After the natural disaster of the cyclonic flood in the Bay of Bengal came the man-made disaster of civil war, the suppression of the Bangla Desh secessionists of East Pakistan...

Established 1828 99 Gower Street, London WC1 E 6AE Telephone: 01-387 3221 Telegrams: Spectator, London Editor: George Gale Associate Editor: Michael Wynn Jones Literary Editor:...

It is increasingly required of those who oppose British adherence to the Treaty of Rome that they adumbrate their 'alter- native'. No such requirement has any logical necessity,...

BY 'A CONSERVATIVE' In the coming months many considerations will weigh with MPS and electors who feel obliged to reach firmer conclusions than they have so far about Britain's...

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And then, however you slice it, it's still boloney to try to pretend that the Broms- grove result was anything but a Tory dis- aster that was to be attributed to public dis-...

It was very noticeable how last week the mood of the marketeers moved daily, almost hourly, from the euphoric and ecstatic heights they achieved on Monday, when Mr Heath rose to...

Tory members of parliament—possibly con- trary to the general impression—are much more susceptible to the feelings of their local chairmen, their constituents, and indeed the...

Incidentally, I'd hate the public relations firm to get the credit for all the attention paid to the piece. The credit (or blame, as some may think) should be placed firmly and...

But talking to some of the pro-marketeering stalwarts in his party, I derive the impres- sion that they do not really care about prices or about unemployment—or about keeping...

We are now being told that the bounce is not on. I am delighted to hear it. But it certainly was on. It certainly was the very earnest hope of the senior party manage- ment that...

Although the New Statesman's excitable and sensation-mongering leading article on `The Royal Tax Avoiders' was not written by Dick Crossman but by former editor Paul Johnson, it...

Billed for boredom HUGH REAY The tedium of the debates on the committee stage of the Industrial Relations Bill is by now pretty well felt by all parties. The Conservatives...

The politics of science BERNARD DIXON I blinked at the sun-dazzled page. But there it was, immediately after 'Science; Wells's worship of in the index of the second volume of...

Probation pay NORMAN FOWLER, MP Neither public nor politicians get very worked up about the probation service. At best they see probation officers as worthy and dedicated men...

There was some disagreement among the judges about which of these should be the outright winner. Everyone except Chris- topher Booker decided that Lionel Bur- rows's story was...

It you are unable to obtain a book re- viewed in these coluinns. we shall be happy to arrange for a copy to be sent to you. Write to The Sales Manager, The Spectator, 99 Gower...

Plugging news DENNIS HACKETT In that teacup where dwells the Independent Television Companies Association, another storm has brewed lately: this time over its proposal to have...

CHRISTOPHER HUDSON The preparations started weeks beforehand. The ICA sent out eight-page programmes and stocked their shelves with Fictions, Laby- rinths, A Personal Anthology...

Wednesday 26 May: The number of East African Asians admitted into Britain is to be doubled to 3,000 a year. Last night a bomb exploded in a Belfast police station, killing an...

A trip with the dictionary ANTHONY LEJEUNE Just as hallucinogenic drugs, though not chemically harmful, may nevertheless per- manently damage the minds of addicts who...

Marcus Cunliffe on American literature Reviews by Allan Beattie, Leonard Schapiro Hugh Lloyd-Jones, Isabel Quigly and Auberon Waugh Michael Holroyd on Delacroix Selected...

The Anti-Appeasers: Conservative Opposi- tion to Appeasement in the 1930s Neville Thompson (our £2.25) Both these books are concerned, in varying degrees, with British foreign...

Shipwreck of a Generation Joseph Berger (Collins /Harvill) £2.50) Joseph Berger was born in Cracow in 1904. He emigrated to Palestine where in 1922 he helped to found the...

When you go on holiday, at home or abroad, we can post your SPECTATOR to you each week. Send your address and 121p per copy to The Sales Manager, 99 Gower St, London wcl.

Until well into the nineteenth century, as this book reminds us, the British universities were dominated by the Church; they aimed at strengthening, not at eliminating, the pre-...

This book gets off to a good start and then never quite fulfils its promise. Though you would not gather so from the Routledge edition, it has been published in the United...

Spectator The Spectator, 99 Gower Street, London W.C.1 Please supply the Spectator for one year El . two years ❑• three years NAME ADDRESS Cheque enclosed 0 MIMI MIN NM NUM...

Superstar Viva (Blond £2.50) I missed Philip Norman's first novel Slip on a Fat Lady and had in fact read nothing at all by him except various brief and unsolicited letters...

Asterix is a small, bulbous-nosed Gaul with a droopy yellow moustache, hero of a series of what the Americans call comic books and we haven't really got a name for : 'strip car-...

To coincide with the Children's Book Show 'last December. the SPECTATOR held a competition for children up to the age of ten. In the first part, which was in effect a qualifying...

No. 653: Yours explosively Competitors are asked to compose letters from any bygone literary figure accepting or declining an invitation to participate in a 'bookbang.' Limit,...

Odd bod holy: Competitors were asked to supply details of holidays specially arranged for such groups as political journalists, literary competition addicts, football train...

9 Novels 10 Colander 12 Agreeing 13 Stance 15 Anne 16 Powder-puff 19 Preference 20 Abut 23 Notice 25 Intimate 27 Hermetic 28 Daudet 29 Sing Sing 30 Reddle , Down: I Mandela 2...

No. 1484 DAEDALUS A prize of £3 will be awarded for the first correct solution opened on 14 June. Address solutions: Crossword 1484, The Spectator, 99 Gower Street, London WCIE...

• ARTS • LETTERS' • MONEY. LEISURE POP Sidetracked in Germany DUNCAN FALLOWELL If you imagine Germany to be all Bert Kaempfert and sausages, with opera in the rainy season,...

Backward gals KENNETH HURREN Like the demon bowler of the village green who is pasted all over the ground in his try- out with the county side, the promising young David...

Ready-mades CHRISTOPHER HUDSON If it does not stiffen the sinews, it at least summons up the blood, to see a few brave spirits battling out of the bed-chamber to locate their...

Trumps RODNEY MILNES The tone of Maurice Maievsky's tenor may not be quite as seductive, but power rather than beauty is needed for Hermann, and power M Maievsky certainly...

Commune market EVAN ANTHONY In an attempt to com- bat the boredom [of the sieges of Paris] news- papers were more in de- mand than ever. Every rumour, however pre- posterous,...

Time Out, pretentiously describing itself as The Living Guide to London, is a semi- glossy. It only seems like yesterday that it began as a single sheet of roneoed informa- tion...

by an old friend, J. H. Bell, I get one from another old (mutual) friend , setting forth an opposite view, viz. anti-Common Market. We have. all three, good Oxbridge degrees....

Sir: Whoever wrote Edward Heath's speech to the Conservative Women (a captive audience, if anyone ever had one—albeit more conned than served) doubtless un- wittingly 'drew two...

From Joanna M. Lyeett, B. A. Young, Robert M. Zakovitch, Patrick Cosgrave, Peter Fiddick, Kenneth Williams, Nicolas Freeling and others. The Nation's will Sir: Sincerity and...

im- portance of Common Market legi- slation with the relatively trivial abolition of retail price mainten- ance. Does the latter, however, which was forced through by Mr Heath...

a small circu- lation magazine which I feel com- plements the SPECTATOR. It is against the Common Market, and tries to find solutions to the popu- lation explosion, pollution,...

Sir: One expects illiteracy from the underground; but in the name of consistency shouldn't you now rename it the 'Undergrinded'?

Sir: It is understandable—laud- able, even—that a wine-writer should get obsessive about labels. Still, as far as 'Women's Pages' are concerned, Pamela Vandyke Price's...

the Tory party, then good riddance. Anyone who cannot make ends meet on a salary of £6,000 is clearly being blackmailed in much the same way as professors, who get £4,000 a...

Sir: Mr Peregrine Worsthorne (29 May) in reviewing The Greening of America refers to the Oxford Group and says that Dr Buchman 'was never taken seriously except by cranks.' As...

Sir: In reply to Thomas W. Gadd (22 May), 1 would point out that he is confusing the philosophical 'Absolute' with the use of the term 'absolutism' as a purely political...

ics. but all the same I am shocked by the attitude you have adopted towards the entry of Britain into the Common Market. I have been attached to the REP in 1939. Although I...

Sir: Bless Mr Herrington of New- castle, (22 May), I wasn't complain- ing about the confusions in The British General Election of 1970: it gave me a lot of innocent fun to see...

Sir: It is time that someone stood up to Mr Auberon Waugh who gets away with it each week with impunity whilst his helpless victims have no redress. He regularly assails...

Sir: There will be many in near- despair and amazement like your correspondent J. L. Insley (Letters, 8 May) at the revelations concern- ing the Joseph Rowntree Social Service...

Sir: I agree with the letter (22 May) about the typography and lay-out of your paper. In truth, I used to LIKE having the SPECTATOR lying on my table but I don't now. I think...

Sir: About two months ago you printed a kind of eulogy of Mr Nixon's state of the world address to the Congress. although the world press apparently was sceptical or...

Sir: I was interested to read in Clive Gammon's article (22 May) how the wily anglers had noticed the hook in the bait offered to them by the British Field Sports Society. Long...

Sir: As whipping-boy for Mr David Hare's dislike of a school of crime fiction writers, may I speak up? Not for our books, which are there to be criticised as anybody pleases,...

Sir: In his biography of Asquith, on p. 203. Roy Jenkins writes: . Asquith retired to Cannes, forgetting that he had an engage- ment to dine . . . at Windsor. This solecism led...

Sir: Why have someone review Graham Greene who is totally out of sympathy with him? A little iconoclasm can be good, but near- total destruction! I Mr Scruton dislikes the...

(Letters, 22 May) and to add a few of my own concerning the SPECTATOR'S de- teriorating presentation. The stapling is regularly insuffi- cient: quite often there is but one...

Duty called me to attend the Editor at a reception last week given by the proprietors of Raymond's Revuebar for the re- launching of Men Only magazine which might from the Look...

Richard Crossman was simple enough to be at the receiving end of an editorial fragging* when he printed Paul Johnson's vicious anti- monarchy piece as the New Statesman's leader...

For anyone who has recently been in the offices of any one of our young go-go bosses, Frank Harris's account of Ernest Terah Hooley's method of business circa 1898 will not be...

So it looks as if Joe Hyman is going to be able to buy John Crowther and Sons (Milnsbride) against Sir Frank Kearton's bid on behalf of Courtaulds. Sir Frank is still unsure...

Ladies' Day at Epsom received shabby treat- ment from the Sunday papers. Having devoted acres of print to the Derby, the Oaks was dismissed with a couple of lines on unopposed...

(1) A nervous lady travelling alone CHARLOTTE HOUGH `But if I have to change planes at Hong Kong I shall lose all my luggage!' I said neurotically. They all assured me that I...

It seemed oddly like deer-stalking: the long- legged guide keeping you breathless with his pace over hills thick with foot-clogging heather clumps and bog-patches and you have...

The hawthorns did not come into full flower until towards the end of May in my part of southern England. 1 note the fact with- out complaint: it never seems to matter much, to...

At the stage door a sparrow perches on the gate, just out of reach of a small black mongrel sniffing the railings. A few yards away four boys are playing tip-and-run in the last...

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