'Darlings! You were divine!' M r Edward Heath launched a stinging personal attack on the Prime Minister accusing her of 'misleading the public' over the forthcoming elections...

Telephone 01-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 242 0603 REASONING THE NEED L ast week Mr John Moore, the Social Services Secretary, said that 'it is hard to believe that poverty...

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Fission and fusion in the Tory test-tube NOEL MALCOLM `E urope: Tory split grows', said the banner headline in the Daily Mail. An eye-catching headline, if only because there...

CHARLES MOO . RE A sad feature of the ten years of Mrs Thatcher, and one naturally not com- mented on by the papers in their vast coverage of the occasion, has been the attitude...

month.

Charles Glass meets refugees from the oppressive regime of Iraq Qamishli, north Syria WHEN we arrived in the village, the old men invited us into one of the houses to sit and...

Richard West on the wild ideas that fire hatred between Serbs and Albanians Pristina KOSOVO is a sadder and grimmer place since I was last here 18 months ago (`The Battle of...

the 300-year-old history of Sino-Russian relations MIKHAIL Gorbachev's trip to Peking is auspiciously timed. 300 years ago this summer Russian and Chinese envoys put UP their...

Michael Heath

Michael Trend rues Britain's refusal to join a European language scheme THE European Communities Lingua Programme has everything that should recommend it to the most ardent...

LONDON was half-shocked and half- amused on Monday by a police raid on two gambling-clubs, the Field and the Ade1phi. Moved, it is said, by the prayers of the ladies of two...

John Biffen relives the Commons debate on the Profumo affair IT WAS in the state of qualified innocence normal in a MP of only two years' standing that I began to hear whispers...

Sousa Jamba meets the High Priestess of Buckinghamshire amid her totemic statues BRITAIN'S first school of witchcraft was opened on 8 May in Milton Keynes. Its owner and...

Roy Kerridge takes the Tube to Upminster FORTY years ago, as a small boy, I was taken on family outings to London on the Bakerloo Line, which passed our suburban home. I...

The press: Paul Johnson thinks failed litigants should not be mocked HOW strong are readers' stomachs? No editor is ever sure of the answer. Several got themselves into...

A particularly uncomfortable moment for ripeness JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE 0 ne of the shocks that await the returning traveller is to find that the world has gone on much the same...

No port in a storm as ministers sink the National Dons Labour Board CHRISTOPHER FILDES L ights burn late in Otium House, as the leaders of a proud community ponder the threat...

Limelight Sir: Your leading article on the Royal Shakespeare Company (22 April) is very misleading. Terry Hands has announced his resignation from the company and he will leave...

Sir: Re `Ceausescu's memorial' (15 April). Who the hell is the president of Canada? RSVP. S. V. Gunstad 445 Averill Crescent, London, Ontario, Canada

Sir: I suppose that the review of my Friends and Contemporaries by my earlier protege , Raymond Carr (Books, 22 April) was not unkindly meant. (To explain, for the re - cord: he...

Sir: The use of poetic licence clearly extends beyond quotations from Words- worth in Alexandra Artley's article, 'Going from rad to worse' (6 May). Much of it is nothing more...

Sir: As an appreciative new Spectator reader (generous sister's birthday present) I send the following vignette, circa 1892. I am re-reading my long-ago friend Dame Katherine...

Sir: May I claim the right of reply to Paul Johnson's gratuitous `rubbishing' of copy- takers in his article on the new technology (The press, 6 May)? Copytakers as a body of...

Sir: Auberon Waugh 'lurching' in Chan - cery Lane (Another voice, 22 April). Shurely shome mishtake. Richard Stephenson 2 Dittons Park Road, Langley, Slough, Buckinghamshire

Sir: One of the several pleasures to be found in visiting ruined abbeys and castles, is that of seeing the usually carefully cut and occasionally embellished graffiti left by...

Sir: I have been commissioned by Hamish Hamilton and Simon and Schuster to write a book on D. H. Lawrence — the man, the marriage and the social impact. I would be grateful to...

Sir: Every time I cross Hyde Park Corner on foot I am affronted by a biblical text so offensively inappropriate that one can comprehend neither its choice, even 60 years ago,...

Sir: Would you please note that Peter Phillips' article about music colleges (8 April) is inaccurate in the following re- spects: 1. Allegations of 'strife' at the Royal Academy...

R APHAEL SAMUEL SPITALFIELDS, when I first came to live here in 1962, seemed to be caught in a time Warp. The district had miraculously escaped the war-time bombing, perhaps...

Georgian Suburb, a tenth anniversary volume of the Spitalfields Trust, with papers by Dan Cruikshank , Mark Girouard and others (£12.95 from the Spitalfields Trust, 27 Fournier...

The style is not the whole man Peter Levi WHAT AM I DOING HERE? by Bruce Chatwin Cape, £12.95, pp.367 W hen Bruce died the sky fell in for his friends, but a short time...

John McEwen THE MEMOIRS OF ELIZABETH VIGEE-LE BRUN translated by Sian Evans Camden Press, £15.95, pp.368 E lizabeth Vigee-Le Brun (1755-1842) is the most famous pre-20th...

(a sonnet) The poise of time. The history of speech. Articulation. Subject brought to heel The poem is filled and animated, rich With hints and hopes, with how you wish, to...

Francis King I SERVED THE KING OF ENGLAND by Bohumil Hrabal Chatto & Windus, f12.95, pp.241 A t first the hero and narrator of this Czech novel seems to be the cousin- german...

Frances Partridge JIGSAW: AN UNSENTIMENTAL EDUCATION A BIOGRAPHICAL NOVEL by Sybille Bedford Hamish Hamilton, f12.95, pp. 352 B illi, the heroine of Sybille Bedford's new book,...

Michael Wharton THE LIVES OF ENOCH POWELL by Patrick Cosgrave The Bodley Head, £16, pp.518 I have heard people ask: what makes Old Enoch tick? The question, as well as being...

Fiction: The Beginning of Spring by Penelope Fitzgerald, Flamingo, £3.95 Sea Music by David Profumo, Sceptre, £3.99 The Underbelly by Duncan Fallowell, Pala- din, £4.50 The...

John Jolliffe CHARLES WATERTON by Julia Blackburn The Bodley Head, fI6, pp.243 C harles Waterton (1782-1865) came from one of those Catholic families which had been cut off...

Theirs now for sure this Royal place, Its turdy walks and all The Ceanothuses that grace A high enclosing wall. Now these, amid a lesser throng, Imprinted, two by two, Like...

Sale-rooms Yesterday's pictures I n 1781 Gavin Hamilton bought Leonar- do da Vinci's 'The Virgin of the Rocks' from the monks of the Conception Brotherhood in Milan for £15....

Triforium Gallery (The Cathedral, Winchester) Magnificent fragments Celina Fox T here was a telling juxtaposition of photographs in the recent retrospective held at the RIBA...

Tanya Harrod o one has better described the horror of contemporary church monuments than Laurence Whistler: `the squat gravestones With modernistic touches like hotel bed-...

Paying for Van Gogh's ear Giles Auty T he best treatment for jet lag', a smart (art) dealer counsels me, 'is a line of coke.' We are in New York, city of frenzied energy, at a...

Harriet Frazer, Snape Priory, Snape, Suffolk 1P17 1SA.

Housing the Airship (Architectural Association, till 27 May) Cathedrals of the air Gavin Stamp W hen travelling through Bedford- shire, by train out of St Pancras, two...

The Navigator (`PG', Gate Notting Hill) Fatal vision Hilary Mantel rian Barbara Tuchman, sees the 14th cen- tury as particularly calamitous; he has set his extraordinary...

Much Ado About Nothing (Strand) Corlolanus (Young Vic) Relentless sunshine Christopher Edwards h is very enjoyable production, starring Alan Bates as Benedick and Felicity...

Finders keepers Ursula Buchan R evolutions are rarely recognised as such, at least in the beginning. It is only later, with hindsight, that men can discern a pattern. Who...

Border incident Peter Phillips The present Australian team is not well known to English fans. Border, Alderman, Boon, Lawson and Steve Waugh are famil- iar to us from Test and...

Back to front Wendy Cope T he breakfast television habit seems to have stuck. Most of my weekdays now begin with The Channel Four Daily — just for a quarter of an hour or so....

Days of gin and Renoir Taki I never frequent auction houses nowa - days, not that I was ever the stage-door Johnny type who hangs around and sali- vates while overvalued works...

Beasts of the field Jeffrey Bernard We ather permitting, I shall take a river boat to either Greenwich or Kew this Saturday to avoid the FA Cup crowds from Everton and...

Hotfoot into spring Alice Thomas Ellis B irds in the bedroom, bunnies burrow- ing under the barn: spring is here. I watched with approval the swooping of the swallows until...

A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or, for UK solvers, a copy of Chambers En g lish Dictionary — rin g the word `Dictionary') for the first three correct...

Young talent Raymond Keene L ast year the inaugural Watson Farley Williams Grandmaster tournament proved an outstanding opportunity for identifying talented British...

Duet Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1574 you were asked for a song to be sung by any couple who are household names. Some of you kindly specified the tune, and two of you,...

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e ? 41...4 0 "LalO gt k...."*...10 4 L—fik*.e"mWw.—. 01 I HAVE become obsessed recently with the Cana (wedding at) problem; good wine first then bad or bad first then good? The...

golf the day the Germans landed' was put to me recent- ly by my friend Patrick Skene Catling. Did I know its source? I didn't. It struck me, though, that it would make an...