T he Labour Party continued its prepara- tions for the general election. Neil Kinnock stepped up his campaign against a cut in income tax in the Budget, and defended his plans...

AN INTELLECTUAL visitor from another planet, arriving on earth for the first time and intending to settle, might base his choice of country on the views of leading writers....

MRS Edwina Currie says that 'the Labour Party is being led by a woman and she is leading them by the nose'. If this is true, it is Labour's best hope. A woman has been leading...

SPLITTING THE CHURCH T here have been many attacks on Dr Robert Runcie, the present Archbishop of Canterbury. This paper has often criticised him. But in one important respect,...

BY HER creation of new peers last week, Mrs Thatcher deferred to the rather dis- tasteful notion of 'working peers'. If these creations, separate from peerages in the...

The Poles are dodgy, but so is the Labour vote ANDREW GIMSON Certainly Greenwich has had an air of rumour, mystery, supposition about it for an unusually long time, as if the...

T Kinsale, Co. Cork . he result of the Irish general election will be known by the time this diary is printed, but at the moment the end of only one candidacy is known to me...

Why rapists, at least, should be spared from female justice AUBERON WAUGH A long last, as I predicted it would, rape seems set to emerge as one of those things which Londoners...

The trade deficit is tempting many Americans of hope which may pull them back from the brink The seemingly relent- less slide has brought out the pessimists, warn- ing that...

Bohdan Nahaylo analyses the contradictory signals coming from Moscow BY ANY standards, the last few weeks in the Soviet Union have been extraordinary. There have been so many...

The Channel Tunnel is in financial and political trouble. Michael Trend reports MANY people, calling to mind the great palaver over the Bill presently going through Parliament...

Robert Silver argues that only local press opinion polls can make tactical voting work 'IT'S early closing in Pudsey,' said the voice at the end of the line. It sounded like a...

the acceptable mind in charge of the Labour election campaign IF Labour are ever to be taken seriously again as a party of government it is to the generation of its younger...

Kenneth Robinson writes an open letter to the new director general of the BBC Dear DG, Like earlier DGs, you must be wondering exactly what it was about your predeces- sor,...

THERE must be a good many people in middle life to whom the news that the Crystal Palace is in danger must come as something of a shock. It is associated with their youth, —...

Nicholas Henderson looks back over the long hatred of convention shown by Frances Partridge WHEN, telling her on the telephone that Gerald Brenan had died, I expressed sym-...

Ian Thomson fears an invasion of carnivores in home waters TURTLES have recently made quite a splash in the news. Some have put in the odd television appearance. These are not...

The media: Paul Johnson reflects on the moral atmosphere at the BBC `THE latest scandal to hit Wall Street', I heard a BBC news announcer say recently. That, you may think, is...

made by TVS, not STV.

Set by Caroline Moore T he first three winners of the eight-week Spectator Twin-Town Treasure Hunt will receive outstanding prizes. The first prize has been presented by...

Sir: In everything he writes, Alastair Forbes drops names with such a lavish hand that it is not surprising that some- times one turns out to be not a name but a clanger. `By a...

Sir: A propos Jeffrey Bernard's disserta- tion on condoms (Low life, 14 February), I used to have just the one in a public house on the coast of Kent where the landlord...

Sir: C. A. Williams of London SW4 (Letters, 31 January) demands the demoli- tion of the Ribblehead Viaduct on aesthe- tic grounds. Yes, C. A. Williams, demolish it by all...

Sir: All academic pedants, of course, take great pleasure in spotting howlers; so I hope you will allow this (retired) academic pedant to point out two in your issue of 14...

Sir: What a pity that Stan Gebler Davies's fine gesture of standing as a Conservative and Unionist in the Eire elections cannot be repeated in a part of our own country, viz...

SUBSCRIBE TODAY - Save 15% on the Cover Price! Please enter a subscription to The Spectator I enclose my cheque for £ (Equivalent SUS & Eurocheques accepted) RATES 12 Months...

Uniformed and uninformed Colin Welch FASCISM IN BRITAIN: A HISTORY, 1918-1985 by Richard Thurlow Blackwell, £16.00 P lodding through the turgid compila- tions of young...

Andrei Navrozov VACLAV HAVEL OR LIVING IN TRUTH edited by Jan Vladislav Faber, f15.00 I t is a mistake to assume that under the conditions of totalitarianism, culture in-...

Jeffrey Meyers THE GARDEN OF EDEN by Ernest Hemingway Hamish Hamilton, £9.95 H emingway's weaker novels, based on recycled rather than recent experience, are more...

John Zametica THE POLITICAL DIARY OF HUGH DALTON, 1918-40, 1945-60 edited by Ben Pimlott Capel LSE, f40 'A great booming bully' is how Tho- mas Barman, the distinguished...

William Scammell THE COMPLETE PROSE OF MARIANNE MOORE edited by Patricia C. Willis Faber, £30 M arianne Moore is something of an acquired taste, like music for lute and viol,...

Last night we had 'The Break-up of our Marriage', Fit the Nineteenth. Among the shards of broken crockery (I scored a bullseye on the kitchen door) and stamped glass, something...

Your tulips and your tulip tree I see blooming, just for me. Your peaches flower and fruit and rot; I suck their scent and you do not. Windfall secrets finger my face,...

— 4184 Startled, her eyebrows raised, she stares at me, Surprised, it seems, to see me standing there, Random, dark shadow from a future she Cannot conceive behind that haughty...

Anita Brookner BAROQUE 'N' ROLL by Brigid Brophy Hamish Hamilton, £10.95 I llness is a different country, from which the traveller reports with difficulty. While the...

Dance New York City Ballet (New York State Theatre) Back to the future Julie Kavanagh 0 verheard at Orso's one night in New York: 'I never seem to see you these days.' 'No,...

When the Wind Blows (PG', selected cinemas) Worth a bomb Peter Ackroyd T here is a lot to be said for cartoons; apart from the fact that the acting is often so much more...

Athena Art Awards (Barbican till 8 March) Naum Gabo (Tate till 20 April) Awards and achievement Giles Auty L ast week I had the pleasure of talking with a venerable actor who...

Calling the tune Peter Phillips T he untimely death by gangrene on 22 March 1687 of Jean-Baptiste Lully, brings to the fore a composer whose name is familiar but who has been...

A View from the Bridge (National: Cottesloe) This Story of Yours (Hampstead) Crimes of passion Christopher Edwards H ere is yet another excellent revival of an Arthur Miller...

Soane and After: the Architecture of Dulwich Picture Gallery (Dulwich Picture Gallery until 8 March) Soane's survival Alan Powers O f the architects interviewed for the...

Rex crocorum Ursula Buchan C rocuses, like sorrows, come not sing- le spies, but in battalions. One February day there are none, the next morning dozens have nosed through the...

Throwing the book Wendy Cope L ast week I sneered at Jonathan Ross for saying that the designer of a bad set should be taken out and publicly dis- embowelled. It will become...

Positive thinking Taki s awful as it may sound, it's just possible that Aids is bringing romance back to this most unromantic of cities. Just last week I heard of an incident...

Curate's eggs Alice Thomas Ellis J ust before I woke up this morning I was thinking in my sleep. What I was thinking was that February is like a strip of damp drugget laid in...

Lingering hostility Jeffrey Bernard I went on a Question Time-type panel in the theatre at the London School of Economics last Monday. God alone knows why they asked me in...

tual office party, do not go to Gorky Park. I would even go so far as to say avoid Mackennal Street, St John's Wood, where this six-week-old restaurant is situated: for I...

THE publicity blurb for The Hugh Johnson Cellar Book begins as follows: 'In past centuries, the need to keep precise records of wine was answered by a ledger, kept by the butler...

LESS THAN HALF-PRICE More stimulating than any lecture, funnier than the set books, The Spectator should be required, reading for every student. With Student Subscriptions...

TV aye Raymond Keene W atch out at 6.30 p.m_ on Channel 4 On Saturday 21 February for the opening game of the six-part TV challenge between Nigel Short and Gary Kasparov. For...

Bottles of yore Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1459 you were asked for an extract from a lecture on 'The History of Milk Bottles' or the history of any other uninspiring...

You are invited to supply a mnemonic poem (maximum 16 lines) to help the reader remember some present-day related names or facts. Entries to 'Competition No. 1462' by 6 March.

796:Ingaza by Doc A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or, for UK solvers, a copy of Chambers Dictionary, value £13.95 — ring the words 'Chambers Dictionary'...

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