`The economy is getting better. He [the Chancellor] will give an absolutely frank, straight, honest statement tomorrow in the House of Commons and I think that by this time the...

Some Chinese composers, it is reported, have written to complain of the revolutionary songs that have been ordered in praise of the Red River. They are, they say, 'machine-made,...

POLITICAL COMMENTARY By ALAN WATKINS W HEN Mr Harold Wilson rose in the House on Wednesday, and began to speak in a voice that seemed flatter than ever, my neighbour in the...

AMERICA From DAVID WATT WASHINGTON T IE American government are still intrigued by Harold Wilson (who isn't?), but they no longer really believe him. This is the nub of...

VIETNAM By MALCOLM RUTHERFORD Mire case of the American prisoners in North I Vietnam seems to show Johnsonian dip- lomacy at its most cunning—or most devious. As anyone who...

RE'S no need to get upset about the Inter- national Court's decision on the South West Africa case simply because Dr Verwoerd, for propaganda reasons, has decided to had it as a...

AVIATION By PETER THORNEYCROFT W HETHER or not one accepts the blurb on the dust-cover of Mr Worcester's book,* it is expressed with greater clarity than Mr Worcester manages...

THE PRESS By DAVID FROST W HAT to you is the most interesting little 'quiet revolution' currently being surrepti- tiously carried out in Fleet Street? Have you perceived a...

By TIBOR SZAMUELY N July 12, 1966, US Lieutenant-Colonel (retd.) William Henry Whalen was arrested by the FBI and charged with having sold to Russia 'information pertaining to...

AFTERTHOUGHT By JOHN WELLS MY spirits, as I approached the Whitbread Festival Beer Garden on Horseshoe Wharf last Friday night, could hardly have been higher. Sustained by a...

ACROSS x. Where a fresh - air fiend would choose to live? (8) 5. Might he put a feather in his beret? (6) 9. The airy way to paint a picture (8) to. Steamship in time gets...

ACROSS.—x Peradventure. 9 Nightgown. to Flora. it Orders. 12 Claribel. 13 Number. z5 Stag-head. t8 Pointers. 19 Troo ps. 21 Arbalest. 23 Pincer. 26 Elope. 27 Earthwork. 28...

H Y/II MA (U A SPECIAL SURVEY By LAIN MACLEOD, MP W HEN first I promised to write this piece I planned it as a pensive essay on the Economic State of the Nation. Events have...

1966, the old adage, 'your money and my brains,' is still the banker's prime preoccupation, there are certain shifts of em- phasis and emerging patterns to the background of his...

UNIT TRUSTS By OLIVER STUTCHBURY E l OR some years the mutual fund industry in the United States has looked upon itself as the fastest-growing industry in that fast-growing...

INCENTIVES By CHARLES CLORE M osT, if not all, of our economic problems could be solved if only we could increase our productivity. This, I think, is beyond dis- pute. But how...

South Sea Bubble Units today to yield 15 per cent per annum. Looks tempting to me!'—and leave it at that. Afterwards some of them will moan that the industry should im- prove...

— But Who Wins? TAXATION By ARTHUR COCKFIELD N o government has ever been more prolific than the present one in producing tax legislation. Many of the changes made are based...

THE STOCK EXCHANGE By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT I N theory, investing under a Labour govern- ; ment should have been as easy as clockwork. When a Tory government practised...

INDUSTRY By JOHN BULL O NLY twice in the past decade has the Govern- ment kicked the unemployment figures sharply upwards. Mr Selwyn Lloyd did it. That was five years ago this...

Sm,—Mr Nigel Lawson, in his article 'Objectives in Vietnam' (July 8), betrays a fondness for the words 'escalate' and 'escalation,' neither of which appears in my dictionary,...

Sue,—I was glad to have Mr Crozier's compliments in his letter about Britain and South Africa. I do assure him, however, that the views expressed in the book are entirely my...

oxzrEn2n m Enuiron From: Christopher Hollis, Mrs M. R. Vaughan, Mrs Anna Chaiaway, Colm Brogan, S. Brykczysiski, C. R. A. Swynnerton, David West, Dennis Austin, D. V....

Sm,—Mr Bryden and Miss Lawlor of the Newman Association appear to be disturbed about possible damage to the reputation of Fr Bright. I fail to see why. As far as I know, Fr...

Sut,—If Mr Alan Watkins wishes to drag concubines into an article about Mr Cousins (your issue of July 8) he should first verify his references. The 'twenty- two acknowledged...

he had at least postponed his letter for another week. He assures us there cannot be more than 10,000 abortions annually. On that very day, National Opinion Polls publish the...

in their letter in last week's number of the SPECTATOR that Fr L. Bright was not a Marxist. I am quite prepared to believe that he does not hold a membership card of any society...

SIR, —Mr Nigel Lawson has taken upon himself the responsibility (Spectator's Notebook,' July 15) of writing about the Nagas lest that 'elusive entity "world opinon" ' forgets...

debate on the subject of abortion. If he will suggest a time and place through your corre- spondence columns this will afford an opportunity for SPECTATOR readers to judge for...

&A"2 LTIUS11HLIs ART By BRYAN ROBERTSON D AVID HockNEY has made a set of engravings and some drawings inspired by poems of Cavafy, also a series of coloured drawings directly...

Sta,—Some writer will one day compile a horror volume detailing BEA activities, and will doubtless include David Frost's experience. Here is one of mine for book. I flew from...

SIR, —It is now two weeks since I returned from a year overseas. The house agent has been charging me 7+ per cent for something hard to distinguish from a total neglect of my...

of BEA ineptitude to tell, probably because I have not travelled by air enough (one would not have to use the airline often to experience some annoyance, by all reports), I have...

MUSIC As we know from well-remembered Festival Hall nights, Giulini has uncommon and deserved prestige as a Messa conductor. To his pull were added those of the New Philharmonia...

BALLET Since then his every appearance has been touched with the same magic, and with an excite- ment quite unconnected with the merits of what he has danced. His particular...

A Case for Institutions A Child is Waiting. (London Pavilion, 'X' certifi- cate.)—Hands on the City. (Paris-Pullman, 'U' certificate.) T HAT handicapped children often have,...

No. 292. BLACK 64 men) F. E. GODFREY (xst Prize, Good Companions, 1917) WHITE to play and mate in two moves ; solution next week. Solution to No. 291 (Booth). B—B threat...

By ANTHONY BURGESS A ND the mist on the Wicklow hills,' said Louis MacNeice, 'is close, as close as the peasantry were to the landlord, as the Irish to the Anglo- Irish . . .'...

Gordon : Martyr and Misfit. By Anthony Nutting. (Constable, 35s.) `ALt_ that the flesh admires is doomed. . . . Cursed is the man who makes the flesh his arm. . . . As...

ONE reason why the solitary and prodigious genius of Turner has been slow to make its full mark can surely, if ironically, be found in the artist's own concern for the wholeness...

WASHINGTON LETTER By ARNOLD BEICHMAN T HE most serious radical intellectual and political writer in America today by far is Irving Howe, literary critic, professor of English at...

The Jewel in the Crown. By Paul Scott. (Heine- mann, 30s.) A Long Way to Shiloh. By Lionel Davidson. (Gollancz, 25s.) The Margravine. By Leslie Hiscott. (Mac- Donald, 21s.) -...

CONSUMING INTEREST By LESLIE ADRIAN No one in his right senses goes to the South of France in August. Which only serves to support the view that half the world is mad, for...

The fickleness of things— The shed leaf, and the dropped Banana skin. Things change And we are altered—flat On our backs, looking up At the drilling squadrons Of remote...

R9D1.[MP - U By STRIX When, almost exactly ten years ago, this diagnosis of our nation's economic ills appeared in the SPECTATOR, nobody had heard of the Gnomes of Zurich;...