President Carter's responsibility No one can reasonably reproach President Carter with lack Of political courage in his latest attempt to engineer a peace Settlement in the...

Political commentary The Psychotics' Revolt Ferdinand Mount The results arc still coming up on the screens. But already Mr George Cunningham is consulting his division lists....

Notebook Bombav I atn in India as the guest of the Indian governments but it was not this government which originally invited me. It was Mr V. C. Shukla, the excessively...

Another voice Mr Levin's drastic fallacy Auberon Waugh One can't go on writing about our disintegrating society every week, although, if ever it stops disintegrating, many of...

Vietnam: taking its punishment from China Murray Sayle Hong Kong Early in the Spring of 1260, or thereabouts, a man outlandishly dressed in sheepskins and a pointed fur hat...

Changing the Constitution Nicholas von Hoffman W4ashington Menachen Begin is back in town. He's here so often he may apply for citizenship. This time president. press and...

Spain's new conservatism Hugh Thomas Spain has now experienced four major, nationwide tests of public opinion during the last two and a half years. These have been: the...

Will Ian Smith stay? Charles Douglas-Home David Steel argued in the Spectator last week that Britain should somehow intervene in Rhodesia to prevent the election taking place...

Afghans against Communism Roger Cooper A call from an exiled religious leader for a holy war against the ruler of a country increasingly described as a police state? What...

Barzani: hero of the Kurds Edward Mortimer If a Kurdish state ever comes into being. it will surely have a statue of Mullah Mustafa Barzani in the main square of its capital...

The defeat of devolution Vernon Bogdanor The voters in Scotland and Wales have given Mr Callaghan's tottering administration the most stinging rebuff suffered by any British...

In the City Bearishness and the stags Nicholas Davenport My attempt to bring Prince Charles down to economic and social realities began unfortunatclN w ith a misprint. The...

Panorama's proficiency Sir: It is difficult to stomach Richard Ingrams's slur that Panorama has gone into decline when, on his own admission, he rarely watches the programme...

Decline of the press Sir: We were delighted to see Simon Jenkins draw attention to the serious state of the popular press in Britain (3 March). But, delighted only in the sense...

Letters Iran and Realpolitik Sir: In your editorial on the Iranian revolution (17 February) you are pretty unrestrained in your criticism of Dr Henry Kissinger, who according...

Hole in corner Sir: Mcthinks Mr Tahu Hole doth protest too much (24 February). True, Asa Briggs may have been kinder to him in the section of his book dealing with the start of...

Sir: Am I alone in being exasperated by Edward Mortimer's naive and confused article on the revolution in Iran? There is, we know from sad experience, a type of Western liberal...

Books Rendering unto God and Marx Christopher Booker Christianity and the World Order Edward Norman (Oxford £3.50) A Twentieth Century Testimony Malcolm Muggeridge...

Townsman Benny Green Dickens and the City by F. S. Schwarzbach (Athlone £1 0.50) The London I grew up in was a Dickensian town in a much deeper sense than the phrase...

March Crime Patrick Cosgrave The wvays of crime fiction (and I use the noun-adjective to include the thriller, the spy story and all those categorics separated out from...

Maguff ins Paul Ableman The Hydra Head Cados Fuentes (Secker £4.95) The hydra head is the CIA and the KGB: ' . . . two heads but only one body. Almost the Holy Trinity of...

Music and Silence Anne Redmon i (Secker £4.95) Benjamin's Open Day Jane White (Ham- ish Hamilton £5.50) Anne Redmon's second novel is fashionable in that it ends in a...

Art Designer John McEwen The retrospective exhibition of the paintings. sculpture. furniture, photographs and graphic design of Alexander Rodchenko (Museum of Modern Art....

Arts Fran, Col, Trish, Den, Ouch Peter Jenkins Tendreams (ICA) The London Cuckolds (Royal Court) The entertainment currently on offer at the ICA could have been called,...

Television Effortless Richard Ingrams A propos of the widely-acclaimed Bookerama I observed last week that what is obviously wrong with a whole lot of television is that...

Cinema Running free Ted Whitehead The Last Supper (Academy Two) Scratch a declared 'non-political' writer and you draw blue blood, scratch a 'political' and you draw red:...

Country life Bird battle Patrick Marnham The battle between the pigeon fanciers of Swansea and the peregrine falcons which have taken up residence in that city's Post Office...

High life Unanswered Taki Nem, York Sunday night in New York - unlike London - can be a busy time. For example, last Sunday there was a very good party given in honour of...

Low life Sans teeth Jeffrey Bernard Every time I go to Newbury I hear bad news. The place is becoming a veritable slough of despond. Last month, The Chequers put up the price...

Last word On the fiddle Geoffrey Wheatcroft The news that £2.5 million of excess fares is pocketed annually by London Transport ticket collectors waIs greeted in Fleet Street...