A flood of new rights issues, including those in the pipeline, are said to amount to almost £1,000 million of new money. Last week's announcements alone pushed the total up £100...

Among th e more classically ridiculous remarks made by members of the British Pro-Common Market faction must count that made by Mrs Shirley Williams in Ge rmany over the...

The breakdown of relations between the police and the press in the case of the Lesley Whittle kidnapping — which is dealt with forcefully in the current issue of Police, the...

The United Nations' sponsored conference on the law of the sea reconvenes in Geneva this week, attended by some 1,500 delegates from many nations. It is practically without an...

The fuss that has been created over the pruning of the Conservative Central Office candidates list is justified; and Lord Thorneycroft has acted wisely in bringing the pruning...

Sir: Your readers may like to know that the option on the printing works which was the subject of our double-spread advertisement in your pages last week has been taken up....

Sir: Your leading article of March 8 draws the conclusion that the Government has probably not called upon the assistance of interested opinion research companies in compiling...

Sir: The Letter puousned in your columns (February 15) by Ernest Wistrich, on the financial position of the European Movement was, even judged on past standards, unworthy of...

Sir: The Spectator has had such a creditable, even heroic, record of dissent from the U-turns of Mr Heath and his colleagues it is understandable that you are keen to placate...

Sir: The writer of 'A Spectator's Notebook' (March 8) rightly says that the City Editor of the Evening Standard and Mr Thomas, former City Editor of the Guardian — the latter of...

Sir: May I completely refute Peter Hall's contention "The man realises his insignificance. He also understands perhaps that he can change very little," Spectator March 8. As a...

Sir: I read with great interest Professor Trevor-Roper's sober analysis of the motives and antics of those who successfully plotted to deny Mr Bhutto his degree (March 15)....

Sir: We, the undersigned, have read with disgust and indignation the paragraph in your gossip column "Will Waspe" (March 8) concerning our tutor, Jane Glover, and would like to...

From Robert Kilroy-Silk, MP Sir: In his article on the Arts and VAT (March 1), Mr Ernie Money said that the Minister for the Arts, Mr Hugh Jenkins, has been suggesting that we...

Sir: Your readers might like to reflect on two points in the excellent article about smoking in your March 8 issue. Should the Health Educational Council really have teeth? Our...

The charade of 'renegotiation' Patrick Cosgrave We are, as yet, nowhere near the climax of the great debate on Britain's membership of the European Economic Communities. The...

The Talent of turning men (or women) into Ridicule and exposing to laughter those conversed with is the qualification of little ungenerous tempers. Thus, it roust be accorded,...

Inside Mossad master spies of 'preventive intelligence' John Laffin The espionage business was becoming rather dull until the Israelis became the undisputed world masters of...

Direct Action Debriefing Rhodes Boyson, MP The public has got so used to the nonsense of the taxpayer-and-ratepayer-financed NUS that even the direct threat to law and order...

Shuffling to the right John 0' Sullivan It would be an exaggeration, alas, to claim that the Tory Party has emerged sinless and renewed from the baptism-by-fire of the...

This article is one of a continuing weekly series in which specialist writers discuss various matters relevant to membership of the EEC and the forthcoming referendum. Our...

Humphry Berkeley t have never found it possible to like Edward Heath or even, hitherto, to admire him. I have often criticised him, in public, in terms which some have...

William Sargant on the confusion of drug legislators I have not always agreed in the past, nor shall I probably agree in the future with much that Brian Inglis writes on...

Hugh Lloyd-Jones Animals with Human Faces: A Guide to Animal Symbolism Beryl Rowland (George Allen and Unwin £4.65) Professor Rowland sets out to present "the most meaningful...

Facts and fantasy William Vivian Butler The Complete Jack the Ripper Donald Rumbelow (W. H. Allen £4.95) Francis Camps Robert Jackson (Hart-Davis, MacGibbon £3.95) The Masters...

Big baddies Richard Usborne Frank Costello. Prime Minister of the Underworld George Wolf with Joseph DiMona. (Hodden and Stoughton £3.25) My Life In The Mafia. The true...

New developments Patrick Cosgrave It is more than half a year since I have written a crime compendium in this paper. During that time I have been no less assiduous than before...

Old tricks Peter Ackroyd North Kill James Wood (Hutchinson £2.60) The Bengali Inheritance Owen Sela (Hodder and Stoughton £2.95) The Clients of Omega Dennis Bloodworth (Secker...

Amateur Cracksman Benny Green At some time in 1892, Conan Doyle's sister Connie brought home her chap, a dapper, short-sighted young journalist called Willie, Whose prospects...

Bookend At a recent meeting on how to cut costs in an inflationary period, one publisher came up with an interesting panacea. "If you tell authors to write lass," he said...

Medicine The game of the state John Linldater The chips are down. Thousands of family doctors are preparing to resign from the NHS en bloc. BUPA membership is growing...

Lay of the magistrate lain Scarlet "The lay magistracy is one of the glories of England," declaimed the poetic Lord Hailsham when he was Lord High Chancellor, Apart from a few...

A talk from Mr Jenkins Bill Grundy The other night I found myself, much against my will, listening to the Dwaconian tones of Mr Roy Jenkins. The occasion was the Granada...

How to write copy Philip Kleinman Two very different events provided the main news in Adland last week: David Ogilvy stepped down as chairman of Ogilvy and Mather...

Rook, hares, hunts Denis Wood Our rooks have deserted us. For many years until now we have always had a rookery in the farmer's field over the way and now I miss them very...

Man of Kerioth Martin Sullivan As we approach the commemoration of Christ's death, this is an appropriate moment to examine the role of some of the chief agents in this...

Kenneth Hurren on acceptable implausibilities The Case . in Question by Ronald Millar, "suggested" by C. P. Snow's novel, In Their Wisdom (Theatre Royal, Haymarket) Murderer...

The boy friends Kenneth Robinson A Bigger Splash Director: Jack Hazan Stars: David Hockney and friends. 'X' Paris Pullman, Times Baker Street (105 mins). I've given up going...

Phoenix in flames Rodney Manes The Phoenix Opera fiasco is just one pimple on the pustulous face of the Arts Council. It burst last week at the company's understandably angry...

Waspe 1 ' My congratulations to Michael Parkinson — clearly a kindred spirit — for signing off his latest TV series with a stinging riposte to a couple of journalists who have...

Thomas Aquinas was one of the originators of the notion of a social contract and his idea was developed by Hobbes, Locke, Spinoza et al to mean the covenant between individuals...

The Budget, Mr Benn and industrial relations Nicholas Davenport The depressingly dreary forecast of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research is not going to set...

Water to the rescue Bernard Hollowood I was once invited to lunch by a whisky baron who believes that only his Glen Denis Malt can bring out the true flavour of the finest...