11 Whatever is thought of his merits as a Presidential candidate, Mr Reagan deserves a salute for his moral victory in the New Hampshire primary. President Ford, Who simply has...

The twenty-fifth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union opened With a six-hour speech by Mr Brezhnev, Itself preceded by a twelve-column-foot [sic] leader in...

Petitioning Parliament Norman St John-Stevas The right to petition Crown and Parliament is one of the oldest known to our constitution and has been exercised from the earliest...

Lord Kennet has come forward with an explanation of hiswife's action in slapping Mr Peter Walker on the face, an incident first recorded in this Notebook a week ago. This is...

Guru Guru Auberon Waugh Now Peter Jay has said it, we had better accept it as official: Great Britain is on the slippery slope which leads ineluctably to repudiation of the...

Leslie Finer Concord, New Hampshire The people of this northern New England state, otherwise known at this time of Year as the Snowball Factory, have spoken. Some three hundred...

William Wolff In the foyer of the Salle Albert I they were queuing up last week to send hundreds of 'wish they were here' postcards to the Soviet leader Mr Leonid Brezhnev. At...

Peter Nichols Rome I feel a personal attachment towards the new Italian Government : it is the twentyfirst that I have seen formed since I came to Italy. In most ways it is...

Cars first in Coventry Richard West A foreigner wishing to understand the present English madness could do no better than visit Coventry, whose North-West constituency goes to...

Patrick Cosg rave Perhaps the only connection between Carshalton, where polling takes place on March 11, and Coventry is the fact that the Conservative candidate in the former...

Rawle Knox The last journey of Frank Stagg will some day be part of Irish legend, though you can be sure that there will be more than one version. While the surprises of it are...

Rhodes Boyson The dogma of the Labour Party knows no bounds. Mr Mulley's coercive comprehensive Bill heralds the end of variety and experiment in secondary schooling. It is...

Skinflint If you were more confused about government spending after Denis Healey's White Paper than before, it seems you were not alone. Newspapers, politicians and unions got...

Nicholas Davenport It was unkind and ungenerous of the City to receive Mr Healey's White Paper on public expenditure with so little praise and so much cackle of the old Tory...

Sir: I welcome the appointment of Abbot Basil Hume as Archbishop of Westminster. I feel, however, that the writer of your 'Notebook' has been less than fair in describing the...

Sir: Most Catholics are not likely to be distressed by the flamboyant self-righteousness' of Mr Stuart Reid, which is 15 . L. Daniel's (January 31) interpretation of his article...

Sir: As a Christian, I was nodding agreeMent with Alan Brien's article 'Crime and guilt', and thinking what unexpected people turn out to hold the same opinions as oneself,...

Sir: Simon Raven's view of the causation of the fall of the West Roman Empire is entertaining and perceptive. However, it is also a little one-sided. Bureaucracy and...

Sir: The symptoms of smallpox and bubonic plague have not changed since the Roman Empire, nor have the symptoms of political decay and corruption, two diseases which did more to...

Sir: The letter from Mr Leonard W. Newman of St Albans, Herts, in your publication of January 31, 1976, is such a travesty of the facts that its content, in all fairness, can...

Sir: The Russians would love Mrs Thatcher to be Prime Minister. They know that she would attempt to keep up with them in defence spending. That would make us bankrupt. Then our...

Sir: It was most interesting to hear Mr Wilson's praise of Mr Heath's efforts to undermine the leadership of his own party in an otherwise dreary interview on BBC Radio 4 last...

Sir: I refer to Nicholas Davenport's article on EIL (February 7). It sounds to my untutored eye like a way to fill the deflationary gap by reducing savings, rather than the...

Sir: Mr Albert Goodheir's letter about Esperanto was admirably logical and objective. The pupils who were taught Esperanto in the experimental scheme suggested by Mr Goodheir...

columns to throw half a brick at the Inland Revenue ? This department, prompt to pounce on others' debts, is capable of dawdling when it comes to its own. On December 11 last,...

tries to make silk from a sow's ear. In any case the double layer of bricks, humorously described as art, is a copy- 1 happen to have the original, which I bought some years...

A revisionist historian Jan Morris In the Anglo-Arab Labyrinth Elie Kedourie (Cambridge University Press, £12.50) Revisionist history is much the most rewarding. It is...

John Brewer The Elder Pitt Stanley Ayling (Collins, £6.50) The Pitt family was an eccentric lot. 'Governor' Pitt, the earl of Chatham's grandfather, was an irascible, crotchety...

George Gale The Origins of Capitalism Jean Baechler. Translated by Barry Cooper (Basil Blackwell, £4.75) The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism Introduced by Rodney Hilton...

Duncan Fallowell Julia Peter Straub (Cape, £2.95) The Vampire of Mons Desmond Stewart (Hamish Hamilton, £3.50) The Cat's Eye Monica Furlong (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, £3.25)...

Benny Green Summer's End Archie Hill (ShepheardWelwyn, £3.95) The Winter Sparrows Mary Rose Liverani (Michael Joseph, £3.25) One day historians will look back on our epoch and...

Douglas Oliver The Joys of Beekeeping Richard Taylor. Illustrated by Men i Shardin (Barrie and Jenkins, £3.25) Richard Taylor believes that if you 'send out love' to the bees,...

Ian Bradley Reason, Ridicule and Religion: The Age of Enlightenment in England 16601750 John Redwood (Thames and Hudson £7.00) 'It is a general complaint that this nation of...

Dramatics Christine Brooke-Rose Paris There are some hundred theatres in Paris, not counting about -twenty-five in the present suhurbs but including variety and...

Osborne off the rails Kenneth Hurren Watch It Come Down by John Osborne; National Theatre Company (Old Vic) Old Flames by E. A. Whitehead (Arts Theatre Club) Speaking with...

'My light' John McEwen It's understandable • that those ,entrusted With the awesome task of presenting Constable's bicentenary exhibition (Tate Gallery till 25 April) would...

Not for purists Kenneth Robinson Farewell My Lovely Director: Dick Richards Stars: Robert Mitchum, Charlotte Rampling, John Ireland, Sylvia Miles 'AA' Leicester Square Theatre...

Student body Rodney Milnes La Vestale (Nottingham University) Macbeth (University College, London) The Three Pintos (Oxford University) Watch out all you music critics,...

Real People Jeffrey Bernard The people who control television today seem to have the extraordinary idea that Only the working classes are interesting. These people, with their...

Elisabeth Dunn A knotty little legal riddle. When is a solicitor acting against the interests of his client ? Answer : When the client is buying a house. For part of the...