The haste with which the Government surrendered to the mineworkers has astonished everyone, friends and foes alike. Before the ink was dry on our advice to the Government that...

The squires' return Ferdinand Mount Visibility is not good. Reports from the Metaphorical Office forecast prolonged snow showers from the government information machine,...

I will begin by expressing my one anxiety about the Royal marriage arrangements, confident that it is one which many others share. It concerns the bride's stepmother and her...

The end of an era A uberon Waugh 'It is also true that Mrs Williams holds a number of views which on The Times we do not share. She is an'egalitarian, and we are not. She wants...

Christopher Booker Understandably perhaps, most British coverage of President Brezhnev's threehour, forty-minute speech opening the 26th Communist Party Congress in Moscow on...

Nicholas von Hoffman Washington Bold, overdue, daring, radical, vital are but some of the adjectives being flung at Ronald Reagan's economic programme made officially public a...

Raymond Carr The twenty-third of February will not go down in history as another 18 July, which is celebrated in Francoist Spain as the day on Which the army rose to begin a...

Brian Inglis Thirteen episodes of Ireland: A Television History' on BBC 2, written and presented by Robert Kee and produced by Jeremy Isaacs; five episodes of The Troubles on...

Austin Mitchell Great party splits were never like this. One imagines an incremental process, personality clash piled on policy row, petty motive on noble, a progressive build...

The detailed account of the United States' census reveals some curious facts. One is, that the number of males exceeds that of females by 888,298, the numbers being males...

Allan Massie It is a curious feeling, walking around a town that's been condemned to death. There are no signs of terminal disease in Linwood, none of the squalor and seedy...

Richard West The Women's Movement has not yet, as far as I know, studied the Tale of the Wife of Bath, by Geoffrey Chaucer, which is a pity, for it has much to say about women...

Woes of the trade Paul Johnson The slump has now got British publishing firmly in its grip. Cassell's decision to drop its general list by the end of this year (with 50...

The City in recession Tony Rudd There always has been a marked contrast between what is going on in industry and What is happening in the City. Glum faces round the City...

Sir: The trouble with participatory or active democracy (Ferdinand Mount, 21 February) is that political activists by their very nature are a little odd. They are eccentrics...

Sir: Jo Grimond's view from Finstown Manse of snipe probing his lawns (14 February) conjures up a rustic idyll which is far from the harsh realities confronting wildlife in the...

Sir: In poking fun at the International Federation of Social Workers Liaison Committee for Social Workers in the European Community (Notebook, 14 February), Alexander...

Sir: I wonder how much Ian Willmore's letter (14 February) on Paul Johnson reflects your readers' views? I myself have more than once been within a whisker of writing to ask...

Sir; Mr Perry uses strong language (Letters, 7 February) to dismiss Mr Marnham's detection in Israel of a religious justification for actions or laws which might otherwise be...

Sir: , Edward Mortimer (24 January) identifies The New Republic as `right-wing Zionist'. It is pro-Zionist, even Zionist, assertively so. But on no one's actounting, least of...

The insiders' outsider Nicholas von Hoffman Walter Lippmann and the American Century Ronald Steel (Bodley Head pp. 688, £8.95) Walter Lippmann was such a good newsPaper...

Christopher Logue Ezra Pound and His World Peter Ackroyd (Thames and Hudson pp. 128, £5.95) Pound was the most vital of the inhumanist poets. Foxed by his passion for aesthetic...

Nicolas Walter Edward Carpenter 1844-1929 Chushichi Tsuzuki (Cambridge University Press pp. 237, £15) If Edward Carpenter hadn't existed, he would have had to be invented, but...

Alfred Alexander The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians Stanley Sadie (ed.) (Macmillan 20 vols., £850) When Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians in four volumes...

Rude farceur A . N. Wilson A Good Man in Africa William Boyd (Hamish Hamilton pp. 264, f6:95) Having almost no sense of humour, I have never seen what was wrong with the...

Benny Green The Flesh is Weak Andrew Barrow (Hamish Hamilton pp.296, £10.95). The sub-title of Mr Barrow's book is self - explanatory: 'An intimate history of the Church of...

Epic allegory Naomi Mitchison Lanark Alasdair Gray (Canongate pp. 560, £7.95) It is well established, especially among northern Europeans, that there is a considerable area of...

Months in the country Peter Jenkins A Month in the Country (Olivier) Waiting for Godot (Old Vic) Peter Gill makes his debut at the National Theatre with a play ostensibly well...

All the rage Peter Ackroyd Raging Bull ('X', selected cinemas) Until I saw Martin Scorsese on television last Sunday, I had thought that his Raging Bull was about boxing. It...

Alive and well Rodney Milnes Die Frau ohne Schatten (Cardiff) Stand back for hoary Viennese joke. Eager British opera buff; 'Is there an English translation of Die Frau ohne...

Revived John McEwen Gerald Wilde is the doyen of English artistic Characters: grandson of Osdar Wilde, model for Joyce Cary's Gulley Jimson in The Horse's Mouth (he was not,...

Speculations Richard In grams Poor Cardinal Hume had to wait his turn on Tuesday to allow ITN to cope with the Royal engagement. The happy couple got through a fairly...

Costa Brava Takt New York Costa Gratsos was Aristotle Onassis's best friend and business associate. Gratsos, who comes from an old shipping family, used to be a legend among...

Toadies Jeffrey Bernard The most noticeable disadvantage in not being the sort of journalist who can bask under an expense account is the one of no t being able to eat freely...