T he Queen's visit on 28 June to the Selby coalfield was cancelled because of fears that the miners' strike will not have ended by then. The miners' President, Mr Arthur...

Beating the system I you walk through the garden next to the Temple underground station you will come upon a statue to W. E. Forster of Education Act fame (J. S. Mill is...

T he Statement on the Defence Estimates for 1984 is rather disappointing. No urgent concern about British security in- forms the document. In the resounding te rms of...

I n the Guardian on Monday, Mr Frank Field, the Labour MP for Birkenhead, said that the only hope of defeating the Conservatives at the next election was to form some of Popular...

M r Charles McLachlan, the talkative Chief Constable of Nottinghamshire, spoke eloquently at his press conference on Tuesday about the tribulations of his police in controlling...

UK 6 muffins: £17.25 One year: £34.50 Eire £17.25 £34.50 Surface mail £20.50 £41.00 Air mail £26.50 £53.00 Name .................................................. Address ....

A missed opportunity Auberon Waugh /Throughout the long months of Mr Scar- 1 gill's attempt to enforce a national coal strike without the ballot or the 55 per cent majority...

D r Keith Hampson always seemed to me, on the few occasions when I talked to him at Westminster, a pleasant and in- telligent man. I hope he survives his present troubles....

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Los Angeles N ews of the Soviet Olympic boycott has been the source of quiet satisfaction here in Los Angeles among those who feared their city was...

Mediocrity and money C hristopher Hitchens Washington Walter Mondale's ballyhooed victory th ere had been anything to celebrate. As it p as, the night of the Ohio and Indiana...

Geoffrey Wheatcroft Johannesburg L ast month an African dream ended. It ended not with a bang or a whimper but with an audible sigh as three publications were sold. In the...

Frank Johnson Paris O n Monday nine citizens addressed an open letter to the conservative politi- cian, Mme Simone Veil, in her capacity as head of the list of candidates which...

Patrick Bishop Dublin T remember it very well,' said the taxi - driver, nudging another cyclist into the gutter. 'It was a beautiful evening in June. I left my house, waved...

Allan Massie I t is now ten years since the Scottish National Party electoral surge initiated the five years of the devolution debates in Scotland; and five years now since the...

Andrew Gimson r JohnSelwyn Gummer recently went M to Leiston, a small town in his consti - tuency of Suffolk Coastal, to attend the Party of a m useum. The Conservative 9rty...

Paul Johnson T he recent editor-proprietor tussles at the Observer and Daily Express cast a new light on Marx's dictum about history repeating itself. For if the Trelford -...

A whiff of sulphur Jock Bruce-Gardyne I there a whiff of sulphur in the air? For 'months now the City of London has been spilt into two camps: those who see the old FT30 Index...

Stern rebuke Sir: I have spent the past five weeks travelling the length and breadth of the USA where I was shocked to find that, despite a decade of allegedly vigorous...

Sir: The Jesuit who conditionally baptised Roger Casement on 5 August 1868 wou' the have done so for one reason alone: validity of a suspected first baptism wa s I !. doubt. To...

equipped to bear the illustration of an . Y s great emanation of the human spirit', t h Peter Phillips apropos of Sibelius's Seven," fores ts'; (Records, 12 May But tne words he...

Sir: With reference to the continuing debate on whether or not to keep the Elgin Marbles in Britain, we are happy to inform you that University College Cardiff Students' Union...

Sir: Your article on the New Ireland fornrn,t (Politics, 12 May) talks some sense, 5 nL. 1 also talks nonsense when it says 1 ", - e unionism `is not a sentiment that can ". 0...

Doctor not dictator Colin Welch p eter Kellner, the New Statesman's respected political editor, seems in part baffled by Mrs Thatcher's continuing sur- v ival and chirpiness....

The person vanishes Shirley Robin Letwin Reasons and Persons Derek Parfit (Oxford £17.50) E veryone agrees that morality is now in 1..ra parlous state. Many agree that this...

Ferdinand Mount K en Livingstone is a credit to th e his Parents. He is polite, friendly and rerfut, He has the resilience and good o u ntour by which we measure whether some-...

Peter Ackroyd Authors by Profession Victor Bonham Carter (The Godley Head £12.50) T his is a history of 'the business of writing in Britain', and as such can be recommended to...

We announce a Grand Scottish Poetry Competition. Messrs John Walker and Sons Ltd, the noted distillers, have with great generosity offered to donate the prizes. It will...

FOUR S TUDIES IN LOYALTY by Christopher Sykes. Write Top Flat, 55 Oxford Gardens, Lon- don uvi o. S ANE AUSTEN by Marghanita Laski. J. D. N orman, 117 Nether St, London N12 8AB....

Lewis Jones The Place of Dead Roads William S. Burroughs (John Calder £9.95) W illiam Burroughs was born in 1914 (the year civilisation ended, so they say) and came to...

Francis King Mourners Below James Purdy (Peter Owen £8.95) 1 , t is significant that James Purdy should h a v e called one of his earliest and best co llections of stories...

Peregrine Horden The World, the Text, and the Critic Edward W. Said (Faber £15, £6.95) E dward Said has made a name for himself by publishing books about literature, about...

Patrick Skene Catling Home and Dry Roy Fuller Roy Fuller (London Magazine Editions £8.95) O ne of the prospective compensations for World War III is the probability that it...

Spot on Giles Gordon On the Spot (Albery) Cries from the Mammal House (Royal Court) Real Estate (Tricycle) Panic (Royal Court Theatre Upstairs) The Comedy of Errors (RSC:...

Pace and space Julie Kavanagh Molissa Fenley and Dancers (Riverside Studios) New Galileo (Sadler's Wells) M olissa Fenley's taut, athletic body is the key to her original,...

Swamp people Peter Ackroyd Cross Creek ('PG', selected cinemas) T he film is introduced by some fruity orchestral music, composed in the style of those Forties 'weepies', in...

Overwhelming Rodney Milnes Halka, Don Pasquale, II matrimonio segreto (Warsaw Chamber Opera, Brighton Festival) T tried desperately hard to admire and I appreciate this...

Not quite right Alexander Chancellor J ust as newspapers know that they can never fail with Bingo, so television knows that, if all else goes wrong, it can always fall back on...

World-class Maureen Owen T I are as chickenfeed compared c on s he c omplicated politics of Northern with the politics of the Middle East and idering the scope for...

Play the game Taki nne of the funniest things I've heard %-lsince Prince Andrew, was the renewed call by Constantine Karamanlis for the Olympic Games to be held permanently in...

Brought to book Jeffrey Bernard R emaining and regular readers of !It ago I mentioned the strange case cif 111 4 .1.%column may remember that some tull' e Coutt's Bank doorman...

Think-piece P. J. Kavanagh /There is talk of a 'new initiative' on Northern Ireland, and Mrs Thatcher has said that thin g s there cannot g o on as they are — as thou g h she...

Jaspistos reports: Competitors were invited to supply a jolting extract from a book of advice on child-raising of some future cen- tury. The worst advice ever given on the sub-...

No. 1321:Consequences Set by Jaspistos: This familiar game often takes the form of 'X met Y (place of meeting specified); X said . . .; Y said . . .; X did ...; Y did ...; the...

red as a Newspaper at the GPO , London, Published by the Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL. Typesetting by Saffron Graphics Limited, 60-66 Saffron Hill, Buckin...

Prize: £10 — or a copy of Chambers Dictionary, 1983 edition (ring the word 'Dictionary' under name and address) — for the first correct so ution opened on 4 June. Entries to:...

Mixed triumph Raymond Keene I t is fascinating to watch Karpov in play. The moves seem to flow from him, without the accidents and traffic jams which often afflict the thought...

unclued ligh s, like 22 of and the title, are synonym BORE. Winner: Michael R• Edinburgh. Potts,