`I'm putting together the leader of the next third party, Miss Benson, it's the only answer.' A T a by-election in Richmond, North Yorkshire, the Conservatives suffered their...

LAST Tuesday, the European Parlia- ment's Committee on Human Rights met in Brussels to hear testimony about condi- tions inside Rumania. Doina Cornea and three other Rumanian...

The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone 01-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 242 0603 ART FOR ARTISTS' SAKE M argaret Drabble's letter to the inde- pendent...

Mr Ashdown discovers a new principle: no member, one vote NOEL MALCOLM H istory never entirely repeats itself, but there are times when politicians seem grimly determined to...

DOMINIC LAWSON I n 1960 Christine Keeler met Mandy Rice-Davies. Three years later they brought down the British Government.' These two sentences, the first a fact, the second a...

The junior boy who sits in judgment on us all AUBE RON WAUGH The vulgarity and ignorance of these populist responses are distressing enough, but perhaps such distress is the...

Mr Gorbachev repudiates the personality cult he survive without creating one of his own? Moscow IN the past', a Moscow journalist recently asked Vitaly Korotich, the...

Social engineers have pushed the poor onto the streets of America's cities. Ambrose Evans Pritchard reports Washington TONIGHT there are 22 homeless women at the Rainbow...

Tony Samstag celebrates the end of Iceland's 80-year ban on beer Oslo ON Wednesday Iceland finally came in from the cold. It is no longer a beer-free zone. To celebrate the...

Michael Heath

you need not be a fascist to prize British art IN HIS article on John bully-boys (18 February) Ferdinand Mount offered a vig- nette of myself and of Modern Painters, the...

Richard West visits the city where Rushdie's book was first burnt Bradford THERE have been two newspaper photo- graphs in the last 20 years which instantly took on an...

This is the fourth of our Lent series on English spiritual authors. IN HIS youth Newman was convinced of two things: the existence of himself and of God. Other things had an...

The media: Paul Johnson argues that the Ayatollah is not alone in his intolerance THE Rushdie affair has so far been pre- sented as a clash between Western civilisa- tion and...

The virtues of intoxication JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE I am sure it still is: and I would not dream of suggesting that the Chancellor, or any of his troops, had anything to do with the...

Sir: My nuclear industry colleagues and I, of varying political persuasions, read Andrew Kenny's article (Nuclear power? Yes, please', 11 February) with great enjoyment. Anyone...

Sir: Your correspondent who fears that a `Philistine' Lloyds Bank is about to evict the proprietor of the widely acclaimed Hall's Antiquarian Bookshop in Tunbridge Wells...

insulted the British people and police, deserves their protec- 'I may not be able to sell your book, but I may be able to get you on a list of signatures on a letter to the...

Sir: Ludovic Kennedy (Diary, 11 Febru- ary) recalls chairing hustings meetings with the two Davids. I did the same — more than Ludo did, if the truth be told, and in two...

Sir: Mr Paddy Ashdown says that electoral pacts between political parties are un- democratic. How does he reconcile that view with his advocacy of proportional representation,...

Sir: Grateful though I am to Mr Auberon Waugh for his kind remarks about me, I must correct one of the opinions he attri- butes to me (Another Voice, 25 February), if only to...

Sir: A headline in your issue of 11 Febru- ary confides: 'Paul Johnson asks: do we publish too many books?' Yes. His own. Henry Fairlie The New Republic, 1220 19th Street NW,...

Sir: Whether or not it makes sense for 62,063 books to be published in a year in Britain, it is clearly nonsense to compare books with groceries — or with vacuum cleaners, or...

Sir: I am reluctant to prolong the debate about my uncle's actions off Crete, particu- larly as some of those who were there have written in forthright terms to the Sunday...

Sir: As a prefect at Clay Cross Tupton Hall Grammar School I had a part-time job of cleaning the chemistry laboratory, ringing lesson bells and inscribing the names of pupils...

Sins of the Fathers Ferdinand Mount THE BODY AND SOCIETY: MEN, WOMEN AND SEXUAL RENUNCIATION IN EARLY CHRISTIANITY by Peter Brown Faber, 82.50, pp.504 B ishop Felix of Nantes,...

Our genes are ghosts condemned to immortality; Re-incarnated, they drift on after we die, Preserving the colours, contours, benchmarks of the race, The nose, the chin, the...

Anne Chisholm LILLY: REMINISCENCES OF LILLIAN HELLMAN by Peter Feibleman Chatto & Windus, £14.95, pp.364 N ot long ago Lillian Hellman was widely admired both as a writer and...

my walls Dancing over and over with her shadow, Whose hair is twined in all my waterfalls And all of London littered with remem- bered kisses. So I am glad That life contains...

Francis King STIRRINGS STILL by Samuel Beckett John Calder, 17,000, pp.23 P eople have been impelled to write books out of love, hate, indignation, a desire for revenge, a...

Last week Noel Malcolm reviewed The Letters of Marsilio Ficino Volume IV, not /X, as printed.

Exhibitions 116th Exhibition of Watercolours and Drawings (Thos. Agnew & Sons, till 17 March) Francis Danby Jacques-Laurent Agasse (Tate Gallery, till 9 and 2 April...

B artok in black leather Deirdre McMahon he Hungarian State Ballet, currently T paying its first visit to London (it has appeared at the Edinburgh Festival), has long had...

last week runs from 8 to 21 March, not 12 March as mistakenly printed.

Falstaff (Coliseum) The Ghost Sonata (Queen Elizabeth Hall) Life-enhancing fun Rodney Milnes V erdi'se last opera is quite indestructi- ble. This is not to suggest that the...

Virgin (`18', Cannon Piccadilly) Innocents abroad Hilary Mantel I n this week's summery and Gallic con- text, it seems perverse to quote Ivy Compton Burnett, but it is she...

Juno and the Paycock (Lyttelton) Over My Dead Body (Savoy) A whiff of naturalism Christopher Edwards B 4 lessed Virgin where were you when my darling son was riddled with...

Green thoughts Wendy Cope iving in London is terrible. How can we put up with it? We're mad. These thoughts go through my head several times every week and I do not doubt that...

regular critics. MUSIC The Easter period is heralded by three settings of the Passion: the St Matthew Passion by the Spanish composer Alonso Lobo, sung by Ian Partridge with...

Called to the bars Taki G ood old Teddy Kennedy. He has yet to let us down. As soon as things begin to get a little boring he reverts to type and, presto, there's merriment...

My Sydney good food guide Jeffrey Bernard I used to be vain enough to have wanted to be invited on to Desert Island Discs• Now, back in England after two weeks in Australia,...

Making a meal of it Alice Thomas Ellis Then there's breakfast. You have to eat the breakfast because you've paid for it even if you usually start the day with a mug of Coca...

A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or, for UK solvers, a copy of Chambers English Dictionary — ring the word `Dictionary' above) for the first three correct...

Supergirl Raymond Keene udit Polgar (the twelvejyear-old victrix of the Hastings Challengers) and Zsuzsa, her twenty-year-old sister, have generally been reckoned • the most...

Sorry, wrong title Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1563 you were asked for the blurb that might have been written for a well-known hook had the title been slightly different —...

concept to get their teeth into. London's newest addition to the de luxe hotel circuit, the Halcyon Hotel in Holland Park, is the stuff Greek myths are made of. I should like to...

I 5 T 0 5 R 1 ° S E 7 5 3 H 9 AWDIET H EROCERA E 1 Tri.4 E A 9 Ul NE 0 1° V E "13 T )% H E L Lib P S C TI AI S I AALFILSA NI T 11 RANI S NI L 2 3k RIOA TF +ET R 0 K E D 3 % U...

Please supply an extract (maximum 150 words) from a book of advice to worried children as to hoW to deal with their parents (or a parent) during a difficult phase. Entries to...

Clean, stark and handsome Auberon Waugh However I decided not to try any chenin blanc from the Loire on Spectator readers for fear they decided I had gone mad. The best dry...

TOTAL C/o Burwell and Jones, 24 Fore Street, Ipswich, Suffolk 1P4 1JU Tel. 0473-231723 White Price Number Total Coteaux d'Aix en Provence 1986 Commanderie de la...