4 DECEMBER 1971

Page 3

FISHY FRENCH FLOUNDERS

The Spectator

Two Cabinet Ministers and an Under-Secretary of State have travelled to Brussels to seek agreement with the European Economic Community on a fisheries policy, and have returned...

Page 4

IN DEFENCE OF THE SETTLEMENT

The Spectator

No area of British overseas policy has in recent years aroused such anger in discussion, such disregard of reasoned argument, such carelessness of the true interests of this...

Page 6

THE SPECTATOR'S] NOTEBOOK

The Spectator

It is being whispered around that when Lord Chelmer delivers his report on the Tory party organisation to the Prime Minister he will recommend the removal of the more grotesque...

Page 8

POLITICAL COMMENTARY

The Spectator

TrrT Hugh Macpherson The Labour Party is having a collective nervous breakdown. That is the sad conclusion which one finds among the men thinking about the future of Her...

Page 9

SCIENCE

The Spectator

Bernard Dixon Drug taking by sportsmen is in the news again, with renewed concern about the use of anabolic steroids to build up body bulk in Shot putters and related...

Academick miscegenation

The Spectator

Mercurius Oxoniensis Good brother Londiniensis, It grieves me to have missed you on your late (unannounced) visit to Oxon, but alas! 'twas an ill-chosen day, for my brethren...

Page 10

A bad lookout

The Spectator

Oliver Stewart Fog was said to have been the cause of the collision between a Liberian tanker and a small British coaster off Beachy Head on November 1. And in the coming weeks...

Page 11

PORTRAIT

The Spectator

Home abroad Patrick Cosgrave Some years ago I was sitting at a dinner, listening to Sir Alec Douglas-Home making a speech when, after a reference to foreign policy, my...

Page 12

MIDDLE EAST

The Spectator

Assasination in Cairo Martin Short Wasfi Tel was a generous host, a patriot and King Hussein's man, but the tragic division within Jordan these last few years has obscured the...

Page 13

Joseph Lee on modern Ireland

The Spectator

The contrasts between the two states on Irish soil constitute one of the more intriguing peripheral paradoxes of recent history. The Scots-Irish now cling so stubbornly to a...

Page 14

Lettered barbarians

The Spectator

Barbara Hardy In Bluebeard's Castle: Some Notes Towards the Re-Definition of Culture George Steiner (Faber £1.75) In Bluebeard's Castle is exquisitely responsive to its title,...

Page 15

Auberon Waugh on new novels

The Spectator

Flash for Freedom George MacDonald Fraser (Barrie and Jenkins £1.75) The Umbrella Man Giles Gordon (Allison and Busby £2.10) The Christmas rush is now over and there is time to...

Page 16

Black masses

The Spectator

John Dunn Power and Society in Africa Jacques Maquet (Weidenfeld and Nicolson £1.75) Nigeria: Crisis and Beyond John Oyinbo (Charles Knight E2.50) No African state is yet quite...

Page 17

Down and outcast

The Spectator

Gillian Freeman Down and Out in Britain Jeremy Sandford (Peter Owen £2.75) Outcast London Gareth Stedman Jones (OUP £4.50) The assistance of the police was requested by the...

Page 18

Eyes on our Times

The Spectator

Compendiums of instant history deserve to be forgotten with the speed of a snap judgement. It might seem t urious, therefore, that a scrapbook like The Life and Times of Private...

Page 19

Bookend

The Spectator

Two weeks ago, this column noticed with regret that Dylan Thomas's famous Boat House at Laugharne was on the point of falling into the sea, and that even the hideous Welsh...

Page 20

Will Waspe's Whispers

The Spectator

Mr Peter Craig-Raymond runs a service for actors called Professional Casting Report — a name neatly chosen, it would seem, so that both he and it can be known as PCR. What it...

Page 21

CINEMA

The Spectator

Problems of rape and royalty Tony Palmer I have to report that the cinema took a Slight turn for the worse this week with the opening of two long-awaited and eagerly expected...

The Spectator's Arts Round-up)

The Spectator

Television Omnibus: Humphrey Lyttelton and our contributor, Benny Green, trace the life of the Glenn Miller Orchestra, and the 'sound' is recreated by the Syd Lawrence band, in...

Page 22

OPERA

The Spectator

Blood sports Hugh Macpherson Monteverdi's opera The Coronation of Poppea tells a sordid tale. Nero rejects his good and faithful wife Ottavio and when the noble Seneca objects...

Page 23

THEATRE

The Spectator

Nothing doing Kenneth Hurren The early-bird playgoer who has an opportunity to browse through his programme before the curtain goes up on The Balcony, at the Aldwych, will not...

ART

The Spectator

Who's kidding Evan Anthony It's treacle time in the galleries, and we have pictures of the kiddies, by the kiddies, and for the kiddies. Bah, what a lot of humbug there is...

Page 24

MONEY

The Spectator

On the brink Nicholas Davenport In recent weeks I have more than once suggested that our long-term bull market had started off with too hot a pace — a rise of about 40 per...

Juliette's Weekly Frolic , I have at last realised that standing

The Spectator

the right fellow a powerful drink in the comfort of the Members' Bar is a far more reliable method of gleaning information than lonely nights of frustration with the form book....

Page 26

SKINFLINT'S CITY DIARY

The Spectator

Malcolm Horsman is one of Jim Slater's best apprentices and runs Rail! International. This week they bid £11 million for Consolidated Tin Smelters, 70 per cent of whose shares...

Page 27

Pamela Vandyke Price

The Spectator

People, one is constantly being forced to admit, are odd. And about wine they are at their oddest. To start with, they know so Much. Of course they can tell claret from...

SPORTING LIFE

The Spectator

Clive Gammon A rare ray of hope for salmon-eaters and salmon-catchers has come from Norway. For those unacquainted with the present plight of the Atlantic salmon, I should...

Page 28

MARGARINE

The Spectator

Pronounced with a very hard 'G' Yvonne Brock The other day, as I wrote ' margarine ' on my shopping list, I said 'Maggie Ann' to myself, and wondered why. Soon I had embarked...

Page 29

No consent, no entry

The Spectator

From Mrs Isla M. Atherley Sir: Re your article 'No consent, no entry' (November 6) and Mr 'puffin's letter opposing a referendum on the grounds that one would "limit the...

Pair rents

The Spectator

Sir. In his Political Commentary (November 20) Mr Hugh Macpher,aon describes the present Housing id ill as an attempt to bring sanity to rent policy. May I, with respect,...

Anti-lib

The Spectator

Sir: Patrick Cosgrave's ' Anti-lib ' (November 27) does like so much of the campaign against Women's Lib, play into the hands of its organisers by attacking it on the wrong...

The Irish mess

The Spectator

Sir: Mr Anthony St John Hamilton's reply to Mr FitzGibbon's letter and that from Brigadier W. F. K. Thompson (November 20) are both prime examples of prejudice and wilful...

Page 30

Emerging men

The Spectator

Sir: May I call public attention to the growing corruption of appointment procedures in the universities through the involvement of the press in the discussion of appointments...

Peter Hain Fund

The Spectator

Sir: I read with great interest Mr Dinshaw's letter (Spectator, November 13) in which he tells us that " We have decided to establish the Peter Hain Fund to ensure that Mr...

Waugh bashing

The Spectator

Sir: Auberon Waugh's book reviews are pretty puerile, and whilst they liven up that notoriously provincial tea-room that is, or passes for, English literary life, no one takes...

Juliette's funds

The Spectator

Sir: I would like to say that I am fascinated by Juliette's tips coming on the Davenport page, which is otherwise devoid of them. I gladly guarantee the balance of 25 per cent...

Gray's Elegy further considered

The Spectator

From Professor G. S. Rousseau Sir: Although Miss Heriot calls me (Letters, October 9) "a displaced gossip columnist in the chair of a professor of literature " and accuses me of...