first summit meeting as heads of their respective governments; this week Mr Callaghan has presented, for the first time in some detail, the British case for renegotiation of...

Sir: I would like to come to the defence of Mr Keith Raffan. There were several points in his recent article that I didn't agree with — he is. I think, mistaken about the...

Sir: Although Patrick Cosgrave's arguments are as logical as those of Mr Enoch Powell himself, I cannot agree with his conclusions. Britain, and her peoples at home and...

take this opportunity to thank Mr Cosgrave for acknowledging in print, in his last week's article, the scurrilous campaign waged in recent years against Mr Enoch Powell by the...

that Mr Powell stands condemned on two counts. His petty and spiteful compaign culminating in his ludicrous vote for an extreme left wing candidate was undoubtedly responsible...

Sir: We were disturbed by your justification for India's nuclear tests in terms of 'political and military national interest'. India's membership of the nuclear club continues a...

The entire international effort to reach a consensus on Non-Proliferation Treaty becomes an exercise in futility if it is conceded that a country is entitled to explode a...

Sir: I refer to a comment quoted from The Spectator, appearing in The Australian of May 25. The dispatch is from London and is dated May 22. For the benefit of your readers,...

Sir:. It is to be wondered how far th e assessment of Mr Wistrich (Spectato r, May 25, in answer to Douglas Jay) °, 11 food prices, compares in accuracywi t " his circular to...

Si wish to quarrel with Mr Paul ' Tlit. IN h s strictures on local government r r ' d.p a Y 25 ), it is that he implies that the a c : s . , ects he refers to, and particularly...

Sir: Mr Don Peters says I abuse those who don't agree with me, and seems to place me among those who cry "lay down your intelligence and follow me." I am angry, not with those...

Sir: Ian Harvey in his article, 'The Homosexual Stigma' (May 18) is confused. The word 'normal' means regular or typical, and the concept of normality in our society is an...

David Holbrook's triumphant riPoste to the suggestion in my last letter that he might get more attention for his message if he presented it coolly, factually, ra tionally,...

Sir: Re 'Terrorism', which you choose to sub-title: The inevitable answer' (May 25), you must be forgetting . the extent to which Israel and Northern Ireland, like the...

Sir: May I correct Will Waspe on two counts in his reference to the Daily Mail (June 1). Film critic, Cecil Wilson, is not "being retired" but is retiring at his own .request...

The lively Scottish gnats Patrick Cosgrave,, Elgin — "a place of little trade," according to Dr Johnson, "and thinly inhabited" — was, last week, the site of the Scottish...

camera crews with hot lights permanently lit in the corridor snif`sitle the judiciary committee room in the dat ° 11 se of Representatives. For Washington is ',lb :l i t/ h u t...

A Senior Officer The article two weeks ago on Britain's land forces and their relationship to the current deterrent strategy of NATO concentrated, naturally, on the problems...

I'll tell you a tale of a Tory bold, Who sailed the Eastern seas; Seeking the votes, as I've been told, Of the heathen red Chinese. Though he's essentially quite well-bred, His...

Varieties of 'freedom' Rawle Knox Londonderry If you could throw a 'Berlin Wall' around Belfast, people in Northern Ireland are fond of saying, the rest of the province could...

Pleasure and recreation of one kind or another are absolutely necessary to relieve our Minds and Bodies from too constant attention and labour. Where, therefore, public...

Down with their alphabet! Leslie Johnston Effective co-operation between secondary schools in Europe would necessitate a move in this country from a three A-Level system to a...

Press Paper promotion Bill Grundy Excuse me a minute, will you? I want to put a notice up. It reat l , "Trespassers will be prosecute d and it is addressed to the gentleman...

Madison Ave, Moscow Philip Kleinman An advertising campaign for a food product was criticised because of its vague and exagaerated claim that the product would improve...

P lanting an idea Cl eve Backster has lately been in town getting lot of newspaper publicity for his researches Into the emotional life of plants. Backster, you Will remember,...

High rise Martin Sullivan Ascension Day fell three weeks ago. What are we to make of this event and how are we to interpret it? The accounts of it in the New Testament are...

Cultural mix Bernard Dixon Are scientists who are born in different societies so influenced by the cultural and social climate of their time that they think differently about...

Sex is a private affair Pamela Vandyke Price Nothing is more tranquillising than r evelling vicariously in problems that either do not concern one or that one would solve in...

High walls Denis Wood Blank walls, especially high ones, need some ingenuity to rescue them from being monotonous and forbidding. I have in mind a particular instance in which...

A newspaper headline of the early 'forties, Wars Bring Good Times for Poets, invoked Roy Campbell to write one of his tartest epigrams; only the "Leftwing Muse" offered,...

Anglo(4 °lean Sensibilities Stephen Spender The Hamilton £3.95, paper £1.75) ilet study of American life and literature has e N .,„Yet gone far beyond two common pertrrons. Both...

Kay Dick All Said And Done Simon de Beauvoir (Andre Deutsch with Weidenfeld and Nicolson £4.95) "What value do I place upon the culture I possess? .. In 1962, when I was...

Ernest Gellner Freedom and Resentment and Other Essays ? ' F. Strawson (Methuen £3.20) This is a collection of eleven essays 17 ,; Professor Strawson, most of which had bee",...

Miles Hudson Democracy on Trial Mohamed Ahmed Mahgoub (Andre Deutsch £4.50) Mohamed Ahmed Mahgoub's career as a leading political figure in the Sudan came to an - abrupt end...

Schmalzwerke Peter Ackroyd Tiffany Street Jerome Weidman (Bodley Head £2.95) Long Distance Penelope Mortimer (Allen Lane £2.50) Mr Weidman has written a book about New York on...

The Duke Renny Green C/ne ni g ht in Bri g hton exactly twenty-five Years a g o I was sittin g in a seafront café Passin g the time of ni g ht with my fellows_axophonist...

Bookend Bookbuyer hesitates to say that these are worrying times for booksellers, as there has never been a time when times were not worrying them. But the arrival of the...

Spring Awakening by Frank Wedekind, translated by Edward Bond; National Theatre Company (Old Vic Theatre, Waterloo Road) The Confederacy by Sir John Vanbrugh; with Dora Bryan,...

Aft and fore Duncan Fallowell The Last Detail Director 7 Stuart Rosenburg. Stars: Jack Nicholson, Otis Young, Randy Quaid. 'X' Columbia (103 minutes) Dillinger Director: John...

114111d Cup run-up live Gammon It was like 1952, watching the England/East Germany game last week on ITV. It comes as a sharp visual shock to see a soccer game in black and...

Seeds of perfection Rodney Milnes Idomeneo Mozart, new production (Glyndebourne) The Glyndebourne Festival has opened with a rather loud bang. There is nothing like a few...

In presenting Wedekind's play Spring Awakening at the National Theatre, Peter Hall reversed a decision taken against that play in Lord Olivier's day (as Waspe's theatre...

Nicholas Davenport There is no special reason why ,company directors, after they nave read the Labour Party's green paper, The Community and the Company, should have severe a...

The view from Aberdeen Skinflint I have always tried to resist cliché in this column, but every one of those old saws about the old being in the midst of the new came...