Libertarian thought has enjoyed a signal revival in recent Years, more perhaps in the United States than here. In this country there has been less of an intellectual movement,...

Trouble at Tvind mill Ferdinand Mount What, you may ask, are we doing about the energy crisis? The answer, and we admit it only with the most hesitant and furtive mien, is...

Inevitably the week's news has been dominated by the moving and almost incredible scenes surrounding the Pope's triumphant Progress through Poland. What a contrast to the rather...

The real debate Auberon Waugh It seems inconceivable to me that the country could ever grow weary of the Thorpe trial, but the editor assures me that this is so. It is the...

Peter Hebblethwaite Warsaw Pope John Paul II, in his white soutane, is better equipped to withstand the heat of this Polish June — the temperature has topped ninety degrees —...

The death, on Tuesday, of Baron Lionel Nathan Rothschild, the last of the four sons of the founder of the firm, and the ultimate head of the House — which is believed to be...

Neal Ascherson Czestochowa, Poland Exactly 900 years ago, a Polish king murdered his bishop. The grounds of the quarrel are immaterial. But Bishop Stanislaw had his brains...

Nicholas von Hoffman Washington Those who were listening seemed to hear T heodore Eck, Standard Oil's chief e conomist , with perfect complacency. Talking about which nations...

John Morgan Uzes, Gard For everything under the sun — and here in the First Duchy of France the temperature is in the eighties — there is an ideological explanation. Consider a...

Richard West The ex-South African cabinet minister Connie Mulder was mixed up in another scandal besides the Information Department's misuse of public funds—the so-called...

Peter Nichols Rome The true result of the Italian general election emerges from the figures in the way an amiable old character in one of Eduardo de Filippo's earlier plays...

What's oil really worth? There's no absolute answer: only the fickle verdict Of the market. For most of last year, slack demand and Plentiful supply kept oil relatively cheap....

Christopher Walker Dublin Until a few months ago, Dublin was enjoying a new and unfamiliar role as a haven for business journalists searching for a fresh European economic...

A letter from Bernard Levin Sir: in your issue of 26 May, Mr Harold Pateshall quotes from an article by a former General Secretary of the World Council of Churches to show, as...

Nicholas Davenport Sir: May I be allowed to add my brief salute to yours on Nicholas Davenport. His splen didly lucid prose, where combativeness and good temper maintained...

No monsters, no heroes Andrew Boyle British Intelligence in the Second World War Vol. 1 F.H. Hinsley (HMSO £10) MI9: Escape and Evasion 1939-1945 M.R.D. Foot and J.M. Langley...

Anthony Storr Against the Current Isaiah Berlin (Hogarth £9.50) The third volume of Isaiah Berlin's collected writings has as its subtitle 'Essays in the History of Ideas'....

John Kenyon Spain and the Netherlands 1559-1659 Geoffrey Parker (Collins £6.50; Fontana £2.50) The Revolt of the Netherlands against Spain owes its niche in the pantheon of...

Alan Watkins A History of Cricket Trevor Bailey (Allen and Unwin £6.50) Trevor Bailey is in his writing — I have never met him — a modest man. But unlike the Attlee of the...

Jonathan Keates The Collected Works of Isaac Rosenberg Ed. Ian Parsons (Chatto £12.95) Isaac Rosenberg was killed on the Western Front on 1 April 1918. The sniper's bullet...

Francis King Burger's Daughter Nadine Gordimer (Cape £5.95) In an arresting image, Nadine Gordimer writes of the kind of person who 'fellowtravels beside suffering as a sports...

Benny Green Eric Honeywood Partridge, Middleweight Champion of the Word, died last week at the age of 85, but there is not the remotest chance that his reputation will ever...

Fiction Royal Highness Thomas Mann (Penguin £1.50) Out of Africa Karen Blixen (Penguin £1.25) The Destinies of Darcy Dancer, Gentleman J. P. Donleavy (Penguin 95p) The Children...

Money for art's sake Pat Gilmour Of all Mrs Thatcher's appointments, that of Norman St John Stevas as Minister for the Arts seems to have been joyfully greeted by commentators...

John McEwen In terms of appearance the pick of the new art books must be Balthus by Jean Leymarie (Macmillan £55). It is expensive but worth it. A production in the best and...

Two for tea Peter Jenkins Close of Play (Cottesloe) For Services Rendered (Cottesloe) Somebody could write a thesis on the significance of tea in the English drama. In...

Rights issues Mary Kenny 'I am a 24-year-old mother of two and my boyfriend and I have recently split up. I have successfully got him put out of our council flat, and although...

Living room Ted Whitehead The Left-Handed Woman (Camden Plaza) The Left-Handed Woman (A) is about Lebensraum. The story concerns a housewife who persuades her husband to leave...

Kick freely Hans Keller The free-kick is outmoded because, specifiable exceptions apart, it isn't free. It was meant to enable you to kick freely, unchallenged by the...

Johnsonmania Gavin Stamp What other architectural lecture has ever been previewed in 'Barometer' in Harper 's ' 1 Queen? Philip Johnson — whose 'Chippendale design for the...

Developments Patrick Marnham A quick glance at the population density charts for the past two centuries suggests a remarkable new fact. In 1750 the population of the British...

Recreations Richard Ingrams Mr Alan Watkins, reviewing Who's Who in a recent Spectator, took me mildly to task for listing 'editing Private Eye' as my recreation, when, as he...

Rich, not rare Taki Oddly enough Sigmund Freud was among the more recent soi - disant wise men to have made the following ridiculous claim: happiness, the Viennese genius...

Decline and fall Jeffrey Bernard If you saw Monday night's charade between John Conteh and the American, Ivy Brown, oil television you'll most likely agree that there's...

Free for all Geoffrey Wheatcroft Two years ago the National Socialist Party of America (which unlike the National Front openly admires Hitler and his deeds) planned a march...

No. 1068: Better off Set by W. May Byron: 'Leave to Robert Browing/Beggars, fleas and vines:/Leave t.c)" squeamish Ruskin/Popish Apenninie p1 rty stones of Venice/And his...

Snap! David Levy I felt rather left out of things when I read the Spectator for 19 May. There was David J. Levy writing on conservatism, David Levy commenting on the Canadian...