Only connect. T he Government published Sir Frank Layfield's 3,000-page report of his inquiry into the plan to build a pressurised water reactor at Sizewell. He said the new...

DECIDE FOR SIZEWELL T hree virtues are immediately apparent in Sir Frank Layfield's Sizewell report. In the first place, it is a masterpiece of lucidity, the best document on...

THE Home Secretary has referred to the Court of Appeal the cases of the six men who have been in prison since 1975 for the Birmingham pub bombings. But he has not done the same...

How the Alliance could gain at the expense of its friends PETER RIDDELL M r David Steel was no doubt using politician's licence when he described this weekend's Barbican rally...

CHARLES MOORE C ambridge has now completed its selection of applicants for the coming autumn. For the first time, it has used the new system of admission. The seventh- term...

The cost of listening to other people's telephone conversations AUBERON WAUGH I t is always nice to see a rival in trouble and nobody will laugh louder than I if Mrs Thatcher...

Entry to an old people's home is usually for life: Andrew Gimson examines the perverse incentives which encourage permanent incarceration `THE solution to my mother's...

This week Terry Waite went missing. Ambrose Evans - Pritchard examines the catastrophic results of American policy Washington `THE terrorists appear to believe that by...

Karan Thapar on how easily journalists in Afghanistan are deceived KABUL has its own way with 'invaders'. The casual foreigner is often easily trapped by a false sense of...

Anthony Daniels, who wrote as `Edward Theberton' on Africa, sums up his experiences EX Africa semper aliquid novi — except, of course, good news. For the last 20 years the...

Roy Kerridge finds a tale of the Crusades in the East End `THIS is a very old folk song,' announced the South African-born comic singer, Pad- dy Roberts, on his first LP,...

Stan Gebler Davies announces his candidacy in the forthcoming elections to the Dail Address to the Electors of Cork South-West IT IS more than 60 years since you have had the...

Frances Partridge remembers the complex interpreter of Spain who died last week IN 1927 Virginia Woolf contemplated writ- ing 'a sketch of Gerald Brenan'. If only she had done...

that union folly turned Wapping into a Murdoch triumph THE hard Left marked the anniversary of the Wapping move with a bloodthirsty demo, complete with masked assault- troops...

Teaching Lloyd's of London to see itself as other's see it CHRISTOPHER FILDES T he right place to build Lloyd's of London's new headquarters was on the San Andreas Fault — or...

I CAN keep a straight face about Sir Ralph Halpern and his friend Fiona (`daft little bugger', says her photographer: 'you'd think he could do better.') It is well known that...

IT IS nice to find the Governor of the Bank of England in gubernational form — haul- ing bankers in by the ears, throwing out their inadequate responses, decreeing who and what...

All aboard the good ship Canutic JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE L the spring a middle-aged finance minister's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of a meeting of `05'. There was a time, not...

Sir: As Patrick Skene Catling says (Books, 10 January), John Lennon was by no means as 'casually spontaneous' as he claimed. A solid portion of In His Own Write is an almost...

Sir: Nicholas Budgen (`Compulsory Pun- jabi', 24 January) complains that no one knows what racism is and suggests that the word should be given a definition. The supplement to...

Sir: In your leading article of 24 January on Mr James Anderton you state, 'It is a teaching of the Church that prophecies ceased after the coming of Christ.' In so far as this...

Sir: I was pleased to see in your column `One hundred years ago' (20/27 December 1986) that the Spectator opposed the plan for the construction of a railway from Windermere to...

Sir: In the Spectator of 13 December 1986, Auberon Waugh's column Another voice, headed 'The implications of not giving Lisa three bears for Christmas', contained a word that I...

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...

Insular, irascible, inhibited Jeremy Lewis NOTHING TO REPENT: THE LIFE OF HESKETH PEARSON by Ian Hunter H esketh Pearson was an old-fashioned literary man of the Chesterbelloc...

J. Enoch Powell THE SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP edited by William Louis and Hedley Bull OUP, 85.00 A n admirably arranged collection of two dozen essays by first-raters on the...

John Bayley THE ENCHANTER by Vladimir Nabokov Picador, 1'8.95 N ot many authors insist on their sepa- rate status as gentlemen. A mark of those that do is that any eccentricity...

Joan Plowright THE ROYAL COURT THEATRE by Philip Roberts Routledge and Kegan Paul, £18.95 T hirty or more years ago serious stud- ents of the theatre were still burying their...

J. L. Carr JOTTINGS OF A GENIUS by Dennis Peck The Woodstock Press, f6.95 T his splendidly entitled work is a dis- tillation of more than 50 large notebooks filled during 30...

I took sea-roses from the Odyssey Nausicaa's sea-pinks by that fragrant shore; and, strolling in Palermo's Public Gardens a Goth with Grecian blossom in his hair sought to...

Peter Quennell JANE WELSH CARLYLE by Virginia Surtees Michael Russell, £12.95 I f a historic debate were ever held on the advantages and disadvantages, the pleas- ures and...

Opera New backbone Rodney Milnes T he Covent Garden wagon-train is now formed up in a circle. Any day — Wednes- day? Friday? — it will be revealed whether or not they are to...