Little that is certain can be said about the confused and troubled situation in southern Africa. It does seem, however, that the focal point of the next conflict there will be...

Southern Africa dominated the news. The NIPLA came close to final victory in Angola and were recognised as its government first by South Africa and then by France, anticipating...

The biggest British crash of all Patrick Cosg rave Words, Winston Churchill found from the beginning, are amenable things, and can be recognised and understood. But figures, he...

There are no doubt a hundred reasons for Slapping Mr Peter Walker, but no one has any idea which one motivated Elizabeth Young, Lady Kennet, at a meeting in Carlton House...

LIFE OF GEORGE BUTTERWORTH., (Privately printed): THE FIGURE IN THE MIST by Elizabeth Coxhead ; JANE THE TORTOISE by Constance Hogarth ; Dr Ruth Gipps, Allfarthings, Hen - stage...

Funny, not shocking Auberon Waugh Perhaps I should apologise for returning to a subject which was so admirably covered in nearly all its ramifications by The Spectator's own...

Zhores Medvedev For most Western observers the trial of the writers Sinyavsky and Daniel in early 1966 marked the beginning of a new phase of political repression, after the...

Richard West It is rash to quarrel in print with Bernard Levin, especially when he defends political Prisoners, but the article in the Times (January 30) on Yugoslavia was so...

Stuart Reid We shall find our most fertile field of infiltration of Marxism within the field of religion, because religious people are the most gullible and will accept almost...

Airey Neave What better place could the Allies have chosen for the trial of Goering and other top Nazis than Nuremburg itself? In 1945, Rebecca West described the city as 'The...

squatting James Hughes-Onslow Lately I was surprised to find two representatives of Cluttons—estate agents to the Church Commissioners who, along with the Duke of Westminster,...

Dennis Hackett Small, it seems, is inevitable as far as the Daily Express is concerned. The exit of Alastair Burnet, whose departure had been a matter of 'when' rather than...

Lowe Bruce Lockhart School appeals are most instructive. They confirm a suspicion which must have entered the minds of many headmasters : the earnings of Old Boys in their...

Bernard Dixon Whenever water fluoridation hits the headlines—most recently with the publication of last month's Royal College of Physicians report—we hear much about 'mass...

Skinflint The Government's decisions on airline routes seems muddle-headed if not of major importance by comparison with the muchtrumpeted aid to industry, but are in fact...

Nicholas Davenport If the Chancellor wants to fiddle the unemployment returns in a harmless enough way I do not see why anyone should object. It pleases our bosses, Mr Len...

Sir: I see that Miss Kaldor in her review (January 24) of Captain Moore's book, The Soviet Navy Today, is once again about her task of attempting to soothe us with the...

has failed to grasp the points I made in my review of Captain Moore's book about the Soviet navy. First, I argued that 'facts' about the so-called strategic balance are...

Sir: Margaret Thatcher has retreated into frivolities of dress and verbal slapstick with Roy Mason. It is a welcome withdrawal. Right-wing defence views are not, at the moment,...

Sir: I read Victor Evelyn's article about railways (January 17) with particular interest because of the implied false assumption that roads pay. If roads did not exist I cannot...

Sir: Logie Bruce Lockhart (January 24) assumes, when he writes of the decline in modern languages, that this is a bad thing. Your correspondents have agreed with the diagnosis...

Sir: Immigration has long been a subject which requires its own morality. Indeed, it reverses the principle that morality respects truth, and preaches a substitute morality in...

Sir: I am writing, with the cooperation of his family, a new biography of F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead. May I beg an inch of your space to request any of your readers who...

Margaret Drabble The Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney edited by Joyce Hemlow (Oxford University Press Volume 5, E17.00, Volume 6 £13.50) How hard it is to make up one's...

Simon Raven The Fall of the Roman Empire A Reappraisal Michael Grant (Thomas Nelson £6.95) The Emperor Julian Robert Browning (Weidenfeld and Nicolson £6.95) In 330 AD the...

Peter Conrad John Constable 1776-1837 John Lloyd Fraser (Hutchinson £6.95) Constable and his world Reg Gadney (Thames and Hudson £3.50) Bicentennials are acts less of...

Duncan Fallowell Streets of Conflict Michael Anthony (Andre Deutsch £2.95) The Elusive Earl Barbara Cartland (Hutchinson £3.50) The Former Miss Merthyr Tydfil Alun Richards...

Shiva Naipaul Changing Jamaica Adam Kuper (Routledge and Kegan Paul £4.95) For much of its unedifying history Jamaica has been haunted by spectres of one kind or another. The...

Dennis Hackett The Newspaper Game Paul Hoch (Calder and Boyars £2.25) Dr Paul Hoch finds the British and American Press wanting but not quite wanton. He sees it as one of the...

Ian McEwan Early Writing in Science and Science Fiction H. G. Wells. Edited by Philmus and David Y. Hughes (University of California Press, £8.00) Wells dismissed the bulk of...

Edward Neill The Unwritten War. American Writers and the Civil War Daniel Aaron (Oxford £2.95) Who won the American Civil War? The South, obviously. It captured the...

Benny Green Woody Allen and His Comedy Eric Lax (Elm Tree Books, £3.75) In one of Woody Allen's most notorious stage routines, he tells how he shot a moose, strapped it to his...

Ronald Hingley How the Soviet authorities have censored the writings of a major Russian author over the decades can be traced in detail, by those with a taste for detective...

Robin Young A Mountain in the Country (Royal Ballet)

Ballet for years. All the more reason, everyone has found, to go ecstatically potty over A Month in the Country, a wispy confection of Marguerite and Armand lightly stirred with...

Plaster-casts Kenneth Robinson Killer Elite Director: Sam Peckinpah Stars: James Caan, Robert Duvall 'X' Dominion (123 mins). Man Friday Director: Jack Gold Stars: Peter...

Shadow of Innsbruck Kenneth Hurren Anatol by Arthur Schn itzler, translated by Frank Marcus (Open Space) Magic Afternoon by Wolfgang Bauer, translated by Herb Greer (Bush...

A 'Soviet cellist' John Bridcut Gennadi Rozhdestvensky is not by profession a tightrope walker, yet he is the first Soviet conductor to be permitted a longterm overseas...

Smoking in bed Jeffrey Bernard In my capacity as an indiscriminate, oneman, star-struck fan club I have seen babies born in covered wagons during Indian raids, in farmhouses...