`Paper Sir?' A n Oxford postgraduate, `Mr X', failed to obtain an injunction to stop his former girlfriend, 'Miss S', an undergradu- ate who was 18 to 21 weeks pregnant by him,...

KINNOCK'S PERSONALITY I n the current controversy about `per- sonal abuse' in politics, it is not the resort to personalities, instead of issues, which is — to use the word...

break the Infant Live Preservation Act 1929 (which is not affected by the 1967 Abortion Act). The 1929 Act prohibits abortion where a child is 'capable of being born alive'....

honoured in the annual Granada What the Papers Say Awards. Last Friday Ferdinand Mount was made Columnist of the Year for his contributions to the Daily Telegraph and the...

The date which matters before the date of the general election ANDREW GIMSON M rs Thatcher wishes to eradicate socialism from Britain. To do that, she wishes to win elections....

T he count at Clonakilty commenced at nine in the morning, an hour at which I rarely encounter daylight without having been up all night, but an occasion not to be missed. In...

0 Rose thou art sick! The invisible worm in Labour's election plans AUBERON WAUGH A s one of its most enthusiastic spon- sors, I must admit that the dirtiest election campaign...

The central machinery of the Conservative Party is poised to take over from local associations in LIKE King Henry before Agincourt, let us walk out with the Conservative Party...

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard reports on the worsening difficulties of a President who contradicts himself Washington RONALD Reagan believes that he and his autocratic chief of...

in the tunnel', the sentence, `And unlike the banks, whose loans will be secured, the equity investors are the ones who stand to go "up the shoot",' had extraneous matter put in...

Richard West discovers the true character of the Sandinista hero MOST of us have an idea of the human beings who gave their names to Marxism, Leninism, Stalinism, Trotskyism,...

BY far the most important single inci- dent in the German elections is the amazing growth of the Socialist vote in Berlin . . . . Contrast Berlin with Lon- don. London, with its...

Thomas Turl on the state of the contest for the Chancellorship IF YOU walk into the Oxford and Cam- bridge Club in Pall Mall you cannot avoid a large notice giving the...

P. A. J. Waddington argues that an independent police complaints procedure would harm everyone PREDICTABLY enough, the announce- ment that the Police Complaints Authority was...

Thursday, 12 March (1.45 to 2.45 pm; 3.30 to 4.30 pm) and Saturday, 14 March (9.30 to 10.30 am; 11.45am to 12.45pm; 3 to 4 pm).

Gavin Stamp calls for an end to the RIBA feud which is threatening its drawings THE Royal Institute of British Architects has every claim to be regarded as a learned society....

Elizabeth Walton celebrates the high point of the hare-coursing year THE Waterloo Cup will be run for the 150th time next week and anyone who attends this blue riband event of...

the proprieties of publicising politicians' families ONE the first pieces of advice I received from my old editor, Kingsley Martin, was: Go for a man's policies as hard as you...

review the first week of Lon- don's newspaper war.

THESE are perilous times, in Wall Street and the City, one false step and you can find yourself frisked against the wall of your office. An American bank has sent out a guidance...

IT WAS an unkind banker who said this week that Ireland was saved from being a Third-World economy only by force of geography. Can this be the country which so recently enjoyed...

The case of the former chairman reaches its conclusion CHRISTOPHER FILDES L loyd's of London's long inquiry into the conduct of Sir Peter Green, its previous chairman, is...

I OFFER Sir Kit McMahon, Eurotunnel's newest director, the City and Suburban Cross-Channel Plan. This is to lay Con- corde aircraft, nose to tail, across the seabed. Through the...

What did they really talk about in Paris? JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE C an you,' asked Mr Martin Feld- stein, late of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, 'bring five people...

Set by Caroline Moore T he first three winners of the eight-week Spectator Twin-Town Treasure Hunt will receive outstanding prizes. The first prize has been presented by...

Sir: My face went redder than any poppy as I read the very properly censorious correc- tion (Letters, 21 February) by Mr Cyril Ray (whose name was for some reason not one of the...

Sir: I refer to the article by Richard West entitled `At war with the twentieth century' (17 January). It was a human-interest story about the nature of Afrikanerdom and perhaps...

Sir: Your Portrait of the Week (21 Febru - ary) is in one respect badly drawn. In Moscow the other day we were none of us lectured by Soviet 'cultural workers'. I had the boring...

Sir: Bryan Gould was not offered the presentership of Weekend World (Profile , 21 February). He was asked if he would like to be a candidate. He would obviously have been an...

Sir: Frank Johnson (`Domingo — free for some', 24 January; Letters 14 and 21 February) reminded me, less reverently, of Noel Coward's contribution to opera crit- icism: We must...

Sir: Making steel tubes in a Pilger mill is, as David Clarke suggests (Letters, 7 Febru - ary), a noisy and violent business, but he is adrift in presuming that the mill is...

After Johnson's death Richard Ingrams BOSWELL: THE ENGLISH EXPERIMENT by Irma S. Lustig and Frederick A. Pottle Heinemann, f30 O n Monday, 5 June, 1786, James Boswell spent...

Roger Lewis LITTLE WILSON AND BIG GOD by Anthony Burgess Heinemann, f12.95 L ittle Wilson and Big God , the manu- script completed last June, is being pub- lished to celebrate...

Ian Waller CHANNELS AND TUNNELS by Nicholas Henderson Weidenfeld & Nicolson, f12.95 A lthough Whitehall is shrouded by the Official Secrets Act even less is ever known of what...

Brian Martin THE COLLECTED LETTERS OF KATHERINE MANSFIELD edited by Vincent O'Sullivan with Margaret Scott OUP, £17.50 T he trouble with these letters is that Katherine...

Francis King THIS SMALL CLOUD: A PERSONAL MEMOIR by Harry Daley Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £12.95 T hrough J.R. Ackerley, I met the now dead author of this memoir, a former London...

James Hughes-Onslow THE LIGHTING OF THE LAMPS by Susan Hill Hamish Hamilton, £12.95 H ow nice it must be to be a compul- sive writer and a successful one, earning a...

14 February, the reference made to South America should have been to South Africa.

Anthony Holden MURROW: HIS LIFE AND TIMES by A. M. Sperber Michael Joseph, (17.95 A s recent events at the BBC prove all too vividly, it is an ill-disguised instinct of most...

Queuing up outside the Musee d'Orsay You see a file of Continents in bronze Across from the Elephant and Monkey Already sporting sprayed-on purple loins. Australia there, with...

On the mainland in May the ponticum blazed. It seemed overdone after an island time when sea mist held the green blue yellow days, daffodils, grape hyacinths, froze that...

Anita Brookner SEASONAL TRIBAL FEASTS R eviewing a novel by Stuart Evans is rather like being a nervous guest at a gathering of talking heads. Greatly as I admire his Windmill...

It's time, perhaps, we had you back again, if only as our brightest haul to date: murder's abroad once more (and once more in your name) while many now feel powerless to stem...

Opera Norma (Covent Garden) The rover's return Rodney Milnes I sat through the second performance of the Royal Opera's new production of Bellini's opera with steadily...

Eric Ravilious (Crafts Council till 29 March) Rupert Shephard (Sally Hunter till 27 February) Virginia Powell (Michael Parkin till 6 March) Muted elegance Giles Auty I n...

STUDENTS ARE TWICE AS LIKELY TO ENJOY THE SPECTATOR AT LESS THAN HALF-PRICE More stimulating than any lecture, funnier than the set books, The Spectator should be required...

Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? (Young Vic) Fear and loathing Christopher Edwards T he original working title of Edward Albee's 1961 play was The Exorcist. That of course...

SUBSCRIBE TODAY Save 15% on the Cover Price! Please enter a subscription to The Spectator 1 enclose my cheque for £ (Equivalent SUS & Eurocheques accepted) RATES 12 Months...

The Fly (`18', selected cinemas) Swallowing the fly Peter Ackroyd T his looks as if it is going to become screen entertainment of the old-fashioned !on; it has all the...

One man and his pig Peter Levi D avid Lynch made a fascinating prog- ramme about old surrealist films (Arena, BBC2) which provoked the thought of how little influence they...

Bobbing and weaving Jeffrey Bernard T he postman has got a terrific feeling for montage. Yesterday he delivered a letter from the House of Lords inviting me to a party in the...

Warhol's put-ons Taki A New York ndy Warhol and I suffered from the same social disease. We both needed to go out to a party every night. When the news came in last Sunday...

In the firing line Alice Thomas Ellis T he telephone just rang and somebody who had, indeed, the correct number asked Janet if she was the Spanish Consu- late. She denied it....

Alan Powers' "Views of the South Coast", eight lithographs of the Kent and Sussex seaside commissioned specially by the Spectator, and attractively pack- aged in their own...

WERE you seta's this morning? I'm sure you were. But according to one of the healthy eating fanatics writing recently, most of Britain is not. Constipation is widespread. The...

Short fuse Raymond Keene N igel Short is leaping from success to success in a way never before seen in British chess and has now rocketed into the lead in Iceland. An...

Perverse Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1460 you were in- vited to write a poem either in praise of something conventionally considered ugly or in dispraise of something...

A dialogue, please (maximum 150 words), between a speaker who uses only monosy- llables and one who favours polysyllables and pedantry. Entries to 'Competition No. 1463' by 13...

D T E of E R E ILE E R R AMMO • A:G IRL El orlon A B I —. E SKERSIrDSNA ion* A '6 B 0 L N " t1 E S C11 R P S T E E G E rEIrrif r r I I. E N The unclued lights consist...

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...