T he past week has been an interesting one for students of t he British Disease. A worker who had slept during the night shift not inadvertently, through exhaustion, but de...

The assumption of St Denis Ferdinand Mount The great confrontation on pay between the Prime Minister and Mrs Thatcher was a dispiriting occasion. These parliamentary set...

t k friend has sent me a pamphlet issued by I le Law Society setting out what its powers e in the unlikely event of a client becom'fng dissatisfied with' his solicitor's per?...

Shame on him Auberon Waugh A few years ago the house in which I live was shown on television, which prompted a lady in the West Country to write to her local newspaper arguing...

AvnerY Tel Aviv \'hat is happening to Mr Begin? The question is being asked in Israel these days not 'Yin the Knesset and party caucuses; it is ,the main topic in coffee...

Peter Hebblethwaite The prospect of an election — any election — concentrates the mind wonderfully. Pope Paul VI, who will be eighty-one on 26 September, cannot be expected to...

Raymond Keene Baguio 8 aguio is a curious spot to stage such a major sporting event as the World Chess Ch aMpionship. Situated in the hills of 1 1 "1 , orthern Luzon, the...

David Levy Moscow By suing two American reporters for libel the Soviet authorities, in the guise of the State Committee for Radio and Television's main evening news show...

Christopher Booker ' You are all old enough to remember our old to wns—towns made for people, horses, dogs 7 and the trams too; towns which were autnane, friendly, cosy places,...

Grace Wyndham Goldie There are two mysteries about the Government White Paper on the future of broadcasting. One is why it has been so long delayed. The second is why the...

Mary Morgan There are four ways of holding the gate against the loss Of this generation of young People in their slow shuffle to the dole queue. `Small is beautiful', as the...

Richard West The other morning I went to work in the British Museum reading room, or National Library as it is now called. As I passed through the gates a young woman handed me...

Alan Gibson Earlier this summer, in this paper, I was w riting about the merits of Neville Cardus a nd Bernard Darwin, Cardus a cricket writer, so far as his sports writing...

Controlled dividends uncontrolled dollar Nicholas Davenport The blatant cynicism of the Government's attempt to force through an extension of divided control was not lost in...

Lord Beaconsfield has been made a K.G., and has obtained the remaining Garter for his faithful colleague, Lord Salisbury. The Prime Minister received investure as Knight of the...

Sir: Bishop Muzorewa said recently in Washington that sanctions are destroying Rhodesia. Is it not time that we should acknowledge that the imposition of sanctions against...

Sir: I have always subscribed to Conrad's ° Pinion that authors should approach reviews with tape-measures rather than s Pectacles. However there are one or two ; I t'all...

Sir: Your readers may be interested to know that we shall be publishing a collection of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's speeches later in the year which will include the famous Harvard...

Sir: The next election will not be won because certain characters have come in from the cold — Mr Heath, for example, is still remembered as the architect of electoral disaster....

Sir: Pliss you inform Goulden (Letters, 15 July) that my godfather very angry; maybe born tacky but Taki real name, not pseudonym. And if he call me exotic again I see he...

Sir: It was predictable that Anthony Nutting should take the line of allowing no honest or laudable motive to Eden and Selwyn Lloyd in what they did in '56 over Suez. But from...

Sir: Returning home after the end of the ILO Conference recently I was surprised and dismayed to read Eric Moonman's article in your issue of 10 June; surprised because I...

Sir: I was interested in Mr Levy's article (15 July) entitled 'How Russia gets away with it' and I was especially struck by his assertion that 'Soviet strategists care little...

Sir: Youreditorial (22 July) on facing Soviet reality is most impressive. What needs to be understood, however, is that there are two levels of truth, both equally valid in...

Sir: A uberon Waugh's blanket condemnation of the staff of W. H. Smith was rather silly. As one of their longstandi n g browsers I have always found them helPf li !' courteous...

The end of empire Robert Blake Evelyn Baring: The Last Proconsul Charles Douglas-Home (Collins E7.50) Sir Evelyn Baring KG, first Lord Howick of Glendale, had a career which...

Hans Keller The Champions: The Secret Motives in Games and Sport Peter Fuller (Allen Lane £6.50) Before we tear the author to pieces, we must make sure that he receives the...

Jill Craigie Separate Spheres Brian Harrison (Groom Helm £9.95) Women in British Trade Unions 1874-1976 Norbert C. Soldon (Gill and Macmillan; Rowman and Littlefield £12) When...

Anthony Nicholls People and Politics: The Years 1960 1976 Willy Brandt (Collins £8.95). Memoirs of post-war German politicians are not noted for their sensational character....

Benny Green The Book of Merlyn T.H. White (Collins £5.25) Accepted literary works are usually best left alone, even when the (missing) section unearthed years later turns out...

Francis King A Heavy Feather A. L. Barker (Hogarth £5.50) If it is true, as Thomas Browne said, that the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy, then it is equally...

Finns a l'eau Rodney MIInes And not just opera. While stage performances in the courtyard of the island fortress (a little draughty this year) suggest a National Festival,...

Harrowing Peter Jenkins Savage Amusement (R.S.C., Warehouse) Monsieur Artaud (Theatre Space) Three middle class drop outs are sharing a squat with a nineteen-year-old working...

Men's talk Mary Kenny What Tariq Ali said on Radio 4's Start the Week on 10 July should not go undocumented: the aim of the 'socialist revolution' is to undermine the family,...

Explorative John McEwen John McLean's exhibition of abstract paintings at the House Gallery (till 20 August) is the best new work show to have appeared this year. And what...

Images Richard Ingranns The most interesting point in Melvyn Bragg's rather incoherent letter in last week's Spectator was his last. He disowned, a bit plaintively it seemed...

Out of date Patrick Marn ham Travelling across England in 1943 Edmund Blunden, MC, by then too old for action, nonetheless did his bit. The scythesman and the thatcher are...

Party line Jeffrey Bernard I travelled all the way from Lambourn to the Park Lane Hotel last Monday to go to a party given by Harper's to launch a teenage edi tion of their...

Tragi-comedy Raymond Keene Baguio The World Championship match finally got inicler way on! 8 July but not before one final hiccup. At the last minute both players decided that...