In contemptuously refusing to go and do 'a superb job' as our ambassador in Washington, Mr Heath displayed an u nderstanding rare among British politicians of the true nature of...

The waiting is the worst part Ferdinand Mount Whenever you hear Labour MPs quoting from the New Testament or the works of R. H. Tawney, you can be sure that they have stopped...

There has been yet another report on the Problem of 'baby battering', with of course the recommendation for still more social Workers to solve this problem. If 'baby battering...

The first witness Auberon Waugh One of my many activities in life is to write a monthly medical column in the pharmaceutical trade press. As the deadline comes round every...

Peter Nichols Rome Every time the poor Italians go to elect a new parliament — and they are about to vote for their eighth since the Republic came into being — their necks get...

Sam White Paris The proceedings at the 23rd Congress of the French Communist Party, which has just ended, took on such a baffling and contradictory character that they caught...

The Bishop of Peterborough, in presiding last Saturday at the annual dinner of the Artists' General Benevolent Institution, made himself very amusing. In proposing the toast of...

Edward Mortimer Paris It is now nearly three years since President Giscard d'Estaing entrusted the government of France to a professor of economics who proclaimed his...

Nicholas von Hoffman Washington While the noble lunar howl of the Dog Lovers Party would not be corked in contemporary America — save perhaps by illiberal Sleep Lovers — more...

Harold Pateshall With the Archbishop of Canterbury now on an East European tour, it is a good moment to examine the position of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in regard to...

Ambition under wraps The top economic jobs in Mrs Thatcher's cabinet have gone to rightwingers in sympathy with her. Employment has gone to James Prior because he is considered...

Christopher Booker Without in any way wishing to be disrespectful towards the esteemed editor of this journal, I wonder how many readers may have scanned the closing paragraph...

Hugh Stephenson Denis Healey produced his first budget within 24 days of becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1974. He must have regretted the rush, for he spent the greater...

Sir: It was strange, and perhaps signific ant, that your `Profile' of Sir Keith Joseph (19 May) was unsigned. To all those who have met or followed the career of Sir Keith...

Sir: In the conclusion to his otherwis e well-informed comment on Francois Mit terrand's personal success at the recent Socialist Party congress, Mr White ( 21 April) tends to...

Sir: Germaine Greer's vitriolic attack on Mrs Thatcher (12 May), a series of unsub stantiated assertions and completely un argued and unsupported prophecies of doom, hardly...

Mrs Thatcher's election victory seems to confirm what many of us have long believed, that when a woman wins a great triumph in a predominantly male sphere, it is not male...

Sir: The vicious diatribe from Auberon Waugh that you published some weeks ago on Mr Reg Prentice was probably best ignored since it seemed to reveal more of the unpleasant side...

Sir: Richard Ingrams refers to the 'particularly oafish' behaviour of Franklin, of the Daily Mirror in his television column (19 May). Franklin, in fact, left the Mirror on 23...

Sir: To be savaged by an English Lord (Lord Lambton's Notebook, 5 May) is no more than Irishmen for generations have come to expect. To be accused therefore (in my television...

Sir: As a National Front candidate in the general election, perhaps you will permit me to reply to Mr Wheatcroft's article about the NF Mast Word', 19 May). Mr Wheatcroft has...

llistah Kurtz he dead' Richard West Joseph Conrad: The Three Lives Frederick R. Karl (Faber £12.50) Leopold 11 of the Belgians: King of Colonialism Barbara Emerson (Weidenfeld...

Jonathan Keates The Moment of 'Scrutiny' Francis mulhem (NLB £11.75) One of the most surprising aspects of last Year's posthumous tributes to F.R. Leavis was their sheer...

Francis King A Pause for Breath Edith Reveley (Collins 24.95) The first paragraph of Edith Reveley's A Pause for Breath describes how the heroine, Bea, and her husband, Hugh,...

John McEwen On Thursday the Queen opened the new extension to the Tate Gallery, a building that adds 47,000 sq. ft. of much-needed and long overdue space, roughly divided...

Peter Jenkins Then and Now (Hampstead) Landscape of Exile (Half Moon) The Lady from the Sea (Round House) I try to hand it to David Mercer for taking on the big themes — life...

Rodney Milnes Werther (Covent Garden) The Royal Opera seems more than ever doomed this season: the management can scarcely announce an enticing international cast without a...

Ted Whitehead The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover (Screen on the Hill) The Warriors (Selected release) Larry Cohen, who wrote, produced and directed The Private Files of J....

Richard Ingrams In recent days the neighbours' budgerigar, temporarily entrusted to our care, has been perched on top of the television and a small dog called Buffy sits in...

Taki New York Modern anthropologists, better known as gossip columnists over here, have not had as much fodder since the older sister forced 300 people off an Olympic Airlines...

Jeffrey Bernard It seems unlikely that I shall be writing this column this time next year. In fact, from henceforth, I don't intend ever to work again during the week of the...

Geoffrey Wheatcroft We have begun to see the misinterpreted history to which I referred last week. The very name of the Anti-Nazi League (ANL) -that displeasing alliance of...

No. 1066: Other cheek Set by C.A.S.: Most of us probably don't take much notice of the slogans often stamped on our letters to extol festivals, holiday resorts and so on. My...

Raymond Keene Last week I reported on an historic event — victory by 16-year-old Kasparov at Banja Luka. This tournament had, in fact, earned itself publicity of a much less...