The Last of England (Heath after Ford Madox Brown) T he Conservative Party won the general election with an overall majority of 101, a considerably higher margin than indicated...

THE UNBALANCED TICKET T he sacking of Mr John Biffen will seem to many to be just another of Mrs Thatch- er's dismissals of men uncongenial to her. Some will say it is an extra...

IN the wake of the general election Labour has made much of the `North-South di- v ide', arguing that the Conservative Gov- ernment has no mandate to rule in the north of...

M r John Biffen might have said some- thing of the sort, albeit in a tone more ironic than Gladstonian. It is sad that Mrs Thatcher has sacked him. His replies to questions in...

Ferdinand Mount surveys the action Mrs Thatcher has taken since the election and the chances of the Opposition to turn the tables before the next A CATHEDRAL hush falls over...

Alexander Sylvester hears the Pope preach, then meets the riot police Gdansk DURING the Pope's two previous visits to Poland the state prohibited him from coming to Gdansk....

Anatol Lieven reports on the riots in East and West Berlin Berlin ONE should really add the two birthdays of the two Berlins together and make it 1,500 years, so rigidly have...

THE arrangements for the Jubilee are now nearly complete, and no efforts have been spared to make the ceremo- nial a grand one. The 'pit-full of Royal- ties' who will attend to...

Stephen Robinson reports on the last days of the Unionist MP for South Down `SHADOWS we are and shadows we pursue,' mused Enoch Powell, just a few seconds after the official...

Richard Rose argues that Neil Kinnock has replaced party structure with himself THE proof of a leader's charisma is that he can destroy established institutions; for example,...

SUBSCRIBE TODAY Save 15% on the Cover Price! Please enter a subscription to The Spectator I enclose my cheque for £ (Equivalent SUS & Eurocheques accepted) RATES 12 Months...

Auberon Waugh's article in the Spectator on 16 May (lime for Dudley to act like an Earl and belt up') quoted the following passage from a letter from the Earl of Dudley to Mr...

John Lloyd tells the Prime Minister to leave well alone in Scotland SPECTATOR readers may wonder why the sort of Scot one might invite to a drinks party still votes Labour. A...

Noel Malcolm considers some new uses for one of the most civilised forms of transport THE Iraqi missile which struck the USS Stark last month may have achieved one unlikely...

The press: Paul Johnson presents a balance sheet of the newspaper revolution DURING the last Parliament the mould of politics was not in the end broken: set in concrete,...

Professor Goodhart's sermon to the happy couple JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE S o my old friend and co-author Nigel Lawson is to soldier on. If there were any justice in this world...

First the good news, then the bad news for Nigel and Tigger CHRISTOPHER FILD ES I magine magine Downing Street in the hour of triumph. The Prime Minister thumps on the...

HOW glum, across the square from the Treasury, stands the grey bulk of the Department of Trade and Industry. John Smith, its substantial shadow minister, gave its character...

I FIRST met the Chancellor's new lieute- nant because of a change of recruiting Policy at the Standard Chartered Bank. In the heyday of colonial banking, the Char- tered and the...

VOTE of confidence in them all, from Kensington. The scene is a bank, on the morning after the election. Enter a lady customer, well turned out but with one non-matching...

ENERGY makes Cecil Parkinson the sponsoring minister for the biggest priva- tisation of all, with a last and best chance for the Government to learn from its mistakes. He...

Sir: About kippers (Jeffrey Bernard, Low life, 13 June), at breakfast at the Creggans Inn, owned by Sir Fitzroy and the Hon Lady Maclean, by Loch Fyne, according to Brian...

Sir: The best refutation of the absurd criticisms of your colour reproductions (Roger Law, Letters, 13 June) is the excellent illustration on page 47 of the same issue from...

Sir: I am a Conservative voter, indeed a Conservative Party member. After the Budget, I realised I should be better off and the charities I support worse off. I therefore wrote...

Sir: Mr D. G. Jones (Letters, 6 June) seems to have very strange ideas about the value of private placings to non-members . Suppose the financial advisers to a com- pany in...

Sir: You will surely agree that it ought to be said very loud and clear what a splendid and perceptive artist is Wally Fawkes (`Trog') who shines on your front page (6 June). A...

of the repro' of my 'Liverpool Poets' painting (6 June). Which view, I presume, Roger Law does not share. I an glad, though, that it was larger than a postage stamp. But the...

Sir: Your leader (13 June) talks sourly about a boring, stupid, vacuous election. I think it has been fascinating, but since part of the fascination is that very sourness, I...

Sir: Sorry to nit-pick but Michael Trend's reference (`The Doctor's dilemma', 6 June) to The Prince is slightly wrong. Cesare Borgia did not gain power by the murder of Remisso...

Sir: Andrew Neil thinks (Letters, 13 June) I said that the Sunday Times spent £850,000 on the serial rights of its Profumo book. Odd. I didn't. This wonderful figure related to...

T his is a Channel Four Book intended, say the publishers, 'to bring history graphi- cally to light' with rare photographs and hundreds of interviews. Neal Ascherson, who has...

Mary Keen LEAVES FROM THE GARDEN by Clare Best and Caroline Boisset John Murray, £14.95 ITALIAN GARDENS by Georgina Masson Antique Collectors' Club, £25 LANNING ROPER AND...

Hunger to live in love taught us to lie, you to admire Der Bingle, me to imply I'd always put down books if you were by. But don't think badly of us, wife, tonight. Good...

John McEwen INTERIOR LANDSCAPES: A LIFE OF PAUL NASH by James King Weidenfeld & Nicolson, L16.95 T here have been four books on Paul Nash. His own is the best but this latest...

Anita Brookner CAPTAIN VINEGAR'S COMMISSION by Philip Glazebrook Collins Harvill, £10.95 ■■••••••• H ere is an adventure on the grand scale, or perhaps it is merely a caper....

Stephen Spender MANHATTAN '45 by Jan Morris Faber, £12.50 M anhattan '45 opens almost Whit- manesquely with a splendid prologue re- calling the arrival of the British liner the...

David Pryce-Jones THE SPELL by Hermann Broch Deutsch, f11.95 HERMANN BROCH by Paul Michael Liitzeler Quartet, £25 T he Spell is a Thirties novel, an allegory about Hitler....

Poems seem to need a sizeable white margin; space for the roots (and the reader) to enlarge in. David Cram

David Wright GEORGE BARKER: COLLECTED POEMS edited by Robert Fraser Faber, £27.50 A huge tome, full of poems so huge they sometimes topple over but manage to get back on...

Harold Acton: Cecco's at Pescia, between Florence and Lucca, is my favourite res- taurant not too far from my home. Tuscan white beans, followed by grilled chicken flattened...

Salad days al fresco Nigella Lawson O f all social situations, picnics must be among the most fraught. The perfect picnic demands an atmosphere of delightful spon- taneity....

talian wine offers are generally among the less successful in our annual list. This may be partly because I know so little about Italian wines; they are at least less...

C/o Recount Wines, 170 Meld Road, London SW10. Telephone: 01-730 6377 Product Price No. Value Reds 1. Chianti Putto (del Ugo) 1985/6 75 cl 12 bats. £39.84 2. Cabernet de...

Hypochondria Dying for a drink Myles Hams T here is nothing good to be said for alcohol except that it is enormous fun. i People complain of the remorse and guilt it...

A pint in a straight glass Christopher Howse U llage, besides rhyming with Dul- wich, is a useful word, even though Cham- bers Dictionary prudishly calls it slang. It is the...

fellow critic told me that once in a while he wishes he had spent more of his life with horses and rather less with art. I had forgotten this amusing confession until last week,...

Cosi fan tutte (Glyndebourne) Manon II barbiere di Siviglia La Boheme (Covent Garden) Up, not down Rodney Milnes C osi at Glyndebourne is always a special pleasure,...

Jenkin's Ear (Royal Court) Tone deaf Christopher Edwards D usty Hughes's new play is set in a `small Central American country north of Nicaragua', whose new government is...

H. S. Goodhart-Rendel (Architectural Association, till 26 June) The father of us all Gavin Stamp I n his letter to Michael Sadleir, pub- lished as a foreword to the second...

Round the mulberry bush Ursula Buchan C hildren and gardening go together like peppermint chocolate and red wine: badly. This is odd because children are natural gardeners;...

Empire State (`18', Cannons Haymarket & Oxford St) The Whistle Blower (PG', Odeon Haymarket) Sleaze and freeze Hilary Mantel R on Peck's Empire State is a film about greedy...

Inedible drama Peter Levi F or months at a time the only way I ever saw big trees used to be by going to London, and wild countryside by going to cowboy films, but now that...

Downhill racer Jeffrey Bernard T his body, doomed it seems to wander London for ever, has temporarily come to rest in Chiswick where I am staying with my daughter Isabel. The...

Fall of the usher Taki I still haven't figured out whether the choice of the date for the great party Sir James Goldsmith gave on election night was fortuitous or not. What I...

Water- Alice Thomas Ellis T he bread bin was full of rain the other morning and half-loaves were floating in it like fish. There is a leak in the roof of the back kitchen and...

A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or, for UK solvers, a copy of Chambers Dictionary, value £13.95 — ring the words 'Chambers Dictionary' above) for the first...

Poor genius Raymond Keene obby Fischer can lay a twofold claim to the status of greatest chessplayer, In the first place, though this is not conclusive, no one has challenged...

write a birthday poem for a Young girl born in June. I took a risk. Sentiment is feeling, but `se ntimental' was defined by Sterne as `b lubbering over a dead donkey'. Not all...

There's an old song or poem (I don't know how it continues) which begins: 'Don't tell my father I breakfast on gin.' Please begin like this and carry on up to 16 lines. Entries...

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...

is looking for a mature (25-35) and intelligent person to sell corporate and advocacy advertising. The successful candidate must have previous experience, ideally selling a...

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