Labour governments seem to get the For- eign Secretaries they deserve. The Attlee government, in its period of success, was served by the best Foreign Secretary the party has...

POLITICAL COMMENTARY AUBERON WAUGH From time to time in the past this column has given expression to various rude noises on the subject of trade union leaders. It did not then...

FRENCH ELECTION MARC ULLMANN Paris — The Gaullist party has outlived the General. That is the first and most obvious lesson to be drawn from M Pompidou's electoral victory last...

IRISH ELECTION RICHARD LYNN Richard Lynn is professor of psychology at the Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin. Dublin — The general election campaign in the Irish...

SECOND THOUGHTS ON REDCLIFFE-MAUD W. A. WEST Professor W. A. West is at the Faculty of Urban and Regional Studies at Reading University. Any proposals to reform local...

J. W. M. THOMPSON There's a lot to be said for reducing the number of mi.& as I was remarking the other week. But the one place I hadn't ex- pected to find support for this...

PERSONAL COLUMN SIMON RAVEN First, some figures. At the current rate of increase, the population of the earth, presently of the order of 3,000 million, will be over 7.000...

TELEVISION STUART HOOD A-federal system of broadcasting may be defined as one in which the national net- work is made up of a number of regional stations which contribute to...

OXFORD LETTER IRIS OXONIENSIS LOVING SISTER MERCURIA LONDINIENSIS, Tis a sad office I must perform in writing to you this day, for my poor brother, your hus- band's old friend...

CONSUMING INTEREST LESLIE ADRIAN `Some weeks ago I filled out a blank estab- lishing my eligibility to receive your pamph- let A Report on Contraceptive Materials. Yesterday I...

CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS The Trades Union Congress, rejecting the suggestion of a twenty-eight day cooling off period before a strike is declared, advises unions, when confronted...

THE PRESS BILL GRUNDY I've often wondered why I never get a mention in the Honours Lists. It must be something 1 ate. Or drank. But I remain hopeful. For, though I know they...

TABLE TALK DENIS BROGAN Two or three events in the last ten days or so have revived my interest in the question of the censorship of books and plays. I learn from the obituary...

CHURCH OF ENGLAND v LUDOVIC KENNEDY In our issue of 7 June we gave Mr Ludovic Kennedy an opportunity to reply to the many critics of his earlier article 'A lesson in...

SUMMER BOOKS J. H. PLUMB The only version that we possess of the log- book of Christopher Columbus's discovery of the West Indies is derived from a copy made by Las Casas, the...

MARTIN SEYMOUR-SMITH There is as much critical confusion about the work of Louis-Ferdinand Destouches (who called himself aline after his maternal grandmother's Christian name)...

ANTHONY BURGESS We shall never be free to have, under the tolerance of the law, all the verbal experi- ences we desire. We may, with a consenting partner, go to the cislethal...

ALASTAIR BUCHAN Throughout the past fifteen years, the sleep of good liberals on both sides of the Atlantic has been much disturbed by the spectre of the RAND Corporation...

LAURENCE MARTIN The Czechoslovak Crisis Robert Rhodes James (Weidenfeld and Nicolson 40s) A Peace Policy for Europe Willy Brandt (Weidenfeld and Nicolson 36s) Mr Rhodes James's...

BRIAN CROZIER Some future historian, happening upon a collection of the Penguin African Library and deprived of other source materials, might draw curious inferences about...

ROBERT SKIDELSKY Whitehall Diary Vol 1 1916-1925 Thomas Jones edited by K. Middlemas (out 63s) The new Thirty Year Rule on Cabinet papers has been less of a boon to students of...

PHILIP DE ZULUETA Democratic statesmen, as we all know, can only go where their electorate will follow: political leaders should be out in front but not out of sight. Lord Avon...

KENNETH ALLSOP The Red Book: Wildlife in Danger Janie'. Fisher, Noel Simon, Jack Vincent and others (Collins 70s) The Vanishing Wild . Life of Britain Brian Vesey-FitzGerald...

NEW NOVELS HENRY TUBE A Spiral of Mist Michele Prisco translated by Isabel Quigly (Chatto and Windus 30s) Stepsons Robert Liddell (Longman 30s) A Thousand Illusions Valeriy...

PETER J. SMITH Technopolis is today — a society permeated, and largely motivated, by a technology per- ilously close to capsizing it. But today's decision forms the basis of...

B. L. Reid (oue 107s) Special attorney ASHLEY BROWN This biography, which has just won the Pulitzer Prize in America, is undoubtedly important for the facts which it...

ALEC DOUGLAS-HOME The Cricket Match Hugh de Selincourt (Leslie Frewin 25s) It is more than forty years since Hugh de Selincourt wrote The Cricket Match and now it is surely...

Turbulent priest HILARY SPURLING The Stillkey Scandals of 1932 (Queen's) The Two Gentlemen of Verona (Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park) Macbeth (Open Space) `Tis a gift to be...

ARTS PENELOPE HOUSTON Zbigniew Cybulski, Polish film actor. Born in 1927; accidentally killed (he fell under a train he was trying to jump) in 1967. In 1958, in Andrzej...

MANUSCRIPTS PAUL GRINKE The National Portrait Gallery is currently acting as host to an exhibition called `Manuscripts and Men' which celebrates the centenary of the Royal...

ARCHITECTURE STEPHEN GARDINER Oxford always makes me think of Lewis Carroll. It was under a large tree in the bean's garden at Christ Church that he found the rabbit hole that...

MONEY NICHOLAS DAVENPORT Many people are saying that they have never known a 'bear' market so ferocious as this one, meaning that it has fallen so heavily so fast. This...

PORTFOLIO JOHN BULL The Bank of England talks about the dangers of a recession in the next few months--and three days later (last Friday) Mr Harold Lever stands up at a Press...

Sir : One cannot feel any sympathy for Mr David Oldman (Letters, 7 June), with his heartless contempt for British by-ways and gloomy prognostications about the Chelsea Flower...

Sir: I do not know why you continue to give the boring Mr Skeffington-Lodge (Letters, 7 June) so much space in your correspondence columns, but I can assure you that if you...

expression of the fears which are felt by almost all Catholics of the confession of Canterbury at this time. We have witnessed with immense sorrow thy decay of ritual in the...

Sir: As one who cannot speak Welsh but would like to be able to read it and to follow a conversation, I agree with Mr J. W. M. Thompson (7 June) that it is not too...

Sir: May I be allowed the right of reply to such parts of Mr Kirkaldy's letter (30 May) as are comprehensible? I ask because it is as blatant a piece of question-begging as I...

LETTERS From John Bradley, Sir Richard Acland, Francis Bown and Stephen J. Kern, Sir Graham Sutton, Peter Croft, George Edin- ger, A. Walker, Jeremy Maule, June Gib- son,...

Sir: Happenings in New Guinea look ex- ceedingly disturbing, though, at this distance in space I am the less inclined to accept Crabro's assessment (7 June) in face of his...

readers can help me to recover a quotation. It was spoken or written towards the end of the last century by one of the popularisers of the scientific outlook. But at some point...

Sir: As an old student of Italy, may I, through your columns, express my sincere appreciation for Sir Denis Brogan's erudite article 'Haec Est Italia Dis Sacra' (7 June). I,...

Sir: In response to my last letter (on Rolf Hochhuth's Soldiers, 23 May) you suggested that I was a simpleton, since . I am 'evi- dently incapable of understanding . . . plain...

Sir: Mr. Nweke Agbata (Letters, 7 June) really must not lump together all Eastern Nigerians and call them 'Biafrans'. There are over 51 million non-Ibo people of Eastern...

Sir: Mr Cyril Ray may well be right in thinking the idea of a naval officer with a moustache implausible (7 June), but I can assure him that the name O'Bradovitch, im- probable...

Sir: In his article (7 June) 'Indecent ex- posure in the park' Stephen Gardiner is right to protest against the increasing visual en- croachment of Hyde Park by surrounding tall...

never seen a cardinal with his official hat in any public ceremonial. When the newly created Cardinal Hee- nan returned from Rome and was solemnly received at Westminster...

was a mass-meeting in Manchester on this day week against the Irish Church Bill, apparently called to hear Mr. Gladstone denominated Judas Iscariot by a concurrent testimony of...

AFTERTHOUGHT JOHN WELLS For some, the very thought of erotic art, writes our Saleroom Correspondent, Trilby Twythe, still smacks of the ivory tower, the alarmingly reactionary...

Trevor Grove reports: Competitors were invited to emulate Mr George MacDonald Fraser's industry in unearthing 'the Flash- man papers' by submitting the closing pas- sages from...

No. 558: And so to bed ... The Living Theatre from America is en, joying its first ever appearance in this country; neither the odd glimpse of pubic hair, nor what were...

Across 1 Male accomplishments that might win these? (6) 4 Ostracist's instrument for such as might take a shot at cattle (8) 9 Where to be brought up—in summer-time (6) 10...

PHILIDOR N. A. Macleod (2nd Prize, British Chess Magazine, 1961). White to play and mate in two moves; solution next week. Solution to No. 443 (Searley): Kt - B 5. A 1 K - K...