Asan exercise in confounding the press, bamboozling the Opposition, and rais- ing taxation without anybody apparently minding, Mr Callaghan's latest and most extraordinary...

FOR HIS FOURTH BUDGET in eighteen months Mr James Callaghan seemed to have chosen a bad day: most people were talking about the weather, and some about The Times. On Monday...

and Italy where the Rector of the University of Rome was obliged to resign. In the Colombian presidential elec- tions two-thirds of the electorate abstained. Fulham once again...

to be held up, though diplomatic sources said there was no hitch, only a delay. Meanwhile President Kaunda of ZaMbia roundly condemned Mr Wilson for ever agreeing to the talks...

, sec Friday May 6 1960

O N April 21, the first day, of the debate on the address following the Queen's Speech. Hansard records that the Prime Minister, speak- ing of Rhodesia, said this: 'Some...

By ALAN WATKINS M a JAMES CALLAGHAN has for some time been highly and perhaps justifiably sensitive to charges that he was over-influenced by Mr Nicholas Kaldor. `Nicky,' the...

The gathering skies are black like ink. And ventures into Outer Space Give very little cause to think We'll find it a convenient place. While atoms split, the universe • Goes...

The Denial of Incentives By REGINALD MAUDLING, - MP IT‘HERE is no doubt that Mr Callaghan's Selec- tive Employment Tax was a surprise and an ingenious surprise at that. Its...

By JOHN WELLS O N Tuesday The Times, yielding at last to the popular clamour for novelty and the tempting crackle of banknotes, cast aside the fig- leaf covering of the old...

Should doctors tell? By JOHN ROWAN WILSON rrHE controversy over Lord Moran's publica- tion of clinical information about Sir Winston. Churchill has raised in an acute form the...

In a week of such implausibly summer-like weather I found it impossible not to visit Lord's for the opening of the cricket season. As York- shire were (by custom) playing the...

N o little anguish, I am informed, went into the making of the unusual document which has just emanated from the offices of the Royal Fine Art Commission in Carlton Gardens....

opinions were not influencing either public or Parliament effectively enough. The Commission was origin- ally established, back in 1924, to provide high- level advice to public...

unaccountably overlooked on Tues- day, would be to impose a tax on dangerous driving and motor accidents. This would have the admirable result of making the good citizen pay...

There was something haunting about the snatch of film, shown in a television news programme the other evening, of the funeral of former SS Colonel-General Sepp Dietrich. How...

By AUBERON WAUGH T HERE was a time when obituary notices used to list the dead person's achievements and express polite regret at his death. In the case of notorious war...

May 5, 1866 The cholera has appeared here and there, chiefly in ships. A man at Bristol, who had just come from Rotterdam, has died of it, and it has appeared in a bad form—two...

By QUINTIN HOGG, MP S men the Confessions of St Augustine, the spiritual - Odyssey has become one of the familiar by-ways of Christian literature. New- man's Apologia pro vita...

Intimations of Mortality By ALAN BRIEN In the older, western area, the widows and sons, the servants and colleagues, who first super- intended the pious jerry-building, have...

C. F. Stunt, Peter Baker, MC, A., P: Thorn, Pat Sloan, Arnold Beichman, T. O. Kellock, QC, Andrew Faulds, MP, and Eric fleffer, MP, James Morwood, Geofirey Walls, Lawrence D....

SIR,— Evidently M Girodias's enjoyment of 'annoyin g p e ople, people I dislike deeply—the bour g eois class which is in power everywhere,' has not chan g ed. In the February...

Sit,—The letter from Miss Prince, of Cape Town University. was really the end. I am a non-Socialist , and therefore opposed to Mr Wilson, also, for my sins—and lar g ely by...

Sts,--As a frequent visitor to your country, may I agree with your statement that the way your Government is going about coming into Europe there is-a real risk (perhaps from...

SIR: --Mr Ni g el Lawson (Spectator's Notebook; April 22) is wholly inaccurate in what he says about Mr David Worswick, the Director of the Institute of Economic and Social...

Sta,—British soldiers who died fi g htin g the Japs, and in labour camps, would turn in their g raves if they knew that Great (?) Britain had appealed to the laps to tqw41 the...

SIR,—Having returned from Ghana on March 5, I was interested to see Mr Szamuely's article of March I1 and Mrs Farthing's comment of April 8. I first visited the Kwame Nkrumah...

SIR,—Mr M. B. Thompson (Letters, April 22) does well to praise Anton Dermota's singing on Saga's Rossini Stabat Mater disc. He does not mention, however—perhaps he is not aware,...

SIR,—The Anti-Apartheid Movement is embarking on a major campaign which we believe will command the immediate sympathy of many of your readers and will involve us in heavy...

the Teddy-bear and am very anxious to trace its place in literature, the family and indeed history. Case histories, photographs (returnable) and reminis- cences will be very...

about Strix is that the kind of man who enjoys slaughtering small birds is the kind of man who, in his callow youth, kept a hunting-crop in the car in order to deal with...

SIR,—Mr Kazin's letter almost persuades me that it was his purpose to write a personal auto- biography. But he also touched upon political questions, his own past radicalism,...

SIR,—A recent investigation among elderly people in institutions appears to show that much of the mental and physical deterioration we associate with old age is due to poor...

SIR,—I was interested by Charles Reid's comments on the end of Act 1 in Covent Garden's new Rosenkavalier. I attended the dress rehearsal (at which Sena Jurinac put her hand to...

RADIO First Murderer By HENRY TUBE I T was a rare privilege on Friday night to hear Paul Scofield give his first performance as Macbeth, in the Third Programme. Although his...

Agonising.'Appraisals T HE BBC is agonising away again. Last time it was Peter Watkins and The War Game; this time, Kevin Billington and his documentary Matador. Since dumb...

A Darlin' Paycock Juno and the Paycock. (Old Vic.)—The Wedding; Crime and Punishment: The Columbus Boys. (Polish Popular Theatre at the Aldwych.)— A Friend Indeed. (Cambridge.)...

Pickled Othello. (Odeon, Haymarket, 'U' certificate.) rILIVIER'S Othello is black, almost purplish- black, with white eyeballs that roll and pale pink tongue that darts about...

T SEEM to remember a vintage Mae West movie in which the redoubtable old send-up sways up a staircase, in her usual dignified and derisive manner, behind a genuinely stately...

Waiting for the End, Boys By JOHN DAVENPORT H isToRy has an irritating habit of refusing to fall into neat divisions and sub- divisions of time for the benefit of the idle-...

The Last Battle. By Cornelius Ryan. (Collins, 45s.) A RECENT issue of The Times Literary Supple- ment, devoted entirely to the writing of history, made a number of very...

BEN JONSON was fleered by some for publishing his stage plays as part of his Works. Perhaps encouraged by the fact that Volpone and The Alchemist have lasted, Mr Raven has dared...

MY favourite review is George Eliot's 'Silly Novels by Lady Novelists': it is a knockout. The fashionable novelists whom she inters deep in the mould of regrettable history...

SPIES and secret agents are, necessarily, an odd lot. Spying is an odd thing to want to do, given that living in the clear has generally, down the ages, been thought the highest...

AUTHORISED in 1960, completed in 1962, scru- tinised by various authorities, re-authorised in 1964 and then revised, amended and expanded in the light of informed comment, the...

Tougher Than You Think . By NICHOLAS DAVENPORT I MUST say at the beginning that Mr Callaghan gets wiser and more cunning with each budget —and he has had three. On this...

By CUSTOS rr t LIE relief felt on the Stock Exchange at the absence of any increase in direct or indirect taxation and in the fixing of corporation tax at do more than the...

By LOTHBURY AN OTHER record year, 1965, for Rugby Port- land Cement, for the twentieth successive year, with pre-tax profits mounting to £3.66 million against £3.31 million....

The reason why brewery shares have been lagging behind the market is that the Prices and Incomes Board has asked all brewers to defer intended increases in wholesale and retail...

Australia is gradually recovering from the worst drought it has had for many years, which affected the wool clip and meat production most severely. Total farm income fell by...

Stars, Knives and Forks By LESLIE ADRIAN Therefore I do not blame them if, like me, they fall for the plethora of gastronomic guides to Gargantua's country that seem to...

One year's subscription to the' Spectator': f3 15s. (including postage) in the United Kingdom and Eire. By surface mail to any other country: f3 5s. Overseas Air Mail Rates: f4...

A Bible Shocker By LORD EGREMONT I RATHER like reading the Bible. My father has done it more than most. I have • enjoyed talking divinity "Y with him. My Uncle Charles did it...

By PHILIDOR No. 281. D. G. McIrrrvRE (Cape Times, 1935) WHITE to play and mate in two moves ; solution next week. Solution to No. 280 (Shinkman) : K- R 1 !, no threat. Wherever...

ACROSS.-1 Parliament. b Grin. 10 Years. II Nonentity. 12 Emissile. 13 Geneva. 15 Skip. 16 Stoa. 17 Right. 20 Rogue. 21 Impi. 22 Brer. 24 Offset. 26 Visitcrs. 29 Nitration 30...

ACROSS 1. One royal Catherine got nothing but 3 points for imitations (8) 5. Provides a poor mousehole (6) 9. Marshal, prohibition is a bit tardy (8) 10. A girl of nine in...