Last autumn's Labour Party conference was not graced by the presence of Sir Harold Wilson: he thoughtfully took himself off on a lecture tour of the United States. By contrast...

Pact train to Blackpool Ferdinand Mount The station platform is a sea of Adam's apples and horn-rimmed spectacles. Girlish laughter echoes along the corridor. In the next...

The Business News of The Times revealed 0 u Monday that British Leyland cars now have only 20 per cent of the market, compared to 35 per cent in what is described as Pre-Ryder'...

Two intellectuals Auberon Waugh I do not know how many people listened to this year's Reith Lectures, given by Dr A. H. Halsey, director of social and administrative studies...

Graham Greene On 7 September of last year, the Panama Treaty was signed In Washington by President Carter and General Omar Torrijos. Graham Greene was there as a member of the...

Anthony Mockler Where will the Ethiopians strike? Heavy Soviet tanks, rocketry and other equipment has been pouring in, powerful forces are now massing at Diredawa,...

Ben Pimlott 'Soares is dead,' proclaims the slogan on a Lisbon wall, 'Long live Mario Soares!' In fact, the predicted resurrection of the Portuguese Prime Minister, after the...

Henry Fairlie Washington There are 2,700 political journalists in Washington. There obviously are not that number of scoops and, since they are by and large a rather mediocre...

Patrick Cosg rave In considering the controversy that has recently broken out over the Conservative Party's policy towards immigration (and the — as I shall show — disingenuous...

David Boulton At first glance, there wouldn't seem to be a lot in common between this week's Cabinet discussions and the activities of a hundred technicians and actors filming...

Peregrine Worsthorne The boss of the Transport and General Workers Union — the largest in the country — enjoys complete security of tenure and total immunity from ministerial...

Colin Bell Edinburgh Scotland's first parliamentary by-election for four and a half years will be contested by at least five parties. Once the campaign starts in Glasgow,...

Christopher Booker There are not many journals in Fleet Street which, if nominated as 'Newspaper of the Year' would choose to announce the fact to their readers by way of...

Profit-sharing Nicholas Davenport An item in the Lib-Lab pact requires Mr Callaghan to insert a clause in his election manifesto about profit-sharing for workers. (Who said...

Sir: I take it that Professor Eysenck (14 January) believes that the informal teaching in some of our Junior Schools explains our teenage crime rates. Can we also believe that...

Sir: In his article in your issue of 7 January, Ferdinand Mount stated that it was not the law that 'failed to protect the Grunwick strikers, it was ACAS'. Mr Mount, surely, is...

Sir: Alan Gibson (Notebook, 14 January) would be interested to hear from anyone who knew R. A. H. Goodyear. I can just remember him. A bachelor (I think, or he may have been a...

Sir: May I add to Auberon Waugh's list (14 January) of unspeakable characters: Waugh, the ultimate English gentleman who's willing to see all sides of an argument and hopes he...

Sir: If, as Nicholas Davenport says (21 January) the Treasury are obscure about expenditure plans, they are all too clear about devouring the country's capital by spending...

Sir: I cannot clarify the point at issue between Anne Connell and David M. Jacobs since I do not have a copy of Menahem Begin's book The Revolt: Story of the Irgun. But there...

Sir: Michael Foot (14 January) is right to defend party politics, however exuberantly. His old ally, that colourful extremist, Aneurin Bevan, once declared: 'We know what...

The people, right and wrong John Kenyon Liberty and Property: Political Ideology In Eighteenth-Century Britain H. T. Dickinson (Weinfeld £15) This is a major contribution to...

Christopher Booker Natural and Supernatural: A History of the Paranormal Brian Inglis (Hodder and Stoughton 0.95) Surely the whole world of paranormal phenomena — from ghoulies...

Alastair Forbes High Diver Michael Wishart (Blond arid Briggs 27.95) The painter author of this book tells us that his godfather was Graham Sutherland, to whom 'I shall always...

Alex de Jonge Maldoror by Lautreamont, trans. Alexis Lykiard (Allison and Busby £4.95) Palsies by Isidore Ducasse (Laut• reamont), trans. Alexis Lykiard (Allison and Busby...

Angela Huth Treat Yourself to Sex: A Guide to Good Loving Paul Brown and Carolyn Faulder (Dent £4.95) It is a happy reflection that in the practice of sex there is no ultimate...

Voyages Peter Ackroyd Gateway Frederik Pohl (Gollancz E3.95) By placing itself in some unimaginable future, and by taking as its theme the confrontation of human beings with...

Great white monster Clancy Sigal The White Buffalo (London Casino and General Release) One on One (Warner West End, ABC Shaftesbury) Like a cat burglar my senses quicken when a...

Irish joke Ted Whitehead Says I, Says He (Theatre Upstairs) The title is revealing. Says I, Says He suggests not only the garrulity but also the insistent dramatisation of a...

Living John McEwen Two years ago the Arts Council brought the great Millet retrospective from the Grand Palais to the Hayward; now they have done it again, this time bringing...

High and Low Richard Ingrams The BBC's latest idea to fill up the s chedules cheaply is to have programmes Showing how other programmes are made. These are obviously quite...

Tactical plans Alan Watkins There have been disturbing reports from the valleys that Steve Fenwick of Bridgend, having bettered himself by turning from Mr Fenwick-Gym into...

Unflinching Alan Gibson In 1932, when I was aged nine, we lived in a house overlooking the cricket ground at Leyton, where' Essex used to play nearly all their home matches. I...

Donkey work Patrick Marnham The renewed interest in country matters, aPParently encouraged by a programme (311 the television, has led to much excitement here in Arcadia. It...

The sack Jeffrey Bernard I got the sack last week from the Daily Express and it occurred to me that there are ways and ways of sacking people. Thanks to the inefficiency of...