (114 minutes) The Nun And The...

Old style Clive Gammon "Tommy is driving his battered car along a deserted road when he is suddenly waved down by a damsel in distress. . ." The words do not evoke confidence,...

Cheltenham Festival Rodney Milnes No doubt about it, Cheltenham is is a four-star festival town. Less severe than Bath in its architectural beauty, more cheerful, with its...

There is plainly a need for some sort of central subject register in the film business — for even the unlikeliest subjects, once in the public domairt, are apt to be taken up...

Nicholas Davenport The pronouncements of government ministers on the economic front seem to be getting more and more irrelevant and absurd. Mr Joel Barnett, Chief Secretary at...

How to make money from the crash There has been a book published in the United States with a title something like How to Make Money From the Crash, and it has headed the...