A vote against the truth During the Canadian general election campaign last year a headline in a Montreal paper described a television debate between Mr Pierre Trudeau and Mr...

Political commentary Keynes goes global Ferdinand Mount 'Two-thirds of the world are starving', Lord Boyd-Orr used to say in the late Forties. 'Half the world goes hungry to...

Notebook There seems to be no ph l left in the world sufficiently modest to admit that it might not be uniquciv attractive to tourists. Last Week the immensely ugly and...

Another voice Trouble in the nursery Auberon Waugh When 1 was at Oxford I never attended the Union. My reason, as I remember, was that I had heard rumours that women had been...

Beating about Bush m Nicholas von Hoffman Washington We're celebrating Candlemas or 'groundhog day' late in the United States this year. The American custom is to gather...

Some comments upon a Norwegian joke Peter Ackroyd Oslo The university lecturer leant across the table to me: 'We are God's chosen people'. He was 75, as old as Norway itself....

When the sun went out Karan Thapar New Delhi, To all outward appearances, Saturday, 16 February, was a slightly cloudy, late-winter day. It rained, rather unseasonably, the...

Tito's great mistake Richard West The premature obituaries of Tito, my own included, have tended to concentrate on his work in breaking away from the Soviet bloc and in...

Why buy British? Tim Congdon 'The Battle for Britain' is on. It's being fought in our own homes. Or so we were told in an advertisement which appeared last week in all the...

The test for the social democrats Jo Grimond Lord Eldon. Lord Braxfield and all the great succession of diehard lawyers must look down (or up) with pride on their socialist...

The iron lady Christopher Booker Next Monday, as question marks continue to pile up o ver the Government's handling of the steel strike, the future of the Rhodesian settlement...

Being a human Sir: I agree with all that Christopher Booker wrote in his thoughtful article on abortion (16 February), except in one important regard. Mr Booker says that the...

Sir: Your televisionary Richard Ingrams Is quite wrong to say that all the reviewers except Christopher Booker and Patrick Cosgrave pay obsequious homage to John le Carre (16...

Booker and Smiley Sir: Christopher Booker's review of Smiley's People by John le Carrn (9 February) has greatly upset my friends who are both Spectator readers and Le Carr6...

Letters Annulment for Anglicans Sir: The annulment of marriage recently granted to Frank Sinatra again clearly demonstrates that the laws of churches are different from those...

Going for the green Sir: Even the Homeric Ferdinand Mount has nodded (9 February). First his golf: the wily old British pro rabbiting along timidly and hoping to get down in...

'Orrible Otto Sir: If you measure 'success' by the standards of money and the height of neon lights then Dr Otto Preminger is, indeed a very successful man. Yet, to judge by...

Books Unblemished reputations Richard Ingrams The Last Word Auberon Waugh (Michael Joseph £6.50) On 14 March 1976 a front page article headlined 'The Lies of Norman Scott'...

Golly Jonathan Keates Letters of John Masefield to Florence Lamont Ed. Corliss Lamont and Lansing Lamont (Macmillan £20) Every metier acquires or creates its appropriate...

Class systems Kenneth Lindsay Origins and Destinations: Family, Class and Education A. F. Heath and J. M. Ridge (Oxford £11, £4.95) I should warn readers of this book that it...

Surprises Benny Green Dear Old Blighty E.S. Turner (Michael Joseph £7.95) It is Ernest Turner's pleasant role in life to delve beneath the surface of trivial events and...

Hospital visit A.N. Wilson We could not fight there, even if she chose. Someone had strapped a drip on to her arm, And stuck some plastic tubing up her nose. It was no time...

Psi-spy Paul Ableman Brainfire Campbell Black (Michael Joseph £5.95) Campbell Black may become famous as the author who put the psi into spy. He may also be credited with...

Theatre Revivals Peter Jenkins Greek (Half Moon) The Weavers (Round House) Steve Berkoff is on his own. Blessed Or cursed with a stream of pornographic cOilsciousness, filth...

Arts Graham Sutherland Bryan Robertson Somebody at the BBC earlier this week said of Graham Sutherland, amiably enough: 'He didn't look like an artist.' He didn't,...

Cinema TV politics Charles Clover N Seduction of Joe Tynan ('AA') TrC hestra Rehearsal ('M' Gate Two) 'm1agjine Hawkeye as a senator. He stands in a half-empty chamber...

Television True to life Richard Ingrams I find myself on the threshold of middle age warming more and more to the work of John Osborne. He is a prolific writer who has...

High life Poor Jimmy Taki New York Back in 1972 1 was a first degree black belt in karate and used to - as I still do - train at Mr Enoeda's Dojo in Marshall Street. There...

Football Changing sides Wilfred De'Ath I always used to feel a very particular contempt for intellectuals who made a big thing about following (or playing) football. There...

Postscript Crystal balls John McEwen With all the cheery talk of the Third - and final - World War being just around the corner, it is comforting to reflect on the simple and...

Low life Punch-drunk Jeffrey Bernard Barbados As I sat on the private jetty watching my fourteenth and final Caribbean sunset I tried to concentrate my mind on those things...