Mr Enoch Powell has so frequently been ahead of other Politicians in his understanding of the problems and Perils that Britain has faced, that we must give more careful...

Although it was two MPs lighter after last week's by-elections, the Government scraped through its critical divisions in the House of Commons. The contentious Bills which had...

Mrs Thatcher's poodle? John Grigg Last week's by-election results were certainly very good for the Conservatives, as they could hardly fail to be at a time of almost...

For those still determined to shut their ears to . 1 he roar of Britain's approaching economic Niagara', it has been another bad week. The discovery that the Government is going...

An easy majority of the electorate, however, voted for nobody. How agreeable life would be if in some proportionally representative system of the future the abstainers could be...

Patrick Cosgrave The extraordinary influence enjoyed by Dr Henry Kissinger •during his eight years of high office (first as presidential adviser on national security, then as...

Charles Foley Los Angeles California's leading think-tank, the Rand Corporation, is in the course of making a wide-ranging study of international terrorism, and some of its...

Ian Waller Visiting South Africa arouses deeply conflicting emotions. The sybariatic pleasures of the warm sea and a relaxed life under the sun. Anger at the cruel and...

Anthony Nutting Even more alarming and depressing than the latest decline of the pound is the unthinking haste with which our political leaders have dismissed Mr Harold...

Richard West The Manchester Guardian, although a liberal and tolerant newspaper, used always to name the race of those who came up in court. It was a 'Jew pedlar', in February...

Eric Moonman Visitors to the Strangers' Gallery of the House of Commons can be forgiven if, in the recent 'guillotine' debates, they believed the Opposition assertions that the...

Antonia Martin The Brecon Beacons, one of the most beautiful wild landscapes in Wales, is well on the way to acquiring the title of 'the London foothills'. A recent survey has...

THE VOYAGES AND CRUISES OF COMMODORE WALKER edited by R. E. Vaughan in the Seafarers Library published by Cassell in 1928. Write : Spectator Box 716. THE COLLECTED POEMS OF...

Bad tips Jeffrey Bernard Impersonating God is a tricky business. Last week's tips were simply flushed away. sometimes think, when the game is reallY bad that is, that the...

Sterling balances the key Nicholas Davenport AsIwrite, the Governor of the Bank of England, the mild-mannered Gordon Richard son, will be discussing with his fellow central...

Sir: The report by Richard West in your issue of 30 October of a comment I am alleged to have made about the Prime Minister is inaccurate and, one must assume, maliciously so,...

Sir: The simplest way to ensure that people don't throw litter abo.ut is to affix litter bins to every bus stop and every other lamp-post, Which are emptied by the dustbin men...

Sir: Auberon Waugh's remarks on the Virgm (9 October) deserve some comment. Let Me add that I am not a Catholic. He quotes a remark in a book which repeats the familiar C...

Sir: May I be one to congratulate John Grigg on his forthright and courageous article headed: 'Crime in high places'? He left out another of the political villains responsible...

Sir: Mr Brian Stevens, Assistant Secretary to the Institution of Professional Civil Servants, would make a better case for PR if he had some small knowledge of the English...

Sir: Many teachers and others will have agreed with T. E. B. Howarth's devastating comments on the great educational debate. It is certainly ironical that it should have been...

Debate seems entirely sound and well worth saying, but there is one area where he uses the original argument of the comprehensive lobby and gets an extremely important point...

Sir: The American general who called Britain's defence forces pathetic should take a good look at West Germany. They have one of the smallest navies in Europe and no nuclear...

Sir: I feel that I must reply to Xan Smiley's 'Angola's forgotten war' (16 October), which contained sev.eral serious errors of fact. Firstly, there is no evidence that 'UNITA...

when it comes to results the inescapable fact IS that, after the departure of the Portuguese , UNITA-held areas in Angola simply ceased to work. Portuguese landlords, who fin'...

Sir: Race Relations Acts and regulatitin s appear to be a one-way affair, witness the frequent accommodation advertisemen ts specifying 'Indians only', 'West Indian s only'. 1...

Sir : Mr Enoch Powell tells us that Britain' s indigenous population is being replaced h)". African and Asian stock at the rate 01 110,000 a year. As an Englishwoman wh ° loves...

A family at war Lord Lambton Unity Mitford: A Quest David PryceJones (Weidenfeld and Nicolson E6.50) Every now and again an author conceives he has made a great discovery...

Paul Fussell Scoundrel Time Lillian Hellman (Macmillan £4.95) This memoir-apologia by a famous victim of the McCarthy 'Communist' witch-hunt of the 'fifties re-opened numerous...

CRANFORD, Good copy ill. by Hugh Thomson. Macmill ° & Co (1891 reprinted 1892-5). Tel : 01-228 7247, GIDEON Crime novels, Lady Morland, Thornton-le' e ' Yorkshire. LA MARE AU...

Dennis Hackett Walking on the Water Hugh Cudlipp (Bodley Head £5.95) What Hugh Said and What Hugh Did have long been part of the currency of gossip in Fleet Street. The cigar,...

Lord Hailsham Mr Speaker, Sir Selwyn Lloyd (Jonathan Cape £4.95) Both Houses of Parliament have their Speakers. The Speaker of the House of Lords is the Lord Chancellor. Since...

Nick Totton Slapstick Kurt Vonnegut (Jonathan Cape E3.50) A Sea-Grape Tree Rosamond Lehmann (Collins £3.50) A new Kurt Vonnegut novel is an occasion for intense but somehow...

Benny Green Love Letters: An Anthology Chosen by Antonia Fraser (Weidenfeld and Nicolson £4.95) There are three large impediments to an effective anthology of love letters....

The luxury of the real thing Bryan Robertson PruneIla Clough's paintings have the same distant but true relationship with urban realities as the imaginatively eccentric...

Einstein on the beach Barbara M. Reise For more than a week in October, the Opera Comique in Paris was the site of an amazing event : the avant-garde opera Einstein on the...

Humping Rodney Milnes The germ of Alberto Ginastera's Bomarzo is the famous Park of Monsters near Viterbo , which inspired the composer's Argentinia n compatriot and eventual...

White legacy Clancy Sigal No white man would have dared to make Xala (Phoenix, AA certificate). At first glance, it confirms everything you've ever heard (or said) about the...

Lost impetus John McEwen One of the troubles with art today is that there has never been a time when artists were better informed about art and, consequently, more...

Pleasure isle Ted Whitehead Rum an Coca-Cola (Royal Court) The Artful Widow (Greenwich) Recently I went to hear a steel band, expecting some lively ethnic music, and it was a...

Old times Richard Ingrams The obsequiousness with which artists are treated by television, on which I commented recently, is particularly ridiculous in the case of the makers...