Few can doubt that the country — and this in the midst of a general election campaign — is in extreme difficulty. Most evidence would suggest, however, that opinion is...

As in all elections, however, it is the government seeking a renewal of its mandate which must answer the most important questions, questions about its record as well as its...

And there are other things which relate to the Government's record. What, in this crisis of the European Economic Community, when the indignation of the British people at price...

But there are things which relate to the silences of the Labour Party as well. If returned to power this time what would Labour, which after all, also made an effort to join the...

There have been two elections of critical importance in this country since the war. The first was that of 1945. Then the country gave Labour a mandate to set it on a particular...

Clearly this election campaign cannot survive for three weeks on answers and counteranswers to questions about the miners' dispute. We are, as a country, far more deeply engaged...

Sir: Many thanks to Mr Cosgrave for his article (February 2) in which he talks about the One Nation theme — it is the best, in my opinion, that he has written in a long time....

Sir: Without attempting to argue the rights and wrongs of the respective protagonists (Government vis-a-vis trade unions) in the present struggle. I am nevertheless struck by...

Sir: Your comments on Mr McGahey and his allies in your leading article of February 2, 'Irresponsibly to disaster' were both timely and realistic. It should be perfectly clear...

Revaluation • Of coalmining's role Safeguards its future, But now we need coal. Remuneration, The mineworkers seek, Not Phase Three dogma For week after week....

Sir: Mr Heath recently told Le Figaro: "British people are hard-headed and realistic. Before they are convinced that something is good for them they like to have some proof." At...

Sir: It is not at all clear from Nicholas Davenport's 'The Inflation Bogey' (February 2) why the hyper-inflation of the Weimar Republic cannot happen here. As he says, the...

Sir: Having over the years, spent a small fortune on postage alone, writing to Indian politicians, officials, Pu r r, nalists and 'activeGandhians,'here in India, protesting and...

§i: What semblance of objectivity do You expect from a correspondent who is hell-bent on whitewashing the re ality of a brutal dictatorship? I am of course referring to Lucia...

Mr !vor Catt should describe the computer Industry (February 2) in exactly the 3 ,Pne way I described the chemical Pe'ant industry in an article in British ' ,LleMical...

From Dr Bernard Dixon Sir: For whatever reasons, Mr A. J. H. Brown (Letters, January 19) grossly underestimates the damage to the Vietnamese countryside caused by the war. My...

Sir: That I should contemplate the cancellation of my subscription to The Spectator after reading some 2,500 issues would indicate either that something has gone wrong with my...

Sir: Those of us who have had letters from New Zealand are made to realise once again how splendidly the Queen carries out her royal duties or, in the current jargon, "does her...

Patrick Cosgrave First impressions, they say, are lasting: and they may even be accurate or valuable. So, on the first morning proper of the campaign — last Monday—I went...

So, we are for it. I cannot say I am surprised, and indeed I feel considerably relieved, little as I have looked forward to what will be a difficult and bitter election...

A mandate for neither Cecil King This must be the most difficult election in British history on which to comment. In byelections and opinion polls the Great British Public has...

A watershed election Robert Harvey The circumstances surrounding the 1974 election break all modern precedent. I feel it t riaY foreshadow a fundamental political r ealignment...

The doubtful dozen Rawle Knox . rh , e one thing, you might think, Northern 1.._' rel and doesn't want is another election; it's nn through a referendum and polls for the al...

—a man and destiny It would not do for the Conservative leadership to underrate, as other students of the political situation may have been inclined to overrate, Mr Enoch...

Criminal negligence David W. Wragg The Arab oil embargo has affected our lives in a number of ways — many of them painfully obvious, such as queuing for petrol and forgoing...

Winter of discontent Nicholas Richardson "Gut reaction Gaullism is dead — only th„ e , Gaullists don't know it. Some of them are st"' clinging to the boat while the others...

My friend Sir Simon d'Audley attended me the other day where I was laid low in the country suffering from a highly infectious attack of election fever. So palsied was my...

Robin Jackson No less than a third of leavers from special schools for the educationally subnormal are either referred to a mental subnormality hospital or placed in sheltered...

Biggs business Bill Grundy My aged Granny, one of nature's phrase-makers, used to say With boring frequency that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I f the old girl...

Stars in demand Philip Kleinman The ad agency business, its practitioners are fond of remarking, is 'a people business'. By this they mean that an agency's assets consist...

What's a girl to do with a Saturday When she wakes to the news that Newbury's off, Wolverhampton's doubtful (it was later reprieved) and she lives in a household of ,philistines...

Gin trap Bernard Dixon Some of the most intriguing detective stories of medical science these days concern not simply technical experimentation in the laboratory, but a...

What's in it for me? Martin Sullivan Tlie hope of reward, conspicuo usl Y noted in the New Testament, Id us s often rejected by religio On non-religious people alike as ;...

Siege rations Denis Wood When Maud came the other day she opened a seed catalogue and said, "Now you must get forward with our parsnips, Avonresister is the one, bred at the...

statesmanship of de Gaulle This second volume, which takes de Gaulle's biography from 1945, where De Gaulle: The Warrior left it, up to his death in November 1970, is...

Quentin Bell The Restless Image Rene Koenig, translated by F. Bradley (Allen and Unwin £4.25). During the past thirty years writers on fashion in this country have been well...

Larry Adler The Anderson Papers Jack Anderson with George Clifford (Millington E2.50) If JFK attracted the best and the brightest, Richard Milhous Nixon drew the worst and the...

Isabel Quigly c "riPstead: Building a Borough 1650-1964 L. Thompson (Rout ledge and Kegan Paul Sunday afternoon pastime in my family, as 4 1 ' so many others, is a walk on...

Philip Ziegler Horace Walpole's Correspondence Volumes 35 and 36 edited by W. S. Lewis and others (Oxford University Press E10.00 each) "The year 1933," proclaimed recently...

Robert Nye A Common Sky: Philosophy and the Literary Imagination A. D. Nuttall (Chatto and Windus for Sussex University Press £3.95) This is a study of the dullest note in The...

Yonderland eIiny Green Th 50 e re is no psychoanalyst, even in America, h ai gormless that he cannot produce at least 11„ f a dozen proofs that the Reverend C. L. gson had...

Bookend The four founders of Quartet Books, who left Granada in 1972 to do their own thing, appear to be in something of a state. Two weeks ago the Sunday Times gave a rather...

It's a measure, I suppose, of the flippancy of my approach to the theatre that I am unutterably depressed in contemplation of any work whose author is the subject of an extended...

Libertarian Katie Christopher Hudson

of '37. Morosky, brilliant, emotiorla' campus president of the Yol Communist League, is with reluctant admiration to t, composition read out by her Wi ll :: Anglo-Saxon...

randpa's boy Anthony Th e li a Royal Academy and the ra-Yward Gallery might advan4 eously consider a coalition, t e v rti fig with a quick, experimenrheswitch of current...

The fire next time Rodney Milnes La Bohente is the victim of its own popularity. Audiences look upon it as an operatic Love Story, and it must be tempting for managements to...

It is amusing that there is so much concern among entrepreneurs of the arts to avoid February 28 as an opening night, since all such activities are likely to be over long before...

Nicholas Davenport The first of the two crises I postulated last week when discussing the market prospect has come nPon us. It was, I said, the threat of something like civil...

HMG and the CAM Ivor Catt " . . . The history of Tracked Hovercraft Limited proved to be an example of the Government's failure to manage their research and development in a...

Most plain-thinking men must agree that the Conservative Government has been well intentioned but lacking in wisdom and that we have not been delivered the bill of goods we were...