M r Douglas Hurd, the Home Secret- ary, announced a special police investiga- tion of fresh evidence on the conviction of four people for the 1974 Woolwich and Guildford pub...

SELECTIVE MEMORY T he death of Rudolf Hess after 46 years in captivity — half his long life — might seem an event of scant significance, but at least it will put an end to...

The need for competition which should put ministers in the docks MA RTIN IVENS I n the bad old days before Mrs Thatcher, the Conservative Party had a ritual re- sponse to...

BARRY HUMPHRIES s if I didn't have enough on my A plate, I manage the professional affairs of a famous Australian actress, diseuse, swami and monstre sacra. At present she is...

How to save the children from a new wave of sex-abuse zealots AUBERON WAUGH T he implications of the Cleveland con- troversy go far beyond the question of the apparently...

Hiroshima is a rallying-point for peace campaigners. But, Ian Buruma argues, many Japanese resent the West's victory and are tempted to revenge was The idea of leaving...

AMONG the Statutes now to be re- pealed, there are some very curious pieces of legislation. In the third year of Edward I was passed what in effect is a primitive Press Law. It...

Timothy Garton Ash looks back over the life of Hitler's former deputy RUDOLPH Hess was probably the most famous prisoner in the world. He was also one of West Berlin's...

Charles Moore welcomes the return of a prodigal correspondent I REMEMBER another occasion when Charles Glass caused anxiety to his wife. He came to the Spectator's annual...

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...

Gavin Stamp regrets the secret competition to develop land near St Paul's Cathedral ARCHITECTS sometimes deserve to be laughed at more than they are. Always good for a laugh...

Mrs Thatcher is winning the battle over values P RIME ministers, being cynosures, often precipitate general debates by casual re- marks on which the media seizes. Harold...

Telephone and be hanged Charles Moore reports on the sufferings revealed by the competition entrants. THE best British Telecom horror story must encapsulate the character of...

Sir: Two more British Telecom horrors; don't give me the prize — like you, I have nowhere to Put it — but just print them, please. Planning a visit to Glyndebourne, I naturally...

soft targets', 15 August) the following quotation from the Catholic Catechism may be of interest: Which are the four sins crying to Heaven for vengeance? The four sins crying...

Homosex- uality'. In it I attempted to draw attention to 'the gay movement' that emerged through pop fashions, new universities and council sponsorship in the late 1970s....

Sir: Have we at last come across a service to the public in which the Soviet Union is ahead of this country? The moving account by Max Hastings of his vain attempts to persuade...

BT phone kiosks (Letters, 15 August), goes so far as to describe the sticky-label adverts from .prostitutes as a 'design flaw'. If so, the same design flaw was just as evident...

Sir: In the course of a heterosexual lifespan now in all too clear sight of the Biblically- decreed finishing post, it has been my good fortune to know, admire and, yes, to love...

Sir: Although some of the detail in Simon Freeman's article (`The BBC gets camera- shy', 8 August) is inaccurate, difficulties did exist over the proposed edition of Panorama on...

Sir: It was his mother whom Ned didn't want them to tell (Competition, 18 July). A. P. Herbert's poem, 'Don't tell my mother I'm living in sin; for see what it done to me! A...

Sir: The young William Cooper ('Choirs and kisses', 11 July) may have had cause to be grateful for small mercies. It was always an excitement to swing the thurible, but I have...

Sir: My friend Michael Horovitz may believe that there was 'no valid use or reason' (Letters, 8 August) for the Falk- land campaign and the deaths caused by it. While not...

Sir: The answer to Mr Moore's query (Diary, 15 August) lies in Iran/Iraq chauvi- nistic rivalry some 30 years ago when I lived in Basrah, Iraq. It was promulgated (I know not...

Sir: I respect Mr Wythe's contempt for my belief that MPs need somewhat more than the glory to sustain them in a political career. But I must correct two mis- statements of fact...

Sir: May I answer the attacks of John Gibbs and Mabyn Fletcher (Letters, 8 August) please? Far from being a 'sort of patronising middle-class twit' who sells Militant and has a...

Sir: I was much amused to see Mary Soames's remarks (Diary, 4 July) on G. F. Watts's statue 'Physical energy'. My grand- father, Dr Thomas Bond of the Westmins- ter Hospital,...

Sir: As a devoted reader of the Spectator, I look forward eagerly to Jennifer Paterson's food column. I do, however, think that her suggestion of serving cold meat, and pre-...

ROBERT Byron had long realised the dange r to peace of the Nazi ideology, and from March 1938 he was engaged in volun- tary preparation of war propaganda for the Dire...

Her spark doused forever Paul Foot THE JOURNALS OF MARY SHELLEY 1814-1844, PART 1 1814-1822 edited by Paula R. Feldman and Diana Scott-Kilvert OUP, f55 F rom the moment Byron...

Peter Quennell THE EAGLE IN SPLENDOUR: NAPOLEON I AND HIS COURT by Philip Manse' George Philip, f16.95 NAPOLEON'S MARSHALS edited by David C. Chandler Weidenfeld & Nicolson,...

Harold Acton THE MAN ZONI FAMILY by Natalia Ginzburg, translated by Marie Evans Carcanet, £12.95 A moderately affluent member of the Milanese squirearchy when Lombardy was...

Anthony Blond (8 August), is published by Blackwell at £25

Somewhere (round 1914) Art went wrong. Poets no longer versified for bread. They scorned to take a penny for a song. Journeyman Shakespeare sounded like a gong And countless...

Kathy Stephen A FRIEND FROM ENGLAND by Anita Brookner Cape, £9.95 ■fr A long, sustained battle has raged throughout Anita Brookner's fiction be- tween the forces of reason,...

Richard Ingrams FOREVER ENGLAND by Beryl Bainbridge Duckworth, f9.95 PEOPLE OF BRITAIN by Roy Kerridge Hale, £11.95 L ast year I took on the task of compil - ing an...

The terms of the analogy are strained— And that is as it should be, for the world Is nothing but the world and things are called By names they cannot answer to. Constrained By...

Exhibition Wright in Italy: Joseph Wright of Derby's Visit Abroad, 1773-75 (Gainsborough's House, Sudbury, till 20 September) Fireworks from Derby John Henshall V isitors to...

Oslo conquers the Albert Hall Peter Phillips I f I were not at this moment Sitting amongst the ruined buildings of Minster Lovell in perfect sunshine, I could refer more...

Portraits (Savoy) Murder in the Cathedral (Christ Church, Spitalfields) Studio sketches Christopher Edwards W illiam Douglas-Home's conversa - tion piece starts in 1944 in...

Tin Men ('15', selected cinemas) Baltimore story Hilary Mantel t seems that if you were a housewife in I Baltimore, circa 1963, what you might covet would be a house with...

Into my sixth decade Taki eorge Will is the very talented American writer who takes himself almost as seriously as Guardian women take themselves. When Will became 40 he wrote...

Bring on the sheep Peter Levi T his is the late season, when the news announcers look wild-eyed with boredom and even Wogan droops on his stem. It is not that we are tired of...

Hidden dangers Alice Thomas Ellis I had a moment of the purest satisfaction the other morning. The magpie has attempted to get into the house (or murder the magpie he sees...

The vodka handicap Jeffrey Bernard I have a book coming out in October which is a collection of old racing pieces written for the Sporting Life and other papers. It is called...

THE GREAT thing, apparently, is to discover the interests of one's neighbour at the table, and the way to do this is to ask, `What is the nicest thing that happened to you...

Secret weapon Raymond Keene N igel Short's controversial shorts were in evidence again during the Kleinworth Grieveson British Championship at Swan- sea. Last month Zoltan...

Anti-verse Jaspistos I N Competition No. 1485 you were invited to write a poem against poets and/or poetry. The case against poetry was representa- tively put by Nicholas...

Masefield's 'Cargoes' (`Quinquereme of Nineveh . . .') describes three stages of one form of transport. A poem, please, in the same metre and of the same length, describing...

onarranoria AI0 E ME LAIN EIR I JR T CIA U A T el ael A 0 A C E R© R I A ' N Y nia T H I N R I M A 0 E L . E E -, iig L • E R E --- T I MI s MI A Eli ; R N 11P1 A I...

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) together with a...