T HE Minister of Housing and Local Government in his recent utterances has left the public in little doubt that he con- siders the new dispensation at Whitehall a very bright...

Friday November 26 1965

as the Lab-Con show of unity over Rhodesia began to fade : meanwhile, police fired upon strikers in Mr. Ian Smith's 'God's Own Country', Miss Judith Todd flew back to Salisbury...

RHODESIA Chapter Six and Chapter Seven I the event, the Tory concern over the 'Security Council resolution on Rhodesia turned out to be premature. Neither on the question of...

Entertainment for the People DON COOK writes from Paris : One is inclined to wonder what the result of this French presidential election would be if Charles de Gaulle were to...

And Quiet Flows the . Clyde D. W. BROGAN also DAVID REES on George Orwell One year's subscription to the 'S pectator: £3 I 5s. (including postage) in the United Kingdom and...

By OLIVER STEWART E NFEEBLEMENT of the British aircraft industry must lead to enfeeblement of the Royal Air Force. For a national air force is nourished by a national aircraft...

Sugar-Daddy Syndrome CF/ARLES CURRAN writes: Monopoly is a trigger word, like Tynan. Use it, and you provoke an outcry. This is now happening in Fleet Street. For the Exchange...

The Knock on the Door From MURRAY KEMPTON T HE tied vote in the General Assembly on the seating of Communist China seems to have come as a considerable shock to most private...

Ken Tynan did not find it hard To get a name as avant - garde. He thought that couples might engage In copulating on the stage. The plan was, BBC made clear, Not only silly...

The Pressures on Mr. Heath By ALAN WATKINS r r OWARDS the end of last week a perceptible change occurred in the mood of the Con- servative party. Resignation was replaced by...

. By CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS T HE fourth and last session of the Vatican Council has been important but not dramatic. Its business has been mainly with voting on pre- viously...

There is a curious story behind the local- government election for all the seats on the Northampton council. A story of an interfering Member of Parliament and a culpably weak...

Clearly the Government is determined to en- force oil sanctions upon someone; if not Rho- desian rebels, then British householders. How else to explain Mr. Fred Lee's...

told, have found a startlingly simple way of apportioning the various national contributions towards dealing with the casualties in Vietnam, and all , through the go od offices...

Emile de Antonio's film of the Army-McCarthy hearings, Point of Older! The famous 1954 hear- ings which brought low the Wisconsin Commun- ist-hunter have frequently been called...

who consider that the Prime Minister was guilty of a monu- mental indiscretion in claiming the Queen's `approval' for the acts of her ministers over Rhodesia. Constitutionally...

1 AM not on the whole in favour of five-year plans, but I make an exception for the (second) five-year' plan of the Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind published yesterday....

Readers will just have to take my word for it that they would have read the above paragraph anyway, whatever the result. Now like Claire Rayner I crow. The Tories actually won...

From: S. A. Allison and others, The Duchess of Hamilton, Lord Salerno, J. R. Hall, R. L. Travers, Alexander Walker, , Mrs. Iris Glover, Clive Irving, Ruth Elliott, Dennis...

SIR,—Your readers will be grateful for the refreshing sanity of the articles on Rhodesia in your last issue. The lawyers and the politicians have given tongue. The ordinary...

SIR,—Of course women's magazines present a world of fantasy. We know that, but everyone wants to escape from this world sometimes. I always find it difficult to understand why...

treason seem to have forgotten that under the provisions of the Treason Act 181 4 the only punishment for high treason is hanging. The recent 'no-hanging' legislation dealt only...

of Hamilton try to water down what the Archbishop did say in Aberdeen and to gloss over what was left unsaid. I was there and have a vivid recollection of how, with all the...

SIR,—I think Mary Holland's article on my home - land, Northern Ireland, was written not in a state of shock, but a catatonic trance. Even that Roman Catholic who went 'slightly...

SIR,—Mr. Salter says that points I made in my article had already been answered in a statement issued by the British Council of Churches on November 6 explaining why only the...

magazines last week, since—according to himself—he had been looking at them for the first time in his life! If he had been able to spare a little more time to read successive...

been looking at our women's magazines for the first time in his life. They merit somewhat less superficial study than that. He, makes the usual Points about the letters columns,...

am sorry to have been too busy to reply to Mr. Bryan Robertson's 'In Kensington Gardens' before; sorry too, that lack of space prevents fuller comment. The article on the...

By ROBERT ROBINSON I THINK it's a pity that the necessity for I repudiating the Jerry Lewis cult has stopped people noticing that, at a modest but acceptable level, the...

Robert Robinson write regularly on Books and Films

Garden Sheds T HE facts on who controls the Royal Opera House as a hunk of real estate were stated such a long time ago and so summarily that it may be well to 'footnote' the...

Our Theatre in the 'Sixties By HILARY SPURLING Trelawny of the 'Wells.' Platinum Cat. (Strand.) (Old Vic.)—The `TT is always a capricious wine,' wrote P. Morton r l 'Shand of...

Rhymed Canvas R OGi'.R FRY relates somewhere how he was told of a little girl of eleven who was asked what she most liked a picture to do: 'I like a picture to rhyme,' she...

Pleasure in the Middle Lady L. (Empire, `A' certificate.) T HE only good middlebrow is a dead middle- '. brow, in the arts at any rate. A few dead years make him, if he hasn't...

The Time of Power By ANDREW SINCLAIR • WILL never write the history of the Kennedy ',administration,' Arthur Schlesinger Jr. de- clared to me in 1961. Why, 1 only know one-...

By JOHN BAYLEY W ORDSWORTH, happy man, had a way with women. In his middle age and his declining years he usually had four devoted helpmates living with him and ministering to...

• Hogarth Press, 21s.) VIRGINIA WOOLF'S association with the partial myth of 'Bloomsbury' has not helped her repu- tation. I have heard her slighted, particularly by members of...

The New Lowell By NI. L. ROSENTHAL J usi a year ago Robert Lowell's The Old Glory --or rather, two-thirds of the trilogy compris- ing it— was produced at the American Place...

William Howard Taft: Chief Justice. By Alpheus Thomas Mason. (Oldbourne, 50s.) WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT was the fattest man ever to become President of the United States. He was also...

Neo-Colonialism : The Last Stage of Imperial- ism. By Kwame Nkrumah. (Nelson, 42s.) DR. NKRUMAH is known in Ghana as 'the Redeemer' and is the object of a personality cult of...

To M. Abbott, RN (Reid.) An Abraham with a crystal jaw Told me your story, and awoke You in the streaming grave. I saw You lift your wild head as he spoke. You were the...

t, the Great Ocean : Siberia and the Trans- Siberian Railway. By Harmon Tupper. (Seeker and Warburg, 55s.) ON May 31, 1891, the Grand Duke Nicholas, the future Nicholas H of...

By ANTHONY BURGESS T SOMETIMES think that the publishing of fiction _Lis more religion than commerce (Mass said whether there is a congregation or not). If novels don't sell,...

Begin to know me. Sleep's more potent juices Brought me to Hell, a judge of the oppressed, Weaned, on their breath, of her the bull seduces, Who sucked, like my two brothers, at...

`WHAT would you like to be when you grow up?' someone asked the twelve-year-old Mallarme. The answer came pat: `Beranger or a bishop.' It might be argued that both ambitions...

WE begin with the white light of the Middle East and that strange magnet for the heart and mind which David Talbot-Rice describes in Constanti- nople (Elek, 84s.). A collector's...

The Wars of the Roses. (History in the Making Series.) By J. R. Lander. (Seeker and War- burg, 50s.) THE popular image of the fifteenth century in English history has changed...

Addington. By Philip Ziegler. (Collins, 50s.) . . . the generous patriot who presides O'er Britain's Senate and its Council guides Now shining in the radiant van prepared Those...

BY PETER QUENNELL Tr HOU shalt not bother!' snapped back George I Lamb, when his tiresome sister-in-law, Lady Caroline, asked him if he had any idea what the Eleventh...

I FIRST met Louis MacNeice at Oxford in 1927. One evening I idly flung a champagne bottle out of Clere Parsons's window in Peckwater. It happened to be full, and exploded...

The Spike. By Peter Forster. (Hutchinson, 25s.) NOVELS YET another Rorschach test on the street of ink, another analysis of Fleet Street's blotted copybook? Be reassured. The...

Williwaw. By Gore Vidal. (Panther, 3s. 6d.) The City and the Pillar. By Gore Vidal. (Heinemann, 21s.) "LOOKS like the start of a williwaw. That's what I think it looks like. I...

Public Enterprise and Profit By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT O UR 'mixed economy,' as we all know, is a bold experiment which has not yet proved itself as a 'growth' economy. But it is...

By CUSTOS A NEW account opened on the Stock Exchange with an uncertain note, but the underlying firmness, which indicates shortage of stock on jobbers' books, was still...

Fur Play By LESLIE ADRIAN Mr. Links takes great comfort in the thought that this provides a safeguard for the consumer, while lamenting the undoubted fact that 'the dyeing of...

By ALAN BRIEN WHEN I come across the words 'self-pity,' I instantly see a patchwork, counter- pane strip of butter-yellow windows glowing with angelic light through a fretwork...

By STRIX IN the ordinary run of life I know of no more hateful experience than putting down an old dog. Reason tells one that the deed has to be done, that one can't go on...

ACROSS 29. 1. It buttons up the fairy ring in France! (10) 6. Strike on the exchange? (4) 10. Arrested at the end of the race (3,2) 11. Putting in which may end in being put...

ACROSS.-1 DisOwn. 4 Schemin g . 10 Unurged. 11 Earshot. 12 Lo g -rollers. 13 Ibis. 15 Ocellar. 17 Elected. 19 Sea-calf. 21 Satinet. 23 Athy. 24 Graduation. 27 Entrain. 28...

By PHILIDOR 258. Rev. A. C. REEVES (2nd Prize, Die Schwabe, 1962) BLACK (9 men) WHITE (8 men) WHITE to play and mate in two moves : solution next week. Solution to No. 257...