Mr Callaghan and Mr Wilson are to be congratulated on their decisions to visit Ireland; and it is probably best that their visits should be separate. Mr Maudling, as Home...

"The present situation," said Sir Alec Douglas-Home of Rhodesia on Tuesday, "benefits no one, least of all the Africans . . . I do not underestimate the difficulty of the task...

Roy Jenkins is doing extremely well, almost winning the Labour Party's deputy leadership on the first ballot. He will have no difficulty in finding the extra couple of votes...

A northern publisher of parliamentary information has recently advanced the laudable theory that Parliamentary Lobby journalists might be replaced by a computer into which was...

Patrick Cosgrave Nothing evokes a readier or more heartfelt public response in Western countries than natural disaster abroad, be it flood and war in Pakistan, cyclone in...

John Rowan Wilson If Sir Keith Joseph is really going to introduce cost-effectiveness into the Health Service, he might do worse than turn his attention to one of the more...

Dennis Hackett There is little good news in Fleet :Street these days. Some managements make bravura statements about long-term sur vival and a vigorous future, but these are in...

Aram Bakshian, Jr Washington, DC There was irony in it. At .about the same time that the House of Commons was taking the preliminary steps to integrate Britain into the Common...

Edward Heath's efforts to push Britain into Europe may have failed to win the approval of most of the British people but they have warmed the heart of a certain elderly exile on...

Sir: John Graham's article 'Long Kesh ' (November 6), is admirable, not least because it is published by yourself, since no one could describe The Spectator as being dominated...

, Sir: Congratulations for your alspired article entitled No Consent, No Entry (November 6). As one who has actively Participated in the local antiComm o n Market campaign I...

Sir: I desire to apologise for the latest caper of our all-unAmerican boy, the little peripatetic United States politician who sails under the name of Teddie Kennedy. Poor...

Sir: "If all the land in England officially called derelict were restored its area could accommodate at normal density no fewer than a million homes. Thus it could replace the...

Sir: I think Mr Max Nottingham's suggestion (Letters, October 30) of a device to limit the speed of cars might work if all drivers were good drivers all the time. But has he...

Sir: For a biography I am presently engaged upon, I would be grateful to hear fromanyone who has in his possession papers relating to Kate Greenaway, or her work. A idan...

Sir: We have been advised, rather late unfortunately, that certain letter to the editor of The Spectator claimed that the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights is a...

Sir: The recent police raids in South Africa, the continued persecution of clergy and laymen there, and this week's exposure of South African Special Branch activity in this...

Sir: I have been deliberately slow to respond to Mr Abram's recent review of The Making of Sociology (September 25). After the work that goes into a substantial book, it is easy...

Race relations and the role of law CHILDREN'S BOOKS reviews by Isabel Qui gly, Kevin Crossley-Holland, Ruth Marris, Caroline Hillier, Mary James and Benny Green on a child's...

Tales in School. Jacynth Hope-Simpson (Hamish Hamilton £1.60) School is a madeleine word, its flavour comes suddenly out of the past, bitter or delicious or both, unforgettable...

Kevin Crossley-Holland The Tale of the Tales: The Beatrix Potter Ballet Rumer Godden (Frederick Warne £4.00) The Sly Old Cat Beatrix Potter (Frederick Warne 60p) Here is a new...

Ruth Marris The Child in the Bamboo Grove Rose mary Harris, illustrated by Errol le Cain (Faber £1.40) The Squirrel Wife Philippa Peace illustrated by Derek Collard (Longman...

Caroline Hillier A Game of Dark William Mayne (Hamish Hamilton £1.25) The Strange Affair of Adelaide Harris Leon Garfield (Longman £1.25) I know of a father who reads Arthur...

The fact that London is inhabited by two entirely different species is so indisputable that for most of the time it goes unnoticed. But stand at, say, the booking office in...

Mary James Poverty, real or threatened, is a theme common to Bertie and May (Hamish Hamilton E1.25) and The Button Boat (Heinemann £1.25), both of which are set in rural...

Clive Gammon With Hallowe'en gone by, the dark evenings closing in on us and the conker season almost at an end, it seems an appropriate time to review the autumn's sport,...

The first six books, four of them fantasies, are very highly recommended. The review includes a number of good animal picturestory books, but few particularly impressive magical...

A moving and exciting retelling of the eleventh century folk-tale, Maildun's voyages to a series of fantastic islands, where he encounters strange beasts and unusual people are...

£1.25) A long journey can be very tiring and boring for a small child, but this drive from London to Cumberland where nothing more extraordinary than a breakdown occurs is not...

Children, to me, are small-scale human beings and therefore I do not see why they should not—at least as soon as they have teeth—eat the same sort of food (on a smaller...

I read the other day that Parson Woodforde's parish in Norfolk is to be ' rationalised,' if that is the appropriate term. In other words the living, which has been vacant for...

Geoffrey Wagner The last subway car of a train pulling into Astor Station, on the borders of New York's Greenwich Village, was almost empty. It was 3.45 pm of a pleasant...

Tony Palmer The cinema as documentary is usually relegated to secondary consideration. The documentary maker is thought to graduate to the big feature; and because the feature...

Kenneth Hurren Inevitably there were those of my colleagues in this dodge, desperate as ever to avoid alienating the Pimlico proletariat, who came to scoff and stayed to jeer...

Robin Young The Swedish choreo grapher, Birgit caber& says that her aim is r° avoid mystification and to let the dancing speak for itself, telling tales so simply and clear 1...

Charles Marowitz, director of the Open Space Theatre, may have a personal axe to grind in his assault on the constitution of the Arts Council's drama panel — but he also has a...

Theatre Opening in London: Cato Street, Robert Shaw's play (which was once intended for the National Theatre repertory), with Vanessa Redgrave, progresses from previews to...

Nicholas Davenport WHILE Mr Barber was telling 5,000 company directors at the Albert Hall last week, who were cheering like mad, that the economy was now expanding at the rate...

Strung about with umbrella, bag, gloves, three newspapers, two racecards and a pen, it's a miracle it my binoculars ever get directed at the antics a one set of colours, let...

Orme Developments' offer for sale, by Sandelson and Co., the stockbrokers, on Tuesday, November 16, of 2,125,000 ordinary 20p shares at 70p per share should be stagged. The...