Nixon's desperate clinging to an office which daily he weakens, ',s so far been the virtual disappearance of the 'ea of a redrafted Atlantic Charter which would redefine a new...

Growth not balance LAST WEEK the news of a sharply deteriorating balance of payments position sent a shiver through the City; and the nation as a whole, despite the heat-wave,...

Sir, I find it difficult to believe that your article "Cleaning up the City" really appeared in The Spectator and not Tribune. With what authority do you assert that the public...

Sir: I do not know where Mr Hopkins (Letters, June 16) saw Enoch Powell's "unequivocal declaration concerning Britain's withdrawal from the EEC. ' When interviewed by Alistair...

Sir: In the final paragraph of your leader (June 16) you say in reference to the Common Market, " Heath will assuredly keep us in for good, Wilson will probably take us out." I...

notice of my novel Experiment at Proto but, for the record, may I correct some of his more gaudy generalisations. I do indeed write about the arts in the Sunday Times, but as a...

speech by the pro-Market lobby, clearly indicates that they are far more worried by the truth of his warning than they are prepared to admit to evert themselves! However, the...

a great meal is well nigh im possible, and certainly not an achieve ment come by intentionally. And given that most meals described as great are probably little better than...

Sir: Before the P & 0 throw in the towel for half a million pounds and decide to content themselves with memories of past glory, perhaps we should take a long, cool look at the...

Pleasant as it is to see Wyndham ,eWis seriously, and civilly, reviewed `., n0 W that he is safely dead). there are Tne things in Peter Ackroyd's piece 4 ° 0 ut him (June 9)...

Sir: Poor Hilaire! His opinion of politicians, never very high, must surely be sinking to unplumbed depths as, from his lofty perch, he sees himself misrepresented twice in the...

Sir: I thank Mr Ian Harvey for his courteous admission of error (Letters, June 9). He finds my address amusing. May I say that quite high on the list of things I dislike about...

Sir: I have been invited by the Hogarth Press and Professor Quentin Bell to edit the letters of Virginia Woolf. I would be most grateful for the originals or copies of any such...

Sir: I suppose that the British Medical Association are right in refusing to prescribe in respect of contraceptive sheaths. However, neither Dr Eban nor Dr Linklater (Letters,...

Next week's elections for the new Northern Ireland assembly possess a very great potential for good or evil. They may turn out to be typical elections, in that they will change...

Who goes home? ratrick Cosgrave , the House of Lords last week a judgement iiI 1 1 ,;s made (by Lords Wilberforce and Pearson, Ith the concurrence of Lords Hodson and Kilt0...

Compulsory integration weighed and found wanting David Warren Ryder Almost two decades have passed since the socalled Warren Decision of the Supreme Court commanding...

We homeless onservatives knthony Lejeune 01 e need not be homeless oneself to apPreciate the plight of those who are. So it is Perhaps not unreasonable for those of us (an I...

BEING IN an expansive mood. Puzzle syinpathised over the weekend with the .poor' Prime Minister, who told Kenneth Harris of himself, "Another thing is that I enjoy talking. A...

Education Spare the rod and..? David Wyn Williams The recent spate of reports of muggings and beatings in schools has rightly brought the problem of the growing violence...

Abuses of the student 'Bernard Dixon There have been official and unofficial reports aplenty in recent years on all aspects of higher education. Except one. The research...

Feathered casualties Peter Quince The family of blue-tits which was hatched in a crack in the brickWork outside my bedroom window has just emerged to face the world. They lined...

Spare ground, spare room Denis Wood Behind high-falutin' stuff about unity, scale, contrast, surprise, there are at least two down-toearth matters which should engage our...

A funny thing happened at o'clock last Thursday afternoon — Malleny won the Newbury Spring Cup for the second year running and my assets arrived back in the ' nineties '. And so...

Benny Green In spite of the fact that the Sha dow Cabinet says so, there are still a great many gates of privi lege in Britain which remain bar red and shuttered, so presumably...

Richard Luckett on the history of Mr Wells It would be interesting to know why the second law of thermodynamics should be of such significance to second rate novelists. It was,...

Tony Palmer The Company with the Heart of Gold Stuart Cloete (Collins, £1.80) A Ball of Malt and Madame Butterfly Benedict Kiely (Gollancz, £2.60) Very Personal Problems Paul...

Peter Ackroyd English Literature and Irish Politics Matthew Arnold (Volume IX of the Collected Prose Works) (University of Michigan Press £7.50) It is odd that Matthew Arnold...

Robert Nye Guide to Modern World Literature Martin Seymour-Smith (Wolfe £10.00) Case Number One. Name: Seemore. Crime; Extreme. The line occurs in a poem by Martin...

Patrick 'Cosgrove A sense of entrapment is a very important' part of the impact of some thrillers including some ot the classics. The hero, even if he is some kind of...

Bill Platypus A selection this week which testifies to the range, if not the health, of the paper boom. First. The penguin Book of English Madrigals . (60p) edited by Denis...

Bookbuyer In a week when one expects a touch of midsummer madness, it is uplifting to observe how the British book trade retains its sanity. Not for publishers the eccentricity...

Kenneth Hurren: Hey nonny nonny and mostly no The Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-upon-Avon is clearly having such a merry old time in Shakespeare's As You Like It,...

Forsyth saga Christopher Hudson It isn't in the least grudging to Fred Zinnemann the director to say that his film of The Day of the Jackal ('A; Paramount) could hardly go...

Personalised painting Evan Anthony If in future exhibitions Diane Hills maintains the level of intensity, vulgarity and theatricality that in forms her present and first...

Carry on singing Rodney %Ines Aristocrats seem to have s topped composing in their spare time; the age of the part-time dilettante is past .We don't hear of the Duke of...

Waspe American money invested in American shows for production in London with a long-term view looking to subsequent production on Broadway is invariably lost without trace....

The Morning Cloud of trade returns Nicholas Davenport We live in an age of scandal but the wicked trade figures for May — a deficit on current account of £151 million — would...

Riding high John Bull I can start this week with further self-congratulation following the excellent reception given to the Averys results. The shares were well up on my...

The Slater Walker /Hill Samuel deal, has, mysteriously, not been referred to the Monopolies Commission, though on the loosest interpretation of the rules it should have been...

Return to the East Nephew Wilde Like a knight returning from a crusade, I am again established in London. My battle for a seat on one of the newly formed county councils was...