THE SPECTATOR THE VILLAGE SCHOOL It was never right for the Department of Education to set a rule about the minimum number of teachers necessary for a school. It is therefore...

PO L I T IC S _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ - Has CND really won the nuclear debate after all? FE RDINAND MOUNT In his new book, Einlstein's Monsters, Martin Amis imagines himself...

THE SPECTATOR CAMBRIDGE POLL IN THE Spectator Cambridge poll, 36 per cent of those who expressed a preference say that they would vote Conservative if a general election were...

SERBS NEVER GIVE IN Richard West finds Yugoslavia's new economic problems overshadowed by old racial differences. Belgrade ONE OF the coal-miners on strike at Labin, near...

THE BALANCING ACT David Willetts explains the renewed fashion for the trade figures THE balance of payments is coming back into fashion. During the 1960s the monthly trade...

Unauthorised version I CANNOT but giggle when Merrill Lynch announces that it has lost $250 million on bonds - because of a dealer's 'unauthorised trading'. Poor old...

Another state handout PAT on cue comes Rolls-Royce, to make Alan Clements's point about offers for sale at fixed prices. It is yet another privatisation handout of money for...

C I T Y AND SUBURBAN The crisis to bloom in the spring, tra-la, had nothing to do with the case CHRISTOPHER FILDES The great financial crisis appears to have clashed with...

Why vote in Ulster? Sir: Charles Moore ('Why vote?'. 2 May) says that the purpose of voting is to put a government in or to turn one out. It follows that a vote can be defined...

_ L E T T E R S The war business Sir: John Ralston Saul's article 'The war business' (11 April) describes well the scale, complexity and interconnectedness of the...

Tiny errors Sir: The review (2 May) by Donald Trelford of my book, My Life wit/h Tiny, gives vent to sweeping allegations in somewhat heated language. I hope you will allow me...

Bird Life Sir: Dear me, what a querulous lot you are at the Spectator. Almost every year the Periodical Publishers Association, of which you are so distinguished if small a...

Mishurd Sir: The Home Secretary's misunderstanding of Puccini's politics (Letters, 25 April) reveals more about the social and cultural problems of this country than he might...

Condoms cause Aids Sir: As venereologist for the armed forces in south-west England for four years, I was in charge of 'Tommies' Johnnies' (18 April). As Alexander Norman...

Old men's suicide Sir: Why cannot one choose when one dies? Why should the last unhappy years spoil the happiness of the first? My concrete suggestion is that if one is over 80...

Grave errors Sir: It is so gratifying to have one's letter to the editor printed (2 May), so flattering to have the editor himself comment on it in his Diary, that it is...

A personal look at the left John Zametica LABOUR PEOPLE: LEADERS AND LIEUTENANTS, HARDIE TO KINNOCK by Kenneth 0. Morgan OUP, £12.95 F rom what I know of Spectator readers,...

The Words The words buzz faintly round his grey head on the pillow: full security screaming detaches itself, floats round the room. The nurse lays down his wrist with her...

This champagne of beers William Scammell POEMS 1956-1986 by James Simmons Bloodaxe Books, £12.95, £5.95 IThe barman brought the refreshment that I ordered. It was called a...

Dream people vanished into thin air Frances Donaldson STELLA BENSON by Joy Grant Macmilala £16.9-5 Stella Benson published her first novel in 1915 and died in 1933 and...

Modern heroine or wasted life? John Charmley ROSA LUXEMBURG: A LIFE by Elzbieta Ettinger Harrap, £10.95 There was a time when the Victorian 'life as example' genre of...

The romance of labour Francis King THE WRENCH by Primo Levi, translated by William Weaver | MichiaelI Joseph-l9. £95 Throughout my reading of Primo Levi's The Wrentch I was...

The curate kept an ostrich William Douglas Home THE EVERYMAN BOOK OF THEATRICAL ANECDOTES edited by Donald Sinden Dent, £11.95 'A Assembling a collection of anecdotes that...

Bad temper once more in fashion Roger Clarke THE PAPERS OF SAMUEL MARCHBANKS by Robertson Davies Viking, f10.95 Reading Robertson Davies' The Papers of Samuel Marchbanks is...

Theatre The Merchant of Venice (Stratford) Spit not polish Christopher Edwards O f all Shakespeare's plays this one probably troubles the modern conscience the most:...

Opera Daphne (Opera North. Leelds) The Stone Guest (Coliseum) I Agreeable wallow Rodney Milnes WV~hy should it have taken Strauss's Daphne (1938) nearly 40 years to reach...

Radio Wallpaperisation Noel Malcolm 'No one, inside or outside. sets an inkling of what is afoot. Rumour is rife: one nighltmare is coWI ured after another. Sometimes in...

High life Second time around Taki I ve received quite a bit of mail from readers who have had even worse experiences than mine while flying on Pan Am and TWA, so I took their...

Low life Mettle fatigue Jeffrey Bernard B y the time You read this I shall be out of this flat where I have lived for six years and beiang put up by a friend. It could be...

Home life Rock follies Alice Thomas Ellis It was quite exciting in the country. The daughter got stuck on a sheer cliff and rather took it to heart. I was carryinhg a pile of...

CZ 0-s dT In the soup I wmllil ifflwii k"ORMA asL )O , ii Ii ^ 1 CLARE Asquith my beauteous colleague the Literary Assistant had been pasting my receipts into a book and tells...