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The usefulness of violence as a means of obtaining political' ends is most respect- ably recognised in such instances as war and punishment; and in the activities of...

The conspirators in Act Three HUGH MACPHERSON There is an amusing little parlour game much favoured by politicians. It is called `Let's kill the Leader', and, when played by...

An Issue of National Importance SALLY VINCENT To tell the truth, it's not much of a view. They allow me a corner of a scrawny back- row pew with the grudging assurance that...

What has now happened to Miss Wid- dicombe is this: that she has been taken on to the full-time staff of the Financial Times, and having discussed with the FT her col- umn here,...

It is nice to be vindicated once in a while, particularly following a gross error. Like most commentators, 1 regretted the way in which I had allowed myself to be misled by the...

The postal strike business recalls a project once taken seriously by the International Publishing Corporation in its palmy days before the Reed takeover. It occurred to Edward...

I had not expected to revert to the matter of Covent Garden or to the antics of its chairman, Lord Drogheda (born Garrett Moore, nicknamed Donald Duck). Quite against my...

There has been an excessive amount of Wilson-knocking lately, all of it, naturally, emanating from within his party. Since he is the best leader they have got, or are likely to...

The Government, and Lord Eccles in particular, is to be congratulated on its decision to build a national library, based upon the British Museum Library, on the Bloomsbury site...

Ten years of the 100th Cantuar JOHN S. PEART-BINNS The one-hundredth Archbishop of Canter- bury, Arthur Michael Ramsey, when vested in cope and mitre, looks as though he has...

Curtain up MOLLY MORTIMER .Singapore Singapore today is alight with pomp, circum- stance and the security of thirty-one nations. Twenty-five Heads of State, the most ever met...

Xenophobia ANTHONY LEWIS When the tribunal gave its judgment in the Dutschke case, I was asked about it on the radio programme PM I replied that I was an American who admired...

Wednesday 13 January: Shortly after 10 o'clock the previous evening Mr Carr's house at Hadley Green was damaged by two bomb explosions; the Secretary of State for Employment and...

The re-assertion of sovereignty SIR HARRY LEGGE-BOURKE, MP On 16 December 1970, Mr Geoffrey Rip- pon told the House of Commons that failure of the present negotiations with...

The un-Thoughts of Chairman Roskill STEPHEN HASTINGS, MP 'That this House while recognising the need for a third London airport, is totally op- posed to the choice of any...

Spectator ell MIN MEM MI MIME MN Mil The Spectator, 99 Gower Street, London W.C.1 Please supply the Spectator for one year 0 1 two years ❑ " I Cheque enclosed 0 three years ❑...

REVIEWABOOKS David McLellan on an interpretation of Marx Simon Raven on other men's Shakespeare and reviews by Roger Scruton, Christopher Sykes, R. C. Zaehner and Brian...

An annual prize of £500 will be awarded by the SPECTATOR to whoever in the opinion of the Judges, submits the best piece of original, unpublished, new writing of not less than...

Wittgenstein's influence on modern thought has been very great, so great that it would be odd If his place in the tradition of Western philosophy were still undetermined. Yet...

This disturbing biographical record, first published in Paris in 1969, is about Kurt Gerstein, whose name is likely to stir a memory in anyone who has researched into the...

Reading 'Capital' L, Althusser and E. Balibar (New Left Books 80s) With the interpretation of Marx offered by Louis Althusser, the wheel has come full cir- cle. Already by the...

This is a very personal book by a botanist whose close contact with Nature gives him not only a lively interest in all natural things but also a reverence for them and a sense...

For the generation now in its twenties, it may be difficult to understand the power ex- ercised over the undergraduate mind twenty years ago by the author of The Whig...

his article last week, is published in the United Kingdom by Andre Deutsch Ltd at 75s.

week in a special binding case, with r stifl dark blue covers and gilt-lettered spine, designed to hold twenty-six issues. The ,binder is obtainable price £1 post free, from the...

Charles Seaton reports: Competi- tor s were asked to try their skill a t composing a sonnet consisting of fourteen monosyllables. No Specific sonnet form (Petrarchan,...

No 640: Decirhymes Set by Joyce Johnson: Decimal Day is almost upon us. In an attempt to prevent the confusion which many predict, competitors are asked to compose mnemonic...

Shakespeare's Lives S. Schoenbaum (our £6) S. Schoenbaum's purpose, first conceived, as he tells us, in Stratford-upon-Avon, is to present and assess all the biographical...

No prize is offered this week. The solution will appear in next week's issue. The closing date for No. 1464 is amended to the Friday after the resumption of letter post. Result...

Mr Bone's Retreat Margaret Forster (Seeker and Warburg 38s) The reviewer's role has always seemed to me an essentially humble one, his relationship to the reading public rather...

Stream 21 Resisted 23 Braces 26 Inner 27 Rechabite 28 Twelfth Night. Down: 1 Can- nery 2 Bugle 3 Nationals 4 Trani 5 Alliance 6 Extra 7 Iceberg 8 Maritime 14 Singsong 1 6...

The magnetism of Marvin and Moreau CHRISTOPHER HUDSON A Western is to the cinema what a Shake- spearian production is to the theatre— everyone knows the shape and is chiefly...

TONY PALMER In Great Britain today there are nearly 262,000 registered charities. Eton is one of the oldest. Number 261699 is one of the newest. Called 'Outset', it's been in...

Sir: It seems to me an extraordin- ary assertion that you make in Notebook (16 January) that the Sec- retary of State for the Environment has an evident need to demonstrate to...

Sir: Mr A. A. Garner post-dates the florescence of The Boys' Maga- zine, which I was already reading hungrily in the early 1920s. The brightest stars in its pages were two...

Sir: It seems odd (even if, in some ways, a good thing) that a Conser- vative government should be destroying my nationalism. I first arrived in Africa—in Egypt—in 1927 when...

Letters from Olga Franklin, A. E. C. Vince, Tibor Szattruely, Paul Dehn and others. Khrushchev ' s memoirs Sir: I do agree with Mr Szamuely that the Times, Life etc, were con-...

Sir: The wife who is disappointed because her husband fails to notice her smart new hat may he dis- armed by his remarking that he would soon notice it if she were not smart....

Sir: D. A. N. Jones's sustained efforts at slandering the helpless victims of Soviet police terror have done nothing except reveal his ideological obsession and his pro- found...

Sir: In his diverting letter (16 January), Mr J. C. Goss appears to think that my subjects for Dr Ramsey's attention are purely poli- tical ones. To me, the saddest fact in the...

Sir: I like quite a lot of what the Gay Liberation Front says and does, but what has marching against the Industrial Relations Bill to do with the emancipation of homosexuals? I...

Sir: I watched Panorama earlier this month, and listened to Dr Charles Fletcher (whose sincerity and knowledge on the subject I admire) condemning the Govern- ment for their...

Sir : The SPECTATOR is fi lled with so much trendy nonsense these days that one could easily miss the important things. One such, of great importance in an apparently...

Sir: To return from a sixteen-day voyage in a Russian liner and find oneself so low down on Skinflint's New Year Honours List is dis- appointing and a bit ungenerous on his...

Sir: 1 am glad that Clive Gammon ('Sporting Life', 2 January) failed to catch any fish if he leaves a 'trail of empty McEwan's Export cans bobbing on the Atlantic'. F G....

Sir : I suppose I am not the only one among your foreign subscribers to have felt uncomfortable about the new tone of the SPECTATOR nor to have been shocked on read- ing...

Sir: All enthusiasts for early nine- teenth and late eighteenth century piands must be grateful to Charles Janson for his letter (9 January) about the performance of Beethoven...

appears ('City Diary', 9 January) to share with many employers at the cost of finding and employing secretaries. However, his answer to the problem—'no less than a ban on...

Sir : May I beg space of you to answer two criticisms of secretarial agencies made by Skinflint (9 January). Before accepting his suggestion that the agency he mentioned was...

NICHOLAS DAVENPORT On Friday President Nixon sends his State of the Union message to Congress, I know what he is going to say, for he has said it already. In a television...

So the favourites romped home (both by five lengths) on Wills' Day at Haydock, rob- bing me of any outstanding coup. Still, Interview it's place in the Hurdle saved the day,...

I get that sinking feeling when I see self-help books like Anthony Sampson's Anatomy of Britain. When they have titles like How 1 made 2,000,000 Dollars on the Stock Market I...

There was never a more agreeable way of making a modest accretion of money than through stock market 'pool' operations— which were behind so much of the life in the Australian...

Lord Radnor's Velasquez was bought by Wildenstein's for stock, it was claimed. for £2.3m at a Christie's auction last year subject only to an export licence. I have recently...

The ticket strategy of British Railways, who year after year successfully counter the artifices of the travelling public compels ad- miration. There is a reason behind the ex-...

You know what they say about Chinese food. For a short while you feel replete, satisfied. Then an hour or two later you feel hungry again. This was exactly the effect that last...

The disaster at Ibrox Park has had some truly remarkable repercussions, ranging from the suggestion that football grounds be licensed as places of public entertain- ment, to the...

Recently I have become aware of a trend: adjacent columns are devoting space to food and drink. Now I do not mind this at all. Indeed, I would be absolutely delighted if all...

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