30 MARCH 1974

Page 1

The Budget —meretricious and useless

The Spectator

As Mr Heath observed in reply to the Chancellor's Budget speech, Mr Healey had a most difficult task: he had only three weeks to prepare his first Budget, and most Chancellors...

Page 4

Election lessons

The Spectator

From Viscountess Bangor Sir: I wrote last week to Mr Patrick Cosgrave to congratulate him on expressing (without 'moderation', thank Heavens!) what so many of us feel about the...

Sir: Not one of your correspondents makes direct reference to what I consider is Heath's most disgraceful act.

The Spectator

Not content with mismanaging the country to the tune of about £2,000 million, he costs us yet a further £2,000 million by introducing the three day week episode — quite...

Tory policy

The Spectator

Sir; 1 marvel at the audacity of Mr Angus Maude (March 16) in soliciting support from young couples "who had been encouraged to undertake the responsibilities of home ownership...

Ancient parallel

The Spectator

Sir: In his Histories, translated by Aubrey de Selincourt (Penguin Classics), Herodotus describes a contest for the thorne of Egypt between the incumbent King Apries, "who is...

Market mania

The Spectator

Sir: I am sick and tired of reading in The Spectator that the majority of the British public do not wish to be members of the Common Market. You appear to be disciples of...

Incomes policy

The Spectator

Sir: In your editorial of March 23 you say: . . . the election result constituted a decisive rejection of Phase Three, and the policy of standing up to wage claims." I beg to...

Sir: In support of your commendably' consistent stand against the

The Spectator

"folly" of a statutory incomes policy, and against "the absurd sophistries and complica tions of Phase Three" in particular (March 23), the following passage — from the 1973...

Sir: A statutory incomes policy has been approved by. eighteen

The Spectator

million Conservatives and Liberals against ll million Labour voters. Yet Mr Cosgrave suggests that Mr Heath's "espousal of a statutory policy ha s been decisively rejected by...

Page 5

Press and pnvacy

The Spectator

Sir: Criticism of the recent Press Council report has been directed at the findin g s. We are more concerned with the implications. It is of fundamental 'mPortance that the...

ogdelene Colle g e, Cambrid g e.

The Spectator

Investment income Si r : Mr Nicholas Davenport may be a soPhisticated and experienced ec°nomist, but he should not deal in outri g h t lies. May I q uote from his 4 tkiece in...

Buchan and Yates

The Spectator

Sir: I read with g reat pleasure Mr Richard Usborne's preview of his forthcomin g second edition of Clubland Heroes, (March 16) and await with ea g erness its publication. I...

Wine bluffs

The Spectator

Miss Vandyke Price is up in arms A g ainst a monstrous Bluff: A book on4nakin g wines at home Like some commercial stuff. What! — make a wine that really tastes Like those one...

London schools

The Spectator

Sir: If your readers were to take Richard Wort's letter of March 15 seriously they would become very confused, Educational salvation in London is to be achieved by makin g the...

Disraeli and Oxford

The Spectator

Sir: I have j ust read with g reat interest Christine Pemberton's article on the Oxford Union in your issue of January 15. Unfortunately. however. she includes Disraeli in her...

Abortion

The Spectator

Sir: Dr D. M. Jenkins(Letters, March 23) accuses me of bein g as hostile to Reds under beds as to the Scarlet women in them. (and not content with that, he dra g s in the red...

Red menace

The Spectator

Sir: 1 quite agree with Miss Reid's letter about the Communist menace. Visitors from Russia and Poland recently were appalled at our complacemy. We are such fools we never...

Page 6

Sir Alec-the first gentleman

The Spectator

Patrick Cosgrave It is practically impossible to write about the fundamental kindliness and goodness of Sir Alex Douglas-Home without resort to cliche; and the strange thing is...

Page 7

A Spectator's Notebook

The Spectator

I Should like to start my stint by agreeing with my distinguished predecessor, Angus Maude, at any rate as to his complaint: "If we ar e to have another general election within...

Page 8

Seduction of the people

The Spectator

David Holbrook What, I wonder, will the Labour Government do, about the deliberate debauching of public taste, by pornography and sadism, in commercial culture? In the GLC, the...

Page 9

Pornography under Labour (2)

The Spectator

Emancipation not suppression Leo Abse \Yhen squalid and irrelevant sexual scandals hit a Tory government, there is always one Predictable but improbable scapegoat — the...

Page 10

Election Aftermath

The Spectator

Reflections on defeat Derek Coombs Is it really a month since the result of the general election? It only seems like yesterday, remembering the count and the Yardley result....

Brussels Letter

The Spectator

CAP as a social policy Gerald Segal It can have been no easy task for Mr Pr e ; 1 Peart, meeting with the rest of the Agricur tural Ministers of the Nine, to achieve til e t;...

Page 11

Pakistan Letter

The Spectator

The troubles of Mr Bhutto Kuldip Nayar Permanent arches have been put up all along the road from the Indian border to Lahore, a distance of fifteen miles, to welcome the...

Terrorists

The Spectator

'The new movement' Ian Meadows Three years ago at a Palestinian refugee camp George Habbach, leader of the Palestine Popular Front, emerged from the shadows and gave a press...

Page 12

Westminster Corridors

The Spectator

The other day I was driving in an hack through the Town when my attention was taken by a newsboy who shouted: "Heath to be replaced — Tories will rebel." Uncertain of the...

Page 13

Press

The Spectator

Newspapers under pressure Bill Grundy Let me ask you a serious question. Could you get along without the national press? I ask the question because you may very well have to,...

Advertising

The Spectator

Award winners Philip Kleinman The advertising awards season is upon us again. Last Thursday night the ball started rolling with the National Broadcast Advertising Festival,...

Page 14

Science

The Spectator

Social concern Bernard Dixon Scientists are unique among professional people in that though their work often has tremendous repercussions in society, they do not have to meet...

Religion

The Spectator

The Samaritan story Martin Sullivan From time to time, it is a useful exercise to take a well known Biblical narrative and to subject it to close literary criticism. As an...

Gardening

The Spectator

Asparagus Denis Wood This vain and transitory life would be the less supportable were it not for those vegetables of which we eat the stems and shoots, chief among them...

Page 15

The God Life

The Spectator

Consuming disinterest Pamela Vandyke Price This is the season when those who !re putting off attempting to clean '.1? their living quarters after the Winter, go all 'best buy,'...

Page 16

Spring Books (1)

The Spectator

Joan Robinson on Galbraith, women and economic sense Professor Galbraith has cast himself for the role, among economists, of the child who remarked that the Emperor had no...

Page 17

Baubles, bangles, pearl beads

The Spectator

peter Ackroyd Texts for Nothing Samuel Beckett (Calder and L l oYars £1.95) i 'leinzeit Russell Hoban (Jonathan Cape £2.25) Mutual Observation Edith De Born (Eyre Methuen...

Page 18

Cemetery of studies

The Spectator

M.I. Finley The Etruscan Cities and Their Culture Luisa Banti, translated by Erika Bizzarri (Batsford £5.50) Several ancient civilisations, notably the Egyptian and the...

Page 20

Tea tray in the stalls

The Spectator

Quentin Bell The Rise and Fall of the Matinee Idol Edited by Anthony Curtis (Weidenfeld and Nicolson £3.75) "I sat" writes Philip Hope-Wallace in a characteristically excellent...

Page 21

Lashing out

The Spectator

Roy Fuller Sl oinburne: The Portrait Of A Poet Philip H enderson (Routledge and Kegan Paul £4.95). The enormous (and unexpurgated) edition of S winburne's letters, the last...

Page 22

Grey owl, dark horse

The Spectator

Colin Wilson Wilderness Man: The Strange Story of Grey Owl Lovat Dickson (Macmillan £3.95) How would you describe a man who spent most of his adult life living-out a fantasy...

Page 23

Talking of books

The Spectator

Fun with the Philistines Benny Green THE truth is that the humour of Philistinism is an easy touch. We are all familiar with the joke about Henry IV Part One abdicating in...

Bookbuyer's

The Spectator

B ookend The British book trade is often guilty of parochialism and this columnist is as guilty as the best of them. In an effort to make some amends, albeit fleetingly,...

Page 24

REVIEW OF THE ARTS

The Spectator

Kenneth Hurren on plays as directors' playthings The late Shakespeare had a fairly wretched time on my wideranging beat last week, and only one who had lost his capacity for...

Cinema

The Spectator

Over the rainbow Christopher Hudson As I prophesied a few months ago' science fiction in the cinema has come of age. I cannot remember the last time I saw a futuristic film in...

Page 25

keCOrdS

The Spectator

Conservative reckoning Rodney Mlles Nothing is more boring than the s ort of opera-buff cocktail party Where enthusiasts reminisce oh-so k nowledgeably about obscure Works...

Art

The Spectator

Merda, he says Evan Anthony The Tate Gallery is showing, among other things, a tin (labelled 'Merda d'artista') purported to contain the excrement of Piero Manzoni, an Italian...

Will W aspe

The Spectator

Fifteen-year-old Yorkshire lad Kevin Moreton, who is playing in Runaway at London's Royal Court Theatre, plainly has much to learn of theatrical tact — and it was, Waspe...

Page 26

Juliette's final frolic

The Spectator

Last Saturday Pontam excelled himself for me by coming last in the Lincoln. Next Saturday I'm packing it all in, and fleeing the country for a land where my creditors and their...

The economic realities

The Spectator

Nicholas Davenport Having given my prognostication of the budget I will leave a detailed analysis of it till next week. Here I will set down the icy underlying economic...

Page 27

Property

The Spectator

Developers—future indefinite The Earl of Kingston In the last five months of 1973, the property industry suffered some of the most savage attacks which have ever been made on...

Page 28

Skinflint's City Diary

The Spectator

Denis Healey, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has shown the utter barrenness of socialist economic thought. fully comparable to that demonstrated in a different direction until...