(Second series) O NE PRIZE of ten . guineas, and ten of four guineas, are offered for the most original piece of dialogue between two Gentlemen of the Road, for or against...

* SUDDENLY THINGS WERE SLIPPING; notably the Government's lead in the public opinion polls. Gallup put it down to 4.5 per cent and a lot of money went on the Tory in Thursday's...

writing an article for Punch and Sir Hugh Beadle, the Rhodesian Chief Justice, mysteri- ously visited London for talks. Mr. Wilson in consequence delayed his plan for further...

Government was announc- ing it would definitely appoint an arms super- salesman. Messrs. Stewart and Healey paid another visit to Washington, eight members of the Stock Exchange...

phase of the Government's Rhodesian policy has been a remarkable success. Mr. Smith's hope that economic sanctions would prove a nine-days' wonder has been rudely shat- tered:...

Friday January 28 1965

The Judgment of Hull By J. W. M. THOMPSON V TERY probably January 27, 1966, will be a V date to remember in the history of the fifth Labour government. Most readers will know...

Mr. Wilson and the Lobby By DESMOND DONNELLY, MP R. WILSON is about to propose . . . This proposal is not designed as a tactical move. . . . Mr. Wilson profoundly believes ....

A Polemic on Sex STORM JAMESON At Home with Auden C. B. COX One year's subscription to the 'Spectator': £315s. (including postage) in the United Kingdom and Eire. By surface...

A Change in the Weather By ALAN WATKINS W HAT is the atmosphere like these days in those overheated corridors of the Palace of Westminster—apart, that is, from being hot? For...

Soldiers of the Irish Army who have been de- tailed to re-enact for Telefis Eireann the victory of the insurgents over the Sherwood Foresters at Mount Street Bridge in Easter...

By JEAN LECANUET A the present di ffi cult phase in the building of a united Europe, Lord Gladwyn's The European Idea* comes as a brilliant, courageous and persuasive argument....

When I read the headline 'Wilson blames Tories for fuel crisis I groaned. Not because of the palpable absurdity of the accusation, nor even because we have come to expect a...

c VRIL MUSGRAVE doesn't like being pushed around. It has already emerged that, along with the three other Government-appointed direc- tors of Short Brothers and Harland, he is...

the French presidential election campaign. coming from nowhere to take enough votes from the General to force him into a second ballot. Now, as head of a new party, the Centre...

physicians by my innocent commendation of telephonic consultations. No substitute for a physical examination, thunder the doctors. Maybe. But it's a great deal better than no...

the SPECTATOR to launch a new with-it word- chiliastic. I see what he means, but on the whole I'm unabashed. Just as this year's fashions are the only way of killing last...

asked an MP from the Government benches, Desmond Donnelly, to succeed a member from the Oppo- sition benches, Charles Curran, as our commen- tator on the press for the next few...

By SIR EDGAR WHITEHEAD P ROBABLY one of the most striking facts about the Rhodesian crisis is the general ignorance of the true situation there as displayed by most comments in...

By ANGUS MAUDE, MP W ELL, here we are again. Or perhaps 'still' would be the more appropriate word. It has been an instructive fortnight. We have discovered that the political...

By D. C. WATT T HE signs are that the Government is shortly going to announce a relaxation of lir fifty- year rule, that rule which governs access to the papers and records of...

By DAVID ROGERS LEEDING good it is here.' Edward climbs to the top of a tree in Peckham Park Road and swings down on a rope. 'What I like best is kick- ing people in the face...

January 27, 1866 Lady Palmerston has been offered by the Queen a peerage in her own right, with remainder to her son, the Right Hon. W. Cowper. But Lady Palmerston has declined...

party's 'instinct for survival,' but one still wonders what this is. I, too, have an instinct for survival: so do a lot of people (lemmings excepted), so it can be no Tory...

one pretty basic fallacy in the .article which needs to be pointed out. Mr. Maude states his belief in the 'basic soundness' of the `British people's political instincts' and...

SIR.—II is distasteful to many who are monarchists by conviction rather than for convenience that the Queen should be regarded as an instrument to be used by the government of...

I O From: Michael Astor, Norman Shrapnel, Michael I. Harrington, Ian Plenderleith, David Morrison, Mary Eagling, M. G. de St. V. Atkins, John Macdonald, Maurice Chandler, G....

evidence that the frustrations of oppo- sition are driving the Tory party into a dangerous and self-defeating mood. With Mr. Wilson capturing the headlines with a new move...

has struck a revolutionary blow for Conservatism which, to my knowledge, is making quite a few shrewd Labour men shiver a little. Actually to talk these things out, devant les...

SIR,--Alan Watkins's article on 'The Importance of Mr. Gott' in your issue of January 21 was extremely interesting. This is the first recognition I have read by a leading...

SIR,-1 sympathise with much that Mr. Cobban wrote in your issue of January 21, but the future of the direct-grant schools is linked with that of the maintained grammar schools....

his patient before making a diagnosis and prescribing. Even your poor mechanic prefers to see and examine your car before giving his opinion as to what may be wrong. One day...

states that the canvassing technique now being used by Mr. Jesse) was first used at Devizes. As one who helped, and also ran, at the Brigg by-election of 1948, I can vouch for...

SIR,—Oh hell! Now we are going to be lumbered with 'ehiliastic' as an addition to all those other 'with it' words like 'euphoria.' 'charisma,' 'break- through."d...

SIR,—Although I am on holiday. I was so appalled by the comments in 'Spectator's Notebook' on medicine today in your issue of January 14 that I 'felt impelled to write you this...

likely to be one of the subjects which dominate future discussion of the social services in Britain. Certainly, in terms of expenditure, health has fared rather poorly compared...

SIR.—I have just seen your excellent article 'With Charity for All,' by Leslie Adrian. in your edition of January 14. The writer quite rightly points out that the solution to...

Signora Gaetano Agnesi, of Milan was offered the Chair of Mathematics by the University of Bologna somewhere in the 1740s, and wrote to ask the Pope, Benedict XIV, if he...

in his always delightful way, to the improbability of a temperance movement beginning in White's. It is just possible that such a movement, starting there, might play a...

Sts.--'Has anyone ever heard of a great woman mathematician?' asks Mr. A. D. Mac Dougall. Sts.--'Has anyone ever heard of a great woman mathematician?' asks Mr. A. D. Mac...

By EDWARD LUCIE-SMITH ERY laughable, this little affair they're V having up in Oxford. The election to the Professorship of Poetry, I mean. What?—You haven't heard of it? Why,...

much admire. So long as he con- tinues to demonstrate his feminine flair for minting new words, his work is unlikely to become, as he fears, unsellable; nor (to be thoroughly...

on Febr*ary 3 and 5, and all Oxford AlAs may vole.

Portrait of a Madman COFIELD'S Khlestakov at the Aldwych is a aperformance of manic proportions: bound- ing over the stage on double-jointed legs, with a twirl of his cane or a...

Singing Saint A FI ER the Festival Hall premiere of Michael Tippett's latest, The Vision of Saint Augustine, I heard a superb BBC recording of it and spent a lot of time on...

Outdoor Rooms T HIS week's Civic Trust awards are not only about buildings but also about the spaces between them—what Le Corbusier called 'out- door rooms.' They act as a...

Royal Tour T HE touring section of the Royal Ballet re- cently spent a glacial week at Sutton, and so —rather less frequently—did I; despite weather which brought the theatre...

3 r The Last Albigensian By JOHN DAVENPORT T T is thirty-five years since Mr. Greene published his first novel, The Man Within. His new ones is his tenth. He has also pro-...

The Knower and the Known. By Marjorie Grene. (Faber, 42s.) MR. HAMPSHIRE'S latest is developed from lec- tures at the University of Otago. It is a short —and as such notably...

H. G. Wells—Journalism and Prophecy, 1893- 1946. An anthology compiled and edited by W. Warren Wagar. (Bodley Head, 42s.) H. G. WELLS, in the fifty-four years of his writing...

The Snow Queen has grown an icicle And sets herself up as King. The chill-grey oyster eyes, gone dead, Stare incommunicado 'mid the nippy adjectives. All other poets perish...

By ROBERT BLAKE P ALMERSTON has been ill served by his bio- graphers, and a definitive work based on his papers remains to be written yet. Dr. South- gate's study* is, however,...

Equinox. By Eva Figes. (Seeker and Warburg, 21s.) IRON HANS, in the German fairy-tale, tells his frivolous servant : 'Now you must go forth into the world and learn the meaning...

THAT Ford was one of the best and most im- portant novelists of this century, and the most discerning and generous editor of all time, and that he has received only an...

The Memoirs of Field-Marshal KeiteL Edited by Walter Gorlitz. Translated by David Irving. (William Kimber, 50s.) STONE dead bath no fellow; and the vanquished generally wait a...

1T The Fantastic Dollar Premium By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT M Y subject this week is madly technical, but it is so important for the investment world that I must try to make it...

ACROSS 1. It is in a confused ploy one finds organisation (6) 4. No obstacles in the struggle for an apartment (4, 4) 9. Landed doggies? (6) 10. Good-looking publican (8) 12....

10 Dulcie. 12 Poser. 13 Grandison. 14 Idles. 16 End-reader. 17 Savoyards. 19 Disks. 21 Petulance. 22 Viola. 24 Euclid. 25 Standard. 26 De- signer. 27 Ordeal. DOWN.-1. Adelphi....

By CUSTOS HE last week of the three-week account on the Stock Exchange brought firmer markets and broader business. The possibility of a Hull by-election win for the Tories had...

Brokers have been working out the effect on company earnings of the loss of the old invest- ment allowances. The television-rental companies do not seem to be disturbed. The...

By LOTHBURY T HE Royal Bank of Scotland has followed the pattern set by the other big banks in making higher profits from the existing high interest rate structure and by a...

An Eventful Year THE Annual General Meeting of Westminster Bank Limited will be held on February 16 at 41. Loth- bury, London. E.C. The following are extracts from the...

CONSUMING INTEREST Lest We Forget By LESLIE ADRIAN Most souvenirs would be better lost. But, I understand, they are big business, even in Britain, where traditional, national...

Does Hysteria Exist? By JOHN ROWAN WILSON LAST October a mysterious outbreak of illness oc- curred in a girls' school in Coventry. It was charac- terised by nausea and At...

By ALAN BRIEN THE time was when the best journalists that money could buy were always Socialists. In the Press Lords' Club, the proprie- tors moaned away about the uppitiness...

By PHILIDOR 267. E. VISSERMAN (3rd Prize, B.C.F. Tourney No. 107) BLACK (ii men) witrrE to play and mate in two moves ; solution next week. Solution to No. 266 (Heathcote) :...