B IT by bit, the bankruptcy of the present ',Government's economic policy is ex- posed. As this issue of the SPECTATOR goes to press, the November unemployment figures are not...

POLITICAL COMMENTARY, By ALAN WATKINS O NE of the burdens which Mr Richard Cross- man carries gaily through this vale of tears is that of being continually misunderstood; or...

'A lot of times when people go away he'll say Goodbye.'—Reply of an American schoolboy to an interviewer's question, 'What does the Presi- dent of the United States do?' When...

THE PRESS By RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL T HE cacophony raised by the siege of Printing House Square led by two Welshmen, Morris and Berry, must have been perplexing to the public....

AMERICA From MURRAY KEMPTON WASHINGTON R OBERT G. BAKER is once again before the courts, which is a joy to native observers, since, as object at least, no man can better in-...

The truth is that while the NPD, which did not exist at the time of the last elections in 1962, gained 7.4 per cent of the vote, the other extreme nationalist fringe parties...

ANTI-MISSILE MISSILE By LAWRENCE MARTIN CI IN CE the dawn of the missile age there has ',been speculation that an answer to the missile might arise. Yet the task of...

By ANTHONY BURGESS TT was, I believe, a certain M Etiemble who 'devoted a whole book to the condemnation of what he ,caljed Franglais—the long-term debauching, of French by...

November 24, 1866 Massachusetts has elected two "negroes," that is, fair men, with a drop of dark blood in them, to the State Legislature. They should have elected pure blacks,...

GERMANY From DONALD McLACHLAN DUSSELDORF 'W HERE,' I asked my hosts at breakfast, 'is the local branch of this nationalist party you are so worried about?' They had no idea,...

TELEVISION By STUART HOOD O NE of the ambitions of any British tele- vision organisation is to break into the American market. The motives behind the urge are varied and...

MEDICINE TODAY By JOHN ROWAN WILSON An exception to this is Mr Enoch Powell, who made a considerable impact, of one kind or another, during his term of office. He has now...

ACROSS.- I Grosbeak (Clue should have read 'Bakers go wild 5 Usages. 9 Rasputin. to Pro tern. 12 Sea-mist. 13 Rotters. 14 Chapter-house. 17 Whitewashing. 22 Triserne. 23...

ACROSS I. Like the Earl who made a dash for it? (6) 4. Artist got up rather fancifully and in all colours! (8) 9. Good Sir, the poet agrees in his heart (6) xo. A flower for Ma...

AFTERTHOUGHT By GILES PLAYFAIR THERE is not much kick, I suppose, to be got 1 out of calling London. or even South Ken- sington, one's native town, so that if one has the...

SIR,—May 1 have the courtesy of your columns to reply to some of the points you raise on the recent trial by TV on the Medical Aid Committee for Viet- nam? ('Spectator's...

depressing is the facile optimism of Lord Campbell and his friends. A developed country needs the following : (1) A literacy rate of more than 90 per cent, 10 per cent of the...

- EE2 LiCa L_ -J EE[IMA From: Professor Paul Streeten and Roger Hill, Henry Hobhouse, John G. Cluff, Dr Joan K. McMichael, Sir Max Aiken, James Mottram, II. F. R. Catherwood,...

SIR,—Your leading article, 'Britain and the UN' (November 4), was excellent and it prompts me to record my reactions to the past ten days which I have spent listening to the...

SIR, —Mr Cline cannot be allowed to escape from his errors so airily. He said a barrister is an 'officer of the court.' This is absolutely wrong. It is the soli- citor who is,...

S1R,—I was very surprised to read Nicholas Daven- port's attack on Lord Campbell and myself in his article last week. I have never said, or even remotely implied that 'when...

B. Cox writes with proper appreciation of Keith Douglas's poetry but I cannot understand his odd illusion that 'it was left to Ted Hughes in an article in The Critical Quarterly...

SLR, —John Rowan Wilson in his light-hearted and enjoyable article 'Entranced' (Spectator, November 18) is rather less than kind to Anton Mesmer when he says that `Mesmer's...

Sta,—You suggest that I am thinking of the finan- cial gains that might accrue from allowing an evening paper monopoly to arise in London. In fact, you imply that I am thinking...

SIR,—As usual, the Critical Quarterly is organising this year poetry competitions for people who have not published a book of verse, and for under-nine- teens. Further details...

LONDON FILM FESTIVAL By HENRY TUBE W HAT iS it that makes the inferior 'serious' work of art so much more depressing than the mere product, the commercial play, the cir- cuit...

Summat Foreboded Belcher's Luck. (Aldwych.)---Justice is a Woman (Vaudeville.) `rTIHE stupid urban view of the countryside I as dull receives a fresh and crushing answer in the...

BALLET A TER a six-week drought, hardly broken by the disappointing Romeo and Juliet film, the autumn dance deluge is upon us. But it is un- likely that the next few months will...

ART 13\ ROY STRONG T HE new exhibition of animal paintings at the Queen's Gallery is definitely for all those of you who have a Sartorius in your bathroom. This is not so dotty...

By SIMON RAVEN P EOPLE (even those who do not mean to be rude) often ask me whether my journalism interferes with my serious writing. As a matter of fact, my journalism is...

PROFESSOR HOFSTADTER has been and is one of the debunkers of a sacred American tradition. That tradition was of a continuous line of en- lightened doctrines and achievements—the...

THREE years ago, in conjunction with Mr Richard Gott, Mr Martin Gilbert produced a study of British policy towards Germany in the years 1937-39. It was severely criticised by...

Waking at midnight: the sudden meanness of confronted clay. No wind to flatten faces against this skull— faces the captain wears when he is not captain but each in turn his...

By JOHN BAYLEY p ROFESSOR WILSON KNIGHT is, in the old sense of the word, a genial critic.* He brings out Byron's geniality with the force of his own enthusiasm, for...

THE fabled monastic splendours of Mount Athos have for centuries been untroubled by women, children, eunuchs or female animals except for the odd hen, frowned on by the more...

By ANTHONY BURGESS WAS going to begin by saying that, on the I evidence of these three books,* it looked as if a new Dylan Thomas season was beginning. Stupid. He's no...

Memories. By C. M. Bowra. (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 55s.) IT was Virginia Woolf who remarked of the writers of the 'thirties that 'their autobiography is so much better than...

A History of Toys. By Antonia Fraser. (Weiden- feld and Nicolson, 4 gns.) PLAY is part of our lives from the first moment the infant fist closes round a rattle until doddery...

ALTHOUGH our tables overflow with picture- books of St Sophia, and the cataphracts of Byzantine scholarship have invaded the quad- rangles of Oxford, commentators in the daily...

Fertig. By Sol Yurick. (W. H. Allen, 30s.) The Hard Thorn. By Renzo Rossi. Translated by William Weaver. (Alan Ross, 30s.) A Learned City. By Philip Toynbee. (Chatto and Windus,...

FIRST published in 1943, Koestler's Arrival and Departure was rightly seen at the time as an indispensable guide-book to a world where 'there was now a war in a triangle; one...

By WILLIAM SARGANT T HE writer was reading Freud's first book on hysteria, which he had written together with Breuer in 1895, when asked to review this volume.* The contrast...

History of the Second World War : The Mediter- ranean and the Middle East. Volume IV. By Major-General I. S. 0. Playfair and Brigadier C. J. C. Molony. (H.M. Stationery Office,...

By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT M ONEY, as we all know, is the manure of capitalism. When it is spread widely and cheaply everything in the capitalist garden grows apace, but when it is...

By LESLIE ADRIAN THERE will be no fewer British on the ski slopes of Europe this winter, but they may be just a bit smellier. In Switzerland, at least, a bath costs 5s., and...

By JOHN BULL S HAREHOLDERS' democracy is a fitful plant. It flourishes rarely. And when it does—the annual meeting of Pye last week was a striking example—the spectacle is not...

By CUSTOS HE rise in the Treasury bill rate last Friday I came as a shock to the gilt-edged market and when the South African minister of transport gave a strong warning that...

g - A - OPCP By STRIX THE other day I did some- thing that I never expected to do; I sold a sallow. In fact, I sold several, at an average price of about £4. I may be doing...

No. 31o. L. MILLINS (1st Prize, Grantham Punta:, 1927) WHITE to play and mate in two moves solution next week. Solution to No. 30t; (Trumpet): Kt x threat Kt x Kt. I ......