T he Government was severely criti- cised for its far-reaching overhaul of the Welfare State, which began to take effect, although Ministers believe that the Opposition and...

1706; Telex 27124; Fax 242 0603 . . . AND STATISTICS The Government maintains that only 12 per cent of social security recipients will be losers in real terms under the...

How John the Baptist lost his head NOEL MALCOLM A pril was the cruellest month, in 1968, for the career of one of this country's most extraordinary politicians. For next...

CHARLES GLASS I t is an honour to follow Stan Gebler Davies on this page. I fear my own outlook is as gloomy as his, though perhaps with less justification. Like him, I have...

Freude, schoner Gotterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium AUBERON WAUGH O n the second of the two occasions on which I found myself sitting next to Sir Denis Hamilton at a luncheon...

In 1968, the Russians invaded Czechoslovakia. In 1988, Edward Marston finds signs of a new Spring IT IS 20 years since the Prague Spring. But no one has forgotten. Explicitly...

Diana Geddes reports that M. Barre is losing an election race in which style comes before content Paris AT EVERY election — and there are a lot in France — the French always...

SUBSCRIBE TODAY — Save 15% on the Cover Price! RATES 12 Months 6 Months UK 0 £45.00 0 £23.00 Europe (airmail) 0 f55.00 0 £28.00 USA Airspeed 0 US $90 0 US$45 Rest of Airmail...

The death of Tirza Porat has enraged the soul of Israel, writes Gerda Cohen Jerusalem UNNATURALLY hot and dry, this weekend. We sit in the hot windless night, watching...

Nazi symbolism is chic to Koreans and Japanese who don't know its meaning, writes Ian Buruma Seoul 'VY IS everysink alvays dun to make us Chermans unpopular?' (or words to that...

As the Dalai Lama leaves, Michael Trend hears more voices of the suffering we ignore BY THE time this article appears, the Dalai Lama should be safely back on his way to his...

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Become a subscriber to The Spectator and save £12 a year on the regular UK newsstand price — that's 76p a week, or less than 71p if you take out a three year subscription....

Nigel Ryan argues that pride not rules will rescue television news TELEVISION was up on charges of distor- tion in two very different courts in this past week. The newly...

IT is stated that Norah Fitzmaurice, who gave such courageous evidence as to the murderers of her father, and so procured their conviction and condem- nation to death at the...

The late Alan Paton men could write about blacks I READ Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country when I was 15. It was a riveting book. I kept re-reading the words at the...

The press: Paul Johnson surveys the splendours and miseries of Denis Hamilton's career THE death of Denis Hamilton set me thinking about creativity, and what a cu- rious thing...

'ROBIN Pike, from Aylesbury Gram- mar School, told delegates to the annual assembly of the assistant Masters and Mistresses Association that. . . in the last two years, four or...

. . or almost £30 on The Spectator If you're forced to share The Spectator with fellow students, then you'll know how difficult it can be to track a copy down. Now you can save...

THERE are shareholders, as well as cus- tomers, who would be happy to see that ball roll. Their unhappiness played its part in the abrupt retirement of Sir George Jefferson from...

THIS week's Group of Seven meeting in Washington is acquiring the qualities of a bottle-party — Nigel Lawson striding in with an interest rate cut and a steady- sterling policy...

NEWS reaches me, from a distinguished American businessman, of a portent in the Presidential election. He says that Donna Rice, the shipmate of Gary Hart and prototypical bimbo,...

Telecom, beware the Oxford philosopher with the box of matches CHRISTOPHER FILDES I advise Lain Valiance and his board at British Telecom to buy themselves asbes- tos...

Sir: In 'The Debasement of Heritage' (2 April) Gavin Stamp considers the first four years of English Heritage. It would have been better if he had based his highly criticial...

Sir: Michael Leapman (26 March) attacked World in Action for not interviewing the former deputy chairman of the BBC Board of Governors, Sir William Rees-Mogg, in its recent...

highlighting the deficien- cies of English Heritage, in particular in London, where its bureaucratic rumblings and its lack of understanding are a cause for concern. It is...

Sir: Mr Robinson is being disingenuous (Letters, 2 April). He must know as well as I do that Lloyd George's 1909 Budget had nothing to do with Blue Streak or Mar- sham Street...

Saving museums Sir: I welcome Tanya Harrod's article (Arts, 26 March) on the predicament of the Hornimari and Geffrye museums as a very fair review of the situation. I have not...

Sir: P. J. Kavanagh (Life and letters, 13 February) writes as charmingly as ever about seeing the same birds as Shakespeare. Did he know that the Amer- icans introduced the...

Sir: I am deaf. This may explain the misunderstanding embodied in Taki's account of cornering me at the Badminton Ball (9 April). He apparently thinks he asked me, in general...

Sir: When I was about 13 I was rightly suspected (though not convicted) of some rather squalid graffiti scrawled on the walls of my prep-school lavatories. I have out- grown...

Sir: I have been abroad, and find on my return that my letter on Bishop Blomfield's trowel appears in the issue of 19 March. Some confusuion was caused by your printing Aldgate...

Sir: It apparently does not occur to Jessica P. Harris (Letters, 26 March) that there is a vast difference between stoning an adul- teress to death and denying such a man as Mr...

JOE BRAY IT IS with fond remembrance and awed recognition of his place in society that I draw to your attention this week the poet, playright and novelist Thomas Carrot who...

Winners of The Spectator and Sunday Telegraph competition The judges were: Charles Moore, editor of The Spectator, Dominic Lawson, deputy editor, Peregrine Worsthorne, editor...

Colin Welch GOETHE: ROMAN ELEGIES AND THE DIARY verse translation by David Luke, with an introduction by Hans Rudolf Vaget Libris, f22.50, pp.136 F or a few decades before 1800...

Antony Lambton LEAP BEFORE YOU LOOK by Aidan Crawley Collins, f15, pp. 416 A idan Crawley in his youth followed the traditions of generations of his family. It had been a...

Eric Christiansen THE DUEL IN EUROPEAN HISTORY by V. G. Kiernan OUP, f25, pp.348 D uelling, though barbarous in civil- ised, is a highly civilised institution among...

Ian Gilmour THOMAS PAINE by A. J. Ayer Secker & Warburg, £12.95, pp. 195 T he son of a Quaker staymaker in Thetford, Tom Paine greatly affected the American revolution,...

Rain falling in the night: Why should it bring some slight Felicity to those Who hear it in their house? Sibelius, if his scores So reflect temperatures, Must have been less...

John Mortimer A MATTER OF JUSTICE: THE LEGAL SYSTEM IN FERMENT by Michael Zander I. B. Tauris, £16.50, pp.323 W hat is wrong with the citizens of the United Kingdom? Why are we...

Piers Paul Read THE THEOLOGY OF JOSEPH RATZINGER: AN INTRODUCTORY STUDY by Aidan Nichols, O.P. T. & T. Clark (Edinburgh), f9.95, pp.352 I n theology and aesthetics the means...

Frances Donaldson WHAT A GO: THE LIFE OF ALFRED MUNNING$ by Jean Goodman Collins, £17.50, pp. 274 T here has been at least one previous biography of Sir Alfred Munnings and...

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Become a subscriber to The Spectator and save £12 a year on the regular UK newsstand price — that's '76p a week, or less than 71p if you take out a three year subscription....

Paul Foot SHELLEY'S PROSE edited by David Lee Clark Fourth Estate £25, £10.95, pp.361 E veryone knows that Percy Bysshe Shelley was a poet. Most people assume he wrote poetry...

Grey Gowrie LUCIAN FREUD PAINTINGS' with an introduction by Robert Hughes Thames & Hudson, £24, pp. 135 LUCIAN FREUD 'WORKS ON PAPER' We are living in Lucian Freud's year:...

This flappety head flopdoodles along, Meandering after my feet; Though I know they're all mine, I can't make them connect, Can't walk a straight line in the street. The words...

Theatre The Common Pursuit (Phoenix) Danger: Memory! (Hampstead) Fashion (Pit) When the past catches up Christopher Edwards S imon Gray has so transformed The Common...

Salome (Covent Garden) Not quite straight Rodney Milnes B ack from the precipice — Salome can stay. It really is a pretty good piece in its own revolting way. Not that one...

Broadcast News ('15', Odeon Haymarket) Current affairs Hilary Mantel I n the Washington network newsroom of James Brooks's film, you expect to see one of those notices that...

Gwen Hardie (Paton Gallery, till 7 May) Vision and illusion Alistair Hicks T he imaginative landscape has proved one of the most dangerous minefields for 20th-century British...

Crumbling Bagel Taki Alas, I wish I could say the same thing for the quality of life in New York City. On my way into the city on a Friday afternoon I ran into the kind of...

Gee up, ladies Wendy Cope T he time has come for Rhyme 'N' Reason,' announced the headline over the Grand National piece in Saturday's Inde- pendent. Ignoring this, I went out...

Matinees only Jeffrey Bernard B y the time you read this I shall be in Edinburgh on behalf of the powers that be here in Doughty Street. Are they sending the right man? There...

Don't take it with you Alice Thomas Ellis I have always thought that if (which heaven forfend) I should be left penniless and alone and had to earn a living, I should promptly...

A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or, for UK solvers, a copy of Chambers Dictionary, value £13.95 — ring the words 'Chambers Dictionary' above) for the first...

His master's voice Raymond Keene K asparov's surprising switch at Seville to the English Opening, 1 c4, may have come about as a result of studying games by Botvinnik, not...

Driving test Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1518 you were in- vited to write a short story of approximate- ly 300 words with the above as title. Whenever I set a competition...

A CERTAIN influential wine writer, pre- sent with me at last month's Alimentaria wine and food fair in Barcelona, has just written a devastating expose of the event. He lists a...

Sunday Telegraph readers were recently invited to choose a suitable sculpted figure to stand on the empty plinth in Trafalgar Square. 'Bomber' Harris, R. A. Butler and General...

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