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Portrait of the Week— MR. WILSON NAMED THE DATE, Of
The Spectatorrather Mr. Wilson made it official. He had, he carefully explained, been planning it since December. Mr. Callaghan followed it up with a sort of preview budget promising a tax...
Mr. Heath's Task
The SpectatorTHERE has been no instance of a single- 1 term government in Britain since the Labour administration of 1929-31. That is one measure of the size of the task that now faces Mr....
THE EXCITEMENT IN GHANA was greater : the regime of
The SpectatorKwame Nkrumah was overthrown while the President was on a peace mission to Hanoi, Peking and Moscow. Dr. Nkrumah was told the news by Mr. Chou En-lai and at first refused to...
THE CONDITION OF MR. GERALD BROOKE in his Soviet prison
The Spectatorwas reported to be deteriorating and the British government made another of its formal protests. The Soviet authoritia meanwhile achieved a hard landing on Venus and promised an...
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1-0L1TICAL COMMENTARY.
The SpectatorBig Jim and his Magic Cornucopia By ALAN WATKINS cy Er 1966 be the year of the voluntary efficiency i d audit for all of us,' remarked Mr. James Callaghan rather dauntingly in...
Polities in Vietnam
The SpectatorIt does seem rather strange to me • That they should favour Cao Ky. He's sometimes right and sometimes wrong As, in his day, was Than Van Huong. And neither worse nor better...
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AMERICA
The SpectatorThe King Over the Water From MURRAY KEMPTON NEW YORK W HATEVER Robert Kennedy is after, its pursuit rather plainly embarrasses him. On a Friday, he had suggested that, if we...
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THE PRESS
The SpectatorThe Big Yawn By DESMOND DONNELLY, MP T HE general election is off to an extraordinary start. I cannot recollect a comparable situa- tion. The press made the decision. It...
Black Africa—What Went Wrong?
The SpectatorBy DAVID WILLIAMS N ATIONALISM in independent West Africa still has no nations through which to express itself. This, with the deficiencies of politicians, is the main reason...
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PSEPHOLOGY
The SpectatorVoters, Polls, and Myths By PETER PULZER O NCE upon a time there was a theory about the behaviour of the British electorate enshrined in the metaphor of the 'swinging...
tin Z pectator
The SpectatorMarch 3, 1866 Mr. Goschen made a very able speech on the hustings at Guildhall, on Monday. He com- mented on the great change of feeling from the jealousy and distrust of...
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THE TORY TASK - 2 Disraeli Up-to-date
The SpectatorBy NORMAN ST. JOHN-STEVAS, MP p ou rricAL parties. like politicians, are nar- cissists. They like to see themselves. The Tories today need a contemporary version of Disraeli's...
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Short Commons I referred last week to the Government Chief
The SpectatorWhip's warning to Labour MPs invited to appear on television, and suggested that Mr. Short had succeeded in persuading the BBC to withdraw an invitation to Mr. Tom Driberg to...
Spectator's Notebook
The SpectatorI T'S a little bit odd to find a Labour Chancellor taking £17 million out of the pockets of improvident punters, doubtless living in furnished rooms and gambling with next...
George's Warning
The SpectatorI don't normally expect to find myself agreeing with the far left general secretary of ASSET, the foremen's trade union, Mr. Clive Jenkins; but in his campaign against Mr....
Fluoridation
The SpectatorWhat is the election going to be about? The cost of living? Rhodesia? Mr. Wilson? If that extraordinary fringe lobby, the anti-fluorida- tionists, have their way. it will be...
Dissent I'm not surprised that as the Prime Minister sees
The Spectatorhis Rhodesian policy collapsing about him, he's decided that the best form of defence is attack. For the duration of the election campaign, it's clear, his refrain is going to...
Let Them Drink Gin • Shades of General Jack D.
The SpectatorRipper, who, in Dr. Strangelove. pressed the nuclear button be- cause he believed that the Communists were rendering him sexually impotent by poisoning the water supply. The...
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Realities Behind the Royal Tour
The SpectatorBy CHRISTOPHER CASSERLEY N o revolution : a total population less than one per cent of India's: a per capita income at the worst three or four times that of India— it is...
Mr. Brown's Wages Bill
The SpectatorBy CLIVE JENKINS M R. GEORGE BROWN'S 'Early Warning' Bill resembles nothing so much as General Franco's cosy domestic arrangements for manag- ing his unruly workers. Has the...
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INDIA
The SpectatorBelow the Wheatline From CHANCHAL SARKAR DELHI OME foreign correspondents here must be quite apuzzled. Spurred by stories of alarming drought in India they flew over to see...
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AFTERTHOUGHT
The SpectatorWhiter Than White By ALAN BRIEN I HAVE four possible open- ings to my column this week-I wish I hadn't. But since they have presented themselves, it seems a pity to waste any...
SPECTATOR CROSSWORD No. 1212
The SpectatorACROSS 1. Is this the cause of goose-flesh 1. on ships? (8) 5. Impale a Latin thing back round Kew (6) 2. 9. How Scotland is edged? (8) 10. Pismire on edge of town 46) 12. The...
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Trouble at the Grass Roots SIR,--Mr. Alan Watkins is to
The Spectatorbe congratulated on a remarkably perceptive and well-balanced examina- tion of the evolving relationship between constituency associations and their Members of Parliament. I...
Importance of Mr. Mayhew
The SpectatorSIR,--Your leading article 'The Importance of Mr. Mayhew' last week states: 'At immense cost, we are defending Malaysia from an Indonesia that has itself ruthlessly suppressed a...
L_
The SpectatorEN5 L'_ro From: 'Felon,' I. Bruce-Gat-dyne, MP, Miles Hudson, R. S. l• Hawkins, Rodney Barnes, S. D. W. Milligan, Michael Edgcombe, Maurice Craig, Barbara Tuchman, Rev. Timothy...
'The War Game ' SIR.—I worked with Peter Watkins on Culloden
The Spectatorand The War Game, and saw the latter soon after it was made last year. I should like to assure Mrs. Davy that he is neither sadist nor frustrated artist. although I suppose it...
SIR,—The Government's decision not to build a new carrier defies
The Spectatorthe many lessons of naval history over the past thirty years. This is not a question of whether the Royal Navy or the RAF will play the major defence role in the 1970s. It is...
SIR,—Never have I heard such an unsupported non- argument in
The Spectatordefence of the grammar school! Mr. Smith.should choose his quotations more carefully: nothing could be less clear than describing ths com- prehensive system as 'a regrettable...
What Kind of School ?
The SpectatorSi.- Like Mr. Smith (Letters. February 25). I am a sixth-former. hut at a public school, which is faced with a similar 'bogy,' that of integration into the state system. But it...
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Confused Panorama SIR,—Mr. Robert Rhodes James in his review of
The SpectatorThe Proud Tower describes himself as 'infuriated,' a curious mood for a critic but perhaps the fact that he often writes in the same period suggests that it may be the fury of...
Oxford Novels SIR,—Only two and a half successful Oxford novels?
The SpectatorWhat about Part 3 of Sinister Street, Sonia, and The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Greene? TIMOTHY BEAUMONT 59 West Heath Road, London, NW3
Ste,—If young Mr. Ian Smith (absit omen!) wishes to stand
The Spectatorforth as a champion of grammar-school education against what he calls, revealingly enough. 'the bogy of comprehension,' he will do well to purge his future letters of such...
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Licensed to Kill
The SpectatorArsenic and Old Lace. (Vaudeville.) A PERFORMAN( ti by Duse was apt to be a most devastating criticism of the play,' wrote Desniond MacCarth■ in 1924. The commercial theatre is...
-3
The Spectator[J'A"0 8M112 - MIU TELEVISION This is Where I Caine In By STUART HOOD B EING heartily tired of seeing Wilder bull- frogging across the screen, of his frigid wife and glum...
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ART
The SpectatorCuddly Ploys T HE sheer woman-hours that must have gone into the making of Jann Haworth's exhibi- tion at the Robert Fraser Gallery make one feel limp to think of them. Perhaps...
CINEMA
The SpectatorIvory Power A Times fourth leader once chided me for ..something I had said about charm in art, the argument being, I think, that since charm was a good thing, you couldn't...
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MUSIC
The SpectatorParsif oily TF ever there was an opera that should have 'fallen with a bump between all the stools, that opera is Parsifal. I came away from the Covent Garden revival, to which...
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Q_ 11
The SpectatorThat Old Black Magic By FRANCIS WATSON TN all excellent beauty, Bacon long ago bade us 'consider, there is some element of strangeness. Nearer to our own day we have...
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Top Grumpy
The SpectatorRichard Aldington: An Intimate Portrait Edited by Alister Kershaw and Frederic- Jacques Temple. (Southern Illinois Univer- sity Press, $5.95.) THIS pious effort to rehabilitate...
War and Peace
The SpectatorTHOSE famous powers of recall of Compton Mackenzie's continue to provide the reader with almost too rich a tapestry of recollection, too many enticing names, all the more...
The Big Puff
The SpectatorTHE blurb of this book announces that Tom Wolfe's 'wildly unconventional pieces . . . are Topic Number One in New York literary circles. His prose has the bursting impact of a...
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The African Syndrome
The SpectatorBy BRIAN CROZIER T wo kinds of book are being written about I Africa : the romantic and the realist. The first are almost indecently numerous and the second regrettably few. Of...
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Number One
The SpectatorIT is a pity the publishers present Mr. Payne's book as 'the definitive biography.' This claim will antagonise the experts, and may well mis- lead. The Rise and Fall of Stalin...
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Booklets, Anyone?
The SpectatorKnights and Dragons. By Elizabeth Spencer. (Heinemann, 21s.) .4 Question of Living. By Kenneth \Varner. (Michael Joseph, 21s.) There Goes Davey Cohen. By Wendy Owen....
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Investment Notes
The SpectatorBy CUSTOS T HE equity markets were ready for a turn- down before the shadow of a general elec- tion fell. Wall Street had become bearish and the profitless prosperity which has...
L JL - ECCHBEff 111 Ern
The SpectatorMr. Callaghan's Day By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT T HE planning of the public expenditure, which is the key to the control of the economy, has advanced a great deal in expertise since...
BP and Burmah Oil
The SpectatorWith the election clouding the prospects of industrial shares, the oil group should find in- creasing support. BP were quoted ex the rights at 69s. 6d.—the new at 19s. 9d....
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Chess
The SpectatorBy PHILIDOR No. 272. F. FLECK (1st Prize, Magya , Sakkalct, 19641 WHITE to play and mate in two moves ; solution next week. Solution to No. 271 (Orlimont). x R— Q B 6!, R—R 4 ;...
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ENDPAPER
The SpectatorBy STRIX D-ANOY, a three-engined Junkers 52, took off from Anhsi in north-west China one day at the end of August 1937; its destination was Kabul and its 1,500-mile flight...
CONSUMING INTEREST
The SpectatorCapital Grains By LESLIE ADRIAN Stimulated, I bought a dozen more brands of packeted rice (it is increasingly difficult to buy loose grains outside Soho) and discovered some...
NEXT WEEK
The SpectatorLord Egremont begins a new fortnightly column One year'ssubscription to the 'Spectator': £3 15s. (including postage) in the United Kingdom and Eire. By surface mail to any...