`I asked Kurt Waldheim for advice on how to deal with our hippy problem.' D r David Owen reiterated his belief that Polaris must be replaced, thus des- troying before it was...

`CONVICTION is an asset for any leader,' Dr Owen told the Council for Social Democracy four weeks ago in Southport. On his way to Southport Dr Owen had seen in the press that...

BELIEF IN THE BISHOPS T he 'statement and exposition' by the bishops of the Church of England, The Nature of Christian Belief, deserves more attention. It is the best thing yet...

Hippies, Workfare and the myth of Total Mobilisation FERD INAND MO UNT I don't call this country,' says the ill-starred Lilia in Where Angels Fear to Tread after walking...

W e have just come back from our annual visit to the deep south of Ireland. Next year we shall have been going to the same place at the same time of year for 40 years: long...

Thoughts of the self-destruct factor in extremist politics AUBERON WAUG H T hroughout the tiny world of English letters, into which I was born, the title `Master' is conferred...

which has led him to split the royalties of one novel between a Trappist monastery and the guerrillas of El Salvador `DO YOU still dream stories?' A number of plots, I knew,...

Denis Hills finds an air of uneasiness in the country where he lived before the War FORTY-FIVE years had passed since Hit- ler's panzers severed my connection with Poland —...

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard on the president who refuses to pay his debts Lima ONE day somebody will take a pot shot at Alan Garcia. Peru's brash young president does not hide his...

The bitter feeling existing in Belfast between Protestants and Catholics has produced serious rioting. Some ship- builders and navvies quarrelled, a boy was killed, and on...

Andrew Gimson on the crisis of rising expectations which threatens to destroy South Africa `DAMN sight nicer desks than the ones I had when I was at school,' the PR man said...

Gerda Cohen finds pockets of revival in the worked-out Valleys REVIVAL is strong in the Valleys; revival of a sort. Up in Tredegar, Ken John was showing me his orange...

Vincent Hanna discovers why the Prime Minister does not want an election before 1988 I WAS in that part of the dream where the stewardess says, 'We are now entering the...

Labour's rejection of Murdoch's offer means bloodshed THE man I blame for Sogat's disastrous ballot decision to turn down Rupert Mur- doch's terms for a settlement is Neil...

Woolies takes over a masterpiece and the IBA turns a cloth ear CHRISTOPHER FILDES T he orchestra strikes up the great theme from Beethoven's Choral Sym- phony: the setting of...

SACKING the governor of a central bank takes some doing. Israel's government, though, has sacked the Governor of the Bank of Israel, Moshe Mandelbaum, and has sacked the heads...

WE have it on David Howell's authority that the Prime Minister believes in the redistribution of capital with a fervour which makes Anthony Wedgwood Benn look a moderate. (So he...

PAUL Channon has shooed the bull out of Wedgwood's china shop. That shows that the merger boom has made the Govern- ment rethink its policy, and not before time. Norman Tebbit,...

The holy estate of 'stability' and its substitutes JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE T he doctrine of unripe time, like all good things, has its day. It is, we learned last weekend, the...

Sir: There are a number of points in Christopher Booker's article on Nikolai Tolstoy's recent book (`The minister and the massacres', 17 May) which need to be challenged....

Sir: Who in the name of sanity is A. N. Wilson that he is given four columns (`Goodbye to Grub Street', 31 May) on why he is giving up reviewing? The new G. B. Shaw? I know he...

Sir: In your issue of 10 May, Rodney Milnes complains, not for the first time, about the inadequate government subsidy for opera in Britain. According to the March 1985 number...

Sir: Dr Sams (Letters, 3 May) has put a good deal of scholarly work into editing Edmund Ironside, and that should be of permanent value, for which we should be grateful. Sorry...

Sir: Ever sensible of the fairmindedness with which the august columns of the Spectator are imbued, I am emboldened to write and point out that in his useful note of 24 May on...

Sir: Heard on radio this morning. Derek Jamieson interviewing Jeffrey Archer about gaffes attributed to him in his role as publicist for the Conservative Party. 'Now let me bowl...

SUBSCRIBE TODAY! Please enter a subscription to The Spectator I enclose my cheque for f (Equivalent SUS & Eurocheques accepted) RATES: 12 Months 6 Months UKJEire 0 £41.00 ❑...

I n 1982, in a series of columns in the Observer, Conor Cruise O'Brien ardently defended Israel's invasion of Lebanon. Yet again the spunky little Jewish state was slaying the...

Robert Stewart A CENTURY OF THE SCOTTISH PEOPLE, 1830-1950 by T. C. Smout Collins, (15 T he trouble with the social history of nations is that it is hard to make books out of...

Sir Paul Anita Brookner A TASTE FOR DEATH by P.D. James Faber & Faber, f9.95 P . D. James's excellent novel begins with the discovery of the mutilated bodies of two men in...

Anthony Storr THE BOURGEOIS EXPERIENCE: FROM VICTORIA TO FREUD VOLUME II: THE TENDER PASSION by Peter Gay OUP, f19.50 T his is the second volume of a massive enterprise....

No way to deal with it, no way at all. We did not have to come, and yet we came. The things we saw were all the very same As we expected. We had seen them all: The fabric...

Patrick Skene Catling DIGGING UP THE MOUNTAINS by Neil Bissoondath Andre Deutsch, f8.95 MAN DESCENDING by Guy Vanderhaeghe The Bodley Head, f8.95 MY PRESENT AGE by Guy...

Harold Acton AUGUSTUS HARE: VICTORIAN GENTLEMAN by Malcolm Barnes Allen & Unwin, £20 A ugustus Hare's copious Victorian guidebooks are still useful and readable, if only for...

David Ekserdjian VELAZQUEZ: PAINTER AND COURTIER by Jonathan Brown Yale, f35 T here are depressingly few decent books on individual artists, and, what is more, most of them...

Non-fiction Sexual Desire by Roger Scruton, Weiden- feld, £8.95 Hermit of Peking: The Hidden Life of Sir Edmund Backhouse by Hugh Trevor- Roper, Macmillan, £6.95 The Airman and...

Felix Pryor Next week, the fragment of Webster's play discovered at Melbourne Hall last year is put up for sale at Bloomsbury Book Auctions. Here is the story of its...

Edward James at Monkton Sitting on Mae West's lips Antony Lambton N ow that Monkton House is emptied it is worth recalling a visit I paid there nearly 40 years ago, when it...

Michael Andrews (Anthony D'Offay till 4 July) Ritual rocks Giles Auty M any people in Britain were first made aware of the symbolic significance of the great isolated rock...

Not quite ready Rodney Milnes I have little doubt that by the time this appears in print the new production of Boccanegra at Glyndebourne will be a very different show from...

The Trip to Bountiful (`U', selected cinemas) Back to basics Peter Ackroyd E ven an audience forced to sit blind - folded through this film (and it can hapPen — it is the...

STUDENTS ARE TWICE AS LII The Spectator

LESS THAN HALF-PRICE More stimulating than any lecture, funnier than the set books, The Spectator should be required reading for every student. With Student Subscriptions...

Ross (Old Vic) Highly charged posturing Christopher Edwards D onald Freed's latest play from America stars Faye Dunaway as a First Lady possessed of surprising qualities — a...

Worthwhile farewells Alexander Chancellor `S o, Farewell, Brian Walden'. This was not E. J. Thribb, the Private Eye poet, speaking. It was an ITV announcer mark- ing the end...

Love among the guyropes Jeffrey Bernard A fter the follies and revels of Derby Day we are back to seething normality. Barney the pianist has fallen in love with a...

Drowned in the wind Alice Thomas Ellis F our intrepid equestriennes rode up the stony ravine to emerge on the mountain top — and then we nearly got blown off our ponies. I...

$ Ar Cains The trouble with going to restaurants outside London is that they tend to be much more expensive. But often the food is much better. If you are going out to a...

for one or more weeks of the competition and crossword may be posted together under one cover, addressed 'Competition Entries' provided each entry is enclosed in a separate...

WHILE semi-sweet German blended wines have enjoyed phenomenal success in the UK, the market for the finest estate- bottled hocks and moselles has remained static. The best sweet...

T he concept of face-to-face matches is becoming increasingly fashionable. Incred- ibly, Kasparov has not competed in a tournament since Niksic, in the summer of 1983. Instead,...

I n Competition No. 1423 you were asked to devise a public advertisement for a suitable monarch from some republican government of the future. `Whenever I go out, my dear, I...

ing) are versions of 4 TINKER 24 TAILOR 10 SOLDIER 28 SAILOR 15 RICH MAN 38 POOR MAN 32 BEGGAR- MAN 20 THIEF. Winners: W. L. Edge, Musselburgh (£20); John M. Brown, Rolleston-...

A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or a copy of Chambers Dictipnary, value £12.95 — ring the words 'Chambers Dictionary' above) will be awarded for the first...

A bracing song, please (maximum 16 lines), which could be sung on World Cup occasions by players and football officials in unison. Entries to 'Competition No. 1427' by 27 June.