Overweight Chancellor of Exchequer to yuppie-type who's bitten off more than he can chew: `I've just put up the interest-rate again.' I n an impromptu show of hands the...

WE LEARN that the World Council of Churches has given £4,000 to the `Broadwater Farm Defence Committee' to help the families of those convicted after the Tottenham riots of...

The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone 01-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 242 0603 ROYAL FAMILY VALUES T he Princess of Wales told Dr Barnar- do's that she is...

A welcome pause for breath on Mrs Thatcher's long march NOEL MALCOLM N o sooner had Mrs Thatcher sat down' again last Friday than the pundits were poring over the text of her...

JENNIFER PATERSON W hy is it in this age of so-called equality that the baddie in a divorce case gets rewarded with half the family's world- ly goods? The case I know of...

Are there still lessons to be learned from the tale of three Harolds? AUBERON WAUGII Whenever people start getting excited about the three Harolds who occupy such a large part...

Nicholas Coleridge questions the myth of aristocratic dislike of Mrs Thatcher and points out where the landed interest lies FOR years now, people who do not care for the Prime...

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard predicts that America's image-makers can only go so far . Washington HARRY Truman did not think much of the polls that said he was going to lose by a...

Anthony Daniels witnesses an outbust of popular feeling in the capital of Latvia Riga WHILE the Latvian Supreme Soviet met in Riga this month about 100 demonstra- tori...

ON Saturday last, the Irish Viceroy, speaking at a public luncheon at Belfast — at which he announced that the Queen had conferred upon Belfast the dignity and honour of a...

Stephen Robinson argues that Afrikaners do not really want what the Right calls for Johannesburg WHEN future generations come to assess the history of South Africa (or Azania,...

Richard Snailham found much unchanged in Sierra Leone since Graham Greene wrote 'The Heart of the Matter' THE BANDSMEN of the Sierra Leone Regiment, hooked and eyed up to...

'IN an IOD survey . . . 59 per cent of business travellers said there had been no worsening of British Rail Intercity services while 20 per cent said they had improved and 34...

Michael Trend wonders why Conservatives do not want their party to set up in Ulster AT LAST year's Conservative Party Con- ference at Blackpool would-be Conserva- tives from...

Richard Munday recounts his battle to rear animals in his own field NOW is the time for pigs. After a decade in which a virtual mono-culture of cereal displaced a depressed...

sceptical eye on the current spy mania WHAT IS the difference between a James Bond novel and the average British news- paper 'MI5 Plot' story? Answer: not a great deal. Ian...

WHAT have our stock market's leaders invested in? Farms, says Margaret Reid farms from Gloucestershire to the Dor- dogne, and heated swimming pools all over Surrey. The proven...

BARCLAYS Bank has set up its Lombard Street head office with supersmart word processors which know how to spell. Dash away at the keyboard and the machine tidies up for you,...

HOW is he to do it? Not, obviously, by his new offering of a new National Savings gadget called the Capital Bond. That, if it works, will lure money not into investment but into...

Why UK's finance director needs us to put up more capital... CHRISTOPHER FILDES W hat UK plc needs is a rights issue. Think of the country as a company, and you can see what...

Whose Europe the producers' or the consumers'? JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE L ike the Ramsbothams of yore, the assembled Tories, and — in particular the assembled scribblers, found...

Sir: Alexandra Artley's article 'Give Me a Child Until He is Seven' (1 October) was a welcome plea for proper understanding of the value of pre-school education. This made it...

Sir: Regrettably I must prolong the corres- pondence about the availability of GPs, since the statement in Christopher Heneghan's letter (27 August) that GPs' surgeries , are...

Sir: I feel bound to protest at Auberon Waugh's suggestion (Another voice, 8 October) that all of us who have a good word for 'modern art' are 'crooks'. If only he would savour...

London Montessori Centre (Letters, 15 October) that. I do not want to criticise the London Montessori Centre particularly, as it doubtless does much good work. But I want to...

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Sir: It is obvious that the system be- queathed to Yugoslavia by Tito is nearing collapse. This is hardly surprising consider- ing its foundations: mass executions, judi- cial...

Sir: Your leading article of 3 September suggests that Westminster should integrate Northern Ireland 'as fully as possible into the rest of the kingdom'. 'As fully as possible ....

Sir: What a pity Margaret Thatcher wilfully rejects the love of one group of her most fervent admirers. Does Auberon Waugh not know that, unlike left-wing intellec- tuals and...

Sir: In reviewing Kingsley Amis's Difficul- ties With Girls, John Osborne (1 October) erroneously stated that Americans refused to publish Amis's novel before last, Stanley and...

concise and handsomely bound in soft, navy blue leather, it offers all the facts, figures and numbers that are absolutely essential. Listings of top wine merchants by Auberon...

A candid friend Harold Lever OFFICE WITHOUT POWER DIARIES 1968-72 by Tony Benn Hutchinson, f16.95, pp.562 T hose who come to Tony Benn's di- aries expecting a biased...

Charles Glass THE CHOMSKY READER by Noam Chomsky, edited by James Peck Serpent's Tail, f9.95, pp. 492 (with index) CORRUPTIONS OF EMPIRE by Alexander Cockburn Verso,...

La vrai terre natale est celle cni on a eu sa premiere emotion forte (Remy de Gourmont) A coliseum has it, near enough, though who's to say what actually occurred: a presence...

David Willetts A RESTATEMENT OF ECONOMIC LIBERALISM by Samuel Brittan Macmillan Press, £29.50, £9.95, pp.368 S amuel Brittan is our leading economic commentator — offering...

Anita Brookner GRACE by Maggie Gee Heinemann, £10.95, pp.256 M aggie Gee's excellent novel treads a sure path between love and fear, taking as its starting point sinister...

John Kobal VIVIEN LEIGH by Hugo Vickers Hamish Hamilton, £14.95, pp.411 mma', says her husband Lord Hamilton, arriving to join the Nelson family in the rooms overlooking the...

And then there were none Hugh Sebag-Montefiore investigates the case of the disappearing Rembrandts L ast week the National Gallery let the public in on a well-kept secret...

Craft Classics since the 1940s (Crafts Council Gallery, till 8 January) Post-war dreams Tanya Harrod T his exhibition sets out to do something rather magnificent — to...

The milking machine Edward Whitley probes the inner workings of the antiques business W hilst antique dealers will tell you everything about a given piece of furniture,...

Write your own success story . . The Spectator Young Writer Awards provide a unique opportunity — not only to have your writing talent recognised, but to be launched on a...

Jeffrey Stride (Browse & Darby, till 29 October) Elisabeth Vellacott (New Art Centre, till 29 October) Anthony Gross (Belgrave Gallery, till 4 November) Blessed Lot Giles...

Bang g© the dealers Peter Watson A mong the great popular fallacies of our time — that Joan Collins can write, that Punch is funny, that Harrod's is still the top people's...

Better not look Peter Phillips 0 ne of the reasons why I am dying not to own a television set is that the amount of classical music likely to be broadcast through it seems to...

Hedda Gabler (Hampstead) The Tempest (Old Vic) Untimely laughter Christopher Edwards W hat drives us some way towards sympathising with Ibsen's wretched Hedda Gabler (Lindsay...

Fast forward Wendy Cope t has been one of those weeks when there's no time to watch anything until the last minute. A lot of stuff gets recorded and the pile of inadequately...

Torch-songs to pessimism Hilary Mantel T olstoy tells us that all unhappy families are unhappy after their own fashion, but I wonder. Terence Davies, who both directed and...

Golden oldies Taki N Athens ico Kalogeropoulos is the greatest tennis player Greece did not produce. I say this because his father, rather wisely, left the Olive Republic for...

typing and administration for both the advertising and editorial departments of the maga- zine. Shorthand would be a distinct advantage. This is a job which will give someone...

Unaccustomed as I am Jeffrey Bernard T elevision made one hell of a stink last Monday about it being the anniversary of Black Monday, the day of the Big Crash. My heart bled...

Sheep shock Alice Thomas Ellis 1p ut the cow creamer in the dishwasher the other day. It reposed there belly upwards with its legs sticking out, bearing a striking though...

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...

Vox pop Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1545 you were in- vited to anticipate the work by Barbara Cartland soon to be offered to the world by British Telecom's Dial-a-Poem...

Nouveaux riches Raymond Keene I n an interview conducted in 1966 Mar- cel Duchamp said of chess: 'There is no social purpose. That above all is important . . . the milieu of...

THIS is not an attack on certain high- priced wines which have caused dis- appointment. I shall have to explain. Vine- gar is usually regarded as an enemy of wine. No greater...

There seems to be a new sort of travel book, one which describes the hardships and ordeals experienced with insouciant hilarity. You are invited to supply a pas- sage from such...

I M 5 P A 6 1 . 1 12 C B O .w.■ EILE1 0 P 22 1 . 0. 1 C A1.IA R 1 2 ALLAHIRELTARTL Y RINTGEA I G Ar 0 D A X h i D E Ak T El M n P SILIFI M MTIIM111211R 2 iR AST I AN 2...

trouble all started a couple of Christmases ago when I had a lot of fun at Miss Leith's expense over a book she had written called, with some gall, Enter- taining with Style. In...