This week sees the opening of the thirty-first General Assembly of the United Nations, and one of the few safe predictions in international affairs is that the coming months...

Dr Henry Kissinger refused to be introduced to Rugby football in the company of Dr Vorster and Mr Ian Smith. In subsequent talks with Dr Kissinger Mr Smith's resolve seemed to...

The big palavers John Grigg Next week and the week after the big parties Will be holding their party conferences, Which some would describe as vigorous expressions of British...

The steps being taken by the Irish Government to strengthen the Republic's security legislation reflect an admirable determination to deal with the menace of the IRA, and we...

Richard West We devotees of conspiracy theory welcome the news of a fresh investigation into the murder of President Kennedy. Until its conclusions are published we must be...

John Ardagh Paris At last week's Cabinet meeting, Giscard is said to have thumped his elegant patrician fist on the table: 'Messieurs! It is not by placating our own voters and...

Bruce Page . . Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew. And the hearts of the meanest were humbled, and began to believe it was true...

Frank Johnson 'The Liberal strategy,' said The Times, on the eve of the Llandudno assembly, 'should be to hold on as best they can in the meantime, and to be ready to take...

Christopher Booker Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable memorably analyses a 'nine days wonder' as being made up of 'three days amazement, three days discussion of details...

Elisabeth Dunn If it hadn't been for the weather, the Government's prices policy would have had a fantastic year. But now, in the immortal words of the Daily Mirror: 'Drought...

Greedy Jeffrey Bernard There are things and people that can only happen in Ireland. I went over there for the Irish St Leger last week and the place is still the friendly...

The preposterous coupon Nicholas Davenport While we are all waiting in the City for the end of the month charts on the FT equity index—to see if we are heading for or moving...

Sir: It was mischievous enough of Richard West to venture into the field of modern Yugoslav politics with his particular equipment of badly regurgitated thirty-year-old...

is unfairly slanted and irresponsibly flippant. I do not know his reasons for dragging the name of the British—Croatian Society into what he chooses to call his 'analysis of the...

which pays curious homage to a passe category of the Yugo-nationaliststate, and by his visibly enjoying political plots and counter-plots, Mr West almost succeeded in creating...

Sir: My old friend Richard Ingrams, whom God preserve from his excruciating enemies, writes: 'I assume that if Jay were really interested in journalism, i.e. in finding out what...

Sir: I find myself in something of a quandary, and should welcome the opportunity to air my problem in your columns. I have this week received a circularised letter from an...

Sir: I understand that Britain's mackerel fishermen are upset about Russian trawlers poaching Britain's traditional mackerel fishing grounds, and have demanded that Britain have...

Sir: You are not likely to foster AngloGerman relations with remarks like that in The Week ( I 1 September). Bavaria would hate to have Herr Schmidt foisted on them but Herr...

Inside Mr Clean Peter Jenkins The Creative Balance Elliot Richardson (Hamish Hamilton £5.95) This book might have been called 'Doodles'. The author is a famous exponent of...

Peter Ackroyd Ezra Pound: The Last Rower C. David Heymann (Faber and Faber £5.95) It is natural and just that Ezra Pound should baffle his critics. He is the greatest poet of...

Robert Skidelsky The British Revolution: British Politics 18 80.-1939. Vol 1. From Gladstone to Asquith 1880-1914 Robert Rhodes James (Hamish Hamilton E7.50) The main puzzle...

Nick Totton Henry and Cato Iris Murdoch (Chatto and Windus £4.00) Saville David Storey (Jonathan Cape £4.50) There was a graceful, intelligent completeness to Iris Murdoch's...

Benny Green Lewis Carroll and his World John Pudney (Thames and Hudson £3.50) The aim of the '. . . and his World' series is presumably to provide the newcomer with...

Olivia Manning The Female Imagination Patricia Meyer Spacks (Allen and Unwin £5.95) This is a disapointing book. Claiming in its sub-title to be a 'literary and psychological...

Pat Rogers Josiah Wedgwood Anthony Burton (Andre Deutsch £4.95) The ingenious Mr Hogarth Derek Jarrett (Michael Joseph £7.00) Samuel Smiles wrote a life of Wedgwood, and the...

Simon Blow Joyce Grenfell Requests the Pleasure Joyce Grenfell (Macmillan £4.95) Memoirs of stage personalities tend to be read with the hope that behind the act and the...

Simon Blow The straight chestnut hair cropped at the neck and dressed in black smock and trousers, she looks the lifelong student. As a lecturer in philosophy the opposite is...

Celebes and Hendrickje Norman Rosenthal The 'Elephant Celebes' and 'Hendrickje Stoffels' are both paintings of the very greatest importance, by Max Ernst and Rembrandt, which...

Beyond and after the fringe Miles Kington There was a German student sitting next to me on the train, also travelling up to the Edinburgh Festival. Round about Grantham she...

Music dramas John Bridcut When rumours abound of the imminent demise of the Edinburgh Festival (and controversy over its finance) and it stages a moneyshunner opera like Moses...

Stubbs at bay John McEwen It is only in the past thirty years or so that Stubbs has at last received his due as one of the greatest of English painters. Incredibly , before...

Tandem Kenneth Hurren Spokesong (King's Head, Islington) Travellers returning from last year's Dublin Theatre Festival were agog with tales of this one. The general burden of...

Won't do Richard Ingrams Continuing my investigation of tile issues raised by Peter Jay and John Birt I find myself concluding that whatever else the telly will do, it will...