K amla, the Indian girl bought by a Delhi journalist to expose the evils of what is rather disgustingly known in India as the 'flesh trade', may have cost only half the price of...

Russia warned America that the two countries appeared to be on a collision course, and also advised Europe that it must choose between collective suicide by following America,...

The unemployment machine Ferdinand Mount This is, I think, the moment at which the Officer commanding the recce into no man's land turns round and says: 'Look here, Timmis, I...

. Lessons from St Lawrence Auberon Waugh Montmaur, Aude, France At this time of year I generally invite readers of the Spectator to meditate on the death of St Lawrence the...

Tom Bethell Washington President Reagan, vacationing at his California ranch, signed the new Tax and Budget Bill last week. It will reduce government spending by a small amount...

Richard West At the end of his Caribbean journey in 1961, V.S. Naipaul remarked: 'There was for instance, little concern about West Indian emigration to Britain. It was a...

The condition of President Garfield is one to inspire grave anxiety, though the last accounts of him are decidedly better than those received early in the week. Inability to...

Brian Inglis Centenaries are often milked for far more than they deserve; but surely Thomas Stamford Raffles received less than his deserts when the bi-centenary of his birth...

Gavin Stamp `. . What the RPP have perpetrated amounts to a violation of sanity. It is treason . . . Ladies and Gentlemen, I beg you, hound them down . . These are words not...

C.H. Sisson The pretence that politics is an affair of conscience is very seductive. It enables those who promote it to think well of themselves. It flatters those who support...

Closed shop humbug Paul Johnson British newspapers, it seems to me, have been surprisingly mealy-mouthed in greeting the verdict of the Strasbourg Court of Human Rights on the...

More volatility Tony Rudd Markets today are like Test cricket: anything can happen. The slightest hope of lower interest rates in America and the US dollar falls at breakneck...

The right to live Sir: Donald Gould shows a curious inconsistency in his article 'The right to die' (15 August). He appears to recognise that the individual's legal right to...

Sir: George Gale finds it hard to comprehend saving up for a holiday in Peru as a reason for working, given to him by the 19-year-old daughter of his friend (8 August). His...

Sir: Why has your television critic — once a life-enhancing humorist — become so disagreeable? His articles are reminiscent not of sparkling Golden Balls but rather of the black...

Sir: Edward Norman's review of Dr Leonard's book God Alive: Priorities in Pastoral Theology (8 August) rightly celebrates the book's advocacy of orthodoxy and spirituality. The...

Sir: I have been a proponent of education vouchers for many years but I would favour tax credits or even Ferdinand Mount's interesting suggestion (1 August) that all teachers'...

Sir: I am undertaking a biographical study of the late Field Marshal Sir John Dill (Chief of the Imperial General Staff 194041; Head of the British Joint Staffs Mission,...

Patrick Devlin Suicide: The Philosophical Issues ed. M. Pabst Battin and David J. Mayo (Peter Owen pp. 292, £9.95) There still is not. I believe, a large and demanding public...

Christopher Hibbert Marie Antoinette Desmond Seward (Constable pp. 297, £8.95). While the formidable personalities of Danton and Mirabeau and the feline brilliance of...

Anthony Storr Romantics, Rebels and Reactionaries Marilyn Butler (Oxford pp. 213, £7.95, £3.95) The subtitle of Marilyn Butler's book, 'English Literature and its Background...

Mary Kenny Sex: Facts, Frauds and Follies Thomas Szasz (Blackwell pp. 208, £8.95, £3.50) Here is an interesting piece of information. Orthodox Jewish men have been...

Duncan Fallo well The Most Upsetting Woman Richard Buckle (Collins pp.288, £8.95) Oh, what it must be to come from an interesting family! This is the story of Richard Buckle's...

Christopher J. Walker The Armenians: A People in Exile David Marshall Lang (Allen and Unwin pp.203, 12.95) About half of the six-million-strong Armenian nation still lives in...

Paul Ableman The Glitter Dome Joseph Wambaugh (Weidenfeld and Nicolson pp.299, 6.95) I had heard of Joseph Wambaugh, of course, the L.A. cop turned best-seller writer, who kept...

Anthony Huxley Medieval English Gardens Teresa McLean (Collins pp.320, £12.50) T he Cottage Garden Anne Scott-James (Allen Lane pp.267, £9.95) I n many ways the medieval scene...

In depth John McEwen The Artist's Eye (National Gallery till 31 August) is the last of the present series of these shows, in which five of our best known artists have been...

Karl Bohm Rodney Milnes Maybe a good conductor has to be old before he can be granted star status. Karl &Aim, who died last week just before his 87th birthday, only really...

Departures Mark Amory The Mayor of Zalamea (Cottesloe) Much Ado About Nothing (Olivier) Tonight at 8.30 (Lyric) The Mayor of Zalamea is getting on for 350 years old, by...

Goggle eyed Peter Ackroyd In God We Trust ('AA, Plaza Leicester Square) This is, we are told, 'a Marty Feldman film'. I have never thought of Mr Feldman as an adjective...

All-embracing Richard Ingrams ITV seem to have decided that Sunday night is Lesbian night. Gay Life has only been off the air for a few weeks and now we have a gay film called...

Taken over Taki Athens I am about to have a nervous breakdown. A friend of mine who dabbles as an amateur shrink thinks my troubles stem from the fact that I'll never see 40...

Willing Jeffrey Bernard I read somewhere last week that there are 3 million widows in this country but only 800,000 widowers and it's a statistic that's been preying on my...