The idea that there should be a charter for the British Press was born during the heated debates in the House of Lords on the Government's closed shop legislation as it applied...

It was a week in which everything got worse. As thousands of women. in Belfast demonstrated for peace, another child was killed, this time in cross-fire between the Army and the...

Tryst with despotism? John Grigg On 14 August I947—twenty-nine years ago last Saturday—Jawaharlal Nehru made the Speech of his life. Addressing the Indian constituent assembly...

More than 370 broken or missing light bulbs; 130 broken or missing lamp shades; nine fire extinguishers stolen; six windows smashed; a door ripped off. That was part— but not...

Temptation of St Auberon Auberon Waugh It was a strange and rather horrible experie nce for a retiring man like myself to return irom a week's holiday in Venice with his wife...

Nicholas von Hoffman Washington Upon overhearing the Chairman of the Pennsylvania delegation to the Republican National Convention complain that their hotel was a hundred miles...

Richard West A n evening newspaper last week carried the front page headline: 'South Africa. KR UER SAYS WE HOLD IT'. That was :! a mes Kruger, the Minister of Police, speakfig...

H. Montgomery Hyde I first went to Tunisia (when I was an MP) almost twenty years ago. It was a few months after France had granted independence to the country, which had been...

A. L. Rowse What a library of books has grown up about °xford—not only academic work but novels, aut obiographies, poems. At the University a Claremont in California there is a...

Jane A. Wight The Spectator now occupies a distinguished terrace house in Doughty Street. Buildings here date from the turn of the eighteenth century. Their frontages are...

Andrew Alexander One of the odder ironies of socialism in practice is that it manages to make the rich relatively (and sometimes absolutely) richer than ever before. Above all...

Peter Kirk It is a truth universally acknowledged that Members of Parliament are seldom less harmfully employed than when they are out of the country. Whether it be a...

Jack Harkness A new hazard awaits those visitors who have learned of old in many houses how to dodge Photograph albums, the screening of slides and the history of the family...

Dick Balfour 'Brighten Britain with Roses' is the slogan of 'The Year of the Rose', which marks the centenary of the Royal National Rose Society and the theme is 'Plant them,...

Champagne Jeffrey Bernard A day at the races can be nearly made or broken by the race train. When I first started going to the more distant courses from London some ten years...

Sir: As an Anglican with many Roman Catholic friends, and also as one inured to Auberon Waugh's style of writing, 1 aril astonished at his language about the Pope. to whom he...

and clearlY misleading attacks upon his Holiness Pone Paul VI. Despite your writer's ramblings. Archbishop Lefebvre was suspended from all his duties a divinis, on the...

(Ley ters. 14 August) runs away with his logic. I .?, my review of R. W. Thompson's Church'," and Morton (31 July) I said that Britain s leaders, including Churchill, went to...

7 .11 answer to H. G. Alexander (Letters, tio 'ullust) there have indeed been two edic o ns of Edward Bond's libretto for We w i ne' to the River. The first, to which he k i e...

Sir: It is difficult to understand the contradiction inherent, in statements by proMarketeers like John Grigg who at one and the same time call for 'closer political union in...

P. Snow's article in the Spectator of 24 July about the Bulgarian atrocities of the 1870s. It seems to me to contain some very peculiar history which should be corrected. What...

What is the significance of that illustration on page 25 of your 31 July issue? It shows a cat trying to get at a fish in a goldfish bowl. Fair enough. Cats do sometimes do...

The great technologist Jonathan Benthall Jules Verne: A Biography Jean JulesVerne, translated and adapted by Roger Greaves (Macdonald and Jane's E6.50) Most educated...

Denis Donoghue Last Essays T. 25.50) R. Henn (Cohn Smythe Sean O'Casey and His World David Krause (Thames and Hudson £3.50) Cin 6 October, 1970, one of Ireland's big houses...

George Gale A History of Christianity Paul Johnson (Weidenfeld and Nhcolson £7.00) One of the central difficulties about Christianity is its claim to be an historical religion:...

Nick Totton A View from Calvary and Other Stories Patrick Boyle (Victor Gollancz £4.25) Details of a Sunset and Other Stories Vladimir Nabokov (Weidenfeld and Nicolson £4.50)...

THE DESERT SONG. Nelson Eddy Recordtno sought to replace utteily worn out favourite. Please write John Northover 14a, Finchley Road, NW8 or telephone (evenings) 01-722 2978....

Benny Green What Is This Thing Called Sleep ? Jack Bradley Hoskisson (Davis-Poynter £4.50) About ten years ago I began paying visits to one J. Bradley Hoskisson, an osteopath...

Patrick Cosg rave The other day Hutchinson gave a very pleasant lunch for one of their authors, the crime novelist Ruth Rendell. The occasion was the publication in Arrow...

John Terraine Douglas Haig E.K.G. Sixsmith (Weidenfeld and Nicolson £5.95) There is no more controversial name than Haig in British military history—a fact that tells us more...

Peter Conrad Marxism and Literary Criticism Terry Eagleton (Methuen £2.50) Radical chic has lately transferred itself from the boutiques to the academies. What began as a...

Joy in movement Michael Church How important is the colour of a dancer's skin ? Here in London there are some who wish the Dance Theatre of Harlem would forget their blackness...

Co-operative Jan Murray On hearing the board's decision to disband the Welsh Dance Theatre for lack of financial and administrative resources'. seven of the company's ten...

Comeback Kenneth Hurren T. Zee (Royal Court) The Seagull.(Duke of York's) The Sunday Tunes announced the other week that its new drama critic was to be Bernard Levin, thus...

English music John Bridcut When Handel first heard that sinuous instrument, the serpent, he was perhaps a little churlish to observe, 'That was not the serpent that tempted...

Richard Ingrams I have been able to supplement my income this week not only by writing about television in the Spectator, but also by appearing on the BBC programme The...