Unnatural disaster. T he SDP candidate, Mrs Rosie Barnes, triumphed in the by-election at Greenwich, a seat held by Labour for over 50 years, beating the Labour candidate, Mrs...

AMONG all the various items of assorted ecclesiastical sharp practice that were on display last week in Church House, West- minster, one has gone largely unnoticed. As the day...

GORBACHEV'S ZERO OPTION M r Gorbachev's initiative on the com- Plicated subject of medium-range missiles in Europe was very assured. It coincided with what a commission drawn...

A slow-motion Cuba and the dangers that follow it FERDINAND MOUNT Well, perhaps not, though one can dream. On the whole, the shedding of blood appears to be a prerequisite for...

M r Michael Checkland, the new director-general of the BBC, has been quoted as saying that 'there are only five or six times a year when the director-general has to make an...

The Big Lie which threatens to clean up the world AUBERON WAUGH S ome time ago I vowed never to men- tion the dread name of Aids in the Specta- tor again. I had pointed to its...

The Oxford case revealed the agony of abortion pain which lasts for years after the event IN MY teens I had a friend who fell in love with a young Indian prince, here to study...

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard on how the Towers Report will finish off the Nicaraguan armed opposition Washington THE Contras are probably doomed, casualties of the policy that was...

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...

M. G. G. Pillai on the spread of Islamic law in Malaysia Kuala Lumpur WHEN Shamsuddin Mohamed, a 21-year- old labourer, went to Kota Bharu, the capital of Kelantan state in...

Francis Beckett traces the true origins of the defeat at Greenwich WHEN the Labour Party is in trouble, its friends rally round to make things worse. Knives are unsheathed,...

Richard West reports from a by-election where the Alliance is ruthlessly in charge Truro THE Conservatives, fighting to win a by-election here in Cornwall, were under-...

Peter Jenkins on the silence of Fleet Street over the boycott of Wapping NOW that I have resigned from the Sun- day Times, and am about to join the Independent, I feel more...

Tim Heald reports on a solution to football violence `Unthinkable till this year,' he says. fans at the other end. couples of police around the ground itself Part of the...

The press: Paul Johnson surveys the first week of the evening Armageddon THE debut of the London Daily News must be accounted a successful launch and if, as its management...

Giving the pension funds a kick in the bottom line CHRISTOPHER FILDES N igel Lawson comes up to his fourth Budget with one defeat still to avenge his bruising, at the time of...

Sir: The inclusiveness of the Church of England has always been one of its most cherished qualities. Where other Christ- ians have dogmatically insisted on 'either . . . or',...

Sir: In your edition of 14 February, Christ- opher Booker (`How far have we sunk?') quotes with approval. Goldsmith's lines: 11l fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where...

When Cyril Connolly disco- vered what Evelyn Waugh had written in the margin of his copy of The Unquiet Grave, he was deeply hurt. Alan Bell recon- structs the argument of...

WE CANNOT but believe that war is rapidly approaching. The German Par- liament assembled on Thursday, and the speech from the Throne not only contains no reassuring word, but is...

Set by Caroline Moore The first prize has been presented by Framlington. It is 2,000 units in Framlington Monthly Income Fund. At the current offer price of 110.8p, these are...

Freedom from everything Colin Welch LEFT BEHIND: JOURNEYS INTO BRITISH POLITICS by David Selbourne Cape, £10.95 S pectator readers who do not actually live in depressed...

Rupert Christiansen JUDITH GAUTIER by Joanna Richardson Quartet, £14.95 I t would not be unreasonable to call Judith Gautier the most distinguished French woman writer...

Noel Malcolm A NEW ORPHEUS: ESSAYS ON KURT WEILL edited by Kim Kowalke Yale, L27.50 T his is a collection of scholarly papers intended mainly for Weillologists; but as often...

Christopher Tyerman BERENGARIA: ENIGMATIC QUEEN OF ENGLAND By Mairin Mitchell A. Wright, f9.50 I n many quarters it is said that academic history is out of date, out of...

Mary Clive POPULAR 19th-CENTURY PAINTING by Philip Hook and Mark Poltimore Antique Collectors' Club, £35 0 ne of the amusements of my old age is watching the reappearance of...

Peter Levi Hutchinson, f15.95 0 f all Russian poets who would now be round about a hundred years old if they survived, who include Pasternak, the mis- sing star and probably...

I had a dream the human heart was fashioned for lifelong love, it dreamt its way through a sickly sleep, dream-long and mute behind sound proof glass it moved with animal ease....

Cinema When the viewing had to stop Peter Ackroyd T here comes a time when Mr Pickwick, bewildered by the horrors of the Fleet Prison, announces that 'I have seen enough. . ....

Karl Korab (Leinster Fine Art till 24 April) James Fairgrieve (Mercury till 28 March) Making a mark Giles Auty A fortnight ago, Andy Warhol died. Last week a fellow columnist...

Challenge of the sacred Peter Phillips 0 ne of the corners of musical history which is never presented in its true colours is the period around Monteverdi's so- called...

F. R. Yerbury (Architectural Association till 27 March) Itinerant cameraman Gavin Stamp T he name of F. R. Yerbury will be familiar to any collector of architectural books....

High Society (Victoria Palace) Flat champagne Christopher Edwards O n the matter of musicals, your reviewer is hard to please. I do not really like them. Recent 'hit'...

Bravery under fire Wendy Cope I happened to be watching News and Sport on BBC1 on Saturday evening when the Television Centre fire alarm went off. Jan Leeming was reading a...

Night owls Taki New York This is my last week in the Big Bagel. By the time you read this I hope to be skiing with the Buckleys in Gstaad, and doing some social work among the...

Tough chicken Jeffrey Bernard S omebody gave me a packet of three condoms the other day, so I took them into a Soho delicatessen and swapped them for three packets of saffron....

Holier than thou Alice Thomas Ellis W e spent the weekend at the seaside with an old friend — a medical man. He told us at one point with quiet pride that he had just brought...

Early drinking and a stake in the future Auberon Waugh T his month we return to the southern Rhone, partly to accommodate those tradi- tionalists who are simply not prepared...

C/o Redpath & Thackray Wines, Common Lane, Sawston, Cambridge CB2 4HW, Tel: Cambridge (0223) 833495 Product 1. Coteaux de Tricastin 1985 75 cl 12 bots. 2. Lirac (Sabon) 1985...

The Blue Elephant • - , • IF I were only ever to go to Thai res- taurants in the future, I think I would be perfectly happy. Finer than either Indian or Chinese cuisines, Thai...

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 ords 'Chambers Dictionary' above) for the first...

Melville on Budd? Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1461 you were in- vited to give an account of a post-1920 sporting event, real or imaginary, by a famous writer flourishing...

The zone Raymond Keene J on Speelman, the British champion, and Glenn Rear, the rising star of British chess, have qualified from the Praxis Sys- tems British Zonal at Bath....

In association with LADY the lights at 26, 3, 8, 15, 30 and 35 respectively describe those at 36, 10, 7, 19, 31 and 12. Winners: Greig Brownlie, Kilmacolm, Renfrew- shire...

Please write a poem of 16 lines in which the following words, in any order, are part of the rhyme-scheme: copy, posh, agenda, nude, basin, France, but, unwilling. Entries to...