?This column is always on the look-out for 1 cases of persecution or injustice towards young people who, as a group, are universally disliked, even by young people. Over the...

A million people filled the streets of Teheran for the funerals of the Iranian president and prime minister, killed by an incendiary bomb. No group claimed responsibility for...

The Alternative Strategy Auberon Waugh Montmaur, Aude, France Over all M. Mitterrand's deliberations in these first heady days of power — whether or not to introduce a...

Fred Bridgland When the radical American journalist, Anthony Lewis, made a five-day visit to Luanda earlier this year he found an unusual supporter for his argument that the...

Roger Cooper In weeks like this, when Iran seems determined to establish an entry in the Guinness Book of Records for political violence, it is worth recalling that the...

Richard West Barbados is almost as different from Trinidad as Trinidad from Jamaica. Trinidadians are exuberant, noisy, reckless, charming and lovers of carnival. The '13ajans'...

Peter Paterson British trade unions, it seems, are in as depressed a state as the companies they negotiate with, and managing director Len Murray has a doleful report to...

Jo Gnmond Is political discussion going to revolve for ever round state socialism? Every now and then in Orkney and Shetland a whale swims aground. Even if hauled off, it all...

the promise of July. Since the end of the first week we have had torrents of rain, followed in the last few days by a cold more like that of winter than even late autumn. The...

C. H. Sisson It was asserted by Blackstone that Christianity is part of the laws of England, but it has to be admitted that things have changed since 1765. Nor is it true, as...

An exciting season Paul Johnson In politics, said the Observer, this week marks the beginning of 'the most exciting season for many years', and for Labour it 'could be the...

The pull of New York Tony Rudd Like the rings around Saturn the London markets revolve around New York, held in tight orbit by the gravitational pull of American interest...

Sir: Christopher Booker's article (29 August) 'The Cossacks' betrayal' is inaccurate in at least one statement. He refers to Brigadier Toby Low (now Lord Aldington) as General...

Sir: Mary Kenny, in her view of Thomas Szasz's Sex: Facts, Frauds and Follies (22 August) accepted as fact his assertion that Orthodox Jewish men have been traditionally brought...

Sir: Were Auberon Waugh a lady would he curtsey to the President, namely the elected Sovereign of socialist France, Mr Mitterrand? His ignorance on the symbolism of a curtsey,...

Sir: Ms Sanders compares the starvation of handicapped infants with 'the Nazi ethic' (22 August). In 1922 Binding and Noche, in Die Freigabe der Vernichtung lebensunwerten...

Sir: Mr Richard West kindly suggests (22 August) that in 1960 I was able to commission V. S. Naipaul to travel round the Caribbean and write his Middle Passage which I published...

Sir: Really, Mr Milnes (29 August) makes remarkably heavy weather of my innocent query. As for the 'private spat' of which he threatens an explanation (surely he means `joke'),...

Sir: I was intrigued by the story of Tony Benn's great-uncle and his eventual return to (apparent) sanity, (22 August). Would this suggest there may yet be hope for Mr Benn? D....

Ruthless expediency Ronald Hingley Stalin's Secret War Nikolai Tolstoy (Cape pp. 463, £9.50) Nikolai Tolstoy describes his new work as 'an attempt to interpret Soviet policy,...

Richard Shone Rider Haggard: The Great Storyteller D. S. Higgins (Cassell pp. 266, £9.95) It often happens that a writer who is a popular best-seller is only interesting for...

Tom Sutcliffe About John Ford Lindsay Anderson (Plexus pp. 256, £12, £5.95) This is more than a biography. It is a gospel. About John Ford is a convincing, affecting and at...

Hugh Massingberd Athleticism in the Victorian and Edwardian Public School J. A. Mangan (Cambridge pp.345, £25) It would appear from this somewhat overpriced book that the cult...

Harriet Waugh Rumpelstiltskin Ed McBain (Hamish Hamilton pp. 241, £6.95) Blood Games Christopher Leach (J. M. Dent pp. 228, £6.95) The Care of Time Eric Ambler (Weidenfeld &...

A. L. Rowse The Rebecca Notebook and Other Memories Daphne du Maurier (Gollancz pp. 173, £6.95) This book of articles and occasional pieces from Daphne du Maurier's workshop...

Paul Ableman July's People Nadine Gordimer (Cape pp. 160, £5.95) This is a short, dense, distinguished and ultimately unsatisfying novel. Most readers expect fiction to...

Variegated Rodney Milnes Edinburgh Festival Opera Luckily the question as to why anyone should bother to go to an international festival to see a production of The Barber of...

Tolly-ho John McEwen There are two regular and prestigious open competitions for artists in Britain — both of them broadly speaking for painters — the John Moore's in...

For real Mark Amory Children of a Lesser God (Mermaid) Loose Ends (Hampstead) Chapter Two (Lyric, Hammersmith) Plays about dwarves gain an extra impact because you know that...

Lost in space Peter Ackroyd Outland (' AA', selected cinemas) Deep space is now the only area where cinema audiences feel completely at home: the eerie music composed by John...

Overdose Richard In grams John Braine made a name for himself about a hundred years ago as the author of Room at the Top, a story of Northern lust and ambition which was...

Mother Taki Spetsai Frying under an Attic sky day after day, surrounded by lotus eaters, might be considered fun by socialists, but it has had the oPposite effect on me....