I f I do not go on holiday immediately, I fear I will shortly have my own 'copycat riot'. The temptation to riot comes over me in surges. It might be irresistible if I had to...

After the riots in Southall and Toxteth, Liverpool, last week, rioting spread to Wood Green, North London, Moss Side, Manchester (where a thousand youths attacked the police...

The indoor riots Ferdinand Mount Unease as thick as an old London peasouper hangs over the Angry Commons Scenes. This indoor riot is blatantly not spontaneous. In fact, it is...

Too many Churchills Auberon Waugh At quite an early stage this week I decided not to write about riots or rioters, since everyone would be fed up with hearing explanations and...

Nicholas von Hoffman Washington The English troubles are getting what constitutes 'in depth' treatment on the national television shows here. That's as much as 90 seconds a...

Tim Garton Ash Berlin Not the least extraordinary thing about the Polish Communist Party's extraordinary Congress, which opened this Tuesday on the anniversary of the storming...

Lord Shawcross The recent controversy about the transfer of the ownership of the Observer from an American oil conglomerate to Lonrho illustrates the development in recent...

Andrew Brown Liverpool What remains of Toxteth is cleaner, more brightly coloured, and a great deal less depressing than the centre of Liverpool, which is so squalid and run...

James HughesOnslow The Fijian grocer in Landor Road, half a mile from Brixton, has a good line in half-threatening banter when West Indian youths try to steal sweets from his...

Jo Grimond Warrington Many years ago I wrote an account for the Spectator of a meeting addressed by Adlai Stevenson at Boise, Idaho, during a sweep through the West on his...

Biffen's baleful benediction Paul Johnson The agreement reached between the Trade Secretary, Lonrho and the Observer journalists may or may not preserve the editorial freedom,...

The latest U-turn Tony Rudd U-turns are usually involuntary. Take, for instance, last week's events in the City. The Government is committed to lowering interest rates this...

It is proposed that a painting of the Resurrection, by Mr Burne Jones, shall be put up in the centre of the reredos in the church in Vere Street, as a memorial to the late...

Sir: Ferdinand Mount does well to put his question (4 July): 'But is there really a distinction in kind between the Moonies' methods of indoctrination and conversion and the...

have little sympathy for the Moonies, but there have been all too few willing to speak up for principles of freedom and conscience and belief which seem to have been submerged...

is asking for trouble. In general he asks the 'civil authorities to consider the truth of any religious teaching rather than pretend they are all of equal worth', and in...

rights of all superstitious cults (euphemistically, religions) should be equally protected, he errs in regarding charitable status as a right: it is not a right, but a...

Sir: Mr Vigne (Letters, 20 June) is quite wrong when he states that the journalists who visited ROssing were flown to Namibia by RTZ. The press facility visit to ROssing was...

Sir: [too share Professor Griffith's concern (20 June). The present threat, in a contracting market, to the power of academics to make their own decisions is very real....

Sir: I enjoyed Peter Ackroyd's witty criticism of the film Excalibur (11 July) but I cannot agree with his contention that the Arthurian legend has no contemporary resonance....

Sir: In Auberon Waugh's article about Ted Heath (11 July), he refers to Mr Heath inheriting an economy in 'surprisingly good shape from Mr Jenkins.' Why surprisingly good? It...

Sir: What a pity it is that such an intelligent man as Mr Auberon Waugh can be so silly at times (27 June). The Rampton Committee on the 'under-achievement' of West Indian...

Sir: Reading Mr Nigel Ash's letter in your issue of 4 July it is easy to come to the conclusion that he is one of those loving and forgiving Christians who when wronged 'turns...

Sir: Jo Grimond, after giving us some of his highly perceptive comments on the state of the nation (27 June), wonders whether the Liberals and Social Democrats might 'strike out...

Sir: For some years I have been working on the history of the fourth dimension, with particular reference to Edwin Abbott Abbott (1838-1926), author of Flatland and 40 other...

News from the 16th century A.L. Rowse The Lisle Letters ed. M. St Clare Byrne (Chicago University Press, 6 vols, £120) The Paston Letters are the most famous medieval...

Hugh Massingberd Samba Sahib Elizabeth Hay (Paul Harris PP. 194, E7.50) That formidable breed of Scotch womanhood without whom the British Empire would surely have foundered...

Catherine Peters Collected Poems 1935-1980 Kathleen Raine (George Allen & Unwin pp. 312, £10.95) Few poets are as sternly self-critical as Kathleen Raine. This Collected Poems...

Brian Inglis Mind Out of Time: Reincarnation Investigated Ian Wilson (Gollancz pp. 283, £5.95). Even as recently as ten years ago, in our society, to believe we have a string...

Caroline Moorehead Crown Jewel Ralph de Boissiere (Allison & Busby pp.361, £6.96). A Start in Life Anita Brookner (Jonathan Cape pp.176, £5.95). Zig Zag Richard Thornley...

A. N. Wilson Marital Rites Margaret Forster (Seeker & Warburg pp.183, £6.95) Anna Osgood, the heroine of Margaret Forster's charming new novel, 'liked marriage . . . Being...

Dwight Macdonald Geoffrey Wheatcroft Journalism has got itself a bad name. People who write for daily papers, weekly reviews, even monthly magazines, are cowed from one side...

Lead me anywhere Peter Ackroyd This is Elvis ('A', Gate Camden Town) By the end, he looks like a whale in a shot silk parachute, so puffed out on drugs and drink that he has...

Satisfied John McEwen Michael Sandle's debut at Fischer Fine Art (till 7 August) proves the event of the artistic season as far as the private galleries are concerned. On the...

Such fun Mark Amory The Mifford Girls (Chichester) Troilus and Cressida (Aldwych) Eastward Ho! (Mermaid) 'Quite the little Ascot', said my taxi driver, glancing across the...

Best man Alan Gibson The appointment of Brearley as England captain was made on the basis that he was the likeliest man to save the series against Australia. This was, in...

Wild times Tala Everyone seems to be talking about riots in cities these days, although where I live ladies tend to potter in the garden rather than throw bricks at the thin...

Dog-days Jeffrey Bernard Last Wednesday morning at the crack of dawn I saw the most definitive summing up of this life as I know it. I was gazing out of my bedroom window...