The trouble is that a businesslike refusal to be panicked into premature action or meaningless rhetoric is very hard to dis- tinguish from helpless inertia. Mr Mac- millan's...

• The making of an underdog PETER PATERSON A new book emerges this week purporting to give us 'the authoritative, inside account . . . factual, unbiased and brilliantly...

nice

Abroad thoughts from home GEORGE GALE For those rich enough to choose or poor enough to have to suffer a life under tropical skies I have mild contempt on the one hand and...

Peace breaks out CRABRO August is conventionally the month for mobilisation. Every European war in the past hundred years has either broken out or moved to its starting-point...

From the 'Spectator,' 27 August 1870—America certainly does show considerable humour in the invention of its newspaper fibs,—a humour of which there is not a trace in the...

Titoists at the 'Guardian' DONALD MeLACHLAN I suppose it is true to say that a journalist who owned shares in the newspaper he worked with would be opposed to chapel meetings...

The judge and his dilemma R. A. CLINE People have come to take the stability of the judiciary for granted. So when a judge hands in his papers, the event causes a shock and...

CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS There's no impropriety In a permissive society In having stage demonstrations Of all sorts of natural inclinations But those wowsers Who prefer trousers And...

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER Once upon a time there was a widely revered newspaper called the Times. Its articles were anonymous, its headlines sober ('Sir A, Home To Remain At The...

The prescriptive society TIBOR SZAMUELY The 'permissive society' has become the most commonplace stereotype of our cliché-ridden age. One cannot get away from it. It has its...

Who teaches the teachers? DAVID ROGERS Having carried out the commitment to withdraw the circular to local authorities forcing them to go comprehensive, Mrs Thatcher now has...

Down Coronation Street BILL GRUNDY Question number one: Why does the totally undistinguished remark 'Now the first thing you'll have to do is get that sign above the door...

A future for architecture LIONEL BRETT Does architecture matter? Obviously not, in the conventional sense, consciously, to most human beings. Even when one explores a...

'The last best hope' DENIS BROGAN The famous plug for the American ex- periment made by Abraham Lincoln is today in the minds of a great many Americans an example of a false...

COLIN MacINNES 'Historical novels' are denigrated by those for whom the term evokes mere cloak and dagger romances, possibly stemming from their great deviser Dumas, wherein...

JOHN HOLLOWAY Coleridge and Wordsworth in Somerset Berta Lawrence (David and Charles 50s) Shelley and his Circle, Vols III and IV edited by Kenneth Neill Cameron (otm 10 ens...

WILLIAM HAYTER History of the Cold War: From the Korean War to the Present Andre Fontaine (Seeker and Warburg 5gns) The subtitle of this book is misleading. In fact its account...

JOHN McMANNERS Pasquale Paoli: An Enlightened Hero, 17254 1807 Peter Adam Thrasher (Constable 63s) 'Sir, what is all this rout about the Corsicans? They have been at war with...

MICHAEL BOBBIE Catalogue of the Oil Paintings in the London Museum John Hayes (Etmso 100s) The Empire may have vanished but London is still our century's Byzantium, the 'city...

The Dream King Wilfrid Blunt (Hamish Hamilton 75s). This is a nicely succinct and entertaining study of poor sad Ludwig II of Bavaria, with the added distinction of a pro-...

No matter J. G. FARRELL The Bodyguard Adrian Mitchell (Cape 25s) The Book of Numbers Robert Deane Pharr (alder and Boyars 40s) The Adventurer Naomi May (Calder and Boyars 35s)...

STEPHANIE DEE Farewell to the Don: The Journal of Brigadier H. N. H. Williamson edited by John Harris (Collins 42s) It had, of course, happened before to other English...

Keeping ahead with portraiture BRYAN ROBERTSON Portraiture being a subject of much vexed if continual concern, this may be a good time to dart in quickly and venture a comment...

Splendours and miseries CLEMENT CRISP By any reasonable standards we ought to be thoroughly sated, even slightly queasy, with the fare offered by the Kirov Ballet night after...

Holy terrors KENNETH HURREN Council of Love (Criterion) A month or so ago I broke bread, if the term may be validly applied to a scotch egg and bitter, with an aspiring...

Hard luck stories RODNEY MILNES The best moment in Colin Graham's new production of The Tales of Hoffmann at the Coliseum is the first. Out of total darkness (not even...

NICHOLAS DAVENPORT Mr Wilson went around for years washing Mr Maudling's dirty linen in public. In the end we all got neurotically bored with the 1800 million' deficit (which...

JOHN BULL Wall Street has seemed in better heart re- cently. Prices have been rising on increased turnover though there is still a long way to go before the Dow Jones index...

From Robert Vigars, Manuela Sykes. H. J. AfacMoolson, Ronald Hallett, Alan Smith, H. A. Haworth. A case of political blight Sir: I was interested to read your political...

Sir: Donald McLachlan (15 August) says there is no compelling reason why providing information to the press should not be done by the ablest civil servants on their way up the...

Sir: May I congratulate George Gale (15 August) on a most searching and thoughtful analysis of the likely consequences of basing a disengagement in the Middle East upon the 1967...

Sir: In a discussion of cuts in education expenditure (22 August) Dr Rhodes Boyson mentions a suggested ninepence increase in school meal prices to 2s 6d a day, which would...

Sir: Peter Fleming (15 August) writes in his review of John Terraine's Impacts of War: 'There is a striking parallel between some of the impacts of war in 1914 and 1939-40. On...

Word from Dullsville JOHN GRAHAM Washington—A boastful Persian told me this story, so it may very well not be true. It concerns a Persian and a Texan. And the Texan tells the...

PHILIDOR J. Savoumin (Europe Echees, 1970). White to play and mate in two moves; solution next week. Solution to No. 504 (Martin-2N5/3KN3/8/ 3pkIP1/1p2P3/8/4P2n/b4Q1n): Q-B1,...

Across 1 Saxon colt spots cat (6) 4 How an MP might expect to be treated by right? (8) 8 Fly bird (8) 10 Agile hundred confuses Celtic (6) 12 Narrow election gives a goad (5)...

No. 619: 011a podrida Set by Adam Khan: The Times reported recently that, according to Rude Pravo, the Communist party newspaper, Czechoslovakia is producing too many books on...