T he TUC conference in Bournemouth voted overwhelmingly to expel the 300,000-strong EETPU for refusing to observe TUC anti-poaching rules. A plea for clemency by Mr Bill Jordan,...

The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone 01-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 242 0603 LEFT WAITING B ecause Mrs Thatcher is the strongest political leader in the...

UNTIL the Minister for Tourism voiced his thoughts in Greece about British holi- day hooligans, one might have supposed that the least distinguished contribution ever made to...

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The right reasons for being in the wrong NOEL MALCOLM H Bournemouth a giant slogan, painted in the sort of designer colours (pink, grey and orange) which are nowadays...

CHARLES MOORE I n the argument about Gibraltar, Bally- gawley, shoot-to-kill policies and so on, opinion seems to divide between those liberals and Nationalists who protest at...

How the defection of 'the elite' rather changes the picture AUBERON WAUGH A s he approaches his 70th year, Ludo- vic Kennedy can look back on a long career devoted to various...

Michael Trend questions the efficiency of the police, and wonders why Mrs Thatcher does not examine them with her usual ruthlessness ARE THE police under control? Those...

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard on the way Mr Dukakis and his friends equate Northern Ireland with South Africa Washington IT is said that Michael Dukakis has little interest in...

Richard Bassett on the balancing act between Solidarity, General Jaruzelski and Moscow Warsaw THERE was an unmistakable air of regret among many Poles this week when Mr Lech...

Daniel Farson sifts the facts to discover who Jack the Ripper was MORE rubbish has been written about Jack the Ripper in this centennial year than ever before. The game of...

A MESSAGE strangely characteristic of the East arrived on Thursday from Morocco. It had been rumoured that the Sultan, indignant at the treachery of some mountain tribes who had...

Frank Johnson remembers our Paris correspondent, who died this week WHEN I started going to El Vino, and to Fleet Street's various hell-hole pubs, I was always on the lookout...

The press: Paul Johnson argues that bigger papers may mean fewer readers ARE readers about to be overwhelmed by a plethora of reading matter in our news- papers? The effects...

Become a subscriber to The Spectator and save £12 a year on the regular UK newsstand price — that's 76p a week, or less than 71p if you take out a three year subscription....

A holiday season test for Mr Lawson's nerve JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE A ugust is, according to Miss Edna O'Brien, a wicked month. For us Brits it is. No sooner do we pack our bags...

OF the various standard falsehoods in business, 'There's a cheque in the post' is the most polite and, on the face of it, credible. It might even be pressed into service as an...

No prize for floral decorations in the City's beauty contest . . . CHRISTOPHER FILDES T he Lord Mayor and Corporation of the City of London have a message for you. In these...

I AM relieved to find City and Suburban still attached to the parent Spectator by its umbilical staple. Anywhere else it would now be a separate flop-out Financial Sec- tion....

MY ADVICE, which comes at no extra charge, is that the Corporation should speak up for and to its ratepayers, and so make itself heard to others. It should not be too genteel to...

THE . City, I must say, has always been fond of its flowers. A Victorian occasion saw the City Horticultural Society addres- sed by the Rothschild of the day. Clerks in their...

The Spectator (13 August) in the idle hours between deliveries doing night shift in the obstetrics department here. During that night I delivered six babies all heading for an...

Sir: I recently spent a total of three hours waiting in a British Rail travel-centre queue in the course of making travel arrangements to various EEC countries. During this...

Sir: In his review of Hugh Thomas's book (23 July), John Zametica claims that the man who died in Spandau Prison last year was not Rudolf Hess. Such a claim may be substantiated...

Sir: Having been away, I have only now caught up with the Austrian minister's comments (Letters 27, August) on my review of some books about his country. He writes that 'within...

Sir: Poor Mr Bogle (Letters, 27 August). Whenever he goes to church or reads some literature published by Anglicans, he sees political activists with guns or sexual per- verts...

the Waugh household (Letters, 3 September) caused me to wriggle as I read it. But the effect on my dog! I have never seen a fully grown labrador curl himself up in such a tight...

Sir: I note, from your review of In For a Penny, that unauthorised biographies (Heseltine, Maxwell and now Jeffrey Archer) continue to acquire a status grea- ter than that of...

Sir: Please could Jennifer Paterson confirm or deny the inference made in your letters column (23 July) that her recipe for lemon and ratafia cream was incomplete. Beryl...

Sir: I am puzzled by Auberon Waugh's assertion (27 August) that circumcision is Part of 'the older Christian tradition' in this c ountry. The practice of circumcision by the...

Sir: Two other yarns about Mirza Abdul Hassan Khan for Elizabeth Longford's collection (Books, 16 July). They took him to a concert and he derived great pleasure from two...

Sir: One hates to deprive Peregrine Wor- sthorne (Diary, 16 July) of yet one more excuse to revile the Sixties but the Cam- bridge Union debate to which Miss Stassi- nopoulos...

Sir: Charles Higham's statement (Letters, 3 September) that there is strong evidence that the Duchess of Windsor had close contacts with Ribbentrop seems to be based on a report...

Sir: Nicholas Garland (The Sixties', 25 June) found it 'difficult now to think of anything of value that came out of the Sixties. The comforts . . . are irreversible ...but what...

NANCY MITFORD 16 May. We have heard the young leaders on television for three quarters of an hour. It was very tiring. There is a fat boy whose name I didn't hear; the other...

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'MALE drivers are more accident- prone than women . . . according to the preliminary findings of a . . . Depart- ment of Transport [surveyj.' (The Times, 9 August) THE writer...

No other medicine Colin Welch JOURNEY CONTINUED: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY by Alan Paton OUP, f14.95, pp.308 T his is the final testament of a good and great man. A saint, maybe,...

Alastair Forbes THE SECRET FILE OF THE DUKE OF WINDSOR by Michael Bloch Bantam Press, £14.95, pp.326 GEORGE AND MARINA: THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF KENT by Christopher Warwick...

J. A. Gere THE MACCHAIOLI: ITALIAN PAINTERS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY by Norma Broude Yale University Press, £35, pp. 346 S omewhere in every large Italian city is a Galleria...

Become a subscriber to The Spectator and save £12 a year on the regular UK newsstand price — that's '76p a week, or less than 71p if you take out a three year subscription....

Francis King A ntony Sher may not be the best actor of his generation, but he is certainly the most exciting. The source of that excite- ment is an energy, at once rapturous...

Nicholas Lezard HAPPINESS by Theodore Zeldin Collins Harvill, £11.95, pp.320 P art of the problem with this, Theodore Zeldin's first novel, is that the reader has to jettison...

Anita Brookner DECEITS OF TIME by Isabel Colegate Hamish Hamilton, £11.95, pp.216 I t would seem, from certain contempor - ary fictions, that the writing of biography is a...

Perfect pitch Peter Phillips I have been spoiling all summer long to make some reference in this column to cricket and the connections, not apparent to everyone, which writers...

Poster colours Rodney Milnes T he latest (last?) stage of Houston Grand Opera's triumphant world-progress with their premiere production of John Adams's Nixon in China was...

Bussy D'Ambois (Old Vic) As You Like It (Phoenix) Jacobean rough diamond Christopher Edwards 0 ne of the best-kept secrets in Lon- don is this excellent production of George...

Joy in idleness Ursula Buchan T here are very few people who are against the idea of gardening, just as there are not many against the idea of freedom, say, or bicycling. Our...

A World Apart (PG', Curzon West End) Through child's eyes Hilary Mantel L ittle girls on their way home from dancing class don't take any notice of what the newsstands...

Fat hope Wendy Cope S ome, perhaps most, of you will have experienced that awful state of apathy that causes one to slump in front of an indiffe- rent late-night movie. Not...

Ionic column Taki Zakinthos h ehe Venetians called my father's birth- place the Flower of the Levant, but that was a long time ago. The 1953 quake brought down all the grand...

Hotel du lack Alice Thomas Ellis S taying in hotels is not what it used to be. It used to be quite straightforward. They'd give you the key and a lad would carry your...

A SUBTERRANEAN ERRANEAN restaurant, The Library (115 Mount Street, London W1, telephone: 499 1745, open for lunch and dinner Monday to Friday), is situated practically next door...

Fruits of a cultivated surmise Auberon Waugh A lthough I have occasionally offered individual Californian wines — of which only the delicibus 1979 Wente Zinfandel sticks in...

C/o Majestic Wine Warehouses, 421 New Kings Road, London SW6 4RN. During the post strike orders may be placed on 01-736 1515 White 1. Canterbury Sauvignon Blanc 1986 2....

Campo's bull Raymond Keene E very so often the World Chess Fed- eration President, Florencio Campomanes, issues a circular letter to the Fide faithful. The latest, sent out in...

Critics' forum Tom Castro I n Competition No. 1539 you were asked for a book review by a mismatched review- er. It turned out that some of you found better matches than many...

You are invited to take the rhyme scheme of a pre-20th century sonnet (please specify which) and produce a new sonnet up to date in manner and matter. Entries to `Competition...

A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or, for UK solvers, a copy of either Chambers Dictionary or Chambers Crossword Manual — ring your choice) for the first three...

During the postal strike, entries for the Competition and Crossword may be delivered by hand or sent by facsimile (01 242 0603).

N R N H M A nN FIR e ANN I I [1+4_0 A L I T HIE TEHAR E TT 0 +IC Elidor E Y TAW AEATALNIANEWIN ATHEOW151ASONE E L EE (DACE C I E RI 2 A 6 E A TAL SIIIE T 0 I T L I A] NG...

Leaves from the commonplace book of Wallace Arnold I RATHER think that it was my delightful old chum and quaffing-partner Godfrey Smith who first coined that glorious phrase...

OVER the past few weeks, I have received a goodly number of appreciative letters from readers the length and breadth of the land, all of them troubled by just one aspect of what...

I ADMIRE Trollope and Sam Johnson, Dickens and Balzac, James and Galswor- thy, and I long to find time to read their works. Good writing has been compared by none other than a...