M rs Thatcher announced on televi- sion that she still had much to do, and that she had no intention of standing down. Lobby correspondents were told that the Budget, which they...

postponing of results of the Game of Consequences, which we promised to announce this week. This is because the answers proved much longer than ex- pected. They will appear next...

AMERICA'S BURDEN Take up the White Man's burden - And reap his old reward: The blame of those ye better, The hate of those ye guard. There is. also nothing very surprising in...

THE Zeitgeist, in the personable form of the outgoing headmaster of Westminster, Is at it again. Speaking as if he were the first who dared to say such things, Dr John Rae has...

Brian Walden and the gentle art of suggestion FERDINAND MOUNT W as his father a bookmaker? or a Count of the Holy Roman Empire? How many wives has he had — three, four? At...

CHARLES MOORE 13 efore the current argument began, I held no very strong views on Sunday trading. Ditto, fluoridation of the water, site value rating and whether or not we...

Down on the farm, where caring capitalism is to be found AUBERON WAUGH T his week found me back at Champ- ney's Health Farm, near Tring. The only work I took with me was a...

Timothy Garton Ash finds that the United States in its policy towards the Philippines, has once more proved hesitant in dealing with a friendly tyrant THE corrupt and...

Sam White on the paradoxes flowing from the Socialists' coming defeat in the March elections Paris THE only certainty about the general election in France next month is that...

William McGurn on Portugal's surprising choice of a new president Lisbon EVEN as far north as Portugal's second city of Oporto, famous for the splendid wine it produces in such...

Karan Thapar on Sri Lanka's last chance to avoid the slide to civil war Colombo THE green fields of Katunayake stretch out in the winter sun as the incoming flight prepares to...

The Queen revisits a country where Christians are being persecuted. By Dhiren Bhagat Katmandu WHEN the Queen last came here, exactly 25 years ago, Nepal was just joining the...

The Government of India has just done a very kindly and a very good thing for its Mussulman subjects. The Mussulmans of India proceed in thousands every year to Mecca, where...

Insiders: a profile of Sir Robert Armstrong, a civil servant more discreet than astute THERE are periods when almost every Government minister comes under con- siderable...

Geraldine Norman on the difficulty of saving Edward James's house IT'S five miles from the crenellated Edwardian towers of West Dean to Monk- ton, the little retreat that...

Robinson Carter on a prostitute's startling claims HELEN Buckingham, a vigorous campaig- ner for prostitutes' rights, says that at 46 she has now retired and, presumably to...

Paul Johnson on the union abuses which Wapping will leave behind THE unions and their allies on the fascist Left are building up the violence at Wap- ping. The campaign to...

Sir: I am surprised that Jeffrey Bernard thinks that 'the disgusting word Sohoitis' is of recent coinage (Low life, 25 January). Serious students of Soho lore and legend will...

Sir: I was sorry to see that your reviewer of Roger Keyes's important biography of King Leopold III of the Belgians (Books 4 January) perpetuated myths and revived...

Sir: Some reviewers, I note, of Martin Gilbert's book The Holocaust speak of German and Polish anti-semitism in the same breath. Norman Stone (Books, 8 February) writes of 'the...

at Gray's Inn Road is far outnumbered by non-print members. These include cashiers, telephonists, librarians, secretar- ies and editorial researchers. All have been sacked....

SUBSCRIBE TODAY! Please enter a subscription to The Spectator I enclose my cheque for c (Equivalent SUS & Eurocheques accepted) RATES: 12 Months 6 Months UK/Eire 0 £41.00 0...

GUINNESS bemoans the system's unfair- ness. Its bid for Distillers went to the Com- mission (not surprising, with half the Scotch whisky capacity in the two com- panies' hands),...

Hanson's bid: the referee was fair but the system isn't CHRISTOPHER FILDES T o be proposed for a knighthood by Harold Wilson and for a peerage by Margaret Thatcher is evidence...

OIL prices and oil contracts collapse, sterl- ing totters, draft Budgets are torn up, Opec glares at its British non-member . . . I asked a banker who specialises in these...

THE developers' pick looms over the Hambros' stately City home, which no listing protects. It houses the family mer- chant bank, which the Hambros with the votes want to sell....

LLOYDS has successfully followed the Midland in selling its tiresome bank in California. What a pity the two of them didn't ask the Russians. A ripe tale coming out of...

Eighth greatest president Colin Welch TRUMAN by Roy Jenkins Collins, £12.95 A bout half of this 215-page book is little more than a catalogue of mistakes, of errors of...

Ronald Segal MOVE YOUR SHADOW by Joseph Lelyveld Michael Joseph, £14.95 0 nce in a long while there comes a book on South Africa that hurtles its way into the heart. Move...

Andrew Brown DAMAGED GODS by Julie Burchill Century Hutchinson, f8.95 M iss Burchill first made a name for herself writing in the New Musical Express. In about 1977 readers...

from the head Duncan Fallowell HOLLYWOOD BABYLON II by Kenneth Anger Arrow, £5.95 T he meat was in what Kenneth Anger Calls 'Holly Baby I'. Here's the fish. Still Very...

Harriet Waugh THE GHOSTWAY by Tony Hillerman Gollancz, f8.95 DEAD GIVEAWAY by Simon Brett Gollancz, f7.95 THE CRIMINAL COMEDY OF THE CONTENTED COUPLE by Julian Symons...

Lewis Jones WHITE NOISE by Don Delillo Picador, f9.95 W hite Noise is a novel about 'Amer- ican magic and dread', about the pursuit of significance in the nation of...

Sara Maitland IMMODEST ACTS by Judith C. Brown OUP, £12.50 T here is an extraordinary power in the image of the Lesbian Nun. Ears prick up at her approach — from hard porn...

There's not a Shakespeare sonnet Or a Beethoven quartet That's easier to like than you Or harder to forget. You think that sounds extravagant? I haven't finished yet - I like...

I used to think all poets were Byronic Mad, bad and dangerous to know. And then I met a few. Yes it's ironic — I used to think all poets were Byronic. They're mostly wicked as...

Music Unsound system Peter Phillips I have only managed to see two of the first four programmes in the series Man and Music shown on Channel 4 — those on Monteverdi and...

Wright of Derby (National Gallery until 27 April) Derby's day D avid Wakefield S ome 15 or 20 years ago Joseph Wright `of Derby' was virtually unknown except to a small group...

Seeds and the single girl Ursula Buchan A t some moment in the late winter, in that dull party-less time between Christnil and Verbier, the single metropolitan P r may wish to...

Streetwise (`18', Screen on the Green) The ragged army Peter Ackroyd T hese people exist in every city, so much part of the street that they are rarely seen or, if seen, not...

Swirling words Alexander Chancellor I agreed with Roy Jenkins when he said after David Dimbleby's interview with Margaret Thatcher on Panorama (BBC1) on Monday night that she...

A modern Penelope Taki New York Well, here I am, about to be a bachelor once again. I don't know how American attorneys manage to do it, but when both parties are — as they...

Literary winners Jeffrey Bernard I t now seems virtually certain that Miss Brenda Dean is to take over from Ms Joanna Lumley on this year's panel of Booker Prize judges. When...

Unready money Alice Thomas Ellis like money. That is, it is my preferred T e am of completing pecuniary transac- "cMs. I'm not particularly keen on handing over wads of...

A sock and a park P. J. Kavanagh P resenting your identity card at the barbed wire, the respectful touching of peaked caps, the whistling up 12 floors in the shining lift, the...

never mentioned any restaurant in north London in these pages. Many north Londoners would agree that there are not so many very good restaurants in the neighbourhood to choose...

111111 Walter Sichel THE creator of Blue Nun, the world's first ever branded wine, is something of a legend in his own lifetime — certainly a legend in his own firm, H....

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...

Junior counsel Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1408 you were asked to provide advice from the young to the old, in prose or verse, in language suitable to any period of...

Greater London Chess Raymond Keene F rom 11 to 27 March there will be a further great tournament in the series sponsored by the GLC in 1980, 1982 and 1984. Play is at The...

The USA will soon have its first Poet Laureate, who will be expected to respond to requests from government agencies for verses on such subjects as the unveiling of a new...

The unclued lights are foreign ver- sions of the Christian name JOHN. Winners: A. M. Webster, Crewe (£20); Kaye Barnes, Faringdon, Oxon; Chris Feetenby, Leeds.

A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or a copy of Chambers Dictionary, price now £12.95 — ring the words `Chambers Dictionary' above) will be awarded for the...