There are few sights more repellent than the British press in one of its periodic fits of humbug. The recent hounding of Princess Margaret is a better — or worse — example than...

King Log's birthday Ferdinand Mount Sunny spring morning. High wind bundling bishops along Millbank, full of coffee and biscuits from elevenses at Lambeth Palace. Across the...

Notebook Garscadden is Glasgow's dreariest district, straggling to the west along the north bank of the Clyde. In normal times no one would think twice abciut Labour holding...

A man called Evans Auberon Waugh Among all the ululations over the passing of Emperor Jones — the most Powerful Man in Britain, if not in the world — scarcely a glance has...

Sam White Paris The political landscape following the French general elections is becoming more and more to president Giscard's liking. In fact he might have painted the...

Bruce Chatwin On 18 May last year Menahem Begin, after claiming victory for his Likud Coalition, turned to thank his wife with a paraphrase of Jeremiah 2.2.: 'I remember thee,...

Raymond Carr Buenos Aires Let there be no mistake about it. Argentina, for those left inside it, is a much more Comfortable place to live in than it was in the last days of...

Patrick Marnham The royal progress around the Third World which brought President Carter to West Africa coincided with the most serious setback to the Nigerian economy since...

David Carlton The task of preparing a biography of Anthony Eden has led me to give much thought to the issues raised first by Lord Bethell in The Last Secret and now by Count...

Peter Paterson The Times, like most other Fleet Street Papers, is noticeably reticent about explain ing the ins and outs of the industrial disputes Which lead to restricted...

George Gale The National Council for Civil Liberties has a grand-sounding name, a title with a ring to it. It sounds like an organisation which all right-thinking people would...

Wilfrid Sendall The Tory proposals for the House of Lords are not proposals for reform but rather for the abolition of the House of Lords and its replacement with a new second...

Oil and the dollar Nicholas Davenport The City should be looking beyond this transitory affair next Tuesday, because more important things lie ahead in this very sick world....

Sir: I have only just been shown the piece by Christopher Booker in the Spectator of 18 March in which he•wrote that at a literary lunch party in Suffolk at which Edward Heath...

Sir: Undoubtedly great harm has been done to our national life by members of the middle class masquerading as progressives, as Auberon Waugh (1 April) rightly observes. The...

Sir: I was puzzled by Mr Gale's suggestion (Spectator, 21 March) that I have been trying to give Mrs Thatcher a 'Conservative philosophy'. Nothing could be further from my...

Sir: In his article, 'Bhutto Betrayed', published in the Spectator on 25 March, Mr George Hutchinson found the Lahore High Court guilty of lack of integrity and impartiality...

Sir: Richard Ingrams must have fallen asleep while he watched the Boat Race. Or else he has started to sacrifice truth to rhetorical effect. Or, more likely still, he is playing...

Sir: The claim that Domanov's Cossacks took virtually no part in the war (Notebook, 18 March) does not tally with the experience of British Liaison Officers (BLOs) with the...

Sir: I was interested in Vernon Bogdannt, 5 statement in 'Education for the real worla' (25 March) that 'the eleven-plus . . • vi a : also a monitoring mechanism since it...

Sir: In your 11 March issue Marika Hal l ' bury Tenison suggested tarragon was tin gt available to be grown from seeds. 1 V 1 ,1 experience in our herb garden is that tn...

Sir: I have just heard your corresponcl e , nt Patrick Cosgrave say on RTE radio in tn e course of an interview about his book 011 , Mrs Thatcher that she (Mrs T) and Ene cv...

Imposing his order Christopher Booker The Social and Political Thought of Leon Trotsky Baruch Knel-Paz (Clarendon press £15.00) The Life and Death of Trotsky Robert l 'ayne...

Anthony Storr 1975(1984 minus 9) Hans Keller (Dobson £5.50) At first sight, this book gives the impression of that last resort of authors bereft of inspiration, a collection of...

tenny Green h m enry Irving and the Victorian Theatre ,adeleine Bingham (Allen and Unwin t7.50 ) ! II his arrangements with destiny, Henry : ty ing was doubly unfortunate. Had...

Jan Morris The Two Duchesses Arthur CalderMarshall (Hutchinson E6.95) A born republican, a Welsh patriot and an admirer of the Victorian virtues, 1 am hardly a promising...

Patrick Cosgrave I have always, myself, held to that useful distinction between the thriller and the detective story which asserts that the resolution in the latter is achieved...

Francis King The Murderer Roy A. K. Heath (Allison & Busby £3.95) When I mentioned to a colleague that I was reading a book by a Guyanan novelist, he commented sagely `There's...

Not like some immortal John McEwen 1 ,h 1 5 annus mirabilis of exhibitions cont inues with the most comprehensive ever de dicated to the work of William Blake (late Gallery...

Dumped on John Wells Saturday Night Fever (Empire) The Goodbye Girl (Warner West End 2) My reasons for going to see Saturday Night Fever (X) were I suppose largely...

Moss-covered Ted Whitehead Let the Good Stones Roll (Ambassado r& Scissors (Almost Free) Let the Good Stones Roll is the sort of ine lc i revue you might admire at a fringe...

Rainbow end Huon Mallalieu The West of England is about to acquire a new cultural centre, by courtesy of one of the major firms of auctioneers. Sotheby Bearne, the Torquay...

Changing ethics Hans Keller Encouragingly, the appointment of Ron Greenwood as England manager, which should have taken place about fifteen years ago when he was in the...

Woman-people Richard Ingrams When the Gay News trial was re-enacte d last month I was not over-impressed by the showing of the defending counsel Johl i Mortimer Q.C.,who made...

!loyal affairs laki 'El)ka hereditary monarchy is a biological tt r !ander. Princes constitute a race unique in t World for their stupidity.' The author of „ ue above wisdom is...

Eating horse Jeffrey Bernard Goodbye Red Rum, hallo Flat season. I'm afraid that, as far as I'm concerned, it's good riddance Red Rum. An almost unbelievably good horse at...