Mrs Thatcher has made few mistakes since she became leader of the Conservative Party: but she made one with t ier commitment in Perth last week on the devolution Z,ne. The...

The American primaries produced two significant results: in his home state of Michigan President Ford trounced the Western actor Mr Ronald Reagan, to the surprise of many. An...

More level than others John Grigg All our leading politicians will have their intelligence and adroitness severely tested during the coming months, and this may be...

No relationship between solicitor and client could be stranger than that between Mr Er ic Levine and Mr • James Goldsmith. First, Mr Levine writes to the Times to de fend in...

The ants and the slugs Auberon Waugh It was Flaubert, of course, who said everything which needs to be said about modern China: 'A mesure que l'humanite se perfectionne,...

Yoram Dinstein Jerusalem Torture in the course of police interrogation I s , Perhaps, the most hideous violation of human rights. It is also one of the hardest to prove or...

for thinkers: The first examination offering the certificate in General Thinking Skills (GTS) will be held on 19th June. The examination is open to anyone. There is no set...

David Boulton No one asked President Tito about his political prisoners when he visited Athens last week on the eve of his eighty-fourth birthday. In contrast, he seems to have...

Leslie Finer Washingto n With less than three weeks to go before the final primary contests on 8 June, the race for the American Presidential nominations is still wide open....

I h egacy uan van der Vat Bonn . t ir if f t L Y-fi ve Years after being shot out of hand N - 1, ' ' e end of a botched rebellion in Berlin, Wh ich she of opposed but later...

Robin Hanbury-Tenison Last October The Times carried a four-page advertisement for the State of Sabah, no doubt little known to most Times readers. Formerly North Borneo, Sabah...

Michael Ledeen The discussion of the Vatican's role in the destruction of the European Jews continues unabated. The most recent contribution to this important debate is the...

Julian Amery Many—perhaps most—political leaders have entered politics by accident and espoused particular causes by opportunity. They have, no doubt, paid lip service to the...

Philip Norman I did not enjoy cross-country running at school. They sent us on two alternative runs around the edge of Ryde, 'short Binstead' and long Binstead', or on a...

Hans Keller The degeneration of English football, which reaches back over a decade, well beyond out youngest spectators' memory and indeed spanning an entire football...

Andrew Alexander My friend the Professor has a saying that the correct definition of a safe investment is an investment whose dangers are not at that moment apparent. It...

Meterology Elisabeth Dunn Just up the road from these very offices, London's traffic wardens learn the tricks of their highly specialised trade. Their training includes a...

The folly of the ECI Nicholas Davenport The life and pension funds are elephantine in size—approaching £4000 million net a Y e ar—but to see them performing like a t ame...

Sir: Jim Higgins, commenting on the ADM of the National Union ofJournalists, claims, 'What cannot be said, on the evidence of Buxton, is that the NUJ represents any threat to...

Sir: It is not for me to complain if Amit Roy breaches the confidentiality of an off-therecord meeting at which he was present. Nor would I wish to correct a number of errors in...

Sir: Mr Ludovic Kennedy's article on Scotland is so full of false analogies and unsupported generalisations that it is impossible to deal with all of them in a brief letter and...

I May) I inadvertently referred to A.L. (later Sir Arthur) Hobhouse as 'almost halfwitted'. I regret using this expression. I should have made it clear that this phrase was...

Sir: Mr John Biggs-Davison's contribution (29 April) is striking in that no item of evidence adduced in the text supports the title chosen for the article, 'England's other...

his godson (Dear) 2 —my husband was thus addresse d by the President of a Cambridge mathematical Society. Joan Dear 12 Oakhi II Drive, Welwyn, Herts.

the question of the outbreak of transvesti sm in the theatre, but he is unable to provide answer. Can anyone? No sooner is the legi slation extending women's rights upon, us...

to me and so also was the c , 9r respondence following, but I am nevertneless surprised that the scientific world has allowed him to get away with his condescending remarks...

Sir : The release and deportation of Mr Thomas Webb, a British subject, by the warlord Amin, after a month's 'detention' in Uganda, renders a certain comparison easier. Not...

Sir: It is surely the country's loss that neither Tory nor Labour Governments have taken heed of Mr Nicholas Davenport's case for low interest rates. The financial establishment...

Sir: How can Mr John Biggs-Davison describe Eoghan Rua 6 Neill as Old English ? He was a Gael, descended from King Niall of the Nine Hostages. I would like to point out that...

Nixon Agonistes Peter Ackroyd The Final Days Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein (Secker and Warburg £4.90) The American public likes being fooled : what other nation, outside the...

Simon Raven M adonnas and Magdalens: The Origins and Development of Victorian Sexual Attitudes Eric Trudgill (Heinemann £6.50) Pr omiscuity Michael Schofield (Gollancz £6.50)...

John Wells William Beckford James Lees-Milne (Compton Russel £5.50) Whether William Beckford would have gone on to make an impressive and respectable career in public life if...

Richard Shone Walter Sickert: A Biography DenYs Sutton (Michael Joseph £10.50) It is an extraordinary feat. Denys Sutton has managed to make the life of Sickert trivial....

Duncan Fallowell The Smell of Hay Giorgio Bassani (Weidenfeld and Nicolson £3.95) Giorgio Bassani has a lovely way of moving. His boyish self slides through this collection of...

Benny Green The First Cuckoo Edited by Kenneth Gregory (Times Book; George Allen and Unwin £4.50) Who, apart from the obviously interested parties, reads the correspondence...

Olivia Manning Life After Death: Essays by Arnold Toynbee, Rosalind Heywood, ArthUr Koestler and Others (Weidenfeld and Nicolson £4.95) Pliny said : 'There is one thing...

HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY by Kenneth Walker. L. Parker, 20, Gaieties de la Reine. 1000 Brussels, Belgium. HE WALKS IN TWO WORLDS by Maurice Barbanel!, WHITE CLIFFS TO CORAL REEF. A...

William Sargant The Letters of C. G. Jung. Volume Two: 1 951.1961 Selected and edited by Gerhard Adler (Routledge and Kegan Paul £11.50) The Bollinger Foundation must now be...

Simon Jenkins Travels Jan Morris (Faber £4.50) 'I am a cultist of the genii loci,' writes Jan Morris, 'of those misty and marvellous spirits which are, I believe, literally...

Tricolore tape Christine Brooke-Rose Paris Top people in South American countries apparently tell visiting Frenchmen (according to one of them) that France ought to export, not...

Rural camp John McEwen With Hugh Casson as the new President, and Peter Blake as a new Associate being al lowed to fill one room of the Royal A cademy's Summer Exhibition (till...

Bad habits Ian Cameron A perennial problem in writing about a medium which records, adapts or purloins its material as widely and freely as the cinema is simple lack of...

Mr Harold Pinter has informed us that the parenthetic reference to him by Kenneth Hurren in our issue of 24 April, to the effect that 'he has, I believe, abandoned the practice...

Contrivances Kenneth Hurren Bus Stop by William Inge (Phoenix) Yesterday's News (Royal Court) William Inge was an American playwright who flourished over there in the 'fifties...

John Bridcut Ti3e first Punch and Judy show in the Covent Gar den of the Restoration was suitably r , ` °11. nriemorated earlier this month, so it was for tuitously apposite...

Post-mortem Jeffrey Bernard The business of knowing what to do when you leave school is a very tricky and important one, requiring prolonged, rational thought. I left school...