T he recent stock market crash seemed to have little effect on the now traditional Christmas orgy of spending. About £18 billion changed hands in the shops during the...

GOLDEN DETERRENT T he principal reason for the privatisation programme of the past eight years was the desire to free large sections of British industry from the dead hand of...

SUBSCRIBE TODAY - Save 15% on the Cover Price! Please enter a subscription to The Spectator I enclose my cheque for £ (Equivalent SUS & Eurocheques accepted) RATES 12...

Young, Upwardly-mobile Peasants vote for Mrs Thatcher NOEL MALCOLM L ast month the Labour Party entered into the festive spirit by producing a party political broadcast, about...

PEREGRINE WORSTHORNE S ome sections of the brain drain matter more than others and I am very concerned to hear that my Daily Telegraph colleague of years ago, John O'Sullivan,...

Time for us all to meditate about the poor and underprivileged AUBERON WAUGH A s a result of advances in modern technology, this New Year message is having to be written ten...

Timothy Garton Ash, recently in Washington for the Reagan-Gorbachev summit meeting, examines the prospects it opened up for a brave new year 'THAT was wunnerful. He wants...

Gerda Cohen eyes Israel's `blacks', the most unwanted people in the world Jerusalem 'YOU not get tear-gas in the eye?' en- quired a ferrety man lounging outside the Fifth...

Tanuary

economic reform in trouble while managers' hands are tied Moscow TAKING a friend to lunch in Moscow is not a simple matter. Never mind the battle with the restaurant doorman...

Gavin Stamp remembers an Anglo-Catholic priest hounded to death by the establishment AFTER the High Mass at St Alban's, Holborn, on the Sunday before Christmas the...

Michael Trend meets the man from the polite society I HAVE now spent just on a year with The Spectator, keeping from time to time what is for me largely new company — the hard...

MR Gladstone left Hawarden for the Continent on Monday, and was re- ceived with great enthusiasm at various places on his route; but at Dover, on Tuesday, he was hooted and...

that recent gains in proprietorial power may prove illusory THIS has been a year of mixed blessings for the British newspaper industry. Media shares were particularly badly hit...

And now for a year on auto-pilot JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE A s I recall, 1988 was to be the Year of the Crash. As the great bull market of the 1980s surged on towards its apogee a...

Sir: Paul Johnson's objection (12 Decem- ber) to the Daily Telegraph identifying the Bishop of Norwich by name and title, rather than by his old Latin designation, at the end of...

Sirs: I have no quarrel with Alexandra Artley's ode to the NHS (`Our Medical Heritage,' 12 December), but does the debate on whether governments fund the NHS adequately or not...

Personal rights Sir: In his article 'When is a Foetus Disposable?' (5 December), Paul Johnson not only supports David Alton's Bill to reduce to 18 weeks the time-limit on...

Sir: On page 36 of your issue of 12 December we are informed that Thomas Montacute, Earl of Salisbury was killed by a 'canon ball'. It would be interesting to know which...

Sir: I am extremely glad to be corrected about the original title of Clough's poem, (Letters, 12 December), if only because this is a delightful confirmation of how much more...

The oak and the melon Colin Welch GOODWOOD'S OAK: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE THIRD DUKE OF RICHMOND, LENNOX AND AUBIGNY by M. M. Reese Threshold Books, £19.95 P eople in your...

James Simmons CIVIL TO STRANGERS by Barbara Pym Macmillan, f11.95 CHANGES OF ADDRESS by Lee Langley Collins, f9.95 THE UNDERBELLY by Duncan Fallowell Macmillan, f10.95...

David Nokes JOHN DRYDEN AND HIS WORLD by James Anderson Winn Yale University Press, £19.95 A mong the acknowledgements in this new biography of Dryden, James A. Winn extends...

John Jolliffe FRIENDS AND ROMANS by John Miller Fourth Estate, f13.95 T his escape story, whose subtitle is 'On the Run in Wartime Italy', has a special quality which raises it...

Adam Zamoyski A PATH OF HOPE by Lech Walesa Collins Harvill, £12.95 S omething that rapidly became obscured by developments was what Soli- darity was actually about. As the...

Andrei Navrozov DOCTOR ZHIVAGO by Boris Pasternak translated by Max Hayward and Manya Harari Collins Harvill, £10.95, £5.95 T hirty years ago next autumn, Boris Pasternak's...

Exhibitions Visible export Giles Auty Lucian Freud (Musee National d'Art Moderne, Paris, till 24 January) L ucian Freud is an artist I have admired consistently. It seems...

You Never Can Tell (Theatre Royal, Haymarket) Acting Shakespeare (Playhouse) Babes in the Wood (Duchess) Shaw touch Christopher Edwards C ompleted in 1897, You Never Can Tell...

Ouagadougou dandy Hilary Mantel I would be failing in my duty if I did not share with you, by way of valediction to 1987, one of the chief cinematic pleasures of the year. It...

Hankie time Rodney Milnes H ansel is one of those operas, like Cosi fan tutte, that I would rather not write about. For reasons that only my analyst (ex-directory) could...

The naked truth Wendy Cope T his week's piece has to be in several days before Christmas, so one thing it can't be about is the programmes broadcast during the festive season....

A monthly selection of forthcoming events recommended by The Spectator's regular critics. MUSIC At the Wigmore Hall, on 6 and 9 January, Andras Schiff will be giving his...

Two easy ways. . . Taki T here is nothing I find more boring than the annual fearless forecasts the Fourth Estate throws our way just about this time of year. However...

. . . to get a free dinner Jeffrey Bernard I suppose it's obligatory to write some guff on the subject of Christmas, how awful and wonderful 1987 was, and what one can hope...

Topping ideas Alice Thomas Ellis T he mite who inhabits my unconscious intruded into my waking hour the other morning with a dreadful pun. I had been dreaming about an...

Conran is its guru. A quarter of a century ago he opened Habitat and took flop sofas, shapely lampshades and chicken bricks to the masses. He is the man responsible for the...

To enable competitors to economise on postage, entries for one or more weeks of the Competition and Crossword may be posted together under one cover addressed 'Competition...

Short short story Jaspistos I N Competition No. 1503 you were Invited to write a story beginning and ending, or ending and beginning, with two given phrases. Instead, I...

Close shave Raymond Keene I last reported on the world cham- pionship just before a spate of tedious draws threatened to stifle public interest. Karpov won game 16 in fine...

Ti 9 AFIRIAIA 'P E 2 E R 3 L. E S 0 6 131 L ! i ll . A UN1.11SETHENA IN I I ON PART K G RIO n A U I 1. 2 1. I 2 e IMI T EJ E SOC A!SKA R E L T A L L GIOIFILI I UNPIN M AFIA...

A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or, for UK solvers, a copy of Chambers Dictionary, value £13.95 — ring the words 'Chambers Dictionary' above) for the first...

Under this title Rupert Brooke once wrote one, from an imaginary Stockbroker's Book of Hymns, Revised & Augmented. You are invited to do the same (maximum 16 lines). Entries to...