4,550 votes the Eastbourne seat vacated by the murder of Ian Gow, who had a 16,923 majority. Paddy Ashdown, leader of the Liberal Democrats, said the victory showed his party...

A lack of resources, or a lack of resourcefulness: which is the cause of the failing achievements of children in the state educational system? The blame of the Labour Party and...

THE SPECRTOR SUBSCRIBE TODAY - Save 10% on the Cover Price! RATES 12 Months 6 Months UK 0 £66.00 0 f33.00 Europe (airmail) 0 f77.00 0 £38.50 USA Airspeed 0 US $99 0 $49.50...

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MAX HASTINGS ntil last week, I had not visited Spain since a childhood beach holiday 30 years ago. On that occasion, the Hastings family found itself sharing a hotel with the...

The only Tory reason for not wanting a Tory defeat CHARLES MOORE S ix months' abstention from journalism has given me the chance to listen like a normal human being, for once....

The Conservative Party cannot make up its mind about Europe, because it hasn't got one, argues Noel Malcolm IF I had an ecu for every time I had heard the phrase, 'The Tory...

WE perceive that Sarah Bernhardt, in her new representation of Cleopatra, has departed from the traditional idea of the Queen's physique, and appears with auburn or...

John Simpson reports on a game of unhappy families in Baghdad Baghdad AL-JOMHORIYA couldn't quite bring itself to splash with the meeting on Mon- day morning, but there, just...

Charles Glass remembers his friend Dany Chamoun, whose family was butchered last week THE first time armed men broke into his house in the dead of night, Dany Chamoun was nine...

Michael Heath

Mihir Bose on the new Indian laws on untouchables that are tearing the country apart WHEN I was growing up in India one of the first ditties I was taught ran as follows:...

Gordon Crovitz on the judicial hounding of Michael Milken New York IT IS fitting that the finale to the persecu- tion of Michael Milken, the junk bond king, should be a last...

James Bartholomew foresees an unhappy ending to Mrs Thatcher's fairy-tale rescue by the ERM NOT all that long ago, the Exchange Rate Mechanism was widely regarded as the happy...

Damian Thompson on the explosive politics of Thought for the Day BACK in the bleakest days of the Amer- ican depression, wireless listeners were so moved by Father Charles...

persist . . . TWO things aroused the wonderment of Kant: the stars above and the moral law within. If Kant had lived near our hospital, he Wouldn't have spent much time...

ask: What's in it for me? LONG interviews with personalities in the news — this week it's Jimmy Goldsmith are the top current fad in British journal- ism today. Indeed they are...

MY version of history would borrow from Samuel Brittan's account of The Treasury under the Tories (in their 13 years of office which ran to 1964). He invented two successive...

Nigel marks his anniversary with a farewell from ambush CHRISTOPHER FILDES N igel Lawson's resignation caught me with steam up on the Watercress Line. It was and is a day to...

F IVE years of pugnacious opposition had to pass before he came, as Financial Secretary, to the Treasury. There he spent alm ost all his ten years in o ff ice (detouring briefly...

THE Sage of Hinton Blewitt, William Rees-Mogg, has an opposite number at the Palace. The Queen's treasurer and keeper of her privy purse is Sir Shane Blewitt. A former officer...

Sir: A professional indexer who thinks that it is asking too much to expect him to be accurate (Letters, 13 October) has surely chosen the wrong profession. John Gere 21...

Sir: I agree with everything said by Lord Lauderdale and others (Letters, 29 September) except for their objection to women priests. Since neither they nor any other opponents...

Sir: We get a great many foreign students here in the summer studying English. I have devised a near-perfect test as to their proficiency: I get them to read a letter/ review by...

Dear —, Events have crashed down horrible and inhuman to bury our spirit and morale in a cloud of terror and fear. No one is equipped to confront such an experience: savage...

Sir: I was rather surprised to read Antony Lambton's judgment that Philip Ziegler, in his 'official' biography of King Edward VIII, 'has little new relevant information'. Yet...

Sir: As the extraordinary woman deter- mined to do a PhD thesis on Jeffrey Bernard I'd like to thank you very much for publishing my appeal to Spectator readers (Letters, 11...

Sir: I am writing in general support of Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd's article (`Ladies in their own rights . . .', 18 August) on the inheritance of peerages by women. If the...

VALID. A word that is useful for approving or condoning some proposi- tion or opinion or policy when you are too yellow to judge its truth or false- hood. Nigel Burke

There can be no final solution Raymond Carr THE CROOKED TIMBER OF HUMANITY: CHAPTERS IN THE HISTORY OF IDEAS by Isaiah Berlin, edited by Henry Hardy John Murray, £16.95, pp....

Anita Brookner RABBIT AT REST by John Updike Deutsch, £14.99, pp. 505 A dmirers of Harry 'Rabbit' Ang- strom, basketball hero and Toyota dealer, will be happy to know that he...

Anthony Howard MEANS OF ASCENT: THE YEARS OF LYNDON JOHNSON by Robert A. Caro Bodley Head, f20, pp. 506 T he thesis of this book can be stated quite simply: Lyndon Baines...

Michael Bentley THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE BRITISH ARISTOCRACY by David Cannadine Yale, f19.95, pp. 813 I n the last two decades of Queen Victor- ia's reign the British...

Those eight days on the road, their wear-and-tear, Had left my boots stone-savaged. Limping-late, I came to Charleroi, to the Cabaret Vert. I asked for buttered doorsteps and a...

The chains of holy wedlock Are so heavy one can see Why it takes two to carry them: Why, sometimes, even three.' Victor Hugo (1802 — 1885)

(For Anne Rivaz) Between Mobile and Galveston On the curve of the Texan coast, Overgrown with roses There is this most Ginormous bloody garden In which, itself another Bloody...

Simon Courtauld THE THORNS OF MEMORY by Peter Kemp Sinclair-Stevenson, f16.95, pp. 376 ONE MAN IN HIS TIME by Xan Fielding Macmillan, £17.99, pp.222 P eter Kemp's friends...

Christopher Hawtree THE POSTMEN'S HOUSE by Maggie Hemingway Sinclair-Stevenson, £13.95, pp.296 M aggie Hemingway's third novel is her best. The jackets of her books reveal...

Janet Daley AFFLICTION by Russell Banks Picador, £12.95, pp, 366 DR DEMAitit by Paul Theroux, Hutchinson, £6.99, pp. 96 LOOK AT IT THIS WAY by Justin Cartwright Macmillan,...

Tony Osman HOW TO BUILD A PERSON: A PROLEGOMENON by John Pollock MIT, £20.25, pp. 189 T here's no deception in the title of this book. In it, John Pollock looks at the...

Heritage The Miss Havisham suite Ruth Guilding looks at the marketing of an English country house I n 1979 the V & A mounted an exhibi- tion entitled The Destruction of the...

Erich Wolfsfeld, Lotte Laserstein and Gottfried Meyer: an Exhibition of 20th- century German Naturalism (Agnew's, 5 December-4 January) The tradition we neglect Giles Auty I...

The Lion of Venice (British Museum, till 13 January) Circus lion Anthony Samuelson I n April this year the mayor of Venice, Antonio Casellati, wrote to the city's...

The return of the Itinerants Andrei Navrozov reflects on the promotion of Soviet art in the West I t will serve further development of cultural links and strengthening of...

The Empire fizzles out Juliet Reynolds his is far worse than the Monet,' a man remarked resignedly to his wife at the °Pening of the Raj exhibition at the National Portrait...

Wait until Sunday . . . Alistair McAlpine T he most boring aspect of the coming months is likely to be the spectacleof Commentators on the 'art market' greeting each sale with...

Dance Umbrella (Various venues, till 10 November) Uncertain future Deirdre McMahon I n this year's Dance Umbrella, the 12th annual festival of contemporary dance, there is a...

Other People's Money (Lyric) Out of Order (Shaftesbury) Raising a laugh Christopher Edwards 0 ther People's Money, which is a great hit off-Broadway, has been imported to...

Out of order Hilary Mantel T his is the most frustrating film I have seen this year. At the Edinburgh Festival it was named 'British Film of the Year'. You can see the...

This soap won't wash Martyn Harris I dislike director David Lynch so I had been looking forward to getting the knives out for Twin Peaks (BBC 2, 9 p.m., Tuesday). Lynch's...

Party politics Taki am starting to get cold feet as the day of my dinner-dance is approaching, The prob- lem is the seating plan, and how to go about seating 255 people...

Lights out Jeffrey Bernard S o that's it then. The gravy train is going to be derailed tonight. I might go along to the Apollo to see my name in lights for the last time. When...

Shoot from the knee Zenga Longmore F or the purpose of allowing my six- Year-old niece Kuba and her little sister Comfort to show off their new-found show- biz skills, I took...

itor4L."LtiAL.- "Jeks___ARLA WHAT to do if you are fed up with English breakfasts? I suppose one reaction, not least from some Spectator readers, is that a patriotic chap has no...

Revaluation Raymond Keene C hess beginners are taught as a rough guide that on a scale of one to nine a pawn counts as one, knight and bishop three eac h, rook five and queen...

Bouts limes Jaspistos 12 YEAR OLD SCOTCH WHISKY I n Competition No. 1648 . . . My voice falters. Ladies and gentlemen, readers, f riends, enemies, thank God I am P s...

We ' ll stick to the bouts rimes that went, literally, west. My apologies to those who didn ' t keep a copy of their entry. Entries to ` Competition No. 1651 ' by 9 November.

Ft L. E S H _Ft I 1 .2 T M Ste , VJ N C E- S T El VI El CT] Ni RI SONG The lights are anagrams of a word or words in the clues. Winners: Peter A.Tinsley, Leeds (£20);...

A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or, for UK solvers, a copy of Chambers English Dictionary — ring the word `Dictionary') for the first three correct solutions...

Two very rich peas Frank Keating TWO very different peas from almost the same pod. Pele was 50 on Tuesday, just two days after Geoffrey Boycott had also raised his bat to...

Shiva Naipaul was one of the most gifted and accomplished writers of our time. After his death in August 1985 at the age of 40, The Spectator set up a fund to establish an...