I n the largest backbench revolt of this parliament, 42 Tory MPs voted with the Liberals and Social Democrats in protest against the Government's plan to reach a voluntary...

A frightened Government I n That Interview on 'News at One' on Monday, Mr Tony Benn claimed, among many things, that: 'The Government have broken the long tradition of peaceful...

sent Rear-Admiral Lord Charles Beresford to China to report on the political situation there and its effect on trade. Lord Charles's resulting book The Break-up of China makes...

'Heritage' is a suspect word, uncertain and sentimental in meaning. It is a lit- tle worrying that the new Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England launched this...

Book Protection Bill in the stio,use of Lords next Wednesday, Lord u, s octrin e ,, lk ieleY is not trying to return control of and worship to Parliament. The which proposes a...

by the antics of our television commentators, as they string us along with decimal `swings' and invisible `trends' and tireless, baseless commentaries, until the results are...

The great confidence trick Auberon Waugh M rs Thatcher was unusually fulsome in her praise of the police last week at Question Time in the House of Commons. She assured the...

A neighbour of mine, a polite man of charming manners, has a horror of beards. If possible, he refuses Beavers entry into his house. He even went so far as to Post an invitation...

UK 6 months: £17.25 One year: £34.50 Eire £17.25 £34.5Q Surface mail Air mail £20.50 £26.50 £41.00 £53.00 For special offer turn to p.31...

Christopher Hitchens Washington S ooner or later there had to be a confron- tation between Walter Mondale and Gary Hart on foreign policy. As the world's most cosmopolitan...

Geoffrey Wheatcroft Cape Town Cape Town T he worst mistake that opponents of the South African regime can make is to un derestimate it. That has not stopped such o pponents...

Graham Greene O ne idle moment it occured to me that I might find some amusement and even a little instruction by applying through a lawyer in the United States for the release...

Andrew Gimson L ast week the 'Culture Club', the name given by Mr Bryan Appleyard of the Times to our artistic establishment, held a Public meeting at 105 Piccadilly. The...

Gavin Stamp Liverpool Tn a 'revolutionary situation', fine archi- tecture is of crucial importance. How dull those pictures of 1917 would be if the bodies and running figures...

Roy Kerridge ' To the Visitors' Centre' ... 'To the I Major Oak' ... `To Robin Hood's Larder'. These are just a few of the signs Placed here and there along the new gravel...

Richard West T he Indian literary establishment does not approve of Britain's recent interest in the Raj, especially the TV series The Jewel in the Crown, based on the novels...

James Naughtie T he second anniversary of the Falklands invasion has passed; now we await the a nniversary of Tam Dalyell's first question O the sinking of the General...

week.

The Times correspondent at Khar- toum telegraphed on March 16 that General Gordon's attack on the in- surgent Sheikhs had been defeated, part- ly by the cowardice of the...

Country folk at play Jock Bruce-Gardyne O nce upon a time, 0 my best beloved, there was a village called Thecity. The villagers were God-fearing folk. Or to be more precise...

Sir: The full-page advertisement from the GLC (17 March), which invites us to 'say no to no say in who runs London', is surely the product of a well-developed sense of the...

Sir: As one who does not wish to see the severely limited role permitted to women in the RC liturgy subjected to any further restrictions, could I ask James Michie to c larify...

Sir: P. J. Kavanagh is right (Postscript, 31 March) to praise Channel 4 but less right to suggest that nobody else has. My successor at the Observer, Julian Barnes, has been...

Sir: In your Notes (Pleasing the Greeks', 31 March) you refer to the departmental view of the Foreign Office in 1941 that a decision should be made to return the Parthenon...

to say in a book that Orde Wingate w as a sour religious maniac with a grossly inflated reputation who neither admired nor trusted the Gurkhas, he merely aligns himself with the...

Sir: Your predecessor Alexander Chancellor, in his new guise as TV critic (Television, 31 March) quotes Ludovic Kennedy's remark, 'When you've seen one skater, you've really...

A dreadful place Sir: Miss Tisdall's sentence is brutal, savage, horrific, and will mark her for life, according to the Press. It probably will. I spent three and a half years...

Peasants and bankers Colin Welch I n his latest book, The Criminal History of Mankind, Colin Wilson devotes a chapter to Karl Marx and his followers. On a wireless programme...

The Great Fitzgerald Peter Quennell F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Biography Andre Le Vot Translated by William Byron (Allen Lane £14.95) S cott Fitzgerald died on the evening of 21...

J. Enoch Powell Allies: America, Europe and Japan since the War Richard J. Barnet (Cape £16) T he United States was placed by its unconditional victory over Germany and Japan...

Terence de Vere White A Writer's Ireland: Landscape in Literature William Trevor (Thames and Hudson £9.50) O f the making of anthologies there is no end, and books about...

Shirley Robin Letwin John Stuart Mill and the Pursuit of Virtue Bernard Semmel (Yale University Press £12.95) he truth, as everyone knows, lies always .1 in the middle. And...

Isabel Colegate Strange Inheritance John Colville (Michael Russell £8.95) Three Extraordinary Ambassadors Harold Acton (Thames and Hudson £4.50) O n the 28 August 1839 the...

Francis King The Suburbs of Hell Randolph Stow (Seeker & Warburg £7.95) R andolph Stow's is so idiosyncratic a talent that it is both surprising and disconcerting to find the...

Patrick Skene Catling he Shelf is long for a letter to a friend , I no matter how sympathetic (109 Pag es) ' but the epistolary form is well suited to Kay Dick' s style in...

David Lodge (Secker & Warburg £8.95) L ike many satirists, David Lodge makes ridiculous those things that are close to him. So far, readers of his novels have been beguiled...

John Jolliffe The John Tradescants Prudence Leith-Ross (Peter Owen £20) T his absorbing book describes the lives of John Tradescant senior (c. 1570-1638) and his son and...

George Clive The Journeys of Sir Richard Colt Hoare t hrough Wales and England 1793-1810 Edited by M.W. Thompson (Allan Sutton Ltd £10.95) H enry Hoare, the creator of...

The Spectator for twelve months and receive FREE a signed copy of GOD'S APOLOGY A chronicle of three friends by Richard Ingrams Open to non-subscribers or to those who...

On the rails, and off Giles Gordon Starlight Express (Apollo Victoria) Henry V (Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon) F orget Thomas the tank engine and his pals...

One woman show Peter Ackroyd Yentl (`PG', Leicester Square Theatre) T his is 'Eastern Europe, 1904': buxom Peasant women passing the time of day, children running merrily...

Life and death Julie Kavanagh New British Dance (Riverside Studios) New British Dance (Riverside Studios) Ballet Rambert (Sadler's Wells) Ballet Rambert (Sadler's Wells) A...

Critical Alexander Chancellor New York Durin g the past week I have watched no -IV television at all, with the exception of the Grand National, one late-night film and part of...

In solitary Jeffrey Bernard I ' m tucked away in the country at the moment halfway between Andover and Salisbury in a borrowed cottage that isn ' t much like any of the...

In a fix Taki Athens j aving the unspoiled and beautiful village of Gstaad to fly into the i Polluted hell - hole that is Athens is as Perverse as, say, leafing through...

Paranoia P. J. Kavanagh W e humans seem to have an unavoidable tendency to put other people into groups, which we then regard as hostile. This primitive tribalism has been...

FRONT PAGE EUROPE by Denis Weaver (Cresset Press), in good condition. D. Weaver, 50 Downham Rd, Ely, Cambs. FROGGY'S LITTLE BROTHER by Brenda (pseudonym of Mrs G. Castle Smith,...

of conduct unbecoming to either a lady or a gentleman. Perhaps the greatest fictional 'anti- gentleman' was Beachcomber's immortal CaPtain Foulenough, who, I seem to remember,...

No , 1315: Father William h ave by Jaspistos: Rupert Brooke is said to ',..`av attempted a sonnet entitled 'On First Hearing that Wordsworth had had an Il- the first line:...

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Mopping up Raymond Keene A s I write, Kasparov leads Smyslov in ra.their Candidates' final match at Vilnius by the score of 7-4 and now needs a mere 1 '/2 points to ensure his...

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 24 April. Entries to:...