M r Nicholas Ridley, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, resigned from office after an interview published in The Spectator revealed that he felt plans for a European...

The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone: 071-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 071-242 0603 NOT FAR ENOUGH T he furore over the interview with Mr Ridley which we...

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Who will catch the ricochets in the Ridley shoot-out? NOEL MALCOLM I forget the name of the war reporter who, sent to cover an outbreak of hostili- ties in a sleepy Central...

DOMINIC LAWSON I t is time to reveal the role of Mr Charles Wilson, the former editor of the Times, in what has now become known as the 'Ridley Affair'. On the evening before we...

Samuel Brittan would welcome a monetary system in Europe outside the direct control of politicians THE most important reason for favouring a European Monetary Union run by a...

trade need not require the breaking down of all national frontiers IF a distinction is now to be drawn, as a matter of settled policy, between on the one hand the surrender of...

Murray Sayle names the guilty Scot TWO hundred years ago, on July 17, 1790, Professor Adam Smith of the University of Glasgow, founder of the dubious science of economics and...

IN the Times of Tuesday, Lord Grim- thorpe gives an exhibition of that de- light in literary insolence which disting- uishes his style of invective. With the intemperance which...

Michael Heath

Timothy Garton Ash discusses German attitudes to Europe `CE qui parle Europe a tort,' said Bis- marck. Yet since 1945 the Germans have talked almost nothing but Europe. In part...

The after-eighties: A. N. Wilson talks to Sir Hugh Wontner, veteran defender of a grand hotel THERE is a hint of raffishness, and of sheer fantasy, about the Savoy Hotel....

The media: Paul Johnson on the lessons to be drawn from Ridley's downfall ONE of the golden rules of public utter- ance is never compare anyone or anything to Hitler. It...

THE safest course, all the same, is to break it up. The Board of Trade, Mr Lilley should keep — preferably with its worthy and historic name back. Now that the European...

Lilley must break up his new home before it breaks him CHRISTOPHER F ILDES W elcome to the Department, Mr Lilley, and before leaving please ensure that you have not left any...

IN the carefree days when Harry Hyams was building Centre Point and wore a Mickey Mouse mask to his meetings, I bought five shares in his company. They were my ticket of...

WHAT the sleek young men at DPR Futures were doing was not against the law, for the jury acquitted them, and they were last seen drinking champagne and saying how sorry they...

Shiva Naipaul was one of the most gifted and accomplished writers of our time. After his death in August 1985 at the age of 40, The Spectator set up a fund to establish an...

now no longer permitted to make jokes about the Germans. God help us. Ridley is a good man and has sadly been replaced by another Martian. I believe Ridley is accurate about...

people in this country about Germany's aims in Europe. It is interesting to note that just 50 years ago, summer 1940, experts of the giant German chemical combine I. G. Farben,...

Sir: I would assume that many opinions will be voiced on the issue of the Rt Hon Nicholas Ridley (`Saying the unsayable about the Germans', 14 July). I certainly would like to...

Karl Otto POhl, on the eve of German monetary union, had spelled out the key difference between it and European monetary union — conceived as culminat- ing in a single (not,...

(1933) and 1939 the then editor of the Times, Geoffrey Dawson, prevented any adverse criticism of Hitler or German policies appearing in his paper lest they took offence. And he...

Sir: Your readers must be tired of seeing my name, which appeared too many times in last week's issue, but I hope I can correct two errors in my Diary (14 July). Sir John...

wonder if you would now turn your attention to the Papacy? M. Marprelate Oxford

for the glass of wine. Cheryl Brigg Barnet, South Chailey, East Sussex

persist . . . WHEN your doctor gives you a prescrip- tion, it must be a comfort to know that his scientific training and profound know- ledge of pharmacology have enabled him...

Sir: Were he still alive, Hart Crane would be very surprised to discover he had written The Red Badge of Courage. (Isabel Colegate's review of Alan Judd's Ford Madox Ford...

because you had the courage to publish Mr Ridley's comments, which were the truth and the genuine opinion of most of the people in this country. Mark Caplan 210 Keswick...

Sir: Your article (The widow's mite', 7 July), about war widows resident in Hong Kong argued that some guarantee should be given to such people about their right to come to the...

Heroes under analysis Jan Morris EMPIRE AND THE ENGLISH CHARACTER by Kathryn Tidrick I. B. Tauris, £19.95, pp. 338 T he most celebrated and attractive rationale for the growth...

Francis King SISTERS AND STRANGERS by Emma Tennant Grafton, f12.95, pp. 184 I f it had not already been preempted by the Bette Davis film, All About Eve would have been a more...

Frances Partridge CLEVER HEARTS: DESMOND AND MOLLY MACCARTHY — A BIOGRAPHY by Hugh and Mirabel Cecil Gollancz, £18.95, pp. 320 F aced with a large pile of highly in- teresting...

Richard Lamb HIMMLER REICHSFUHRER SS by Peter Padfield Macmillan, £17.95, pp. 656 O ver 650 pages on that evil man Himmler takes some stomaching. Clear writing and much...

And in this time, the beech bowers lead to homesteads ranged about the southern counties: a house completely occluded by green, a lake out of Hitchens and its weeping willows,...

Anthony Storr LITTLE BOY LOST by Bronwyn Hocking Bloomsbury, £14.99, pp. 192 B ronwyn Hocking was in her thirties when, 11 years ago, she gave birth to a son. Poverty, and...

Charles Saumarez Smith MRS COADE'S STONE by Alison Kelly M rs Eleanor Coade was a very re- markable woman: an entirely self-made business entrepreneur of the late-18th-cen-...

Violet Powell IRELAND'S FATE: THE BOYNE AND AFTER by Robert Shepherd Aurum Press, £14.95 , pp. 256 J ust over 300 years ago a battle was fought on the River Boyne in Co. Meath....

Patrick Procktor SERIOUS PLEASURES: THE LIFE OF. STEPHEN TENNANT by Philip Hoare Hamish Hamilton, £20, pp. 463 C yril Connolly likened the soul of Stephen Tennant to that of a...

The lion-headed vases have disappeared. Someone has stolen them and left no trace (Pity I'm no detective, just a bard). The wall loCiks bare without them: newly painted they'll...

Rupert Christiansen HAYDEN AND THE VALVE TRUMPET by Craig Raine Faber, £20, pp. 498 he title of this rip-roaringly enjoyable collection of critical essays refers to some poor...

Exhibitions Whims ancient and modern Giles Auty The Journey: a search for the Role of Contemporary Art in Religious and Spiritual Life (Lincoln, the cathedral and other...

English, yet stylish Robin Holloway T he Almeida, like Aldeburgh, is one of the few English festivals with an atmos- phere of its own. This is equally the natural result of...

A very patchy affair Deirdre McMahon I t is 13 years since American Ballet Theatre last visited London. The company had been Baryshnikov's base since his defection in 1974 and...

Reunion ('12', Odeon Haymarket) Dick Tracy (PG', Odeon Leicester Square) Tragic and comic Hilary Mantel I n Jerry Schatzberg's new film, the tech- nicolour present is...

Of Coxes and castration Rodney MIInes Y ou can't win of course, certainly not with hacks. The Royal Opera's new pro- duction of Rossini's last masterpiece one of the greatest...

Return to higher things Wendy Cope H ope's mother said, 'LA Law's on,' popping her head round the bedroom door. Hope and Michael (in thirtysome- thing, Channel 4, 9 p.m.,...

Sugar Hill Blues (Hampstead) The Rocky Horror Show (Piccadilly) Jazz to gender-bending Christopher Edwards K evin Hood's Sugar Hill Blues is a play about jazz. He sets the...

Loose opera-talk Taki And before Wyatt of Weeford and the ample member for Crawley reach for their pens, let me give you some more details about my private conversation with...

Too old for the Orphans Zenga Longmore O lumba and I saw a most unusual sight whilst wheeling Omalara through Brixton's teeming market. Standing amongst the rotting coco yams...

Once again, The Spectator is offering its readers the definitive Pocket Diary, offering all the facts and figures that are essential to any Spectator reader, bound in soft black...

som4 . 4.111. Casale Franco; Tiramisu ' "■\\.;„,.. NY. !Will IR WHATEVER one thinks of the balance of power in Europe, it must be said that in England at least the...

The second of the annual awards in memory of T. E. Utley, the outstanding political writer of his generation who died two summers ago, has been given to Stephen Robinson, whose...

Distinguished rather than common Auberon Waugh B rown Brothers furnished me with my first glimpse of serious Australian wine, when I tasted their 1980 Milawa Chardon- nay in...

do The Curzon Wine Company, 5 Tilney Street, London W1Y 5LF Telephone: 071-629 9933 (ask for Gillian Reed) White 1. Dry Muscat Blanc '88, Brown Brothers 2. Late picked Muscat...

Short through Raymond Keene N igel Short has done it in a cliff- hanging finale from the Manila interzonal. Playing Black in the final round against one of the Soviet Union's...

COMPETITIO N scmivia, Chez Adolf J aspistos I n Competition No. 1634 you were in- vited to imagine P.G. Wodehouse's im- pressions, as recorded in a letter to a favourite...

Half-rhymes (e.g. 'gnome' and 'name', 'tunnel' and 'flannel') are a serious poetic device. You are invited to make light- hearted use of them in a poem (maximum 16 lines)...

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A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or, for UK solvers, a copy of Chambers English Dictionary — ring the word 'Dictionary') for the first three correct solutions...

A matter of course Frank Keating THE OPEN needs winds to blow far more than a Test match needs sun. Gales of them. I was late to golf — but come of age at the Open this...