A process of attrition Dictatorships cannot concede gracefully. Totalitarian regimes cannot share power. Communist states admit no Possibility of any organised party political...

Another voice Food for thought Auberon Waugh ,A1omm11Zltll/ A udtX T'he martmclom of St Lawrence is celebrated ev-erx Ftear in the rncarhk village of Puginier. ot ukhose...

Notebook What annoyed the music critic of I wnce- Stir most about Mr Edward Heath's attemipt in France last weekeIld to conduct the overture to The Magic Fl/te was not that he...

Japan's haunted shrine Murray Sayle 0k vo August is Japan's month of sorrow, haunted bN the restless ghosts of 35 years ago. About this time the anniversaries roll round: 6...

The Jerusalem question Christopher Walker .1Jeru.s 'zlc Earlier this month. the semi-official Cairo dailk newspaper. AI-Gomihouria, carried a cartoon showing Hitler heaping...

Iran attacks the Church Roger Cooper Four B ritish sulhjCcts haVc 11now been detained in Iran and are said to be undergoing interrogation as suspected spies. hree have links...

After the convention Nicholas von Hoffman Washington Will Rogers used to say. 'I'm a member of no organised political group. I'm a member of the Democratic Party.' Last week...

Communists past and present Sam White Paris although operating in a free society, the French Communist Party continues to show the same impudent recklessness in rewriting and...

The hubris of Anthony Blunt Max Hastings Most of us imagine that if we were caught stealing the silver or selling company secrets, no hole would be deep enough to hurN our own...

Suffolk by the sea Richard West Souh i/ wold Oil the Queen Mother's birthday, the Mayor of Southwold planted a tree on the Crnmorn to honour the lady who knows the twvn since...

Otrange ways Mr There is nothing at all new in Patrick N alnhams remark (9 August) that 'there is not much point in being heard if you are not In return why your arguments were...

Confidentially Sir: It really will not do for Peregrine Worsthorne to equate the right of the police to keep secret the names of their informers with the claimed privilege of...

Letters A Word from Worsthorne Sir: Peregrine Worsthorne is mistaken in his belief (9o August) that he is the onlI person alive, actors and actresses excluded, to have used a...

Masochistic Sir: I admire your fairness in printing yet another aggrieved letter from Alastair Forbes (9 August) beneath one from a reader critical of his unreadable sentences...

Sir I was; somewhat grieved to see that your °otebook (9 August) Was taken up almost xclusiveli with a defence by Mr Worsthorne of'some disgusting language which he Used on the...

Neither golden nor delicious Sir: I should like to add some comments to the excellent article in the Spectator of 9 August by Michael Wigan. The best of English apple growers...

Zooming Liberals Sir: Recognising that Mr Ferdinand Mount's comments on the current political scene are usually so clear and incisive, I am surprised that he is prepared to...

Books A peaceful province Richard Cobb The Companion Guide to Normandv Nesta Roberts (Collins £8.95) Guide books do not generally make a gripping read from cover to cover....

Wild things Anthony Storr the Forbidden Experiment Roger Shat- tuck (Secker £6.95) The, Wild Boy of Aveyron has been the Sabjet of so many papers and books that no more...

Kern's music Benny Green Jerome Kern: His Life and Music Gerald Boardman (Oxford £9.50) The condition of popular music biography is so parlous that when tile spelling is...

August crime Harriet Waugh The Treasure of Saint Fov by MacDonald Harris (Gollancz £6.95) is particularly appropriate summer holiday reading. The author has obviously had a...

Island story Paul Ableman Moreauws Other Island Brian Aldiss (Cape £4.95)- ~ "| I>, I|>,u IQI Moreau's original island, as many readers Will recall was described in a novel...

Staking Claims Page Edwards (Marion Boyars £5.95) Runaway Horse Martin Walser (Secker £5.50) Maybe Lillian Heilman (Macmillan £3.95) Mike Dime Barry Fantoni (Hodder...

Arts The twilight zone Peter Ackroyd The Consequence ('X' Gate Cinema, Not- ting Hill and Gate, Mayfair) The first shot is of a young manl trying to commit suicide; the...

Theatre Truth to tell Bryan Robertson The Life of Galileo (Olivier) Brecht's Li J'f Galileo is one of the few absolutely great plays of our centurx and John Dexter's...

Deeply felt John McEwen Anthony D'Offay has won himself a contderable rcputation as an art dealer over " Past decuide t hrough his highly success* PromotioI of pre-War...

Opera Adding up Rodney Milnes Salzburg Festival The novelty at Salzburg, as it is going to he in so many other places, alas, in this centennial sear, was a new Conites...

?Llllevision 0; Umdrum Rich)ard Ingrains The r~ is waiting on tenterhooks to her0 the fate of Ms Esther Rantzen, now on s~r O'v at the BBC without the back-up PIPort System...

High life Cruise Taki Cannes For a while it looked as if the back of the Spectator would go the way of people who openly oppose the states of Bulgaria, Libya and Iran. First...

Postscript In vogue Patrick Marnham Some vears ago a cartoonist. perhaps Heath. drew a picture of two Biafra-type babies with swollen bellies and matchstick limbs who wcre...

; Low life Oesperate - - - w - - W Jefrey Bernard It's be Odd week varying as it has for middle class country and villain . reC Oh. First, the country. On Sunday I 1 lU~cd...