A cynic might say this election deserved a newspaper strike. It has not seemed to call for the detailed study of speeches and policy which the press conscientiously tries to...

Tory crystal gazing PETER PATERSON Amid the rather monotonous cacophony of this general election campaign, certain familiar voices have not been heard, voices which made the...

The style of Harold Wilson GEORGE GALE Many years ago, when it was one of my obligations to visit the Marquis of Granby —a public house beside Transport House, then the...

Shock treatment JOHN ROWAN WILSON The rumpus about the doctors' pay award is a clear indication, for anyone who needs it, that 1970 is just 1966 over again, and that we are in...

Out of the print that smothers me, Dull as the ditch from poll to poll, I think I find the ORC The most eccentric on the whole. Twixt Tweedldee and Tweedledum Looms but the...

Unionists under pressure MARTIN WALLACE Belfast—There are only twelve Ulster seats at stake in the general election, but they are being contested by a range of parties and...

Not always To the swift Captain THREADNEEDLE The scrummaging as the runners in this year's Great Westminster Handicap reach the home straight has made Tattenham Cor- ner look...

'A crisis of continuation' BILL GRUNDY Just five weeks ago I wrote here that the press looked as though it was about to put an end to the thousand natural shocks its flesh...

'Is the tea mashed, then—' (The Prime Minister to Mrs Enid Scrivener, of Overslade, Rugby) `Mr Wilson gives a fair imitation of a bloated bullfrog terrified out of his life. Mr...

Mr Nixon faces the music WILLIAM JANE WAY During his years in the political wilderness President Nixon wrote a book called Six Crises. If he ever sits down to write a second...

STRIX yoigrow mushrooms?' is the 240th and last question on Form c412/css (Agricultural ct Horticultural Census: Return for 4th June 1970) which the Ministry requires me to...

Selling the election ROGER PEMBERTON First prize for political advertising in this general election must on present form go to Guinness (Guiness for PM—or even earlier') for...

A matter of some interest R. A. CLINE Mr George Brown has been 'setting the record straight', telling us what he really said about low interest rates on mortgage loans. Have...

A tale of human folly NORMAN LINDLEY The Rhodesian problem is not exactly the most burning topic in the election; there are few votes in it, if any, but it is one on which the...

From the 'Spectator,' II June /870—The author who attained by far the greatest popularity ever won in a lifetime. Charles Dickens, died on Thursday, at his home at Gadshill....

On double standards ARTHUR SHENFIELD We are all familiar with the use of double standards by the apologists for the com- munist countries. It has two aspects, each of which...

The pains of the jet age LESLIE ADRIAN John Ruskin didn't regard going by train as travelling; it was, he said, merely being 'sent' to a place—little different from the...

Waterloo or Passchendaele? DENIS BROGAN 'A damned close-run thing' the Duke of Wellington is supposed to have said of Waterloo and with his accustomed skill he patted his own...

JOHN BAYLEY 'The work of Hardy is my home as the work of Meredith cannot be', wrote E. M. Forster in Aspects of the Novel. He greatly admired Meredith; he had indeed been in-...

MAX BELOFF The Political Diaries of C. P. Scott 1911- 1928 edited by Trevor Wilson (Collins 70s) The period covered by these diaries was probably the last in which the editors...

NIGEL NICOLSON The Youngest Son Ivor Montagu (Lawrence and Wishart 63s) It takes some courage to end the first vol- ume of your autobiography at the age of twenty-three. The...

DAVID PRYCE-JONES The Truth About 'Pygmalion' Richard Hug- gett (Heinemann 42s) Success in the theatre, like LSD, seems to do something unaccountable to the brain-cells....

JOHN HOLLOWAY Milton and English Art Marcia R. Pointon (Manchester UP 90s) Paradise Lost was reprinted a hundred times in the course of the eighteenth century: which is twice...

ANN WORDSWORTH The Artist as Critic: Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde edited by Richard Ellmann (W. H. Allen 50s) Uncollected Prose by W. B. Yeats: Volume 'One, First Reviews...

Martin SEYMOUR-SMITH Beach, poetical Wrexham wine-merchant, Your Eugenio was unremembered (Despite the dedication to Pope, The kindly letter from Jonathan Swift) From the day...

L. D. ETTLINGER Problems in Titian, mostly iconographic Erwin Panofsky (Phaidon 100s) 'Titian! Now there is a man who seems to be enjoyed by those who are growing old.'...

PATRICK ANDERSON The death of Edward Morgan Forster removes the last of those benign voices which were the product of a love-affair between Cambridge and ancient Greece. An...

BRYAN ROBERTSON Arriving back from the New York art- politico maelstrom, in which the whole of contemporary art is geared to a producer- consumer set of rigid patterns, it is...

Accident prone PENELOPE HOUSTON The Boy (Academy Two, 'A') Julius Caesar (Leicester Square Theatre, `U') The Secret of Santa Vittoria (Odeon, Leicester Square, 'A') The Boy is...

Giggling Prince HILARY SPURLING Hamlet (Stratford-on-Avon) A Midsummer Night's Dream (Regent's Park Open Air Theatre) Trevor Nunn's production of Hamlet is set by Christopher...

JOHN BULL Cost-push inflation, it has been pretty con- clusively proved on both sides of the Atlan- tic, is hard on company profits and therefore on share prices. Ordinary...

NICHOLAS DAVENPORT Apart from a correspondent who made a good point in the SPECTATOR of 6 June, to which I will reply, the most fervent upholder of the equity cult seems to be...

Sir: Is it 'always a sound rule for governments, as for private people, not to yield to threats'? (30 May) Yes, certainly, if they are being pressed to do evil. But is the rule...

Sir: Peter Fleming's admirable essay on newsak (30 May) prompts me to seek con- firmation from you, sir, or from your more mature readers, of a childhood memory that in the...

From Professor Antony Flew, W. E. Prickett, Richard Storry, Elka Schrifver, Gay Firth, L. Clarke, Alfred Sherman, Dr Israel Shahak, Thomas Pakenham Sir: Your contributor,...

Sir: I accept wholly Mr Anthony Cowdy's criticism (Letters, 6 June) of my erroneous assumption that 'any Northern Ireland government' necessarily means a govern - ment of the...

Sir: Dr Donald M. Bowers' emphatic claim (30 May) that more Africans have been killed in Nigeria in the last few months as a result of the Biafran war than have been killed as a...

Laqueur's book Europe since Hitler (30 May), Pro- fessor Max Beloff has seen fit to introduce the phrase 'the imbecile nihilism of the "New Left" '. Since it is by no means...

Sir: I am writing a history of the Boer War (1899-1902), and am anxious to trace anyone who has personal recollections of the war, either as a soldier in South Africa or as a...

Sir: Mrs Brock (Letters, 6 June) puts on un- ItiNtified airs when she assumes that those .010 favour commercial rv or radio lack her , evel of taste. Indeed, it was concern for...

PHILIDOR G. W. A. Easom (The Problemist, Nov. 196 9 White to play and mate in two moves; soluu next week. Solution to No. 494 (Anderson—ln6/rBp2PK...

Across 1 Rather a come-down to do it to a skunk! - en 5 'The Twa Dogs' much decorated? (7) 9 and 25 Not that he was the inventor of stylish horse-play! (5, 4) 10 Not on the menu...

No. 609: Proverbum sap Among survivals from the past which are often out of tune with today's world are the traditional truths embodied in proverbs. Competitors are invited to...

The silent minority JOHN WELLS The threatened strike by UMPAH, Britain's ten thousand strong Union of Militant Political Activists and Hecklers, that could bring the general...