of mass communi- cation the people of the United States have become accustomed to being ruled by men who have appeared to take them into their confidence. President Nixon, so...

As we go to press, Britain's steel industry and the country's second-largest motor manufacturer each face the imminent threat of immensely damaging industrial action. And both...

Traffic was blocked for a few hours on the autobahns through East Germany to Berlin, where the West German Federal elections are being held, while NATO strategists began ex-...

POLITICAL COMMENTARY AUBERON WAUGH Belfast—Blandly as one may generalise about the usefulness of recognising woods from trees, no visitor to this province can really hope to...

DEFENCE WHITE PAPER LAURENCE MARTIN It is less than two years since a Defence White Paper boldly asserted that the process of review- ing British defence policy was over and...

AMERICA MURRAY KEMPTON New York — Mayor Lindsay has had one of those disastrous years inescapable for any politician condemned to share the disasters of the ordinary life of...

GERMANY JOSEPH CHAPMAN Bonn — Temporarily and fortuitously, the tide is running well for Anglo-German relations. Mr Wilson recognised this immediately upon his arrival in Bonn...

INDIA KULDIP NAYAR New Delhi—Against the backdrop of agitation across the border in Pakistan for the restora- tion of parliamentary democracy, the fact that an electorate of...

STUDENTS DAVID MARTIN Dr Martin is a Reader in the Department of Sociology at the LSE. 'And we said to them, "Come. Come, with no specification, come." And they came. From...

From the 'Spectator', 20 February 1869—The first Householder Parliament was opened on Tuesday, the 16th inst., in a speech read by the Lord Chan- cellor, which is analyzed in...

J. W. M. THOMPSON A couple of months ago Roy Strong predicted that 'the public will probably shy away from this show' in his SPECTATOR notice of the current Winter Exhibition,...

PERSONAL COLUMN ANTONY JAY Regionalism, administrative reorganisation, constitutional reform: they are all in the air at the moment, and the air is a lot fresher for it. But...

THE LAW R. A. CLINE Until the gates of the London School of Economics had come to assume all the sym- bolism of the Mandelbaum gate, and the edu- cational authorities had...

CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS Through streets broad and narrow Sir Gerald Nabarro Cries 'Jenkins, up Jenkins, alive—alive—o' Though he certainly hinted The forms had been printed It seems...

THE PRESS BILL GRUNDY Robert Pitman, weekly columnist of the Daily Express and book reviewer for its Sunday stablemate, was buried last Tuesday. He was forty-four. first met...

TABLE TALK DENIS BROGAN A few weeks ago, I bought Kingsley Martin's life of Harold Laski. I had thought that I had read it when it came out, but I hadn't and I found it very...

TONY TANNER In 1908 Henry James published a story called The Jolly Corner which describes an Ameri- can's reactions on returning to his homeland after a long interval spent in...

ROBERT BIRLEY In 1815, when the map of Europe was redrawn at the Congress of Vienna, it was decided to hand over to Prussia what is often referred to as the Rhineland. The...

M. LLEWELLYN SMITH The Chanak Affair David Walder (Hutchin- son 50s) in September 1922, when the Greek army of occupation had been expelled from Asia Minor and the city of...

PATRICK ANDERSON A Clip of Steel Thomas Blackburn (Mac- Gibbon and Kee 25s) Mr Thomas Blackburn was the victim of a nightmarish upbringing in clerical circum- stances...

Anti-planner RUSSELL LEWIS Central Planning for the Market Economy Vera Lutz (Longmans 50s) Hell knows no fury like a planner scorned. The publication of Dr Vera Lutz's book...

Artless dodgers HENRY TUBE Morning, Noon and Night James Gould Coz- zens (Longmans 30s) The Sophomore Barry Spacks (Collins 21s) Cosmicomics Italo Calvin° translated by...

CHARLES CURRAN When manual workers become well-off, does their prosperity change their politics? Are they less likely to vote Labour than they were before? According to this...

Foreign affairs PETER PARLEY The Salzburg Connection Helen MacInnes (Collins 30s) The Tremor of Forgery Patricia Highsmith (Heinemann 30s) A Pride of Heroes Peter Dickinson...

BRYAN ROBERTSON The imaginative identity behind the work of the Belgian surrealist painter Rene Magritte, so exact, so consistent, has always brought to mind, in relation to...

mica AEL NYMAN British electronic music had its annual open day at the Queen Elizabeth Hall last week. There were a dozen or so pieces, both live and taped, mostly by unknown...

Our island story PENELOPE HOUSTON The Shame (Academy Two, 'X') The Night of the Following Day (Odeon, St Martin's Lane, 'X') Innocence Unprotected (New Cinema Club, Nash...

THEATRE Wood if he could HILARY SPURLING 11' or Monologues in Front of Burning Cities (Old Vic) The Boys in the Band (Wyndham's) Charles Wood's at the National Theatre is...

PORTFOLIO it JOHN BULL British Petroleum, after all, is not going to be allowed to buy $300 million of petrol stations in the United States from two merging com- panies,...

NICHOLAS DAVENPORT When he was in the political wilderness, Mr Anthony Crosland wrote two very good books on socialism—The Future of Socialism in 1956 and The Conservative...

Sir; Sir Denis Brogan (7 February) pleads with some heat that the importance of the grandes ecoles in France is too great, and should be diminished. I wish to point out that the...

disingenuous (Letters, 14 February). I challenged him to produce evidence that I had 'cried out for ever more savage penal- ties.' In reply he establishes that I made two direct...

Sir: I always enjoy Auberon Waugh's articles, so much so that I even took the opportunity to go and see him on the platform at a Biafra meeting recently (and very good he was,...

CUSTOS Equities remain unsettled. Measured on the Financial Times ordinary share index, prices have fallen back by 81 per cent during February. The bear influences are the...

LETTERS From Dr E. J. Mishan, Francois Villaneau, L. E. Weidberg, Quintin Hogg MP, Thomas W. Gadd, Professor Geoffrey Barraclough, Dr Cornelius O'Leary, Tom Boardman MP, R. L....

Sir: I do not think Mr Quintin Hogg is right (Letters, 14 February) when he calls Auberon Waugh's knowledge of politics ridiculous. I know a lot about politics and Mr Waugh's...

Sir: If the only issue raised by your editorial comments on my contribution of 31 January were the true nature of Conservatism, I would gladly let it pass. Ever since the days...

Sir: I wish to reply to some criticisms of my letter (17 January) and article (24 January) on Northern Ireland. I. Mr Cunningham (Letters, 31 January) challenges my statement...

Minister (Letters, 7 February), Sandra Anderson asks: 'What other leader is there in the world today who would risk standing in front of more than 400 students and answer their...

Sir: Reading Mr Robert Hughes's review of Eldridge Cleaver's Soul on Ice (7 February), I wondered if one could work out the social and intellectual conditions which make it...

Sir: Mr Nigel Nicolson (14 February) is anxious to persuade us that an 'aristocracy of birth and wealth' has been replaced by an 'aristocracy of achievement.' This new elite,...

(To the Editor of The Times) Sir: If you will turn to the files of your great newspaper you will find that thahks to the fiat of the Government and their docile majority ten...

AFTERTHOUGHT This article has been contributed by a senior civil servant, who wishes to remain anony- mous. In 1751 Parliament omitted eleven days from the calendar without...

Feeling, Aorism, and Preterition, are of considerable significance as indicating displacement at a profound level in our society. Some of us have been working on this question...

Mr Hobgoblin, MP Dear Ted, 1 November 196- Anthony asked me to reply to the further letter from Mr Pixie which you sent him. I am sorry Mr Pixie should have misunder- stood...

on official ineptitude. My representations to the Government for funds to make an extended study of the medical problems involved (to which I have myself 'devoted some...

Mr Pixie. Dear Hobgoblin, 19 October 196- Mr Pixie argues that the omission of eleven days appears to diminish the life-span of an individual by that amount, and asks how one...

Trevor Grove reports: Competitors were invited to compose an intelligible piece of prose around ten given words, taken from the .opening pass- ages of a well-known work of...

COMPETITION Competitors are invited to compose an eight- line poem or stanza of a poem on any one of the subjects given below, using four of the fol- lowing five pairs of words...

Across 1 The dancer's dodge (4-4) 5 'Dear God! the very houses seem —' (Words- worth) (6) 9 Wine-casks taking musical forms, quite audibly (4-4) 10 'You common — of the skies,...

PHILIDOR W. A. Shinkman (Westen und Duheim, 1910). White to play and mate in two moves; solution next week. Solution to no. 426 (Bartolovic): 1 B - R 1!; 2-7 K-Kt 2 -B 1 -Q 1...