strong it pursued the ng economic policies. Now that it has ktharked on the right economic policies it is weak politically that there must be serious - oubt whether it can carry...

Why not have a national lottery, after all? Mr Wilson has regularly explained that the nation's economic disasters are invariably caused by chance factors no one can con- trol....

'This Black Weekend' moaned tbe People about the gold crisis. The biggest tax increase in Britain's history, said The Times about the Budget. 'Our right to the moral leadership...

POLITICAL COMMENTARY AUBERON WAUGH The most important political event of the week was not the Budget but George Brown's resigna- tion. So far as the Budget is concerned, any...

CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS The Queen's at home in London Town To everyone but Mr Brown. Solicitous she might be fussed At hearing that the country's bust, Wilson and Jenkins and Peter...

OPEN LETTER W. S. LAND OR JUNIOR Dear George : Many more people write to congratulate one on getting a new job than commiserate on losing an old one: it is a sad commentary on...

AMERICA-1 JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE During the fifteen days I have just spent in the United States the political situation has been transformed almost out of recognition. Even at the...

AMERICA-2 MURRAY KEMPTON New York—Senator Robert Kennedy leaves the starting-gate lamed. There has been some- thing curiously adolescent about his withdrawal for the last six...

GREECE M. LLEWELLYN-SMITH Athens—The Greek government is always com- plaining that it gets a bad press, and has recently done two things to remedy this situation. Hav- ing...

Irish debate.] Mr. Disraeli's reply was one of his most felicitous displays of intellectual pluck, and cer- tainly the most utterly infelicitous of all his many infelicitous...

GOLD-1 MARC ULLMANN Paris—Are the monetary decisions taken in Washington last Sunday a first step towards the demonetisation of gold, or a first step towards an increase in...

GOLD-2 NIGEL LAWSON If the gold 'crisis' that erupted last weekend has left any impression at all on those members of the public who have gallantly tried to grasp what it was...

J. W. M. THOMPSON There is something unpleasant about the relish with which Mr Jenkins's dismal programme has been greeted in many quarters. All this enthu- siasm for his...

PERSONAL COLUMN ARTHUR SHENFIELD You - never need to amend Burke much to bring him up to date. If now we say, `The age . . of sophisters, off-beat economists and calculators...

EDUCATION STUART MACLURE • After three years of digging the Dainton Com- mittee has produced its crock of gold. Invited by the Council for Scientific Policy to inquire into...

THE PRESS DONALD McLACHLAN Unless you read the Daily Mirror you are un- likely to realise that it has been fighting for the last week what it regards as a battle for the free-...

TABLE TALK DENIS BROGAN Princeton, NI—The lady who accosted me after my lecture was a 'girl' of around fifty; she was younger and smarter than the 'girls' of the late lamented...

MARTIN SEYMOUR-SMITH Keats is not wholly fortunate in having had almost every one of his actions, remarks and writings put under the scrutiny of a powerful microscope. Matthew...

Absent friends HENRY TUBE The Story Teller Peter Vansittart (Peter Owen 42s) The Days of His Grace Eyvind Johnson translated by Elspeth Harley Schubert (Chatto and Windus 30s)...

FRANCIS WATSON This has been a melancholy month in which to remember that we have been here before. True, it was not a bus-conductor but a lawyer who was required to remove his...

SIMON RAVEN The King's Royal Rifle Corps Herbert Fairlie Wood, The Royal Fusiliers Michael Foss, The Queen's Royal Regiment (West Surrey) Jock Haswell, The Royal Norfolk...

CLEMENT FREUD Ambrose Bierce Richard O'Connor (Gollancz 42s) The Enlarged Devil's Dictionary Ambrose Bierce (Gollancz 30s) of wit as a journalist and Richard O'Connor starts...

LAURENCE MARTIN Take the jacket off this book and you will find that the publishers have enterprisingly em- bossed a colourful Union Jack upon the front board. The pleasing...

DONALD WATT South Arabia: Arena of Conflict Tom Little (Pall Mall 35s) ' An Account of the British Settlement of Aden in Arabia Captain F. M. Hunter (Frank Cass 70s) • Yemen :...

The Unromantic: Jon Kimche (Weidenfeld and Nicolson 25s). An accurate and concise account of the origins of the Balfour Declara- tion, though Mr Kimche doesn't make clear how...

DAVID WILLIAMS A yen to get somewhere south of the fiftieth parallel of latitude seems ineradicable in the English. As soon as their purses and the political situation allow...

ARTS PENELOPE HOUSTON It would be hard to believe that Robert Bresson has ever made a film which did not exactly, and to that extent perfectly, reflect his own intentions. He...

TELEVISION STUART HOOD There are times when the BBC is positively carried away by its zeal for good works—par- ticularly in the field of current affairs. The gold crisis is a...

Old folk at home HILARY SPURLING Few, I daresay, will be found to deny that the current season of D. H. Lawrence plays at the Royal Court is among the best and boldest things...

OPERA EDWARD BOYLE The Covent Garden revival of Visconti's pro- duction of Der Rosenkavalier, newly rehearsed by John Copley, has obviously been carefully thought out, yet I...

CHRISTOPHER FILDES As the monetary system crumbles, economic barbarism regains its lost empires, and the world drifts towards calamity, it behoves all men of good will to ask...

MONEY• NICHOLAS DAVENPORT The new Chancellor certainly impressed the City by his courage, his competence and his cruelty. No one was spared. Not even the millionaires to whom...

FINANCE USA WILLIAM JANE WAY 'In the brief moment that is left us between the crisis and the catastrophe,' Claud Cockburn recalled Paul Claudel remarking in 1931, 'we may as...

BUSINESS VIEWPOINT NEIL WATES We at Wates are in the housing ' business; the business of housing people; we know very well that if we are to stay in business for the long term...

PORTFOLIO • s JOHN BULL Mr Jenkins's enormously tough Budget does not, I am pleased to say, do much damage to my first portfolio. On 6- October the FT ordinary index stood at...

CUSTOS The stock market always cheers up on the morrow of a budget: however painful the ex- perience has been, there is bound to be some- thing even worse that the Chancellor...

be, is the weaker for Anthony Lewis's exposition of it (8 March). His richest gain he counts but loss when he asks, 'Are there nine judges to whom the people of Britain would...

LETTERS Sir: Mr Anthony Lewis, in your edition of 8 March, suggests that a written constitution like the United States Constitution for Britain might bring with it the benefits...

Sir: Mrs Vlachos is a clever woman; but it seems that in her opinion other people are stupid. Otherwise she would carefully have avoided using in her writings obviously con-...

Sir: Professor Manning (Letters, 15 March) says that I have conceded that General Smuts had before him the product of Dumbarton Oaks when he formulated the draft preamble for...

Sir: It is some comfort to observe that at least your correspondence columns do not reflect the general capitulation to the Government's demonstrable intention that its own...

(Letters, 15 March) it would be in- teresting to know if she will be able to continue as a Lapp, or has she some other innocuous nationality lined up?

Sir: We are preparing a volume of selected letters of the late Dame Edith Sitwelr, which will be published ,by Messrs Macmillan. We would appreciate it if anyone who owns...

Robert Birley's letter of 8 March. In spite of Sir Robert's statement that 'Before 1945 and after 1955 the government has paid a fixed sum of money to,African education out of...

AFTERTHOUGHT JOHN WELLS Forty, fifty, sixty, even seventy years ago they jitterbugged the nights away to the captivating rhythms of the Blue Bottom, the Shammie and the Dashing...

Sir: Brushing aside the tears aroused by Mr Simon Raven's gallant defence, both splendid and forlorn, of something or other (15 March), one is able to see a little further into...

Sir: I enjoyed Anthony Burgess's article about cats very much (15 March): but as a cleric much concerned with credal orthodoxy I was disturbed by his use of the ward fetes in...

Sir: Reuters dispatches are commonly held to have their own substance. The one you mention in your article on the Rhodesian hangings (8 March) had none because it did not exist....

PEILIDOR Black White 7 men C. Mansfield (Western Morning News, 1921). White to play and mate in two moves; solution next week. Solution to no. 378 (Speckmann): 1 Q - R 8,...

COMPETITION The music critic of The Times began a recent article: 'I whiled away a quarter of an hour or so on Monday by committing to memory five or six of the...

Trevor Grove reports: A man, self-styled intel- ligent, complains of not getting a prize: tell him to try again. Would his impertinence question further? Upbraid him for his...

Across 1 Beckett's waiters (6) 4 Ease cad quietly into an adventure (8) 10 This must be up everyone's street (7) 11 Does she get the palm for music? (7) 12 Where to find a fair...