NHS crisis Sir: In his letter (November 8) on the crisis in the NHS, Mr J. G. V. Howard advocates the investigation of real issues and objective criticism. He deprecates...

Sir: Mrs Ewing's pronouncement (November 1) "A Scotsman is not English" betrays an abysmal ignorance of the history of Scotland. The population of the Lothians are of English...

Sir: One can only hope that the current cease-fire in Lebanon will last a little longer than the eleven or twelve that preceded it, but I have my doubts, first because violence...

Sir: Lest the interim agreement between Israel and Egypt (or more accurately. between Israel and the United States , and between Egypt and the United States) lull us into a...

Sir; Concern about the increasing use of violence by pupils against teachers Should be balanced by concern about the much more frequent use of violence by teachers against...

Sir: In his sadly touchy and ignorant review of Father Caraman's book The Lost Paradise (the author is even referred to as Mr Caraman throughout — surely he could have looked...

Sir: Once again Martin Sullivan, priest and pastor of souls, learned churchman, theologian and holding — alarmingly in my view — the office and prestige of Dean of St Paul's,...

Sir; A recent article presenting John Hoyland as a European 'Hans Hofmann' has several points to which I take issue. The reader would be quite wrong in assuming that something...

From Miss D. Vigne Smith Sir: So the Trades Union Conference has shown that the leadership has "come to its senses" and that "moderation and responsibility shall prevail to...

Sir: I found Nicholas Davenport's argument, in 'Borrowing and market . pointers' rather ironic. He seems to be unaware that Mr Benn is no longer at the Industry post, for he...

The peers in practice Patrick Cosgrave The Lords, it seems, are not appreciated even by those one would expect to find in the ranks of their stoutest defenders. A...

0 From all accounts the Conservative leadership — or at least part of the present hierarchy — will soon be demanding the capital penalty for acts of terrorism resulting in...

A meat pie election Mungo MacCallum Canberra The former Australian Prime Minister, Edward Gough Whitlam, has always been a man with an overdeveloped sense of his own...

Did the summit work? Robert Mauthner Paris If the Ram houillet economic summit last weekend produced rather more hot air than hot news, it was not entirely the fault of its...

Honoured guest Humphry Berkeley Julius Nyerere, now in London, is in many ways unique. At the age of Jifty-three he is the longest-serving head of a Commonwealth African...

Mr Cosgrave survives Rawle Knox Dublin If Liam Cosgrave's Fine Gael-Labour government had lost the West Mayo by-election last week its majority in Dail Eireann, for the next...

Battling Siki of Senegal Richard West Dakar The news of the death of Georges Carpentier has reached Senegal — where I am making a BBC film and writing a book — and caused...

Church militant Stephen Glover Last week's Second General Synod of the Church of England followed hard upon the Archbishop's call to the nation. But though Her Majesty the...

Bourgeoisie and bureaucracy Russell Lewis So all the Middle Class Associations are collapsing but spare us the funeral orations because the middle class is alive and well and...

Beauty's rites and wrongs Quentin Crewe There are all sorts of good reasons for not watching the Miss World contest, ranging from the moral to the cynical, from the snobbish...

Art for whose sake? Alan Stewart "They tell me that we have no literature now in France," Louis Napoleon is reported to have said, "I will speak to the Minister of the...

War poses an agonising problem for the media. One of the main functions of the press is to expose official cant, corruption, and incompetence. Never is this more needed than in...

Roy Fuller Moi Paul Valery translated by Marthiel and Jackson Mathews (Routledge and Kegan Paul E8.50) I suppose I shouldn't be reviewing this book. It is the fifteenth and...

Ian McEwan Deaths of Man Edwin S. Scheidman (Millington £3.50) It is often said that death is the taboo of our death-laden age, just as sex was once for the Victorians. For...

H. J. Eysenck Race Science and Society edited by Leo Kuper (George Allen and Unwin £5.95) Racism is a terrible thing; we need only recall the evil that Hitler wrought to...

Donald Davie The Maximus Poems: Volume Three. Charles Olson. Edited by Charles Boer and George Butterick (Grossman 88.95) , Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror. John Ashbery...

Richard Luckett America in the Movies: or, "Santa Maria. It Had Slipped My Mind!" Michael Wood (Seeker and Warburg £5) 'America in the Movies' is not at all like 'America in...

Vandals Peter Ackroyd Joseph and the Goths Catherine Heath (Jonathan Cape £2.95) To Die in Italbar Roger Zalazny (Faber and Faber £2.75) There is not much to be said nowadays...

All in the game Benny Green There persists a certain fanciful image of the intrepid Englishman, an image hopelessly passé and perhaps even without much basis in fact. But it...

The Booker Prize for Fiction — which my colleague Peter Ackroyd helped to judge — has gone to Ruth Prawer Jhabvala for her novel Heat and Dust. Congratulations to Miss Jhabvala,...

Freedom and the NUJ Robert Ashley Freedom is a word I distrust. I experience an immediate need, when I hear it, to , ask "Freedom from what?" Wh;ch is why I've had a feeling,...

Great scientists Bernard Dixon What makes a great scientist? The making of a great discovery, maybe — the discovery of penicillin, relativity, evolution, or the principle of...

Language and symbols flartin Sullivan It is an axiom of all religions that spiritual truths are spiritually perceived and the language which expresses them must be...

'Go forth and be equal!' Nancy Allum By a happy coincidence Royal Assent was signified to the Sex Discrimination Act during the annual meeting of the Status of Women Committee...

Rodney Milnes question of period in opera. Your average opera audience associates People get very heated about the t oday's designer; but there seems the action of any opera...

Cheshire kittens Kenneth Hurren Cranford, adapted by Joan Littlewood and John Wells from the book by Elizabeth Gaskell; lyrics by John Wells, music by Carl Davis (Theatre...

Lisztless Kenneth Robinson Lisztomania Director: Ken Russell Stars: Roger Daltrey, Sara Kestelman, Paul Nicholas, Fiona Lewis. 'X' Warner West End, ABC Bloomsbury, Scene I...

Depressing Russians John McEwen It's salutary to have art exhibitions that bear witness to the practical importance of art. Landscape Masterpieces from Soviet Museums (Royal...

Worker participation and profits With the huge spate of ieg i islation Passing through Parliament it s re asonable to assume that no Labour minister has any longer any time to...

British interest rates in the bad old days were dictated by the government through the Bank of England, but in 1972 it was decided the free market demand for money should...