The Prime Minister's suggested deal, whereby the trade unions are expected to settle for a £2 a week limit of pay increases in return for a promised five per cent 'freeze ' on...

several forms. At its simplest, the dispute is between those who think that Britain should join the Common Market at almost any cost and who therefore place themselves on this...

Hugh Macpherson Just as the Conservative party regularly produces ersatz heroes for the delectation of the British public — Supermac, Alec the Gentil, Churchill the Warrior —...

One of the best tests of the mettle of a senior or junior minister is how they stand up or knuckle under to high-powered civil servants. It takes time for an order of merit to...

Eric Heffer Amongst the general public there is a certain amount of justified disillusionment with both major political parties which appear to have failed. The Labour...

Henry Fairlie If even Americans today would understand, one might describe George McGovern as the Roy Riegels of American politics. But one can at least be sure, Writing in...

Sandy Gall When they ran us up that hill and the big black soldier With a heavy automatic (a bit like the old Bren) kept jabbing me in the back with it, I thought: "here we go...

Anthony Flew It is now nearly two years since Angug Maude sounded, his alarm about "the editorial policies of Penguin Books in the field of education" (The Spectator, November...

Patrick Cosgrave "The best," said a gloomy admirer of Anthony Crosland to me the other evening, thinking he was quoting Yeats, "lack all ambition while the worst/Are full of...

*The Essays of Montaigne: A Critical Exploration R. A. Sayce (Weidenfeld and Nicolson £6.25) Mr Gerald Brenan once said to me that he would like all undergraduates to read the...

Auberon Waugh Anna Apparent Nina Bawden (Longmarfs E2) As Miss Bawden's new novel is probably the last I shall ever review under the Longman imprint — the wretched firm...

Simon Raven Rudyard Kipling: The Man, his Work and his World edited by John Gross (Weidenfeld and Nicolson £3.75) This new collection of essays about Rudyard Kipling covers...

George Gale Chronicles of Wasted Time: Vol 1: The Green Stick Malcolm Muggeridge (Collins £3.00) In August 1960 Malcolm Muggeridge visited Raymond's Revuebar, the striptease...

Montgomery Hyde Aubrey and the Dying Lady: A Beardsley Riddle Malcolm Easton (Secker and Warburg, £4.50) Few artists who died as young as Aubrey Beardsley—not yet twenty-six at...

John Vincent Sir Robert Peel: the life of Sir Robert Peel of ter 1830. Norman Gash (Longman E8) Of all the long grey books that the examination candidate has to face, some of...

Bookbuyer The Bodley Head has had astronomical subscriptions before publication for Solzhenitsyn's August 1914, which has been reprinted four times before publication, to a...

Kenneth Hurren Intensive ransacking of the annals of the theatre might just conceivably yield a brace of talents more dissimilar than those that produced the two principal new...

Clive Gammon It may be no news to travelled readers that in Iceland beer is a forbidden drink, but I hadn't realized that until this week. Oh yes, they have whisky and wine of...

Christopher Hudson John Boorman, after an interesting excursion into the uncommercial with Leo the Last, returns in his fifth, film to telling an adventure story as simply and...

Rodney Milnes The mechanics of reproduction seem to be a matter of overriding concern this week, and strangely enough it is becoming a serious problem in opera. Financial...

Robin Young The opening night of Merce Cunningham's short and various programme at the Sadler's Wells Theatre was a disappointment for anyone expecting the sort of...

Benny Green The Flashman phenomenon is one of those events which in retrospect appear to have been almost too predictable. In deed, when the first of the three Flashman stories...

Radio watchdogs should keep an eye open for the new Spring schedules. Fresh rationalisation is on the cards. Minority programmes Scan, New Worlds and World of Books/Now Read On...

Pamela Vandyke Price Mists and mellow fruitfulness may be the seasonal tag in most peoples' minds, but to us oenological hacks the next few weeks are when teeth ache through...

Sir: In your article on the Longford Report (September 23) you say the printed word must not be subjected to further restrictions, and in this you may be right. You must,...

Sir: Having read Benny Green's comments on The Riddle of the Sands I suggest, with respect, that he has missed the point. He might be writing about a different book to the one...

Sir: As one who generally admires Henry Fairlie's reporting of the American scene, especially during this election, and who agrees with his general conclusion about the American...

From the Rev Leslie Aaiun Sir: In seeking to make a virtue of hypocrisy so as, further, to accuse the Archbishop of Canterbury of being laudable as a hypocrite, your...

Sir: As a frequent reader of your columns, and a Zionist who considers himself more moderate than most partisans in the Middle East quarrel, I was stung almost to exasperation...

Sir: Your Will Waspe column is often amusing—but was (August 26) inaccurate and possibly damaging to the repuation of a major new British film, Young Winston. For your...

Sir: Mr N. A. Smith's letter (Spectator, September 9) on Ugandan Asians makes miserably unwholesome reading, to say the least. I would have dismissed it as completely unworthy...

Sir: In his autobiography, Lord Wigg cites the story of an "officer who ran horses," and who "actually drew pay, stores and equipment for a non-existent Arab battalion;" who, in...

Sir: Frank Alan Thompson (Letters, September 9) suggests that in my discussion of the supernatural (19 August) I may have confused Roger Bacon's "four major sources of error"...

Sir: In science the unpardonable sin is a fractional truth, a device Mr Stewart (Spectator, September 2) employs to assert his bias, and / or ignorance. Which maybe is why the...

Sir: I have been commissioned to write a biography my father, the late Poet Laureate C. Day-Lewis, I would be grateful for the sight of any relevant letters or papers, which...

Sir: Minette Marrin's article on Covent Garden (Spectator September 16) is such a tissue of illinformed peculation that I hardly know where to begin a reply, but a reply is...

Back to gilt-edged Nicholas Davenport Skinflint and I have come to terms. The bet is off and we have been invited to lunch at The Spectator to agree the formula which settles...

It is hard to convey the boyish sweetness and kindness of the life insurance companies to those in trouble. Some Ugandan Asians, whilst still in Uganda, took out life insurance...

Nephew Wilde With the market looking decidedly sick I knew that my stockbroker, Wotherspool would give scant attention if I launched into a long jeremiad over the telephone. So...

Try Wilmot Breedon John Bull These have been wonderful times for the short-term speculator. And as long as one does not have any scruples about selling short, a sudden turn in...

Ian Henderson noraolegics went into a hotel in Wakefield for a drink. All three were in wheelchairs. At the end of the evening, the iu - uaord, who was distinctly unfriendly...

Jef Smith The Bains Report on the management of the new local authorities was published in mid-August, the one month of the year when most of the councils to which it is...

John Rowan Wilson A few years ago, when I was involved in the launching of a medical journal for distribution to tropical countries, we ran into a semantic problem. What to...

Carol Wright Italy was early the Englishman's love. The pinnacle of his Grand Tour was then the poet's corner: Keats in Rome, the Brownings in Florence, Shelley cremated on...