The brouhaha over whether or not Britain Should have a separate seat at next week's In ternation a l energy conference . has served to obscure rather than illuminate the real...

Stonehouse replies From John Stonehouse, MP Sir: To ask Terry Pitt to review my'hotik Death of an Idealist is rather like asking a High Priest to deliver a judgement on a...

Sir: We have had the death penalty. So we know, by experience, that it does not deter murder. It would mean hostages taken and martyrs created. Those who were hanged thirty...

(After Sir Henry Newbolt) Cod, they're in the ocean, but a thousand miles away, (Skipper, are you fishing down below?) Swimming round a gunboat in some Icelandic bay, And...

Sir: I find your medical correspondent's latest art icj i : confusing. He says that any change in m ale-for a- 1 5 relationships in our society leads to stress, whi e , h , s...

Sir: "Again, while the rest of us, if we are lucky' , 018Y pay 5 per cent of our income into a pension fun d Civil servants pay nothing ...", Russell Lewis te lls ti e He...

Sir: The hy p ocr isy of the left, at all times unpalatable, eas recently become so nauseating that one is forced to t he belief that high priority should be given to the...

e t: The ,ttempt to legislate selective schools out of 'ststence need surprise no one. On the surface it w ould appear an inevitable step in wiping out S c o – "ving em...

Sir: It looks as if the word libertarian, discussed by Mrs Gorman in last week's letters, is on the rocky road to ruin already. Mr Michael Foot used it in a very long...

Sir: Is it not typical of the utter hypocrisy for which this country has become infamous, that while the now state-controlled British Leyland (sorry. Leyland Cars!) can shut...

From Mrs Isla Atherley Sir: What on earth is the use of a Bill of Rights to protect us from too much interference by HMG so long as we remain subject to the overriding authority...

Patrick Cosgrave Mr Anthony Steen, the Conservative member for Liverpool Wavertree, seems on first blush an unlikely social welfare crusader. He is tall and lean and elegant,...

resign, hovvever much his departure from the Home () Mee and the Cabinet might be regretted on grounds other than those for which he has been con demned in the Court of Appeal...

Sir Derek Ezra All too often these days what is written about industry tends to be discouraging. I hope this may be seen as an exception. The story I would like to unfold is...

dismantle the apparatus of General Franco's authoritarian state before he can build a new and democratic Spain. It is a bi g task, and it may take him a year. The young king...

Keith Kyle It is no accident that Winston is Denis Healey's second name. He was baptised after Winston Churchill. And Churchill was the last Chancellor of the Exchequer to...

scared? °fficial statistics are truly wonderful, not j ust the ones that tell us we have two and a half nildren, but those trade figures, cost of livin g e Intlices and the...

Al Capp The biggest non-news from the US is that the President has, grudgingly, agreed to some harsh terms with those who want him to save New York City. Yet, no matter how...

Rawle Knox Merlyn Rees's Christmas pudding was so long the stirring that it had lost much savour by r 'Ile time it was dumped on the table. At any r . a , te, it gave us all...

Andrew Fraser Ever since mid-October when the Chipenda Brigade stormed through the frontier town of Ruacana, to drive the Russian supported MPLA forces northwards as far as...

Portugal's legacy David Hicks An inevitable step in the grim drama that started on August 10, Indonesia's invasion on Sunday morning of Portuguese Timor, brings the history of...

Lord Hailsham Why do people write diaries? Still more why are they sometimes published during, or shortly after, the life of the authors? Pepys, Evelyn, and Creevey kept...

Richard Cobb France under the Directory Martyn Lyons (Cambridge University Press, £9.70) few years ago it was still common for h istorians of the revolutionary period in...

Malcolm Bradbury Pound Donald Davie (Fontana Modern Masters 60p.) There is a great bulk of writing about Ezra Pound now, and he seems effectively to have displaced Eliot as one...

John Grigg The Origins of Zionism David Vital (OUP £8.50) On August 29, 1897 between 200 and 250 Jews, Mainly from Eastern Europe, met in the concert hall of the municipal...

Francis King Search for Nirvana Robin Maugham (W. H. Allen £4.50) Letters to His Brother Llewelyn Volume 1 1902-1925 John Cowper Powys (Village Press £2.25) Letters to Henry...

Kenneth Minogue Karl Marx's Philosophy of Man John Plamen atz (Oxford £9.50) It is sad to record that the 472 densely argued pages of Karl Marx's Philosophy of Man are likely...

John Organ The Runaway Church Peter Hebblethwaite (Collins £4.50) The Second Vatican Council, the longest and biggest ecclesiastical assembly in modern history, ended ten...

Frederick Warner A Dorset Camera, 1855-1914 David Burnett (The Dovecote Press £3.25) A Dorset Camera, /914-1945 David Burnett (The Dovecote Press £3.50) A Wiltshire Camera...

The Loving Game Vernon Scannell (Robson Books £2.50 and £1.50 paperback) Nearly twenty years separates Vernon Scannell's first published poems, A Mortal Pitch from his new...

W. H. Smith's stock of The Joy of Sex is certain to make someone look stupid, and we shall know who quite soon. What I can tell you already is that by a perverse irony it is the...

Education New independence Rhodes Boyson In our drab egalitarian times it is always a delight to hail any signs of increased (or remaining) initiative or independence....

Bernard Dixon Honey bees really do communicate with each other by dancing, and thereby convey news about the direction and delectation of newly discovered nectar. But that is...

A thin time Marika Hanbury Tenison White Christmas, wet Christmas, whatever the weather, 1975 is once more going to - be a weighty Christmas for most of us. Inflation is about...

Christmas cases Colin Fenton What is fresh that can be said about Christmas wines? You may object that Christmas should be traditional; it is the one time in the year When...

Kenneth Hurren The Return of A. J. Raffles by Graham Greene; Royal Shakespeare Company (Aldwych) Krapp's Last Tape by Samuel Beckett, and In Memory of . . . Carmen Miranda by...

Kenneth Robinson A Woman Under The Influence. Director: John Cassavetes. Stars: Peter Falk, Gena Rowlands 'AA' Curzon (155 mins). Hugo The Hippo. Director: Bill Feigenbaum. 1...

John M - cEwen Patrick . Caulfield's paintings at the Waddington Gallery (till December 20) are principally about light, though it might not appear so at first glance. They are,...

Recording angels Rodney Mines 1975 has been the year of Euryanthe; two semi-professional productions and the first complete recording (HMV Angel SLS 983, £10.20) have paved...

Past masters Ruth Berenson There is a charming irony in the current spectacle of New York's Museum of Modern Art, whose reputation rests on its inveterate championship of the...

Calling our oil bluff Nicholas Davenport It was very wise of Lord Balogh to retire from his office as Minister of State — in charge of oil — at the Energy Department on...

The City makes a nice large easy target for abuse and humour (especially of the defensive resentment type which labels denizens of the square mile with superficial tags like...

Bernard Hollowood All of us in the bar parlour of the Grapes agreed that we were approaching a Christmas of austerity. Mr Wilson had warned us to expect a definite reduction in...