news.' `First the bad news, then the even worse M r Major declined on several occa- sions to save his Northern Ireland Minister, Mr Michael Mates, who had become involved with...

Mr Major lines up on the right side for Europe's next battle SIMON HEFFER F orget Asil Nadir; for the discontented Right of the Conservative Party, this week has been the best...

JOHN SIMPSON B y rights, I should still be in Iran. Instead, the marvellously named Ministry of Islamic Guidance refused me a visa. I would only be allowed in again, an...

Farewell to Shirley, a teacher and a friend CHARLES MOORE M any Spectator regulars will have read occasional articles by Shirley Letwin, who died last week. Some will have...

Chris Patten tells Dominic Lawson what he thinks of China's negotiating tactics in the battle over the political future of Hong Kong `One of these busi- nessmen even threat-...

persist.. . FROM TIME to time, I make house- calls under the protection of the police. This is because some of my patients are inclined to violence and I have no thirst for...

After Bosnia, the conversion of Ukraine into a nuclear power will be the next great failure of US foreign policy, argues Anne Applebaum Both Russians and Ukrainians, in their...

`WHY DO English people, some of them good writers, often say myself when they mean me? As, for example, `She took my mother and myself to tea.' So writes Mr George Getze, from...

Michael Heath

John Laughland argues that questions about M. Mitterrand's connections to Nazi collaborators have been strangely overlooked Paris WHEN Rene Bousquet, the former Vichy police...

ENNUI. Surely mankind has sufficient faults and failings of its own to answer for, without being called upon to assume the respon- sibility of animal failings as well. An...

Alistair McAlpine reveals that the Conservative Party's funds come not from exotic potentates, but home-made jam TEMPTING though it is at a time of spec- ulation about the...

George Walker, bankrupt and facing theft charges, tells Martin Vander Weyer about his spot of bother with the bankers "SIGN IT, George, or else," one of them said. "Or else?...

Robert Worcester argues that, far from paying too much attention to opinion polls, the Government ignores them at its peril MR NORMAN LAMONT'S recriminato- ry 'resignation'...

The end may be nigh but the bacchanals will soon be here again PAUL JOHNSON M ost people innocently assume we are gouging our way slowly out of recession because that is what...

Make the world a level playing-field help stamp out summits CHRISTOPHER FILDES I would not like to have the job of wash- ing John Major's shirts. Nothing personal, but he must...

Sir: In order for Mrs Sturdy-Morton (The price of dementia', 5 June) to avoid confis- cation of her husband's occupational pen- sion, would it be possible for them to undergo a...

Sir: Simon Heifer's interview with George Lloyd (The last romantic', 19 June) credits me with having confirmed the existence of a blacklist of composers at the BBC during the...

Sir: I write in response to Peter Howard's letter of inquiry about the legality of the 1950 Chinese invasion of Tibet (Letters, 22 May). During the 1940s, the British Foreign...

Sir: Paul Johnson's article (And another thing, 1 May) dismisses our Christian her- itage and national identity, embodied con- stitutionally in the monarchy and the Sovereign's...

Sir: As a house guest of Lord and Lady McAlpine in Venice last weekend, I am able to refute Mr Dennis Skinner's asser- tion in Parliament on Monday that Michael Heseltine and...

Sir: In his misleading letter (29 May) John Pilger expressed the hope that the Hun Sen regime (which he has assiduously support- ed) would win the May elections in Cambo- dia....

Sir: The two words 'recipe' and 'receipt', meaning a list of ingredients and instruc- tions for combining them, are of similar antiquity. Whereas the first is sound Mid- dle...

Sir: I entirely disagree with Ian Buruma's article (`The rule of racial purity', 29 May). Japan is far more interesting for being Japanese. Ian Buruma can choose not to visit...

Sir: There is one snag about the quotation from the New Statesman of October 1975 with which Christopher Hitchens attempts to cover up his gaffe over Harold Wilson (Letters, 19...

Sir: As chief executive officer of IMG Artists responsible for IMG's transactions with Harold Holt, Harrison Parrott and Lies Askonas, I am sorry Henry Porter did not speak to...

Sir: Anyone must hesitate to tangle with a professor of genetics on his own patch (`No further room for improvement', 12 June) but how can Steve Jones know that the X chromosome...

Sir: One doesn't have to be a German to take exception to the manner in which James Buchan (We have changed, not the Queen', 29 May) maligns the German pres- idents. Theodor...

Sir: Champagne and fresh orange juice are not the only ingredients in a Buck's Fizz (`Cooling off, 12 June). The third ingredi- ent still remains a secret at Buck's Club where...

Let not many put asunder Hilary Mantel BROKEN LIVES: SEPARATION AND DIVORCE IN ENGLAND 1660-1857 by Lawrence Stone OUP, £16.95, pp. 355 H ere's Merrie England indeed: a...

Matthew Kneale THE WATERS OF THIRST by Adam Mars-Jones Faber, £14.99, pp. 182 I n Lantern Lecture Adam Mars-Jones showed the richness and unexpectedness of his imagination....

Horace Kelland A SEASON IN PURGATORY by Dominick Dunne Bantam, f14.99, pp. 409 P rovided you enjoy such sparkling conversation as is to be met with in this novel, when, for...

Magnus Linklater PAPER TIGERS by Nicholas Coleridge Heinemann, £17.99, pp. 592 T rying to get into the first division of Nicholas Coleridge's collection of news- paper tycoons...

in the campagn a C. T. Isolani WAR IN ITALY 1943-1945 by Richard Lamb John Murray, £19.95, pp. 335 I ndecisive in dealing with Mussolini between the wars, the British...

David Caute GENET by Edmund White Chatto, f25, pp. 820 I first encountered Genet by way of Sartre's marathonic study of a petty thief and devil's disciple cursed by genius to...

Oleg Gordievsky DEADLY ILLUSIONS by John Costello and Oleg Tsarev Century, £18.99, pp. 538 T his book is about the most senior KGB defector in the history of that organisation...

Julie Burchill WILL POP EAT ITSELF? by Jeremy J. Beadle Faber, f7.99, pp. 269 I always thought so anyway, but this book proves once and for all that there really is a God, and...

Nigel Spivey THE MARRIAGE OF CADMUS AND HARMONY by Roberto Calasso Cape, £19.99, pp. 403 D espite his arrival in an utterly repel- lent miasma of literary hype, Roberto Calasso...

Francis Wheen A VIEW FROM THE WINGS by Ronald Millar Weidenfeld, £18.99, pp. 386 I never thought that anyone could make me warm to Margaret Thatcher but Sir Ronald Millar, the...

Design The uses of things Tanya Harrod Design, miruir du siecle (Grand Palais, Paris, till 25 July) Is Starck a Designer? (Design Museum, till 3 October) K arl Marx was only...

The broken line Alan Powers on modern neglect of architectural composition H ow does architecture happen? What in one building provides a greater aesthetic stimulus than...

Inadmissible Evidence (Lyttelton) Lysistrata (Old Vic) Insufficient evidence Sheridan Morley J ohn Osborne might not have been the angriest playwright of the last 40 years but...

,ARTS DIARY A monthly selection of forthcoming events recommended by The Spectator's regular critics DANCE Regine Chopinot Dance Company, Queen Elizabeth Hall (071 928 8800),...

Tony Bevan; Piotr Nathan (Whitechapel Art Gallery, till 11 July) Dennis Creffield: Paintings of Petworth (Gillian Jason, till 9 July) Myopic conspiracy Giles Auty A great...

Savage Nights (`18', selected cinemas) Boxing Helena (`18', selected cinemas) Real people Vanessa Letts S avage Nights is a semi-autobiographical film based on Les Nails...

Summer sport Taki A n oily voice over the telephon e informed me that it was Andrew Pearce --- or Pierce — from the London Times. The voice wished to know about my conflict of...

Hippy shakes Martyn Harris O ne of the funniest cartoons in the last 20 years of Punch was a poke at the old-style TV God slot. It showed Mr and Mrs Average blankly watching...

Not cricket Jeffrey Bernard T here was a dinner and something of a debate on the subject of publishers last Tuesday at the Chelsea Arts Club and I was asked along by Hamish...

Under sail Nigel Nicolson 1 1New York he yacht Sumurun, named after the heroine of an Edwardian musical, was built on the Clyde in 1914 with the money that my grandmother had...

but there it was, in all its middle-period Ceaucescu squalor, our very own Department of the Environment, by common consent the ugliest building in — if you'll pardon the...

Disyllabic Jaspistos IN COMPETITION NO. 1784 you were invited to provide an entertaining piece of prose consisting only of disyllables - with the exception of pronouns, which...

Raymond Keene SPAIN CAN BOAST a long and glorious association with chess. It was essentially the Spanish love of the game in the 15th century which gave the vital impetus to...

1115: Out of place by Doc A first prize of £20 and a bottle of Graham's Malvedos 1979 Vintage Port for the first correct solution opened on 12 July, with two runners-up prizes...

A remarkably good guy Frank Keating THE FIRST week of Wimbledon usually means a load of tabloid guff about not very much, but I certainly aim to round it off with a quiet and...

Dear Mary. . Q. I have been invited to two weddings on the same day, one in Norfolk and the other in Gloucestershire. As both couples have overlapping friends, a certain amount...