5 MAY 1984

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Portrait of the week

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M rs Thatcher issued a statement celebrating five years in office which despite its vague phrasing was taken to mean she meant to spend another five years in office. A Commons...

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Politics

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Mrs Thatcher's jubilee 10111 y the time that you read this, you will .1-/have experienced five years of govern- ment by Mrs Thatcher — 'five eventful and action-packed years',...

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Notes

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The Home Secretary made the le g al posi- tio n in the Libyan siege sound remarkably straightforward: Britain was Powerless to enter the People's Bureau, or arres t the...

Debrett's relevance T his year, in what the publishers call 'a

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revolution at Debrett', Debrett's Peerage is subsumed in a book called Debrett's Handbook. The main innovation is 'an extremely relevant and contemporary "who's who" ' with a...

Euro-abstention

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I t is reassurin g that the onset of the elections to the European Parliament is being g reeted with whatever is the opposite of a fanfare. If the main political parties were...

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Another voice

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Time for an outcry Auberon Waugh I the general over-excitement about my 'admirer Colonel Gaddafi we seem to have lost sight of Michael Bettaney, the former MI5 officer, whose...

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Diary

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F or a few months after Mr Neil Kinnock's election, his supporters and old opponents were pleasantly surprised. Though his performances at Prime Minister's Questions left...

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The undeclared war

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Timothy Garton Ash M anagua is a city without maps. spent hours on my first day there, cruising in a dilapidated Buick through the fantastic earthquaked wasteland of the city,...

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Legislating after Stalin

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Bohdan Nahaylo O n 4 April a letter in the Times from Lord Coggan and others drew atten- tion to a new Soviet law which severely penalises dissenters who receive financial or...

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The US election

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Peking primary Christopher Hitchens Washington A s designed and scripted by his White House advisers, Ronald Reagan's China jaunt was a well calculated political gambit. In...

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Anti-state obsequies

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Frank Johnson Paris ierre Frank, one of Trotsky's last sur- .1 viving secretaries, thus one of the world's most senior Trotskyists, therefore one of the world's least famous...

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Poetry and Buggins

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James Fenton I a recent Spectator (21 April) A.N. .1-Wilson was discussing the forthcoming election for the Oxford Professorship of Poetry and urged readers to vote for Peter...

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The press

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The mummy factor Paul Johnson E veryone in Fleet Street is delighted that the war between the Tinies at the Observer is over and hopes that the peace which so abrubtly broke...

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In the City

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Gift-wrapped jets Jock Bruce-Gardyne I n day s of yore I never had much difficulty in containing my enthusiasm for the Na- tional Enterprise Board. It always looked to Me like...

One hundred years ago

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On Wednesday afternoon, Dr Cameron brought on his Bill for legalis- ing Cremation — the burning of the dead body — which he advocated on sanitary grounds. He denied that any...

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Sir: David Carlton writes: 'Let us remember, too, that any

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British citizen living or working in Libya must have had some notion of the , risks involved and accordingly is not entitled to expect to be rescued now or in the future at too...

Sir: Clearly, no power when subscribing to the Vienna Convention

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could have imagined that its terms could ever be exploited to get a killer off the hook. All the same, in the interests of civilisation, it must go on as signed until a change...

Too late

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Sir: It is good to see that L.H. Myers has a t last been re-issued (Books, 21 April). 011 , e or two points in David Lancast er 5 , admirably appreciative review of The RE 9° `...

Scargill's warning

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Sir: 'As bad as each other'? Charles Moore (Politics, 21 April) appears to distinguish Mrs Thatcher from Mr Scargill because she said she intended to abolish the GLC and the...

Letters

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Libyan horrors Sir: I well understand Auberon Waugh's reluctance (Another voice, 28 April) to believe that the Libyans actually sent the horrifying instructions to the...

My friend Louis

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Sir: You hardly need to say that you do not agree with Louis Eaks on Palestine or th . ! Middle East but to sneer (Notes, 28 Apr il) about convictions at the beginning of t h e...

Fatuous and naïve

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Sir: Much of what Colin Welch (Centrepiece, 14 April) has to say about South Africa is true, especially his appreciation of the complexity of the situation and how fatuous and...

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Centrepiece

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The mad cacophonist Colin Welch w hat was recently and interminably bursting forth from France Musique, the often admirable French Third Pro- gramme, was, alas, neither French...

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Books

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The inherent vice Robert Conquest 1917: The Russian Revolutions and the Origins of Present-Day Communism Leonard Schapiro (Temple Smith £12.95) T he death of Leonard Schapiro...

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No home for Mr Biswas

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Ferdinand Mount Fi nding the Centre: Two Narratives (Andre Deutsch £7.95) V. S. Naipaul D oes man qualify as a migratory species? Or are human migrations too random, violent...

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Subscribe to

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The Spectator for twelve months and receive FREE either THE KNOX BROTHERS A biography by Penelope Fitzgerald or UNDER SIEGE Literary Life in London 1939.45 by Robert...

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Gallant she-soldiers

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Isabel Colegate The Weaker Vessel: Woman's Lot in Seventeenth-Century England Antonia Fraser (W eidenfeld and Nicolson £12.95) o f women's unnatural, insatiable lust,' wrote...

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The sandtable

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J. Enoch Powell Roman Foreign Policy in the Eas t A. N. Sherwin-White (Duckworth £29.50) One never reads enough history. T hat' e s A Americans: they don't read history or , if...

Reprisals

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Francis King The Pork Butcher David Hughes (Constable £5.95) T here are places that, even after the passage of 40 years or more, are still permeated with the stench of all...

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Half forgotten voices

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Peter Levi Poems 1938-1983 Sheila Wingfield (Enitharmon Press £8.85, £5.25) Collected Poems 1912-1944 H. D. (Carcanet Press £16.95) I t is interesting to see suddenly the col-...

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The self and its abuse

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Lewis Jones 1982 Janine Alasdair Gray (Cape £8.95) Unlikely Stories, Mostly Alasdair Gray (Penguin £4.95) A lasdair Gray's first novel, Lanark, I orando m casined comparison...

AMONG THIS WEEK'S CONTRIBUTORS

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Robert Conquest's books on the Soviet Union include The Great Terror, The Nation Killers and Lenin. Peter Levi is standing for election as Professor of Poetry at Oxford.

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Arts

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Creatures great and small Giles Gordon Passion Play (Wyndam's) Number One (Queens) The Seagull (Greenwich) Kingdom of Earth (Hampstead) H ot on the hoof of Strider comes more...

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Art

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Remember nostalgia? Giles Auty Drawings of the 1940s (Christopher Hull till 21 May) Robert Gibbings and Viva Talbot and Seven British Printmakers of the 1920s and 1930s...

Cinema

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Dog days Peter Ackroyd White Dog ('15', selected cinemas), !t M ost 'animal films' are better without the intrusion of human interest: the animal kingdom is...

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Television

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Black magic Alexander Chancellor A s Robin Hood may not have existed anyway, there is no good reason why anybody should not embellish his legend as he thinks fit. But Richard...

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High life

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Status quo Taki Los Angeles Los Angeles The last time I was in the city of angels w as in 1972. I had just finished a three- Month stint in Vietnam, and thought a week's rest...

Low life

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Game try Jeffrey Bernard think I very nearly died last Sunday. I lwas sitting in the garden watching the filthy pheasants mating — they really ought to call it a day now that...

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Postscript

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War and peace P. J. Kavanagh Paris r‘riving up the Cherbourg peninsula 1..... , towards Paris you come across the D-Day landing-places, 'Utah Beach', `Omaha Beach'. These are...

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No. 1316: The winners JasPistos reports: Competitors were asked for

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a Parody of an editorial in the Sun. The Sun is low, to say the least, Although it is well red; But since it rises in the yeast It should be better bred. (I quote Gelett...

Competition

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No. 1319: Chesterbelloc S ft by Jaspistos: With A. N. Wilson's bi ography of Befloc just out and Richard In grams's of Chesterton to come, I invite You to imitate amusingly...

Books Wanted

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THE ANNOTATED BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER by John H. Blunt (1865 or any later edition, except the abridged edition. Also 'The Femall Glory' by Anthony Stafford 1635 or later reprint....

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Crossword 656

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Prize: £10 — or a copy of Chambers Dictionary, 1983 edition (ring the word 'Dictionary' under name and address) — for the first correct solution opened on 21 May. Entries to:...

Solution to 653: Imist

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116111111riirl reriNtifor''' The unclued I ghts a I begi n with Doc. Winner: Hertford. Green, 2 Port Vale'

Chess

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London leads Raymond Keene T he Phillips and Drew/GLC Kings Tournament has been remarkably in- novative in a number of significant respects. As in the London Candidates'...