It has become nicely clear, after the Sutton and Cheam and the Uxbridge by-elections, that it is not a question of who is going to win the next general election, whenever it...

that the Government's announcement of aid for the coal industry should be welcomed; but that welcome cannot be altogether unequivocal. The new policy is welcome in so far as it...

first prize of £500 in The Spectator's Schools Writing Competition has been won by Jon Margolis of Ilford, Essex. The cheque was presented to him at an informal ceremony this...

The non-politics of the Liberal suburbs Patrick Cosgrave I was once party to a conversation at which Mr Teddy Taylor, the ebullient Tory MP for Glasgow, Cathcart, launched a...

krhen, at the end of Tuesday's debate on I ndustrial policy the idiosyncratic and , s Plendid Dame Irene Ward voted with the \) Pposition her action was one of the most telling...

The Government has been outwitted by the Civil Service (ably assisted by the National Insurance computer at Newcastle upon-Tyne) in the matter of the e10 bonus to old-age...

The death of Tibor Szamuely on Sunday is a great loss to his friends and to this country, of which he was a naturalised and most loyal son. It is also a particular loss to The...

Ian Meadows Beirut In recent days it is noticeable that Mr Yasser Arafat, Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, has been given a lot of public exposure, and his...

The spy left out in the cold Martin Short Leopold Trepper, the Grand Chef of the Red Orchestra, Russia's vast espionage outfit in Nazi-occupied Western Europe, is today living...

The aim of Surrealism, according to its most articulate apologist, Andre Breton, was " to prevent the domination of the symbol by the thing signified." It was Breton's belief...

Auberon Waugh There will be a Short Interval Storm Jameson (Harvill £2.25) Miss Jameson's new novel illustrates a variation on the idea that when a man knows he is to be...

J. Enoch Powell Origins of the Peloponnesian War G. E. M. de Ste Croix (Duckworth £6.75) This is a very large book to be written about the 'war guilt' of the war which broke...

C. H. Waddington The Nature of Living Things Stephen Black (Seeker and Warburg/William Heinemann Medical Books £1.95) Stephen Black has written a valuable little book which is...

J. I. M. Stewart Return to Yesterday Ford Madox Ford (Liveright $10.00) Edwardian Occasions Samuel Hynes (Routledge £3.00) Ford Mad ox Ford: Modern Judgements edited by Richard...

A quick man he was, nimble, Steady, lorn, slant. Walked his trap line daily, Silence-hooded, jingling. Snared rabbits, shot deer, Dressed meat, stretched hides, Avoided owls....

John P. Mackintosh The Decade of Disillusion: British Politics in the '60s. Edited by David McKee and Chris Cook (Macmillan £3.95) The idea behind this book was a good one. The...

Bookbuyer The suicide rate among publishers' sales managers is surprisingly low. Theirs is certainly no task for the timorous. A book may be ill-conceived, tattily produced and...

Moral tales and allegories Christopher Hudson Two remarkable European films are briefly in London. So many critical bouquets have been flung at Love in the Afternoon ('AA'...

Waspe I hear that BBC-tv's five-year dicker for the television rights to the play, A Pin to See the Peepshow, may be reaching the dotted-line stage. Why the delay, you may...

The fat and the lean Kenneth Hurren It is easily possible to gain an impression from some drama reviewers — working, curiously, at opposite extremes of the press spectrum: on...

Incubating Joe Egg Clive Gammon Philadelphia, so travelled friends tell me, is the Wigan of North America. Just mention the place for an aUtomatic laugh. But on the evidence...

Widow's peak Rodney Milnes If you are going to do classical operetta, then you must take it as seriously as if it were by Mozart, and the production team at the Coliseum has...

Pantomime horse Benny Green For years now we have all been most Pleasingly diverted by the spectacle of the Pantomime horse of English football administration frisking...

Northern skies Peter Quince The sky takes a larger part in the daily scene at this time of year than at any other. When activity dies down on the earth, the incessant process...

From Mrs Margot K. M. Crosse Sir: I read Yvonne Brock's letter (November 25) with a sense of shock and deep sadness, and was amazed this week to find that the National Trust had...

Sir: Beverley Nichols is right to bemoan Noel Coward's apparent silence on topics of current interest (December 2). However, we do have the Master's views on Socialism. From...

From lain Sproat, MP Sir: I read with interest your article on Mozambique, as I have only recently returned from there, and indeed have made a study of the Mozambique situation...

Sir: I am collecting material for a biography of Peter Fleming — alias Strix — and I should very much like to have any letters, photographs or reminiscences that your readers...

Sir: I continue to read your magazine particularly with reference to Northern Ireland, now mostly described by you as an overspilling 'Irish mess.' It is overspilling, but is it...

From Captain Duncan Neil Dewar Sir: I mentally puked with disgust and disbelief, as no doubt did most thinking folk, on learning of the lenient sentences passed on the guilty...

Sir: There can be little doubt that your correspondents' complaints are thoroughly justified. Standards in the quality press are abysmal. I don't see the quantity press but I...

Sir: There you are, you see? I tried to make it simple, and by the ver" next post you get a letter from . 1 man who doesn't understand. m„; Hornsby (Letters, December ai,;...

One of these Saturdays I shall dig into my tombola and draw out the 20-1 winner of the big sponsored 'chase, couple it with the hero of the handicap hurdle and sail on through...

Fairlie in the 'Truth about Nixon', " t hough one does not often meet them socially, there are people who support Richard Nixon." Further on he writes: "I am among those whom...

Sir: The persecution of a racial minority to the degree instanced by the Ugandan Government is a reminder that the dictatorship of any single faction can only be exercised...

Nicholas Davenport The Treasury, we all know, is not supposed to issue instructions to the Bank of England on purely monetary matters but in view of what happened last week I...

Those, like me, who ar g ue a g ainst the desirability of buildin g a Channel tunnel or brid g e, are accused of bein g blimpish reactionaries or penny-pinching misers. My...

Out of manhole covers into health farms Nephew Wilde As one of Wotherspool's regular clients I was honoured last week with an invitation to his stockbroking firm's annual...

Buying oil, selling steel John Bull I am going to make two recommendations this week. First is Burmah Oil which, on the back of the current wave of a shareholder rebellion,...

Douglas Curtis Tommy will be nine next week but his face is already old and his body is that of a stunted seven year old. His reading age is six but he has a fluent command of...

Does the rate rebates scheme hold out any lesson for the new housing rebates? If it does, then the research published today, 'Rate Rebates: A Study of the Effectiveness of Means...

The continuing conflict Bernard Dixon Those who suspect that conflicts between science and religion are a thing of the distant past should take a look at what is happening...