If press and television coverage is anything to go byw . hich is by no means sure—there is huge popular enthusiasm for the Olympic Games. What is certain is that the Games...

The High Court ruled that Mr Mulley, the Education Minister, had 'misdirected himself' in the matter of the Tameside Council. The Council won the day against the Government's...

1973 and all that John Grigg In Conservative folklore 1973 is beginning to acquire something of the obsessive significance that 1931 has for the Labour !arty. But whereas...

In terms of political influence, Mr Reginald Maudling may now be near the end of the road. Holding Shadow responsibility for foreign affairs, he is at loggerheads with his...

The lady on the lavatory Auberon Waugh You don't laugh when a clergyman exposes himself in the vestry, and you don't laugh when a politician has to announce cuts in public...

David Bonavia Hong Kong Ir'eking's allegorists are busy again— r ummaging in the annals of ancient dynasties to find parallels with the modern age. Their main message to the...

David Rudnick 'Watching Spain today is like watching a film where the audience knows neither how, nor even when the film will end. When Senor Marcelino Oreja employed this...

Charles Foley Los Angeles What have nuclear power, gay liberation, and E. F. Schumacher's views on socialism in common ? Well, they are but three of the many subjects...

Vladimir Telnikoff In the year which has passed since the solemn signing of the Final Act of the Helsinki Agreement, there has been constant speculation in the West as to what...

Jock Bruce-Gardyne 'The House will look forward to hearing from the hon. gentleman again'. The traditional Commons phrase of courtesy offered to MPs making their maiden...

John Biggs-Davison The replacement of Alec Home by Edward Heath was the end of the Conservative Party as it then was. The Shires and the Squires and the Services had already...

Jeffrey Bernard The only light relief I've had from the Olympic Games on television has been watching other people watching the wretched business. I say wretched since I'm up...

Andrew Alexander When Mr Healey announced his 'cuts' in the Commons last week, he told MPs that output was rising rather faster than he anticipated, at a rate of 5 per cent per...

Higgledy-piggledy cuts Nicholas Davenport Your chief job, Denis, said the prime minister (I imagine), in making these rather irrational and higgledy-piggledy cuts is to keep...

Sir: Peter Lilley's essay on Keynes and the discovery of his critivs—Friedman and Hayek—(17 July) is very valuable. The insights that the Austrian school offer are worth...

Sir: Peter Lilley's 'Rebellion and conformism in Keynes' (17 July) was interesting if only because of what was left out. It is surely not enough to imply that economists have...

Sir: I congratulate you on publishing Peter Lilley's article on 'Rebellion and conformism in Keynes', including his reference— though regrettably only a passing, unrepeated,...

Sir: Auberon Waugh's attack on workingclass mythology must send a . delicious frisson of daring down the spines of your poor middle-class readers demoralised by years of...

Sir: Mr Terence Prittie of Britain and Israel (Letters, 17 July) quotes the self-revealing plaudit from the black tyrant-murderer Idi Amin for the notion that 'over six million...

Sir: Tsk ! Tsk ! What do I read in my Spectator of 17 July ? A letter from a very angry Terence Prittie. He abominates the UN Secretary-General, Dr Waldheim, for condemning the...

Sir : You say on the front page of the 17 June issue in connection with Uganda that 'the Foreign Office must more than ever be an intelligence service, alert to looming dangers...

Sir : Poor mixed-up John Grigg (17 July). And such a pity he is tarred with the same brush as those he has invented for his criticism. How little national and cultural...

Sir: It is my sincere belief that the present Government are going the wrong way about tackling this country's balance-of-payments problems. By trying to support the value of...

Sir: Phillip Knightly's review of The Distant Drain (17 July) indicates where his own sympathies lie, but do these justify his describing as 'contentious' Mr Crozier's claim...

Sir: If your own dance, opera and theatre critics haven't already had a go at you for the 'Notebook' piece on stage design (17 July) then let me take you to task. It is...

Sir: Your 'Notebook' item about the expense to the taxpayer of the lavishly produced South Eastern Gas Consumers Council annual report queried, quite rightly in my opinion, the...

letter in your issue of 26 June, a bulger, according to Chambers's Twentieth Century Diction ary, the Concise Oxford Dictionary, Webster's Collegiate Dictionary and the Encyclo...

A Yankee at the Court Robert Skidelsky Churchill and Morton: Correspondence between Major Sir Desmond Morton and R. W. Thompson R. W. Thompson (Hodder and Stoughton £5.25) It...

Pat Rogers The Winding Stair: Francis Bacon, his Rise and Fall Daphne du Maurier (Gollancz £6.50) Too sane and thoughtful to make a hero for times like ours. Francis Bacon has...

Ludovic Kennedy Naval Policy Between the Wars Stephen Roskill (Collins E12.00) Britain is fortunate in having had two distinguished naval historians, one English, the other...

Harriet Waugh Conquered City Victor Serge (Gollancz £3.95) The Malacia Tapestry Brian Aldiss (Jonathan Cape £3.95) The Moon Lamp Mark Smith (Secker and Warburg £3.90) Victor...

Benny Green The First Modern Olympics Richard D. Mandell (University of California Press £7.00) The Baron Pierre de Coubertin is perhaps the most improbable figure in the...

Nick Totton The Fight Norman Mailer (Hart-Davis, MacGibbon £3.95) The latest instalment of Norman Mailer's ongoing autobiography is cast as an account of the Ali-Foreman world...

George Hutchinson The Press Inside Out Bill Grundy ( \N.H. Allen £3.95) Mr Grundy's book, as he tells us in his introduction, is addressed to the general reader who may wish to...

In progress Gerrit Henry New York When John Ashbery won the Pulitzer Prize in May for his recent book of poems. SelfPortrait in a Convex Mirror, the New York Times described...

Minority again Kenneth Hurren A Chorus Line (Drury Lane) The Circle (Chichester Festival) Banana Ridge (Savoy) The night I saw A Chorus Line—which was the second night of its...

Graham Jan Murray Who but Martha Graham would have the temerity to close a Royal Gala with a suicide, Jocasta's—a portent of dark deeds to follow during this first...

R.I.P. Mr Fields Ian Cameron The biggest weakness in Bugsy Malone (Leicester Square Theatre, U certificate) is its basic premise: the world of 'thirties gangster movies...

John McEwen Michael Craig-Martin (Upstairs Gallery, ICA till 30 July) is a paradoxical, tantalising artist whose work requires a certain amount of concentration on the part of...