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Why either?
The SpectatorDoes Mr John Pardoe wear a wig? This question—vital to British politics—is symptomatic of the great debate between the men struggling for the leadership of the Liberal Party. Mr...
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The Week
The SpectatorIt was hot. London had its longest heatwave ever recorded with the temperature in the nineties for several days. People drowned, Overcome with exhaustion. Hundreds of commuters...
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Political Commentary
The SpectatorHow much, how soon ? John Grigg The other day I was asking an eminent man, much concerned with economic policy, if the TUC would accept an adequate revision of the Price Code...
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Notebook
The SpectatorA lot of nonsense has been put about in the effort to save three British mercenaries from the firing squad in Angola. It was right that Mr Callaghan should appeal to President...
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Another voice
The SpectatorA Frenchman at the court Auberon Waugh Perhaps it was no more than an attack of persecution mania brought on by knowledge of my country's abject state, but I can't help...
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God's stepchildren
The SpectatorXan Smiley God's stepchildren—that's the sad sobriquet of South Africa's 2.4 million Coloured People, outcome of three hundred years' miscegenation. While Soweto burns and...
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A man for hangover mood
The SpectatorDavid Rudnick Some are born great, some achieve greatness, while others, like Portugal's newly elected president, literally have greatness thrust upon them from right, left and...
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Chinese underground
The SpectatorTo Kerpel There was nothing remarkable looking about the clothing shop. Up a couple of steps to the glass front doors and then into an unadorned room with two counters, crowded...
Dear God
The SpectatorJeffrey Bernard When the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Donald Coggan, made his Call to the Nation some eight months ago it went by unheard as far as I was concerned. I expect...
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Mad houses
The SpectatorChristopher Booker In his review in last Sunday's Observer of one of the latest pieces of Sunday Times selfglorification, The Crossman Affair, Lord Goodman fell into...
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Zero rate
The SpectatorAndrew Alexander The past weeks have seen much advice offered to pensioners with their small entitle ment of index-linked bonds about whether they should cash in the 20 per...
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Classified leakage
The SpectatorHugh Macpherson Were Lord Macaulay alive in these permissive days he might amend his view that there was nothing quite so ridiculous as the British public in one of its...
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Democracy and Free Enterprise
The SpectatorShirley Robin Letwin Not even Oscar Wilde would dare to say now that 'democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people, by the people, for the people'. Amidst the ruins of...
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In the City
The SpectatorHeat waves in markets Nicholas Davenport As far as this commentator is concerned the visit of the French President was a wash-out. In all the platitudinous public statements...
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Lady in waiting Sir: John Grigg's commentary (19 June) on
The Spectator'Lady in waiting' is hardly fair to Mrs Thatcher and his advice to her that she should desperately woo Mr Heath whose leadership lost us two successive ,lections, Mr Peter...
Sir: To me Mr Grigg's one really solid objection to
The SpectatorMrs Thatcher as expressed in his rambling article, with its carping criticisms and gratuitous advice, is that she had the nerve to defeat Mt Heath who, Mr Grigg implies, is...
Sir: Your political correspondent John Grigg states that in standing
The Spectatoragainst Mr Heath, Mrs Thatcher 'showed extraordinary ruthlessness and disloyalty to the man who made her a Cabinet minister.' Maybe so. But Mr Heath's advocacy during the...
Not for us
The SpectatorSir: The long, strangely incongruous list of members of the National Committee for Electoral Reform given in the 'Notebook' of last week seems to show that what might be crudely...
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Parlour game
The SpectatorSir: The outline of Auberon Waugh's political sex extravaganza (19 June) provides enthralling reading but unfortunately has the demerit of being a closed book and therefore of...
Last refuge
The SpectatorSir: Mr Baird is obviously not a regular reader of the Spectator, otherwise he would not have written the splendidly fatuous letter published last week. To rebut Mr Baird's...
Two can play
The SpectatorSir: As Mr Cook (19 June) says, the numbers game is one which two can play at. I could extract arbitrary dates through the years to prove that the cost of postal services...
Honours
The SpectatorSir : The satirical piece to which your correspondent refers ran as follows: I knew a man of industry Who made big bombs for the RFC And pocketed lots of £ s d And he (thank...
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Books
The SpectatorFaçade and reality Francis King Edith Sitwell: Fire of the Mind An Anthology by Elizabeth Salter and Allanah Harper (Michael Joseph £7.95) Joyce Cary: Selected Essays Edited...
Empire dreamer
The SpectatorRobert Skidelsky Cecil Rhodes John Flint (Hutchinson, £4.75) Today one is praised for giving up empires, not founding them. Once Cecil Rhodes was a popular hero. Millions...
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Popular revolutionaries
The SpectatorChristopher Hill The English People and the English Revolution 1640-1649 Brian Manning (Heinemann £9.50) Nineteenth-century historians used to • speak of 'the English people'...
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Bohemian girl
The SpectatorAnthony Blond The Weeping and the Laughter Viva King (Macdonald and Janes £5.95) There is no greater tribute to the beneficial effects upon a child of a broken home than the...
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Tennis elbow
The SpectatorDuncan Fallowell Equinox Lorna Pegram (Gollancz £3.80) How I Became a Holy Mother Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (John Murray £3.95) 'Clare was looking, after so many years, amazingly .....
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Country life
The SpectatorBenny Green Still Glides the Stream Flora Thompson (Oxford University Paperbacks £1.50) Somewhere in the letters of Rupert Brooke there is a passage where he describes a dream...
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Arts
The SpectatorGood-time music Robert Cushman The first act of the evening at the London Palladium usually has my sympathy. Very often that is all it has; certainly it can boast very little...
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Films
The SpectatorWomen Ian Cameron The publicity for Wives (Phoenix, East Finchley, X certificate) describes it—putting the words in quotes as if someone had actually said them—as 'sparkling,...
Opera
The SpectatorMarriages Rodney Milnes Any fool can mount a new production (and many do) provided the cheque book is the right colour. Revivals are a different matter, a matter in which...
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Music
The SpectatorAntipodes John Bridcut Australian music may perhaps be likened to the seed sown upon stony ground, which withered away because it had no root. If the Sydney Opera House is a...
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Theatre
The SpectatorGhostly Kenneth Hurren Blithe Spirit (Lyttelton Theatre) Three Sisters (Cambridge Theatre) The late Noel Coward's 'improbable farce', Blithe Spirit, has been around for...
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Art
The SpectatorPastorale John McEwen !von Hitchens (Waddington 1 and 2 till 3 July) is a painters' painter. If you really look at his pictures you will soon find that they are more to do...
Television
The SpectatorDon't look now Jeffrey Bernard The thing to do with television at the moment is to ignore it. I know I'm going to get out of here as soon as I can and take myself off to the...