It was bad luck for Lord Carrington that his secret report on the Conservatives and the trade unions should have been leaked on the day that the committee of inquiry into...

Spring in Blenheim Gardens Ferdinand Mount The sun shines on Blenheim Gardens. The new leaves glisten emerald and gold on the shrubs along the precinct walls — daphne and...

1- tavhig New York after a month in the United States, I feel I have met no American whom I would describe as shy — no one who ever looks at his feet and blushes, who wonders...

Looking under my bed Auberon Waugh If! were Mr A. N. Shevchenko, defecting head of the Soviet mission to the United Nations, I should be rather nervous of throwing myself on...

Peter Nichols Rome 13 ef0re the kidnapping, cartoonists used to dr aw Aldo Moro as a sphinx. That was seve ,N light-years ago: no one remembers him as fie cartoonists saw him,...

Richard Clutterbuck The similarities between the kidnapping of Aldo Moro in Italy and Hans Martin Schleyer in Germany led many people to suspect that some of the German Red...

Vincent Ryder P resident Carter is in trouble within the Atlantic alliance over his foreign policy. Of course he is. Why should he be different fr om his predecessors? Things...

Anthony Mockler One can really never be quite sure about that famous Russian sense of humour. When they complain — as they have just done officially — that those splendid...

George Gale A group of Cambridge economic weather f orecasters, led by Wynne Godley, head of rhe university's Department of Applied Edonomics, lately predicted that in 1990 or...

Peter Paterson Some years ago, soon after the Redundancy P ayments Act became law, a left-wing Magazine carried a cartoon showing what it high would he the impact on a typical...

Tony Craig These are unhappy times for the Labour Party establishment in London. No matter how well Labour fares in next month's borough elections (and the Prime Minister may...

James Hu g hes-Onslow Tales of hardship have abounded in or around Claridge's these last ten days. Inside we have the international jet set paying out their inheritances and not...

Budget reactions Nicholas Davenport Second thoughts in the gilt-edged market were extremely hostile to Mr Healey's budget. Prices fell by nearly four points at the 'long' end...

Sir: For some weeks now I have been reading the heated debates in your paper concerning the pros and cons of immigration. What a pity it is that there cannot be an equally...

Sir: George Gale's clear and convincing article (15 April) highlights a number of the more disagreeable aspects of NUS activities Which have rather disillusioned me with student...

Sir: Mr Marnham (Notebook, 1 April) -takes issue with the Tonight item on the death of the Sunday Times journalist David Holden. He criticises us for the use of the 'snaps'...

Sir: A completely honest man–and! so rate Auberon Waugh – will believe what he passionately wants to believe. On the strength of his recollections of a conversation five or six...

Sir: On reading the last paragraph of Mr Kenyon's review (1 April) of John Miller's new book, I was struck by the strong resemblance between the careers of James II and Mr...

Sir: Referring to the NCCL Fact sheets, Know Your Rights, Mr Gale writes (8 April): 'It's difficult to know for whom they are intended. They will not reach the common criminal....

Sir: Each visitor will have individual preferences and reactions to an exhibition like the Willian Blake one now on at the Tate Gallery. Perhaps you will allow me to comment on...

Sir: I am the first to recognise that Taki's light-hearted contributions add a good deal to the gaiety of nations and the pleasures of those of your readers hungry for gossiP...

Bicyclist of the apocalypse Ferdinand Mount The Dilemma of Democracy Lord Hailsham (Collins £4.50) :Great gusts of common sense' we are promised, to blast 'the grey smog of...

Alex de Jonge Tolstoy's Letters 2 Vols. edited by R. F. Christian (Athlone Press £20) Great writers sometimes make great letter writers. Those of Flaubert read like a sigh of...

Benny Green A Shaft of Sunlight Philip Mason (Deutsch £6.50) If the general reader remains in ignorance of the nature and spirit of the old Indian Empire of the British, then...

Mary Kenny The Managerial Woman Margaret Hennig and Anne Jardim (Marion Boyars £4.95) The Childbirth Book Christine Beels (Tumstone Books £2.50) Everywoman (Second Edition)...

John Gretton War on the Mind: the Military Uses and Abuses of Psychology Peter Watson (Hutchinson £9.95) Twenty years ago, in the days of National Service, a good many of us...

Giles Gordon Gollancz: The Story of a Publishing House 1928-1978 Sheila Hodges (Victor Gollancz £7.50) Literary Gent David Higham (Cape £7.95) Victor Gollancz believed that a...

Francis King Kalki Gore Vidal (Heinemann 24.50) Few imaginative writers have been able to add a cubit to their stature by taking thought; Gore Vidal is one of them. It is...

Peter Ackroyd The death of Frank Raymond Leavis, at the age of eighty-two, marks the end of the last major phase in English literary criticism. His achievements as a...

Musicocide across our culture Hans Keller Of course, the killer, like Oedipus, may not know whom or what he is killing — but in his case, as distinct from Oedipus's, that only...

Mooreland Phillip Bergson `Henry Moore's 80th Birthday Exhibition' with which the Cartwright Hall, Bradford, has most spectacularly pre-empted the cap ital's celebrations,...

North of Suez Ted Whitehead Plenty (Lyttelton) The sight of David Hare in his early thirties turning into John Osborne leaves me with mixed feelings. It's not entirely...

In repertory Rodney Milnes Carmen (Coliseum) Der Frelschutz (Covent Garden) As I've said before, any fool can mount a new production: it's the revivals that reveal the...

Mice and men John Wells The Duellists (Plaza 4) The Turning Point (Leicester Square Theatre) Realising, not without a sombre sense that all things must come to an end, that I...

Bait and hook John McEwen Tim Head (Rowan till 4 May) is showing an installation and photographs. The installation is the most dramatic. A real live horse has been...

Good and bad Richard Ingrams 'We say to the public — this is the truth.' Thus Tony Garnett, producer of the BBC's 1 - 4 nv and Order (BBC 2) series which has caused a bit of a...

Flaunting it Taki With England's fortunes on the upturn, the deprived British jet-set threw caution to the wind last week and emerged from the closet. Two new night club...