19 MAY 1973

Page 1

Lonrho: the real offence

The Spectator

The image of the City has not been improved by the Lonrho affair; and when the Prime Minister uses angry words in the House of Commons to describe "this unpleasant and...

Page 3

Chunnel, No-Maplin, Yes

The Spectator

There are three great public projects, each involving vast sums of public money and each, in its different way, likely to affect a great number of people's lives, about which...

Page 4

Another Spectator's Notebook

The Spectator

I found myself, at the Downing Street party for the publication of Nigel Fisher's book on lain Macleod, standing opposite Anthony Barber. Hardened smoker though I am I, in these...

Page 5

Political Commentary

The Spectator

Reveridge is dead Patrick Cosgrave With the third reading of the Government's Social Security Bill on May 8 the elaborate System of National Insurance created by the Attlee...

Page 6

The American Scene

The Spectator

Nixon must goand how Louis Claiborne As the Senate hearings on the Watergate affair and its aftermath open, the Constitutional problems and possibilities of removing President...

Page 9

Water boy

The Spectator

The bugs are in the wood-work, And multiplying fast. Can you hear the distant murmurs, water-boy? And surface at the last. It's amazing how things lurk, Ro the sweets of office...

Education

The Spectator

Don't tinker with the sixth Rhodes Boyson Education today is divided more and more between the doers—those involved with actual schools and actual pupils, and the...

Corridors . . .

The Spectator

THE EMBARRASSMENT OF the former Viscount Stansgate, now humble Tony Benn, was a little painful last week. One of Harold Wilson's aides was asked by a journalist whether the...

Page 10

Poetry

The Spectator

Twentieth century slump Nigel Frith With Philip Larkin's Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse sitting beside Helen Gardner's New Oxford Book of English Verse in all...

Page 11

Richard Luckett on Thurber and 'New Yorker' poetry

The Spectator

James Thurber's father, building a rabbit hutch for his sons to keep their pets in, succeeded in locking himself inside; his grandMother, convinced that electricity leaked f rom...

Page 12

The new age

The Spectator

Bertram was a pretty man, a coward all and such, slack at a bargain if he can, but Bertram had the touch of twenty ladies, while Montrose who honed the whole way, blunt his bond...

Page 14

Rooted in the past

The Spectator

Clive Wilmer Selected Poems 1923-1967 Jorge Luis Borges edited by Norman Thomas di Giovanni (Allen Lane Penguin Press £5) The vast international reputation of Jorge Luis Borges...

Page 15

Oisturbing Stories

The Spectator

bouglas Dunn Bit Of Singing and Dancing Susan Hill k r tlaMish Hamilton £2.25) 1 „..nittings: Selected Stories Dan Jacobson k,rieidenfeld and Nicolson £2.25) yPon the Sweeping...

Anything but novels

The Spectator

Tony Palmer The Send - Off Christopher Leach (Chatto and Windus E1.60) A Woman named Solitude Andre SchwarzBart (Secker and Warburg £1.95) It's amazing what passes for a novel...

Page 16

Bookend

The Spectator

Bookbuyer The Bullock Committee of Inquiry into Reading is not expected to publish its findings until next Spring — in time for the NUT and NAS conferences — but already it has...

Page 17

Kenneth Hurren on the way of all flesh

The Spectator

At the end of Alan Bennett's play, Habeas Corpus, at the Lyric, the central character — a spry general practitioner named Arthur Wicksteedi roguishly played by Alec Guinness —...

Opera

The Spectator

Out of the box Rodney Milnes Colin Graham has successfully transferred his television production of Britten's Owen Wingrave to the stage of the Royal Opera House. The cast,...

Page 18

Cinema

The Spectator

Costume-drama_ Hitler Christopher Hudson Bernard Delfont made a wise decision when he chose not to release Hitler — the Last Ten Days ('A' Empire) to his chain of Rank...

Television

The Spectator

Mansfield stones Clive Gammon Why do the short stories of the first half of the century make such fine television? The question really needs trimming. The period of from...

Pop

The Spectator

Mr Panic Duncan Fallowell To all outward appearances David Bowie is the biggest thing to happen in British rock for five years. Since rock music at its centre is about...

Page 19

Will

The Spectator

Waspe That painting peer, Viscount Weymouth, is making a determined bid to get London's serious art critics .(begging the question of whether such exist) down to Longleat next...

Page 21

Skinflint's City Diary

The Spectator

Monday morning at 10.30 this week when Mr Justice Plowman gave his judgment against Roland "Tiny" Rowland of Lonrho was a riveting time for investment decision by Lonrho...

Wilde's Portfolio

The Spectator

The new order Mr Wotherspool Young Wilde is by no means my only client, but he is perhaps the most persistent, trying to maximise the return on the e10,000 his Aunt Maud...

Page 22

Housing and colour— the problems • and some answers

The Spectator

Reg Freeson If the housing problems peculiar to Commonwealth immigrants and their descendants are to be tackled, their relation to general housing and other social problems...

Page 25

Medicine

The Spectator

Dealing with sex John Rowan Wilson The introduction of a Bill to provide contraceptive medical advice and supplies under the National Health Service is something of a landmark...

Gardening

The Spectator

The flower show Denis Wood When it is impossible to find a taxi in London, when underground trains to Sloane Square are filled with well-bred, penetrating voices comparing the...

Page 26

The Good Life

The Spectator

Eating for an age Pamela Vandyke Price Food, like the sorceier's apprentice and the broom, can get out of hand, all the more when it too frequently is getting into the mouth....

Page 27

Israel at twenty-five

The Spectator

From the Rev. Tony Crowe. Sir: Many people are deeply moved by the love of the Jews for Palestine, after centuries of suffering. Is it possible for this love to include over...

Sir: I have just seen the issue of Your journal

The Spectator

of March 3, in which Miss Eleanor Aitken states that" twothirds of Palestinians now live in exile." Such an observation cannot be left uncorrected. According to British...

Sir: I have declined an invitation to Sign a letter

The Spectator

from a group of anti-Zionist Jews denouncing Zionism and intended for publication in the national Press on or about May 15, 1973, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the...

The booming economy

The Spectator

From Sir Arthur J. Dash Sir: Your leading article ' Can the boom last? ' in the issue of the Spectator ot May 12, has caused me to ponder about the prospects of the country's...

Sir: Fro about three weeks o . f April 1 had

The Spectator

the (probably) good tortune to be insulated from 'the box' while .1 suffered from a fairly protracted attack of the end-of-Britain's winter disease, roughly known as pleurisy —...

Controversial Eysenck

The Spectator

From Dr Anthony Clare Sir: Professor Eysenck's letter (May 5) illustrates many of the qualities which I described in by article (' Eysenck the Controversialist,' April 21)....

Juliette's weekly frolic

The Spectator

Well it was nice to be solvent, even for only a week. Surveying the scene from the black side of the balance sheet, anything seems possible. Why, given another fortnight and...

Page 28

Choosing a man

The Spectator

Sir: How typical and boring it all is to see us female humans once again being analysed, dissected and specifically categorised with the view of our being worthy of having "the...

Homosexuals

The Spectator

Sir: Mr Thomas Sutcliffe's article (May 5) interested me because some years ago, when our censorship of books was making us a laughing stock, a novel by a Jesuit was banned...

Sir: It is the har: lot of bachelors who have

The Spectator

been unlucky in love to be labelled as homosexuals or worse by people like Mr Watkins (May 12). Mr Harvey can answer for himself, but insofar as Mr Watkins implies that...

White House liars

The Spectator

Sir: In your issue of April 28, 1973, under the heading, White House Liars there are several statements which deserve comment. The first, concerning the Profumo affair of the...

Black balls

The Spectator

Sir: Skinflint, in his paragraph about black balls for London clubs, seems to me to have got it all wrong. A club of the type of Brooks's or the Garrick is simply a collection...

Maudling on Macleod

The Spectator

Sir: Reginald Maulding tells us (May 12) that lain Macleod was addicted to Burns. If so, one can only imagine Macleod's expression had he read that " laughter and the love of...