The odds are that this week's Conserva- uve party conference will be the last before the next general election. For this reason, if for no other, the party faithful will make...

Demon shuffler strikes again AUBERON WAUGH No need to write about the Tory conference this week, since Mr Wilson has obligingly given us his Cabinet reshuffle. Perhaps the...

Third time lucky? CRABRO The European Community has been called many things over the years, and there is no denying that it is looking a little 'ram- shackle', in Mr Powell's...

Green Berets, bucks & a bishop GEORGE GALE George Gale will be contributing a 'Viewpoint' article in these columns each week. The idea that wars ought to be fought according...

Mr Nixon is awakened MURRAY KEMPTON Washington, D.c.—Just two weeks ago, President Nixon seemed a rather comfort- able fit in a city which is rather more conscious of life's...

As in recent years, the SPECTATOR is con- ducting a confidential poll of all those attending the Conservative party conference this week. _Its purpose is to elicit the opinions...

Money men in trouble WILLIAM JANEWAY man in the White House has not denly taken to biting dogs. But Mr on has been doing the next most news- rthy thing. The low-profile'...

War of religion, 1969 style TIBOR SZAMUELY Twenty years ago this month, Mao Tse-tung proclaimed the Chinese People's Republic. This was, by any reckoning, one of the half-...

Who votes Tory-and why? ROBERT JESSOP Robert Jessop is a research student at St John's College, Cambridge Aside from naked class interest, which explains only a part—and...

J. W. M. THOMPSON It begins to seem that our politics are more about labels than about anything else. To some extent this has always been the tend- ency; after the electoral...

A letter to my son SIMON RAVEN MY DEAR BOY, Or 'my dear man', I suppose I should say; for although it seems only yesterday that I last wrote to you through these columns in...

You reckon? BILL GRUNDY Once upon a time there was a very worried man. His name was David Frost and his cause for concern was the fear that the publicity accompanying the...

Bread spread LESLIE ADRIAN In England, margarine is pronounced with a soft `g' by those who eat it and with a hard 'g' by those who don't. The fundamental correctness of this...

HRISTOPHER HOLLIS last week's Labour party conference Mr on accounted for the tourist boom by suggestion that foreigners were coming this country to see 'the sights of the new...

The apple that corrupted Eve DENIS BROGAN Des Moines, lowa—'Could you tell us when the World Series begins? We're sorry to bother you.' The speakers were two hand- some,...

ROBERT BIRLEY One of the ablest speeches made by Hitler —and one of the most important by any statesman in this century—was delivered to the Industrie-Klub at Dusseldorf on...

From the 'Spectator', 9 October 1869—The news from New Zealand is very . bad. Te Kooti is not only not dead, but is as highly fanatical and prophetical in his religious claims...

IAIN MACLEOD, MP Baldwin Keith Middlemas and John Barnes (Weidenfeld and Nicolson 105s) . Between the two world wars three Con- servatives, Bonar Law, Stanley Baldwin, and...

Martin SEYMOUR-SMITH Ada Vladimir Nabokov (Weidenfeld and Nicolson 42s) If Nabokov does not quite attain the status of a major novelist--his 'greatness', in this sense, being...

JOHN TERRAINE History of the Second World War. Victory in the West Vol II: The Defeat of Germany Major L. F. Ellis and Lt. Col. A. E. Warhurst (Immo 90s) The War Against Japan...

OLIVER WARNER Rodney David Spinney (Allen and Unwin 100s) By and large, lives of admirals are likely to have a limited appeal, but there are exceptions—Nelson for his...

CLEMENT FREUD The Green Man Kingsley Amis (Cape 30s) One reads now and then of elderly ladies who write travel books about Patagonia when they themselves have never ventured...

CHARLES STUART The Descent on England John Carswell (Barrie and Rockliff 50s) The reign of James Ii has always responded to narrative treatment. It was short, drama- tic and...

External factors BARRY COLE rs Eckdorf in O'Neill's Hotel William vor (Bodley Head 30s) rag Hunt James Broome Lynne (Michael ph 30s) e Penny Wars Elliott Baker (Michael ph...

HILARY SPURLING More Theatres Max Beerbohm (Hart- Davies 90s) The Old Playgoer William Robson (Centaur Press 126s) English dramatic critics—'that mysterious galaxy, which I...

BRYAN ROBERTSON The name of Charles Biederman is hardly known in this country except among artists and students, and even then mainly through his book Art as the Evolution of...

Rise and Fall of Moise Tshontbe Ian .)1v in (Leslie Frewin 35s). Moise , hombe's recent mysterious death gives a oignant topicality to this masterly lography. As Africa goes...

Odd Todd MICHAEL NYMAN For the second production of their Sadler's Wells season the English Opera Group pre- sented In 2 by Gordon Crosse, a transfer from the Aldeburgh...

Topping show PENELOPE HOUSTON Artistes at the Top of the Big Top: Dis- orientated (Ica, Nash House, 'X') Z (Curzon, 'A') Chef (Carlton, 'X') The Royal Hunt of the Sun (Odeon,...

Subtle Simon ROBERT CUSHMAN Promises, Promises (Prince of Wales) There'll Be Some Changes Made (Fortune) Edward II and Richard II (Mermaid) Regarding Cabaret and Hair as...

NICHOLAS DAVENPORT e most significant event in the City has ,n the cheerful response of the gilt-edged i arket to the free-floating of the German lark and to the IMF meeting in...

JOHN BULL Equities began the week with their worst day for six weeks, the Financial Times Ordinary Index falling 5.9 points to 378.5. The market did not like Professor...

Sir: We shall be most obliged if you w allow us the courtesy of your columns stress a point that may be of some impo ance to your younger readers, especia those attending...

From Samuel Brittan, D. Samuel Braham, H. Lewis Berg, V. SyIles, Mrs. S. E. Hard- castle, George Chowdharay-Best, J. F. Wilkinson, L. T. Chubb, Charles Janson, Col. C. L....

Sir : Your leader (27 September) Wan Wilson is my daddy' quite rightly critic the instructions not to pay supplemen benefits to the Piccadilly hippies, but d not pursue their...

Sir: The letter from Mr E. S. James (20 September) illustrates the problems faced by the BBC External Services when covering a tragic conflict such as the civil war in Nigeria....

After reading Robert Odams's article )eptember), I wonder if this can be the wn why some pensioners are living below poverty line. So much money seems to be ed on the wrong...

Sir,—Whether or not I am indeed (as David Burg so flatteringly writes—Lette October) a 'man of experience in affairs', he really should try to under that many readers of his...

Sir: J. W. M. Thompson in `Spectat notebook' (6 September) justifiably plains because Concorde will shortly v 'his' Atlantic promontory and he sugg that the tests ought to take...

Sir: Could Sir Denis Brogan concentrate his 'Table talk' a little? He has to his credit fine works on important subjects and much dis- tinguished service as a roving unofficial...

Sir: I would not presume to challenge Tibor Szamuely's personal knowledge of Russia and its people (13 September). Not only because I have none myself but be- cause I invariably...

Sir: Mr Booker's article on 'Living with television' (27 September) finds a ready in my own experience. Widowed and 'iv' alone, I have no television: the sense freedom is...

Sir: David Knowles (27 September) is too good a friend of the Public Record Office, and too much a stickler for evidence, to mind a reproof for being out of date. In his review...

Sir: Geoffrey Ashe, reviewing Francis Watson's Trial of Mr Gandhi (4 October), says that Mr Watson refutes the story that Gandhi dismissed the Cripps offer as 'a post- dated...

Sir: Christopher Booker mentioned (20 September) that the last sentence in Lytton Strachey's Queen Victoria with its 168 words Possibly constituted the longest sentence in...

Sir: I have been commissioned by Leslie Frewin Publishers Limited, to prepare an anthology of the best Catholic humour. I would be most grateful if your readers would send me...

Horrible idle men JOHN WELLS Sir Gerald Nabarro, as he himself tells us in his fifty-shilling bundle of scrap NAB 1, Por- trait of a Politician, published by surprise surprise...

No. 574: End Games Some parts of London have lately experi- enced strikes by both the dustmen and the grave-diggers. Competitors are invited to provide the comments on his own...

PHILIDOR Specially contributed by Dom Joseph Coombe - Tennant (Downside). White to play and mate two moves; solution next week. Solution to no. 459 (Grevatt): Q-R5, threat...

Across 1 Forficula, specialists in short hair-styles? (7) 5 Becomes due when chums surround Chal- dean centre (7) 9 Entered singly but in a mass (5) 10 Tom, Tom, the piper's son...