`That was the last painting he did.' L ord Young of Graffham, the Secret- ary of State for Trade and Industry, won his appeal against a High Court decision forcing him to refer...

1706; Telex 27124; Fax 242 0603 WHY SPIT ON OUR LUCK? C harter 88 began the buzz that we are in a constitutional crisis, and now Mr Roy Hattersley has joined in. 'We live in...

THOSE who live by the procedural device must be prepared to die by it; as did Mrs Ann Widdecombe last Friday in Parlia- ment when she failed to improve the chances of getting a...

Mrs Thatcher's quiet counter-revolution: so quiet it hasn't even happened NOEL MALCOLM 0 n the face of it, there is something very attractive about the idea of abolishing the...

LUDOVIC KENNEDY A lthough I didn't really expect the Home Secretary to pay heed to my plea not to send the case of the Guildford Four back to the Court of Appeal, I am...

The former premier who made love 14 times in one night AUBERON WAUGH I n my slightly senile way, I cannot remember whether I have already told the story of how, staying at...

Dominic Lawson investigates the Deep Thought project, and discovers that the Pentagon is harnessing chess to the arms race SINCE the dawn of the computer age man has lived...

Lord Rees-Mogg trumpets, but Timothy Garton Ash explains why the Berlin Wall may still not fall TULL down that Wall!' cry George Shultz and Sir Geoffrey Howe. 'When the...

Extracts from an interview with the Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzak Shamir, by Nicholas Bethell in 1977 `I CAME to Palestine in 1935 from Poland. I was a student at the Hebrew...

Gavin Stamp looks for a style of building suited to the Israeli state MOUNT Scopus lies to the north-east of the old city of Jerusalem. The name comes from the Greek, to...

George Cunningham remembers how he conspired to destroy devolution ten years ago LABOUR'S manifesto in October 1974 promised elected assemblies for both Scot- land and Wales....

James Lees-Milne charts a series of housing frustrations provoked by the law MY wife and I own a maisonette with a handkerchief of garden in Bath — nothing else by way of...

A MANSION House Fund has been opened for the relief of the districts stricken with famine in China, and every one who wishes can subscribe. The Lord Mayor was obviously reluc-...

who has dug in IN TODAY'S Church of England, the Revd Gordon Taylor, Rector of St Giles- in-the-Fields, is not just an outsider, but virtually a subversive. He uses the Book of...

Michael Heath

The press: Paul Johnson on what makes a mid-market tabloid tick WHAT makes a successful newspaper these days? Looking at Today, edited on Rupert Murdoch's behalf by that dour...

The Spectator Young Writer Awards provide a unique opportunity — not only to have your writing talent recognised, but to be launched on a career in journalism. If you win, your...

WHAT tickles me is that the Treasury has two Cabinet Ministers, and that John Major, the Chief Secretary, has the knack of soaring up the ladder in good times and, in bad times,...

THE bad news is cheering up the markets no end. Estate agents shutting down, the building societies promising less money, the CBI with the confident smirk off its face, the...

THE City pope has slapped down Monsig- nor William Rees-Mogg. The Monsignor, you may recall, has been preaching marital fidelity between companies and their banks, but as a...

The Walrus case: 'Be you never so high, the law is above you' CHRISTOPHER FILDES T aking sides between Tiny Rowland . and his erstwhile friends the Al Fayeds is like choosing...

Sir: Considering the life he has happily always contrived to lead, it was perhaps not surprising that Paddy Leigh Fermor, in his worthy tribute to 'Andrew Kennedy' (`The...

Sir: Why has it taken the regulatory authorities until now to call for mandatory checks of Boeing aircraft? Murray Sayle in his article of 18 June (`Leaks, drips and bodged...

Sir: It is well that Myles Hams CA thinner voice', 19 November) brings the BBC World Service under review. More and more does it seem to serve its own arty Celtic Fringe than...

the BBC World Service is abandoning its signature tune came as a blow to a faithful listener. I was not aware that the brass band tune was so powerfully evocative of Britain's...

Sir: Paul Johnson (The press, 10 Decem- ber) points out that British newspapers need to improve in accuracy and objectiv- ity. In his article he fails in both. He mistakes the...

Weak constitution Sir: I understand from The Spectator that in the United Kingdom there is at present a great deal of huffing and puffing about Charter 88, this to be...

Sir: How refreshing that in all the recent publicity someone (Leading article, 7 Janu- ary) appreciates that our campaign for shorter hours need not necessarily cost more. We...

Saint or stinker? Robert Gray JOHN HENRY NEWMAN by Ian Ker OUP, £48, pp.745 N ewman has always evoked extreme reactions, both of admiration and hostility. On the one hand, his...

J. L. Carr CHILDHOOD: AN ANTHOLOGY edited by Penelope Hughes-Hallett Collins, £16, pp. 450 I t is a shame that our planet does not harbour another literate species to report...

John Whitworth THE ENGLISH COMPANION by Godfrey Smith Pavilion, f14.95, pp.288 THE ENGLISH READER edited by Godfrey Smith Pavilion, £14.95, pp.300 ENGLAND: AN ANTHOLOGY...

Christopher Bland ERIC GILL by Fiona MacCarthy Faber, £17.50, pp.338 E dward Johnston taught calligraphy at the Central School of Arts and Crafts; Eric Gill's recollection of...

Anita Brookner CAT'S EYE by Margaret Atwood Bloomsbury, £12.95, pp.421 I t takes something of a heroine — and Margaret Atwood is definitely a heroine to both readers and...

SUBSCRIBE TODAY - Save 15% on the Cover Price! RATES 12 Months 6 Months UK 0 £49.50 0 £26.00 Europe (airmail) 0 160.50 0 £31.00 USA Airspeed 0 US $99 0 US$50 Rest of Airmail...

Kenneth Rose IN ROYAL SERVICE: THE LETTERS AND JOURNALS OF SIR ALAN LASCELLES, VOLUME II, 1920-1936 edited by Duff Hart-Davis Hamish Hamilton, £14.95, pp.212 Ng. A work on a...

Five thousand feet up in thin air. Tongues of last year's snow sleep in the gullies under pine-litter like a horsehair blanket. More lichen than needles lasts on the trees. A...

Geoffrey Wheatcroft SACRED MONSTERS by Daniel Farson Bloomsbury, £14.95, pp. 205 Y ears ago, the editor of a Fleet Street paper, the Daily Mirror I think, was complaining to...

Museums Ballad of an ace café Robin Simon T he exhibition of knitting and needle- point by Kaffe Fassett which finishes this month at the Victoria & Albert Museum has been...

The great mutilator Robin Holloway T his weekend the South Bank's four- month festival of Arnold Schoenberg — his Works and his World reaches its climax with the 'Hymn to the...

High Hopes ('15', Lumiere) Real-life grotesques Hilary Mantel A pologies first. When I wrote briefly about Mike Leigh's new film after seeing it at the London Film Festival,...

Scott Hamilton (Pizza Express, Dean Street, and touring) Urbane tenorman Martin Gayford T he tenor saxophone is ubiquitous in jazz, and has been for a long time, but it rose...

Two-Way Mirror (Young Vic) Web of truth Christopher Edwards T wo-Way Mirror is a double bill of one-act plays by Arthur Miller, written in 1982. Performed by Helen Mirren and...

Italian Art in the 20th Century (Royal Academy, till 9 April) Italian cooking Giles Auty T he time has come round again for another giant Royal Academy show of the museum art...

Suite success Taki s everyone who has ever been to Beverly Hills knows, — the shorter and bal- der the producer, the taller and more buxom the blonde. Come inauguration time...

Hooked again Wendy Cope T he only programme I've been watch- ing regularly and for pleasure in recent weeks is The Tracey Ullman Show (BBC 2). One point I didn't make when I...

Loser takes all Jeffrey Bernard I am beginning to think that the first man to beat Mike Tyson will be Mike Tyson himself. To have been mugging old ladies and whoever at the...

Unadulterated mirth Alice Thomas Ellis I 've just had six years' worth of hair chopped off. It was either that or let it grow until I could sit on it and I always think people...

Italian restaurants started life as a staff canteen. Until a year ago, the River Café was open only to the architects, adpeople and other style-conscious workers on the Thames...

OF ALL the world's great wines, barolo always struck me as the most rebarbative and incomprehensible. The barolos I came across at tastings seemed to be built like old -...

Deep thoughts Raymond Keene ome weeks ago in this column (`Henceforward', 17 December) I gave the epoch-making game which the world's top chess computer, Deep Thought, won...

Grave situation Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1558 you were in- vited to write an 'Elegy on a Country Churchyard' in the metre of Gray's famous poem. Marauding louts have...

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'Theme parks' are proliferating all over the country. In 20 years' time, their themes may well have become more bizarre. You are invited to describe two, from the point of view...

A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or, for UK solvers, a copy of Chambers English Dictionary — ring the word `Dictionary') for the first three correct solutions...