Great pressure has been applied to make Mr Heath change his mind and to think again about Malta. The Prime Minister is not a man whose mind changes readily at the best of times,...

The National Union of Mineworkers' strike is the most important since the present Government took office. It is important largely because of its symbolic character: the miners...

coommilowe s■witsigai II IV I°st of the thirty-nine stalwart Tories bewho opposed the declaration in principle of I psupport for British entry into the Common "Market are...

Bullying the bullies Hugh Macpherson Although the Government's attempt to censor the BBC programme on Ulster came to grief I have little doubt that when Parliament resumes...

S • • • When Ted Heath called in at New Delhi a year ago, on his way to the Singapore conference of Commonwealth Prime Ministers, he had a furious row with Indira Gandhi about...

Amid the Sadist Revolution David Holbrook I travelled to London to give a paper to the Moral, Psychology and Philosophy sec tion of Lord Longford's inquiry into por nography....

Master in his own White House Patrick Cosgrave The recognition of China — with all the alterations in assumptions and policies which it involves, the extraordinarily maladroit...

Auntie's Charley Gyles Brandreth Charles Curran, the pleasantly pug-faced and currently flu-ridden Director-General of the BBC, has scribbled just one New Year resolution in...

The yearly round Bernard Dixon At this time of year, when many of us are thumbing through the glossy travel brochures or gawking at cut price Mediterranean beaches on the...

Guessing games with Ezra Pound !Pound ought to be a likelier candidate for to the cult of derangement than the favourites, Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath, for he also possesses...

Auberon Waugh Rock Rude, Edward Stewart Joseph £2.10). A711 January is the dead season for EN, Tit. novels, but I never thought I would i c f a i forward with such eagerness...

Christopher Gill The Justice of Zeus Hugh Lloyd-Jones (University of California Press £4.05) What kind of god was Zeus for the Greeks? Was he an Olympian equivalent of a local...

Nicholas Richardson Nemesis Agatha Christie (Collins £1.50). Panic Colin Spencer (Secker and War. burg £1.90). Who were you with last night? Frederic Raphael (Cape £1.50)....

Ix style c'est Ryle. I used these words in review of Dilemmas in the Cambridge . eview in 1954. If I had known that the 'affie words in the same order were the last sentence of...

Christopher Hampton Stendhal Michael Wood (Elek £1.25) Flaubert the Master: A Critical and Biographical Study 1856-1880 Enid Starkie (Weidenfeld and Nicolson e5) Stendhal and...

One of the incidental delights of lee-through publishers' Spring List catalogo is the " brilliant," " sparkling," "even tive," " fiercely sincere " prose that lop literary...

Sir: It is interesting if unoriginal VOr The Spectator to decide that a united Ireland provides the final solution to our problems. Glads tone and Asquith as well as every...

in thinking that the Government of Northern Ireland is a timocracy either in principle or in Practice' There is no property qualification for holding office (or for voting). If...

Sir: As you have not defended the Subtle compiler of your Prime Ministers Quiz (Letters, January 8) (Unless indeed he did not realise his own subtlety), allow me to point out...

Sir: In the course of an extremely enthusiastic review of the film Family Life (January 1) Tony Palmer states that he is " sure those who put up the money must have wrung their...

Sir: It is kind of your Bookbuyer to say that this firm is one of the two main challengers to the hypothetically " leading " publishers of thrillers. But to say that we...

From Lord Sudeley Sir: I was saddened by your article on the honours system (January 8), in which Mr Macpherson said that the "hereditary principle is extremely questionable as...

Sir: Whatever one may think of Dom Mintoff's policies, it is grossly unfair to imply, as some newspapers have done, that he is a pocket dictator.' Mintoff leads a democratically...

Sir: As one of the humble lefties so vehemently denounced by Mr Potts (Letters, January 1), I am surprised that proponents of the proposed Rhodesian independence settlement take...

Sir: As a Transvaal Executive Member of the Liberal party until I left South Africa in 1964 I must comment on Mr Lazarus's 'Ham again ' letter (Januaryl). I have known the Hains...

have an obsessional hatred for the Hain family, is hoist with his own petard. He quotes 'evidence,' against the Hains from the works of the South African S. E. D. Brown — a man...

From Mrs Isla M. Atherley Sir: I hope you are preparing a massive assault on the Government's infamous 'surrender to Europe ' policy. This policy literally stinks of treason,...

From Surgeon Captain T. L. Cleave Sir: Could Mr Nicholas Davenport be asked to reconcile his article (December 25) — especially the middle of the first paragraph and, for that...

in the light of the pre-Christmas Washington agreement on currency realignments (December 25) could have guessed that since the war there has been an unprecedented expansion in...

From Sir Graham Sutton it.ut Sir: I was surprised to read in ye Hugh Macpherson's Political Cuot mentary (January 1) that tr,w: Meteorological Office excluo` f er women from its...

4 The Bryn, Swansea SNi tu ;CE Punctures puncture ' eiY ( Sir: I was rather distressed to your advertisement for IBM co 11 I■1 puters since it was based 1.1P ° ini improved...

r: Here are some who have made significan t contribution in 1971: /an Illick, Arthur Koestler, Arnold 'oynbee, Conor Cruise O'Brien, oietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Laurens an de...

Air: What does Mr Stokes (Letters, eanuary 1) mean by the ' g reats ' in lolitical journalism? Intelli g ent oh l ervation and an acerbic Iv manner eake entertainin g gossip...

Sir: I was saddened to read of your experiences in Scotland althou g h not entirely surprised. Had you been fortunate enou g h to be a Scot you would have known that the...

Sir: I would like to draw your attention to an error in your Christmas q uiz (December 25): lithium is not a g as, as stated in q uestion 6(ii), but a g roup I metal, with a...

From Patrick Cormack, MP, and the Rev Ian Dunlop Sir: This year the Historic Churches Preservation Trust celebrates its twentieth anniversary and we would like to mark the...

the Yeats Estate and Oxford UniComplete Letters of W. B. Yeats any information abou t unpublished Sir: I have been commissioned by versity Press to co-edit the and I should be...

Sir: In writin g of Portu g al's colonial wars in An g ola (January 1), Mr Calvert offers so lar g e a helpin g of Portu g uese propa g anda as to call for some correction,...

Thinking big Evan Anthony Is there anyone who has not yet heard that the Royal Academy's winter exhibition is A Break With Tradition? (Excited?) If you have, no one could...

Future imperfect Tony Palmer " A movie studio is the best toy a boy ever had," Orson Welles once remarked. Stanley Kubrick, who owes little to anyone except maybe Welles,...

Boys in bands Duncan Fallowell Kinkier and kinkier it gets. Rock, that is (among other things). It is one of the peccadillos of living in the 'seventies, while the planet...

That rogue viper of music critics, Rodney Milnes, is mi g htily disturbin g to the operatic Establishment because of his insistence on relating public money spent to value...

The investment dollar premium Nicholas Davenport When labour troubles beset our domestic industries it is comforting to look at our investments abroad and thank God for our...

The customary howls of derision and despair echoed loud and long round Gower Street this time. Following a weekend of ' puffs ' on The Spectator cover and Sunday Times sports'...

Jacob Rothschild is a wit. After RothsChilds had lost the Viyella account he told a friend of mine, "Joe Hyman should be told to stop being so promiscuous with his bankers."...

Clive Gammon The ruination of the West Wales coast proceeds apace, to be hastened, I expect, now that the M4 is open to Cardiff. West Cork is now experiencing its first major...

People tend to go all droopy and maudlincadenced about ends of things. I, who've cheered myself in the dark moments of wedged drinks parties, dinners that should have been...

t l have to admit that until the other day I k the regular chiming of our village eoltreh clock entirely for granted I : h 1W 25's like to hear it striking the hours, 67...

Benny Green As usual, the distant rumble of impending electoral thunder is causing a few brainstorms in the ranks of the politicians. As the GLC elections draw closer, so does...

Over the Border Carol Wright My first visit to Scotland was as a schoolgirl with my mother who thought a coach tour would improve my history. It confirmed my youthful...