If Mr Callaghan had any worthwhile political life left, he would be fighting for it in Brighton next week. As it is, it will be his reputation he will chiefly be striving to...

Pounding the pavement Ferdinand Mount Margate Councillor Trevor Jones is haranguing the young Liberals on the mysterious arts of 'Community Politics'. This is not the...

Hopes rise, hopes fade, hopes rise. Thus the Press has day by day reported the efforts to achieve a settlement at Times Newspapers. At the time of writing, we are in a 'Hopes...

Tim Garton Ash Prague The traveller is encouraged to try the waters at Karlsbad', Karl Baedeker admonishes. The names of the sanatoria are not encouraging: 'Albanie',...

Peter Nichols Rome Like Ireland now, the forecastle of the merchantman Rights of Man was a rat-pit of quarrels: 'But Billy came, and it was like a Catholic priest striking...

Richard West The coup d'etat against Emperor Bokassa is Yet another piece of good news in a year that has seen the disappearance from office of Pol Pot (Cambodia), Field...

Mr J. T. Kay, Librarian of Owens College, raised, on Wednesday, before the Library Association, now sitting at Manchester, a question which will often be argued, as the...

Roger Cooper If you had prophesied to the average Afghan any time in the last year that Presi dent Nur Mohammad Tarakki would be deposed in September, he would have given an...

Sam White Paris Ever since de Gaulle emasculated it — first after the Liberation, and then in the course of the Algerian war — the French extreme right has been a sad limpid...

Edward Mortimer Whatever happened to 'Eurocommunism'? 1 had better declare an interest in this question, as co-author and co-editbr of a i b ook* on the subject, which for good...

David Marquand Unlike its central European cousins, British social democracy is not a party or a move ment; it is barely even a doctrine. There are no authoritative...

Christopher Booker I hesitate to hang a discussion of perhaps the most fundamental crisis confronting Western society today on one of the most trivial and absurd news items of...

Sir: Mr Paisley has shown, in sayint that there will be no peace until the last IRA man is killed, the absurdity of looking for a Purely military solution to Ulster's current...

Sir: I respect Professor Martin's concern for the maintenance and safeguarding of the historic spirituality of the Anglican Church ("The Archbishop's priorities,' 15 September),...

Sir: Surely there is something that we can all do to preserve the names of the old counties, even if it does not restore them. Namely, ignore the whole damn thing. Do as I do...

Sir: Whenever I read reminiscences of someone familiar to me, I think: 'you must have known someone else.' That same thought has obviously come to Michael Ivens on reading my...

Sir: In his article in your issue of 8 September, Christopher Booker exposed possible psychological roots of the rejection by so many of our trade unionists of the lessons of...

Sir: Peter Jenkins, in his review of the Old Vic production of Gogol's Government Inspector (15 September), relying apparently on the authority of the programme, which, we are...

Devastating and exterminating Geoffrey Wheatcroft Bomber Command Max Hastings (Michael Joseph £8.50) The subject of this enthralling book is one of the epic campaigns, and the...

Ferdinand Mount Arguments for Socialism Tony Benn (Cape £5.95) 'They were still at work in the shed there, using a temporary lighting system because the firm's owners, Norton...

Alex de Jonge Catherine the Great Henri Troyat Trans. Emily Read (Aldan Ellis 29.50) Henri Troyat's admirers will not be disappointed by his latest offering. It is lively,...

Anthony Storr The Psychology of Sex H.J. Eysenck & Glenn Wilson (Dent £5.95) When I am asked to review yet another book on sex, my heart sinks: but it is fair to say that this...

J.A.G.Griffith In on the Act Sir Harold Kent (Macmillan E8.95) The story begins in the late 1920s when the author was called to the Bar, disliked it, and in 1932 joined the...

Benny Green Victorian Fantasy Stephen Prickett (Harvester £12.50) Pricketi is an auspicious name for The author of a book about Victorian sublimations; it is like a brewer...

Paul Ableman The Twyborn Affair Patrick White (Cape £5.95) 'Eadie said I must not fail Eadith now that I have found her Eadith Eddie no matter which this fragment of my self...

The ugly spectacle of failure Peter Jenkins Death of a Salesman (Lyttleton) In a recent interview Arthur Miller likened the theatre to 'a sort of spiritual newspaper'. I think...

One-horse show John McEwen In his letter of last week Sir Hugh Casson indignantly suggested that if his latest exhibition 'The Horses of San Marco' (Royal Academy till 28...

Compromises Ted Whitehead Man of Marble (Academy One) It is hard to imagine a Western film with a 'T.J' certificate being labelled as 'controversial'. Yet this is the label...

Shapeless Richard Ingrams On my way up the escalator at Piccadilly underground station I pass a poster advertising Madame Tussaud's. It shows Winston Churchill, Lenin and...

Trends Taki Happiness, said Saint-Just a century ago, is a new concept in Europe. Modern anthropologists define it in different ways. Like keeping up, or being trendy. Take...

Bored sick Jeffrey Bernard I once wrote something complimentary about Mark Shivas's serial, The Glittering Prizes, when I was in Richard Ingrams's boots on this journal and a...

Copyright David Levy In response to Ray Keene's recent request for comments and suggestions on copyrighting chess games, I thought [would pen a number of thoughts I have had...