No one would suppose, from the almost hysterical reaction to President Nixon's television broadcast on Sunday, that his economic measures are good news. Their possible...

but things are reaching flashpoint in our hospitals. Before the end of this week he will find a letter on his desk from the chairman of the 4,000 strong Junior Hospital Doctors'...

Let us a I spare a thought for the crusty seadog who paces the quarter deck of Number Ten or lies abaft the mast of Morning Cloud. It is the month of August when all good...

Corn-treading 'A CONSERVATIVE' It is difficult to take seriously the leading article in last week's Spectator in which it was suggested that the imposition of direct rule in...

We stated in last week's issue that words used by Mr Tony Palmer in his account of the Oz Trial published in the Spectator dated July 31 could have been taken to refer to a...

No entry NORMAN FOWLER, MP The police have always been funny about graduates. Even in those sadly far-off days when the big firms were queueing up to hire men with degrees the...

Nursing troubles JOHN ROWAN WILSON Without attracting much public attention, an alarming development has been taking place in British hospitals over the last twelve months....

Princess Anne and the facts of life TONY PALMER Has Princess Anne had sex? It's not a question which you will have found much asked over the past few days, in spite of the...

Catholics against the Vatican CHARLES GOODHART The choice facing many otherwise more or less loyal Roman Catholics is indeed now an agonizing one—whether or not to go on using...

Oh to be in England ! NIGEL BUXTON " There are lies, damn lies and. " But instead of the more famous 'statistics ' to complete the quotation one is tempted to substitute "the...

One of the Wireless set GILLIAN FREEMAN I try not to date myself, but once or twice I've slipped up and said 'wireless' by mistake. If I'd said ' wireless ' to the...

Patrick Cosgrave on Great War diplomacy In war, Sir Edward Grey wrote in his memoirs, 'The part of a civilian government is to see that . . . the chief commands are filled by...

Periclean Athens C. M. Bowra (Weidenfeld and Nicolson £2.50) Armada From Athens: The Failure of the Sicilian Expedition, 415-413 BC. Peter Green £3.15). Sadly the English...

Bound Upon a Course John Stewart Collis (Sidgwick and Jackson £2.75) Pilgrim Son John Masters (Michael Joseph £2.50) Young in the Twenties Ethel Mannin (Hutchinson £2.00) My...

A Working Life Polly Toynbee (Hodder and Stoughton £2.00) At first sight, this book seems to be the work of a starry-eyed idealist and to contain a wad of heart-rending social...

Tolstoy Lives in I2N B9. Eric Geen (Weidenfeld and Nicolson 0.75) Mr Geen's novel arrived with one of the most fulsome recommendations I have ever read from his or any other...

During the last ten years the literary agent has come to play an increasingly prominent part in the affairs of the book trade. It used to be the case that a wellestablished...

And then there were six . . . . CHRISTOPHER HUDSON The other day someone remarked to me that there is currently a better selection of films in London cinemas than there has...

The valet of the dolls KENNETH HURREN Partly because of an incorrigibly benign disposition, and partly because of a reluctance to abuse your patience with a further assault on...

Loh comedy RODNEY MILNES Critical superlatives are meaningless at either end of the spectrum, but I have been racking my brains to think of an opera production more...

Kids and porno EVAN ANTHONY I'm a compulsively gregarious reviewer: I tend to want to talk to artists. Which brings me face to face, dismayingly often, with a creativity gap....

It was announced last week that Peter Hail would direct a musical about Henry VIII called Great Harry for impresario Bernard Delfont. The news is probanly reliable — but would...

FESTIVALS Edinburgh: the 25th Edinburgh International Festival opens on Sunday, August 22, with the Scottish National Orchestra (with Yehudi Menuhin, John Shirley, Quirk and...

Sir: With respect, in contending that the Stormont government has failed, and there must now be direct rule from Westminster in Ulster, 1 you place yourself, or perhape I should...

Sir: If we accept the Press Council's ruling that no reviews of boks should appear before the technical 'day of publication' it follows that publishers, no less than editors,...

Sir: I have greatly enjoyed F. R. Mackenzie's prizewinning essay (July 17) although for one whose language is Hebrew it has two serious faults: It is all true and it is not...

Sir: I must protest at a reference to " regular crime reporters coughed and spluttered their beersodden way through a summer's day," etc in a recent article by Tony Palmer. For...

Sir: I really must write and express how shocked I am by your advertisement 'Six Arguments Against Abortion.' I have no doubt that the sponsors of this advertisement are sincere...

Sir: I wonder whether you would kindly allow a long established subscriber, who is, indeed, a mere layman, to make some observations on the Thomas Gray article (July 31) and in...

Sir: It is not for scientific spin-offs that Americans are proud to have sent men to the moon, as Captain Bean allowed. And it is not for pure scientific knowledge, as Prof...

Judge Argyle, "while it appears to be listening is in fact deaf." The entire apostasy of the editor of Oz is here; the claim at all of twentynine to speak for ' his '...

Sir: On the day when Kenneth Hurren's review of a stage Hamlet and a television Hamlet appeared in The Spectator we at the BBC were putting the finishing touches to yet another...

Sir: We are jointly engaged as editor and illustrator in compiling a collection of Nanny sayings: e.g. "Leave a bit for Mr. Manners" "Nothing comes off but buttons." We would be...

The currency shemozzle NICHOLAS DAVENPORT We return to a continuation of the old, old crisis — the breakdown of the international monetary system devised at Bretton Woods...

I came across Dou g las Bunn once. He's a farmer who made some money with one of those caravan sites on the south coast then g ot in with the pony club set by startin g the...

Return visits often produce unforeseen impressions. I have just spent a few days in the Pennines, the mountains of northern England which formed the landscape of my boyhood. To...

Sometimes I catch people looking pityingly at me, as if they would say, "Poor thing, she has put on weight, and how trivial her life must be, obsessed as she is with food and...