A t the Labour Party's annual con- ference, the left wing suffered a set- back when five supporters of Anthony Wedgwood Benn were defeated in the elec- tions to the national...

Dead sheep at bay Colin Welch S tag at bay week for Mr Foot at Black- 1.-3 pool, his wounds and embarrassment accumulating, his antlers wobbling, his flanks gory, the cruel...

Blackpool g T he real reason for the witch-hunt is to try to win the support of the ruling class back for another "safe" Labour government from the bosses point of view....

UK Eire Surface mail Air mail 6 months: £15.50 112£17.78 £18.50 £24.50 One year: £31.00 IK£35.50 £37.00 £49.00 US subscription price: $65.00 (Cheques to be made payable to the...

New history of Zimbabwe Auberon Waugh Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe O n the plane between Harare (formerly Salisbury) and Masvingo (as Fort Vic- toria was renamed on the day of my...

Murray Sayle Tokyo Travel, they say, can often broaden the mind, as surely as the other end of the torso. A gloomier view sees the traveller carrying his (or her) troubles as...

Timothy Garton Ash Lt ke an oil tanker trying to change course WestGermany is trying to change government. It is a slow business. The peo- ple who designed the political system...

Christopher Hitchens Washington rr he great American columnist Calvin 1 Trillin has what he calls a Golden rule of American political satire. The rule is named for Harry...

Next week sees the start of the Great Spectator Treasure Hunt. The first prize is an oil painting of a Moroccan interior, entitled `Habiba', by Sir John Lavery, valued at...

Iceland affords a remarkable example of the difficulty, not to say the impossibili- t y , of obtaining accurate facts about the c ondition of any place. It has been reported,...

Charles Moore W hat constitutes a serious public ques- tion? For the BBC, at least, anything to do with sex, the social services or 'discrimination' qualifies. Driving through...

Paul Johnson A t one time it was a reasonable assumption that 'politics' and 'demo- cracy' were closely associated concepts, in- terdependent, mutually supportive. One...

The right to know Andrew Brown Oslo When Harry Evans talks, the meaning elk Pushes through his metaphors like an , d trampling down dead bulrushes. F ollow the money tree,' he...

Britoil unissued Tony Rudd A loud no bigger than a man's foot has been hanging over the investment scene these last few months, namely the disposal by a public stock market...

Predictable slaughter Sir: 'Anyone who is claiming now, after the cruel murders of Palestinian civilians by the Phalangists, that this is not Israel's respon- sibility is...

Sir: Why are writers like Richard West so often silly about railways (in the ridiculous- ly named article, 'Loot from the Lebanon', 11 September)? He could not get a ticket from...

Sir: I have not until today seen Gavin Stamp's article, 'Redundancy of imagina- tion' (4 September), in which he makes an outstandingly good case for a continuing independent...

Sir: Grateful as I am for the huge amount of space given to my review of Ben n Y Green's Wisden Anthology (25 Septembe r), one small cut which might have cause d , puzzlement...

Sir: You do an injustice to the staff of Wel ls Cathedral, to the English language an d to yourself, when you refer to the cathedral . vitation for subscriptions as blackm ail...

Sir: A good Harley Street psychiatrist costs only £30 per hour and even at the meagre rate of remuneration reportedly available to Spectator contributors this should not be...

Sheep in sheep's clothing John Grigg C lement Attlee was seriously underrated during most of his active career, but he h as been no less seriously overrated ever since. An...

Peregrine Worsthorne 'I f you do succeed at first, try it on, try it on and try it on again' would make a good motto for Anthony Sampson who has just re-published his...

A. N. Wilson Customs and Characters Peter Quennell (Weidenfeld and Nicolson £10.95) E velyn Waugh, if we may judge from his letters and diaries, was not often moved to pay...

Peter Levi e Latin Sexual Vocabulary J. N. Adams Duckworth £24) e Latin Sexual Vocabulary J. N. Adams Duckworth £24) A school we used to believe that if you had a big enough...

Harriet Waugh F ay Weldon has delighted and irritate d critics and readers for some time rit Women, on the whole, give her the thumbs up sign, men are sometimes inclined to be...

Francis King On the Black Hill Bruce Chatwin (Cape £7.50) S ome years ago there was an account in the papers of the deaths of two twin brothers who, rarely leaving their farm...

Anthony Thwaite The Life of John Berryman John Haf- fenden (Routledge £15) wives, like coal miners' wives, or the wives of other men engaged in dangerous occupations, feel a...

Harold Wilson I t has taken me a long time to decide on my choice of 'my favourite book'. For most of my summer holiday in the Isles of Scilly my choice fell on two American...

Just think of the libretto Rodney Milnes Rigoletto (Coliseum) I approached Jonathan Miller's Rigoletto with the gravest possible misgivings. Up- dating the action of an opera...

Fizzy Ribena Mark Amory Mass Appeal (Lyric Hammersmith) Schweyk in the Second World War (Olivier) The Spanish Tragedy (Cottesloe) Miss Margarida's Way (Hampstead) B efore a...

Out of town peter Ackroyd M idsummer Night's Sex Comedy (`AA', Selected cinemas) M idsummer Night's Sex Comedy (`AA', Selected cinemas) W oodY Allen has been in danger of...

In memory John McEwen C ollages and Reliefs 1910-1945 (Annely Juda Fine Art till 2 October) is the 12th in the gallery's series of annual exhibitions devoted to the...

Over and out 'Van Gibson T he cricket season had its satisfactory l moments: none better than Brearley ad , 11.1 8 Middlesex to the championship in his last match. His...

Performances Richard Ingrams rrhe Labour Party conference at 1 Blackpool has once again provided some richly humorous material. What gives this event its air of unreality is...

Down-cast Jeffrey Bernard o ne afternoon last week I lost a ..; fbraon igc n o o tnh t t e ea . n T Fi h nr e egn s ac a h m b r e ap e nu v db e . n n i e n Tw g h isIswh...

Winning ways Athens I n January 1976 I wrote an article for which I was eventually to be awarded the first of many prizes that I have won for my writing. When the time came...

Jaspistos reports: Competitors were asked for communications between a medium and Oscar Wilde such as might have appeared in a book published in 1924. The book in question,...

No. 1238: Bouts rimes Set by Jaspistos: You are invited to write a 16-line poem with the following rhymes in the following order: still, less, ill, yes, skill, express, tell,...

Ll 7 N I a d. A E t i 0 lja 4 _, A E L P!I G A OS T N L IFE IEAR i tthn opr R 0 0 1 7 , L P I C I N r r i s r „ 4 . THER ESIG L E_ 0 t3A The relative connections are: a ' - 4...

A prize of ten pounds will be awarded for the first correct solution opened on 18 October. Entries to: Crosswohl 577, The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WCIN 2LL. 1 2...

Last leg Raymond Keene G ary Kasparov qualified easily from the third and final Interzonal, outdistanc- ing, by a point or more, the leading scores from Las Palmas and Toluca....

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