25 JANUARY 1975

Page 1

The t to Fleet Street

The Spectator

For the moment, Fleet Street enjoys a respite in the battle between the Newspaper Publishers' Association and the National Graphical Association. But it is a respite only: it is...

Page 2

Chunnel relief

The Spectator

Whatever may have been said by Mr Anthony Crosland, the proper reasons for not proceeding Wth the Channel Tunnel are its logistical irrelevance and the technologically immature...

Irish disgrace

The Spectator

The handling of the IRA's Christmas truce, and all that followed it, has been marked bY exceptional ineptitude, both on the part of those busybody clerics who bustled to and fro...

Ford fallacy

The Spectator

We complained last week that President Ford had yet to present to his country and to the world a coherent economic strategy for hi s administration. He had now presented a twit'...

Page 3

Letters to the Editor

The Spectator

Tether and the 'Fr Sir: The editorial treatment of my Lombard column in the Financial Times has been the subject of some comment in your paper that may have tended to create a...

Page 4

Clear choice for the Tories

The Spectator

Patrick Cosgrave If I start with a reference to the sorry condition of the Tory Party, I hope readers will not immediately turn to another page, on the grounds that this record...

Page 5

A Spectator's Notebook

The Spectator

Whatever you may think of John Stonehouse, and it's probably not much, he has brightened a gloomy winter. The case he has made against a Select Committee to consider his...

Prunier's

The Spectator

Madame Prunier, the owner of the boring fish r estaurant in St James's Street, celebrated her birthday last week. With the Caprice closing and the Savoy Grill admitting that...

Scottish Daily News

The Spectator

Tne Scottish Daily News has joined the old Fischer Bendix plant in Liverpool in getting a grant from Mr Tony Benn's Department of Industry to start a workers' co-operative. They...

Imperial Typewriter

The Spectator

In a week when the Department of Industry has been making generous grants to industries that have no chance of reaching self-sustaining existence, the Imperial Typewriter...

Fraser's prospects

The Spectator

I see that Hugh Fraser, Lady Antonia's husband, and Lord Longford's son-in-law, is to be a candidate in the Tory leadership election. Fraser, it is said, does not seriously...

Meals on wheels

The Spectator

The official inflation figures are no joke; the reality is even more disturbing. One handy indicator I have is the British Rail breakfast which, in the past couple of years, has...

Lobby Lyrics-11

The Spectator

When Cedric Higginbotham fought The last election, he besought His voters not to be misled By anything the Tories said, For workers, in demanding more, Did nothing to make...

Westminster Corridors

The Spectator

It is a lamentable thing that every Man is full of Complaints and constantly uttering Sentences against the Fickleness of Fortune when People generally bring upon themselves all...

Page 6

Military withdrawal the policy and the logistics

The Spectator

A Senior Officer Following Mr Merlyn Rees's statement last week, envisaging, at least, the eventual withdrawal of the army from Northern Ireland, the idea of such a withdrawal...

Page 7

Personal column

The Spectator

Toby O'Brien Now that the new session in Parliament has started the person I am most sorry for is my old friend, Mr Speaker, Selwyn Lloyd. By all accounts, from my...

C IA and Tshombe

The Spectator

, fear that I am not among those who are weeping salt tears over the difficulties in which at the moment the Central Intelligence Agency IS finding itself. Seldom can there have...

Re cycling

The Spectator

(To the tune of 'Daisy, Daisy') OPec! Opec! Lend us some sterling, do! We're near shipwreck, All on account of you. We're paying you all our money, But this won't seem so...

Double agents

The Spectator

In the early days of the second world war the various intelligence services were always arresting each other. I was told the following story by the late Sir Desmond Moreton, who...

Boo Snubs

The Spectator

Of course there will never be any espionage centre as remarkable as Lisbon during the last war. I spent three months in the summer of 1940, the months which covered the fall of...

Bomb mots

The Spectator

I had a letter recently from my old friend, Sir Arthur Bryant, the historian. Arthur is one of the kindest and nicest of men but alas, I fear, he committed an atrocity in the...

Page 8

Sovereign State

The Spectator

The first of a new series of articles dealing with matters relevant to British membership of the EEC and the forthcoming referendum 1. Public opinion The remarkable and...

Page 9

SOCIETY TODAY

The Spectator

Zdicine and morality Fox on sex on the box John Linklater Modern teaching method makes Wide use of television or video-tape, largely because instruction absorbed...

School for scandal

The Spectator

Bill Grundy Due to a curious concatenation of circumstances too complicated to detail — which roughly means I have no idea how the hell I got there — I found myself, the other...

Page 10

How free is free?

The Spectator

Philip Kleinman To censor or not to censor? That is the question I would like to return to this week, and the subject is of such importance that I make no apology for doing so...

Basic vegetables

The Spectator

Denis Wood At its simplest the cropping of a kitchen garden can be reduced to: three kinds of sprouting broccoli for picking between September and April, one kind of broad...

Page 11

Attainable ideals

The Spectator

Martin Sullivan I came across a cutting the other day which I have kept beside me for many years. It is an extract from a copy of the New Zealand Listener and from the pen of...

Page 12

REVIEW OF BOOKS

The Spectator

Simon Raven on the perverse Mr Kingsley On Thursday, January 23, Charles Kingsley will have been dead for one hundred years. He is chiefly remembered for his juvenile classic,...

Page 13

Plus pa change

The Spectator

Terry Pitt Political Change in Britain David Butler and Richard Stokes (Macmillan £15.00) When David Butler and Richard Stokes produced in 1969 the first edition of Political...

Golden wordsmith

The Spectator

Margaret Drabble Oliver Goldsmith, A. Lytton Sells (Allen and Unwin £6.75). Professor A. Lytton Sells has written a most engaging, informative, readable and eccentric...

Page 14

On espionage bent

The Spectator

Alan Brien Vassal': The Autiobiography of a Spy John Vassal! (Sidgwick and Jackson £4.50) It takes a while to accept that Vassall, by Vassal!, is actually a book meant to be...

Japanese plastic

The Spectator

Peter Ackroyd The Decay of the Angel Yukio Mishima (Seeker and Warburg £3.00) If the publishers are right and this is the "climax" of Mishima's work, I am very grateful to have...

Page 15

BOOKS WANTED

The Spectator

THE GREEK VIEW OF LIFE by G. L. Dickenson and *SAHARA CONQUEST by R. St. Barbe Baker, — Box 543. DEATH BE NOT PROUD, Elizabeth Nicholas, — Box 545. THE END OF SOKARNO by John...

Portrait of the artist

The Spectator

Benny Green Creative people who are not obliged to use language in their work very often have a disconcerting mastery of prose, almost as if composing a witty and perceptive...

Bookbuyer's

The Spectator

Bookend If the Observer thought it could quietly drop its fortnightly bestseller lists without anyone noticing, it was oddly mistaken. Both the Bookseller and the London...

Page 16

Kenneth Hurren on Osborne, the fallen idol

The Spectator

The End of Me Old Cigar by John Osborne (Greenwich Theatre) Macbeth 'by William Shakespeare ' (Young Vic) Laura, adapted from Strindberg ' s The Father by Steven Dartnell...

Droppedand opt-outs

The Spectator

Kenneth Robinson • . The Prisoner of Second Avenue Director: Melvin Frank. Stars: Jack Lemmon, Anne Bancroft. 'A ' Warner West End One (95 minutes).. California Split...

Page 17

Magic Mozart

The Spectator

Rodney Mines Among the many felicities of Anthony Besch's excellent new production of The Magic Flute for English National Opera Company is the fact that we hear so much of it....

Will

The Spectator

Waspe (st, A down-turn in their London fine art auction business of 25 per cent during the last quarter has caused Sotheby's to recoup a small percentage of their losses by...

Page 19

ECONOMICS AND THE CITY

The Spectator

Facts of life for Mr Healey Nicholas Davenport It must have come as a shock to Mr Wedgwood Senn — and perhaps to some contributors of The Spectator — that Mr Ilealey's plan...

A fool and his money

The Spectator

Rees-Mogg and the personal column Bernard Hollowocid Krugerrand. For sale, £85 or nearest offer, one Krugerrand in fairly good condition. Owner in need of interest or...

Page 20

Skinflint's City Diary

The Spectator

Nationalisation of the airframe manufacturers will not be the unmitigated disaster which at first it seems. To be sure in the short term all three companies will lose income:...

The golden don'ts

The Spectator

Charles R. Stahl Don't buy gold for investment. Gold is strictly an insurance of last resort. Don't buy gold from strangers or anyone you know who is not considered to be 24...