The Government is convinced, on the basis of polls conducted on behalf of the Conservative Party, that the public is enthusiastically behind it in its determination to insist...

For all its reversals of policy, confusions, humiliations and surrenders, the Government has stuck rigidly and stubbornly to one domestic objective throughout its life: the...

The four Black September guerrillas who failed in their mission against the Israeli Embassy in Bangkok, and who settled for a safe-conduct from Thailand to Egypt, have by now...

I was particularly annoyed to receive last week a duplicated letter from Lord Harlech, the former David Ormsby-Gore, written in his capacity as chairman of the European Movement...

Commissioners Soames and Thomson have been flatteringly described respectively, as Europe's 'foreign minister' and 'minister for the regions' in some of the reports dealing with...

Winston II has been busy defending his grandfather from Nicholas Tomalin who, Winston II writes, had proceeded "to adduce" that Winston I was "vengeful and wild " in his...

Familiar loyalty can be an excellent virtue. It is often denied. I recall how disappointed I was when Randolph Churchill's beautiful, and much-loved house at East Bergholt,...

An acquaintance went into a strange public house and, delighted to find it unspoiled, remarked to his companion, "What a delightful old pub" or words to that effect. The...

I see that Professor Ross, the academic who invented the distinction between U and non-U which Nancy Mitford exploited in a celebrated essay, is at it again, with a new list of...

A correspondent tells me that he hears from a top man in Korea that there are strong rumours in Seoul that there will be a formal peace treaty in Korea at the same time as a...

PUZZLE IS HAPPY to contradict the rumour that, following the sale of his five NAB motor cars Sir Gerald Nabarro is giving up driving. SOME TIME AGO Puzzle wrote about nasty...

Let them eat spaghetti Patrick Cosgrave Scene One (Present: the Prime Minister, Mr Joseph Godber, Sir Geoffrey Howe, Mr Anthony Barber) P.M.: What do you mean, a committee to...

Succession and security Sandy Gall Understandably, King Hussein's divorce from Princess Muna has had a field day in the gossip columns. The marriage of Toni Gardiner, English,...

The nihilistic barbarians David Holbrook For the first time in my life, I have found myself at odds with students. If I were asked what my feelings are after just a year...

The prose of poets often lies close to their poetry. "Oh masters of life, give me confidence in something, even if it be but my own reason," exclaims Yeats in the Journal,...

Auberon Waugh The Gates Jennifer Johnston (Hamish Hamilton £2.00) By great kindness of the publishers, I am allowed to review Miss Johnston's second novel this week, although...

George Holmes England in the Later Middle Ages: A Political History M. H. Keen (Methuen £3.95) The Mediaeval Economy and Society: An Economic History of Britain in the Middle...

Timothy Bainbridge The Greek Revival J. Mordaunt Crook (John Murray E10) The author calls this book, which is subtitled ' Neo-Classical Attitudes in British Architecture, 1760...

Anthony Price The Nature of Things Anthony Quinton (Routledge & Kegan Paul E4.50) What gives things their identity? That is, what makes one thing different from another, and...

No sound but snow falling, the sunken city of the world drifting silently under its crosses. In far darkness a siren begins to wail softly, for this is the land of the living...

Muted trumpet Kenneth Hurren I cannot, of course, speak for the vintage car rally, the volley ball and karate matches, the fireworks displays or the cookery demonstrations in...

Up the bunker Clive Gammon When London Weekend lashes out two hours and an alleged £100,000 on a Sunday night play you can't ignore it even if it means missing Rex Harrison as...

Variety show Christopher Hudson Many people who have followed his career from La Strada to Roma (' X ' Prince Charles) will conclude with regret that Fellini is no longer a...

I imagine a great many people must be wondering how LWT's awfully expensive and expensively awful The Death of Adolf Hitler, came to get such civil and even laudatory press...

Following the plough Peter Quince For several days a man has been ploughing across the hillside about a mile from the village; the drone of the tractor has been a continuous...

Nicholas Davenport Few Labour Members of Parliament can be expected to understand the financial mechanism of the capitalist system, which they were originally brought into...

Frank Field Many families and old age pensioners unnecessarily go for long periods of time without any heating at all. Because they are unable to pay their gas or electricity...

Against their will John Rowan Wilson A girl once came to me with a most remarkable deformity of her leg. About three inches above the left ankle, the bone, instead of being...

Sir: " If the Brussels criteria for professional qualifications are applied, by 1977, 55,000 chartered accountants will be unable to practice either in England or in Europe." So...

Sir: I was so interested in your article on low reading standards that I asked our County Librarian how devastating the effect was on the borrowings from his library. To my...

heartily with your gloomy description of the faults and failings in much of current educational practice (January 6). Certainly the fads and fancies of so-called progressive...

is naive. The situation as it actually exists is as complicated as the paradox of the lawyer who said, "All lawyers are liars." In brief, the English run Scotland at all levels...

From Lord °Wagon Sit. There are several mistakes in Tom Puzzle's comments (December 23, 1972) on my membership of the European Parliament. I was not nominated by the Prime...

Sir: It is gratifying that Custos (' Legal advice,' December 23, 1972) takes such serious notice of a press statement from the national office of the Citizens' Advice Bureaux....

Sir: One can but wonder at the sentiments expressed in ' Skinflint's Diary,' in a periodical like The Spectator. Praise for Princess Anne for indulging in a cruelty condemned by...

6) is to be congratulated for his article on the collapse of the NHS, but his thesis could have been more easily demonstrated by an examination of the hospital scene. The basic...

Unless he sticks to the condition events, the financial prospects for the two-mile chaser are not exactly rosy. Sandown Park recognised the need for a valuable handicap at the...

the facts presented by Dr Linklater regarding the collapse of the NHS (January 6) his rose-tinted generalisations about general practitioners cannot go unremarked. As sole...

Sir: I write on behalf of the Board of Governors of Westminster Hospital. On November 18, 1972, you published an article by Jennifer Hawley relating her experiences in a...

Sir: Does the selection of Mr Enoch Powell as Man of the Year by listeners to the BBC programme World at One, reflect inefficiency on the part of the trendy left wing opinion...