Income tax is clearly one of the issues in this election. Equally obviously, it is an issue which favours the Conservatives. They can promise — they have promised — to cut...

What do the voters want? Ferdinand Mount At about this stage, you may be wanting to know why this is the most important General Election since the second world war. Or you may...

The great election battle between Callaghan the 'crusader' and Thatcher the 'conviction Politician' has so far failed to generate the anticipated excitement. But there is, of...

Richard West Salisbury Sir Richard Burton, who did not like the place, said that 'out of Africa only madness comes'. But this week's ZimbabweRhodesia election proves that the...

Nicholas von Hoffman Washington Africa has been insisting on intruding itself onto the national consciousness just when nobody wants to pay it any attention. The overthrow of...

David Levy Calgary, Alberta At the very moment in which Pierre Trudeau called a federal election last month he promised that a Liberal victory would guarantee not that Quebec...

The world has taken a profound interest during the last week in the action for libel brought by a lady's maid, Jane Jones, against the Duchess of Westminster, for writing, in...

Desmond Stewart Cairo What decided President Sadat to reconsult his electorate on 19 April has not been satisfactorily explained. The referendum, it is true, has become as much...

Sam White Paris Of the many dilemmas which continue to plague the French socialist leader M. Mitterrand, there is a fundamental one which he resolved at the recent party...

Patrick Cosgrave It is now clear beyond question that the main thrust of the Conservative election Campaign is the twin undertaking to bring down inflation, principally by...

Neil Sinclair Down in the sleepy south-west, political voyeurs head for north Devon. Whatever happens in north Devon is fascinating. In ITN's election briefing to stations it...

Peter Ackroyd It is strange how the most important concepts are often the easiest to dismiss. Poverty is said to be 'relative' — implying that it can be neglected in order to...

Richard West The financier Augustus Melmotte, the central character in The Way We Live Now, is described by Trollope himself as a 'horrid, big, rich scoundrel'. There are...

My election address Nicholas Davenport Fellow-workers in the City, you will have read the Labour manifesto and will rejoice to see that the Stock Exchange is not yet being...

Sir: A small point in the reply to Patrick Maniham's review of my book on the press. I do not 'absolve the union of any blame for losses, stoppages and quality of the national...

Sir: I can help to bear otit Alan Watkins (7 April) on the subject of Dick Crossman and the truth. On one occasion when he was Lord President of the Council he invited me to his...

Sir: Your correspondent Mrs N. Silkin (Letters, 7 April) should get her facts right. The area of Mandatory Palestine (on both sides of the Jordan) was 43,073 square miles. The...

Sir: In his column published on 7 April, Your television critic, Richard Ingrams, made the outrageous implication that Ronald Harwood deliberately arranged for the latest...

dated 7 April Richard Ingrams made Certain allegations about Ronald Harwood concerning two of the television Programmes which he has recently presented. We now recognise that...

Auberon Waugh Suffer the Children Sunday Times Insight Team (Deutsch £5.95) Any kind of self-regard in the thalidomide story would be an impertinence', writes Harold Evans in...

Geoffrey Marshall The Police in Society Ben Whitaker (tyre Methuen £9.95) I lcingthePolice(Vol.1) Ed. Peter Hain, uerek Humphry and Brian Rosesmith (John Calder £6.95) 80 0ks...

Anthony Storr Beast and Man: The Roots of Human Nature Mary Midgley (Harvester £7.50) Mary Midgley is a professional philosopher who teaches at Newcastle University. Although...

Raymond Carr The Discovery of South America J. H. Parry (Elek £12.95) Landing men on the moon was a less e xcit . ing and disturbing event for the European imagination than the...

David Benson The Medieval Underworld Andrew McCall (I-tarnish Hamilton £7.50) Andrew McCall sets out to 'consider the fate of those who were either unwilling or unable to...

Alistair Horne Holy Russia Fitzroy Maclean (Weidenfeld E7.95) When Gibbon wrote that History was 'little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of...

Paul Ableman Only Children Alison Lurie (Heinemann £4.95) This is a story told in two kinds of baby-talk and one kind of grown-up talk. Mary-Ann's kind of baby-talk goes like...

Bad joke on Wagner Rodney Manes Parsifal (Covent Garden) Lulu (BBQ 2) That the Royal Opera's new Parsifal is a fiasco is not in itself important. Anyone can make mistakes, but...

Small guignol Benny Green Chicago Cam bridge Theatre The peculiar process by which Chicago has finally arrived in that 18th-century backwater of musical comedy the West End of...

Golden hearts Ted Whitehead Madame Rosa (Screen on the Hill) Whether `Momo' is a familiar abbreviation of 'Mohammed' to the Arabs I can't say, but it exactly suggests the tone...

Hard Chardin John McEwen The great Chardin retrospective ends in Paris on 29 April (Grand Palais, closed Tuesdays). All his most famous works are included, with the exception...

Appeasement Richard ingrams The BBC having made an ass of itself by axeing an old Mike Yarwood skit on Mrs Thatcher, the IBA has now got egg on its face as a result of the ban...

Ruined city Taki Athens The birthplace of democracy is in decline from noise, pollution and heavy traffic. In fact, it is now acknowledged that Athens is an endangered city....

Self-styled Jeffrey Bernard It gives me great pleasure to be able to tell you, just in case you didn't spot it in the national press, that England has once again thrown up a...

Stargazing Geoffrey Wheatcroft I don't know what you had for dinner on Easter Day, but this is what I had. First, a little dish of foie gras de canard poele, the consistency...