Mrs Thatcher replaces a non poll tax brain with a poll tax brain. T he Government's majority — which should be 101 — was cut to 25 on the vote on Mr Michael Mates MP's...

The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone 01-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 242 0603 TYRANNY ON THE TRACK A t the Olympic Games in ancient Greece, all...

Mrs Thatcher needs more than Moonies in her broad church NOEL MALCOLM D uring Monday's poll tax debate, a young whippersnapper Tory MP (Mr Simon Burns) accused Mr Mates, the...

W hile the fighting was still in prog- ress,' Yitzak Rabin wrote in a censored passage of his memoirs, about the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, 'we had to grapple with a troublesome...

The underlying ugliness of the post-Christian hiccup AUBERON WAUGH I f the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool, Mgr Derek Worlock, had not received the support of the Roman...

The star pupils of the government school of policy-making are jockeying for position in the future Conservative party, writes Michael Trend Now this has changed. Policy...

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard predicts that Jesse Jackson will decide whether George Bush becomes President Washington JEWS are convinced that Jesse Jackson is anti-semitic. If other...

Con Coughlin finds little to celebrate on Israel's anniversary of independence Jerusalem AT the point where the main Tel Aviv- Jerusalem highway begins to plough its way...

Radek Sikorski argues that the Soviet Union should be pressed to withdraw completely NOT a single Soviet tank has yet crossed the River Oxus back into the Soviet Union and...

ENGLAND is the poorer this week by a great poet. On Sunday afternoon, Mr. Matthew Arnold was in Liverpool, walking with his wife towards the landing , Stage, where he expected...

Richard West argues that Poland is not as anti-semitic as some suppose Lublin AS IF Poland did not have troubles enough of her own, she has brought in those of the Near East...

'There is growing concern that the standards of some driving instructors and schools, along with the present system of driving tests, are a major contribution to Britain's...

Diana Geddes found that French law hampered attempts to name her son Paris I WANTED to call my son Samuel. I asked his French father what he thought of the name. `Mais ga va...

The press: Paul Johnson on the dilemmas of editors who shock readers NEWSPAPER editors are not normally people who command much sympathy from me. But there is one topic on...

BARCLAYS' board faces what is billed as a sticky meeting next week, when share- holders are asked to approve its gargan- tuan rights issue. You shouldn't own bank shares if you...

I HAVE developed a fellow-feeling for Winnie the Pooh, who lived under the name of Sanders. The house at Pooh Corner had Pooh inside it but SANDERS in large letters over the...

The trusts with a silent majority, and how to speak up CHRISTOPHER FILDES O dd and sad things are going on at Framlington, the unit trust group which deserves better, as...

I FIND enthusiasm in the City for John Lucas, the Merton don who wants British Telecom's big shareholders to elect a direc- tor to look after the customers. The chairman of a...

The charge-sheet against Mr James Baker JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE M r James Baker, Ronnie Reagan's Treasury Secretary, has a lot to answer for. His crude attempts to 'talk down' the...

Sir: As the editor of the local newspaper, Mr Isaaman (Letters, 16 April) is surpri- singly badly informed about English Herit- age and Kenwood. Far from curtailing activities...

Sir: I was flattered and delighted that Charles Glass (Diary, 16 April) should find my momentary attack of flatulence a sub- ject of mirth. I have often observed that one's...

Sir: With reference to Christopher Howse's article (Princesses in Prison', 19 March) and the letter of the Hon. Secret- ary of the British Horn of African Council, I should like...

Sir: A few important points in my article about Czechoslovakia (16 April) were un- fortunately garbled by your editorial grem- lins. First, I actually stressed that the Prague...

Sir: Charles Glass (Diary, 16 April) leaps to certain conclusions about my views on many issues. He might have asked me what I think. Contrary to his assertions, I have...

Sir: A distant tremor on the Richter scale could be detected coming from the direc- tion of the Lausanne tomb of that most dear, beautiful and royal (she was a great-...

There was a crooked man John Grigg THE SECRET LIVES OF TREBITSCH LINCOLN by Bernard Wasserstein Yale, £16.95, pp. 384 Trebitsch Lincoln in 1901 D uring the five-day 'Kapp...

J. G. Links 1791: MOZART'S LAST YEAR by H. C. Robbins Landon T he great Robbins Landon has so associated himself with Haydn that we pick this book up half expecting to read...

Caroline Moorehead THE DROWNED AND THE SAVED by Primo Levi Michael Joseph, £10.95, pp. 170 A, the end of The Truce, first pub- lished in Italy in 1963, Primo Levi writes about...

Francis King SCANDAL by Shusaku Endo Peter Owen, f11.95, pp. 237 A highly successful and respectably married novelist is accused of sexual im- propriety by a woman who claims...

pretty, wit David Wright DOROTHY PARKER by Marion Meade Heinemann, £12.95, pp. 480 A ll Dorothy Parker's papers vanished after her death — perhaps destroyed by a jealous...

Philip Glazebrook THE WOMAN WHO WAS GOD by Francis King Hutchinson, £10.95, pp. 288 T here is a relief in putting yourself into the hands of so accomplished a constructor of...

F. L. Carsten WALDHEIM: THE MISSING YEARS by Robert Edwin Herzstein Grafton Books, £12.95, pp. 303 WALDHEIM by Luc Rosenzweig and Bernard Cohen Robson Books, £10.95, pp.183...

They seemed two ordinary enough old women Nudging seventy, one pearl, one plain. Victoria coach station breeds about ten A minute, too tight or poor to go by train. Pearl, in...

A coal fire blistered iron-bound desks, exploded Milk bottles wedged clandestinely beside The grate, and mottled bare legs. Masters, goaded By furies small boys know not,...

Tony Jackson HIGH on the list of clichés about Scotland, along with the Highland fling, alcohol and razor fights, is the idea that the Scots have a peculiar aptitude for...

A diet of evidence Myles Harris U nlike its counterparts in the south, Glasgow Social . Services does not, make you feel you have stumbled into a branch office of some vast...

Sometimes, after ten pints of Pale in Mather's, my pals and I discuss, with reasoned calm, the origins of Anglophobia. The philosophy was mother's milk to me. Our cat was...

Upping the Tory anti Michael Trend T he greatest — perhaps the only - cloud on the Conservatives' horizon at the general election last June was the loss of 11 of their...

A likely story Taki nlike Ralph Glasser's classic auto- biography of growing up in the Gorbals, this is a not so classy confession about my Scottish school-days at...

Devouring passion Jeffrey Bernard To spend just three days in a city is merely to glance at it, but what impressed me most was the architecture and the building materials. The...

The Spectator/Adam & Company Three Cities Art Prize In open competition Giles Auty W hen the jury convened to decide the winner and runners-up of the inaugural Three Cities...

Scottish crafts Pioneers of public art Tanya Harrod T o get an idea of the range and diversity of the crafts in Scotland avoid the depress- ing Scottish Crafts Collection at...

The Mahabharata (Old Museum of Transport, Glasgow) Epic grandeur Christopher Edwards P eter Brook's remarkable production of the ancient Sanskrit epic poem The Mahabharata...

The American way with words Peter Phillips T Memphis, Tennessee he airport/concert-hall/hotel/airport routine has been going on now for 13 days and promises to last some time...

Bintley ' s banalities Deirdre McMahon fears the Royal Ballet's choreographer is leading it into the wilderness I suppose the career of David Bintley, now resident...

The Unbearable Lightness of Being (`18', Empire Leicester Square) On the heavy side Hilary Mantel T he novel by Milan Kundera on which this film is based is an elegant,...

Are there fairies? Wendy Cope M y best chance of enjoying a televi- sion programme these days is to promise myself I'm not going to write about it. By Sunday evening I had...

At the crossroads Alice Thomas Ellis A s I go down for the third time under a tidal wave of books, clothes, papers, letters, bills, teenagers, cats and all manner of things...

infant girl, causing joy and merriment all round, so I felt it behooved me to take the proud and marooned father (our beloved literary editor) out to dinner on Maundy Thursday...

low road respectively this week, and are to be found in the Scottish section, on pages 43 and 45.

THE National Consumer Council is upset about pizzas. It has discovered pizzas being sold with a 'topping' consisting of a small amount of cheese mixed with a vegetable oil-based...

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Many a slip Raymond Keene T he SWIFT World Cup in Brussels seemed at first to be heading for yet another British triumph. Jon Speelman dashed into an early lead and in round...

To enable competitors to economise on postage, entries for one or more weeks of the Competition and Crossword may be posted together under one cover addressed 'competition...

The other view Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1519 you were asked for a 'view of the matter' in verse by an animal addressed by a poet in a well- known poem. A fine week, to...

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 first...

The unclued lights, like 12, 15 and 42, are HATS. Winners: E.A. Side, Gloucester (U0); W.R.H. Campbell, Fortrose; Ross-shire; E.L. Jackson,. London SE9. 'A IN II 3 H SA 0 V S...

'Mills & Boon heroes do not leave rings round the bath', said a spokesperson re- cently; in fact they have changed beyond recognition from the old romantic stereotype to reflect...