Next week Mr Heath and his ministers will gather in a kind of summit to assess the progress of the Government thus far, to consider the situation at home and abroad confronting...

"That man is not very far from you now ", said Mr Powell, employing a spot of circumlocution which Jesus himself was rather fond of in his more didactic moments. Pressed further...

Hugh Reay n the printed paper office of the House of Lords two publications had been set out as Material for the Northern Ireland debates, both pamphlets of about a dozen...

Thursday, September 23: At the end of the Ni debate, Labour left-wingers forced a division against their leadership's advice, while in Ulster businessmen feared the troubles...

Richard Chancellor If this country is to be as free from Russian espionage as our own strongest efforts can make us, then a great deal more remains to be done, even after the...

Simon Raven The Tour starts in East Kent. A week before the end of July a rather breathless party assembles, most of its members being people who have known each other a long...

Oliver Stewart In these disastrous multiple pile-ups on the motorways the destruction is caused not by speed; not by weight; but by their product. Momentum, as I pointed out a...

John Rowan Wilson Willowbrook is a large residential schoa on Staten Ireland in New York housing 9 population of 5,000 mentally defective children. Over the last fifteen years...

Dennis Hackett And on the fifth day, there were mornin g papers. And they were able to record not only that they had settled their internal dissensions (till next time) but...

Strange noises, which to some will sound frightening and to others comforting, are coming out of exalted places. These noises spell out that possibly Mr Ian Paisley would not be...

A choice of tyrants Reviews by Auberon Waugh John Casey and Michael Bentley In its obituary of Nikita Khrushchev the Times remarked that the late Soviet leader possessed...

Travels in Nihilon Alan Sillitoe (W. H. Allen £2.00) The Nerve Melvyn Bragg (Secker and Warburg £1.90) The Disinherited Peter Forster (Eyre and Spottiswoode £2.25) This week's...

John Casey Religion and Literature Helen Gardner (Faber £2.00) Religion and Literature consists of two courses of lectures. The first half of the book — 'Religion and Tragedy'...

Michael Bentley The History of the Liberal Party Roy Douglas (Sidgwick and Jackson £5.00) When the parti-pris historian manipulates the past in order to say encouraging things...

Evan Anthony As have trouser turn-ups and Jesus, academies may one day enjoy a revival of interest. In the meantime, the Royal Academy of Art should give some thought to ways...

Christopher Hudson Like a number of celebrated directors — Ford and Godard come to mind — Luis Builuel has given the impression recently of being frozen in the attitudes of his...

Kenneth Hurren There is a generation around the theatre, now, whose members won't remember a time when even serious playwrights used to tell stories as well as deliver messages...

If Noel Picarda Kemp fails to clinch adoption as the Tory candidate to oppose Jeremy Thorpe next time round at North Devon (the local executive meet next Friday), it won't be...

Barber's money or trade war Nicholas Davenport This highly dramatised meeting of the International Monetary Fund in Washington, attended by all the Finance Ministers and their...

In 1857 a track was laid in the Bois du Boulogne, but it was not until 1920 that the world's richest and most prestigious race was first run to celebrate the ending of the...

More changes at London Weekend Television. Lombard Banking, with 8 per cent of the equity worth £118,000, must sell now they are a National Westminster Bank subsidiary. They...

Wasps seem to be abnormally plentiful this year. I say "seem to be" because I half-suspect we make the same observation e ery year. I suppose it must some times be true....

Ou the island the En g lish newspapers usually arrived on the afternoon of the followin g day, althou g h there was no tellin g which papers they would be. " Travel does stran...

Nigeria It's a good life in the colonies. The food is pretty rough but you can get HP sauce and coffee bernoise so I suppose that makes the rest tolerable. Even so, here in...

New Liberal peer to ex-Liberal peer From Lord Avebury (formerly Mr Eric Lubbock) Sir. If the article by Lord Reay (September 18), represents his true opinions, which I have no...

From Professor H. J. Eysench Sir: In your issue of September 18 you publish an article by Patrick Cosgrove, arguing against current trends in educational practices which, as he...

From Lt-Col Colin Mitchell, MP Sir: The Irish debate in the House of Commons was a field day for the Speaker's Mafia — that select group of backbenchers who dominate the land of...

Sir: Mr Powell's review (September 25) depends on a Burkian arrangement of draperies to conceal prospects even more disagreeable than those he unveils. We are entitled to take...

Sir: Having criticised The Spectator for that tasteless contribution about Princess Anne, and urged the swift removal of the subterranean Palmer, honesty compels me to write to...

Sir: I don't suppose there is an effective way to answer a journalistic effort that surpasses in gratuitous malice even what we have come to expect from Fleet Street's...

Sir: I hasten to say that I am not writing to complain of the highly critical review Mr Kenneth Hurren gave my new play Don't Just Lie There, Say Something! in The Spectator. I...

Sir: ' Lord Melchett and the Crisis in Steel ' makes sorry reading, but what else could we expect of an industry which has suffered so much from changing government policy and...

From Professor G. S. Rousseau Sir: Living in California, as I do, I have just read with interest Peter Watson-Smyth's article (July 31) on the date of Gray's Elegy Writ ten in a...