21 FEBRUARY 1970

Page 3

The fragile society

The Spectator

When politics is about cricket it is a sign that the English are taking their politics seriously. And, certainly, the issues sur- rounding the forthcoming South African tour...

Page 4

POLITICAL COMMENTARY

The Spectator

The state of the politics industry JOCK BRUCE-GARDYNE, MP Mr Pearl, the Leader of the House of Com- mons, has announced that the Commission on Industry and Manpower (successor...

Page 5

GOVERNMENT

The Spectator

The alternative to Croslandia W. A. WEST Professor West is at the Faculty of Urban and Regional Studies at Reading University. To say that the reform of local government is...

A PM speaks

The Spectator

CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS The Tories, when they come to power, Will gladly seize their finest hour To slash the workers' wages, And in a rage of frenzied hate They will destroy the...

Page 6

THE ENVIRONMENT

The Spectator

After the ballyhoo STANLEY JOHNSON Well, they have come and gone. For four days Strasbourg was host to princes, plan- ners and parliamentarians. Whole tracts of life-giving,...

TRANSPORT

The Spectator

Lines blocked TERENCE BENDIXSON Next time you are at a railway station and a goods train rattles past with a thud, thud, thud and a squeal have a good look at it. Those brown...

Page 7

YUGOSLAVIA

The Spectator

Enter Tito's policeman TIBOR SZAMUELY Next week a signal honour will befall these islands: we are to be visited, for the first time since the war, by a Yugoslav Prime...

A hundred years ago From the 'Spectator', 19 February 1870 — The

The Spectator

Lords are sighing for work. The Government, taught by the fate of the Scotch Education Bill of last year, which was introduced first in the Lords, and consequently cut to...

Page 8

VIEWPOINT

The Spectator

Overheard in Beirut GEORGE GALE Journalists suffer from an incurable (because it is essential) disease of their occupation : they are compulsive dramatists. They see plots,...

Page 9

SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK

The Spectator

J. W. M. THOMPSON For some reason the historians of the last war don't seem to have gone very deeply into the fact, a remarkable one in view of what happened in the 1914-18...

Page 10

PERSONAL COLUMN

The Spectator

The measure of all things CHRISTOPHER BOOKER So strongly did Lord Clark's thirteen tele- vision lectures on the history of western civilisation (and their subsequent...

Page 11

CONSUMING INTEREST

The Spectator

Fed up LESLIE ADRIAN That part of Germany where Herr Brandt's writ now runs is a land flowing, literally, with milk and honey. But, in flat con- tradiction of the voice that...

MEDICINE

The Spectator

Old wives' tales JOHN ROWAN WILSON 'If you don't - wear your wellies you'll go blind', says the nanny to the boy in Alan Bennett's play Forty Years On. It is a line that...

Page 12

TABLE TALK

The Spectator

Nation, race and the right DENIS BROGAN I have just been reading the first two books* in a new series, 'Roots of the Right', edited by Mr George Steiner. The venture is cer-...

Page 14

BOOKS Who was then the gentleman?

The Spectator

G. D. RAMSAY Why did one group of Englishmen take to arms against another group not much more than three hundred years ago? Until recent times, there was general acceptance of...

Page 15

Old mole

The Spectator

TREVOR GROVE Play Power Richard Neville (Cape 38s) The Politics of Ecstasy Timothy Leary (MacGibbon and Kee 36s) Mr Richard Neville, spoofer extraordinary, editor of Oz and...

Page 16

NEW NOVELS

The Spectator

In retreat BARRY COLE Real People Alison Lurie (Heinemann 25s) Middle Ground Ursula Zilins4 (Longman 30s) What I'm Going to Do, I Think L. Woiwode (Weidenfeld and Nicolson...

Mighty work

The Spectator

MICHAEL BORRIE English Historical Documents: Vol IV 1327- 1485 edited by A. R. Myers (Eyre and Spot- tiswoode 10 gns) The score is nine down and three to go as this monumental...

Page 18

Outside in

The Spectator

FRANK NORMAN The Frying-Pan Tony Parker (Hutchinson 45s) Grendon Underwood is Britain's only psy- chiatric prison. Without doubt, it represents the only ray of hope in the...

Rational numbers

The Spectator

CLARENCE BROWN We Yevgeny Zamyatin translated by Bernard Guilbert Guerney (Cape 35s) Written in Petrograd in 1920. this fantasy of a future totalitarian state has never been...

Page 19

Rat's bane

The Spectator

PHILIP ZIEGLER A History of Bubonic Plague in the British Isles J. F. D. Shrewsbury (cut. 160s) Bubonic plague is one of the world's great killers. Pasteurella Pest is, its...

Page 20

ARTS Voice of America

The Spectator

PENELOPE HOUSTON One of the more awful of the cinema's recent sights has been the ageing film-maker in faint pursuit of the hippies, wheezing along panting `do your own thing'...

Page 21

• ART

The Spectator

Norman beaches FRANCIS HOYLANI) At the New Grafton Gallery until 28 February are a number of smallish paintings showing places familiar from the work of various nineteenth...

THEATRE

The Spectator

Things that hurt HILARY SPURLING Jonathan Miller's production of King Lear, mightily praised when it opened at Not- tingham in- October, trod the boards of the Old Vic last...

Page 22

BALLET

The Spectator

Sea change CLEMENT CRISP Just when I began to fear that the Royal Ballet had given up new choreography as a bad thing—and heaven knows that much of the choreography we see...

ffolkes's taxpayers' alphabet

The Spectator

Page 23

Second bite

The Spectator

JOHN BULL A great deal of heat is being generated about the second mortgage business—and about mortgage brokers. I start with Mr Andrew Breach, chairman of the Bristol and...

The City and the Common Market

The Spectator

NICHOLAS DAVENPORT Having been warned by this journal amongst others that the White Paper on the Com mon Market was npt 'an economic assess- ment', as it purported to be, but a...

Page 24

Mr Heath's striptease

The Spectator

Sir: May I comment on Auberon Waugh's dissection of the Codex Croydoniensis (14 February)? Most interesting of all were his remarks on the belated decision to give pensions to...

LETTERS

The Spectator

From Anthony Thwaite, Lionel Bloch, Geoffrey Kennard, George Chowdharay- Best, Dr E. 1. Mishan, L. E. Weidberg, R. L. Travers, F. .1. A. Cruso, Carola Oman, Harold Braham,...

Page 25

The Duke's tubes

The Spectator

Sir: I wonder what gave your correspond- ents, Mrs Brown and Messrs McCarthy and Grant (Letters, 24 January and 1 February), the idea that I was an advocate of BST? My letter...

Pride of place

The Spectator

Sir: I have seldom disagreed more with any article than I do with Mr Simon Raven's under the above title (7 February). Having given up work some six years ago and done nothing...

Scots myths

The Spectator

Sir: What canting nonsense is this (Letters, 7 February)? By all means let the Scotch call themselves Scots or Scottish if they want to. But why should English people be nagged...

The demo-mobsters

The Spectator

Sir: Pace Randolph Vigne (Letters, 14 February), I would say that George Gale's description of Peter Hain as a 'character- istic child of our time' (7 February) is a...

Negro violence

The Spectator

Sir: Father Huddleston has asserted in a letter to the Times (20 January), that Negro violence is due 'to 'racial attitudes which for generations have been contemptuous of the...

Disturbed but not put out

The Spectator

Sir: Mr P. J. Barnwell, in his letter in your issue of 14 February, says, 'Is not your re- viewer Carola Oman rather hard on Countess Bertrand when she dubs her "this silly...

Page 26

Great Concorde brainwash

The Spectator

Sir: I regret that in my piece last week (14 February) an error remained uncorrected in the final copy. The £10 million a month said to be drawn from the taxpayer by the...

AFTERTHOUGHT

The Spectator

LOOK! this has gone far enough Sid Freud is seventy-three and lives with a midget. 'I used to work in a freak show way back. I used to keep Little Herbert here in a cardboard...

COMPETITION

The Spectator

No. 593: Package tour Mr Richard Crossman has recently been quoted as saying that in his view it would be 'quite unjustifiable to guarantee an abor, tion as part of a package...

Page 27

Crossword 1418

The Spectator

Across 1 Rhinemaiden having a water-wave, of course! (6) 4 The old city turns it on in Surrey (8) 9 Immature ghosts! (6) 10 Smacks for a Liberal appearing in party rosettes?...

Chess 479

The Spectator

PHILIDOR D. Hjelle (1st Prize equal, Montreal) White to play and mate in two moves; solution next week. Solution to No. 478 (Fossum) l6/2B2p2/...