'Well, back to the old drawing board.' moratorium on the closure of 21 coal-mines was announced by Mr Michael Heseltine, the President of the Board of Trade, when Parliament...

ALEXANDER CHANCELLOR I have read a lot of very uncomplimenta- ry things about Rupert Murdoch in my time, but never anything so spine-tingling as a passage by Alan Watkins in...

Simon Heifer reports that Treaswy parsimony led to the undoing of Michael Heseltine, and the unhinging of the Government LONG BEFORE Mr Heseltine became President of the Board...

David Hart, who advised Mrs Thatcher during the miners' strike, says that the Conservatives have broken their word MR ROY LYNK, the leader of the Union of Democratic...

James Buchan argues that the real victim of the energy carve-up may be the nuclear industry PERHAPS the game is finally up for nucle- ar power in Britain. In a generating...

Anne McElvoy investigates the mood of Mikhail Gorbachev, as Boris Yeltsin exacts his revenge Moscow MIKHAIL Gorbachev listened patiently to my halting Russian, rendered even...

Matt Frei reports on the couch confessions of Italy's increasingly neurotic politicians Rome UNTIL HE WAS sacked on 22 April this year, Dr Piero Rocchini rejoiced in the title...

A CORRESPONDENT of the Athenaeum repeats the old and rather absurd story that in the allusion to his "Pilot" in Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar", the poet referred either to his...

Martin Weyer assesses the options facing a cash-starved and demoralised BBC SUPPOSE YOU were told that you could only choose what you wanted in the newsagent's shop, if you...

Michael Heath

John Martin Robinson argues that the Government is about to do to London's great estates what Henry VIII did to the monasteries HAVING SOLD OFF Heveningham Hall to a Middle...

Tony Parsons cannot stomach well-to-do liberals who patronise the working class WHAT HAPPENS when you criticise the British working class? What happens if you suggest that...

persist. . IN SOME respects, I am rather like an economist: I don't really understand eco- nomics. For example, I once cabled some money to a friend of mine across the Atlantic...

Laffing all the way to the bankruptcy O ne of the consequences of the Ameri- can love of success is the widely held assumption that presidential elections are always won by the...

The generals mount their horses and charge madly off in all directions CHRISTOPHER FILDES I . wrenched myself back from my fact- finding sojourn in a mining community, sharing...

Time for courage Sir: It is 30 years since I was responsible for Housing Policy within the Conservative Research Department, yet looking back across the political landscape I...

Sir: Barbara Amiel is wrong about my views on equal opportunities (`The secret agenda of gender', 17 October). The glossary of terms issued by the Cen- tral Council for...

Sir: Ludovic Kennedy mischievously implies in his article ('What would they have done?', 26 September) that support for euthanasia has come about mainly in the last 20 years,...

Sir: I don't know whetter it would be a con- solation to Mr Bernard (Low life, 10 Octo- ber), but my guess is that his hip broke — and then he fell. This is vicarious knowledge...

Sir: Simon Heffer (Politics, 10 October) describes the lack of people with access to and influence with the Prime Minister. This is nothing new. In my book A Taste of Hardship...

Sir: In past years Lloyd's cheques arrived with Names between April and early July (if they arrived at all) — a time when no game bird is in season. So what and where was that...

Sir: In his review of Julian Critchley's book (Books, 19 September), Alan Clark wrote: 'critical mass' — a nice analogy from physics (or is it astronomy?) for something that is...

Sir: I was very interested to learn from the review of West Downs: A Portrait of an English Prep School (Books, 26 September) that the period spent at Stagenhoe Park from...

Sir: Another interpretation of the Mrs Simpson aide memoire incident (`The uncivilised society', 3 October) is that she left it behind intentionally, in the belief that its...

Sir: Even if Victorian pianos never sported trousers (Letters, 5 September), all is not lost on the musical clothing front. Benen- den School's grand piano wears a green quilted...

Sir: This is in reference to Nigel Nicolson's Piece in your 1 August issue (I am a slow reader!). In it he speaks of his dream of owning an open-top Mercedes. 'But I would look...

Sir: I followed Mary Killen's advice on how to deal with builders' merchants (Your problems solved, 10 October) and hope to be out of hospital quite soon. The brief...

With everything, a chip Douglas Jay HAROLD WILSON by Ben Pimlott HarperCollins, £20, pp. 730 I n his previous valuable book on Hugh Dalton, Ben Pimlott looked at his hero With...

Harriet Waugh ANGELS AND INSECTS by A.S. Byatt Chatto, f14.99, pp. 290 ensibly, A. S. Byatt has utilised the knowledge of Victorian mores and litera - ture which was necessary...

Peter Levi PEOPLE AND PLACES: COUNTRY HOUSE DONORS AND THE NATIONAL TRUST by James Lees-Milne John Murray, £19.99, pp. 230 T he National Trust is already old enough to have a...

Anita Brookner THE MIST IN THE MIRROR by Susan Hill Sinclair-Stevenson, £13.99, pp. 185 e t another Victorian pastiche, this time by Susan Hill in her Gothic or ghost story...

Mirabel Cecil OTTOLINE MORRELL: LIFE ON THE GRAND SCALE by Miranda Seymour Hodder & Stoughton, L'25, pp. 452 T he tone of this biography is set by its cover: here Lady Ottoline...

Keith Waterhouse LOITERING WITH INTENT by Peter O'Toole Macmillan, 174.99, pp. 198 N obody who knows Peter O'Toole would expect of this first volume of his memoirs the standard...

Andrew Roberts RIBBENTROP by Michael Bloch Bantam, £20, pp. 528 JOACHIM VON RIBBENTROP: HITLER'S DIPLOMAT by John Weitz Weidenfeld, 120, pp. 400 T hese are the only biographies...

Mark Archer FATHERS AND CROWS by William T. Vollman Deutsch, £1Z99, pp. 1008 S omewhere around the fourth or fifth volume of Tristram Shandy Sterne suggests the reader should...

Anthony Powell THE SELECTED LETTERS OF PHILIP LARKIN edited by Anthony Thwaite Faber, £20, pp. 791 A tthony Thwaite must have been confronted with not a few problems in edit-...

Alastair Forbes LIVING WITH BEELZEBUB by Gael Elton Mayo Quartet, £12.95, pp. 146 THE MAD MOSAIC by Gad Elton Mayo Quartet, £3.95, pp. 238 M y review in these pages a decade...

I' William Scammell P.G. WODEHOUSE: MAN AND MYTH by Barry Plelps Constable, 116.95, pp. 344 S ome authors have readers and some have a tendency to breed Admirers. They form...

A gentle kick up the macho rump Clare Rendell on the beneficial effects of a new collection of women's art R uskin always said that no woman could paint, but even he was...

The Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum (Madrid) Father chose best Simon Courtauld O n the morning of the opening of the Thyssen Museum this month, the queue stretched along the Paseo...

The Swagger Portrait: Grand Manner Portraiture in Britain from Van Dyck to Augustus John (Tate Gallery, till 10 January) Dashing depictions Giles Auty T his week I welcome an...

Strip tease Alistair McAlpine T here were two sales recently of sport- ing memorabilia at Christie's — one held on 14 October in Glasgow, the other on 17 October in New York....

Inescapably modern Tanya Harrod on the visionary work of Norman Potter I n recent years the job description 'designer' has come to imply some kind of deception coupled with a...

Purcell's diligent muse Robin Holloway his month an important enterprise by T Hyperion, to record on eight CDs the first- ever collection of Purcell's Odes and Wel- come...

Falstaff/The Voyage (Metropolitan Opera, New York) Verdi traduced Rupert Christiansen O pera houses were born to teeter per- manently on the brink of apocalypse, but the...

1492: Conquest of Paradise ('15', selected cinemas) Scenery and sentiment Vanessa Letts L du Garde Peach, in the 23 small pages that make up the 1961 Ladybird Christopher...

Radio Times (Queen's) Two Gentlemen of Verona (Barbican) Trouble in Mind (Tricycle) Let the people sing Sheridan Morley I f you were asked to name the four most Popular...

Under the table Taki I 've had the kind of week that would have exhausted Sisyphus. I tried to prepare for it by steaming to Mykonos for some R&R, but as is usually the case...

House party Martyn Harris W orld in Action this week (ITV, Mon- day, 8.30 p.m.) took a trip to dacha-land in the former Soviet Union to see how the system of grace-and-favour...

A walk on the wild side Jeffrey Bernard We set out in the rain, dangerously slip- pery, with the intention of my walking the one block to Berwick Street market. I was greeted...

Perfect pastiche Nigel Nicolson F Los Angeles rance one week, Venice the next, and now California. This is not my usual style of living but the product of diverse claims: a...

THE COFFEE Science Information Cen- tre has kindly sent me a leaflet to stop me 'Worrying unnecessarily'. It explains there are no links between coffee and illnesses such as...

HUMS, (yt RLO ji PURE HIGHLAND MALT SCOTCH WHOA. COMPETITION The last yaroo Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1750 you were invit- ed to give the threatened Billy Bunter one...

Raymond Keene I n Belgrade Spassky revived his chances to win game 20, probably his best game of the match. Nevertheless, Fischer struck back immediately, taking game 21, and...

GRAHAM ' S PORT .GRAHAM ' S CROSSWORD 1 082: Overseas port by Smokey A first prize of £20 and a bottle of Graham's Malvedos 1979 Vintage Port for the first correct solution...

Union ban Frank Keating WISHING the softly articulate and teak- tough young prop-forward, Victor Ubogu, the very best of luck last week before his first appearance for...

Q. When my parents-in-law come to stay With us, my husband's father likes to make a 'contribution', as he calls it. This usually takes the form of one or, worse, two bottles of...