The special conferences of the Conservative and the Labour parties, to be held within three days of each other later this month, will not be in any way conclusive, will bind no...

A consequence and a cause of the greater size and complexity of governments and corporations, of projects and of endeavours, of weapons systems and of wars, has been the...

The phony war in the Commons has come to an end. In a sense much of political activity is a continuous phony war at the best of times. Men speak darkly of the consequences of...

more than habitually the receiver of all the free-falling anxieties there are in the world that one most needs the reassurance of familiar things. Those little touches that tell...

Wednesday June 23: Mr Rippon bubbled over With champagne and enthusiasm after reaching agreement with the Six in the small hours on th e last problems over British entry. A...

The party politics of the EEC A STUDENT OF POLITICS In relation to the Common Market the newspapers have over the last two months been talking us into thinking almost...

Temporal, spiritual and racial HUGH REAY Lord Walston is Chairman of the Institute of Race Relations. He wears a daily carnation in his buttonhole, or used to wear one when he...

People's Prager DENNIS HACKETT Reading the News of the World on Sunday I had the distinct impression that not only was all human life there, but a bit of The People too. Now...

Cancer words BERNARD DIXON After the Great American Debate on Cancer Research, it's time we had a debate on cancer research. Such was the argument deployed by Professor...

The Hundred Thousand miraculously fed on sunshine and warm air BILL NICHOLSON I suppose it must be spring, the sun shines in the cold air and in the park are tightfisted...

The 'twenties way of growing up YVONNE BROCK In my experience most discussions on sex education tend to be unsatisfactory. It is like trying to discuss, say, apartheid, trade...

Patrick Cosgrave on George Meredith Reviews by Christopher Booker, Enoch Powell, Simon Raven and Auberon Waugh Charles Wilson on Robert Owen Myth, as every comprehensive...

If you are unable to obtain a book reviewed in these columns, we shall be happy to arrange for a copy to be sent to you. Write to The Sales Manager, The Spectator, 99 Gower...

Dictionary of National Biography 1951-60 edited by E. T. Williams and Helen M. Palmer (OUP £9.50) This latest instalment of the DNB, covering 760 men and women who died between...

The Balance of Power Helmut Schmidt (William Kimber £2.50) In a Britain which is debating — if it is debating — membership of the European Economic Community, this is a timely...

Philip: An Informal Biography Basil Boothroyd (Longman £2.00) The aim of Basil Boothroyd's "Informal Biography" of Prince Philip is not to render a chronological commentary but,...

Natalie Nata/ia Nicholas Mosley (Hodder and Stoughton £2.25) Some weeks ago, my publisher asked me to help him out over the blurb for a new novel which I finished last February...

Meredith : A Change of Masks Gillian Beer (Athlone Press £2.50) Meredith: The Critical Heritage edited by loan Williams (Routledge and Kegan Paul £5.50) George Meredith saw his...

Randolph Chuurchill: The Young Pretender Compiled by Kay Halle (Heinemann £3.50) A very diverting collection of anecdotage and reminiscence about one of the most brutally rude,...

Call it a trade, a profession, or what you will, the actual nature of the publishing business, outside of the specialized presses, is no more settled today than it has ever...

Coming up for air CHRISTOPHER HUDSON After weeks of garbage a film like John Schlesinger's Sunday, Bloody Sunday or the French Claire's Knee strikes a reviewer with a shock of...

God the father KENNETH HURREN My theory that the successes of the National Theatre are in direct ratio to the extent of Laurence Olivier's per sonal involvement in its...

Of our own time JOHN BRIDCUT Now that the International Society for Contemporary Music's London festival is over, concertgoers have generally returned to more familiar fare,...

Rivieras of the mind DUNCAN FALLOWELL Caravan : In the Land of Grey and Pink (Deram £2.29). Since nature appears to be foregoing a summer this year, it might be just as well...

Sport and form EVAN ANTHONY Lucky Henry Koehler to have arrived in London at a time when Wimbledon and my own feeble efforts on the courts combined to make it seem appropriate...

Not everything is rosy in the world of television advertising. ITV revenues may be up, but advertising budgets are down — a seeming paradox, but the cutbacks take place...

THEATRE Princess Margaret and the Earl of Snowdon will be at the new Shaw Theatre in Euston Road on Monday (July 5) for the first performance by the professional company...

SIR: "The achievements of organic medicine in a country like the United States," John Rowan Wilson writes (June 26) — contrasting them with the failures of psychiatry there —...

Sir: In his article published on June 26, "A Senior Conservative" accuses the Government of lacking an economic master-plan. He supports his case by tlaiming an insight into...

been a question on which it has been so difficult to arrive at a reasoned decision as the question of entering the Common Market. Laymen and experts alike are at odds because...

Sir: Somewhere in the mind of Mr Hurren, in the dustier groves of Academe and in the issued-yearly notes of English masters who neyer go to the theatre, there still exists the...

Sir: The article by Mr Robert Blake entitled "The Case for the Queen" (June 12) I read with interest and general approval. However, I felt that he was perhaps guilty at one...

Sir: Rhodes University, which, according to John Vaizey (June 12), "Must qualify for the title of the worst university in the English-speaking world," can withstand such...

Sir: As an intermittent reader of your journal over many years, I always find it a pleasure to return to find Nicholas Davenport's column still shining like a pillar of fire in...

Sir: Joseph Lee's review of Edward Norman's A History of Modern Ireland (June 19) was amusing. It also contained the following misrepresentations: 1) Lee wittily recommends the...

Sir: Professor Wells, himself the author of a searching inquiry into early Christianity, shows insight in his letter about Isis worship. My book, as was noted by Mr Enoch...

Sir: With pen-pusher friends like Mr J. Vijayatunga (The Spectator, June 26), Mrs Indra Gandhi doesn't needed any enemies " visdoesn't needed an enemies " visd-vis " Pakistan....

Sir: I can appreciate the anxiety that leads Dr Cosgrave (Letters, June 19) to defend himself against a charge which I never made, to contradict by implication a statement made...

NICHOLAS DAVENPORT The wage-cost inflation is still galloping away. No doubt it would have galloped away much faster if the Government had not applied with such dogged...

After many a week spent floundering round the form book, Tartar Prince and Guillemot performed a gallant and timely rescue operation last weekend to send me bouncing merrily...

There is a severe shortage of large country houses for sale within a hundred miles of London. Demand, for houses of reasonable size exceeding supply even for Victorian monsters,...

The EEC: a prescription for disaster for the British Steel Corporation By an Economist in the British steel industry Less than three months ago the size of the British Steel...

Spirit of the times NORMAN FOWLER Lloyd George once complained that " every government that has ever touched alcohol has burnt its fingers in its lurid flames." Mr Maudling...

Why do so many of my fellow countrymen not merely think that everybody ought to be like them but resent it if they are not? In most other countries the sight of someone enjoying...

There comes a time for all owners of large gardens when the insistent clamour of the outside world can no longer be denied. I speak of large gardens, not gardens of great beauty...

Hamlet, your bright bones Vault my passage — Luminous, a galaxy. They stretch above me Shaping dreams; They sanctify my tunnelling. It was never my voice you heard — I worked...

The first thin g s I see are these: outside a shop in West India Dock Road the suits of sou'westers dancin g on han g ers like headless men celebratin g their own whimsical...