be debating one of the great moral issues of society, but in a menacing new setting brought about by the political violence of the day. Should capital Punishment be reintroduced...

At this late stage in the day it may seem O tiose to question either the strength of the Scottish — or the Welsh — desire for de volution, or its nature. Yet it is salutary to...

Sir: Did someone speak of freedom? Ross McWhirter spoke of freedom, and Ross McWhirter is dead: killed, brutally shot down by the IRA, or some splinter allied gang, for daring...

Sir: The dastardly murder of Mr Ross McWhirter is a further instance of terrorist escalation in England, much of the blame for which must rest on successive governments, whose...

Sir: Hard on your prediction (Notebook, November 22) Mrs Thatcher has announced her conversion to the cause of capital punishment. As the issue looks like becoming very much a...

Sir: Robert Lindley's racist argument (Letter s ' November 22) is courageous but confusing, becau se he fails to distinguish between genetic and environ" mental factors in the...

Sir: What an amazing letter from Mr Nicholas waiter (November 22)! Does he not realise that it is because teachers ha"ie stopped using 'violence' against pupils that PnP is f...

Flom Mrs Teresa E. Gorm an I refer to the correspondence between Mr B. P. ° rehaM and Mr Folkes ; may I speak up for the -ism lihertY, libertarianism? It is a comparatively new...

Sir: It is to be supposed that Mr Hebblethwait3's Choi ce of possibles for the successor to Cardinal H eenan at Westminster (November 15) was based on his assumption that his...

American support for the IRA ('The e _ish - American file'), For too long this aspect of the _war. crucial thou g h it is, has been under-reported in ti.ntain. and even more so...

Diplomats' pay SIR: Two small points for the "archive of information" which you wish to build up about the pay of diplomats: (a) A diplomat pays full income tax on his salary,...

Sir: In Nancy Allum's article 'Go forth and be e q ual' (November 22) she uses that dotty word chair-person. Does this mean that in order to avoid bein g labelled sexists we...

Sir: Sir Keith Joseph's letter to you last week was laughable if nothin g else. Is he really saying that expressions like "ill-considered" and "infelicitous" are abusive? He...

Government is the enemy Patrick Cosgrave In the argument for at least a Bill of Rights, and possibly a written constitution which I surveyed last week there have been two...

must now be asking himself this question. No sensible Person will challenge Britain's right to defend her national interests within the European Co mmunity. As the Prime...

A psychological barrier Keith Kyle The Israeli Cabinet has been divided on the Security Council resolution which extended the mandate of the UN observer force on Golan, but at...

Italian fiasco Geoffrey Robinson The British Government's strictures on the Chrysler Corporation's behaviour towards its t-IK operations must have struck a strangely ho llow...

Wake up, Mr Wilson Samuel MacPherson Nobody, and not even the Nationalists, was prepared for the Scottish reaction to last week's White Paper on Devolution. Within hours, the...

The ageing . hypothetical Richard Luckett Whatever else it may be, it remains one of the finest records in show business. The old girl has been going since 1930 without so...

Persons of distinction John O'Sullivan It is c haracteristic of the fussy, interfering, bu reaucratic Nanny State that it increasingly grants vast and ill-defined powers over...

Paradoxes of an old new land Marina Warner Hong Kong is rather a shock after China. A slim fortnight in China is as dense as a nineteenthcentury novel, and as gripping. It...

Peace with Mrs Ghandi? Rawle Knox There has been little news out of India since Indira Gandhi declared herself in a state of emergency, and of course even less from Nagaland,...

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, So runs the ancient law. The terrorist, who kills, in truth, Deserves to live no more. "Of course I agree," said Paddy McFee, "In this...

This, the second published volume of a great work,* brings one step nearer the worldwide acceptance of a simple fact which has evaded so many minds for so many decades, that the...

Terry Pitt Death of an Idealist John Stonehouse (W. H. Allen £3.95) The very title of this book is evidence of Mr Stonehouse's admitted schizophrenia. Norman Mailer can get...

Humphry Berkeley The White Pumpkin Denis Hills (Allen and Unwin £6.95) This is an untidy, unplanned but fascinating book, a description which may equally apply to the author....

Richard Shone A Romantic Friendship: The Letters of Cyril C onno/iy to Noel Blakiston (Constable £5.50) "Life without love for me has always seemed like an operation without an...

The middle ground Isabel Quigly Between eight and eleven the bookish child really reads, reads hard, reads almost anything, as if stoking up before the moony, critical,...

Angela Huth Clown the Water Elizabeth Kyle (Peter Davies £3.50) Delpba Green and Company Vera and Bill Cleaver (Collins £2.75) Louie!s Snowstorm E. W. Hildick (Andre Deutsch...

Robert Nye I ought to come right out and put my cards on the table before running through this little lot of children's books for Christmas. One of the things I want from any...

Who is who? B enny Green MY Children dance blithely along the road to i i teracY with me in breathless pursuit, sets of names begin to confront me with increasing Persistence,...

. The irony of Penguin's takeover of the prestige American publishers Viking Press can hardly have been lost on the US Justice Department. Indeed it was precisely because of the...

Foreign students Rhodes Boyson As we sell Britain into pawn by huge overseas borrowings we also pretend that we have the resources of our Victorian ancestors by giving away...

Beachcomber Robert Ashley I am well aware that the Times, in the shape of Mr Bernard Levin, and the Sunday Times, in the shape of Mr Ian Jack, have done him proud, but I don't...

Trouble and strife John Linklater Matrimonial problems form an increasing Pro Portion of the workload of the general Practitioner. Psycho-sexual maladjustment and Menopausal...

Mismatch Kenneth Hurren Walk On Walk On by Willis Hall (Liverpool Playhouse) A Room with a View by Richard Cottrell and Lance Sieveking from the novel by E. M. Forster...

Fit for a Queen? Kenneth Robinson Rooster Cogburn Director: Hal Wallis Stars. Katherine Hepburn, John Wayne. 'TY. EmOr e ' Leicester Square (122 mins) Her Majesty the Queen,...

In camera John McEwen Is Photography art? A debate that has raged for almost a century and a half. Why it continues is d ifficult to see. Today, for instance, there are even...

House fillers Robin Young I hope it will not be taken amiss if I say that the most surprising and welcome thing about the London Contemporary Dance Theatre's extended season...

Nicholas Davenport The University of Oxford has just appointed a new Professor of Morbid Anatomy for 1975-76. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research has assumed...

Play with your figures all you like, boys, th e Government has told accountants and industry, adjust them to your heart's content — it won't make a scrap of difference. Taking...