A diplomatic response The crisis over the American hostages has now reached an acute phase. It raises a number of broad questions, some of them concerned with the nature of...

Political commentary Are we back in the Thirties? Ferdinand Mount Older readers may still remember the slogan 'Ask Your Dad', on which the Labour Party campaigned after the...

Notebook Mr William Wh.,elaw no doubt has a lot on his Home Office plate at the moment. His COncern relates not only to the rioting last Week in Bristol but to the police...

Another voice Rupert Murdoch's dirty bottom Auberon Waugh Last week many of us may have been puzzled to learn of questions raised by a US Congressman about the details of a...

Crsi n henw gad Crisis In the new Uganda Fred Bridgland Kampala 'Johnny Walker is now the spirit of Moshi.' rhe Ugandan journalist pithily summarised the devoted pursuit of...

Great American silver disaster Nicholas von Hoffman Washington Silver is all in the news. Jackie Onassis's mother, Mrs Hugh Auchincloss, was reported to have lost $27,000...

Mr Reagan's deceit Henry Fairlie Washington notice that it is now considered the done thing in the Spectator to put the address of One's hospital at the head of one's column....

The men of the Khyber Karan Thapar Torkham, Afghanistan-Pakistan border The North-Western Frontier province of Pakistan is the home of the self-willed, independent Pathan...

The second milestone Lord Butler In his first Budget the Chancellor carried out certain definite election promises on the strength of which the present administratlon was...

Back to Trafalgar Square Peter Paterson It would be supremely ironic if Mr William Sirs, who was one of the union leaders held responsible for the late Labour government's...

Down Mexico way Richard West Ihe novels of Graham Greene have often been spookily topical: The Quiet American In Vietnam, Our Man in Havana during the liSsile crisis, The...

Sir: In reply to Richard Robinson's letter (29 March), it is neither meaningless nor misleading to follow the Gnostic tradition in later religious history, so long as the...

Our mutual friend Sir: Your leading article of 5 April ends with a recommendation that the countries of Western Europe seek their salvation in 'mutual self-defence'. Strictly...

Ginostics and Quakers Sir: Nicolas Walter (29 March) defends his Inclusion of Quakerism with Christian Sciellce, Theosophy and Scientology on the grounds that they are all...

The iceman Sir: May I add a bit of explanation to Peter Jenkins's remarks on The Icernan Comedh (8 March).lt is true, as he savs, that the title has Biblical overtones, but its...

Archbishop Romero Sir: The nomination of Archbishop Romero for the Nobel Peace Prize was made primarily because we thought he deserved it for his work for peace (Notebook, 5...

Letters Shropshire redivivus Sir: Congratulations to Salop on becoming Shropshire again after six years in disguise. But how many other of the new countynames created by the...

Books Liberalism in America Geoffrey Wheatcroft Annals of an Abiding Liberal J.K. Gal- braith (Deutsch £6.95) Our Day and Generation Edward M. Ken- nedy (Sidgwick &...

Alternative? Jonathan Keates Sheridan Le Fanu and Victorian Ireland W.J. McCormack (Oxford £1 2.50) Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu is oWC of those writers who have now been...

Maimed rites A. N. Wilson Ritual Murder Ed. Brian Morris (Carcanet Liturgical change touches raw nerves. It is difficult to be temperate about it. Proust. used to pay male...

Impostor -1 H ugh Montgomery-Massingberd Queen Victoria's Maharajah Michael Alexander and Sushila Anand ((Weidefnfela £9.95) Here is yet another component in the Queen...

Wild Tests Alan Gibson The Wildest Tests Ray Robinson (Cassell Ray Robinson, for many years a leading Australian cricket-writer, first published a book about riotous Test...

Much worse Francis King Schultz J.P. Donleavy (Allen Lane £5.95) J.P. Donleavy has always been a puzzling writer to me. He is not puzzling in the way in which novelists like...

A menacing fellow Peter Jenkins Hamlet (Royal Court) Dr Faustus (Fortune) A high-flying young actor's first try at Hamlet is an exciting occasion. Gielgud first Played the...

Art Choice John McEwen Landed with the cancellation of a full-scale exhibition at short notice, the Whitechapel has more than compensated for their loss by substituting the...

Cinema Dreamers Peter Ackroyd Tom Horn ('A' selected cinemas) Les Enfants du Paradis ('A' Academy, Oxford Street) Steve McQueen's face has creased in all the wrong...

High life Tyresome Taki Porto Heli Unlike Lord Byron who did not live long enough to take part in it. there is nothing that Greeks like more than an exodus. Perhaps it's the...

Teievision Gay abandon Richard Ingrams The nation is now belatedly learning that "'any of its Great Men in the artistic field are or have been homosexualists. Only last Week...

Low life In name only Jeffrey Bernard The late and much lamented Alan Rawsthorne and I used to play a game in which we tried to think of the most unsuitable names for animals...