The most foolish of all Marx's sayings was that which laid down the principle 'from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs'. The begged question is...

Ferdinand Mount Not much has been heard in recent years of Mr Jeremy Cardhouse. He seems to have passed from the scene as irrevocably as the flapper or the Gibson Girl. To...

I referred in passing last week to the fact that this year the Spectator is celebrating its 1 50th anniversary. To be exact, the first Issue of the paper was published on 5 July...

The dubbin factor Auberon Waugh 'As in all congregations of God's people, women should not address the meeting. They have no licence to speak, but should keep their place as...

Richard West Johannesburg Early in John Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps, its hero and narrator Richard Hannay IS questioned about his career before coming back to the Mother...

Neil McLean On the Arab side of the Red Sea, two weeks ago, the Russians made a further move to strengthen their grip on the Bab al Mandab — the entrance to the Red Sea —...

Nicholas von Hoffman Washington Race relations have taken over the news here. First came the announcement that the Mormon leader in his Salt Lake City Vatican had received a...

Enoch Powell An American a few days ago asked me how different it would have been if there had never been a National Health Service. He was horribly disappointed, poor fellow,...

Dr Cameron's Habitual Drunkards Bill passed its second reading on Wednesday, subject to an understanding that the compulsory clauses are to be taken out. Under the Bill, as it...

Colin Brewer Almost unnoticed outside the trade press of social workers, magistrates and psychiatrists, a bitter and fascinating argument has been taking place for the past...

Geoffrey Wheatcroft By-elections, as Mr Richard West once remarked in these pages, tend to take place in Labour-held constituencies if only because Labour MPs are more likely...

Taki I was telling the man who owns large chunks of Vitas Gerulaitis about the first ever match I saw at Wimbledon. It pitted England's up-and-coming Bobby Wilson — who looked...

Christopher Allsopp Dominating any attempt to peer into the future — whether by economists and politicians or by businessmen seeking a rational basis for forward planning — is...

On management and men Nicholas Davenport The world is becoming extraordinarily mad, and very dangerous, but as I have no wish to emulate my old doomster friend Ambassador...

Sir: June Lait's criticism of the probation service (1 July) and in particular the punitive/welfare conflict in juvenile courts is well-founded. However the picture is somewhat...

Sir: With reference to Alexander Chancellor's Notebook comments (24 June) about Prince Michael of Kent and his future Wife I thought that an annulment was granted only in very...

Sir: In the issue of 1 July an advertisement was included in your magazine which was placed by the London Office of the 'Turkish Federated State of Cyprus'. Since all...

Sir: Doctors say cigarette smoking is bad for the health. The Government agrees. Yet the ludicrous law of the land allows fullpage cigarette advertisements complete with Health...

Sir: Patrick Cosgrave (24 June) has so thoroughly demolished David Irving's pretensions at writing an objective historial work on the Hitler phenomenon that no further comment...

question of the personal responsibility of Hitler in the death of Jews during the war. The existence of an explicit written Fiihrer order for their literal extermination...

Sir: With the approval and help of his family, I am writing a new life of P. G. Wodehouse. I shall be very grateful if anyone who can contribute memories or letters will be kind...

Sir: Your editorial 'Trying too hard' (24 June) is indeed a bold attempt to convince Cbnservative fainthearts that 'Mrs Thatcher surely will form the next administration'. I...

Collusions and delusions Anthony Nutting Suez 1956 Selwyn Lloyd (Cape £6.50) Selwyn Lloyd's version of the Suez fiasco is certainly more revealing than that given by Anthony...

Alastair Forbes Dulles: A Biography of Eleanor, Allen, and John Foster Dulles and their Family Network Leonard Mosley (Hodder & Stoughton E7.95) A Mancunian sexagenarian with...

Richard West Cambodia Year Zero Francois Ponchaud (Allen Lane £6.50; Penguin 95p) When I first went to Cambodia in 1963, it struck me as simply the pleasantest country in the...

John Scott Chinese Shadows Simon Leys (Penguin 80 P) Mao's China Maurice Meisner (Free Press £13.50) A Dutch journalist, Mijnheer J. T. Barendrecht, has nicely described the...

Benny Green Little Novels Wilkie Collins (Dover Books: Constable £2.00) Apart from his status as the personification of the darker side of Dickens's nature, the obverse of that...

Emma Fisher Goings and other poems Richard Poole (Christopher Davies 90p) One Another: A Sonnet Sequence Peter Dale (Agenda Editions/Carcanet New Press E2 soft, £6 hard) The...

Paul Ableman The Sweet Dove Died Barbara Pym (Macmillan £4.95) It would have been kinder to have left Barbara Pym unrediscovered. The publication of this slight romance,...

More words than action Peter Jenkins American Buffalo (Cottesloe) Flying Blind (Royal Court) The animal in question is on the flip side of a nickel which Donny, a junk shop...

Laboured Ted Whitehead Despair (Screen on the Hill) Danger signs for the German film renascence. After Wim Wenders' vapid American Friend comes Rainer Werner Fassbinder's...

Documentary John McEwen Teddy Millington Drake's latest exhibition of drawings of India (Hartnoll & Eyre till 14 July) demonstrate as always his enviable facility for wash and...

Enervating Richard Ingrams The Daily Telegraph failed to come out on Saturday, at least in my neck of the woods, With the result that I found myself having to rely on The...

Losers Jeffrey Bernard There are aspects of Wimbledon that give me the horrors and its been a horror-filled week as far as I'm concerned. On Sunday it started with Suzanne...

Challenging? David Levy Many readers have inquired about the Chess Challenger, which is distributed in Britain by Spectrum Marketing at a retail Price of £139.95. The original...