T he Social Democrat Alliance won its first electoral success at the Croydon North West by-election, where a swing of 24.2 per cent put Labour into third place. Mr Michael Foot...

As near as dammit Ferdinand Mount There is something unconvincing about 1 the way Shirley Williams swears. The habit seems to be growing on her. Whenever she pops up to...

S tanding in darkness on the white cliffs I.Jof Dover and looking out across the Channel, one can see a blaze of yellow lights at what seems like a distance of only a few...

Defeated by the civil service Auberon Waugh H as a single civil servant actually lost his job as a result of the Government cuts? Perhaps a few have but, if so, I have not...

William Rees-Mogg T he United States is one of the most mobile of countries. Americans can, and do, move 2,000 miles to take a new job and think very little of it. American...

Sam White Pans O f all the neutralist and unilateralist demonstrations that rolled across European capitals last weekend, the one in Paris was easily the least impressive. It...

Richard West Hong Kong T he amazing Ken Livingstone, the leader of Greater London Council, recently praised Communist China, contrasting it with the 'rat race' of Hong Kong. Up...

Gavin Stamp Durban T he Caister Hotel does not seem like South Africa. In this half-timbered and modernistic building of between the wars, surrounded by sub-tropical...

N o class requires the aid of English female doctors like the ladies of India. They have fairly skilled native midwives, but for the cure of any grave disease they have...

Richard Brent A ccording to the Sunday Times last week's 150,000 strong CND rally in London was a demonstration that the antinuclear movement had lost its 'middle class'...

Murray Sayle A n acceptance, last week, to mourn the passing of General Moshe Dayan prevented my celebrating an altogether happier occasion, namely the 100th anniversary of the...

John Griffith T he attitude of the Law Lords and other judges to the activities of journalists or the revelations of politicians in recent years has not been inspired by any...

Tim Congdon D eveloped over the last few years as a playground for the world's rich, the Mexican holiday resort of Cancun last week was the setting for a meeting about world...

Booker revisited Paul Johnson T here is an air of desperation about the attempts of the literary establishment to turn the Booker prize into a major event, as though sheer...

The Bank Tony Rudd That agreeable pastime of guessing who 1 might be the next Governor of the Bank of England, has broken out once more. Fuelled presumably by the notion that...

Sir: I wish to protest at your publication of Donald Gould's absurd article on 'The harmless lunatic' (17 October), and the column inches devoted to a single case history. The...

Sir: Few would disagree that the BBC needs an increased licence fee. Indeed, both the Chairman and the Director General of the IBA are on record as saying so. But not for the...

Sir: Someone has just shown me the article by Paul Johnson in your issue of 17 October, in which he quotes from a letter from me to the Listener, on the need to support public...

Sir: The article about Sweden by Andrew Brown (3 October), while shocking, did not surprise me in the least. The Swedes have pioneered all manner of ghastly innovations, from...

Sir: I think it was the late Brendan Francis Behan who pointed out that the words in Tilliburlero' which Mr S. G. Davies calls doggerel (Letters, 17 October), are actually...

Sir: If Mr Rudd (In the City', 17 October) would kindly put me in touch with one or two of the many observers in the City who apparently are willing to offer heavy odds in...

Sir: We have been asked by Methuen publishers to write a book on the practice of interviewing people eminent in their respective fields ('elite' oral history). This book w ill...

Order out of chaos Anthony Storr A Biography of Kafka Ronald Hayman (Weidenfeld & Nicolson pp. 349, £16.50, £8.50) reative artists exhibit as wide a variety of types of...

A. N. Wilson The Bridge at Arta and Other Stories J. I. M. Stewart (Gollancz pp. 182, £.6.95) 4 "D id you ever hear such a ridiculous name as Bounce?" Pillman might have said,...

Paul Ableman Charles Darwin: A Man of Enlarged Curiosity Peter Brent (Heinemann pp. 536, f12.50). T he dust cover of this fine biography is adorned by a photograph of Darwin...

John Charmley Churchill and de Gaulle F. Kersaudy (Collins pp. 476, f12.95). B ooks about both Churchill and de 1-.3 Gaulle are almost as numerous as anecdotes about them,...

Aparna Jack The Villa Golitsyn Piers Paul Read (Secker & Warburg pp.192, £6.95) I t is an uncommon experience to be so held by a book that no critical thought impinges on one's...

Peter Bessell Inside Boss Gordon Winter (Allen Lane pp.640, £7.95, £3.95) rrhere have been innumerable books, of variable dependability and objectivity, published since the...

Bel Mooney A Language Not To Be Betrayed: Selected Prose of Edward Thomas ed. Edna Longley (Carcanet Press pp. 290, £9.95) E dward Thomas, whose reputation rests upon the...

Great art from Japan John McEwen 7 7 he Great Japan Exhibition (Royal -L Academy, Part 1 till 20 December; Part 2, 28 December to 21 February, 1982) certainly lives up to its...

Compulsory Rodney Milnes The Cat and the Moon and The King of the Great Clock Tower (Cottesloe) Cosi fan tulle (Coliseum) T he great music-theatre movement of the late Sixties,...

The watchers Peter Ackroyd Blow Out ('X', Empire Leicester Square) I n the sound laboratory, we see tapes marked 'heartbeat', 'footsteps', 'shower' and 'scream': practically...

Sick jokes Mark Amory The Hypochondriac (Olivier) No Sex, Please — We're British (Strand) A ll but best-informed are advised to forego a drink and study the programme before...

A-musing Richard Ingrams unday evenings, traditionally my prime viewing time, are looking up a bit thanks to Great Expectations and the return of To the Manor Born (BBC1). This...

Japanese arts Taki y weekend at my ancestral country seat was rather spoiled when I happened to turn on the news and saw 150,000 mugs marching around London trying to make it...

Punch-drunk Jeffrey Bernard discovered many years ago that I'm particularly susceptible — wide open in fact — to a right cross. Consequently I've tried to avoid violence,...