T looks, to take the narrow view, as if the 'Parliamentary Labour Party decided by a sufficient majority to heed Sydney Smith's in- junction and vote for the good politician,...

`LET NOT POOR NEDDY STARVE,' was clearly the thought of all industrialists, government and TUC experts who gathered in London for a two-day session on the economic future, just...

No. 7026 Established 1828 FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1963

T HE meeting of EFTA which has just finished in Geneva re-emphasised how small a margin of manoeuvre is left to the Government in its politico-economic relations with Europe...

By JOHN COLE W HAT a capacity the British have for getting everything mixed up in one gigantic pudding! Just as the Common Market negotia- tions have broken down and just as...

N IGERIA is entering the second year of her Six-Year Development Plan in a position of considerable uncertainty. The Plan has made little tangible progress so far and though the...

T AST week's Rabat meeting between the La foreign ministers of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia seems to have had as its main purpose the lowering of tension between the two latter...

T HE Bow Group has published a very sensible pamphlet on monopolies and mergers.* Their statistical table giving the concentration ratio for each industry (i.e., the proportion...

From MURRAY KEMPTON NEW YORK G OVERNOR ROCKEFELLER Of New York appears to have reached a position in the Republican Party where he would have less trouble getting its...

From MICHAEL ADAMS ROME S IGNOR FANFANI'S coalition Government is narly a year old. It embodies the famous ex- periment of the `centro-sinistra,' the alliance be- tween the...

me much more than that of a distinguished states- man or other 'important' figure. 1 had never met Sylvia Plath and know nothing of her except- her poems and the haunting...

Some people like to persuade themselves that our rules governing capital punishment are as humane as can be, especially when Russian citizens are so regularly shot for...

T /7" HE post-election manoeuvres between Mr. Wilson and Mr. 3rown have all the tension of a first-class political thriller. On the short view it may look as if Mr. Brown has...

justice, Mr. Hare did seem reluctant to order the official inquiry into the position of the seventeen dis- missed men at Ford's. But there should be no pretence that the...

delegations, particularly if they come from Scot- land. He can always cool the militant and bring a glow to the admirer. They emerge from the meeting, their faces wreathed in...

to have voted for Mr. Wilson) was very nearly knocked down in a corridor by an acquaintance. 'Where are you going?' he asked. 'Ireland—now the kissing really has to stop.'

for Lord Avon sent him a get-well cable last week in which he also said : 'Come back soon. We may need you as a Labour leader yet.' Lord Avon's reply said that he had every...

By DESMOND DONNELLY, MP M R. HAROLD WILSON has been democratically elected the leader of the Labour Party and he is fully entitled to expect and to receive loyal support in his...

By ED FISHER I : CH of the popular arts in America is taking its turn at the new game of spoofing the President. So far there has been a JFK Colouring Book, a best-selling...

By ARNOLD S OME four centuries ago, a Spanish conquista- dor, seeing clusters of native huts on stilts over Lake Maracaibo, named the place Venezuela, little Venice. Unlike...

MP, appeared on the same day as he secured an unop- posed second reading for his Matrimonial Causes and Reconciliation Bill. I heard the debate, as I had heard the debate twelve...

writing of Clause 4 in the Labour Party constitution, says: 'This clause had been approved by Sidney Webb and agreed to by Arthur Henderson in 1918 as a sort of consolation...

he must by now be exasperated with most of the replies roused by his article. One of the most d iscussion because unproductive, features of religious ulscussion today is that...

others like him who feel that there is an objective SIR, —May 1 make a suggestion to Mr. Ian Rodger and others like him who feel that there is an objective standard of truth...

Ford Inquiry Martin G. Evans Clause Four -Margaret Cole Enemies of Advertising Dr. A. Piney, Tom Waddicor Divorce and Reconciliation A. Joseph Brayshaw Gothic Writers Irving...

Sta.—John Basing (February 15) assures us that The purpose of advertising is to distort the truth. but fails to explain how one can judge it one does nut possess a sufficient...

SIR.—Your call for an independent inquiry into the long history of labour disputes at Ford's Dagenham factory is timely. It is from such a case of industrial conflict that...

note in your issue of February 15, in which 1 am quoted as describing the Scottish rules of contempt of court as a 'stifling censorship.' I did not use this or any equivalent...

SIR,—The letter 'Spanish Burial' (February 1) certainly calls for prompt reply. I write as the English chaplain at Malaga (or, as your correspon- dent unfelicitously calls it,...

Symphony By CLIVE BARNES IT is typical of many con- temporary artists, especially visual artists, that having once found a theme they exploit it. Francis Bacon will give us a...

great' review of January 25 understands new American Gothic, American professors and other phenomena. It took me 170 pages to define Gothic themes and images; he quarrels with...

his readers some idea of the scope and con- tents of the book under discussion, and to pro- nounce some sort of judgment on it? The tendency of reviewers to use their space more...

Killing Times By ISABEL QUIGLY For this is just what happens in Nine Hours to Rama (director : Mark Robson), a film that has at last beaten the record of its predecessor, Mark...

Heart on Sleeve By DAVID CAIRNS THE recording of La Sonnam- bula just published (Decca) celebrates Joan Sutherland's 0 return to form after her `despairing clairvoyante' phase...

Looking at Sound B y CLIFFORD HANLEY WHEN television was still a monolith (happy days of in- nocence) and the BBC was just beginning to feel its muscles, the then Director-...

Bristol Fashion By BANIBER GASCOIGNE rilE. idea of a historical drama written in 1863 is decidedly gloomy, and there are people who would approach a history play written in...

Beneath the clouds, the dense Atlantic gloom, three girls in coloured macs stepped gaily by, of seventeen or so, jettnes files in bloom, a Balbec frieze, a pleasure to the eye....

Woofers and Tweeters BY JULIAN SYMONS T HE history of Partisan Review is in large part the story of the intellectual excitements, achievements, illusions, betrayals, of our...

The Mayor Makers. By Francis Askham. (Secker and Warburg, 12s. 6d.) Jusr a parish church and a few farms before a garrison church was built there about a hun- dred years ago,...

The Anatomy of Satire. By Gilbert Highet. (Princeton and O.U.P., 30s.) THIS book should help to dispel the current belief, fostered by the press, that satire was re- cently...

Silent Spring. By Rachel Carson. (Hamish Hamilton, 25s.) MISS CARSON'S disturbing book is a well- documented study of what Professor Huxley, in a foreword, calls 'the process...

to think about what this concept involves. The death of Hugh Gaitskell triggered off many comments implying that the leadership qualities of one man would make all the differ-...

German East : The Story of the First World War in East Africa. By Brian Gardner. (Cassell, 25s.) Canadian Expeditionary Force 1914-1919: Official History of the Canadian Army in...

Northern Underground : Episodes of Russian Revolutionary Transport and Communica- tions through Scandinavia and Finland, 1863-1917. By Michael Futrell. (Faber, 32s. 6d.) TRE...

Yeats the Playwright. By Peter Ure. (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 24s.) THE powerful and enigmatic personality of Yeats the poet still influences writing on both sides of the...

By LOTHBURY IN last week's issue there appeared brief 'extracts from the statement by the chair- man of F. W. Woolworth. These included a ten- year profits record. The...

By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT IF you want to bring home to the British people that there is a crisis at their doors you must ask them to work on Sundays. Mr. Maudling showed that he had...

By CUSTOS I F the equity Markets were not impressed by the Prime Minister, they were greatly in- • trigued by the demand for tax reliefs of £400 mil- lion by the economists of...

By ALICE FAY ONALD and Charles B, two London boys in a family of nine, have twice moved house with their parents. They are now at their third secondary school, and here they are...

By ANGELA MILNE M Y memory, like anybody's, is good in some ways, bad in others; but I wonder how representative I am in feeling sneakingly that cameras, tape-recorders,...

Bargain Travel By LESLIE ADRIAN HAVE been rooting round the bargain basement at BEA The loss leaders in this department are undoubtedly the cabotage (imperial preference)...