policy debate been better exemplified than by the recent episode of Mr Wilson's latest—and reverentially well- publicised—jeu d'esprit, the so-called 'national dividend.' Born...

appears to have been aroused by the publication, in last week's SPECTATOR, of the two D Notices first referred to by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons on 21 February....

The results of the first ballot in the French elections give no comfort to those in Britain (and there were many in high places) who were hoping for a rebuff to General de...

GENLRAL DI GAULLE swept halfway home in France with a majority which looked already nearly as fat as before. Mr Wilson consoled him- self with a day-trip to Luxembourg, where he...

POLITICAL COMMENTARY ALAN WATKINS Writing recently in the SPECTATOR, Mr Robert Blake suggested that historians asked the wrong kind of questions. Instead of trying to explain...

CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS It is reported that owing to the defeat of Mr Kamaraf and other Congress leaders Mrs Gandhi's position as Prime Minister has been somewhat strengthened....

DESMOND DONNELLY, MP When I entered the House of Commons, seventeen years ago, I was approached by a senior Labour minister. 'You're Donnelly?' asked the minister....

From the 'Spectator,' 9 March /867 The Wash- ington Senate, which has taken lately a moderate turn, though steadily adhering to its main objects, has actually sustained Mr....

AMERICA MURRAY KEMPTON 'A few days ago the winners of the annual White House News Photographers' contest filed into President Johnson's office to have their pictures taken with...

PUNISHMENT GILES PLAYFAIR The sad little case of Mrs Eileen Baker, which fleetingly occupied the headlines and the tele- vision screens, has ended anti-climactically. Her...

TURKEY KEITH KYLE Keith Kyle has recently visited Turkey on behalf of Amnesty. Sadi Alkilig was a minor Turkish civil ser- vant in his late fifties, in charge of the stores of...

J. W. M. THOMPSON Soon after Mr Crossman had been tormented by his own backbenchers for the better part of an hour in the Commons last week (on the mysteriously inflammatory...

THE PRESS . DONALD McLACHLAN I must not, I know, talk politics in this column; but before I offer my humble advice to the newspapers, may I ask them and the politicians one...

TELEVISION STUART HOOD One man must be relieved at the PMG'S decision to allow ay to duplicate its trans- missions in colour. It is Lord Hill, for had the decision been left in...

THE LAW R. A. CLINE Last week a doctor asked the High Court to support his contention that his travelling ex- penses should be deducted from his assessment for income tax. He...

PERSONAL COLUMN SIMON RAVEN MY DEAR BOY, Very shortly now I must congratulate you on your fifteenth birthday. Fifteen will be a difficult age for you, I think, as it is the...

A. ALVAREZ Anyone who had only seen Susan Sontag on Monitor or read about her in Time would probably imagine a kind of New York Brigid Brophy: a lady, that is, with an eye...

Open and shut cases ANTHONY BURGESS (OUP 45s) It would be pleasant, so some of us think, if the novel could be a kind of Faberge artefact, totally cut off from wearisome...

MARTIN SEYMOUR-SMITH Short Friday and other stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer (Seeker and Warburg 30s) In My Father's Court by Isaac Bashevis Singer (Secker and Warburg 3(s) We...

JOHN ROWAN WILSON Last year Pamela Hansford Johnson was asked by the Sunday Telegraph to spend a day or so at the Moors murder trial and write of her impressions. The trial...

Evasive Deborah PATRICK ANDERSON The Trouble with lake by Michael Burn (Rod- ley Head 25s) Quarry by Jane White (Michael Joseph 25s) The Presence of Music by Maurice Shadbolt...

DESMOND FISHER The R.Cs. by George Scott (Hutchinson 35s) It is only a little over one hundred years since the last major discriminatory measures against Roman Catholics were...

NEVILLE BRAYBROOKE Night Falls on the City by Sarah Gainham (Collins 30s) After seventeen years with the Burgtheater in Vienna, Julie Homburg, a famous classical actress, finds...

FRANCIS HOYLAND I find it hard to write about a man who was as badly treated by the art world as David Bomberg was, without losing my temper and swiping out at all and sundry....

Shrewdly cut' PENELOPE HOUSTON Anyone who has ever managed to catch up with the Fairbanks-Pickford Taming of. the Shrew will remember one justly famous credit title: the...

Our sad elders HILARY SIT RUNG The Georgian fallacy dies hard. Only last Sunday, the theatre critic of the Observer challenged future generations to find fault with John...

CHARLES REID People have been so busy writing about the look (tiresome) and sound (prodigiously good) of Queen Elizabeth Hall, the South Bank's new 1,106-seater, that Herbert...

NICHOLAS DAVENPORT In the old days the National Institute of Eco- nomic and Social Research used to play the role of social conscience in the contemporary economic debate. It...

CUSTOS This is the season when stock market prices are blown hither and thither by budget rumours. The gilt-edged market has for the moment shrugged off the rumour that Mr...

JOHN BULL If you ask an oilman what has been the roost worrying event in his industry during the past ten days he will mention the Iraq Petroleum Company settlement with Syria...

concerning the Post Office reading cablegrams and any other sources of information that pass through its hands? The collecting of information in this way has been, and probably...

LETTERS From Geoffrey Marshall, Cohn Brown, Alastair Hetherington, T. W. Blyth, Christopher T. Higgins, R. R. Pedley, Mrs L. H. Milner- Gulland, Christopher Driver, Kenneth R....

CONSUMING INTEREST LESLIE ADRIAN It depends on your social conditioning whether not to be able to tell marge from butter is a good or a bad thing. Eating in a well-known,...

that I was approached about a possible candidature at Pollok. He is incorrect in the form of refusal he attributes to me. My refusal was immediate and unconditional. although I...

expected to examine the issues at Barnsbury from all sides before rushing into print. He might then have found it unnecessary to accuse officials of the Ministry of Housing, of...

Sir: I believe Anthony Burgess lives in East Sussex. If he had done his homework among this county's schools he might have found that things had changed, and have been hard put...

Sir: How right is Mr Thompson (Spectators Notebook,' 3 March) to upbraid the National Union of Teachers for their bigoted attitude to public schools' It is sad to see the...

(which is conceded), is Mr Anthony Burgess right to say •Beethovian'? Christopher Driver 6 Church Road, Highgate, London N6

Sir: As chairman of the Barnsbury Association I would like to congratulate you on the splendid article by Patrick Hutber, 'The Barnsbury Scandal' (3 March). The association was...

Sir: The criticism of Mr Lawson's advocacy of a floating pound made by Mr St John-Stevas (3 March) is, I suggest, ill-founded. He ignores the fact that pegging the exchange...

PHILIDOR H. V. Tuxen (1st Prize, Deutsche Schachzeitung, 1919). White to play and mate in two moves; solution next week. Solution to no. 324 (Hartong): K x P. threat - Kt 5. 1...

'falsity' to a kind of building he dislikes Mr Manser (3 March) adopts the tone and the moralistic outlook on architec- ture of Pugin and the Gothic revivalists—an approach even...

Sir: I regret that in my letter on the case of the Rev and Hon Adam Clayton Powell the word Negro continuously appears with a lower-case Initial, which may suggest that I...

Sir: A rather puritan-sounding gentleman wrote from North Wales last week that the Afterthought- man, John Wells, 'has got breasts on the brain.' What red-blooded,...

JOHN WELLS One of the most quietly sympathetic of my colleagues during my time as a schoolteacher was the housemaster from next door. Unlike the more traditional old Eton...

Across 1 Reward to the crossword dog from a manipula- tor? (10) 6 A little salmon for Catherine? (4) 10 Is there nothing vulgar to be done? (5) 11 Mrs Wharton's Hudson River was...