After the latest row within the Conservative party one old 1 7estrninster hand commented, 'It's refreshing: they are e coming as bad as Labour have always been.' It was an a ,...

An amazing coincidence Ferdinand Mount Why now? Why did David Steel choose last Thursday to withdraw, no, sorry, to announce his intention to withdraw from the Lib-Lab Pact at...

P ayments to members of quangoes now total more than £20m. The news will not come as a surprise to anyone who has been Watching the proliferation of these interestin g bodies....

Avenge 0 Lord Auberon Waugh Tuesday of this week was Biafra's national day, being the eleventh anniversary of the declaration of Biafran independence on 30 May 1967. That...

chard West Johannesburg The South African mood, ever volatile, is markedly more happy than it was when I Was last here six months ago. The price of gold is up, the price of...

Desmond Stewart Cairo No nation on the planet can boast a more majestic symbol than Egypt's Sphinx. The `Horus in the evening' of the Pharaohs, mistranslated by the Arabs Abul...

Christine Verity Despite all the fun and games surrounding the 'Colonel B' episode, it may seem somewhat surprising that the general reactions to the verdict of the Lord...

Mary Kenny When Sir George Baker gave his ruling last week in the family division of the High Court — that a father or a husband has no rights in law over a woman's decision to...

Shirley Letwin The Tories may lose the next election, the pundits say, because Mrs Thatcher is defending individualism and everyone knows that individualists have no...

We wonder what the precise truth is as regards the feeling entertained by the English Poor, and especially the employed poor, towards the rich. Is it less or more bitter than it...

Anthony Hopkinson The Government is leading a national drive to save and recycle more waste'. That's what it says in a pamphlet published last year and issued by the National...

War in the City Nicholas Davenport Something like war has been declared by the City institutions on the Treasury. They are still refusing, as I write, to buy the lap' stocks...

Sir: Secondary education has certainly been subjected to destructive influences in recent years — and the Labour Party must bear much of the blame. A lunatic combination of...

Sir: Ironical that I should have to write to a conservative journal like yours to defend a conservative politician like Sir Robert Menzies, but Phillip Knightley's obituary...

20 May about the late Sir Robert Menzies by Phillip Knightley. Although Australians never took to him, we are told, he won 'election after election'. Gough Whitlam who was...

Sir: A uberon Waugh thinks that the thalidomide disaster should be seen, not in 'terms of money to be poured into the pockets of undeserving parents', but rather as 'an...

Sir: In your editorial about Zaire (27 May) you rightly say that the word 'tribal' could be changed to 'national', but you cannot continue from that point and suggest a...

Sir: Mr Hyam Maccoby (Letters, 20 May) might well have added that all the biblical laws about crop rotation (land resting) and property tenure evidence permanent occupation and...

Sir: In Ferdinand Mount's article 'The end of Vulgar Pessimism' (13 May), he says: 'The National Front sinks back into the effluent.' Although I very much wish they did, this...

Sir: So eager is Auberon Waugh to rap the knuckles of Harold Evans in his review (27 May) of thelatter's series of books that he ends up making an ass of himself. I'm not going...

Conservative alternatives George Gale The Binding of Leviathan William Waldegrave (Hamish Hamilton £4.95) This book, though short, is ambitious and is a good deal more...

Christopher Booker Samuel Johnson Walter Jackson Bate (Chatto £12.95) It is some forty years since Hugh Kingsmill first showed, in his fascinating little anthology, Johnson...

Patrick Cosgrave A Metter of Expediency Charlotte and Denis Plimmer (Quarter £6.25) 'Their Lordships', the Secretary to the Admiralty wrote to Sir Dudley North, Flag Officer...

Robert Sladelsky The Distintegrating West Mary KaldOr ,(Allen Lane £5.50) In the last few years, we have been intlir dated with economic 'summits' designed t° get the world...

Benny Green Four Rossettis Stanley Weintraub (W. H. Allen £5.95) The situation regarding the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood has now become what Dante Gabriel in his earlier days...

Francis King Momo Emile Ajar Translated by Ralph Manheim (Collins/Harvill £4.25) It has always amazed me that every Goncourt prize-winning novel should sell literally tens of...

Supplementary Flute Rodney Milnes Die Zauberflote (Glyndebourne) Tristan und 'wide (Covent Garden) Mozart called The Magic Flute 'Eine grosse Oper', a Grand Opera, not a...

Eternal war Germaine Greer The Tribades (Hampstead) There has come into existence, chiefly in America, a breed of men who claim to be feminists. They imagine that they have...

The new myth Ted Whitehead Coming Home (Leicester Square Theatre) ln Letter to Jane Godard ruthlessly explored the contradictions facing an actress who wants to change the...

Top Scots John McEwen The Robert Self Gallery has moved from Covent Garden to new premises at 9 Cork Street, The Gallery deals primarily in photographs and has some fine...

Explicit Richard Ingrams I am warning readers in advance that mY column next week could be a little out of the ordinary in the sense that it may have nothing at all to do with...

Baiting Patrick Marnham The great business of the country lies in the Production of food for the town, and a large Part of this in the slaughter of live animals — a process...

In and out Taki With British skies cloudless and temperatures soaring High Life can finally present its summer guide for prospective jet setters and potential Beautiful...