As Mrs Margaret Thatcher completes her first year as Leader of the Conservative Party there are, in spite of general satisfaction with her performance, growing indications of...

Sir: Auberon Waugh complains 'that the excessive prosperity' of the working classes becomes them and that 'the parents make hideous noises and smells and the face of England is...

Sir.—I would not wish to diminish the credit which 'A Spectator's Notebook' gives the the Observer for its consistent and reasoned opposition to Concord (sic Editor,...

Sir.—As a long-time devotee of The Spectator, I read your leader with great interest. As a horny-handed ex-cop (last case, murder on the high seas, penultimate one a E30,000...

Sir.—Is it not slightly odd for Quentin Crewe to write about: 'The violent English' and then to use as one of his examples Miss Lizzie Borden? That lady it will be recalled,...

Sir.—Not another letter from Mr J. H. K. Lockhart (January 24)! I would hope by now that the least perspicacious of your regular readers are familiar with his views on the new...

Immigration Sir: In 1970 the Tory Party promised the country to halt massive immigration. In 1972, after Uganda, in response to massive public outcry Mr Carr promised that...

Sir: In 'The decline of modern languages' (Spectator. January 24) Mr Lockhart correctly diagnoses the disease and offers some remedies. He does not answer the question: which...

From the Rev Bernard T. Croft Sir: Please, what does "hardware" mean as used by Mr Logie Bruce Lockhart in his article (January 24) about the teaching of languages? ("Can handle...

Political commentary The 'in-between' year Patrick Cosgrave The unseemly little row the other day between the Prime Minister of Israel, Mr Yitzhak Rabin, ancl the Defence...

0 Mr Nkomo faces many difficulties after returning to Salisbury to resume his constitutional talks with Mr Smith, and one of them is particularly pressing. By virtue of the...

A gloomy outlook for South Africa Benjamin Pc.grund Johannesburg The current South African joke has Van der Merwe, the local equivalent of Paddy and Abie, saying about Angola:...

The Left in danger Michael Parrott At the very moment when European socialist parties are arguing over the advisability of forming coalitions with the communists, a French...

A communist defeat David Lynn Price Altholigh in Europe and Africa the Soviet Union is trying harder than ever to increase its influence, elsewhere in the world its position...

A suitable case for treatment Raymond Fletcher All of the medical practitioners who have treated me over the years, including my own sister-in-law, regard me with considerable...

Trains of thought DeniE Wood A fox was barking so persistently one night on the hill above the valley near Tipperary that there ;as time to get out the tape-recorder,...

The Elham Valley ghost 'Jack Waterman The Elham Valley curves in a shallow arc across the countryside from Canterbury to Folkestone. As elsewhere in so much of rural Kent, it...

The way ahead Auberon Waugh The Spectator is shortly going to appear in a dazzling new format. The pages will be smaller and crisper and the design will be more attractive to...

The great opportunist Robert Skidelsky Lloyd George Peter Rowland (Barrie and 4 Jenkins, £8.75) No one has yet written a good biography of Lloyd George. For this there are...

Peter Ackroyd The Body Electric. Patterns of Western Industrial Culture Jonathan Benthall (Thames and Hudson £6.50) Keywords Raymond Williams (Croon Helm £5.50, Fontana 95p)...

John Ardagh Tour de France Richard Cobb (Duckworth £6.95) A Sense of Place Richard Cobb (Duckworth £4.95) The obscure and unexplained French allusions and colloquialisms that...

Richard Shone The Lost Impressionist: A Biography of John Peter Russell Elizabeth Salter (Angus and Robertson 0.80) Neglected, perhaps, but not lost. Russell will be...

Mark Le Fanu A History of the Cinema from its Origins to 1970 Eric Rhode (Allen Lane £10.00) Eric Rhode has had a long and serious apprenticeship in cinema history. He has...

Going kiting Duncan FaHowell Cross Purposes Henry Cecil (Michael Joseph £3.75) Nightshade Derek Marlowe (Weidenfeld and Nicolson £3.75) Maybe 'load of cobblers' is not an...

Clayhanger Benny Green Clayhanger, Hilda Lessways, These Twain Arnold Bennett (Penguin £2,00) Arnold Bennett, a Study of his fiction John Lucas (University Paperbacks E2.30)...

Seeds of Millet John McEwen 'Millet' (Hayward till March 7) is an historic exhibition; well selected, well presented and timely in its academic reinstatement of Millet to the...

Idle chat Jeffrey Bernard ' Saturday nights on BBC 1 end with this absolutely fantastic programme called Parkinson. He gets some really terrific people on it and the whole...

Shut in Kenneth Robinson Hustle Director: Robert Aldrich. Stars: Burt Reynolds. Catherine Deneuve, Paul Winfield, Ben Johnson, Eileen Brennan 'X' Empire (120 mins). This is...

Hal is other people Kenneth Hurren Henry V and Henry IV, Parts I and 2 " by William Shakespeare (Aldwych) The Ginger Man by J. P. Donleavy (Shaw) Comedians by Trevor...

The state of the arts Peter Cannon-Brookes Critics of contemporary trends in education have been quick to allege the growing illiteracy of a disturbingly high proportion of...

Peter Conrad Romantic genius is generally self-dramatising: identifying art with personal individuality, and removing attention from the artistic product to the emotional...

The EIL miscarriage Nicholas Davenport If the EIL baby turns out to be stillborn its parents will surely breathe a sigh of deep relief. The reluctant couplers are the life and...

You could be rich this way Bernard Hollowood You want to be rich? Very well, it is well within your power. Mind you, I am not recommending the method of acquiring wealth...

Charles Stahl In his bicentennial State of the Union message, President Ford declared that the state of the Union is now better than a year ago, but not good enough, and...