On balance, it was publicly and politically desirable (although not absolutely essential, tor that would have made him indispensable, and no man is ever that) that Mr Heath and...

Spectator Towards a balanced Middle East Both the motives behind, and the consequences of, President Sadat's dramatic dismissal of 20,000 Russian military ' advisers ' from...

Hugh Macpherson Mr Willie Hamilton, the West Fife Labour member, is viewed by most Parliamentarians, and particularly by Government ministers, as a particularly awkward...

Reggie Maudling must by now 'have put aside for good all hopes of ever becoming Prime Minister; yet, but for a narrow majority of Tory members of Parliament, who thought that...

nnocence and intolerance Henry Fairlie We still do not know what kind of candidate George McGovern will be. His ac ceptance speech was addressed far more to the delegates...

What Jack Lynch wants Ronan Fanning Mr Lynch's article, 'The Anglo-Irish Problems,' which was published in this month's issue of the journal Foreign Affairs, has been widely...

Tibor Szamuely: the future of Soviet dissent The birth of samizdat—the Russian Do-itYourself Dissenting Press — roughly coincided with the Sinyavsky-Daniel trial of early...

Auberon Waugh Disraeli in Love Maurice Edelman (Collins £2.00) The Death of the Fiihrer Roland Puccetti (Hutchinson £2.50) Ostensibly, Mr Edelman's book is about the love...

David Harsent Cannibals and Missionaries John Fuller (Secker & Warburg £1.50) Lives Derek Mahon (OUP 90p) Terminal Moraine James Fenton (Secker & Warburg £1.50) Transformations...

Jonathan Raban The Happier Life Douglas Dunn (Faber £1.50) Poems and A Family Album Brian Jones (London Magazine Editions £1.80) Dunn's new poems show him coming to terms with...

Christopher Hudson Some Time After Anne Ridler (Faber £1) Strange Encounter A. L. Rowse (Cape £1.25) Celebrations William Plomer (Cape El) Poems and Paraphrases James Reeves...

Graham Martin Out of Battle, The Poetry of the Great War Jon Silkin (Oxford University Press 0.00) Question: What have these three in common? A German soldier hanging on the...

Bernard Shaw In 1898, Bernard Shaw was forty-two years old, and although he was the author of five novels and eight plays, his literary career had hardly begun. To Shaw, it...

Bookbuyer Turnstone (Turnstile? Touchstone?) is a new publishing house formed by Alick Bartholomew, "at the immature age of forty-two," he says, to publish books providing...

Patrick Cosgrave His business activities are important only in the clue they give to the operation of his complex mind and his elusive and sardonic temperament. Even his...

Opera Taverner in the town Rodney Milnes Peter Maxwell Davies's opera. Taverner ends quietly, with some of Taverner's own music, the music he is reputed to have given up in...

Intimate relations Kenneth Hurren Jtist in case the disdainful thought had crossed your mind that I had flinched from attendance at the new and virtually openair Bankside...

One of those vital cast changes which, in the West End theatre take place almost in secret, has been quietly effected at Her Majesty's Theatre, where the incomparable Elaine...

Politicians and clowns Christopher Hudson In two films this week, Young Winston ('A' Odeon, Leicester Square) and The Ten Commandments (' U ' Casino), there is a moment when...

Out for the count Benny Green The death last month of Nat Fleischer was a final consigning to the irretrievable past of a chapter of literary experience as vivid as any of my...

Tempest in the tastevins Pamela Vandyke Price Some topics, like going to the dentist, 'come round.' It is traditionally the silly season (although these days silliness isn't...

Commercial Cowes? Oliver Stewart Many sports, from motor racin g to g olf, are propped up by financial aid from industry and commerce. It is called sponsorship. Yet some...

Inflationary battle Sir:—The Government is trumpeting the old battle-cry against inflation. Over the centuries governments have blamed middlemen, speculators, the trade unions...

Sir: Before entirely rejecting the loyalty of Ulster as uncalled for and unwanted let us reflect on the following words from Sir Winston Churchill to Mr J. M. Andrews the...

to and concern for the plight of the negro in Rhodesia, its approach to and lack of concern for the people of Northern Ireland reveal the perennial arrogance and bigotry of...

Sir: If Mary Secrett (July 15) considers that standing on one's feet is a masculine virtue. I should ask her to read the report in a recent Hansard where the anomaly between the...

Sir: It reflects poorly on our supposedly democratic system that 301 unmandated MPs, from various motives and by a slender majority of seventeen, can put into reverse 1,000...

Sir: — I fully agree with your wish that the public should know more of the activities of social security special investigators, particularly as such an open policy would...

Sir: May I point out to Custos (' Disabled and Homeless ') that the average disabled person in this ; country knows what he wants and what he doesn't want, and his ; ideas about...

Sir: — As representative of a ward whose electorate has declined by 13.5 per cent in two years, I heartily support the view expressed in last week's edition by the Pimlico...

Sir: If Mr Richard Wort (Letters, July 8) seeks to be read with any attention in his excursions into sociology and education he will need to interpret Department of Education...

Sir: What a pity Mrs Gradgrind Thatcher couldn't have been born in fifth-century Athens: they had a terribly troublesome chap there who got up to just the sort of things she...

Sir: If Nicholas Davenport says he spent sixty pence on two cups of coffee at Orvieto, I am sure he did so, but, in order to prevent readers of The Spectator from getting wrong...

Sir: It is odd indeed to find in a journal of such quality as yours the Competition Editor awarding a prize to Mr Woddis who misquotes, by implication, Masfield's well known...

Sir: The Spectator has been allowed to float for some long time. If Veronica Orme's foul saga (July 1) is an indication that your magazine has found its level then your...

Sir: I am constrained to inform you of the sentiments of the presumed Tsarevich, Aleksei Nicholaevich Romanoff, whom I believe to be the scion of the Romanoff dynasty and the...

The market touch Nicholas Davenport Now is a good time to take another look at the bull market in equities and the beat market in gilt-edged. The week started well for...

It is disappointing to see that the appeal to the public for subscriptions towards a part of the cost of ' saving' Titian's Death of Actaeon for the nation has succeeded and...

Helped along by Kensington's museum mecca and what's left of the Crystal 'Palace, Queen Victoria's great flag-waving Exhibition of 1851 has borne its years remarkably well,...

Juicy speculation John Bull A share which has moved in the niost interesting fashion over the last six months is Fruit & Produce Exchange of Great Britain. Most investors...

Buying in Ulster Nephew Wilde I have never ceased to be amazed by the City. Since I took an active interest in investing Aunt Maude's legacy, sharp gyrations in prices, the...

Planning The technology of social work Jimmy Algie C. P. Snow's ' two cultures' debate is likely to figure more prominently in the welfare arena in Britain. DHSS is seriously...

Trouble with youth Jef Smith Suddenly the girl downstairs is adolescent. It was surely only a few weeks ago that she was sitting on the stairs playing with dolls; this summer...

John Rowan Wilson The recent suggestion in a Bow Group Pamphlet that hospital boards will soon have to start advertising for abortion a . pecialists springs from a widespread...

Last week, Sir Keith Joseph was asked Whether he will now publish the AX Code. The code governs the actions of his bepartment's 300 investigators when, among other things, they...