The inquiry into the affairs of the William Tyndale junior school — in 1975 the setting for some of the most embittered and bizarre scenes of confrontation between parents,...

Patrick Cosgrave When Mr Charles Bellairs, studying the official Home Office figures on immigration into Britain, first noticed a remarkable, and inexplicable, contrast between...

El Fit, refreshed and again in the best of form after a break from duty on medical advice, Sir Christopher Soames returned to his post in Brussels this week. His record as an...

Mrs Gandhi keeps them waiting Amit Roy °nee Mrs Gandhi had decided not to lift the sixmonth-old state of emergency. she really had no alternative but to postpone the general...

Indochina prefers goulash Dick Wilson The name of the Soviet Ambassador in Hanoi may be Chaplin, but he is no Charlie. Comrade Boris Nicolaievich Chaplin has presided over an...

Chines e roadbuilders in northern Laos and China is supplying bicycles, lorries and tractors (as w ell as the fireworks for the thirtieth anniversary of Laotian independence in...

J.Enoch Powell Politicians ought to read history, historY , history. It will not, pace Thucydides, help the to guess the future course of events. It may nt It make thee ligiser...

Richard West Dublin The day after an IRA bombing last week, I overheard the following monologue in a pub: 'There was never any trouble when they had the "B" specials [Northern...

That was the year that was Nancy Allum What did International Women's Year really amount to? There are those who pretend that nothing happened, that the whole thing was a...

Television, Parliament and people Norman Collins It is one of the classic commonplaces of any broadcasting discussion to say that the political element in broadcasting is...

to 1,610 pages, and its conclusions were based upon 852 submitted memoranda, 38 days of taking oral evidence, and 78 full day meetings of the Commitee. And what did it all add...

Here we are again Auberon Waugh How nice to be back on the Spectator. This is the third time I have joined it to write a weekly Column, the third editor I have served, and...

A private matter Hilary Spurling Jane Austen: Bicentenary Essays edited by John Halperin (Cambridge University Press £6.75) A Reading of Jane Austen Barbara Hardy (Peter Owen...

senses), allusive and illuminating book suggests that the reading has been long and intimate, though it too smacks faintly of the schoolroom — or at least of prolonged contact...

Alasdair Macintyre The Great instauration. Science, Medicine and Reform 1626-60. Charles Webster (Duckworth £13.50) Charles Webster has written an exceptiona ll y long,...

Elspeth Huxley River Road to China Milton Osborne (George Allen and Unwin £4.95) When confronted with a great uncharted river, geographers and explorers seem always to assume...

John Brewer The Tory Crisis in Church and State, 1688-1730 The Career of Francis Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester G. V. Bennett (Oxford University Press 00.00) Between the...

Leo Abse A Presumption of Innocence Ludovic Kennedy (Victor Gollancz E3.75) Once upon a time, before the era of air trips and Package tours, I leisurely sailed over the Indian...

Peter Ackroyd The Collected Poems, 1956-1974 Edward Dorn (Four Seasons Foundation $5.00) Edward Dorn is one of the two or three best American poets now writing; if I add that...

Benny Green Chekhov, Seven Stories Translated by Ronald Hingley (Oxford Paperbacks £1.25) Chekhov, Eleven Stories Translated by Ronald Hingley (Oxford Paperbacks £1.75) Chuckle...

Spectator January 10,19 called, most indecorously ; Chuckle with Chekhov, an outrage Which inspires nightmares involving titters with Turgenev, guffaws with , Gogol and laffs...

The Christmas bookselling season has produced few real surprises and that is the least surprising thing of all. The DBC continued to dominate with its battery of...

It was comforting to see Allan Hall — "Atticus" of the Sunday Times — retaining his panache right to the very end. In his final column, published on28th December, Mr Hall led...

Cinema Comic cameos Kenneth Robinson The Return of the Pink Panther Director: Blake Edwards. Stars: Peter Sellers, Catherine Schell, Christopher Plummer, Herbert Lom. 'IJ'...

Resolution Kenneth Hurren The Sleeping Quarters of Sophia by David Gale, and The Everest Hotel by Snoo Wilson (Bush) I must be kinder to the fringe theatre. No, that sounds...

Forty years on Robin Young 10 witness a performance of Romeo and Juliet by Fonteyn and Nureyev is these days a rare and enviable privilege, and one of the more paradoxical of...

some of the tinsel worn to tat. But every year they import a fresh crop of children, and every year it wins through on -simple childish charm. It is a pity that when Festival...

Minimal worth John McEwen The exhibitions "Drawings of People' and 'Order and Experience' (Serpentine Gallery till January 18) are fillers of the kind that predominate at this...

Advice to Mr Healey Nicholas Davenport The optimism with which the Stock Exchange greeted the New Year – with the FT index breaking through to a new high of 385 – was an e...

This is a very boring time of year in the City as a glance at your newspapers will have shown. The lassitude of the boozy holidays is taking longer than usual to shake off and...

The Work Research Unit set up by the Department of Employment to inquire into the problems of increasing job satisfaction will shortly announce a new set of research projects....