to disaster The decision of the executive of the National Union of Mineworkers not merely to hold a pithead ballot on the subject of the desirability of strike action, but...

P ublic lending right is so eminently just and r . e asonable, it has fueled so much righteous In dignation, and has united so many writers Previously irreconcilable that it...

hialre announcement of the journey of Mr ber and Mr Walker to Switzerland to cons u e l t with the holidaying Shah on how best to e Ure a large part of Iran's oil output...

It is never, as the adage says, too late to learn and, in his eighties, Dr Benjamin Spock has proved its truth, retracting as he has now done all that idiotic advice advanced...

Sir Edward Spears had lived a full and exciting life and, though his passing is to be mourned, it must be said that, while he did not fulfil all his intense early ambition, he...

From Alderman Paul Sainsbury Sir: By coincidence the salaries of newly appointed Cabinet and other Senior Ministers were published on the same day as the pay structure of the...

From the Reed R. C. Sinclair Sir: I have no wish to inflict on your readers a detailed reply to the tedious pretentiousness of Edward Pearce's article 'Reds on the Mantelpiece'...

In view of the contents of this article, am I to understarua that "Only a victory for Parliament . . and a defeat for the Marxists within the _Labour Party are acceptable...

Edward Pearce went a long way towards opening the eyes, of those who are willing to see, to the realities of the power of the extreme left in this country and in particular in...

Sir: "It is upon the foetus's individual humanity," writes Robert Lindsay (January 19), "that the abortion issue pivots." He then introduces tortuous and biologically-naive...

Simms and Hindell book as saying that "The number of abortion deaths from all causes fell from fifty in 1968 to thirty-five in 1969," taking this to have been a beneficial...

Sir: Lord Robens's comments on Mr Kelf - Cohen's British Nationalisation (January 19) are excellent as far as they go — which is up to the present Tory administration and this...

Sir: The difficulty with A. L. Rowse (January 12) is that as he leaps to the pinnacles of professional scholarshiP his trousers fall down. From an apparently imprecise casual...

Sir: Roy Wallis again reveals h is inability to bring a sociologist's oblec" tivity to his subject. 'Convert or sub vert' (December 29) was more 3 s re tr v aig w h . tfot ward...

Sk effington-Lodge (January 19) is obv iously a dear old duck — one of those . e reatures of whom one can say "If he i l i dn't exist, Beatrix Potter would have l ad to invent...

like The Spectator, after the etPos of the slump and economic th - ' s of the 'thirties should revert to Ire °IlY of national protectionism. Its d o Serlption for Britain's...

prompts me to take up my t o and write, not of films or books 0.1 1t) at the field-marshal but the man p r , rr i I met in 1944. ■ Abd 111 / 11 e1 had an interesting and 3it a...

Happy New Year to Thieu Tim Hardinge The South Vietnamese enter into the Year of the Tiger having lost a weekend gunboat war with China but with President Thieu more...

The hollowness of détente Gerald Segal A tragic split has occurred in the Soviet civil rights movement on the issue of whether or not the form currently taken by East-West...

Are the drivers worth it? David W. Wragg There was a time when railway engine drivers were presented, along with certain other members of the working class such as postmen, as...

Opponents but no rivals Kuldip Nayar Mrs Indira Gandhi, India's Prime Minister , lost one more parliamentary by-election . ' 141 ' nt is the third in a row. For a leader who...

Many of my fair readers, as well as very gay and well received persons of the other sex, are much perplexed at all the gossip about this Government and something called its...

Press A retreat from certainty Bill Grundy A long time ago I learnt from Bertrand Russell that when all the experts agree they are certainly wrong. It is a rule that has...

Back to the windmill Bernard Dixon NASA — the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration — is backing a crash programme on wind power. Repeat, the proud body responsible...

Candlemas Denis Wood; On Candlemas Day, February 2, the sun sets an hour later than on the shortest day; already the first Precursors of spring respond to lengthening light....

Pauline tribute Martin Sullivan January 25 is St Paul's day and a Dean of a great Cathedral dedicated to this man ought to pay him some tribute. I gladly do so. Of all the...

George Axelrod on the moon and two and a half new pence The Pattern of Maugham Anthony Curtis (Hamish Hamilton £3.50) If I were teaching a course in creative writing' (that...

Peter Ackroyd The Darkness of the Body David Plante (Jonathan Cape E2.25) The Angry Brigade Alan Burns (Alison and Busby E2.10, Quartet 50p) Introduction Five (Faber and Faber...

Jan Morris Soft City Jonathan Raban (Hamish Hamilton £3.00) "Who has not fantasised," asks Mr Jonathan Raban somewhere in this book, "a conversation spontaneously struck...

Robert Dougall The Naturalist in South-East England S. A. Manning (David and Charles, 0.95) At London's Television Centre there were just five frenetic minutes to air-time and...

Magnus Magnusson Beyond Stonehenge Gerald S. Hawkin 5 (Hutchinson 0.75) It was a hot morning in June. The sun streame d through the window, and the air conditioning Wd e...

Howzat, 0 Lord? Benny Green The recent death of Edmund Blunden reminds me of the surprising fact that to this day you can pick up, quite easily, second-hand or remaindered...

Bookend It used to be said, though not by this columnist, that the best way for a publisher to get newspaper reviews was to commission the literary editors to write books. It...

Kenneth Hurren on the black and white Fugard show I wish I could stop thinking of John Kani and Winston Ntshona as Amos 'n Andy. This is an embarrassingly frivolous attitude...

Bad time Charlie Clive Gammon Charlie's back, then, with nasty, disbelieving gaze and b!' Mussolini chins, more the old-stY le headmaster than any policem an I've met, the...

Dallas mighthave-been Christopher Hudson In a week which has established complicity in the Watergate cover-up within a small group of men surrounding the President, a film...

Waspe Joan Littlewood of Theatre Workshop has her begging bowl out again, I see asking a whopping E110,000 hand-out from the Arts Council for the next financial year in order...

The inflation bogey Nicholas Davenport The new base for a Stock Exchange rise collapsed because it was phoney. It was based on make-believe — thc idea that the British people,...

The great con game Ivor Catt The computer industry is the biggest money loser in history. General Electric lost around $1,000,000,000 before giving up its computer...

There are times when it appears that the aims of the Prices Commission are in disharmony with the need to conserve resources and in particular those resources that are a burden...

I see from Saturday's sums — a simple matter of subtraction — that the vast pile accumulated at Ascot is dwindling fast. Bankrupt readers are perfectly welcome to curse me if it...