The history of the TGWU-BOC agree- ment bears repeating, not least because it is one of the most important to have been concluded in Britain so far. Some two years ago, partly...

POLITICAL COMMENTARY By DESMOND DONNELLY, MP W HAT happens if the Wilson Package' fails? What is the possible course of events if there were to be another collapse of confidence...

Oh Mr Lennon, is it very odd You are so much more popular than God, Seeing that God by an eccentric choice Addressed His public in a still, small voice? CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS

COMMUNISM By TIBOR SZAMUELY On President Tito's personal order a criminal charge was raised against him. In April 1965, a few days after being dismissed from the Uni- versity,...

FOREIGN POLICY By MALCOLM RUTHERFORD M R GEORGE BROWN has declared himself elated at being given the office of Foreign Secretary; apart from understandable reasons of...

It is not difficult to see how we have acquired this exaggerated reverence for anything to do with the digging-out and analysis of facts. It is a natural consequence of our...

DEFENCE By SIMON CLEMENTS O F all the British institutions reeling from the effects of Socialist medicine, none is in such a state of shock as the navy. The causes of the shock...

T HE murder of the three policemen shot down in cold blood in a London street is a shock- ing thing. But without in any way wishing to minimise the deaths of these brave men,...

August 18, 1866 Lord Sondes, chairman of the London, Chatham, and Dover railway, and Lord Harris, vice-chairman, have issued a circular this week announcing the insolvency of...

By J. ENOCH POWELL, MP T o read Lord Avon's little book on peace in Indochina * is to be reminded how swiftly current events remould our memory of even the recent past. The...

W E last discussed foreign affairs seriously some ten years ago. It was when you were rather tired after successfully making Nikita Sergeyevich reveal himself in his true Tory...

THE PRESS By DAVID FROST This weekend, however, they had their revenge out there in the West Country, East Anglia and the Highlands. for it was they, and only they, who had...

LONDON By DAVID REES Here while the town in damps and darkness lies, They breathe in sunshine and see azure skies; Each walk with ropes of various dyes bespread, Seems from...

7_11_ 11 1.11] C - 7 Dn From : Lord Boothby, Olga Franklin, William Simpson, Leslie G. H. Collins, Professor H. C. McLaren, Mrs M. Vaughan, V. A. Sykes, Mrs Anthony Thwaite,...

A FTERTHOUGHT By JOHN WELLS WISHING to visit friends on the island of Seriphos in the Cyclades, I went last week to the offices of Thos. Cook and Sons in Athens. The man...

SIR, —Mr Tibor Szamuely, who wrote 'Ssx Behind the Curtain' in the August 12 issue, mentioned the absence of birth control clinics in the Soviet Union. I attended a conference...

SIR,—The July 15 SPECTATOR has just reached us in Libya and we were interested to see a review of Children of Allah, an account of Agnes Newton Keith's experiences in this...

SIR,—All this chat about the sanctity „of the early conception is of little practical importance to the gynaecologist who regards the earliest upsurge of hormones within a few...

published, in editorial and correspondence columns, a good deal of criticism of BEA's .service to passengers. Much of it is no doubt merited, and on behalf of BEA I sincerely...

question. The non-viable foetus is not conscious of itself as a human being, and this seems to me to be the most important characteristic it lacks, which is essential to living...

forthcoming play at the Royal Court Theatre drags us further down into the cultural mire in which apparently the English theatre is now wallowing. I am credibly informed that...

Sut,—I am writing a biography of the painter John Minton. Though I have material from the chief trustee of his estate, I should welcome the loan of any letters or other material...

'A Correspondent's' article last week. I wonder what happened to the Assistance Board official that gave a couple £31 per week for lodgings. I have lost four months' work this...

Of all the flights, on twelve different airlines, one was noteworthy for delay and discomfort. It was BEA 256 of April 29. On arrival at London Airport at about 11 a.m. we were...

&En THEATRE By HILARY SPURLING But now, no more like suppliants we come; A Play makes war, and Prologue is the drum: Armed with keen satire and with pointed wit, We threaten...

TELEVISION I the week ending July 31, the BBC had ten 'programmes in TAM's Top Twenty. No. I —equal with No Hiding Place — was a World Cup match, seen in six and three-quarter...

MUSIC A MIDDLING-TO-SPLENDID week of Proms didn't /Aso much end as terminally explode, in the controversial sense, with Roberto Gerhard's Concerto for Orchestra, which reached...

BALLET Swan Lake is box-office gold; it enshrines all those dear, deadly clichés about ballet that audiences accept so readily: the niceness of a flock of young girls tiptoeing...

By ANTHONY BURGESS MHE term 'philologist' is becoming old- I fashioned. To study language is no longer a legitimate spare-time activity of those who use language. But, in the...

To catch a fish in boyhood Was thrill indeed, Trout or dab or salmon peel, Or any breed Except the greedy eel Swallowing hook and line: How many a hook was lost To repulsive...

LENNY BRUCE, found dead in Hollywood three weeks ago, from a suspected overdose of heroin, probably made more appearances in court than on stage. During the past five years this...

`BETWEEN you and me, I wish I had never opened the books. That's where I was a fooL' Thus Jack London to a friend at the very moment when he was about to write his most famous...

At last, beautiful shell, Lie there crushed; but the sea Cannot obliterate yet Faith I remember well: A house facing the sea. Hard and bitterly Though waves beat on that wall...

MI Day Saturday. By Colin MacInnes. (Mac- Gibbon and Kee, 25s.) The War Babies. By Gwen Davis. (Arthur Barker, 25s.) Tony. By Patrick Dennis. (Arthur Barker, 21s.) The Chicken....

The German Army and the Nazi Party, 1933- 1939. By Robert J. O'Neill. (Cassell, 63s.) PRussiA, it used to be said, was a state con- quered by an army. and Germany, it was also...

Ir may be true that 'Europeans and Americans misunderstand China more profoundly than they do any other part of the non-Western world'; and to this one could add, without...

By JOHN BULL rrilL Government's dilemma over building What I think will happen is that the Govern- ment will lirst cajole the societies into keeping the rate to borrower, where...

JL - namaiv Gol fL L. _1 By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT I F was not so many years ago that we all used to speak of France as the sick man of Europe. Today the tables have been turned....

By CUSTOS MHE last few days have seen a slight rally in I equities. But it is as well to be plain that this is no more than a technical upswing. There can be no question of a...

CONSUMING INTEREST By LESLIE ADRIAN The chief ingredient of most of these powders and liquids is the polysyllabic chemical just named,-the alkylate in which comes mainly from...

No. 296. V. L. EATON (Cincinnati Enquirer, 1930) WHITE to play and mate in two moves; solution next week. Solution to No. 295 (Gulden* R - K B 5, threat R x Q P. P X R; 2 B -...

ACROSS.-1 Roundabout. 6 Hump. zo Totem. re Tiger-lily. 12 Dominion. 13 A g enda. 15 Alto. 16 Chic. 17 Drunk. 20 Poole!. 21 Long. 22 Edit. 24 Ending. 26 Esoteric. 29 Ascending....

ACROSS I. Does it regulate a fleabite? (6) 4. French dwarf is so correct in muslin (8) to. What Englishmen say they mustn't but always do ! (7) Our appearance in prison calls...

NRUPCPU By DAVID LAZELL B ow come you got broke?' inquired the Police Commissioner in his usual impec- cable English. 'We elected you to get us out of trouble.' 'And where's...