television failed to concentrate on the most vital emphasis of Sir Keith Joseph's speech at Birmingham, thus indicating something we could have expected — that the dramatic rise...

1.1 has not needed the severity of present Interest rates and the resultant financial Pa ?°n1 to indicate the yawning gap !•yeeri industry's short-term credit needs 7olch are...

Promising though it is that the Prime Minister has embarked on consultations with the Chancellor of the Exchequer with a view to examining the extraordinary inequity by which...

Almost unnoticed in the welter of postelection activity was the decision of the Government not to go ahead with — indeed to veto any progress on — discussions towards the...

Sir: On July 27, you were kind enough to publish a letter from me warning of the geo-political machinations of the Soviet Union in the Middle East and the 521 manner in which...

Sir: Your admirable assessment of the Conservative Party (October 10), the verdict of which has been supported by the electorate, calls into question the leadership of Edward...

Labour PartY polled within 200,000 of its FebruarY total Ph million Conservatives stayed away and some 700,000 (possibly els ° Conservatives) who in February voted Liberal did...

everyone. To Put it no higher, our legislators are g. eing to be physically overworked. Isn't it time any recommendation to the Monarch for a dissolution within say the first...

didn't mention the full complement M Peachum's gang — Jemmy Twitcher, ° Miming Ned, Harry Paddington and all. The list ends with Ben Budge, whom Gay (with the quaint orthography...

Sir: It is interesting to learn from Joan llobinson (October 19) that undernouri shment is the most important symptom Poverty, and that children during the • r were less...

fi . 0 be put in one's place twice courteously but twice — in a siingle edition of The Spectator (October ' 2) and that during the middle of a general election is a somewhat...

Sir: Mr Ackroyd was kind enough to give the above book (which I translated from Italian) an excellent review, in spite of the fact that he is obviously totally unsympathetic to...

Sir: Rupert Croft Cooke's rose coloured spectacles (October 19) were not focused on car driving because he doesn't do it any more, but you may be interested in the observations...

From Professor T. E. Rowell Sir: The mounting hysteria in which The Spectator increasingly preoccupies itself with human reproduction is unfitting to a journal with...

Patrick Cosgrave The last week has seen a series of moves by two different sets of people to help Mr Heath retain his leadership of the Conservative party; and it is important...

at the Present age bemoans the supposed disappearance of the art of conversation killed, it is said, "Y the hurry and anxieties of life, or by the Pularity of bingo, the cinema...

The Ramsey years Edward Norman During the nineteen-sixties the English churches appeared to undergo a considerable collapse of confidence. There was a crisis both of values...

Michael Jefferson IS is the second of a number of articles under the general title, Inflation and Stabilisation, each „, - ,_,hich suggests a prognosis and cure for the nation's...

Nothing new under the sun H.C. Allen Historians have long fallen from their high estate as society's chief priests . of political (let alone economic) diagnosis and...

Flight into depression David Wragg While the demands of nationalised industry for subsidies and the collapse of private airlines might be considered commonplace, and only...

Café talk Danny Halperin Spaniards have as scant a respect (pr their architectural gems as have our own developers. Last year the biggest café at Cullera, a fishing port and...

Successes for Peking S.1VI Ali Hong Kong Without really trying hard, China seems to be winning one diplomatic battle after another against both the Soviet Union and India....

Monday, October 21 There was this day the most depressing intelligence that I can remember. Certain hired friends of Mr Heath's disseminated the news that he would stay as Tory...

Eton—changing the image, keeping the identity Colin Meakin Mr Michael McCrum stands an imposing inch or two over six feet. He is, as one of his associates once remarked, "a...

The McTavish woman Juin Linklater Those of us who followed the McTavish murder trial were relieved to see that misguided idealism was not advanced as a motive, and that it was...

Geller and the gullible Piernard Dixon For me, the most intriguing aspect °f the Geller affair — does Uri Geller „ ts,,se normal or paranormal means to ° L e n. d keys and...

Belt up Bill Grundy Whenever I hear the words, "We must tighten our belts," I reach for mine, just to see if my revolver is still there. That is why it was dangerous to come...

GKN: more trouble Philip Kleinman Pity poor Lord Drumalbyn. When last mentioned in this column, the chairman of the Advertising Stan dards Authority was being handed a...

Through the fire Martin Sullivan When Shylock . softly replied to Antonio's harsh criticism of his money-lending practices, the Jew spoke for all his people, "Still have I...

Robert Blake on a rational conservative In his famous Chichele Lectures, delivered soon after the war, L. S. Amery partly demolished the view of the English constitution...

Eysenck he A natomy of Human Destructiveness. Erich r anun (Jonathan Cape 1,4.50) 0 he approaches a new book by Erich Fromm h With 2 somewhat ambivalent attitudes. He is h `...

Noel Barber An Indian Summer James Cameron (Macmillan £3.50). To me, this book is pure joy, for like James Cameron I have been in love with India for years, and loving India...

Occult colin Wilson The Romeo Error Lyall Watson (Hodder and " Le ughton £3.25) 1 , 11 ) . LYall Watson is a biologist who spent some ` I Pe working with Desmond Morris, the...

A.L. Rowse Masks and Façades: Sir John Vanbrugh, Madeleine Bingham (Allen and Unwin £6.95) What reason we have to be grateful to Vanbrugh! I love him for his great houses —...

, 1 ".klan Brien Life of Jesus Christ Lord Longford ‘' ) idgwick and Jackson E3.50) Until the early years of the last century, little atte L . rnpt was made to construct a...

Llew Gardner Engels, Manchester and the Working Class Steven Marcus (Weidenfeld and Nicolson £.5.25) An odd book. Captivating and infuriating and flawed by a confusion of aims....

Long longings Peter Ackroyd Something Happened Joseph Heller (Jonathan Cape £3.25) The inordinate length of the modern American novel has been noticed before – perhaps it is...

There once was a man... Benny Green I am not at all sure I would enjoy sharing a railway carriage with a man capable of this: Thrippy pilliwinx — inkly tinsv pobblebookle...

Bookbuyer doesn't like the Frankfurt Book Fair. And he isn't very fond of Frankfurt either. And the German economic miracle palls a bit. They all seem able to afford the prices....

Auden end 111 ,0ney Eines That Hans Werner Henze is an out standingly successful opera c ,O r oPoser there is no doubt. Tantali singly brief glimpses of Boulevard S , Witude...

Island people Kenneth Hurren The Dame of Sark by William Douglas Home (Wyndham's) The Little Hut by Andre Roussin, adapted by Nancy Mitford (Duke of York's) The Can Opener by...

Was pe A late-in-the-day performance by the Belgian ballet-showmaster Maurice Mart, might have have been seen at the London Music Digest's concert in London this week. He was...

Death's funny side Duncan Fallowell 99 and 4 ti 4 % Dead! Director: John Frankenheimer. Stars: Richard Harris, Edmund O'Brien: 'AA' Rialto (98 minutes) The Odessa File...

Ralph Harris The economic situation is of course a good deal worse than the three p a rtY leaders let it be known during the election. Not that they were — n il this occasion —...