Last week two legal decisions were handed down which concerned the English law of contempt of court. In Strasbourg the European Court of Human Rights held that an injunction,...

A very private election Ferdinand Mount At 11.55 a.m. on the Monday before polling day, two women run out of the Way Ahead hair salon in Ilford High Road. Their hair is still...

On returning to London from abroad, my first sight of the election was Mrs Thatcher on television, looking a little too 'wellgroomed and perfumed'. She seemed shy and nervous...

Nicholas von Hoffman Washington The Rhodesian elections didn't pass unnoticed. We were given extensive television coverage and extended debate over how to react to the...

Edward Marston Berlin In a particularly unbuttoned strophe, the exiled East German singer Wolf Biermann — now living in the Federal Republic — describes Germany as the 'world's...

Edward Mortimer Ever since the Iranian revolution triumphed on 11 February a desperate struggle for its soul has been going on. That was foreseeable, and generally foreseen....

Richard West Johannesburg On this stay in Johannesburg, I chose a downtown hotel instead of one in the suburb of Hillbrow, so that I now risk getting mugged by blacks rather...

A sailor for his times Some people think that you can judge a man's character by the behaviour of his dogs. When he enters the room do they sit up and smile? Or do they slink...

Christopher Booker Four weeks ago, on the night the famous no-confidence debate launched us by one vote into this election, I scribbled down a guess as to the possible result....

Stephen Fay On the tenth day of her campaign Margaret Thatcher spoke to me; indeed, she spoke to me twice. Since I had been swelling the crowd for much of that time, this might...

Grace Wyndham Goldie Television is generally believed to have a profound effect upon the way voters behave in general elections. In fact nobody knows whether this is true, to...

Christopher Walker Belfast For pure entertainment value, the high spot of Northern Ireland's snide and predictably bigoted election campaign occurred in the Plush surroundings...

Eric Jacobs The shutdown of Times Newspapers should have been an election issue, perhaps the issue. You might have expected Margaret Thatcher, apostle of radical change, to...

There is every probability of a positive decrease in the joy, or gladness, or capacity of mirth within the Western woF1d. The desire to be 'out of it all' increases fast till...

Marcel Berlins The significance of the European Court of Human Rights decision in the Sunday Times case goes much further than the immediate effect it will have on the content...

Political shares Nicholas Davenport A leading firm of stockbrokers sent me a detailed and carefully thought out report on how a Conservative victory would affect the stock...

A Denning judgment Sir: I wish to bring to your attention our very deep concern over the attitude of the judiciary to working women, the working class and trade unions. This...

Sir: I must protest against your cartoon insult to Botticelli and Mrs Thatcher. 'The Birth of Venus' is Botticelli's masterpiece. It commemorates the legend that a god had his...

Sir: Mr Richard West never had a name for J o urnalistic accuracy, but he did cultivate one as something of an iconoclast. Now that's all over. Today he is plodding into middle...

S ir: On my return from a holiday I am an)azed to see that your correspondent H. ? inner (21 April) has been busy rewriting t he facts of history in a blatant attempt to O...

Sir: Richard Ingrams reveals his prejudice when he complains that in the television seriesfesus ofNazareth 'none of the characters looked like Jews.' May I inform Mr Ingrams...

Sir: Christopher Booker may have been intemperate in his account of Darwinism as a scientifically indefensible fantasy, but he nevertheless pointed towards real problems which...

Sir: Poor old Geoffrey Wheatcroft. 'Surprisingly', he claims (28 April), 'the last party to win an absolute majority of Scottish seats was the Conservatives in 1959.' Surprising...

Sir: Mr Callaghan is not the first purveyor of the Labour Party as a crusade. Back in 1962 Harold Wilson told the annual conference of the Scottish Labour Party that 'the Labour...

A brief and anomalous era Enoch Powell Watershed In India 1914-1922 Algemon Rumbold (Athlone £14) 'Watershed' is neither the word nor the metaphor which I find compulsive when...

J.A.G. Griffith rLaw, Legislation and Liberty Vol. 3: The „ r olifical Order of a Free People F. A. maYek (Routledge £5.95). P rofessor Hayek is disturbed by the failure of...

Anthony Nutting Suez: The Double War Roy Fullick and Geoffrey Powell (Hamish Hamilton £7.95) Roy Fullick's and Geoffrey Powell's book on Suez is a useful addition to the...

Richard Cobb The Companion Guide to the Ile de France Ian Dunlop (Collins maps and index, £7.95) Paris is the most fortunate of capitals, because despite the new line...

Christopher Booker he Great Composers: Reviews and 150 Mbardments Bernard Shaw Ed. Louis er oMpton (University of California £17.15) What exactly are we to make of the mass of...

Alan Watkins OR: an Autobiography J.P.R. Williams (Collins £5.95) Since 1945 Wales has produced four great full backs: in order of time, Lewis Jones, Terry Davies, Terry Price...

Paul Ableman Good as Gold Joseph Heller (Cape £4.95) A few weeks ago, I was hailing John Updike's The Coup as a masterpiece. Clearly, a critic shouldn't pluck masterpieces out...

The Abyssinian Waugh William Deedes Evelyn Waugh went to Abyssinia in the summer of 1935 as war correspondent for the Daily Mail with two books in mind. One, striking his rich...

Little-known greatness Hans Keller 0 n Monday 7 May at 8.30 at the Wigmore Hall, the BBC presents, on behalf of the European Broadcasting Union, the last recit cti of the...

Macho dreams Peter Jenkins The Taming of the Shrew (Aldwych) It was tempting to look for topical hints when last year's Stratford production of the Shrew arrived in London...

Lifestyles Ted Whitehead The Hardcore Life (Warner 2, West End) 41 °Iiie Movie (Leicester Square Theatre) Whores and Madonnas populate the films o f Paul Schrader. Taxidriver...

Symbolist John McEwen Anyone who has been misled by bad journalists and high prices into thinking Jackson Pollock an over-rated artist, should hurry to the Museum of Modern...

In the stars Richard Ingrams Writing two days before Britain's Day of Destiny I have to be careful what I say about the outcome. However, from the beginning of the campaign I...

Election times Tak, Election time is nostalgia time. Especially election nights. Just as everyone remembers where they were when they heard that J.F. K ennedy had been shot, so...

Teaboy Jeff-reY Bernard illiUsPital yet again. I'm beginning to feel I ke someone Egon Ronay has sent out on a 'outing mission. Last year the Royal Free – a F , n d to think I...

On cue Geoffrey Wheatcroft The house in Somerset where I spent last Friday to Monday has a croquet lawn, a lawn tennis court, a backgammon board and a pin g-pong table. I...