M r John Major, the Prime Minister, took two minutes out of his day to reject calls from the 92 Group of MPs to have fewer left-wingers in the Cabinet. Mr Nor- man Lamont said...

The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone: 071-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 071-242 0603 BRITISCHE MOTOREN WERKE For the major part of the British motor...

DEBORAH DEVONSHIRE T he only thing I minded about Mr Yeo's carry-on was the photograph of him barging out of a restaurant lengths in front of his mistress. The first politician...

God in His mercy lend her grace AUBERON WAUGH P erhaps it is because for the first time since I became a journalist nearly 35 years ago I found myself wholeheartedly on the...

Simon Heifer talks to some survivors of Harold Macmillan's Cabinets, and concludes that the former Prime Minister was indeed an old fraud 'MACMILLAN WAS such a double-cross- er...

The Czar has been suffering from a severe attack of influenza, aggravated by slight pneumonia. On Sunday night, after he had been imprudently sitting in a window, the symptoms...

Kenneth Roberts, who has been working for the UN in Bosnia for over a year, argues that we should pull out now Sarajevo THE BOSNIAN SERB Commissioner for Humanitarian...

TROUBLESOME WORDS seem to come in clumps. When we were at school we were told about figures of speech such as synecdoche. Two (or possibly one) of these were litotes and...

Mark Steyn argues that a common popular culture no longer exists: there is only multinational miscegenation JUST OVER a hundred years ago, Charles K. Harris hung a shingle...

The House of Fraser stores are to be floated the acceptable face of the Fayeds THE REHABILITATION of Mohamed Fayed, the Egyptian-born businessman who, with his brothers Ali and...

Matthew Parris says the challenge to the PM is no more than the seasonal frenzy of six editors and nine columnists AFTER CHRISTMAS I felt bored here. Tired of grey skies and...

How to save yourself 51 trips to the library . . . or over £35 on The Spectator If you're forced to share The Spectator with fellow students, then you'll know how difficult it...

IT WAS about three years ago that I first noticed an unmistakable portent of the imminent downfall of Western civili- sation: spelling errors, committed by junior doctors, began...

J. Enoch Powell continues our series of the English counties, with a personal view of Staffordshire STAFFORDSHIRE IS not a place of its own. It is an oblong slab of country...

We papists don't want to fight, but by jingo if we do . . . PAUL JOHNSON T his week I had intended to write about the male homosexual lobby and its plans to alter the law so...

How much is that doggie in the window? £1.7 billion to you, squire CHRISTOPHER FILDES N ow we know who would want a dog called Rover. Imagine paying, though! In all poor old...

WHEN THE Prince of Wales came to the City, for an architects' dinner, he observed: 'Say what you like about the Luftwaffe, they only knocked it down.' The Church Com- missioners...

THIS WEEK in Europe's car markets brought the results from Fiat. That major producer lost almost as much money as BMW is spending on Rover. It is yet anoth- er bale of straw in...

HERE'S a regulation that fails the Iggles test. (Iggles, you will remember, is the Lord Mayor's cat, foiled by regulations from liv- ing in the Mansion House.) It affects the...

I SUPPOSE the Church of England is tak- ing it out on the City. Its investments have taken a tumble, so blame all those advisers and commissioners who work there, and shut their...

Sir: I should be surprised if Fergal Keane supplied his own translation for the word 'kaffir' (The indispensable Afrikaner', 22 January) as he has been in South Africa long...

Sir: I am an ordinary spinster of 85 with no delusions of grandeur left, and I prefer Mr Major's Conservative Party to the one typi- fied by Mr Heffer, Mr Moore and Mr John-...

Sir: Why all this moaning and groaning about paying more taxes? In most opinion polls a majority have always said they would like to pay more taxes for more welfare state. Now...

of mine about the Church of England. As he was not personally present on that occasion, I would like to contribute to the discussion by informing him and his readers of what I...

Sir: Ferdinand Mount is right (`No pontifi- cation in this realm of England', 29 Jan- uary) to find it hard to believe that the con- version of the Duchess of Kent should prompt...

article, though most of us Anglicans are far too nice to speak so robustly. Mr Thompson, on the other hand (`The best of frenemies', 29 January), seems to me to overstate his...

RATES 12 Months 6 Months UK 0 £77.00 0 £39.00 Europe (airmail) 0 £88.00 0 £44.0() USA Airspeed 0 US$125.00 0 US$63.00 USA Airmail 0 US$175.00 0 US$88.00 Rest of Airmail 0...

His tale hangs down behind Juliet Townsend KIPLING THE POET by Peter Keating Secker, f20, pp. 262 I n his introduction to his Choice of Kipling's Verse published in 1941, T....

Alasdair Palmer THE TRAIL OF THE OCTOPUS by Lester Coleman and Donald Goddard Bloomsbury, 116.99, pp. 304 T ie Lockerbie air disaster may not have yet resulted in the trial of...

among others Oleg Gordievsky WITH MY LITTLE EYE: OBSER- VATIONS ALONG THE WAY by Nicholas Elliott Michael Russell, £12.95, pp. 111 N icholas Elliott is primarily known to the...

Caroline Moore EROS AND PSYCHE by William Riviere Hodder, £15.99, pp. 246 H ere is a useful test to help you decide whether this is the book for you. Do you, when reading The...

D. J. Taylor THE FIRST CHURCH OF THE NEW MILLENNIUM by Bryan Appleyard Doubleday, £14.99, pp. 270 A nyone who has reviewed books for any length of time will be familiar with...

Warwick Collins THEORY OF WAR by Joan Brady Abacus, £6.99, pp. 209 J oan Brady's Theory of War, which recently won the Whitbread Book of the Year prize, is one of the most...

Lesley Glaister AN IMAGINATIVE EXPERIENCE by Mary Wesley Bantam, £14.99, pp. 222 I f I put all these connections and meet- ings into my novel, nobody would believe it. Too...

I lack the sun. I miss you so. My dearest one, I need a child. For all these weeks I have not smiled. Time drags his boots of stone — so slow. The wind tonight's uncommon...

Charles Saumarez Smith PIRANESI AS ARCHITECT AND DESIGNER by John Wilton-Ely The Pierpont Morgan Library and Yale University Press, £30, pp. 186 F or writers and artists...

Photography All Human Life: Photographs from the Hutton Deutsch Collection (Barbican Art Gallery, till 24 April) Workers: An Archaeology of the Industrial Age – Photographs by...

Terracotta and taste Alan Powers argues for a revival in colour and ornament I f you stand in the middle of Russell Square, you can understand why terracotta got a bad name at...

Decadence (18, selected cinemas) Bhaji on the Beach (15, selected cinemas) Inspiration in awfulness Mark Steyn I could live without the British film industry, but I'd sure...

Bad Boy Johnny and the Prophets of Doom (Union Chapel, Islington) Schippel the Plumber (Greenwich) The Cut (Bush) Rock around the altar Sheridan Morley B ecause my son...

Claude: the Poetic Landscape (National Gallery, till 10 April) Roger Wagner: Paintings 1982 - 94 (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, till 27 March) A need for Edens Giles Auty A the...

Nostalgia addiction Marcus Berkmann N ever underestimate the power of allit- eration. The phrase 'Fab Four', for example, possesses a rhythm, a mystique and, after 30 years,...

A story of the Squeegies Martyn Harris T he first time I noticed The Squeegies was in a Mexican village almost 20 years ago. Gangs of children with detergent bot- tles of...

Mind my feet Jeffrey Bernard T here was always going to be a back- lash and I knew that from the moment I read the review of the play after the first night at the Apollo...

Where to die like a man Taki Makris, the Greek Eton, was two blocks away from Panepistimiou street, so we walked it. Although the occupation and ensuing civil war had ravaged...

Sentimental education Nigel Nicolson D id you happen to see last Friday a Channel 4 programme called Citizen 2000? It was one of a series about children born in 1982, and this...

done for a few years — I thought of dropping in at a favourite old restaurant, La Popote, to see whether it had changed at all. Sadly, it is not there any more: all those...

Pure nonsense Jaspistos IN COMPETITION NO. 1815 you were invited to write a piece of pure but enter- taining nonsense in prose. My favourite in this department is Samuel...

SPAIN'S FINEST CAVA 11P43 WI au I N'S FINEST CAVA SPAT Babes and sucklings Raymond Keene BOBBY FISCHER held two records which endured for many years and were widely...

Stage and film celebrities, unlike literary folk, are famously nice about their col- leagues in their reminiscences. You are invited to supply (maximum 150 words) an extract...

GRAHAM'S M PORT 1' C I W. Y J. GRAHAM'S PORT CROSSWORD A first prize of £25 and a bottle of Graham's Malvedos 1979 Vintage Port for the first correct solution opened on 21...

A I'5 T OIPER AWCANSIOrr l'HUGSNIAEAUTEUR +FIT I DOW E B E C i lOOLON 11 0 HUTIAIH CSNE ' d CI 'APRESSK I F F IA EIT EINI 2 6 K RVID O M P ARE VERANDAHIT U 1 1111 C • E A, 0...

Superlative Mikes Frank Keating THERE WAS an abrupt call from a reader seriously aggrieved at my missing Michael Gibson from a recent list of luminous Irish fly-halves. But...

Q. Next weekend I have an old friend com- ing to stay. He has recently become much celebrated for his novel, which won him a number of prizes, generated fan mail from literary...