A sudden outbreak of euphoria in Washington, occasioned by the belief that the bloodiest of all undeclared wars was about to end, was soon diminished by President Thieu's...

It would be churlish to deny Mr Heath the honour already accorded to him generally for his efforts at the Paris summit. But the incredible euphoria that characterised reactions...

"I can't see how you can have a common Currency without having a common government ", Reggie Maudling said to me the other day, and I couldn't see it either. In the last resort,...

Reputations and reshuffles Patrick Cosgrave Political and ministerial reputations are like electric light bulbs during power strikes. Their filaments glow strongly and fade,...

PUZZLE HEARS that trendy Nicholas, Lord Bethell is expecting to return to the Government in the coming reshuffle. Young Bethell was forced to give up his Job as a Whip in the...

Lesser Nixon victory seen? Henry Fairlie Washington On July 26, 1945 — the day on which the votes in the British general election, which had been cast three weeks earlier,...

Full political union by 1980? Charles Hargrove Paris The creation of the Community regional fund from 1974 will enable the British Government, before the next parliamentary...

Middle-class Christianity Edward Norman The recent conference of church leaders at Birmin g ham, attended by representatives from the Church of En g land and the various...

(with acknowledgements to G. K. Chesterton) Cabot . . . challenge • • opportunity . . . courage" — the Prime Minister. Who's the Dover-based day tripper Heir to, Heath? The...

Sir: Amid the welter of proposals for dealing with the problem of high land prices, and with the memory of two recent failures (development charges and betterment levies)...

Sir: In his response to my article on treating crime (' Prisoners and unions' — October 14) Mr. C. W. Bond makes a number of errors and unfounded assumptions. The figures I...

to an entry concerning myself in Your gossip column Bookend of September 30. So that I shall not seem to approve its statements by default, I should like to correct the record...

From Dr Konstantin Bazarov Sir: Hodder and Stoughton have been brandishing their alleged ' experts" very publicly, so it is not unreasonable that they should he expected to...

Sir: In stating his belief that homosexuals should not be allowed to hold high office, Spectator also stated, equally clearly, his prejudiced attitude towards homosexuals. It...

From Professor .1. A. Rex Sir: It is quite unusual to have an (ugh!) — presumably a belch — gratuitously attached to one's name in a review, and I write, therefore, to protest...

From Captain Duncan Neil Dewar Sir: I was proud of a young relative's ability to pass so many 0 and A levels at school and then go on to collect university degrees with the ease...

Judging by the reception that greeted Spanish Steps after Saturday's Hermitage Chase, I was not the only Newbury racegoer glad to be back ' jumping ' again. As for the profits,...

Sir: If your opera critic, Rodney Milnes, chooses languidly to parade before your readers his singular lack of musical sensibility by describing Berlioz's great masterpiece, The...

Sir: I am in the United States and have only just heard of a ridiculous error by your contributor Bookbuyer, who says in your issue of October 14: "On page 108 of Andre...

Sir: From Will Waspe, October 7: "No one would deny Wesker's right to wash his reviews in public. What, I imagine, stuck in most craws was his announcement that he was donating...

Warning to the Bank Nicholas Davenport A lot of monetary hot air is usually talked, at the Lord Mayor's annual feast to the bankers and merchants of the City of London, and...

Anyone of open, logical and analytical bent is led to make deductive suggestions towards economic and fiscal reform. My own measure is called the Freehold Redemption Act,...

The Governor of the Bank of England, Sir Leslie O'Brien, last Thursday at the Lord Mayor's Mansion House Dinner: "There is no monetary policY which will simultaneously stimulate...

Sabina very fair John Bull As a rule I have concentrated on recommending those shares which will — or I expect will — react to either an interim or a full year statement. The...

The quest for oil Nephew Wilde " Bell's telephone is as much abused as Einstein's atom" I was saying to myself last week as I rang my stockbroker Wotherspool, "and if I had...

"No true lover of the Mediterranean," the publisher hopes for Professor Braudel's great work, " should be without a copy." It will be a tough-minded lover who takes this long...

Auberon Waugh Come Like Shadows Simon Raven (Blond and Briggs £2.25) The Call-Girls Arthur Koestler (Hutchinson £2.251 There are certain problems which this reviewer — and, I...

Kenneth Minogue The Party of Eros Richard King (University of North Carolina Press £3.75) Counter Revolution and Revolt Herbert Marcuse (Allen Lane, The Penguin Press £2)...

Christopher Gill To Homer Through Pope H. A. Mason (Chatto and Windus £2.75) While Rieu's Penguin translations of Homer sell by the thousand on English bookstalls, and American...

Isabel Quigly Memoirs 1906-1969 Manya Harari (Harvill Press £3.50) "Fortunately she seemed to need less sleep than most people ": so they say in their notes about Manya Harari,...

Richard Luckett The Uses of Nostalgia: Studies in Pastoral Poetry Laurence Lerner (Chatto and Windus £3). The question of pastoral can hardly be called new. Although of all...

Bookbuyer '1 43. the second year!"rUiniing a good ó5s-section of literary' London — authors "and literary editors dc4ii 'to the merest • gossip columnist — turned up for the...

Waspe It is curious, but conceivably significant, that it is in the field of the arts (usually so devotedly internationalist) that opposition to our Common Market adventure has...

Cinema Silk purses Christopher Hudson At a time like this, bedazzled by Images, unnerved by The Strange Vengeance of Rosalie and bewildered by what happens when Hammersmith...

Royal standards Kenneth Hurren "Really! We might be living in Rumania," remarks Queen Mary indignantly, in Royce Ryton's Crown Matrimonial, but it is, I'm afraid, a wild piece...

Sitting duck Clive Gammon I once met a stage-American at Kinsale. He wanted to charter a launch that would take him the dozen miles off the Old Head to photograph the actual...

Plum' AD 1902 Benny Green The literary conscience sometimes asserts itself in the most surprising ways. For several decades it was believed that P. G. Wodehouse had no desire...

Grimond's new approach John Connell Mr Jo Grimond's long desire to see local authorities branching out into new fields of social remedial work has taken concrete form with...

Take thrice daily John Rowan Wilson The great physician Sir William Osier once said that the desire to take medicine was one of the principal factors distinguishing men from...

Tax credits custos One group which has often been critical of the Government's social policy is the Child Poverty Action Group. But when the Green Paper, Proposals for a Tax...

The right trek Carol Wright The blossoming of trekking holidays is a sign of revolt against the ease of travel. Despite the boom in the trouble-free holiday deals, there are...