and badly drafted at that Lord Palmerston once wondered when the House of Commons would feel satiated with legislation; for — and many of his contemporaries — could not imagine...

Sir: John Linklater's criticism of the general practitioner's lot (October 18) was, if not constructive, certainly justified. Unfortunately his subsequent comments on hospital...

Sir: Spectator (November I) suggests that my colleague Dave Greenaway breached press etiquette by quoting a "senior American official" and, in the next paragraph, observing that...

Sir: Indiscipline is a poor word to describe the frequent acts of savagery to which Dr Boyson and other experienced headmasters have drawn attention. The reader may be...

Sir: Moyra Bremner appealing on behalf of one-parent families (another modest umbrella term like "homeless", covering a multitude of disparate states) cites evidence calculated...

Sir: Mr B. P. Boreham (October 18) thinks that "the philosophy of Toryism" is "little more than a rationalisation of selfishness." If there is such a thing as a rationalisation...

Sir: There is a tendency for some of your contributors (but not, I hasten to add, Nicholas Davenport) to suggest that the government can "print money" or that "the Bank of...

Lodge, Gelston, Grantham,

John A . Hall's assertion (November I) that Chnstians have no use for a deus ex tYlac hina type of deity. From this I conclude he would not countenance, the days of prayer...

sir I have been slightly alarmed by the P ro fusion of letters recently published 1 1. 1 ] Your magazine berating Mr Heath for 8 "volte-face" in office and especially fOr fOr...

Sir: To take issue with Spectator is, I imagine, akin to challenging the Establishment. But I feel I must. In my letter re the change of ownership, fearing a change of...

From Mrs Isla Atherley Sir: I was sorry to read Mr Ian Davidson's strictures on the Government's demand for a separate seat at the coming oil conference. It is quite ludicrous...

Sir: Having read last month the sensible letter from a Mr Pegler on the subject of unharmonious Community relations (Letters, October 11), I am galvanised into action, and,...

Sir: May a New Yorker express her gratitude to The Spectator for Brendan Gill's 'No more jokes' (October 25). It was something that badly needed saying, on both sides of the...

Sir: I am engaged on a commissioned history of the British Public School and would be most grateful if any of your readers had information which they thought might be of use or...

And by opposing, end them? Patrick Cosgrave Opposition, like chastity, may be good for the soul, but few politicians are enamoured of it. Powerlessness corrupts, it has been...

Old age," General de Gaulle once observed, "is a shipwreck." He applied the remark to Petain, but there were many, among his friends as well as his enemies, who applied the...

Are dedicated to a noble cause, To cure man's ills, unsparing, never loath, To give our all, without a moment's pause. The English home's a castle, it is said, Where the...

Publicity for the scheme was organised by another figure of the political past, Toby O'Brien, once director of publicity at Central Office and himself a former president of the...

Even the elderly or aged or just plain old are not, unfortunately, immortal. The other week that great detective story writer, Rex Stout, died at the age of eight - eight....

Who are the radicals now? Samuel Brittan re - ven took up hunting myself but not too seriously. On one hunt with the Old Berkeley I was about to take a fence when a lady,...

There is nothing in which Men more deceive themselves than when they seek to be Luminaries. There are so many Passions that hide themselves within and so many Mischiefs arising...

Marxist wolves in sheep's clothing John Organ The Spanish opposition — if such a neat label can be used for the motley score of illegal parties and groups who have fought the...

Clouds over Stormont Rawle Knox That unwelcome document, the Northern Ireland Convention's Constitution Bill, landed In Westminster this week; as it did so all the old storm...

Clive Jenkins tomorrow the world Jim Higgins The great trade union growth area of the last fifteen years has been among the white collar workers. In weighty sociological...

The end isn't Nye Kenneth Hurren In the midst of life, Clive Gammon 00 1 remarked in these pages, we are in Wales. 4 thought of that on Monday in Tredegar, a O W ] little...

Soviet coping David Levy By the time the Olympic Games open here in 1980, there will be free travel in and out of the Soviet Union, if one is to believe the porters at...

Cross against crescent A correspondent In the past two weeks the urban civil war in the Lebanon has claimed 3,000 dead. The fighting between Christian and Moslem private...

Coming and goings George Armstrong A Mussolinian slogan, inscribed for eternity around the cornice of one of Fascism's more absurd marble halls in Rome, says that "Italy is...

Peter Washington The Apeman Cometh Adrian Mitchell (Jonathan Cape £2.50) The Best of Henri Adrian Henri (Jonathan Cape £2.50) Living In A Calm Country Peter Porte; (Oxford...

Shiva Naipaul The Lost Paradise Philip Caraman (Sidgwick and Jackson £5.95) in the midst of all the dark history of the Indian since the discovery of the New World, the...

Robert Skidelsky Money: Whence it Came. Where It Went John Kenneth Galbraith (Andre Deutsch £4.25). John Kenneth Galbraith is an original and brilliant economist with a gift...

Ian Davidson The Valpreda Papers Pietro Valpreda (Gollancz £6.00) Letters from Prison Antonio Gramsci (Jonathan Cape £4.50). On December 12, 1969, a bomb exploded at the Banca...

Pedantic Whimsy Benny Green A certain ambivalence of attitude towards the New Yorker colours my reaction to Brendan Gill's lavish celebration of all the wonderful, beautiful,...

I am beginning to wonder about the literary editor of the Spectator, one Peter Ackroyd. This year he was invited to be a judge for the £5,000 Booker Prize, one of whose purposes...

Ordeal by jury Michael Stourton After each battle, I've read, the survivors begin to think the bullets aren't meant for them. By the same kind of token I, too, thought I was...

Access for whom? Moyra Bremner _ "If you can't beat them join them” seems to have been the sentiment behind the demand for 'access' television. For according to the Speakers...

The violent children Rhodes Boyson, MP Last month saw the publication of Dr Lowenstein's report for the National Association of Schoolmasters (NAS) on violence in schools. The...

The old men of Fleet Street Robert Ashley It is a measure ot how far my devotion to the call of duty exceeds the normal bounds, and how far my obedience to the commands of my...

Food hygiene Bernard Dixon Spike Milligan was bothered recently by a sticker on a packet of jam tarts which insisted: These tarts must be eaten before the 7th of November....

.Apocryphal comfort Martin Sullivan On a Trinity Sunday evening during some of the darkest days of the war, when this country stood naked before her enemies and invasion seemed...

Theatre Two to cheer, two to jeer Kenneth Hurren The Playboy of the Western World by J. M. Synge (Old Vic) The Sea Gull by Anton Chekhov (Lyric) Farjeon Reviewed, devised by...

On the rare side Rodney Milnes As an international festival Wexford is at the crossroads. The whole enterprise is made possible by a pool of voluntary back-stage helpers, and...

Howard Hodgkin John McEwen Jeremy Rees founded the Arnolfini Gallery in Bristol some years ago, but its enhanced status, now that it's moved to a converted tea warehouse on...

Nostalgia Kenneth Robinson Hester Street. Director: Joan Micklin Silver. Stars: Steven Kents, Carol Kane, Dorrie Kavanaugh. `LY Academy 1(100 mins) The film of the week is...

Revolt of the old boys' brigade Nicholas Davenport The reason why I thought the FT equity index, having topped 350, should move up to 400 was because the institutional...

Neddy must go! Skinflint Let Neddy die a graceful death, rather than go on prolonging its present zombie-like state of simu lated life. It has been dead for some time though a...

Sitting - room treasure Bernard Hollowood Perhaps the most remarkable example of the transmogrification of junk into treasure was that of the cracked chamber pot. This piece...