25 AUGUST 1973

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There will be no valid excuse for surprise at the

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failure of the Government and the TUC to achieve any substantial results in their talks on prices and incomes restraint this week. After the inevitable failure to reach...

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The threat to the nation

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All British governments like to try to conceal information from the electorate: the present government is simply more barefaced and ruthless in the matter than most. It is also...

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Sir: I wish to express my warm appreciation of your

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admirable leading article in the August 18 issue, headed Hypocrisy about Israel.' Yours is the only journal out of the many dailies and weeklies I have read that gives such a...

Looking into corruption

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Sir: The suggested Royal Commission on corruption in central and local government (your leader, July 28) would be better than inaction and the usual governmental policy of...

Legal persons

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Sir: May I add a legal footnote to what two correspondents have already writ ten on Cato's waspish attack (Augus t 11) on "The abortion lobby?" It has long been held by lega l...

Sir: Philip Kestelman's attempt to dis tinguish between "abortionists ' and ' proponents of legal abortion '

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plays the combination of verbal sooty istry and moral innocence typical of a bankrupt cause. I am too squeamish t° make a good abbatoir-worker, but as a meat-eater, I raise no...

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Busy Dexter

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Sir: My attention has been drawn to Will Waspe's paragraph on page 224 of The Spectator of August 18. am not much concerned with the implied suggestion of Mr Waspe's first,...

Voting Lib era l

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Sir: it is just possible that you may be right and that if Mr Enoch Powell had been standing in person, the Liberals would not have won one recent byelection (after all he can...

Faith and Shroud

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From the Rt. Rev, Bruno S. James Sir: With regard to your interesting article on the Holy Shroud of Turin (Aug. 18), may I say that properly sPeaking it is not a matter of Faith...

GPs' skills

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Sin Dr Linklater and I are in agreement that the skills of the general P r actitioner are a costly resource Which should not be frittered a way in work which requires 00 Medical...

The Cathars of Languedoc

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Sir: Whilst thanking Mr Stern for his letter on the Cathars, August 11, may I point out that his comments smack of that very literature and sources referred to in my article....

A better translation

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From the Rev. George Speller Sir: Martin Sullivan should check his references. He spoilt a good article by using in conclusion an illustration which when rightly understood in...

Book pnces

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Sir Bookbuyer of August 18 quotes Everest South West Face by Chris Bonington as an example of creeping price-rise, jumping from 63.50 to 64.50 since February. In fact the book...

History and fiction

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From Mrs G. M. Flower Sin I read your review of ' The Lion of England ' in the issue dated July 28 and was astonished at the seemingly vindictive tone and would have thought...

Paine statue

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Sir: Richard Luckett is unjustifiably unkind on the subject of Sir Charles Wheeler's statue of Tom Paine. Gilded all over, it is a splendid folly, a piece of quirky Englishness,...

The Huntingdon affair

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Sir: Jumping to conclusions is no doubt an agreeable pastime, but even in the context of widespread (and still uncorrected) misreporting of the Huntington affair at Sussex,...

Page 6

Spectator's Notebook

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There were, of course, bound to be readers who would find The Spectator's front-page comment last week, ' Hypocrisy over Israel irreconcilable with the comment on the previous...

Page 7

Political Commentary

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Goderich rides again? Patrick Cosgrave Mr Joe Rogaly of the Financial Times described Mr Enoch Powell's speech on inflation (delivered last Wednesday to the Merridale C...

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Japan

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The turn of the tide , Michael Meacher 'The Japanese people now save 21 per cent of their income. Perhaps we should raise it to 25 per cent." This remark was made earlier this...

Yours sincerely, Amin

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Dear Liz, May I say, I am filled with dismay That to Ottawa I have not been. I would like to explain Why I wanted a plane From your very fine fleet, my dear Queen. All the...

The Commonwealth

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Ghana to New Guinea Molly Mortimer Mr Heath in 1961 told the Six the Communiq "would not wish to be met with the hostility which would flow from a large group of countries...

Page 9

Swift and Stella at Moor Park

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A.L. Rowse It was many years ago that I first made the acquaintance of Moor Park when, young, I thought of writing a biography of Swift, who has always much influenced me. The...

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Medicine

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The mad gardener John Linklater An old lady was battered to death in her home in Liberty Hall Road, Addlestone, Surrey, on July 23 after her husband had been released from...

Religion

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Impinging unbelief Martin Sullivan One of the most ur g ent and indeed contemporary demands addressed to Christ came from a father who had brou g ht his sick son to be healed....

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'Gardening

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Transience Denis Wood Among all the principles and qualities which go to make up garden design, unity, scale, variety, contrast and many others, t ransience may not always be...

'The Good Life

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Feeding the thought Pamela Vandyke Price Gastronomy is getting there. Our very own Clement Freud is in the House; the astronauts admit to "stomach awareness," insipidly...

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Playing the game

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Benny Green In the recent test match at Edg.baston, an incident occurred which instantly reminded me of the late Lord Harris. Perhaps you find it surprising that anything...

Juliette's weekly frolic

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The nobility of northern England will be prowling over the moors this week, beating out the grouse and ensuring all those sumptuous restaurants and hotels within a fifty-mile...

Page 17

Richard Luckett on Mumford and letting life flower

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Lewis Mumford is now in his seventy-eighth Year. He has chosen to round off his new selection from his miscellaneous writings and addresses* with a talk given at a symposium...

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The old young man

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Peter Ackroyd The Town And The City Jack Kerouac (Quartet 0.95) The image of prophet and ageing hipster is not a happy one, and I have always imagined 'that Kerouac was weary...

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Brandon's essence

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Alastair Buchan ,The Retreat of American Power Henry Bran(Bodley Head E3.75) or nearly five years in the early 'fifties "enr)7 Brandon and I were deadly rivals, he QS the...

Regional economics

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C.D.Foster Regional Policy for Ever? Graham Hallett, Peter Randall and E. G. West (Institute of Economic Affairs, £1.80) When all political parties are for massive expenditure...

Page 20

Brutal neglect

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Andrew Crozier The Terrible Shears D. J. Enright (Chatto and Windus £1.60) Pathetic Fallacies Barry Cole (Eyre Methuen £1.95) Act Tom Raworth (Pilgrim Press £2.00) New Poems...

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Bookbuyer's

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Bookend Nothing is more calculated to send a frisson of horror down a publiSher's spine than when a reviewer starts murmuring " bestseller." It is , the kiss of death. In a...

Page 22

Kenneth Hurren on

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something wrong in the upper Storey Rather like the kind of music that is always threatening to become a tune but finally doesn't (increasingly the way, so I'm told by the...

Cinema

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Beauty and brutality ChristopherHudson The silly season continues. A visitor to London might be forgiven for thinking that half the cinemas in the city were showing Treasure...

Page 23

Television

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We are what We eat Clive Gammon Cannibals Lib hasn't got under W ay yet but it can only be a matter of time: that's clear from the tone of some.,ot. the thoughtful Pieces...

Music

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Butch Rodney Milnes The fact that four out of five of this year's Promenade Concert commissions have been for women composers has aroused considerable comment, mainly from...

Will Waspe

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Theatregoers are resigned by now to having to pay 10p above the cost of their seats for an advertisement-crammed programme. I have good news for cinema managers who have long...

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The ghost of Rolls

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David W. Wragg There are times when company directors, in common with politicians, must feel that a correct decision is impossible. If the company concerned happens to be large...

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Skinflint's City Diary

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A squalid .tale reaches me from the nervous world of merchant banks and conglomerate company directors pitifully watching the market fall, some of them near to breaking point...

Morris Wigram Limited

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It has been brought to our attention that there were inaccuracies in the paragraph headed Hasle; Mere Estates' on page 194 of our 'ssue of August 11, which we wish to correct....

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Preference plum

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Nephew Wilde Alas! My efforts have been in vain. I began my portfolio some fifteen months ago when the market was just about at its peak and despite the subsequent fall in the...