Our new rulers, the European Commission, are telling our ostensible rulers, the Government, that we — the British taxpayers — may not shell out financial aid to shipbuilders for...

From Bruce Douglas-Mann, MP Sir: Cato's invocation of C. P. Scott (July 7) to return as a Miltonic censor, to cleanse the Guardian of opinions with which Cato does not agree...

" (July 7) the British press has been singularly silent . about the dreadful happenings in Zanzibar since the wholesale massacre of the Arabs in an African uprising which...

Sir: The reasoning faculty of W. J. Spring, who attacks the film A Clockwork Orange and seems to link it causally with the killing of a tramp the other week, is almost as weak...

Sir: Although the Upper House has at last given up its demands that, con trary to the government's policy, contraceptives should be issued without charge, their previous...

Sir: You may be tired of the subject by n ow, but I would like to express the anger of Canadians and especially Ontarioans, at the outrageous reports in the British press,...

From Mrs J. Booker Sir: As an ex Conservative Branch secretary, and disgusted with Heath's inflation and blatant hypocrisy (I have correspondence to prove it) I recently...

Sir: To read Norman Henry's letter (July 7) one might be forgiven for thinking the year Was 1964 not 1973, and that we were - standing on the eve of the "white hot...

I am not an adherent of Mr Enoch Powell, but someone with simi lar views to your other correspondent, Norman Henry, If the former would write to the Common Market Sa feguards...

Sir: The row over the visit of the Prime Minister of Portugal arising from an alleged and highly suspect report of a " massacre" in Mozambique, is like the storm over Black...

Sir: Dr Linklater's attack (July 7) on psychiatric diagnosis being made by junior officials of the Department of Health and Social Security would be more convincing were it not...

Ted Heath's emphatic personal endorsement of the Maplin project is most heartening. I had begun to think, so many voices being raised against this most sensible of our expensive...

Who will command the heights? Patrick Cosgrave There were, as everybody wrote at the time, twenty-six words in the Labour Party Nation al Executive's economic policy document...

After the funeral? Nicholas Richardson It was Iceland that sparked it off. Worse than the unhabitual hat was the sagging face, the apparent difficulty in speaking and the...

Sick at heart Al Capp 1 am always sorry to leave London, but, heretofore I have always been glad to get back to the US. Today, I return to no leadership, not in the White...

The Cathars of Languedoc Ian Meadows When the last Cathar stronghold of Montsegur finally yielded, in 1244, it seemed that Catharism had been stricken a mortal blow by its...

An advocate who believes When Sir Geoffrey Howe, said to be the most brilliant man in the Cabinet, appears at the dispatch box or on television, his eyes look through his...

A LARGE NUMBER OF MEMBERS are deeply disturbed by the announcement that Ernest Marples, former flamboyant Transport Minister, is to retire from the House at the next election....

Religion The future of the parish clergy Gavin Fargus Economic factors caused by everrising costs have caused the churches to look hard at their full-time ministry. Stipends...

Great balls of fire Bernard Dixon Knotty problems in science are sometimes clarified not by assiduous research at a laboratory bench, but by insights coming from quite...

Lily and Crown Imperial Denis Wood Both of these are outstandingly beautiful and have a reputation for succeeding best in cottage gardens where it is true that they are often...

The time was 12.30, the sky grey and cloudy and Saturday's chauffeur, an Italian journalist, had just stood me and Newbury up in favour of lunching a Greek shipping magnate....

Free gifts Peter Quince he ash is a favourite tree of mine, but I admit it can be a nuisance in or near a garden. Its insatiable urge to reproduce itself allows no respect for...

Benny Green In his journal for Wednesday, February 23, 1898, Arnold Bennett made this entry: Today is published my first book, "A Man From the North." I have seen it mentioned...

Religious Books Richard Luc' ett on Biblical style and compromise !4rdyard Kipling once wrote a short history in which he depicted the Oxford chapter of translators for the...

Edward Norman Churchmen and the Condition of England, 1832-1885 G. Kitson Clark (Methuen £4.50) That the Christian churches in nineteenthcentury England usually ignored social...

Desmond Fisher Ecstasy and Vendetta Colin Hamer (Peter Davies E2.45) Sometimes our boarding school 'crocodile,' out on a country walk, used to pass a stooped Old man in a...

Peter Ackroyd Cults Of Unreason Christopher Evans (Harrap £3.00) When I was a boy, the questions and answers of the Roman Catholic catechism were drummed into me. I still...

Bill Grundy The Reader's Guide to Charles Dickens Philip Hobsbaum (Thames and Hudson £2.00; pa perback, E1.00). I take it to be a sign of my complete lack of taste that I much...

Tony Palmer Breakfast of Champions Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Cape £2.25) The Fatal Gift Alec Waugh (W. H. Allen £2.50) Breakfast of Champions might be a blueprint for the...

Paperbacks A ponderous but intriguing selection this week. The first, a Methuen University Paperback (a grandiose and not necessarily accurate title), is Andrew Boyd's Fifteen...

Bookend Publishers will shortly be told officially of the demise of Book Addict, a monthly magazine launched independently just over a year ago to "supply information to...

OF THE ARTS Christopher Hudson on not giving the games away The trouble with Sleuth C AA' Odeon Marble Arch) is that I should like to tell you how it comes to be one of the...

Love in the wrong climate 41 ) Kenneth Hun-en While there are those who always felt that Peter Ustinov's 1956 comedy, Romanoff and Juliet, could have used a few songs, his...

1 suppose it's churlish not to congratulate Sir Denys Lowson on his decision to pay back E5 millions of profit he made on his recent dealings. Nevertheless, I don't suppose I am...

Scope from Stoddard ,Nephew Wilde In Japan because of the high mercury content in fish, people have fast begun to change their diets. And so alarmed are the government that...