M R. GAITsKELL'S television reply to Mr. Mac- millan was a melancholy occasion. It is sad that the British Labour Party should apparently be preparing to turn its back on the...

revolutions—all of them abroad. Their work completed, the Com- monwealth Prime Ministers went away, some home, others on a Grand Tour of the world's statesmen. President Nehru...

0 NE of the few charges that cannot fairly be laid at Sir Edgar Whitehead's door is infirm- ity of purpose. By banning ZNPU he has taken all pretence of meaning for Africans...

D R. NKRUNIAll is the prisoner of his policy. The programme of Ghanaian leadership for the African cause throughout the continent, with ever-increasing austerity at home, is...

M K. NIAIII ' LLS'S appeal to British shipow ners not to carry war material to Cuba was in - tended as a sign of co-operation with the US rather than as a direct order to the...

By JOHN COLE T HE railway strike next Wednesday is a storm cone. Already the railway workshop men are talking of stronger action, and there can be little doubt that before Mr....

From SARAH GAINHAM BONN d r- Z,ERMANY, as every Londoner knows, used LI to be the pioneer of rockets. V-1 and still more V-2 were the secret weapons that were to change the...

Next week's Spectator will be a much enlarged issue in which the theme of inter- dependence is discussed from both the American and the British points of view. It will include...

I notice that Mr. lain Macleod will be depart- ing from precedent when, at the Llandudno Con- ference as Chairman of the Conservative Party, he replies to the debate on...

By HENR FAIRLIE I Etl;11,11NED from a Communist country at the end of last week to find the Labour Party concerned with which of its members is on which newspaper's payroll....

After four hours spent in the Hotel du Com- merce we emerged to track down the Italian Consul in Modane in his lair in the local cak. He was amiable and produced the visa with...

I have often wondered what it would feel like to hear for oneself that phrase which plays such a part in traditional spy fiction: 'Your papers are not in order.' Returned from a...

I hear that a party to celebrate Or. C0001” Cruise O'Brien's To Katanga and Back is being given on. November 5. In the crypt of the your of Commons. no doubt? QuEr( 1 -" Ea

N OT being acquainted with the inside story of Mr. Geoffrey McDermott's retirement from his position of British Minister in Berlin, I cannot offer any judgment on the rights and...

The editor of the monthly journal of NATSOPA (the National Society of Operative Printers and Assistants) has honoured the Spectator by the production of a special supple - ment...

By ALASTAIR MACDONALD A FTER the Llandudno ball is over, psephologists come into their own. Mr. Grimond is the seventh member of the present Parliament to re- ceive the...

By T. R. M. CREIGHTON T would be naïve and certainly mistaken to ibelieve that Sir Edgar Whitehead has really been forced into banning the Zimbabwe African Peoples' Union...

By JULIAN CRITCHLEY, MP I T has been the Americans rather than anyone else who have made the most important con- tribution to thinking out the problems of defence in the...

By ROBIN DENNISTON ti ARON VON HUGEL was once shown round a i, had by its enlightened owner who thought Rad Christianised it. He was shown the ma g- mfieent welfare services,...

great pioneer critics, a poet to reckon with. a determined bowler against Milton's God, he now emerges as an apparently serious advocate for the unconceived, against the...

am not altogether surprised that some of Your c orrespondents seem to desire 'the entrails of the last priest' employed for some useful purpose, even are that purpose be not...

Allen, Walter Stein T hem and US and the Liberals Roy E. Shaw, Ludovic Kennedy Detention Centres for Girls Hugh J. Klare The Common Market David Ashton k aroborough Donald...

SIR.—Ludovic Kennedy is very optimistic in assuming that the struggle between Them and Us is to all intents and purposes over. It may be true that we are all far closer to one...

SIR, -- It seems to me that one of the worst things in the whole of the abortion argument has been the appalling use of the word 'monster.' A large pro- portion of women...

bership of the Liberal Party had quadrupled, when I had intended to say that it had gone up by one quarter. I am informed that in fact it has gone up by one third. LUDOVIC...

Sia,--The main reason for the application to join the EEC is that British industry needs a la rge + `home' market, and also because our vital expor. prospects would be much...

Ste,—The Prison Commissioners have just an - nounced the opening of a detention centre for girls between the ages of fourteen and twenty-one. In the words of the official...

Stn.—I am engaged in editing the complete. author- ised Letters of Sean O'Casey, which will be pub- lished in both London and New York. I should be grateful to hear from anyone...

out its most important feature—it is the conscience of Britain. Disquieting world developments in the middle Thirties created the Spanish Crusaders and the Left Book Club with...

re a d* e w People have the lucky distinction of to r i ng their own obituary, and I am naively glad re a d* e w People have the lucky distinction of to r i ng their own...

of Aviation in discussing why invitations to , the Farnborough Air Show were not sent to t h e Russians. The decision about invitations to the Private days at this year's...

Personal explanation and fairness to Mr. A lec Dickson may I point out that Mr. Lionel eelville's surprise over my letter of August 24, e xpressed on September 14, appears to...

SIR,—In his review of Ouvrard. Speculator of Genius, by Otto Wolff, Professor Brogan enumer- ates a number of alleged 'faults' in my translation. While I have the highest...

Dancers of New York By CLIVE BARNES Young brilliant dancers were everywhere in Zurich. There were long-legged girls with self- effacing smiles and techniques as sharp as...

Hung for a Lamb By ISABEL QU1CLY Billy Budd. (Leicester Square A Times fourth leader took me to task not long ago for sug- gesting that in criticism 'charm' had become...

Black Magic By JULIAN CRITCHLEY , P I HAD not seen Sugar Ray Robinson fight for over ten years. I was then in Paris following 3 course of 'Civilisation Francaise' at the Sor -...

Goalless Draw By BAMBER GASCOIGNE EVERYONE is familiar with those Victorian piles of imita- tion fruit which lurk under rarer and more intriguing specimens done with the...

By CLIFFORD HANLEY Now that the evenings are darkening, it's safe for the small screen to exploit its capacity for claustrophobia. I can't remem - ber anything more...

when you have read it each week, you may like to know that there is a comprehensive index to it, published twice a year. The index costs 5s. each issue, and that for the six...

Graham Greene, Alas By RONALD BRYDEN V iCTOR HUGO, helasr sighed Gide, when asked to name the greatest poet of the French language. Most people in this country, challenged to...

JORGE Luis BORGES wrote his astounding short stories in the Forties, during the black period of the Peron dictatorship. In the early Fifties they were translated and admired in...

EDWARD HURLER'S opening essay acknowledges that the sonnets have provoked more commen- tary and controversy than any other of Shakespeare's works (with the possible exception of...

The Soviet High Command, 1918-1941. By J° 113 Erickson. (Macmillan, 84s.) WHAT is the special element which pervades Soviet military studies, making them so differen t from...

A Hong Kong House. By Edmund Blunden. (Collins, 21s.) The Swans of Berwick. By Sidney Tremayne. (Chatto and Windus:Hogarth Press, 10s. 6d.) WHETHER about individual poems or...

The Woodshed. By Rayner Heppenstall. (Barrie and Rockliff. 16s.) The Time Before This. By Nicholas Monsarrat. (Cassell, 12s. 6d.) OSKAR MATZERATH, native, like his creator, of...

By CUSTOS G ILT-EDGED stocks were the centre of attrac- tion last week with rises of over three points recorded by Funding 5/ per cent. 1982-84, Savings 3 per cent. 1965-75,...

A the present time there are few signs of any recovery in the iron and steel industry, on which Murex Ltd. greatly depends for its profits. But this company, as the chairman,...

A la Chinoise By ELIZABETH DAVID I WANT everything Chin- ese tonight, says the girl in the restaurant advert- isement in the West End theatre programmes; lady, if you study the...

By LESLIE ADRIAN SOME weeks ago, I got home from work to find a set of our front-door keys lying on top of the following note from May, our char of eight A years' standing:...