It now looks as if the Government's intention is to make more or less permanent the apparatus of a prices and incomes policy. The stop-gap freeze is to go on for a further sixty...

many of the dangers which have confronted the world since 1945 — and most notably that of nuclear war between the super powers — seem to have been averted if not dissolved, the...

Reality and the Labour Party Patrick Cosgrave What, anyway, is all this fuss about the European parliament in Strasbourg, and why should anyone care whether the Labour Party...

At last it has happened: in spite of the pressures exerted by our new European partners, the Chancellor has announced that Britain will not return to a fixed exchange rate for...

PUZZLE'S FAVOURITE CHRISTMAS story is the one about the choir of the Department of Health and Social Security, which sang Christmas carols not for but to the Secretary of State,...

"We do know more, and we do know better than our students" wrote the new Chairman of the Governors of the BBC, Sir Michael Swann, in a contribution in the Black Paper on...

Spiro Agnew v. the trendies Al Capp In a recent issue of the New Statesman, Arnold Beichman, of the Department of Politics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in my...

The ugly picture A,. P. Hartley "What would you like most in the world to see? " Rupert asked his sister, Celia. It was a fine June evening, and the two children were...

Over the past couple of years or so, L. P. Hartley occasionally dropped in on us at 99 Gower Street, sometimes for lunch, sometimes for evening drinks. He was a very delightful...

Vive la pud de Noel! Geoffrey Humphrys Christmas 1972, it seems will be the last we spend outside of the Common Market. What will happen to our Christmas Puddings has not...

Christianity in the schools Edward Norman It is now about a year since a complaint that a modern hymn book in use at a London comprehensive school expressed ' left-wing ' bias...

There are certain things at which we British are supposed to be very good. They include making tea, retreating from Empire, building Rolls-Royces and, among those who care, town...

Auberon Waugh Black Marsden Wilson Harris (Faber £1.80) Report to the Commissioners James Mills (Barrie and Jenkins £1.80) Something rather sad seems to have happened to...

Jan Morris The British in the Caribbean Cyril Hamshere (Weidenfeld and Nicolson £4.00) The noblest achievement of the British Empire was the creation of new white nations...

Douglas Dunn Nobody's Business Penelope Gilliatt (Secker and Warburg £1.95) New Queens for Old Gabriel Fielding (Hutchinson £2.00) The Story of a Non-Marrying Man Doris Lessing...

John Welcome An Unsuitable Job For A Woman P. D. James (Faber £1.90). The Caterpillar Cop James McClure (Gollancz £1.80). Smokescreen Dick Francis (Michael Joseph £1.95)....

Mysterious Britain Janet and Colin Bord (Garnstone Press £5.90) Some marvellous photographs together with a somewhat eccentric text describe, rather than solve, the mysteries of...

Bookbuyer Bookbuyer, his nose twitching like the Quorn's Boxing Day hounds, is happy at last to detect a little Christmas charity in the air. What is of more moment yet, it...

Critical condition Will Waspe Reviewing the same play twice, the late Mrs Dorothy Parker used to say, was like being sick on an empty stomach. It is a dictum of wider scope...

Benny Green The reappearance in London, if only briefly, of Patience, is a useful reminder that there is no reason why a musical Should not be about something, even though with...

Vows can't change nature Peter Quince I am about to break a vow, a half-hearted sort of vow, I must plead in self-defence, but still a species of promise. I am going to sink...

Sir, Mrs Thatcher's White Paper has received a good press, but it is possible to view two of its proposals as regressive, namely continued university expansion and the provision...

You try to explain that Spanish Steps ran the race of his life in Saturday's ' SGB,' that you wouldn't have missed it for the world, that you're jolly pleased you supported him,...

about the Ardens and their theatrical antics one is astonished by your tail piece that Shakespeare was a Tory. Even the least versed in the Bard could conceive of his...

From Miss B. E. Thomas: iir, While I agree with your vieW , expressed in your editorial of December 9, that it is not surprising to find a pronounced left-wing bias in the...

Sir: Many BBC listeners must Share, as I do, Mr L. E. Weidberg's bête noire ' negociate ' (his letter, 'December 16). For me the beastliness is shared by the equally insipid '...

Sir: In your Will Waspe feature in The Spectator for December 9, reference is made to a member of the public not being able to buy a " Coke" in the Crush Bar of the Royal Opera...

Sir: I agree with Brigadier Calvert (Letters, December 9) that Frelimo Claims about their successes in Mozambique should be treated with scepticism. Take the recent attack On...

Sir: Reviewing The Grey Sheep (December 9), Mr Auberon Waugh pays a much deserved tribute to its author, Peter de Polnay. Praise to Mr de Polnay is nothing new; he has been...

Sir: If a casual reader may voice an opinion, I should like to endorse Mr Partridge's remarks (December 2). Who, listening to Mr John Davies's statement of his "passionate...

Sir: Many of the Prime Minister's original policies are either disarranged, dying or dead. I feel that it would be appropriate if Mr Heath were to change the name of his vessel...

Nicholas Davenport It is customary, I know, to write a bright cheerful article which may be enjoyed over this excruciating festive season but I just cannot do it. The economic...

It is hard to believe that there is such an absence of originality and creative power Within the Department of Trade and Industry as to prevent further funds being directed to...

An attractive punt John Bull At the end of every year with almost clockwork regularity financial columnists of most newspapers make their nap selections for the coming twelve...

A date with ICL Nephew Wilde Chin-wags between two bachelors can sooner or later be expected to lead, to the same thing. And so it was with Wotherspool late last Saturday...

They mean well, but . . . Frank Wintle A sorry affair, this pensions business. The Government has brought two Bills before the House of Commons in recent weeks which are meant...

Legal advice Custos If the Citizens Advice Bureaux issue a Press statement, then something fairly imPortant is being commented on. And last Week's notice (which is only the...

Ethic and cosmetic John Rowan Wilson One of the more formative conversations of my medical education took place in a surgical tutorial. There were about eight of us present....