M rs Thatcher issued a statement celebrating five years in office which despite its vague phrasing was taken to mean she meant to spend another five years in office. A Commons...

Mrs Thatcher's jubilee 10111 y the time that you read this, you will .1-/have experienced five years of govern- ment by Mrs Thatcher — 'five eventful and action-packed years',...

The Home Secretary made the le g al posi- tio n in the Libyan siege sound remarkably straightforward: Britain was Powerless to enter the People's Bureau, or arres t the...

revolution at Debrett', Debrett's Peerage is subsumed in a book called Debrett's Handbook. The main innovation is 'an extremely relevant and contemporary "who's who" ' with a...

I t is reassurin g that the onset of the elections to the European Parliament is being g reeted with whatever is the opposite of a fanfare. If the main political parties were...

Surface mail Air mai £20.50 E26.50 £41.00 £53.00 For special offer turn to p.22 Name ......... ...'''' Address .......... ..... .......... ............ US Subscriptions:...

Time for an outcry Auberon Waugh I the general over-excitement about my 'admirer Colonel Gaddafi we seem to have lost sight of Michael Bettaney, the former MI5 officer, whose...

F or a few months after Mr Neil Kinnock's election, his supporters and old opponents were pleasantly surprised. Though his performances at Prime Minister's Questions left...

Timothy Garton Ash M anagua is a city without maps. spent hours on my first day there, cruising in a dilapidated Buick through the fantastic earthquaked wasteland of the city,...

Bohdan Nahaylo O n 4 April a letter in the Times from Lord Coggan and others drew atten- tion to a new Soviet law which severely penalises dissenters who receive financial or...

Peking primary Christopher Hitchens Washington A s designed and scripted by his White House advisers, Ronald Reagan's China jaunt was a well calculated political gambit. In...

Frank Johnson Paris ierre Frank, one of Trotsky's last sur- .1 viving secretaries, thus one of the world's most senior Trotskyists, therefore one of the world's least famous...

James Fenton I a recent Spectator (21 April) A.N. .1-Wilson was discussing the forthcoming election for the Oxford Professorship of Poetry and urged readers to vote for Peter...

The mummy factor Paul Johnson E veryone in Fleet Street is delighted that the war between the Tinies at the Observer is over and hopes that the peace which so abrubtly broke...

Gift-wrapped jets Jock Bruce-Gardyne I n day s of yore I never had much difficulty in containing my enthusiasm for the Na- tional Enterprise Board. It always looked to Me like...

On Wednesday afternoon, Dr Cameron brought on his Bill for legalis- ing Cremation — the burning of the dead body — which he advocated on sanitary grounds. He denied that any...

British citizen living or working in Libya must have had some notion of the , risks involved and accordingly is not entitled to expect to be rescued now or in the future at too...

could have imagined that its terms could ever be exploited to get a killer off the hook. All the same, in the interests of civilisation, it must go on as signed until a change...

Sir: It is good to see that L.H. Myers has a t last been re-issued (Books, 21 April). 011 , e or two points in David Lancast er 5 , admirably appreciative review of The RE 9° `...

Sir: 'As bad as each other'? Charles Moore (Politics, 21 April) appears to distinguish Mrs Thatcher from Mr Scargill because she said she intended to abolish the GLC and the...

Libyan horrors Sir: I well understand Auberon Waugh's reluctance (Another voice, 28 April) to believe that the Libyans actually sent the horrifying instructions to the...

Sir: You hardly need to say that you do not agree with Louis Eaks on Palestine or th . ! Middle East but to sneer (Notes, 28 Apr il) about convictions at the beginning of t h e...

Sir: Much of what Colin Welch (Centrepiece, 14 April) has to say about South Africa is true, especially his appreciation of the complexity of the situation and how fatuous and...

The mad cacophonist Colin Welch w hat was recently and interminably bursting forth from France Musique, the often admirable French Third Pro- gramme, was, alas, neither French...

The inherent vice Robert Conquest 1917: The Russian Revolutions and the Origins of Present-Day Communism Leonard Schapiro (Temple Smith £12.95) T he death of Leonard Schapiro...

Ferdinand Mount Fi nding the Centre: Two Narratives (Andre Deutsch £7.95) V. S. Naipaul D oes man qualify as a migratory species? Or are human migrations too random, violent...

The Spectator for twelve months and receive FREE either THE KNOX BROTHERS A biography by Penelope Fitzgerald or UNDER SIEGE Literary Life in London 1939.45 by Robert...

Isabel Colegate The Weaker Vessel: Woman's Lot in Seventeenth-Century England Antonia Fraser (W eidenfeld and Nicolson £12.95) o f women's unnatural, insatiable lust,' wrote...

J. Enoch Powell Roman Foreign Policy in the Eas t A. N. Sherwin-White (Duckworth £29.50) One never reads enough history. T hat' e s A Americans: they don't read history or , if...

Francis King The Pork Butcher David Hughes (Constable £5.95) T here are places that, even after the passage of 40 years or more, are still permeated with the stench of all...

Peter Levi Poems 1938-1983 Sheila Wingfield (Enitharmon Press £8.85, £5.25) Collected Poems 1912-1944 H. D. (Carcanet Press £16.95) I t is interesting to see suddenly the col-...

Lewis Jones 1982 Janine Alasdair Gray (Cape £8.95) Unlikely Stories, Mostly Alasdair Gray (Penguin £4.95) A lasdair Gray's first novel, Lanark, I orando m casined comparison...

Robert Conquest's books on the Soviet Union include The Great Terror, The Nation Killers and Lenin. Peter Levi is standing for election as Professor of Poetry at Oxford.

Creatures great and small Giles Gordon Passion Play (Wyndam's) Number One (Queens) The Seagull (Greenwich) Kingdom of Earth (Hampstead) H ot on the hoof of Strider comes more...

Remember nostalgia? Giles Auty Drawings of the 1940s (Christopher Hull till 21 May) Robert Gibbings and Viva Talbot and Seven British Printmakers of the 1920s and 1930s...

Dog days Peter Ackroyd White Dog ('15', selected cinemas), !t M ost 'animal films' are better without the intrusion of human interest: the animal kingdom is...

Black magic Alexander Chancellor A s Robin Hood may not have existed anyway, there is no good reason why anybody should not embellish his legend as he thinks fit. But Richard...

Status quo Taki Los Angeles Los Angeles The last time I was in the city of angels w as in 1972. I had just finished a three- Month stint in Vietnam, and thought a week's rest...

Game try Jeffrey Bernard think I very nearly died last Sunday. I lwas sitting in the garden watching the filthy pheasants mating — they really ought to call it a day now that...

War and peace P. J. Kavanagh Paris r‘riving up the Cherbourg peninsula 1..... , towards Paris you come across the D-Day landing-places, 'Utah Beach', `Omaha Beach'. These are...

a Parody of an editorial in the Sun. The Sun is low, to say the least, Although it is well red; But since it rises in the yeast It should be better bred. (I quote Gelett...

No. 1319: Chesterbelloc S ft by Jaspistos: With A. N. Wilson's bi ography of Befloc just out and Richard In grams's of Chesterton to come, I invite You to imitate amusingly...

THE ANNOTATED BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER by John H. Blunt (1865 or any later edition, except the abridged edition. Also 'The Femall Glory' by Anthony Stafford 1635 or later reprint....

Prize: £10 — or a copy of Chambers Dictionary, 1983 edition (ring the word 'Dictionary' under name and address) — for the first correct solution opened on 21 May. Entries to:...

116111111riirl reriNtifor''' The unclued I ghts a I begi n with Doc. Winner: Hertford. Green, 2 Port Vale'

London leads Raymond Keene T he Phillips and Drew/GLC Kings Tournament has been remarkably in- novative in a number of significant respects. As in the London Candidates'...