Established 1828 99 Gower Street, London WC1E 6AE Telephone: 01-3137 3221 Telegrams: Spectator, London Editor: George Gale Associate Editor: Michael Wynn Jones Literary Editor:...

Last chance before direct rule 'Direct rule' as the next stage in the devel- oping political crisis in Northern Ireland has much to recommend it, and much against it. It offers...

This is really the most intractable of all prob- lems. The best theoretical solution would be to name one of the most senior members of the present Cabinet. Sir Alec can...

.Gerald Kaufman, new Labour MP and Harold Wilson's most loyal at-heel follower, has suggested in the Jewish Chronicle that Alderman Michael Fidler, the new Con- servative member...

It is a measure of the potentially dominant effect Ireland could once again have upon British party politics that Mr Heath should postpone his visit to West Germany because of...

Naturally enough, the Government has had ready for some time now its contingency plans for direct rule in Ulster. These plans are not regarded with any great confidence. My use...

But for all his many admirable qualities. it may be doubted whether Carrington possesses the intuitive political genius which alone seems likely to bring about some solution or...

Some distinguished ex-Cabinet minister could be found. John Boyd-Carpenter and Duncan Sandys are names which crop up in conversation. Other names will occur to different people....

Ii „ HUGH MACPHERSON Chesterton was of course right, For the great Gaels of Ireland Are the men that God made mad ... But not only personal insanity. They also have the...

They seem, always, a specially touching little group, the sparse sprinkling of the faithful who linger in the Chamber as the weekend looms in order to pursue what Thomas Carlyle...

Wednesday 17 March: Mr Carr attacked the 'mindless militants' who were organising a political strike tomorrow. Major Chichester- Clark remained silent alter his unexpected...

of Commons, may serve to remind anyone who has forgotten that the continued exclusion of Mr Powell is not something that is going to help the government in the future. Ulster,...

The explanation is complicated. But at the risk of over-simplification one can say that Herbert Hoover has been proved right and FOR wrong, in the sense that the evils which the...

The new Establishment PEREGRINE WORSTHORNE The most interesting aspect of contemporary Washington to a visiting Englishman—and more particularly to a visiting English Tory —is...

The contemporary form of muck-raking is designed to show up the incompetence and arrogance of Federal welfare programmes: to expose the dismal contrast between their aims and...

And so indeed they have. The forty-year war against poverty, in the course of which Federal government has been vastly expan- ded, and the knowledge industry—universit- ies and...

Nobody can question that the great mass of the population are better off as a result of 'new dealism' in the twentieth century, just as nobody could doubt that the great mass of...

This, of course, is precisely what the President's revenue-sharing programme is intended to do : to take away the responsi- bility for spending large sums of Federal revenue...

Diplomats in the front line N. PELHAM WRIGHT Mexico City 1968 was the year in which some few Latin Americans with political axes to grind dis- covered the advantages to be...

Spectator U MINIS MIN MIMI MEN NMI MN MIS 1 The Spectator, 99 Gower Street, London W.C.1 I Please supply the Spectator for one year two years D• I Cheque enclosed C] three...

Habit cf $2 1 .CiiriA Praia an kcreaseci Pellatt f for ilieix asfinac r ,wiliie those whose joy lies +heir r,Vrotoe Cars cf a increas ect LLCeIlce Fee as le Thundertolwtich 14...

The new ideological battleground? ALISTAIR HORNE When I left Bogota, my last port of call in South America, the city was in the process of being taken apart by red students....

New drugs for old MILES WEATHERALL At least four separate technical problems— chemical, biological, medical and predictive— must be solved before any new drug is made...

Michael Bentley on Lloyd George James Morris on the Indian Political Service Reviews by Douglas Hurd and Auberon Waugh Auberon Waugh on George Brown Throughout George Brown's...

April

Lloyd George: Twelve Essays edited by A. J. P. Taylor (Hamish Hamilton £3.75) Accurate appraisal of Lloyd George has usually been confounded by the existence of two conflicting...

The Kaisers Theo Aronson (Cassell £2.50) The anxious parent soon finds that kings and queens rule the history classroom quite as effectively today as they did twenty years ago....

The Indian Political Service Terence Creagh Coen (Chatto and Windus £3.15) In 1880 the Times, confusing its telegrams from India, reported ominously an armed affray among...

Slides David Plante (Macdonald £2.00) One of the many qualities for which P. G. Wodehouse will always be honoured while civilisation and the English language survive is his...

Paladin 9 Morassy 10 Gophers 11 Baby- lonian 12 Emma 13 Pal 14 Encumbering 17 Phil- anderer 19 Via 20 Erse 22 Dissonance 26 Paid off 27 Elegise 28 Tuesday 29 Assents. Down : 1...

Charles Seaton reports: The competition— originally timed for this report to appear just before D for Decimal Day—asked for mnemonic jingles to help us in the change-over to...

A prize of V will be awarded for the first correct solution opened on 5 April. Address solutions: Crossword 1474, The Spectator, 99 Gower Street, London WCI Across 1 With which...

No. 643: Long shot Set by Robin Chase: In his 'Notebook' some time ago the 'Spectator' accounted for T. S. Eliot's lines: Garlic and sapphires in the mud Clot the bedded...

• ARTS • LETTERS • MONEY. LEISURE THEATRE Roundhouse Rabelais KENNETH HURREN am not sure what is the current standing of Francois Rabelais among literary scholars. These are...

Strings attached EVAN ANTHONY Confused readers able to get to the Annely Juda Fine Art Gallery, at 11 Tottenham Mews (off Charlotte Street) will see for them- selves what a...

In the Casbah CHRISTOPHER HUDSON \ . k,, .. ,....... q The Other Cinema, which describes itself as \ N„.........„.... a non-profitmaking or- ganisation established for the...

Irish medley HAROLD MATTHEWS Postponed from last autumn, Dublin's 13th Theatre Festival lasted two weeks and offered a world premiere or an English- language premiere in six...

No machinery for investigation TONY PALMER It's true to say that com- pared with almost any other country in the world, British justice and the administration of it are about...

Letters from Ganes!, La!!, Charles Stuart, The Warden of Millfield School, the Rev Guy Bowden, the Rev John H. Bishop, and others. Discrimination Sir: Many of my fellow...

Sir: Mr Auberon Waugh suggests. in. the course of a disagreeable review that during Jais 'tragically brief stay' at Christ Church my colleague, Dr J. I. M. Stewart, was Senior...

Sir: In view of the Shah of Persia's warning about depletion of oil reserves, constantly escalating prices, restrictions on output by producing countries and the poor financial...

Sir: Mr Bell (letters, 6 March) seems to be upset when he con- siders I contend that `we are to have no more say in our fate than the lbos had'. Whether Mr Bell likes it or...

Sir: Few experienced observers would deny that the standard of 'first class' cricket (particularly Australian) has declined to a sorry level, and it was right to publish the...

Sir: In his review of Orwell by Raymond Williams, John Casey seems to have failed to grasp the most fundamental points of Or- well's work. Ranking him as less than a second-rate...

Sir: Your leading article (20 March) 'Sanction first, settle after?' seems to suggest that any- one who is against our abject sur- render to Rhodesia's illegal and undeniably...

Sir: I am writing the official biog- raphy or Enid Starkie (1897-1970), and I should be most grateful for any help which your readers could give me. Joanna Richardson 55 Flash...

Sir: Owing to the postal strike I did not, until today, read the article by Eric Helfer MP (13 February). I would suggest to Mr Heller that the Labour party will lose many more...

an irritating and useless little tiddler. There speaks the man! I trust that he will not seek to propagate this view in high places. Irritating the coin may be, but useless—no....

Sir: The arrogantly unhelpful at- titude of the banks and retail trad- ers in asserting that the sixpence will rapidly disappear as there is `no place for it in a decimal...

Gospels and be negative only in criticism, but how does Pro- fessor Trevor-Roper account for the Gospels as they are? Whom does he think Paul saw and heard on the Damascus road?...

has abolished Christ and all that pal- pable rubbish as 'rationally' and as effectively as the scientists of the French revolution abolished God and all that superstition. What...

Sir: Since the end of the postal strike I have been deluged by a spate of SPECTATORS—too many to cope with. The only article I have read so far is one to which you drew...

Sir: In face of so much adverse criticism, now added to by Miss Storm Jameson (20 March), of Dame Ivy Compton-Burnett's Dolores, I feel compelled to defend this very witty...

Sir: I have been greatly intrigued by the advertisement on the last Page of your issue of 23 January (just received). Sixteen years ago I gave much thought and study to such a...

Sir: 1 have no time for Edgar Young's rather silly defence of the Russian invasion of Czecho- slovakia, and his viewpoint is way out of step with the attitude of the democratic...

The curtain rises on the 1971 Flat season this Thursday, which swings into top gear two days later for the Lincoln, yet only last weekend all English racing had again to be...

NICHOLAS DAVENPORT In an interview with Dr T. F. Gaskell, Scientific Adviser to British Petroleum I have lately been trying to make people see the seriousness of the oil...

Of major import to the City was the lack of emotion displayed by Geoffrey Rippon when faced with the desire of the French to dis- cuss the role of sterling in connection with...

Independent Television put on a spiritual uplift programme titled Viewpoint recently. The show, if that is the word, including an interview on Higher Things with the ever...

The news this week that stockbrokers may, at last, advertise their services to the public will no doubt be giving one or two (if not more) of them a sleepless night or so. How...

What is a monopoly in Britain? An organisa- tion that takes more than 30 per cent of national sales. And what happens to a monopoly when it is investigated? It is put through...

The take-over activities of the giant con- glomerates in the United States led one wit to term our present age that of `The Age of Acquireius'. But now how are the conglom-...

'There is, 'indeed, something inexpressibly pleasing, in the annual renovation of the world, and the new display of the treasures of nature,' as a forerunner of mine in the...

Translations, in terms of media, are always tricky. For example, when some great com- poser sets some `typical' folk songs, and these are rendered with impeccable tech- nique ....

'The theatre mana g ers and the architects have naturally concluded that comfort is thrown away on play g oers. A theatre is there- fore re g arded as a palace of enchantment,...

Most visitors from London do not find this claustrophobia. They arrive fresh from all the Westminster frenzy about overcrowd- ing and racial tolerance. They find 30,000 people...

Keeping its head above water IAN LYON Tug-of-war 'Since we lost the Spanish brothels, life's been rather tense.' A spring day. The tem- perature well into the sixties. A...

A bad case of claustrophobia. A shining example of good neighbourliness. Those are the youth's conflicting views of the colony. When you feel hemmed in, the dream of integration...

Peliza argues that Gibraltar should have a representative in the House of Commons; 'like France and Spain have from their over- seas territories'. This representative could...

'These people are all new in government'. says Sir Joshua Hassan, the former Chief Minister. 'I didn't feel any constitutional frustration—and I had to work without _having...

Though the television station draws no editorial conclusions of its own, the debate about the present Gibraltar boom is a regular feature of its programmes. The President of the...

In the meantime Spain seized the anxiety over the new Immigration Bill as a new stick to beat Gibraltar. One Madrid newspaper commented that the Bill was a mortal blow to...

Peter Isola is a confident man : 'An inflation- ary spiral won't necessarily harm Gibraltar. If the British Ministry of Defence chooses to increase its expenditure on the...

Gibraltar has herself taken careful measures to control the work flow of Moroccans coming in to replace theSpanish labour force. In her discussions with Whitehall she has been...

Gibraltar's politicians are united on the issue of immigration from the Rock into Britain. Under the present immigrant legislation Gibraltarians can enter the utc legally and...

That airstrip is vital to the civil economy of the Rock. Across it stream the summer flocks of tourists, and also those who find Gib the ideal place for a winter change of...

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