`Move along now, haven't you seen a reshuffle before?' I n an unexpected Cabinet reshuffle, de- signed chiefly to split responsibility for the Department of Health and Social...

I f one was in any doubt about the merits of Mr Leon Brittan replacing Lord Cock- field as our European Commissioner, Mr Edward Heath's opposition to the move was enough to...

THE advice of the Foreign Office that there should be no official contact with Dr Jonas Savimbi while on his recent visit to Britain, combined with its view that the Government...

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The reviving powers of Mrs Thatcher's kiss of death NOEL MALCOLM A mong the various reasons which have been offered for the Prime Minister's surprising timing of her Cabinet...

Q uite often 'news' is what one has experienced oneself only a few days ear- her. Last Sunday, for example, the papers carried 'news' stories about a House of Commons committee...

Thoughts prompted by the death of Mark Boxer AUBERON WAUGH D eath, which used to be a family occasion, has become a very private thing. In a sense, of course, there is nothing...

Since 1968, Czechoslovakia has been one of the most viciously run countries in Europe. But William Shawcross finds it challenged now by Gorbachev's reforms IN The Book of...

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard examines how Mr Bush can entice women voters Washington DON'T put your money on Dukakis yet. The Johnny Carson Show, the late night television comedy...

`MR Bottomley said . . . evidence for the success of random breath testing was unsound. `Of . . . 300,000 people a year breath tested . . . under . . . existing . . ....

Charles Glass calls on Turkey to acknowledge its 1,619 foreign prisoners ONE of the first people I met in London, a couple of years before I came here to live in 1976, was...

the lack of policy and competence in politics there THE meaninglessness of it all is wonderful. The admirable complacency. How much more sophisticated can political leaders get...

God approved of the lotteries, but the Home Office still holds out against it. Michael Trend reports IN THE very near future we will soon again hear much of the 'NHS lottery'....

Sousa Jamba finds that it is not easy for an African to meet a girlfriend WHEN I was told in Africa that people in a Western metropolis could be lonely, I did not believe it....

CURES FOR SLEEPLESSNESS TO THE EDITOR OF THE 'SPECTATOR' SIR,—As one who has suffered much from insomnia, I read with interest `F. P. C.'s' letter in the Spectator of July...

Melanie McDonagh finds the celebration of the Glorious Revolution at odds with her schooling THERE was not much in the way of Common ground between the nun who first taught me...

Why No. 10 should not become a seminary JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE 0 ne of my memories from my stint in HM Treasury is of an occasion when I was asked to an impromptu luncheon at No....

Exit Mr Baker, pursued by a bear market CHRISTOPHER FILDES he betting on Wall Street has turned to James Baker, Secretary of the United States Treasury. It is said that he...

does not know the ancient limerick: The rationalist, A. J. Ayer, Has answered the atheist's prayer: A Hell you can't verify Surely can't terrify Until you confirm that it's...

Sir: Your diarist (23 July) who accuses David Willetts of bad manners, on the basis of having seen one or two of his television appearances, should ask himself where the cap...

Sir: Graham Webster-Gardiner of the Conservative Family Campaign wrongs me when he says (Letters, 23 July) that I `conveniently ovelooked' the fact that 98 out of 121 Cleveland...

Sir: The fears over the future of Kenwood voiced by correspondents and Mr Isaaman (Letters, 11 June) chime significantly with our own concerning another English Herit- age...

`The other side' Sir: I was too ill to be aware of the reference to myself by my friend Peregrine Worsthorne (Diary, 16 July). It is only today that I was able to read what he...

Ill-tempered and queer? Alan Bell THAT SINGULAR PERSON CALLED LEAR by Susan Chitty Weidenfeld, £16.95, pp. 305 Denise Harvey & Co., f40, pp. 245 EDWARD LEAR'S TENNYSON by...

Byron Rogers IN-FOR-A-PENNY: THE UNAUTHORISED BIOGRAPHY OF JEFFREY ARCHER by Jonathan Mantle Hamish Hamilton, £11.95, pp.264 T he American senator Daniel Moyni- han had this...

Dawn, as the shadows slink away, Squints at the opening of day And there where night and silence were The sun comes up and small winds stir. A man lay still and that was all...

Raymond Carr WHERE THE RIVERS MEET by John Wain Hutchinson, £12.95, pp. 563 T his novel has two themes: the sexual strains of late adolescence and the prob- lems which a...

of the century Nicholas Henderson THATCHER by Kenneth Harris Weidenfeld, £12.95, pp. 248 M uch has been written about the phenomenon of Mrs Thatcher; and she has not been...

Euan Cameron `VIDEO NIGHT IN KATHMANDU' AND OTHER REPORTS FROM THE NOT-SO-FAR EAST by Pico Iyer Bloomsbury, £14.95, pp. 384 I n one of the more bizarre of many odd encounters...

J. L. Carr THE NEWEST LONDON SPY edited by Tim Heald Muller, f7.95, pp.268 F or those living elsewhere, London is barely known country, so that each expedi- tion has an air...

Exhibitions Poporific Giles Auty Claes Oldenburg/Coosje van Bruggen: A Bottle of Notes and Some Voyages (Serpentine Gallery till 29 August) Tom Wesselmann (Mayor Rowan till...

La Traviata (Glyndebourne) Friends and enemies Rodney Manes O pera London's production of Poppea was its own worst enemy — at the start, that is. If by the finishing post it...

A Bright Room Called Day (Bush) Sophiatown (Hampstead) Titus Andronicus (Pit) Familiar terrain Christopher Edwards A disappointing new play by Tony Kushner opens the Bush...

Too famous to name Wendy Cope 0 n Saturday I thought of taping the whole of Don Giovanni (Channel 4) and keeping it. But my plan changed when I noticed that the last hour...

Choice Proms Peter Phillips T he first thing to look for in the Proms brochure is an indication of the number of foreign orchestras who are to visit us. On this statistic much...

regular critics OPERA Peileas et Melisande, Royal Albert Hall (589 8212), 7 August. John Eliot Gardiner conducts a semi- staged performance at the Proms with Diana Montague,...

The Couch Trip (`15', Leicester Square Theatre) Syndicated shrink show Hilary Mantel P sychiatry is possibly the only profes- sion invented solely to be the butt of jokes,...

Don Gabriele Taki abriele D'Annunzio is my favourite Italian. A great poet and patriot, all he thought about was women. Although short, with one eye and a cripple, he...

Enchanting Welshmen Alice Thomas Ellis I have always had a great fondness for the Village Show. It brings tears to my eyes, representing, as it does, months and weeks and...

Wild West Raymond Keene W hat has, with justice, been termed the most important chess match involving British players this century is the forthcom- ing World Championship...

Unheroics Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1533 you were asked to treat some trivial domestic action mock-heroically, in the metre and manner of Pope. The Genial Liquor,...

FAR afield I have wandered this week from Shepherds Bush to Spitalfields, with much more interesting results than my last foray. I arranged to meet our long suffer- ing but...

A newspaper letter or review, please, from one of Lytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians (Cardinal Manning, Florence Nightingale, Queen Victoria, General Gordon) who has just read...

A P H I ANnG5T A IN l iT I LIS r AIVENROLC OLTITI IIN5C E R B El HIE . 1 I OIMIASSES A Y L E 27 TOUA I ST[SS E I T FILI N i FLIAIN C E i T I L E H 2 1I■ T O G ..,L M 0 R I G...

I WAS honoured to be personally deputed to muster as many cheery Eastenders as possible to greet Her Majesty. Marvellous folk all, they are forever popping in and out of each...

Leaves from the commonplace book of Wallace Arnold THERE has always been a special nook in the Queen Mother's heart for the cheery inhabitants of London's East End. When she...

A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or, for UK solvers, a copy of either Chambers Dictionary or Chambers Crossword Manual — ring your choice) for the first three...

`NOW I can look the East End in the face,' she had said, all those years ago, after one of her corgis, too, had narrowly missed suffering a not inconsiderable hurt from flying...