19 JANUARY 1968

Page 1

Paralysis of government

The Spectator

It must be seriously doubted whether this country any longer possesses a government —except in the sense of over a hundred more or less amiable men and women drawing high...

Page 2

Portrait of the week

The Spectator

Lord High Executioner Wilson finally steeled him- self to cut some heads off: all the expected victims fell to his axe. The largest savings were on defence: the F 1 1 ls were...

Page 3

Mr Heath unites the left

The Spectator

POLITICAL COMMENTARY AUBERON WAUGH More Members turned up for prayers on Tues- day than at any time since Suez. Cynics may argue that they were merely anxious to reserve seats...

Wednesday play

The Spectator

CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS One could endure the joys of life these days; Find even entertainment entertain, If just for once they had some Wednesday plays On people who were moderately...

Page 4

A dose of cant

The Spectator

THE CUTS-2: HEALTH JOHN ROWAN WILSON What on earth will the history student of 2068 make of all the present fuss about prescription charges? To the historian with a sense of...

Toad comes home

The Spectator

THE CUTS-1: DEFENCE JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE `There are,' according to Lord Curzon, `two constituents of successful diplomacy . . . one is knowing one's own mind, the other is...

Page 5

Unwillingly to school

The Spectator

THE CUTS-3: EDUCATION JAC L. WILLIAMS Jac L. Williams is professor of education at the University College of Wales, A berysiwyM. People who like to regard themselves as enthu-...

Page 6

The crisis that never was

The Spectator

THE ECONOMY J. ENOCH POWELL, MP Being a prophet of doom is money for old rope. But being a prophet of non-doom is an unrewarding and ill-rewarded occupation. Still, what can...

Page 7

Ronnie at home

The Spectator

AMERICA MURRAY KEMPTON Sacramento, California—Ronald Reagan, the visitor soon decides, is not especially relevant to the government of California. He has been able to alter...

Act of defiance

The Spectator

RUSSIA TIBOR SZAMUELY The fifty-first year of the communist regime in Russia has opened with a bang. Never before, from the moment Lenin seized power, through all the years of...

Page 8

SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK

The Spectator

, J. W. M: THOMPSON Sacred cows aren't just cherished objects : they're cherished, expensive, useless objects. People have used the term very loosely in recent days, allowing...

Page 9

Animal crackers

The Spectator

PERSONAL COLUMN KENNETH ALLSOP There are twenty million pets kept in Britain. Most of them—it has seemed to me at gloomy moments—live with- me. Just after income tax had...

A hundred years ago

The Spectator

From the 'Spectator,' 18 January, 1868—Mr Fawcett delivered a lecture on Tuesday to the Reform League on the condition of the agricul- tural population, whom he described as...

Page 10

' Mail' change

The Spectator

THE PRESS DONALD McLACHLAN A year ago some Fleet Street managements were smarting under the sharp criticism of their methods made by the Economist Intelligence Unit Report....

Switch to safety

The Spectator

CONSUMING INTEREST LESLIE ADRIAN Did you play that educational game with Cliff Michelmore last week—the mammoth quiz in which he proved our legislators to be no more...

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America, here we come!

The Spectator

TABLE TALK DENIS BROGAN Colorado Springs—Much have I travelled in the realms of gold, i.e. the American West, but I never get used to the size of the country. I suppose I...

Page 12

Et tu, Casanova BOOKS

The Spectator

SIMON RAVEN Some years ago, G. P. Putnam's Sons of New York and Elek Books of London combined to put out in several volumes 'the first com- plete and unabridged English...

Page 13

NEW NOVELS

The Spectator

A peak in Darien HENRY TUBE A Smuggler's Bible Joseph McElroy (Deutsch 35s) The Third Book About Achim Uwe Johnson translated by Ursule Molinaro (Cape 30s) Kinsman and Foreman...

Page 15

Poor White

The Spectator

PATRICK ANDERSON T. H. White was a big, bearded, rather hand- some man whose prominent bright-blue eyes were often bloodshot with drink; in middle age he began to resemble a...

Zambia : The Politics of Independence 1957- 1964 David Mulford

The Spectator

(ouP 55s) Turn for the better RICHARD RATHBONE Politicians and Politics: An essay on politics in Acholi, Uganda, 1962-1965 Colin Leys (East African Publishing House 12s)...

Page 16

English arts

The Spectator

PAUL GRINKE English Gardens and Landscapes, 1700-1750 Christopher Hussey (Country Life 63s) Water-Colour Painting in Britain Martin Hardie (Batsford 126s) We can modestly claim...

Page 17

Worlds in Conflict : The Current Crisis in American Foreign

The Spectator

Policy Sir Denis Brogan (Hamish Hamilton 25s) II Americans W. HORSFALL CARTER At the end of the 1920s that dauntless apostle of liberalism, Salvador de Madariaga, penned his...

Page 18

What the smart builder is building ARTS

The Spectator

TERENCE BENDIXSON For centuries architecture's richest and most influential client was the church. Then came the owners of great landed estates, followed in turn by the...

THEATRE

The Spectator

Great ape HILARY SPURLING The more one considers the ape, the more it appears that Kafka was right about apes, as he was about most things: the ape—seedy, shambling, morose,...

Page 20

Marking time

The Spectator

BALLET CLEMENT CRISP Noel Coward's reported recipe for continued freshness in the theatre was: 'Always come out of a different trap,' and it might have been Ashton's too: Sir...

Carve-up and squeeze

The Spectator

TELEVISION STUART HOOD These are days when one may see strange sights. Michael Peacock and Donald Baverstock in the Muzak-drenched hall of ATV House, for instance. It is a fair...

Page 21

Hysteria in the City MONEY

The Spectator

NICHOLAS DAVENPORT The stock markets have had a sharp attack of hysteria but are now convalescing. Before the listing of the cuts they had become far too jumpl , and jittery....

Page 23

Expense account

The Spectator

PORTFOLIO JOHN BULL Good news from Phoenix Assurance since 1 last wrote: the group has decided to raise its dividend for 1967 from 125 per cent to 140 per cent. On the...

Nothing to lose but our chains

The Spectator

BUSINESS VIEWPOINT JACK FRYE The young ladies of Surbiton who started their 'We Back Britain' campaign with the idea of a free half-hour's work a day for Britain have caught...

Page 24

CITY DIARY CHRISTOPHER FILDES .

The Spectator

I could observe that dignity, like Sir Leslie O'Brien's ex-officio top hat, is not improved by being stood on. But more is at stake. Time was when a few men in the City thought...

Page 25

Market report

The Spectator

CUSTOS This remains a political market; as its astonish- ing performance on Tuesday made crystal clear. On the Prime Minister's statement the Financial Times index rose sixteen...

Trustee stock

The Spectator

SAVINGS LOTHBURY This week the'Trustee Savings Banks launch their long-awaited Unit Trust—or rather, seventy-six of them do ' the seventy-seventh, York' County, isn't...

Page 26

Small world

The Spectator

Sir: Mr Joe Chapman's article (1 December) is a strange hotch-potch of generalisation, exaggeration and lack of logic. Mr Chapman's thesis seems to be that there will be no...

Devlin's law

The Spectator

Sir: I could follow the letter from the assistant secretary of the Press Council throughout its length (12 January) but you could not spare the space so I will deal only with...

Prescription charges

The Spectator

LETTERS From Dr Marjory E. Plumb, L. E. Weidberg, Leonard Cottrell, G. Armstrong, R. A. Cline, D. M. Llewellyn Smith, Brigadier F. E. C. Hughes, Margaret Mole, K. E. Crawley,...

Divorce English style

The Spectator

Sir: Mr Service's interesting letter (5 January) is quite a good example of the kind of British double- think to which I referred. Contrary to what he suggests, I do not myself...

Body of knowledge .

The Spectator

Sir: I was sorry to see your contributor John Rowan Wilson, whom I usually enjoy so much, indulge (29 December) in the familiar medical self- delusion that patients used as...

Drunk in charge

The Spectator

Sir: As I inadvertently started this correspondence (Letters, 8 December), which has brought forth a large amount of private replies, besides those you published, may I be...

Page 27

Sir: One of the more attractive incidents in Rayner Heppenstall's

The Spectator

fictionalised chapter of autobiography Saturnine was when the hero coughed up a worm. Mr Heppenstall has now done it again (Letters, 12 January) in response to my challenge...

Thomson's Times

The Spectator

Sir: Whilst appreciating that almost any editor of The Times will please Mr Churchill (12 January) better than Sir William Haley, how can he possibly claim that it is 'a better...

What is pornography ?

The Spectator

Sir: I am only an uneducated old soldier with no training in logic or theology, so I honestly seek enlightenment regarding Mr P. E. Mallon's letter in your issue of 5 January in...

Echo de Paris

The Spectator

Sir: We are sorry if our criticisms of his article (Letters, 5 January) should have upset poor Mr Heppenstall, who dismisses them in his letter (12 January) as 'childish...

Bud muddle

The Spectator

Sir:The tiger carrying the young lady of Riga, mentioned by Mr Auberon Waugh (12 January), was created not by Edward-Lear but anonymously, and was portrayed by H. M. Bateman in...

Page 28

The Rector vanishes

The Spectator

AFTERTHOUGHT JOHN WELLS The resignation last Sunday of Dagobert Frilling, the fourteen year old pop-dancer, front his position as 'Rector' of the Daily Telegraph Memorial Home...

Signs of the times

The Spectator

Sir: May another Saxon suggest to Sir Denis Brogan that he is wrong to attach so much im- portance to a letter to the Daily Express (5 January)? Only cranks write to newspapers....

The prisoners of St Kilts

The Spectator

Sir: As you know, all the St Kitts prisoners (see SPECTATOR, 20 October 1967 and subsequent letters) were acquitted by the Supreme Court of the West Indies on 27 November....

Amorous prawn

The Spectator

Sir: It is true that, as David Williams writes (12 January), 'Not unprofound, not ungrand, not un- moving—but unpoetical' is a 'comment' of Matthew Arnold, but not a comment...

Toujours le lampiste

The Spectator

Sir: It is possible for surviving relatives of men in the Fifth Army to feel put out by Sir Denis Brogan's article of 15 December. One English county battalion died where it...

Page 29

Chess no. 370

The Spectator

PHILIDOR N. G. G. van Dijk Mt prize, Die Schwalbe, 1961). White to play and mate in two moves; solution next week. Solution to no. 369 (Goldschmeding): P - K 4, threat Kt - B...

No. 482: The winners

The Spectator

Competitors were asked to compose an octet on one of The following subjects: a New Year resolution, Twiggy takes the veil or an ad- vertisement for a tranquilliser. The first...

No. 484: Octet

The Spectator

COMPETITION Competitors are invited to compose an eight- line poem or stanza of a poem on any one of the subjects given below, using four of the following five pairs of words...

Crosswordno.1309

The Spectator

Across I Everybody after 50 in bed looks mashed out! (8) 5 A rod for the playgrounds (6) 9 The cradle of 24? (5-3) 10 The one and only Victoria in short in a nice coat (6) 12...