Established 1828 99 Gower Street, London WC1 Telephone: 01-387 3221 Telegrams: Spectator, London Editor: George Gale Associate Editor: Michael Wynn Jones Literary Editor:...

Whenever one of the familiar storm signals is interpreted to indicate that the British economy is running into dangerous rather than merely rough weather, the cry `Halt!' goes...

Mr Callaghan may have shocked the Sun, but I doubt very much it he shocked the Commons, or anyone else who has read the Bill. Indeed Mr Maudling, speaking immedi- ately before...

Last week was a bad week for Rudi Dutschke, I was glad to learn from the Daily Mirror and the Guardian. The Daily Mirror reported that Danny La Rue had been elected as their...

Miss Margaret Drabble appeared this week for the defence in an Old Bailey obscenity case, She was asked in cross-examination, 'Are you saying that if a book is well written and...

THE SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK Murdoch's Sun this week out-Powelled Enoch. Ostensibly reporting the Immigcation Bill debate, its headline bawled 'Shock warn- ing by Callaghan: DOOR...

Most Anglo-Indians I know feel drawn with affection to both their countries; but they have mainly made up their minds already as to which they regard themselves as belonging. I...

Bertie Wooster, were he around, would have been airily gallivanting through St James's Park : the sun was shining, the air was mild, the crocuses were out; and what better time...

'The disintegration of the Liberal party began with the Coupon Election of December 1918. It then received a blow from which it has never recovered', wrote Mr Asquith sadly to...

Return of post DENIS BROGAN On 22 January (Ns), 9 January (os) in the year 1905, there occurred in Petersburg one of the most important collapses of the moral authority of the...

Wednesday 3 March: agreement in the Po strike seemed imminent as union and management continued their talks. The PM and TUC leaders are to meet soon after a letter to No 10 from...

Liberty, equality and sorority SALLY VINCENT The young man on the soapbox is Hyde Park Cornering about the Fall of Man. He has no audience and is himself heedless of the three...

Intimidation right and left JOHN VAIZEY In the last few weeks I have been correcting the proofs of a book I have been writing called Social Democracy. It has some pic- tures...

From the 'Spectator,' ll March 1871— No one has asked in this Army debate why, if the rich are so scornful of Army pay and so anxious to buy commissions, they do not offer to...

The bigger the worse? NIGEL VINSON In the quest for growth through increased industrial efficiency, we accept take overs, amalgamations, and larger and larger com- pany...

Spectator MIMI MIME MIMI NM NM NMI The Spectator, 99 Gower Street, London W.C.1 ■ I Please supply the Spectator for one year 0 1 two years 0 • Cheque enclosed El three years 0...

Dust and Ashes SIMON RAVEN I was fortunate enough to be able to watch the sixth and seventh Test matches in Australia, ball by ball, from first to last. • Although I am a...

9 Damp squib 10 Valet 11 Nippy 12 Bath stone 13 Emanate 15 Abreast 17 Steeple 19 Applied 21 Unavenged 23 Sharp 24 Vasto 25 Larcenist 26 Once upon a time. Down: 2 Name-plate 3...

The SPECTATOR Competition will reappear next week. Closing date for No 639 (a sea shanty of not more than sixteen lines for all Britain's part-time amateur sailors— including...

Set by Joyce Johnson:'Decimal Day was not such a shambles after all. But there may still be a place for mnemonic jingles (not more than sixteen lines) to help im- press the...

No. 1472 DAEDALUS A prize of £3.15 will be awarded for the first correct solution opened on 22 March. Address solutions: Crossword 1472, The Spec- tator', 99 Gower Street,...

Set by Timothy Snow: `For thy sake, Tobacco, I/Would do anything but die' wrote Charles Lamb in `A Farewell to Tobacco.' Competitors are invited to offer in verse advice on, a...

The closing date for entries, post- poned because of the postal strike, will now be Friday, 19 March 1971. Children's Competition Entries for this competition, included in the...

Sterling and British Policy Susan Strange (our , £4.00) In this pioneering investigation into the rise and fall of sterling as an international cur- rency, Miss Susan Strange...

Sleep and His Brother Peter Dickinson (Hodder and Stoughton £1.40) Just one good thriller in a dreary month with more than the publishers' usual quota of simplemindedness. While...

The Wind of Morning Hugh Boustead (Chatto and Windus £2.80) 'I watched the rabbits playing on the green turf', wrote the Maharajah of Jaipur after a visit to Curzon's home at...

Erasmus of Rotterdam George Faludy (Eyre and Spottiswoode £3.25) In 1702 the French traveller Bernard de Montfaucon described his visit to a monas- tery near Venice. He was...

'I have always thought of poetry as pro- wess—something to achieve, something to win or lose.' It sounds like the archetypal American boast, the cliche of classic com- petitive...

This book of excerpts from Kant's works contains in English translation three of the philosopher's letters, more than half of the first Critique, the whole of the Fundamental...

F lorence always has a most disastrous effect c 'h the English. Intelligent and witty people su ddenly become quite silly and affected, roll- i ng the names of unimportant...

1 • ARTS • LETTERS • MONEY• LEISURE POP Stones in the sticks DUNCAN FALLOWELL Once upon a time, way back in the murk of the early 'sixties, there was a band of jolly rockers...

See Venice and die CHRISTOPHER HUDSON It is almost always the c a se that a short story transposes better to the screen than a full length work of fiction. A good version of...

Close quarters RODNEY MILNES Miss Horne has of course sung Carmen quite memorably once before, on the sound- track album of Carmen Jones. But this time she is respectably...

Party line EVAN ANTHONY By the time I left the Hayward Gallery, I felt about propaganda pic- tures the way that I should doubt whether at this late date, there can be anyone...

Self-evident KENNETH HURREN You will recall how the Inquisitor in Shaw's Saint Joan observed dryly to the Maid's clerical and military enemies, fearful that their victim would...

Sir: If the rules of historical evi- dence inhibit one from accepting the historicity of the Gospel narra- tive, one is still left with the par- ables which the narrative...

Letters from Brian Inglis, Roger Scruton, L. E. Weidberg, Porcus- Piscis Orielensis and others. A Powellite triumph Sir: You are to be congratulated on your assessment (6...

Sir: In President Sadat's interview with Newsweek he made it quite clear that he wants an Israeli withdrawal behind El Arish, and says nothing about direct negotia- tions. In...

Revolution (27 Febru'ary) R. M. Hartwell says that I should have done more than sim- ply quote the 'optimists'—that is, those modern economic historians who share his opinion...

Sir: R. M. Hartwell's review of Brian Inglis's Poverty and the In- dustrial Revolution (27 February) is the first critical appraisal I have read. It is surely no accident that...

Sir: May I please reply through your columns to the letter of your correspondent, Mr Tim Bearsden, of Christ Church, entitled 'Mon- day's child'? Now that he has re- vealed his...

'matter of Europe' and (should the Gospel thesis be true) of the world--an argument of far too great moment for it to rest in any degree on faulty comparii sons. Such a faulty...

Sir: Because of the postal strike I did not see a proof of my review of John Gross's Joyce. Perhaps, therefore, you will not mind my pointing out that a reference to...

Sir: Auberon Waugh, your fiction reviewer—if that is the word—is a regular chip off the old shoulder. Your issue of 27 February finds him on the one hand complaining of Your...

Sir: Your readers would be wrong to conclude from Mr Franks's letter (27 •February) that there was no 'postal network' in 1836. A table in H. Joyce's History of the Post Office...

branch' seems unreasonably and unrealistically biased against Israel. You write of the Israel government's response to President Sadat's 'new diplo- macy' as being...

Sir: In her column on 27 Febru- ary, Sally Vincent refers to the fact that MPS are more equal than the rest of us in the matter of im- munity from libel. Actually the im- munity...

NICHOLAS DAVENPORT Stockbrokers develop instincts which are rarely to be found outside the animal kingdom. They may employ dozens of clever company analysts with fine...

So the Sketch is to close and its title be merged with the Daily Mail from May. It does credit to Vere Harmsworth, the chairman, that he didn't give the tits and tips formula...

Best wishes to Britain's former ambassa- dor to Washington and certified socialist establishment figure John Freeman, who has been made Chairman and Chief Executive of London...

It is a matter of general comment that since Andreas Whittam-Smith, formerly editor of the Guardian Business Section, became editor of the Investors Chronicle (which was never...

Social security, redundancy payments and Wage-related unemployment benefits, as well as the Health Service that Mr Anthony Harris and the Guardian aficionados relish, are being...

The Labour voters in Arundel and Shore. ham have made a mistake in not adopting Humphry Berkeley as the Labour candidate in the hopeless fight they have before them in the...

With a double helping of horses this week, there is, fortunately no space to dwell upon the slight jolt to my fortunes last Saturday. The SPECTATOR'S deadline could hardly be...

Equity, the acting profession's trade union, appears not to be living up to its name by persuading Mr Carr that actors should be exempt from the provisions of the indus- trial...

I was walking along a -footpath beside a wood, enjoying the brisk stir of spring going on all around, when I almost trod on a large brown hare. It propelled itself from where it...

How does a man kill time in London? I am not thinking of weeks or months, which are the easiest things in the world to fritter away —nearly as easy as years, in fact—but of an...

Senior Common Rooms of the older univer- sities are associated with informed apprecia- tion of fine wines. (Though alas, what most of them buy in bulk today tends to be that...

I Was brought up on all that stuff—Gregory Peck in his leopard-skin hatband, the Snows Of Kilimanjaro tinged pink in VistaVision, the symbolic hyena snuffling round the tent. It...

TONY PALMER Theatrical events, and by these I don't just mean the BBC annual works outing al the Albert Hall last week, are lolloping into view with ever-increasing frequency...

England CAMBRIDGESHIRE Garden House Hotel""' CAMBRIDGE Cambridge 55491 Royal Cambridge Hotel" •• CAMBRIDGE Cambridge 51631 CORNWALL Meudon Hotel' • •• NEAR FALMOUTH Mawnan...