raw gsej rTI he net Wirttr e tiae er " r?Te * gin is 1 likely to continue as Prime Minister of Israel is so depressing that one is forced, in the interests of one's own...

After everyone decided that Mr Charles Haughey's Fianna Fail Party had probably won the Irish election Dr Garret FitzGerald emerged as leader of a Fine Gael-Labour coalition,...

But the greatest of these? Ferdinand Mount It is hard to warm to the Rev Sun Myung Moon. Persons who accumulate large quantities of the folding stuff and sizeable chunks of...

Toady toady toady Auberon Waugh Some weeks ago I suggested that Mrs 'Thatcher's foolish decision not to resume the creation of hereditary peerages was not only responsible for...

Nicholas von Hoffman

the Red Chinese to buy weapons at the great American arms bazaar, the vicepresident, George Bush, complained in Paris that the French had placed Communists in the Cabinet. Why,...

Richard West I thank you, sir, in the name of the Watertoast Sympathisers; and I thank you, sir, in the name of the Watertoast Gazette; and I thank you, sir, in the name of the...

John Palmer Luxembourg 'If this European Community was situated on the moon, it would fall apart in next to no time. It is just our mutual fear and mistrust of the outside...

Allan Massie Edinburgh `No, no, 'tis no laughing matter; little by little, whatever your wishes may be, you will destroy and undermine, until nothing of what makes Scotland...

Tim Congdon No one has yet suggested that Gulliver's Travels is a manual on political economy. Whatever else Swift intended, it was not his purpose to show that a country run by...

Iona Brown It is now seven years since the first five men's colleges in Oxford decided to go mixed, in the name of 'social realism'. As a result, the number of applications to...

Tony Samstag Let me tell you about Lonesome George. He is one of the giant tortoises lumbering around the Galapagos Islands and is the last of his race, or sub-species, unique...

The Lord Mayor on Saturday gave a banquet at the Mansion House to 'representatives of Literature', rather oddly selected, for Lord Lytton answered for poetry, Mr Justin McCarthy...

The monopoly game Paul Johnson The handling of the Observer takeover has been ridiculous. Of course the monopoly legislation is itself absurd, especially so far as Fleet...

The changing scene Tony Rudd Once upon a time there was a chemist's shop in Threadneedle Street more or less opposite the entrance to the Stock Exchange which was more like an...

Sir: Mr Grimond on 27 June has invited additional suggestions for a joint LiberalSDP agenda which will pulverise current party alignments before they pulverise Britain. May I...

respond to his article (27 June)? I think he raises the critical question, i.e. whether `to strike out for a new highly decentralised political economy with drastic changes . ....

Sir: I must take vigorous exception to Mr von Hoffman's revolting turn of phrase (20 June) when he dealt with the Israeli premier Mr Begin, to wit that the man was a 'homicidal...

Sir: With very many other readers of the Spectator I mourn the passing of JAC, though I am delighted to read in your non-leader 'Notebook' that reports of his demise are greatly...

JAC's imminent retirement. Stranded for 24 hours at Heathrow some time during the summer of 1971 I picked up my first Spectator, containing what must have been the first of his...

Sir: I share Simon Courtauld's concern in the democratic welfare of Spain and I enjoyed reading his article (20 Tune). May I add a postscript: Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo is the...

Sir: If anyone ever betrayed themselves with their own words it was Richard Ingrams when he attacked the ITV programme Credo for adopting what he describes as an 'anything goes'...

Sir: Mr Rees-Mogg's article gives a masterly analysis of the revolution of morals and of money (13 June). In dealing with morals I am surprised he makes no mention of the change...

Sir: In your excellent Notebook item on the possible effect of tea drinking on Mr Benn's constitution (20 June) you overlooked one important clue to his illness. The doctors...

Anyone listening? P.J. Kavanagh Ode to the Dodo, Poems from 1953 to 1978 Christopher Logue (Cape pp. 176, £6.50 & £3.95) War Music; An account of Books 16 to 19 of Homer's...

Mark Amory W. H. Auden, a biography Humphrey Carpenter (Allen & Unwin pp.460, £12.50) First provenance; it is well established that it does the eminent no good to forbid...

Catherine Peters Anne Thackeray Ritchie: A Biography Winifred Gerin (Oxford University Press pp. 310, £12.50) Thackeray's daughter; Leslie Stephen's sister-in-law; close friend...

George Gale Forged in Fury Michael Elkins (Piatkus pp. 274, £6.95) 'We conjure you: In the name of the shed blood of our children — take vengeance! Avenge our tortured mothers,...

Paul Atterbury Orpen: Mirror to an Age Bruce Arnold (Jonathan Cape pp. 294, £16) Since the early years of this century it has been the practice to regard English painting as...

A.N. Wilson The Company of Women Mary Gordon (Jonathan Cape pp.291, £6.50) Most books' are so boring that I raise my glass to anyone who can write a novel which it is...

Art goes West John McEwen Westkunst (Rheinhallen, Cologne, till 16 August) and Paris-Paris, 1937-1957 (Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, till 2 November) are two mammoth...

Death wish Peter Ackroyd From the Life of the Marionettes ('X', Academy Two) Ingmar Bergman has, recently, become something of a joke the heavy silences, the broken desperate...

Ladies' night Mark Amory One Woman Plays (Cottesloe) Room (Royal Court) Red Door Without a Bolt (The Old Half Moon) Wonderland (King's Head) A feminist week in the theatre....

Quite Rodney Milnes A Midsummer Night's Dream (Glyndebourne) The Peter Hall Dream has been showered with critical praise from every known quarter, and the public seems to like...

Unoriginal Richard Ingrams Writing in the Daily Mail last week Ms Mary Kenny rounded on Mr Terry Jones, the new compere of Paperbacks (BBC1), for not being properly dressed....

Papa cavalier Tab This week I have been celebrating the twentieth anniversary of Ernest Hemingway's death. It is not surprising that in today's world of anti-hero chic, in...

Near misses Jeffrey Bernard It's been an extremely heavy week. Both Taki's and my book-launch parties went off pretty well, with mine, oddly enough, at Kettners just shading...