24 JUNE 1995

Page 6

PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK

The Spectator

Feeding time. M r John Major, the Prime Minister, flew back from Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he had been meeting other heads of gov- ernment at a G7 conference, and was invit-...

Page 8

POLITICS

The Spectator

Message to the Tory party: Ken Clarke is Michael Heseltine without the hypocrisy BORIS JOHNSON W ith a long, gibbering wail John Major will finally be defenestrated this...

Page 9

DIARY

The Spectator

PETER PRESTON W hy, even in the familiar midsummer depths of vituperation, does one still feel a residual sympathy for John Major? He doesn't seem to have any friends: which is...

Page 10

ANOTHER VOICE

The Spectator

When the police are more of a nuisance than assistance AUBERON WAUGH I f I had a weapon on me that night, I would have happily killed the muggers. And be back in jail a la...

Page 11

A TRIUMPH OF UNREFINED SADISM

The Spectator

Andrew Kenny is one South African who hoped that the cult of rugby would die with apartheid. He is therefore appalled by the success of the World Cup Cape Town ONE OF my great...

Page 12

Mind your language

The Spectator

"THIS IS very confusing,' I said to my husband over breakfast the other day. `Mrrmph,' he said from behind his newspaper. What I would have told him if he'd been listening is...

Page 16

A SYMBOL IN SEARCH OF MEANING

The Spectator

Amity Shlaes reports that Germany is a little divided — over the merits of the use of a million square feet of wrapping Berlin WEATHER permitting, the people of Europe will...

Page 18

If symptoms persist.. .

The Spectator

I WENT ON a long journey by tele- phone last week. It started with a message in my office on that fiendish modern invention, second in its monstrousness only to the television,...

HOSTAGE-TAKING PAYS: ASK ANY TERRORIST

The Spectator

Robin Harris says that politicians and pundits in the West should admit to the triumph of Bosnian Serb gangsterism WESTERN liberalism is the creed of happy endings. Western...

Page 20

HENRY KING

The Spectator

Michael Heath

HOW MANY LIVES IS LEE CLEGG WORTH?

The Spectator

The British press scent success in their bid to free Private Clegg. But, argues Kevin Myers, they may get more than they bargained for Dublin IT IS as if we have been...

Page 21

Wiff of the week

The Spectator

Mrs Odette Marie-Celine HAL- LOWES, GC, MBE, Legion d'Honneur, of 8 Eriswell Road, Burwood Park, Wal- ton on Thames, Surrey, the war-time heroine of the SOE, who died on March...

Page 23

ELEVATING MEANNESS TO A PRINCIPLE

The Spectator

Anne Applebaum is puzzled by the British antipathy to paying for medical treatment, and wonders at the reason IT IS about a year ago, and I am telling a disapproving friend...

Page 24

One hundred years ago

The Spectator

AN EXCELLENT instance of the rebellious feelings of the Irish peas- antry is given in a story now current in Ireland. A man appeared in Kerry, and gave himself out as a...

Page 26

AND ANOTHER THING

The Spectator

In race there is no substitute for absolute equality before the law PAUL JOHNSON R ace problems can never be solved except on the basis of absolute equality under the law, in...

Page 27

CITY AND SUBURBAN

The Spectator

Peel, Balfour, Major three Tory leaders stare into the same old abyss CHRISTOPHER FILDES J ohn Major got a break this week and not a moment too soon. He knows that once in a...

Page 28

Sir: Surely Dominic Lawson's account of the birth of his

The Spectator

daughter must rank as the most moving article that you have ever pub- lished. He writes with such candour as well as love, and is, of course, quite right. It should give us all...

Sir: I write to express the delight all parents of

The Spectator

a Down's syndrome child must feel over Dominic Lawson's courageous account of his reactions to the birth of his new little daughter, Domenica. He has only been the parent of a...

LETTERS The meaning of life

The Spectator

Sir: I have seen your article ( 'All you need is life', 17 June) in which you express your love and joy at the birth of your baby, Domenica, and I felt I must express my...

Sir: Your very moving and honest article has prompted a

The Spectator

good deal of soul-search- ing. Being over the age of 35, my wife has twice undergone the amniosentisis test and on both occasions we acquiesced, quite pas- sively, in these...

Rearguard action

The Spectator

Sir: Alasdair Palmer quotes my views ('Prejudices on parole', 10 June) on the undesirability of allowing homosexuals in the armed services, but he then goes on to say, 'As far...

Sir: I have read with interest the article by Dominic

The Spectator

Lawson on his Down's syndrome baby daughter. I cannot agree with his view, however, that the NHS should not offer women automatic abortions when this is diagnosed during early...

Page 29

Sir: In his article on the armed forces' atti- tude

The Spectator

to homosexuals, Alasdair Palmer makes the extraordinary assertion that `doctors and priests are not bound by the usual requirements of confidentiality and are required to report...

Sir: In his article on the exclusion of homo- sexuals

The Spectator

from the armed services, Alasdair Palmer states that 'many of the greatest fighters and commanders have been experi- enced homosexuals: Alexander the Great Plutarch evidently...

Sir: I genuinely fail to understand how John Ware's article

The Spectator

will be allowed to go unchal- lenged. Forgive me if I am pessimistic that this rebuttal will ever be published, let alone receive the coverage that Mr Ware's did, but then the...

Sir: Alasdair Palmer's article on gays in the armed forces

The Spectator

was superb, the best demoli- tion of the military's case I've yet read. It makes up for all the homophobic drivel from Paul Johnson and Auberon Waugh that Spectator readers have...

Lee and Myra

The Spectator

Sir: John Ware, in his powerful and pas- sionate article (The politics of parole', 17 June), leaves us in no doubt about the hum- bug of the claim that any decision reached...

Page 30

A few hits

The Spectator

Sir: Having recently endured the assault of broadsheet leader columns dictating with a clarity and confidence which is only the privilege of the partially informed, I looked...

Sir: Noel Malcolm's exposé of the officially sponsored pro-Serb information

The Spectator

campaign in this country omitted one interesting sideshow in this propaganda war. The Serbs have been very generous in paying for British MPs to visit them and our represen-...

Strong bladder

The Spectator

Sir: I'm sick of people who swank about not having a television set. They're at every party (Letters, 17 June)! Our nearest lay is three miles away across a muddy field and the...

Page 32

CENTRE POINT

The Spectator

Consumer boycotts are not democratic. They are just money fighting money SIMON JENKINS T he anarchist's task is to make reason so costly that a ruler opts for chaos. As I...

Page 34

BOOKS

The Spectator

Agents and patience Anthony Howard FOR THE PRESIDENT'S EYES ONLY: SECRET INTELLIGENCE AND THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY FROM WASHINGTON TO BUSH by Christopher Andrew HarperCollins,...

Page 35

Teaching them no end of a lesson

The Spectator

Kate Grimond THE DEAD SCHOOL by Patrick McCabe Picador, £14.99, pp. 345 T he headmaster — a man of influence and stature — of St Antony's Boys Primary School in Dublin appoints...

Where Are You?

The Spectator

In this garden, after a day of rain, a blackbird is making soundings, flinging his counter-tenor line into blue air, to where an answering cadenza shows the shape and depth of...

Page 37

The son also rises

The Spectator

Paul Foot THATCHER'S GOLD: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MARK THATCHER by Paul Holloran and Mark Hollingsworth Simon & Schuster, £16.99, pp. 352 I n a celebrated speech last year at...

Page 38

As devious as he appeared

The Spectator

J. Enoch Powell THE MACMILLAN YEARS, 1957-63: THE EMERGING TRUTH by Richard Lamb John Murray, £25, pp. 545 I t is a tall order, especially when dealing in politics and...

Page 39

Treading rejoicingly the path of others

The Spectator

Peter J. M. Wayne CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND: THE HEROIC AGE by Giles Worsley Yale University Press, £29.95, pp. 349 A well ordered building is like a wise man who...

Page 40

A superb achievement

The Spectator

Anita Brookner A reconsideration of Kazuo Ishiguro's unappreciated latest novel, The Unconsoled T he short attention span of readers and critics in the electronic age was...

Page 41

Recent books on tape

The Spectator

Richard Cooper J ust when we thought the cassette was on the way out, the audio book revolution has given our plastic friend a new lease of life. Walk into any bookshop and...

Page 42

ARTS

The Spectator

Exhibitions Rites of passage: art for the end of the century (Tate Gallery, till 3 September) Being skinned alive Marina Warner W en did words like 'terrific' and...

Page 43

Music

The Spectator

Intimations of mortality Robin Holloway C reativity is fragile, vulnerable, often slightly paranoid. The self-confidence of a Rubens is rare; such swagger is more usual- ly...

Page 44

Cinema

The Spectator

Silent Fall (`15', selected cinemas) No wriggling this time Mark Steyn A utistics display the following charac- teristics: they do exactly what they want; although their...

Page 45

Theatre

The Spectator

Insignificance (Donmar Warehouse) The Suit (Tricycle) Is this really me? Andrew Billen T here is a moment in Terry Johnson's Insignificance when the Marilyn Monroe character...

Page 46

High life

The Spectator

I think I was there Taki T hear uninvited and uninformed hacks tell it, Svengali has blown into town and mesmerised Trilby. Or Rasputin has arrived to manipulate Sir James...

Television

The Spectator

Crazy name! Crazy guy! Nigella Lawson I t wasn't just the provocation of having someone say to me how curious it must be to be a television critic who wasn't watch- ing the...

Page 47

Low life

The Spectator

Emotional buzz Jeffrey Bernard A ccording to a professor at the Sor- bonne in Paris, the French know very little about the Battle of Waterloo and many of them don't even know...

Half life

The Spectator

Darkest thoughts Carole Morin T he thing about London is that you can go up on the roof of your building without getting a vertigo attack. My roof is high enough for a view of...

Page 48

Long life

The Spectator

Yew are heaven Nigel Nicolson S ummer has arrived, and the wet cool- ness that delayed it has had its compensa- tions. As one of the visitors to our garden remarked, 'Bad...

Page 49

Midsummer — we hope

The Spectator

WE HAVE had three good British saints this week. St John Fisher, the Bishop of Rochester, and St Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England, were both executed for refusing to...

BRIDGE

The Spectator

Safety plays Andrew Robson THE IDEA of a 'Safety Play' is to increase the chances of making a contract at the possible cost of overtrick(s). I have seen many declarers go down...

Page 50

ISLE OF

The Spectator

COMPETITION Sandman's song Jaspistos By which I could have meant either a song which makes one drowsy or one which contains advice on how to get to sleep. A good soporific...

CHESS

The Spectator

Rule Britannia Raymond Keene FOR A NATION whose chess, according to some commentators, appears to be in a `sorry state' (see last week's column) we have achieved some...

Page 51

CROSSWORD 1215: Fairground attraction by Doc

The Spectator

A first prize of £25 and a bottle of Graham's Late Bottled Vintage 1988 Port for the first correct solution opened on 10 July, with two runners-up prizes of £15 (or, for UK...

Page 55

SPECTATOR SPORT

The Spectator

Dazzling defeat Frank Keating There was no mistaking via television satellite, however, that down at the Cape of Good Hope England's mightily optimistic XV had its pretensions...

YOUR PROBLEMS SOLVED

The Spectator

Dear Mary. . . Q. A couple of years ago I gave a bad review to a book by someone to whom I now discover I need to suck up. She turns out to have had a prolonged relationship...