On Tuesday the Queen opened Lloyd's. T he Labour Party won the Knowsley North by-election by 6,724 votes, com- pared to 17,191 at the general election. The Liberals came...

ON TUESDAY, the new controller of Radio 4, Mr Michael Green, announced his plans for 'gradually refreshing some parts of the channel'. One way he means to do this is by the...

MAKING TERROR PAY F or the Americans to negotiate with the Iranians for the release of hostages being held in the Lebanon was wrong, according to one school of thought, only...

IN HIS helpful advice about how to avoid Aids, Mr Norman Fowler, the Social Ser- vices Secretary, has recommended staying with one sexual partner, but, he adds, if you 'cannot'...

Mr Baker has to dare to explain that good is better than bad FERDINAND MOUNT S hould a deputy headmistress at St Monica's Church of England Primary School with 25 years'...

FRANK JOHNSON N ew serialisations, and Sir Robert Armstrong in Australia, mean another spy season. Not a moment too soon. Many of us had already read more than enough about...

A disgraceful proposal for winning the next general election AUBERON WAUGH K eith Waterhouse, most respected of all newspaper columnists, has issued what amounts to a firm...

Christopher Fildes examines the effect of the property boom and asks when it will burst. The Spectator Poll discovers the priorities of successful home-owners SQUEAKY and...

Report by Andrew Gimson IN THE second Spectator Poll, we set out to determine the attitude of those holding senior positions in Britain (see box) to home ownership and...

THE 146 respondents were drawn from the City, business and industry, the trade unions, press and television, the universities, the law, medicine, the arts, the clergy, the Civil...

In City and Suburban (15 November) the phrase 'Loughborough (the new Delhi)' appeared. This was a typographical error for 'Loughborough (the new Delphi)'. Christopher Hicks will...

Andrew Lownie shows how the Peter Wright affair confirms British mole-hunting failures ONE of the most memorable images of the last week has been the tight-lipped smile of the...

Rippon: (Hexham, Conserva- tive): Some things, however, never change. Hanging on a wall in an appropriate room in my home in North- umberland is a speech by a Mr Rippon who...

David Carlton on when it is prudent for the West to hit back at terrorism `THOSE who think we have gone soft on terrorism should ask Colonel Gaddafi.' With thdse words an...

Richard West compares Australian and South African attitudes to race Cape Town ON A bright but nearly windless Saturday afternoon, the 19 yachts of a round-the- world race...

Zenga Longmare finds Jamaica a respectable but neglected land AFTER a week in Jamaica, I was so convinced I was in hell that I found myself wondering when I had died and what...

Peter Paterson reports on the American way of electioneering and its shortcomings Atlanta A MEMBER of the Talmadge political dynasty in Georgia, accompanied by cam- paign...

As the Government pushes ahead with the Channel Tunnel, Ian Waller questions its safety GIVEN Mrs Thatcher's determination to have the Channel Tunnel Bill — and her monument...

Piers Paul Read on the battle to save a church school which has turned into a clash of ideologies THERE is a struggle going on in the Roman Catholic diocese of Westminster...

Napier Miles finds an odd connection between racing and bird-fancying LAST weekend, I found myself at the World Budgerigar Championships, held at Doncaster race course. My...

The media: Paul Johnson welcomes the first report of a new broadcasting monitor-unit MANY times in the past I have com- plained in this column that, while there is clearly a...

Parliamentarian of the Year results T he third annual presentation of the Spectator/Highland Park Parliamentarian of the Year Awards took place on Wednes- day. The awards were...

Sir: I am writing to your newspaper to make a very angry protest about a leading article featured in your paper on 8 Novem- ber 1986. Title 'How to stop a plague'. The section...

Sir: Mr Elton John has written a number of annoying pop records in his time (as well as one or two very good ones) but 'Part-time Lover' is not one of them. Nicholas Col-...

Sir: Nigella Lawson is quite correct in pointing out that 'the Japanese have the lowest rate of heart disease in the industrial world' (13 September). It is also a fact that...

Sir: I do not know Digby Anderson's age, or when he first became interested in cooking, but it is not strictly true that serious cooks had to go to Europe to buy their cooking...

Sir: It may be of interest to note the following 'Fog Quotients' (Letters, 8 November) of authors, none of whom. sadly, writes for the Spectator: St Paul Prayer Book Gibbon Dr...

cheque for ; (Equivalent SUS & Eurocheques accepted) RATES: 12 Months 6 Months UK/Eire 0 £41.00 0 £20.50 Europe (airmail) 0 £50.00 0 £25.00 Outside Europe ... Airmail 0 £65.00...

Edward Mortimer MISSION TO TEHRAN by General Robert E. Huyser Andre Deutsch, f12.95 G eneral Robert E. 'Dutch' Huyser, USAF, is a classic example of those charac- ters in...

Phillip Knightley MAYDAY: EISENHOWER, KHRUSHCHEV AND THE U-2 AFFAIR by Michael R. Beschloss Faber & Faber, f14.95 T his is a very revealing book. When the U-2 spy plane...

Allan Massie EVELYN WAUGH, THE EARLY YEARS 1903-39 by Martin Stannard Dent, £14.95 N othing can be more annoying for an author than the reviewer's trick of declar- ing a book...

In the middle of one of those Interminable domestic wrangles The words 'God is Love' Come from some odd space Between slander and accusation Like a song of irrelevance. One...

Nicholas Budgen MINISTERS AND MANDARINS by Jock Bruce-Gardyne Sidgwick & Jackson, £10.95 L et me declare an interest. I have admired Jock Bruce-Gardyne since 1972 when he...

Anthony Lane LIFE IS ELSEWHERE by Milan Kundera Faber & Faber, £9.95 W hen I opened this book and read the words 'Part Three: The Poet Mastur - bates', I thought that a copy of...

Alan Powers' "Views of the South Coast", eight lithographs of the Kent and Sussex seaside commissioned specially by the Spectator, and attract- ively packaged in their own...

Peter Phillips here is no doubt that the new Britten Opera Theatre at the Royal College of Music is a success; nor that, in its way, the televised opening night on 5 November...

Rock of ages Trevor Dann E ven by the mega-hype standards of the American rock-business reaction to the new Bruce Springsteen album has been phenomenal. Despite a price tag of...

The sound o music Rodney Milnes I f I have achieved anything in 16 years of pleasurable (for me) contribution to these Pages, it is the advancement of the theory — which no...

The Infernal Machine (Lyric, Hammersmith) Macbeth (Stratford) Plumbing the tragic shallows Christopher Edwards T here is a sense of missed opportunity about the RSC's latest...

True Stories (PG', selected cinemas) Texan eccentricities Peter Ackroyd T his is 'a film about a bunch of people in Virgil, Texas'. And the apparently casual if slightly...

Miles of smiles Peter Levi ow glad I was to see the BBC's H purring over its past 50 years turn a little more sour with Television and Number 10 (BBC2), which seriously...

Words and deeds Taki enata Adler is a 47-year-old writer who can best be described as a walking neurosis. She is a handsome woman, but one who looks as if she was being put on...

Babes in arms Jeffrey Bernard I t was fascinating to read that two babies in Bangladesh were married last week to settle a 20-year feud between two families over a disputed...

Body search Alice Thomas Ellis T he daughter and I and her friend Anna went off to the British Museum on Saturday to look at Pete Marsh only we couldn't find him. We couldn't...

Excellent overlooked clarets Auberon Waugh T he last Wine Club offer of the year concerns itself exclusively with mature clarets from years which are seldom, if ever,...

Berry Bros and Rudd Ltd, 3 St James's Street, London SW1A lEG. Tel: 01-839 9033 Code Product Price* No. Value 88772 (1) Ch. d'Angludet, Margaux 1977 EB 12 bots. £71.40...

Apt A's artful aid Jaspistos I . n Competition No. 1447 you were in- vited to produce a dialogue in prose in which each speaker uses heavy alliteration, the letter overworked...

Supermen Raymond Keene S o-called 'Super-Tournaments' are often dull affairs where Grandmasters with inflated ratings spend most of their time concocting new ways to draw...

A poem, please (maximum 16 lines) in praise of one of the Seven Deadly Sins by an unabashed sinner. Entries to 'Compel' don No. 1450' by 5 December.

A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or, for UK solvers, a copy of Chambers Dictionary, value £12.95 — ring the words 'Chambers Dictionary' above) for the first...

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