Neck and neck T he general election campaign got under way with some skirmishes between politicians which were personal rather than political. Among many insults traded in the...

THE RIGHT SCHOOL T is is how the Labour Manifesto intro- duces its proposals for schools: Our children are our future. We have a moral and material duty to see that children...

Chariots come to the rescue of Labour's defence policy FERDINAND MOUNT O ne place you used to be able to get away from piped music was the party political broadcast. Long...

lections are like a bad dose of flu, something to be got through and needing a period of convalescence at the end. And since we have always fought ours as if it were a marginal...

The reason why more nurses and mean poorer health care doctors AUBERON WAUGH A n angry letter appeared in the Inde- pendent last Friday signed by chairmen and past chairmen of...

MR KINNOCK GOES TO GROUND Andrew Gimson follows the Labour leader but finds that although he wants to be photographed, he will not answer questions WE START with a question....

SHIRLEY SLIPS BACK Michael Trend reports from Cambridge, now the perfect three-horse race GREAT St Mary's has been the site of many momentous occasions in the history of...

The second Spectator Cambridge Poll shows that the fight for the city seat is still a lively three-way affair. The figures will surely give hope to all of the three main...

by the Harris Research Centre between 23 and 25 May. Interviews were conducted with 811 voters in the Cambridge city consti- tuency. Of these 49 per cent are male; 51 per cent...

BRAVE NEW BRUM Richard West visits the crumbling home of Roy Hattersley and Spaghetti Junction AS NEIL Kinnock arrived at Birmingham City Hall to launch the Labour Party's...

NO ASYLUM FROM POLITICS Anthony Daniels finds out what the mad think of the election candidates IS IT possible anywhere in the kingdom to escape from election fever? A...

major parties at the coming election — and you could win two first-class seats (return) to Geneva on Swissair. The winner will also be able to enjoy a case of Charbaut Brut...

POLLING THE PUNDITS . . . and a competition to predict the composition of the next Parliament BEFORE the general election campaign began, the Spectator asked 59 political...

STIRRING THE TORPID VOTER The press: Paul Johnson examines a poor crop of election smears NEWSPAPERS hate repetition just as nature abhors a vacuum. The media had been...

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard on America's military plans after the attack on USS Stark Washington IRAN is 'the real villain', says President Reagan. Curious, it was Iraq that began...

Candida Crewe joins the National Association of Funeral Directors for its annual junket MARY Ellement, funeral director, was presented at dinner with a birthday cock- tail by...

A REGRESS report has come in from the Buckmaster Development Fund, the Busi- ness Expansion Scheme fund which City and Suburban has been monitoring. This fund (you may recall)...

THE yuppification of the City has changed a solid old champagne bar into Coates's Glitzy Café, open from half past seven for breakfast meetings. Joining one this week, I asked...

Up the poll in the Holy of Holies: why the City gets election wrong CHRISTOPHER FILDES I was in the Holy of City Holies, the Court Room of the Bank of England, when a hand...

THE most sustained aberration in the banking history of the world — that is how the purists see the burden of debt, weighing equally on the thirty-odd coun- tries which will not...

five (16 May). My London telephone has been out of order for over a week and the telephone engineers are most reluctant to give me any idea of when the fault will be put right....

Sir: As I am so far removed from the fort of the Queen's English, you may consider it presumptuous of me to criticise your usage. It's merely a matter of spelling. Your writers...

Sir: Congratulations on the piece by David Hare ('Why I shall vote Labour', 23 May). It is the first sensible thing you have published all year. Penelope Finian 107 Fentiman...

Sir: In your leading article last week you claim that 'nationalisation does not work'. Presumably privatisation does. How extraordinary that at the foot of the page you...

Sir: Christopher Fildes, with whom I do not normally reckon to have to take issue, is very well aware both of the merits and of the mechanism of rights issues. His article in...

Sir: Brian Eno does well in his comment on my War Business article (Letters, 9 May) to insist that political dreams of future technology have fuelled the industry. That is why...

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

Thoughts of a Somerset farmer Julian Oxford LETTERS OF CONRAD RUSSELL 1897-1947 edited by Georgiana Blakiston T he art of letter-writing has declined, it is said, because of...

John Charmley ROOSEVELT'S CHILDREN: TOMORROW'S WORLD LEADERS AND THEIR WORLD by Edward Mortimer Hamish Hamilton, £12.95 F rom the back of the dust-jacket stares the earnest...

David Sexton AN AFFAIR OF STATE: THE PROFUMO CASE AND THE FRAMING OF STEPHEN WARD by Philip Knightley and Caroline Kennedy Cape, £12.95 HONEYTRAP: THE SECRET WORLDS OF...

Michael Levey COMPTON MACKENZIE: A LIFE by Andro Linklater Chatto & Windus, f14.95 t•IN C ompton Mackenzie's sister, Fay, be- came a famous Peter Pan on the stage, but in...

Patrick Skene Catling THE ARCIMBOLDO EFFECT edited by Pontus Hulten Thames & Hudson, f32 G iuseppe Arcimboldo (1527-1593) was the Hapsburg court painter who is said to have...

I go on the big slide! How brave it is, and right. Each step she takes is half her height But she is not afraid. See Daddy, watch me when I go on my tummy. Watch me. I don't...

Noel Malcolm SELECTED LETTERS by Ferruccio Busoni, edited and translated by Antony Beaumont Faber, £25 A period of transition, as every histor- ian knows, is the period which...

A Paradise Lost: the Neo-Romantic Imagination in Britain 1935-55 (Barbican Centre, till 19 July) An art of our own Giles Auty 0 ne of the least romantic things I can think of...

Academy, till 21 June) Glowing images Alistair Hicks J oshua Reynolds may have failed to summon the Aegean blue to the patch of sky above his head in Burlington House's...

David Garland: Pottery (Crafts Council, till 7 June) The potter's dilemma Tanya Harrod the 1930s and 1940s studio ceramics were regularly reviewed in the Times and Morning...

Oriental allure Peter Watson T here was a time, strange as it may seem, when art dealers sat below the salt. In 17th-century Rome and 18th-century England they were about as...

Distracting themes Peter Phillips t is a moot point whether our interna- tional festivals have a strong identity of their own. No doubt for the organisers there is a sense of...

A selection of forthcoming events recommended by the Spectator's regular critics. THEATRE The Merchant of Venice, Stratford, (0789 296655), New production starring excellent...

Death of a Soldier (`18', Cannon, Haymarket) Melbourne melodrama Hilary Mantel D ouglas MacArthur is the closest this town's ever going to see to God,' — or so drawls one...

An Inspector Calls (Westminster) Kiss Me Kate (Old Vic) Yorkshire moralist Christopher Edwards his revival of one of J, B, Priestley's most popular plays is set in the...

Just men talking Wendy Cope hen we were children and didn't feel like going to sleep at night, my sister and I sometimes went and sat on the stairs. If our mother appeared in...

Taxed to the limit Taki ne more week to go, and then it's goodbye Big Bagel. Starting next Monday my work schedule moves into high gear with William Buckley's bash for 150 of...

Egyptian daddy Jeffrey Bernard I keep thinking of the nutty reader who wrote to me and said, 'What a wonderful life you must lead.' Well I suppose it is by a tramp's standards...

LESS THAN HALF-PRICE More stimulating than any lecture, funnier than the set books, The Spectator should be required reading for every student. With Student Subscriptions...

Bottling it up Alice Thomas Ellis I have been compiling a little list of Things We Were Not Told. I'm not think- ing about the things our leaders do not see fit to inform us...

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...

Bucolics Jaspistos I . N Competition No. 1473 you were invited to write a poetic dialogue between two disgruntled rustics or country- dwellers. First, thank you, the three...

Round-up Raymond Keene A couple of important tournaments which I have not yet covered are Beer Sheva and the Euwe Memorial. The inde- fatigable Korchnoi was active in both,...

Monsieur Thompson's IF THE inventors of Scruples were to devise a `moral dilemma' peculiar to res- taurant critics it might run like this: `You are asked to write a column...

S C H 6 A S 'M 8 S " A10EEAS%ERTEID/DIA YIUDDERIAEURGEON RINRDEA S T 171 E N D D H E R TITS LISFIRIT NWIIIIJIISLY/LEACEAE l i t ESTR I LIIPLIYALIKIG II N I 0 A 731 I 3 S 3 0 E L...

(maximum 16 lines), for a young girl born in June. Entries to `Competition No. 1476' by 12 June.

Proud to be Strine Auberon Waugh F or what I fear will be our penultimate Australian wine offer in the Year of Strine W ine, I tasted several producers and estates as well as...

C/o H. Allen Smith Ltd. 24/25 Scala Street, London W1P Telelephone 01-637 4767 Product Price No. Value 1. Hardy's Old Castle Rhine Riesling 1986 75 cl 12 bots. £47.40 2....