`I think they've hung it upside down.' U nemployment in the United King- dom dropped below three million for the first time since July 1984. The SDP decided to ballot its...

DEVOLUTION'S LOW ROAD ecause the Conservatives did so badly in Scotland at the General Election, there is talk of devolution once more. The Sc ottish Secretary, Mr Malcolm...

NO one predicted the election result exact- ly, but the winner of the Spectator Election Competition came very close. Mr R. A. Kempster of Basingstoke came up with the following...

The wheel-clamp effect in the Government's programme of privatisation FE RDINAND MOUNT R eaders in the provinces may be in- terested to know what the comfortable classes in...

on Lairg, which is about 60 miles north of Inverness, its base stretching on the coast from Handa Island, with its grim cliffs thronged with sea birds — right- handed round Cape...

A bleeding Sergeant looks ahead with foreboding AUBERON WA UGH T here can be few more agreeable ways of hearing election results than on a crackly wireless miles up the Alto...

. Britain is experiencing its biggest-ever credit boom. Tun Congdon argues that if inflation is to be avoided the Bank of England must be freed from political control MUCH has...

Robin Lustig reports on the failure of Syrian protection in Lebanon IF readers of the Spectator have a better understanding of Lebanese affairs than most people, they owe...

congress for the intelligentsia 50 years on from the war IT HAD to happen. Spain's galloping modernisation, her determination to be ruled by sober-suited social democrats, to...

Gavin Stamp weighs up the opposition to the redevelopment of the Royal Opera House OLD soldiers refighting old battles can be a little pathetic. There is something of this in...

Richard West wonders why British city centres are uniquely unpleasant Bradford NOW that the Government has resolved to tackle the 'inner cities', it should begin by asking why...

John Mortimer defends the right of his kind to express their political opinions JUST before the election the Observer invited 28 writers and artists to disclose how they...

Oliver Knox argues that the passions of the Iliad have uses in the classroom AIDS is not the first threat posed by sexual misconduct to an entire civilisation. We should...

welcomes the new internationalism in the book trade T HERE is whining from angry old fogies like Graham Greene at recent financial moves in the publishing industry, in par-...

Gilmore's Law finds the rate reformers up to their rump in alligators CHRISTOPHER FILDES T he first principle of the tax reform, or Gilmore's Law*, is that the people who are...

THE City's bold gendarmes are every- where these days, running in or running after the little boys who do no harm (or not much), and leaving the big professional swindlers at...

IT is hard luck on Peter Palumbo that he can point to a hundred property developers who get their dirty work designed by ruler and setsquare without any of the obloquy that...

THE dollar is perking up, a phenomenon which we tend to notice as the pound perks down, and the Bank of England, which bought $4,760 million of foreign currency for the reserves...

Sir: Mr Taki Theodoracopulos (High life , 20 June) finds it appropriate that Clivede n should be the scene for Sir James Gold - smith's recent party, on the grounds tha t , the...

Sir: Auberon Waugh wrote (Another voice, 6 June) that following my intervie w with Prime Minister Hawke, `subseque nt scrutiny of the unedited transcript' showe d that Hawke had...

Sir: Paul Johnson (The press, 20 June) refers to the current wide choice of news- papers, including 'two metropolitan eve n- ings'. Has he forgotten the London Daily News, on...

Sir: I was interested to read in your editorial of 6 June: 'As Tom Lehrer's Folk Song Army says of the war against Franco, they may have won all the battles, but we had all the...

Sir: You say in your editorial of 20 June that `all those whom Mrs Thatcher has previously dismissed have been unsuccess- ful rebels. Being men for the most part preoccupied...

Sir: Christopher Howse asserts (`Beer' , 20 June) that the width of the platforms at St Pancras Station was determined by the size of the barrels of Burton beer stored in the...

Sir: Sonie who criticise British Telecom no doubt relish finding the faults they do because they disapprove in principle of privatised utilities. As an advocate of privatisation...

SUBSCRIBE TODAY - Save 15% on the Cover Price! Please enter a subscription to The Spectator I enclose my cheque for £ (Equivalent SUS & Eurocheques accepted) RATES 12...

wielding despotic power ISLAM today is generally seen to present a severe and forbidding face to the world, while a great many regions where it pre- d ominates are in the grip...

is looking for a mature (25-35) and intelligent person to sell corporate and advocacy advertising. The successful candidate must have previous experience, ideally selling a...

PROVIDENCE has been kind to the Queen. Her Jubilee Day, June 21st, has come and gone, and the most notewor- thy fact about it is that it was not spoiled, either by failure, by...

Their man in Havana Hugh Thomas FIDEL CASTRO: A CRITICAL PORTRAIT by Tad Szulc r Tad Szulc, a well-known journal- ist. who used to work for the New York Tunes, has written an...

Hugh Lloyd-Jones THE HISTORY OF HERODOTUS translated by David Grene University of Chicago Press, £23.95 H istory starts with Herodotus. With- out him we should be painfully...

in the American foreign policy quarterly, The National Interest (Washington).

Roger Clarke THE HAW LANTERN by Seamus Heaney Faber, f7.95, L3.95 T he Haw Lantern by its title suggests vintage Heaney: exact cubes of peat- smelling observation by a man...

Francis King THE RAT by Gunther Grass Seeker & Warburg, f12.95 A t my preparatory school before the war, there was a diminutive boy who believed, along with the rest of his...

Frances Partridge A LIFE WITH ALAN: THE DIARY OF A. J. P. TAYLOR'S WIFE EVA, FROM 1978 TO 1985 by Eva Haraszti Taylor Hamish Hamilton, f14.95 I t is as difficult to justify...

J. L. Carr THE FABER BOOK OF CRICKET edited by Michael and Simon Davie Faber, f9.95 T his is a felicitous selection. Its one sour note is struck by Sir William Rees-Mogg's...

Alan Bell NAIRN IN DARKNESS AND LIGHT by David Thomson Hutchinson, £12.95 D avid Thomson had some success in mixing the autobiographical and the dis- cursively historical in...

Peter Levi THE NEW OXFORD BOOK OF VICTORIAN VERSE edited by Christopher Ricks OUP, £15.95 V ictorian poems are a constant plea- sure, and so numerous that everyone can make...

It's good to see the gulls back. I felt their lack - like a missing bit of mountain, a mysteriously withered tree - and long to acquire the knack of gull-speak: 'What poison...

Exhibitions Mark Rothko (Tate Gallery, till 1 September) The Artist's Eye: paintings selected by Lucian Freud (National Gallery, till 16 August) Rothko redux Giles Auty M y...

Excellence or elitism? Peter Phillips evidently ameliorated in the last fortnight. After the principal, Sir David Lumsden, h ad outlined his further steps 'in the pursuit of...

A monthly selection of for thcoming events rec ommended by the SPecto.tor's regular critics. OPERA hychi, Theatre de l'Archeveche, Aix-e n - Provence, from 21 July....

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (Piccadilly) Blues in the Night (Donmar Warehouse) A good idea at the time Christopher Edwards T his is a transfer, from the Nottingham...

Dona Herlinda and Her Son (`15', Cannon Piccadilly & Everyman Hampstead) A boy's best friend Hilary Mantel A t the end of this film, the sun in question recites a poem of his...

Lord's and commoners Alan Gibson I t is unfortunate for the Marylebone Cricket Club, whose bicentenary is being currently celebrated with much pomp and splendour, that the...

Postman's weather Wendy Cope R emember your television cannot listen to you, nor reply.' This useful piece of advice from Dr Anthony Fry, consultant psychiatrist at Guy's...

Absent friends Jeffrey Bernard T he speed at which friends are being flung out into the void seems to be accelerating. If I believed in life after death I would say that there...

Taki T he last thing I was planning to write about was the royal connection at the Worcester ball I attended in Oxfordshire last week, but after the fuss the up-market press...

Living in a madhouse Alice Thomas Ellis W hen I've got a minute I'm going to write a book called Osmosis and Institution or maybe Institution and Osmosis. Not merely because I...

L . ng: conversation TTER- CLASSparents used to think it necessary that their offspring be able to c onverse nicely and amusingly. I imagine that few actually taught this...

Magic properties Jaspistos I N Competition No. 1477 you were asked for an imaginary example of the extravagant and pseudo-scientific prose used by manufacturers describing...

Rays serene Raymond Keene H as there ever been a tournament like AVRO 1938? Four world champions, past, present and future, were in the lists and the remaining four...

A R H '0 '0 D , A■ E 1 , u%'11 s E S P 0 N7 SI D TAL ZIAEINNISN TIRIRIO I N G T E P ' . ?1 A R R LITLI't A 0 N CILIEDL1/A !STRAND ' Fl I R ... E LING " EASLEFLI ELIFFTL3/ H...

Self-portraits, common enough in art, are rare in prose. You are invited to suppy an entertaining one (maximum 150 words). I am, of course, in no position to insist on accuracy,...

. . soi fir sl prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or, for UK wor a copy of Chambers Dictionary, value £13.95 — ring the s o h j - C io Chambers Dictionary' above) for...

Volume 258 January — June 1987 rootxxonownommoy.uxouxoxxokse f Indiana :University F. MAR 2 81988 Library wlevt - VeUWIEVENOMEXANIAti(XIMMIEV, Published by The Spectator, 56...

Arrangment of entries Entries are arranged in letter-by-letter alphabetical order, i.e. spaces between words are ignored. Thus the entry 'Interior Landscapes' precedes 'In the...

Index for January - June 1987 Subjects and Titles L) LETTER A) LEADING ARTICLE LL) LIFE AND LETTERS N) NOTE ) POEM (PC) POLITICS r I) W) PORTRAIT ILLUSTRATION A Abortion: an...