s the Prime Minister prepared to celebrate ten years in office, opinion polls taken at the by-election campaign in the Vale of Glamorgan showed Labour more than ten points ahead...

IN THE centuries of Christendom there can have been few words more terrible for the Church than 'schism'. Yet that is what is staring squarely at the Archbishop of Canterbury....

The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone 01-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 242 0603 THE COST OF SAFETY I t is a bad sign in an individual if a sharp blow on the...

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EEC and Nato: vive la difference NOEL MALCOLM D evotees of Euro-harmony have had a miserable time for the last two or three weeks. First the Delors Committee issued its...

S ympathetic as I am to mistreated minorities, I would feel more for Mr Ernest Saunders and his much publicised difficulty in obtaining legal aid adequate to fund his defence in...

Why Whitley Bay doesn't matter AUBERON WAUGH With very few exceptions — most of them would appear to be people taken prisoner at the surrender of Singapore who worked on the...

This autumn, legal history will be made when two Cumbrian hill farmers sue British Nuclear Fuels for damages. Alexandra Artley reports on the gathering Green storm in...

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard finds that the Mexican black economy promises hope for the country's creditors Mexico City FOR the last seven years Americans have been reading...

G. M. Tamas argues that Jews and gentiles both suffer from the loss of German culture SINCE Milan Kundera's famous but some- what fanciful essay, L'Europe kidnappee, the...

Michael Heath

Sousa Jamba went looking for poets on Merseyside WHEREVER I go, people who ask after my background are always likely to ask the same question: 'Don't you miss your pa- rents?'...

A POST-CARD was issued last Satur- day in Edinburgh to every one of the 42,971 male and female voters on the five different registers for the City of Edinburgh, with the...

Outsiders: a profile of Richard West, freelance foreign correspondent ONE side of Richard West's character is his contrariness. At a time when others fear salmonella he...

Nicholas Bethell investigates the unprecedented royal attack on Ceausescu IT WAS only through an elaborate series of coincidences that Prince Charles felt able to make his...

The media: Paul Johnson finds new technology alarming but indispensible TECHNOLOGY is transforming the lives of journalists, especially freelance writers like myself. Not that...

How Britain can beat Delors by joining its currency with the Germans PETER HORDERN R eading the Delors Report on Econo- mic and Monetary Union, I recognised the language of a...

Sir: I would like to reassure Sir Raymond Carr (Books, 29 April) that whatever the pimps told him I had no sexual relations with anyone in Haiti, not even with Papa Doc. I...

Zeal-of-the-Land Sir: Diana Geddes's article (`. . with French polish', 1 April) dealt with the pitfalls of using a foreign language, but one does not have to go abroad to...

Sir: Some readers of my article ('A Bur- mese evening', 29 April) said that they would like to help the student whose plight was described. The matter is urgent since many...

Sir: Regarding the recent speculation in the press concerning the Princess Royal and Captain Mark Phillips, surely the wishes of the horses should remain para - mount. Mike...

Sir: To say that Ceausescu's megalomania has occurred 'at the expense of current living standards' (I love that 'current') is comparable to calling Genghis Khan a compulsive...

Sir: Sydney is a great place, as any Syd- neysider will tell you boastingly and at length, but Jeffrey Bernard is indulging in fantasy with his Sydney restaurant bill of a...

Lucasta Miller THE RAINBOW STORIES by William T. Vol[mann Deutsch, £12.95, pp.541 ude, I want to tell you about your story... because it f---ing sucks'. This is how William...

Christopher Hawtree THE NEGOTIATOR A yatollah Khomeini's days are num- bered. A writer has sent an arrow winging towards his heart. Unfortunately, it is Frederick Forsyth....

Jo Grimond SPECIAL RELATIONSHIPS by Henry Brandon Macmillan, £16.95, pp.436 K ennedy and Kissinger, Roosevelt and Rusk, all the stars of the New England upper crust' — if Mr...

This was Mills the builder's house: outhouse after outhouse at the back as if from the start he was travelling out. The kitchen, a shack at the side, had a stove and cold tap,...

Christopher Booker FORCES OF CHANGE: Why We Are The Way We Are Now by Henry Hobhouse Sidgwick & Jackson, £17.95, pp. 264 F our years ago Henry Hobhouse pro- duced a...

Anita Brookner THE CLONING OF JOANNA MAY by Fay Weldon Collins, £12.95, pp.265 F ay Weldon remains tirelessly indig- nant on our behalf. Mention a nuclear reactor or a...

Tony Osman CHAOS: MAKING A NEW SCIENCE by James Gleick Heinemann, £14.95, Cardinal, .15.99, pp.354 W e could well be in at the beginning of a new science, as important as...

Exhibitions Cornish connections Giles Auty Jeremy Le Grice (Cadogan Contemporary, till 6 May) ver a 20-year span I spent 0 two periods, each of about six years, living in the...

La traviata (Scottish Opera, Glasgow) A tragic waste Rodney Milnes I t was always understood that Nuria Espert's new production of Traviata for Scottish Opera was heading...

The Black Prince (Aldwych) Ghetto (Olivier) Forces of darkness Christopher Edwards T he Black Prince is an adaptation by Iris Murdoch of her own (and probably her best)...

Spiritual games Claudia Woolgar attended the first international congress of theatre with a religious theme T here has recently been a revival of interest in mediaeval...

Joyriders (`15', Cannon Haymarket) Dark glances Hilary Mantel M ary, a Dubliner, is hurled out into the street; after her come her two small daughters and her suitcase. It...

Death of a thousand cues Wendy Cope h e first I heard of spontaneous human combustion was in the staffroom at school about 12 years ago. No, I hadn't read Bleak House at the...

Capital crimes Taki T Washington, DC here are far worse places to be than the nation's capital around this time of year. Throughout last week the tempera- ture was a perfect...

My heroes Jeffrey Bernard I think it is a great failing of mine that I should like Clint Eastwood as much as I do. I am not quite sure what it is about him that appeals to me...

S olitary souls Alice Thomas Ellis I was told the other day that there had recently been a hermits' conference. It seems that this mode of life is becoming voguish and people...

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') for the first three correct solutions...

To Russia with love Jaspistos n Competition No. 1572 you were in- vited to write a poet-laureatish poem on the Queen's forthcoming visit to Moscow. Since I said `ish', I...

Coffee-house Raymond Keene o r years there has been no centre for chess enthusiasts in London where they can play chess all day, consult books or magazines, or meet the...

a jolly little May Day festival we had. Rioting in six countries, prisoners on the tiles and general gloom abounding; it always works. But there was a much greater and far more...

Business office notice-boards abound with memos containing bossy, superfluous and incomprehensible instructions or advice. Please supply one such imaginary com- munication...

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C/o Châteaux Wines, The Green, Olveston, Bristol BS12 3DN. Telephone: (0454) 613959 White Price Number Value Macon Villages 1988, Delaunay 12 bts. £53.76 Rosemount...

Bath time in Jermyn Street Auberon Waugh o r all the angry noises I make against the Burgundians these days, young David Miller of Châteaux Wines has still been able to find a...