3 MAY 1975

Page 1

Mr Benn gets it wrong and right

The Spectator

The activities and the pronouncements of the Secretary of State for Industry know, it seems, no bound and no limitation. Active as a zealot in the campaign against our...

Page 3

Market matters

The Spectator

Sir: It is being suggested that it is unthinkable we should abrogate the Treaty of Rome, 1957. The OEEC, formed in 1948 and extended later to include Western Germany, failed in...

Sir: Sir Christopher Soames is soon to retire as our

The Spectator

EEC Commissioner. Does he know something we don't know, or, disfranchised by residence abroad, is he casting a substitute vote: with his feet? A. B. Knight 48 Great North...

Floating pound

The Spectator

Sir: Having been one of the first and foremost to applaud Mr (as he then was) Barber for floating the pound, you can hardly complain now (April 26) that, in the absence of...

Rowse and Shakespeare

The Spectator

Sir: It would be interesting to know what Dr Rowse's — or any other Shakespearian's — reply would be to these questions, arising from my article and his reply which appeared on...

Subsidising arts

The Spectator

Sir: A fortnight ago you were good enough to publish a letter of mine in which I requested justification for public patronage of certain fields of the arts, coinpelled upon us...

Library economies

The Spectator

Sir: Bucks County Libraries have had their estimate for the purchase of new books and binding cut from £303,050 to £76,645. As a result, the libraries will be buying no fiction,...

Peregrine

The Spectator

Sir: If your Peregrine is proposing to go on taking such senior journalists as Mr Mark Arnold-Forster to task for very infrequent and very slightly inelegant phrases ("I would...

From Mrs Sheila Burns Sir: Whoever 'Peregrine' is, heaven knows,

The Spectator

but his new column has something vaguely offensive about it, rather like reading Jennifer's diary. His bicycle rings a bell! I did once see Lord Hailsham cycling down St James's...

Sunrise

The Spectator

Sir: If the Sun was being delivered to Daily Mirror readers during the Mirror strike (Bill Grundy, last week) it certainly wasn't because of the "extra inducement" offered to...

Page 4

Political Commentary

The Spectator

Tory policy and state intervention Patrick Cosgrave Mr Michael Heseltine replied to the Prime Minister last week, on the subject of the Government's nationalisation of British...

Page 5

A Spectator's Notebook

The Spectator

No newspaper is renowned for its managerial —as distinct from its journalistic—ability and the latest tale of the Daily Express is an example of this. Its editorial machine...

Page 6

Spectator peregrinations

The Spectator

Norman St John-Stevas, who edited the collected works of Walter Bagehot, has offered to compile the correspondence of Hugh Leggatt, the St James's Street art dealer who is...

Westminster corridors

The Spectator

Monday, April 21 There has been published this day a pamphlet, entitled Treatise concerninig the Lowering of Scholarly Standards in our Colleges, the consequent Relapse of our...

Page 7

Will Waspe

The Spectator

Hugh Jenkins's Arts Ministry seems to . be uncommonly interested in the 'true' identity of Will Waspe. My Colfeague, art critic Evan Anthony, cordially invited to a small...

Book marks

The Spectator

There has been so much talk of the author's paperback royalty split over the past few months that you would think the book trade knew it backwards. Bookbuyer promises not to...

Page 8

Sovereign State

The Spectator

No alternative? Roy Sherwood As the time tor the proposed Common Market referendum draws nearer many Britons will be asking themselves just what acceptable alternatives for...

Divided parties

The Spectator

The two Harolds Humphry Berkeley Too many people imagine that, because the device of a referendum is being employed to ascertain the wishes of the British people on the Common...

Page 11

Eastern Europe

The Spectator

Oil and inflation Thomas Land The old fashioned dogma that centrally planned economies are invulnerable to crises of business confidence seems to be given more credence in the...

Page 12

itEVIEW OF BOOKS

The Spectator

George Gale on a conservative philosopher Few men are so uncontradictory as Michael Oakeshott: what he says and does and is are all of a piece; and that considerable number of...

Page 13

The fine arts

The Spectator

The big frieze Basil Taylor The Parthenon Frieze Martin Robertson and Alison Frantz (Phaidon 0.50) "My heart beat. If I had seen nothing else I had beheld sufficient to keep...

Page 14

Seeing it whole

The Spectator

John Steer Venetian Art from BOlini to Titian Johannes Wilde (Clarendon Press 0.95) Johannes Wilde was an art-historian, born in Hungary, Viennese by training, who came to...

Page 15

Dressing up

The Spectator

Cecil Gould Dress in Italian Painting 1460-1500 Elizabeth Birbari (John Murray £6.00) During the second half of the fifteenth century there were more good painters in Italy who...

Page 16

Man alive

The Spectator

Alastair Gordon Surrealist Drawings Frantisek Smejkal (Octopus Books £4.95) Man Ray Roland Penrose *(Thames and Hudson £5.50) Surrealism endures, and will continue to endure,...

Talking of fine arts

The Spectator

Bohemia, WI Benny Green As every artistic community is a contradiction in terms, and as there is something philistine to the verge of slapstick in the English temperament, it...

Page 17

Fiction

The Spectator

Fads Peter Ackroyd See The Old Lady Decently B. S. Johnson (Hutchinson £3.25) Snipe's SpinsterJeff Nuttall (Calder and Boyars £2.95) I know that it's very fashionable to read...

Page 18

SOCIETY TODAY

The Spectator

Medicine Bell, book and stethoscope John Linklater Doctors are taught to explain unwelcome, unacceptable and anti-social behaviour in terms of medical illness. The general...

Press

The Spectator

Defining freedom Bill Grundy Mr Ken Morgan, the General Secretary of the National Union of Journalists, is a mild-looking man, with a thin face, an exhaustedlooking moustache,...

Page 19

Advertising

The Spectator

Millions on the move Philip Kleinman Advertising people are a talkative lot, greatly given to bar-room gossip and rumour-mongering. They also tend to be people of good...

Page 20

Country life

The Spectator

Micocoulier, scops owls and others Denis Wood In France, May 1 is a holiday, and early in the morning, before the families start to go out in their cars, parts of Paris in the...

Religion

The Spectator

In God's name Martin Sullivan The Old Testament is a deep spiritual quarry. Scholars have helped us to work it and to fathom it, but the unskilled surveyor can pick up many a...

Page 21

REVIEW OF THE ARTS

The Spectator

Theatre A conversation with Peeves Kenneth Rum Jeeves, book and lyrics by Alan,_ Ayckbourn, music by Andrew Lloyd Webber (Her Majesty's) No Man's Land by Harold Pinter;...

Cinema

The Spectator

Soap and Watergate Kenneth Robinson Shampoo Director: Hal Ashby Stars: Warren Beatty, Goldie Hawn, Julie Christie, Lee Grant, Jack Warden 'X' Odeon, Haymarket (110 minutes)....

Page 22

pera

The Spectator

Monster -rat Rodney Milnes I have nurtured a fervent and hitherto secret passion for Montserrat Caballe ever since she (a) poured champagne all over her magnificent, er,...

Page 23

FINE ARTS

The Spectator

The art market The auction season Stanley Clark The 1974-75 season at Sotheby's began in an atmosphere of uncertainty as to what effect inflation would have on the art market...

Page 25

London galleries

The Spectator

Critical reflections Evan Anthony Did you buy this week's Spectator because of the promise on the cover — 'Fine Arts issue' — or in spite of it? Does the term inspire a tingle...

Page 29

L 7 pecb.0 or Ma y 3 1975

The Spectator

ECONOMICS AND THE CITY Planning agreement for the City? Nicholas Davenport It is proper to remind my colleague Skinflint that he was sceptical of the strength of this year's...

A fool and his money

The Spectator

The trouble-makers Bernard Hollowood I hear that many companies are being assailed by left-wing trouble-makers who buy one or two shares which entitle them to attend AGMs...

Page 30

Skinflint's City Diary

The Spectator

The interesting thing is that the dog only growled in the night. The published bits of Sir Don Ryder's report left out four chapters entirely, and cut out bits of another three....