There is something essentially squalid about the visit of the Emperor Hirohito to this country. There may be reasons of trade — compelling to those who profit from such trading...

Whereas in its title, its constitution, its ritual and its mythography the Labour party proclaims itself to be a class party, the Conservative party, despite being far more...

As Mr Wiliam Rodgers sped round the lounges of Brighton late on Monday gathering signatures of Labour MPs who would vote for British entry to' the EEC despite the views of the...

Peers Hugh Reay The House of Lords, survival though it may be from another age, has been of much use to the Socialists. They may be shy of being seen to give it too much...

Thursday, September 30: The Foreign Office confirmed that Russian trade official Oleg Lyalin, was the mystery defector after he had failed to appear at a Marlborough Street...

Eric Jacobs Why is it that the state is willin g to create an excessive supply of various sorts of qualified person, and then to intervene to help re g ulate the employment of...

At last, this week at Brighton, when I heard the noises the marketeers were making, desperately shoring up their hope that their cause was not lost, I found myself agreeing with...

Patrick Cosgrave During recent months, Mr Anthony Crosland has raised his voice to say, over and again, that " disturbingly little " is being done to prepare his party for more...

Mercurius Oxoniensis Good brother Londiniensis, I am now released from canon Goosegrass's fruit-cage and hasten to send you, as I have promised, a brief accompt of our great...

Use of CS gas Bernard Dixon It is all too easy to condemn totally the use of CS gas (and anything like it) at all times and in all circumstances. It is possible to argue, from...

AUTUMN BOOKS Norman Stone on Peasants and running dogs Professor Wolf, an American Professor of social anthropology, writes about six Peasant revolutions: Algeria, Cuba,...

In a Free State V. S. Naipaul (Deutsch £1.75) If Mr Naipaul wrote less well, if he were not able to give at any rate this reviewer the same sort of pleasure by his writing as a...

Colin Wilson Maurice E. M. Forster (Edward Arnold, £2). E. M. Forster's career is one of the mysteries of modern literature. In the five years between 1905 and 1910, he...

Madness and Civilization Michael Foucault (Tavistock, Social Science Paperback, £1.00) The Order of Things Michael Foucault (Tavistock, £3.75). In the earlier work now...

Gillian Freeman Ivy and Stevie Kay Dick (Duckworth £1.95) I only met Ivy Compton-Burnett, and Stevie Smith once. The positive yearning one has to meet admired literary ladies...

Paul Smith The Gladstones: A Family Biography 1764-1851 S. G. Checkland (CUP £5.00) Professor Checkland has had three good ideas, not altogether easy to implement...

Clive Trebilcock The Great Gun-maker: The Life of Lord Armstrong. David Dougan (Frank Graham £2.50) Gun-makers in the late nineteenth century were the greatest industrialists...

Torn Wolfe's latest book, Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak - Catchers,' brings a valuable new tag across the Atlantic for the use of book reviewers, political columnists and...

• ARTS • LETTERS • MONEY•LEISUREi THEATRE Bond winner Kenneth Hurren Despite the formidable solemnity of its purpose, and the free rein that is allowed throughout to the...

Blood suction Christopher Hudson • Horror films from the Hammer studios have • become part of the British way of life — so much so that the latest couple, Hands of the Ripper...

Tantralized Evan Anthony Spike Milligan's ob sessive need to get into the act apart, the Hayward Gallery has a really smashing show on view. For a day or two, it was all touch...

In motley Hugh Macpherson There is an almost irresistible desire among producers to make opera different.' This is perhaps due to the frustrations of working with an art form...

Theatre Opening in Dondon: Under Milk Wood, Dylan Thomas's play for voices,' for one week at Sadler's Wells, October 11-16; The Cliff Richard Show at the London Palladium,...

That Norman Swallow, executive producer of Omnibus, should be lined up to succeed Stephen Hearst as head of the BBC's TV arts features, provides heartening reassurance that...

Sir : The explosion of loyalty towards his fellow Liberal peers with which Lord Avebury begins his new and I am sure fertile career is, I supPose, some compensation for the...

Sir: Now that there is no ceiling on bank advances and the banks are flush with money why not ask for an overdraft of £100 for Juliette Who alas! is down to her last decimal...

Sir: Mr Cosgrave has exhumed (September 25) a number of arresting ideas that have survived intact their burial in the common clay. He clatters away at his typewriter over a page...

From Lt Col H. B. Petty Sir: In your article ' Winning the Election' (October 2) you remark that "the continuation of the Irish mess . . . will do the Government no good." The...

Sir: Always a great joy to read Mr Waugh's reviews of my books (October 2). One point. Another novel, besides my own excellent work, falls foul of many of the Don'ts among his...

Sir: Professor Rousseau's letter on Gray's Elegy (October 2) may not explain anything about the Elegy, about Gray's poetic insight and feeling, or about poetry as such. But it...

Sir: Charles Seaton reporting on Competition no 666 (September 25) surely makes a blunder when he assumes that Wordsworth's "Highland Lass' would address the poet in broad...

Sir: The Common Market differs from all ordinary political questions in several respects. In the first place, a decision to join the Common Market would be irrevocable, at least...

From Dr J. L. Insley Sir: Mr L. Clarke (September 11) really cannot be allowed to get away with it. Wearing the shining armour of militant liberalism is no excuse for...

Sir: While appreciating in principle the creation of a character whose monstrous opinions and comic posturings can be used for the subtle denigration of the age-group he is...

that black Africa is not like Hampstead Garden Suburb. How kind of him to let us know. It doesn't matter that the public executions in Nigeria are stale news to readers of...

to draw a comparison between Zola's Earth and the magazine Oz, in that they were both prosecuted for obscenity and their attitude alarmed people. Yet Earth was proscribed by a...

Sir. From The Spectator's (September 25) Worth Seeing in London . . . 'sensitive handling makes even incest seem acceptable.' With our faces in the gutter, are we all losing...

Sir: I have read with interest your analysis (Spectator's Notebook, September 25) of the memorandum prepared by Mr Andrew Faulds, MP, which criticises the Government's handling...

From Dr N. R. Sengupta Sir: It is only a week since the Spectator of June 19 reached me because, thanks to the Israel/ Egypt hostilities, magazines or journals take two months...

A pause in the Bull market Nicholas Davenport Equity shares had a nasty setback last week. The FT index was over 20 points down. In spite of its current recovery I still think...

In the Letters' pages of this issue, kind Mr Davenport, fearing I'm past saving myself, has come up with a chivalrous scheme to restore my reputation. As an added incentive to...

No 10 Downing Street has been struck With dry rot only a few years after over a million was spent on restoration. If woodworm and dry rot control was carried out by Rentokil...

The publicity director of Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens, a sports complex which houses the famous Maple Leafs (Leaves? No, Leafs) ice-hockey team, seems to be intent on taking...

Breakfast is a meal I love: fishcakes, kippers, poached haddock, dabs, kedgeree, bacon with every kind of accessory, eggs ditto and in every way, a whole scale of sausages, hot...

A good deal of home-made wine seems to be produced these days. Wine-making used to be one of the ordinary domestic occupations, like cooking or gardening. The recent revival is...

Tony Palmer The organization of the West African is a pitiful spectacle. First, it engenders corruption on a giant scale. For example, in Nigeria at Lagos Airport you are not...