Wine per cent . . . ten per cent . . . 11 per cent . . . 12 per cent' INFLATION in Britain reached its highest level for almost three years when the figures for August — 5.7...

1706; Telex 27124; Fax 242 0603 INDEX ON THATCHER I ndex on Censorship is a serious maga- zine with a good purpose. Its job is to report censorship throughout the world, to...

A voice crying (and occasionally sobbing) in the political wilderness NOEL MALCOLM W hether one agrees with his policies or not, there is something undeniably moving about the...

W hatever may be the public events I see in England or India in these days, or whatever the questions I read and hear being discussed, they do not remain what they primarily are...

An important literary discovery: D. J. Enright lives AUBERON WAUGH I t is a familiar and slightly unnerving experience, even at the age of 48, to read the obituary of someone...

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that clears Harold Macmillan of guilt in the repatriation of Cossacks in May 1945 TWO YEARS ago, in his book The Minister and the Massacres, Nikolai Tol- stoy made the gravest...

Repatriation of Surren- dered Enemy Personnel To the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia in May 1945 and the Alleged 'Klagenfurt Conspiracy' by Briga- dier Cowgill and others are...

The cricket tour to India is a victim of political posing and ignorance, argues Mihir Bose APARTHEID is not an issue many Indi- ans got worked up about. Before Richard...

ACCORDING to... the latest... Scottish... opinion poll... Labour con- tinues to command the allegiance of 49 per cent of the electorate, up seven per cent on its General...

Guy Kennaway sat out the hurricane in a Jamaican school room IN JAMAICA there is an Office of Disas- ter Preparedness and a Minister of Disaster Preparedness to oversee it. He...

Richard Cohen discovers the 'other' games in Athens IN THE midst of a sublime horizon upon the rocky summit of its buttressed hill rises the gold and chaste perfection of the...

Nothing has been discovered about the Whitechapel murder, nor, unless the criminal betrays himself, or commits another murder and is caught red- handed, is it likely that the...

wonders what they learnt THE SIGHT of a high-level Soviet bank- ing delegation tramping round the City of London last week to learn about high finance must have warmed many a...

Become a subscriber to The Spectator and save £12 a year on the regular UK newsstand pride — that's 76p a week, or less than 71p if you take out a three year subscription....

Hugh Trevor-Roper remembers how a Spectator article in 1938 made Hitler's intentions clear to him THE CRISIS which led to the Munich Agreement in September 1938 was the greatest...

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The press: Paul Johnson examines the hypocrisy behind the broadcasting debate SHOULD the media be regulated? If so how? There are no questions which pro- duce more brazen...

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A blip round the ear for Mr Lawson JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE T he inflation rate is judge and jury.' So spake Nigel I awson at the time of his formal abandonment of broad money...

Don't cry over spilt toothpaste, and let the clubs deal with the cads CHRISTOPHER FILDES I would not like to buy a used share from Brian Fisher, but that does not make him a...

T. S. ELIOT and the Tote make a long- priced double, but Lloyds has pulled it off. To Lloyds Merchant Bank has gone the commission to privatise the Tote — and I can at once...

THE stock market price that has really taken a tumble is the price of stock market firms. It does not show up, as a rule, because the shares are not quoted, but now we have an...

I THINK The Spectator should put up a plaque to T. S. Eliot. It is his centenary year, as we all now remember (or all except the Times, which absent-mindedly published its...

Sir: Your Competition no. 1540 asked for 'a paragraph, consisting of one sentence of about 150 words, from an early chapter of an imaginary, old-fashioned, egotistical...

Sir: Mr Ferdinand Mount, in his review of Letters of Max Beerbohm (27 August), writes, 'Nor are the drawings always clear ur closely related to the relevant letters.' Some of...

Sir: I heard niutiy yeas ago about the bar-stools in the yacht (Letters, 27 Au- gust), and the swot then was that the Greek owner (Niaichos or Onassis) asked his guest to guess...

Sir: As pointed out by Doctors Kevin O'Dell and David Coates whose assistance to date I greatly appreciate, DNA testing will prove the relationship between Wolf Rudiger Hess and...

Sir: With reference to William Oddie's The Honour of God' (17 September) in which he comments on The Last Tempta- don of Christ as purveyed on the screen by Scorsese. Mr Oddie...

Sir: It requires (The native hue of irresolu- tion', David Pryce-Jones, 13 August), con- siderable telescoping of time to proceed from the statement that in 1943 the Allies...

John Osborne BERNARD SHAW: VOLUME I: THE SEARCH FOR LOVE by Michael Holroyd Chatto, £16, pp.486 L ike the Victorians, the English lower orders continue to discourage ambition...

Edward Norman ADAM, EVE, AND THE SERPENT by Elaine Pagels Weidenfeld & Nicolson, f14.95, pp.189 I t is one of the least happy features of contemporary Christianity that the...

His greatcoat's feel, touched cheeks with the tears just starting: Sails set to catch the night-wind off the land. They say no heart need sorrow at brief parting. How many...

Perhaps to find myself, I tend to stray Down back-lanes, side-paths, foot-trails leading only To wilds more wild the farther I wander away. Once, I recall, I chanced on a...

No. It is not enough to despise the world. It is not enough to live one's life as though Riches and power were nothings. They are not. But to grasp the world, to grasp and feel...

You ask why I live in this jade-green mountain-waste. I smile, say nothing. How can the peachflower-flow Through the still of my mind be followed or re-traced? It's to do with...

Same school, same class, same graduation-year: Some grey, some white, some bald as a bun of bread. After three rounds, whatever the toast, they cheer: And wouldn't you? Thus...

Frances Partridge NOTHING TO FORGIVE: A DAUGHTER'S LIFE OF ANTONIA WHITE by Lyndall P. Hopkinson Chatlo & Windus, £12.95, pp.375 T his book can be warmly recommended to anyone...

Richard Ingrams LIVE FROM NO. 10 by Michael Cockerel! Faber, £14.95, pp.352 T his is a most interesting and entertain- ing book. It traces the history of the relationship...

David Pears WITTGENSTEIN: A LIFE, YOUNG LUDWIG (1889-1921) by Brian McGuinness Duckworth, £15.95, pp. 336 T here is a cool approach to philosophy, typically Anglo-Saxon,...

Steven Runciman KING CAROL II: A LIFE OF MY GRANDFATHER by Prince Paul of Hohenzollern- Roumania Methuen, £14.95, pp. 238 R eally! This might be Roumania!', exclaimed Queen...

Anita Brookner LOVING AND GIVING by Molly Keane Andre Deutsch, f10.95,pp. 233 T here is a certain ambiguity in Molly Keane's story of the beautiful Nicandra, as if tragedy...

Laurence Lerner NICE WORK by David Lodge Secker & Warburg, f10.95, pp.277 D avid Lodge is a lively comic novelist whose entertaining stories give a realistic picture of...

Robert Blake BALDWIN AND THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY, THE CRISIS OF 1929-1931 by Stuart Ball Yale University Press, £25, pp.266 T his is an interesting analysis of the only period...

Harriet Waugh THE HOUSE OF STAIRS by Barbara Vine Viking, £11.95, pp. 282 BROUGHT TO BOOK by Tim Heald Macmillan, f9.95, pp. 184 HOODWINK by Paula Gosling Macmillan,...

Become a subscriber to The Spectator and save £12 a year on the regular UK newsstand price — that's 76p a week, or less than 71p if you take out a three year subscription....

Nicholas Lezard THE PARADISE EATER by John Ralston Saul Grafton, f10.95, pp. 270 T o paraphrase Ezra Pound, it isn't the poison bottled and labelled as such that is...

Exhibitions 1 Carved in stone Giles Auty Henry Moore (Royal Academy, till 11 December) H enry Moore this week at the Royal Academy, Francis Bacon next week at the Central...

Falstaff (Welsh National Opera, Cardiff) Simple perfection Rodney Milnes R eacting to the new WNO Falstaff — which is one of the most profoundly satisfying opera productions...

Our Country's Good (Royal Court) When She Danced (King's Head) Re: Joyce! (Fortune) On the edge of preciosity Christopher Edwards O ur Country's Good forms a compan- ion...

Why Catholics can't sing Peter Phillips A Evora s we all know, Catholic countries are not quite the same as Protestant ones. The differences are apparent in important and...

The Age of Diirer and Holbein: German Drawings 1400-1550 (British Museum, till 16 October) Of men and walruses Celina Fox I t is something of a relief to come across an...

The Deceivers (`15', Odeon Haymarket) Outposts of Empire Hilary Mantel B y the time this finds its way into print, it may well be the last word on the matter; almost everyone...

Running late Wendy Cope D ilemma: you are a part-time televi- sion critic and you normally go to bed at about midnight. Do you allow your life to be turned upside down by the...

Not a bore we know Taki o h boy, what a weekend I've just had up in Leicestershire with Princess Di and Fergie!! Although I am known to be the epitome of discretion, I'm...

Those daring young girls Jeffrey Bernard I nsomnia has had me watching the Olympic Games all night on television recently and they are games I had intended to more or less...

A dusty answer Alice Thomas Ellis T he man who mends the tumble-drier wended his way through the clematis the other day and when he reached the laundry door, fending off the...

FM SURE you will be relieved to hear I haven't seen the Scorsese film. Instead my life seems to have been enmeshed in the catches from Loch Fyne, not only in London, at the...

Moment of truth Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1541 you were given the opening sentence of a newspaper arti- cle by a well-known writer and asked to carry on in your own way....

Conundrum Raymond Keene A s I write, Anatoly Karpov is leading in the Interpolis tournament at Tilburg in Holland. After ten rounds the scores are: Karpov 71/2; Short 6;...

The title indicated omission of V (five) from italic answers, and sug- gested 1, 9, 10 and 43. Winners: Anne Madge, Reading . (£20); R. A. England, London W3; Keith L....

A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or, for UK solvers, a copy of either Chambers Dictionary or Chambers Crossword Manual — ring your choice) for the first three...

Newspapers, as Richard Ingrams pointed out last Sunday, love medical scares. Among recent reported findings .are that drinking can lead to shrinkage of the sex organ, and that...

ONE OF the least publicised of the Victo- rian virtues which Mrs Thatcher's reign has re-established is the great British thirst for champagne, among whose export markets we...