`It's a new Government-backed cigarette without any health warning.' M r Nigel Lawson introduced his third Budget. He reduced the standard rate of income tax by a penny, raised...

VIVE LA COHABITATION C 4 ohabitation.' The very word carries an intimation of nau g htiness, a hint of the risque. Unlike marria g e, we expect 'coha- bitation' to be neither...

1 ,s. ADVERTISED in the Spectator, the ,ritish Council is looking for a Director- General. 'Applicants should have substan- tial administrative experience, independ- ence of...

MR GEOFFREY Dickens, the Conserva- tive MP for Littleborou g h and Saddle- worth, is not without his uses. So g reat is the public anger about sexual crime that it was natural,...

T rying to puzzle out my future in the world of journalism during the last weeks I have been amazed at the way that those who write about the press have heralded the new...

The end of an era at Private Eye AUBERON WAUGH O n Friday I went to the Escargot Restaurant, in Greek Street, to collect a handsome silver-plated wine funnel from an old...

ALL CAPITALISTS NOWADAYS Ferdinand Mount explains why Mr Lawson is a better politician than he looks LIKE bowls and snooker before they were on television, capitalism has...

PENNY FROM LAWSON Jock Bruce-Gardyne wonders how relevant the Budget will be to the real problems in the economy THERE used to be a fashion — maybe there still is — to...

PIPS, PEPS AND PENSIONS Christopher Fildes on a reforming Chancellor with reinforced toecaps THIS is a difficult Budget for minds whose autopilots are still on the old...

Sam White finds that the Right's narrow victory has given Mitterrand a chance to be generous Paris THE principal winner of last Sunday's French parliamentary elections —...

Nicholas von Hoffman on the takeover fever that has struck America New York AMERICA'S third largest airline was sold the other day but it was a one-day story outside the...

Mr Arthur O'Connor on Tuesday tried to induce the House of Commons to crush Messrs W. H. Smith and Co. He declared that the great newsdealing firm made £148,000 a year out of...

Andrew Brown witnesses the apotheosis of the late Olof Palme Stockholm T HE Swedes will organise what other People only feel; one should not conclude from this that Swedes do...

Gerda Cohen meets the settlers and scorpion-watchers on the edge of Israeli territory Eilat THE most interesting thing in Israel since my last visit has been the introduction...

Ronald Payne argues that the crimes of those on trial should be revealed IT CAME as shock to a London jury of eight women and four men 'good and true' who had just found...

Outsiders: a profile of John Vincent, the historian the Bristol Left want to silence TO THOSE who have not really thought about him, John Vincent appears to be a bundle of...

Roy Kerridge on the odd appeal to a later generation of Woody Guthrie's songs IN THE late Fifties, when I left grammar school and went to art school, the music of school and...

Richard West on the sorry agreement to build the Channel tunnel Canterbury THE Mayor of Canterbury, Mrs Hazel McCabe, and the four Tory MPs in East Kent, refused to attend...

LESS THAN HALF PRICE More stimulating than any lecture, funnier than the set books, The Spectator should be required reading for every student. With Student Subscriptions...

The media: Paul Johnson on the duty to discourage violence THIS week it is Budget week. Last week it was rape week. The media's attitude to rape is, of course, ambivalent....

A production error made nonsense of a sentence in last week's article by Nicholas Coleridge. The passage should have read: The majority of highly paid City boys are not nouveau...

How the boss went down Andrew Martin T he judges of this year's Young Writer Awards, presented on Monday, were Charles Moore, editor of the Spectator, Mark Amory, literary...

Sir: The Times was certainly a great news - paper when Britain ruled the waves, but not as Peregrine Worsthorne remembered it (`The battle for good journalism', 1 March). Long...

Sir: I was heartened to read Jeffrey ne r i nard's tirade about the 'bloody nerve ( , ) , 1 the Maidstone Prison convict who sti l ' owes him £50 but had 'the gall' to be...

Faith in the city Sir: Your cover picture of a disappearing St George-in-the-East with the title 'The Church vanishes' (8 March) and the accompanying article are misleading. We...

SUBSCRIBE TODAY! Please enter a subscription to The Spectator I enclose my cheque for ; (Equivalent $US & Eurocheques accepted) RATES: 12 Months 6 Months UK/Eire 0 £41.00 0...

A good father Elizabeth Jenkins BELOVED QUIXOTE: THE UNKNOWN LIFE OF JOHN MIDDLETON MURRY by Katherine Middleton Murry I n this book, which contains her own childish...

Eric Christiansen THE IMPACT OF PLAGUE IN TUDOR AND STUART ENGLAND by Paul Slack RKP, £25 T hey used to say that war is the ruin of serious soldiering. Too much disorder, too...

Anita Brookner A PERFECT SPY by John Le Carre Hodder & Stoughton, f9.95 A perfect spy is a spy without a cause, someone drawn to the trade by helpful advisers and a guiltily...

Nicholas Coleridge QUEEN ELIZABETH: A LIFE OF THE QUEEN MOTHER by Penelope Mortimer Viking, £12.95 I n the course of researching an article about the Queen Mother's circle...

Elizabeth Smart died on 4 March. This poem first appeared in In the Meantime (Deneau, 1985), published in her native Canada. My Dear Jeff, I can't say enough how much I admire...

Harriet Waugh IMPOSTORS by George V. Higgins Andre Deutsch, f9.95 G eorge Higgins is a novelist who writes about Boston. If any of its citizens lead regular, comfortable...

Miranda Seymour THE NEXT BEST THING by John Ralston Saul Grafton Books, f9.95 Y ou can't read a book by looking at its cover but you do hope to get some clue as to its...

Christine Verity EVIL ANGELS by John Bryson Viking, £12.95 0 rwell described the typical English murder as 'the old domestic poisoning drama' ideally to be read about in the...

Philip Best A dramatised version of Mervyn Peake's novel Mr Pye is currently being shown on Channel Four. M ervyn Peake came into my life early in the last war when a...

Cinema Beating time Peter Ackroyd Clockwise (PG', selected cinemas) J ohn Cleese might not represent every- body's idea of a good time, but there is no doubt that he can...

Spanish connections Peter Phillips T here was some solid enthusiasm on display in the Queen Elizabeth Hall last Saturday evening (15 March) to mark the end of the Joaquin...

Impressionist Drawings (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, till 20 April) Sixteen Studios (Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, till 29 March) Away day Giles Auty fter a hard winter, the...

Orphans (Hampstead) The Threepenny Opera (National: Olivier) Yes, but Christopher Edwards T his new play by the American author Lyle Kessler falls decidedly into the 'yes,...

French lesson Alexander Chancellor W hat has happened to the good old days when Frenchmen were rude to fo - reigners and refused to either speak or understand any language but...

Redressing the balance Taki My fate was worse. The egregious Papa would send me to the stockade on the slightest pretext. To this day neither Zog nor I have ever understood...

Reluctant participant Alice Thomas Ellis am again wondering why we go t0 parties where we have to stand up becaus e most of the chairs have been removed 111 order to make room...

Identity crisis Jeffrey Bernard I don't know what the world's coming to. I do actually, but don't let's talk about it today. Are people quite mad? Last week, one of those...

Blackwash blackout P. J. Kavanagh I s it possible for anyone's thinking not to be tainted (or directed — as you wish) by racism, sexism, ageism? To take a couple of tiny...

750: Spring has sprung by Mass A first prize of £20 and two further prizes of £10 (or a copy of Chambers Dictionary, now price £12.95 — ring the words `Chambers Dictionary'...

A dozen odd Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1412 you were in- vited to compose a plausible piece of prose i ncluding a dozen given words, in any order. This formula always...

Nunn event Raymond Keene T he GLC Chess Challenge is producing some truly fascinating chess. Murray Chandler and Jim Plaskett have been involved in some particularly exciting...

NOT very long ago, Spanish wine meant, to the vast majority of British imbibers, something cheap and cheerful: a euphem- ism for nasty, heavy and oxidised. Low estimation of...

Winners: Mrs D. Perry, Budleigh Salterton, Devon (£20); K. H. Grose, Dunbar; I. E. Gray, London WC1.

You are invited to write a verse or two (maximum 16 lines) in the style of Cole Porter's immortal 'You're the Top', substi- tuting for 'top' an uncomplimentary equivalent....