The Spectator lenlains firmly of the opinions we expressed last week that " the ramifications of the Poulson affair indicate far more insidious and corrupt practices than do...

We join in the general congratulations offered to Princess Anne and Lieutenant Mark Phillips on their engagement. It is very satisfactory that no pressures have been put upon...

Patrick Cosgrave Macaulay — "We know of no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its Periodic fits of morality" — has, again, been Much quoted in the last...

David G. Jones This has been the year of the scandal. First Poulson, then Lonrho, then Lambton and Jellicoe. Now we have a furore surrounding the shareholdings of Mr Heath's...

Mayhem and myth Rawle Knox Sitting behind Edward Heath at Westminster you might now be persuading yourself that, politically, things look a bit brighter in Northern Ireland....

Dorothy Becker Has a trial in an English court of justice come to resemble a debate in the House of Commons in that the real decision is often not made there? A children's...

Improving the future Chris Pritchard Huge billboards proclaiming the message that 'Imports Drain, Exports Gain' have been erected in the busier parts of Accra, the Ghanaian...

A. L. Rowse The reception of my work on Shakespeare is an interesting story in itself, and one that is symptomatic of our time, not only of its li terary life, but of academic...

you would do well to ask me; and you would be a fool to contradict me... talking to. It is only in a society such as ours, today that it would be necessary. This leads me to a...

subject, of course. But he called in aid old Professor Wilson Knight, who repeated all the nonsense about Mr W.H., still not having grasped the elementary point that he was...

Richard Luckett on life with Gopaleen and Klop ACCISS — which, being interpreted, is ' Andy Clarkin's clock is stopped.' It was under this slogan that, in 1952-3, (Sir) Myles...

Tony Palmer As if by"Magic Angus Wilson (Secker and Warburg £2.50) Mr Wilson has written a weighty book. You can tell from the first few pages the list of ' important '...

Peter Ackroyd Sex And Superstition G. L. Simons (Abelard-Schumann £2.50) Sceptics might say that the only connection between sex and superstition is one of human weakness —...

John Miller Reform and Renewal: Thomas Cromwell and the Common Weal G. R. Elton. (CUP, £2.90 hardback, £1.20 paperback) This is Professor Elton's third book on a particular...

Denis Brogan The Coming to Power: Critical Presidential Elections in American History edited by Arthur M. Schlesinger, J.R (Andre Deutsch 0.50) The history of the Presidency of...

British Social Life in India, 1608-1937 Dennis Kincaid (Routledge and Kegan Paul E3.00). The disarming conversational candour of this forgotten classic comes as a revelation to...

Bookbuyer Surely no one can have read Peter Mann's latest survey, Books and Students, without a profound sense of shock. Published in . pamphlet form by the National Book...

Kenneth Hurren on hatchets in "Me Cherry Orchard' As I was saying . . . last week's two Chekhov shows fell devilishly awkwardly for this journal, one en either side of our...

Andrzej Wajda, the director of The Possessed (last week's Polish contribution to the World Theatre Season) doubtless has many admirable qualities. Modesty is evidently not one...

Rite of passage Christopher Hudson With The Emigrants (' AA ' Bloomsbury) we are reminded, after a long interval, that the cinema is capable of handling an epic subject...

Dancing for Mu Robin Young Returning to London after a month in the People's Republic of China I was confronted with a senseless and bewildering variety of ballet on offer —...

Funny Peculiar Evan Anthony Someone at the Tate has aPparently been eavesdropping to good effect, and all those snide and/or bewildered comments you and I have been making...

Between health and social services Kenneth Urwid The eyes of the public sector's big spenders are on the Whitehall computers. Local authority social services committees, born...

John Rowan Wilson It is, I gather from the Times, twenty-five years since the National Health Service was introduced. This being so, it is perhaps worthwhile to examine the...

A nightmare Denis Wood My wife said, 'If you are going out do look in at that garden centre and see if you can get some Salvia patens — the blue thing. Take Phoenix with...

Ghana, a few weeks ago, ex: tended her territorial waters to thirty miles, with fishing rights up to a hundred. There was no moan from Britain about this unilateral action; or...

Wigf all to rise Mr Wotherspool As a result of the attention given to the Lonrho case it is not surprising that a new word has been coined from this affair ' Ionrhogal,'...

Sir: There has been a great deal of sYmpathetic comment on the unfortunate Lords Lambton and Jellicoe. As a General Staff Officer I once defended two junior officers who were...

Sir With friends like Marion Woolfson, the Arabs need no enemies. It is unfortunate for them that this insecure bluestocking so hastily gorges and ill-digests her titbits that,...

Sir: May I as a born and bred Methodist who, faced with the ever increasing divergence of modern Methodism from the Methodism I knew as a boy sixty years ago, has fled to...

was encouraging, informative and helpful. I am proud to claim that Lord Soper is a coVice President (non-executive) of the Campaign for Homosexual Equality with myself. I hope...

who enjoy looking after children are just as selfish as people who like looking after number one. Perhaps a really unselfish person is a logical absurdity. None of this affects...

The Derby Stakes for three-yearold colts, fillies and, at the time, geldings as well, celebrated its first running 193 years ago but had to wait until 1804 for official...

Sir: Some of the Press comment concerning the fiscal aspects of the Lonrho affair, even when recognising that the practice may well be perfectly legal, has nevertheless...

Sir: It has been clear for some time that the Government's concern for growth has become obsessive and may soon reveal itself as technomania, but I fear after reading your " Yes...

Sir: Regarding Mr Robert Conquest's attack (Letters, May 19) on me and you as prostitute and pimp respectively over what I wrote about Pyotr Yakir, I am appalled at his deftly...