week, The bizarre t of dockers and bummarees marching striking in support of Mr Enoch Powell marked the coming of age of the race blem in Britain. Nothing will ever be quite...

When the International Olympic Committee decided to admit South Africa to the 1968 Games the SPECTATOR thought the decision right. The South Africans had agreed to make a...

While the UN Security Council busies itself with the task of imposing a total ban on trade with Rhodesia, thereby demonstrating to Lord Caradon's (if to no one else's) satisfac-...

For good or ill, it was Enoch Powell's week. His vehement attack on immigration led Mr Edward Heath to dismiss him from the Shadow Cabinet. The speech, said Mr Heath, was...

POLITICAL COMMENTARY AUBERON WAUGH `Those whom the Gods wish to destroy they first make mad' (Enoch xix 4 68). When Mr Powell decided to spell out the new Conservative policy...

THE TORIES MAURICE COWLING Dear Humphry, I am sorry to see that you have left the Conservative party. I seldom agree with any- thing you say : at times I find your way of...

CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS Sir Learie Constantine has declined to stand for Parliament for the constituency of Nelson and Colne, where he used to be the cricket profes- sional, but has...

POLAND TIBOR SZAMUELY The most characteristic feature of a com- munist state is not so much the political purge or the faked trial as the awful dreariness of every- day life....

SCOTLAND JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE, MP lock Bruce-Gardyne has been Conservative PAP for South Angus since 1964. 7 May must be ringed in red on all the calendars at the headquarters...

GOVERNMENT COLIN WELCH Through all the changing scenes of life, in trouble and in joy, Mr Henry Fairlie always retained not only his own dignity but also that extra aureole...

AMERICA MURRAY KEMPTON New York—Sectetary of Defence Clark .Clif- ford's appearance at the Associated Press luncheon here this week was peculiarly en- couraging because it was...

MEDICINE JOHN ROWAN WILSON The Abortion Act, 1967, which this week comes into force, presents doctors—and particularly gynaecologists—with a completely new situa- tion. Under...

J. W. M. THOMPSON There is a sense in which our politics, after stagnating for so many years, have begun to accelerate. The new movement may prove to be in an unwelcome...

From the 'Spectator. 25 April 1868—The Lords have passed the principle of Mr. Gladstone's Bill for the abolition of Compulsory Church-Rates, after a debate in which Lord...

PERSONAL COLUMN CHARLES STUART The recent eruption of works on Philby and by Philby has thrown open to public discussion the subject of the secret intelligence of the recent...

TELEVISION STUART HOOD For my money the best part of last Saturday's excellent Benny Hill Show was his beautifully observed send-up of Twenty-Four Hours. He caught unerringly...

THE PRESS BILL GRUNDY For a variety of quite unimportant reasons, not many newspapers fell into my life over the last week. So, instead, I spent the time reading a book about...

TABLE TALK DENIS BROGAN Princeton, NJ—The United States today has an embarras de richesses as far as problems are concerned. One of them- is of special interest to an academic...

BOOKS JOHN ROWAN WILSON It is strange to think that at one time intelligent men saw the answers to all the world's problems in a mixture of science and socialism. Nobody would...

S. W. ROSKILL The Life of Admiral Lord Charles Beresford Geoffrey Bennett (Peter Dawnay 60s) 'Tantame animis navalibus ire?' (Can such wrath dwell in naval breasts?) commented...

PAUL GORE-BOOTH The Annotated Sherlock Holmes edited by William S. Baring-Gould (John Murray two volumes £9 9s) These two volumes are either quite astonishing or perfectly...

HENRY TUBE Berryman's Sonnets John Berryman (Faber 21s) There is a special pleasure in approaching an artist from the wrong end. Those Hepworths in the Tate, for instance :...

HENRY McALEAVY One day in the spring of 1945—it must have been almost at the precise moment when Hitler was holding his wedding breakfast in the Tier- garten bunker—I was...

PATRICK ANDERSON Late and Soon Frances Leggett (John Murray 45s) Frances Leggett is a rich old lady long since retired to her beautiful estate up the Hudson, facing the...

JOHN HOLLOWAY The Essence of T. H. Huxley edited by Cyril Bibby (Macmillan 38s) The Courtship Habits of the Great Crested Grebe Julian Huxley (Cape Editions 7s 6d) The Huxleys...

THEATRE Bedsitter lives HILARY SPURLING Hadrian the Seventh (Mermaid) The Duel (Duke of York's) Optimists oppressed by the rigid, enfeebled and, in its death throes, vicious...

MICHAEL BORRIE Those who remember the great Council of Europe exhibitions of Romanesque art at Bar- celona in 1961, and of European art circa 1400 at Vienna in 1962, will know...

Sparkling eye PENELOPE HOUSTON Reflections in a Golden Eye (Warner, 'X') The Edge (New Cinema Club, I May, 29 May, 26 June) A quiet evening at an American army post in...

BALLET CLEMENT CRISP We used to call them the Junior Company or the Second Company or even, apologetically, the Other Company; now we know them as the Royal Ballet Touring...

ART PAUL GRINKE Everyone loves a discovery and few in recent years have been as dramatic and unpredictable as the reappearance of a magnificent cache of Fuseli drawings in...

CHRISTOPHER FILDES If Mr Fred Catherwood ever quarrels with the Government to the point where they offer him a peerage, I forecast that the motto on the Catherwood arms will...

NICHOLAS DAVENPORT At any moment of crisis it is wise to choose your words very carefully, especially if you are about to deliver an ultimatum. Mr William McChesney Martin, the...

BUSINESS VIEWPOINT LORD MELCHETT Lord Melchett is chairman of the British Steel Corporation, which comprises the nationalised steel industry. Nearly everyone acknowledges that...

PORTFOLIO JOHN BULL I have decided to sell my small holding in John I. Jacobs, the shipowners and tanker brokers. 1 bought 600 shares at 8s last Novem- ber and make my exit at...

SAVINGS LOTHBURY The death sentence on Castle Central unit trust—it is to be wound up in five months' .time—is striking. Announced with the stock market reaching new peaks, the...

of the purposes of the Race Relations Bill (19 April). It is not, as he suggests, concerned with 'racial hatred' but with conduct amounting to racial discrimination. The role of...

comment: 'The prejudice is that of a small group on the right of the party who believe that the immigrants are lucky to be in Britain and have to take us as we are' I note the...

LETTERS From 1. M. Flobd, G. G. Mayo, A. W. Moss, B. Hoobennan, Giles Playfair, Martin Carmichael, S. P. Calloway, B. G. Bennett, Michael C. Rowe, Leslie Crutch, Enid Lakeman,...

CUSTOS The market is still as buoyant as ever. Having reached a new record level, at 464 on the Financial Times index, at the end of last week, it came back sharply on Monday....

Sir: I did not 'claim' in my article (5 April) that Lord Hunt's Prison Licensing Board was in itself 'cumbersome.' I suggested that it was part of a ridiculously cumbersome...

of question begging as your editorial of 19 April. I accept the fact that nearly everyone else also avoids the basic issue—such is the power of the pseudo-consensus—the charter...

Sir: Having thought of myself as an average liberal-minded person I am now forced to the conclusion, having just read Simon Raven's article on students (19 April)--in which he...

Sir : The power of the British Parliament is theoretically untrammelled, and the powers of government through use of the parliamentary instrument extensive and apt to be...

long fascinated me and it is an ideal, by virtue of its total lack of idealism, which many young men would like to fulfil—high- clasi hedonism. It is based on acceptance of the...

Sir: At the end of his article in your issue of 19 April, your American—or should one say anti-American?—correspondent declares that 'power is sinful.' Every state, however...

Sir: What has happened to the English lan- guage? Mr Randolph Churchill writes ( 12 April): . . the SPECTATOR and myself got the action struck out' and . . so far the SPECTA-...

Sir: Mr Jones's article 'Investing in people' (12 April) could give rise to a mistaken im- pression of the relative efficiency of the com- panies whose performance is compared....

Sir: Mr Lampe's standards of accuracy can be gauged py the reference in his letter (19 April) to an occasion on which 'Montgomery's divisional headquarters in Kent were booby-...

Sir: Nigel Lawson, in his note to my letter (19 April), says the advantage of introducing the British system of election into Germany _ would be that one of the big parties...

Sir: I have seen your notice of A Selection from Scrutiny in your issue of 12 April. One of Scrutiny's characteristics is a passionate and conscientious seriousness. A...

Sir: In his interesting review of Editor in your issue of 5 April, Mr Goronwy Rees raised ques- tions of historical importance which I should like him to answer if he will. Was...

AFTERTHOUGHT JOHN WELLS The capitals of Europe have been trembling for the past week with the shock waves that heralded the greatest journalistic earthquake of the century....

COMPETITION Competitors are invited to use the following ten words taken from the opening passages of a well-known work of literature, in the order given, to construct part of...

Trevor Grove reports: Competitors were asked to compose an octet, using the given rhymes, on one of the following subjects: the Cabinet Mark II, the Suffragettes, the censor and...

Across 1 Dad's turned waxy over a letter (8) 5 Brief bag full of wine? (6) 9 Put one up in games in brackets (8) 10 Hardy shrub (6) 12 'He knew Himself to sing and build the...

PIIILIDOR Black 6 men 8 men J. Scheel (1st Prize, us Chess Federation, 1946-48). White to play and mate in three moves; solution next week. Solution to No. 383 (Schor and...