Confrontatton With the publication of the new rules for electing a leader the contest for primacy in the Conservative Party has moved into a new and decisive stage. As has been...

be read, and indeed more likely to be printed, if they are brief and to the point. C. Gordon Tether Sir: As an avid reader of both The Spectator and the Financial Times, may I...

the Financial Times'would mean that the last anti-Common Market voice in the national -press apart frorrsyour own, had been silencedlay the totalitarian EuroBrits (December 14)....

Sir; In his blind hostility to the European Community, Mr Douglas Jay inadvertently destroys his own case in alleging that Brussels wants to grab our oil (December 21). Contrary...

Sir: Having heard the measures which are required to cut the nation's crippling oil bill I am at a loss to understand precisely the mechanics of the economic situation. Surely...

Sir: I agree with Bill Grundy (December 14) that the Daily Telegraph is dull and in my view has been a 'spokespaper' for Conservative Central Office quite regardless of...

Sir: I am, I think, right in thinking that The Rt Hon John Enoch Powell, MBE, MP, was elected 'Man of the Year' in 1972 and 1973, under the auspices of the, Radio Four...

Sir: When this country finally le g islated to chan g e to decimal currency, the • results produced by that conversion were all-round increases in retail values; the most...

Sir: In his review of Leo Talamonti's Forbidden Universe (December 14) Mr Colin Wilson isimpressed by the feat of the calculatin g prodi g y Zerah Colbum born 1812) in findin g...

Sir:I am sure that not only Christians like myself but all of your readers will wish to thank you for g ivin g us once a g ain a thou g ht-provokin g and challen g in g messa g...

The emotional Whips Patrick Cosgrave The weekend following the last general election I found myself, on a crisp Sunday morning, in a television studio with Mr Robert Mellish....

It is distressing to see that the organ of the mettlesome right, the Sunday Telegraph, has utterly predictably backed the recommendations of the Criminal Law Revision Committee...

Many of my fair readers, as well as very gay and right received persons of the other sex, are much perplexed by the damnable procedure that has been devised for the election of...

Sir John Winnifrith It is not so long since the cry was raised, "It is no longer a question of if but when we join the Common Market." Now within the coming year another call...

Everybody loves India Nayar India is pleased with herself. She always Wanted both Washington and Moscow to accept her as a non-aligned country. After Dr Kissinger's recent...

George Gale After a couple of readings, I find that I can understand the new rules for the election of the Leader of the Conservative Party. Ted Heath has said he'll accept the...

Controlling the explosive influence Mary Whitehouse The Labour Party's recent attack on the BBC's coverage of the general election merely underlined once again how perennial a...

Direct grant schools — the crunch Rhodes Boyson, MP The march to a collectivist-controlled society continues even where there are Labour Ministers as respected as Mr Prentice...

I was wandering down N orthumberland Avenue the other day w h en I saw a nameplate that gave me a start: it said, quite clearly, 'Royal Commission on the Press.' To tell you...

The Levin doctrine— principle and reality Philip Kleinman Taper (as some of us old Spectator readers still call Bernard Levin) was burning away in fine form in the Times last...

Mid-winter Denis Wood 'Tis the yeares midnight, and it is the dayes, Lucies,* who scarce seaven houres herself Unmaskes, The Sunne is spent. . . There is at this time of...

Christ and society Martin Sullivan A wise theologian has reminded us that when the Church undertakes to proclaim the Gospel in a secular idiom she must beware lest she end up...

When the gallows still remained in the land, I once defended a murderer who, for no substantial reason, had cut his wife up in shreds in the bathroom of their suburban home....

Sacheverell Sitwell The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici Christopher Hibbert (Allen Lane £4.95) 'Nearly everyone', meaning a good deal less than one per cent of the...

Olivia Manning Wood brook David Thomson (Barrie and Jen kins £3.75) David Thomson writes like an angel, telling his story of lost love. His green misty countryside is so...

Richard Luckett Dostoevsky Leonid Grossman (Allen Lane £700) Leonid Grossman, the Russian literary historian and critic who died in 1965, had the misfortune to be interested...

David Williams Animal Land. The Creatures of Children's Fiction Margaret Blount (Hutchinson E4.50) Most animals — I make an exception of tortoises — are as full of character...

Short is beautiful Peter Ackroyd London Magazine Stories 9 edited by Alan Ross (London Magazine Editions £2.75) Winter's Tales 20 edited by A. D. Maclean (Macmillan £2,95) If...

Animal magic Benny Green I cannot let the year pass without raising my hat and my glass to one of the most delightful and original heroes to appear in print in 1974, the...

Bookend This year's Christmas bestseller lists have contained few surprises — so few in fact that Bookbuyer's summer predictions have proved distressiggly near the mark. Once...

There are two kinds of violence in the cinema these days. In Badlands (Academy One) you don't care how many people are killed, and in The Man with the Golden Gun (Odeon,...

Shrinking into a small corner after last week's extended splurge, Waspe has space to add but a small footnote to hi S survey of the critics, and begs to inquire politely about...

Midnight for panto Kenneth Hurren1 The most agitating topic of discussion around the theatre this week — and I hesitate to trouble you with it — seems to be whether a Cockney...

Musical comedy John Bridcut Is musical humour inherent or only esoteric? Pierre Boulez devoted a short talk to this question some months ago, and followed it with a concert...

Nicholas Davenport When Skinflint and I had a small bet about the timing of the end of the last bull market — we both won as the market made a double top in 1972, namely, 543...

The lolly in small change Bernard Hollowood I have a jam jar full of old pennies and some day they may be valuable. Like most men I empty my pockets of small change every...

We are continually being told that at the last two elections the voters rejected both the established Tory leadership and the Labour new left, and opted for the lesser of two...

Charles R. Stahl Never did so many put their intended 'victims' on notice so much ahead of time as is happening now with foreign gold producers and distributors, who are...