Battle of Britain T he Prime Minister defended his eco- nomic policy before the House of Com- mons, which had been reconvened follow- ing the sterling debacle of the previous...

Mr Smith thinks he has four years to come up with some policies. Events may beg to differ SIMON HEFFER ormality has not prevailed at Black- pool this week. From the moment...

A professional comedian would have been delighted to match the volume of merry mirth on both sides of the House during last week's emergency debate on the economy. John Smith...

Does one hoot or does one not? AUBERON WAUGH L ast week The Spectator printed a com- plaint about this column from a correspon- dent in Bruton, North Somerset, called D.C....

John Major has reduced our living standards by 4 per cent, argues Nicholas Ridley, speaking up for British industry THE CONSERVATIVE Party Conference begins next week. The...

A CASE OF suicide has excited great public interest. A young woman, whose real name was Marion Sharpe, but who had been known on the stage as 'Ruby Russell', died last week in...

persist.. . I WALKED on to the ward last week to see an old friend of the hospital lying tri- umphantly in bed. I say triumphantly because, during his last admission, he...

John Laughland explains why nobody likes the Germans, least of all themselves MY GRANDFATHER was born in the Old Kingdom of Rumania. His father, a Pole of German extraction...

Noel Malcolm observes the success of extreme nationalist parties in Rumanian politics Bucharest PLUS cc, change, plus c'est la meme chose may be an overworked proverb in...

What do Euro Disney and Boris Yeltsin have in common? They both take advice from the same secretive bank, reports Martin Weyer THE SEVENTH-floor lobby of an almost anonymous...

Isabel Wolff helps to celebrate a great landmark in the history of British pest control I'M NOT really sure what the collective noun for pest controllers is. A 'swarm', quite...

Michael Heath

Allan Massie charts the sad decline of deference, order and respect in Britain ON 9 JULY 1937, Harold Nicolson left for France on what his son Nigel, the editor of his...

Two years on, we have to guess again and get it right CHRISTOPHER FILDES A Hampton, Virginia this time of year I like to study the price of martinis in their natural habitat,...

Sir: Stephen Fay complains about the 'snobbish atmosphere' at the crush bar at Covent Garden ('Sticking up for Jeremy Isaacs', 12 September). My complaint is about the presence...

Sir: When Mr Charles Moore writes (Another voice, 12 September) that it would not have occurred to Lord Salisbury to set the price of money, that being up to the Bank of...

Sir: One of The Spectator's strongest assets in the last two or so years has been its cov- erage of the debate on Europe. This has been despite, indeed probably because of, its...

is bemused by the tendency of Tory MPs to write to The Spectator demanding that you cease criticism of the Maastricht Treaty (Letters, 26 September)? I trust that You will...

Sir: I regret to see that The Spectator misses no opportunity to publish biased and inac- curate articles about Greece. Thus, following Mr Noel Malcolm's dia- tribe against...

Sir: Since Ludovic Kennedy and I have a perfectly sincere difference of opinion on the subject of euthanasia generally and the case of Dr Nigel Cox in particular, and since he...

Mad, bad Max Alastair Forbes BEAVERBROOK: A LIFE by Anne Chisholm and Michael Davie Hutchinson, f20, pp. 589 citing by chance with his own long fingers stained brown by walnut...

Charles Moore JESUS by A.N. Wilson Sinclair-Stevenson,L15, pp. 269 T here is no historical task which so reveals a man's true self as the writing of a Life of Jesus', says...

Desmond Shawe-Taylor BENJAMIN BRITTEN: A BIOGRAPHY by Humphrey Carpenter Faber, f20, pp. 680 A ter his success with the life of Wystan Auden, it comes as no surprise that the...

Frances Partridge BERTRAND RUSSELL: A LIFE by Caroline Moorehead Sinclair-Stevenson, £20, pp. 596 T ree passions, simple but over- whelmingly strong, have governed my life',...

Peter Levi SHYLOCK by John Gross Chatto, £18, pp. 355 T he Merchant of Venice was a play set for some exam in about 1944 or 1945, and my mother took me to see it with Donald...

Francis King DAUGHTERS OF THE HOUSE by Michele Roberts Virago, £14.99, pp. 172 T he past is a palimpsest: so many con- flicting memories and imaginations have scrawled their...

John Jolliffe HATRED AND CONTEMPT by Peter Rawlinson Chapmans, f14.99, pp. 277 his splendid political and historical thriller, by a former Attorney General, is the story of...

Fate is the choosing without the knowing That the choice is proving you to be What you already are. Fate is deciding without the thinking That this deciding will prove you to...

Exhibitions 1 Juan Gris (Whitechapel Gallery, till 29 November) Cubism's grey area Giles Auty H ave you gone through days when the words in a book or newspaper you are...

Not entirely pukka Martin Gayford I n the debate about elitist versus popular art, of which we have heard so much of late, jazz is an anomaly. It isn't entirely accepted as a...

In the Line of Development: The Architecture of Yorke Rosenberg Mardall 1930-1992 _ (RIBA Heinz Gallery, till 17 October) Learning to like Modernism Gavin Stamp 'Their name...

Norfolk Portraits (Castle Museum, Norwich, till 29 November) County nic , nnlp _ . guts m 'um - .. I rem r m pinti, 11-_■_ti-rfe-k - r-efiffir e ir "lei" ...A London,...

Colquhoun and MacBryde (Royal Court) Rosmersholm (Young Vic) Valentine's Day (Globe) It Runs in the Family (Playhouse) Artistic licence Sheridan Morley A s Christopher Howse...

A monthly selection of forthcoming events recommended by The Spectator's regular critics OPERA Glyndebourne Touring Opera (0273 812321) be g ins its autumn tour with a season...

Bitter Moon ('18', selected cinemas) at sea Vanessa Letts H ere for once is a film which faces head-on the anguish felt by people of talent when their merits go unrecognised...

Fast and furious Martyn Harris W hen a good programme has been running several years producers have an irritating habit of revamping it with whizzy extras which destroy the...

Whiff of scandal Taki T he latest memoir about Teddy Ken- nedy, written by a former Kennedy aide with an unstable background, rings a bell. Seventeen years ago Teddy flew into...

No sermons in stones Nigel Nicolson CSouillac (Lot) rossing the Channel is easy now. The ferries are luxury coaches leaving, it seems, e very hour, and the formalities are...

IT DID NOT start well. On phoning to book a table for dinner, I was asked for a credit card number. As far as I know, this is a new practice this side of the Atlantic, dis-...

Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1747 you were invit- ed to supply an imaginary interview by a third-rate journalist visiting the home of a third-rate creative artist, printed in...

Perfect Raymond Keene L ast week I managed to squeeze in the bare score of the 11th game in the Fischer — Spassky match. However, the moves alone cannot do justice to what...

A first prize of £20 and a bottle of Graham's Malvedos 1979 Vintage Port for the first correct solution opened on 19 October, with two runners-up prizes of £10 (or, for UK...

The lager and the lingo Frank Keating AFTER 17 months injured (accompanied by about 17 years' worth of headline hulla- baloo), it predictably took less than half a proper...

Dear Mary.. . Q. I am the editor of a well-known publica- tion. On my desk I have a direct-line tele- phone whose number I have given out to Only about seven people. Yet about...