The decision of the Austrian Chancellor, Dr Bruno Kreisky, to accede to the demands of two Arab hijackers that Austria close the Schloss SchOnau transit camp, used by Russian...

"It's Labour's future. Don't let socialists ruin it" could serve as the text of this week's Labour Party conference. A combination Of circumstances in which the Labour Party...

Sir: A complete pave of The Spectator devoted to the Liberals' Southport meeting (September 29) is surely excessive. Editorial indulgence apart, the writer of that page...

Sir: Your long and continued opposition to Britain's entry into the EEC is I fear influencing many readers to the highly questionable conclusion that all would be well with the...

emulating their vintage year of 1906, surely, they must return to their distinctive policies of cheap food and free trade? The Common Market agricultural policy is an anathema...

Sir: Mr Hattersley's recent statement of Labour's intentions with regard to the direct grant and independent schools need come as no surprise. The strategy of successively...

Sir: The Headmaster of Shrewsbury, Donald Wright, showed the tip of an attitudinal iceberg when he wrote (September 15) of ' penal taxation ' being one of the general influences...

Sir: I too applaud John Linklater's article on The Decline and Fall of the Breast (September 8). I feel privileged to have been the eldest of eight children all of whom were...

P rom Dr C. Gordon Wickes Sir: It staggers me that Cato sees fit to Make such utterly irresponsible s tatements about smoking in pregnancy (Notebook, September 22). Surely he is...

To Your discerning readers not the ast of The Spectator's jnany charms is that their intelligence is rarely af fronted by editorial material which C ontrives to combine crass...

Sir: In one way, there is little cause to comment on Mr Duncan Fallowell's (September 22) piece about some popular musicians who call themselves the Rolling Stones; a very few...

Sir: Patrick Cosgrave's contribution to the decline of The Spectator continues, I notice. On one point at least, he does not misinterpret me in his. review of De Gaulle the...

Sir: A distinguished historical biographer, in reviewing my book on Thomas Paine in another paper. has remarked on the extraordinary hatred aroused by Paine, matched only by...

Sir: You have no business accusing Mr Heath of stupidity for proposing that Northern Ireland, under certain circumstances, should be "integrated" with the United Kingdom...

Sir: In my article 'can a School Be a Democratic Society' (September 15) I did not wish to suggest that democratic procedures should be excluded from schools. I thought that was...

Labour : issues real and false Patrick Cosgrove By the time, dear reader, that you look on this copy you will know that Mr Harold Wilson has again done the dirty Derrick trick...

Touchy Liberals This year, as in previous years, we shall be conductin g a poll amon g the dele g ates to the Labour and Conservative party conferences in n effort to pin down...

From Shore to shining Shore Peter Shore enters a room in the same way that Gary Sobers approaches a wicket: he lopes towards a conversation. The menace in the eye - 01" Sobers...

Chunnel, Maplin or neither? David Wragg I once had the difficult and unwelcome task of helping to push parts of the motorway programme through the various statutory stages...

Honest, boss, they's nobody here but us lynch-mob liberals Larry Adler With a friend like Al Capp who needs enemies? But Richard (Am I My Brother's Bugger?) Nixon does seem to...

Exorcising the holy ghost Bill Manson Thrice welcome — to London and the provinces — the rather daring phenomenon of Commercial Radio! But what took you so long; baby? And how...

Suger baddies Molly Mortimer February 1, 1975, may be a dark day for the Sugar Dependencies. Protocol 22 of the Treaty of Enlargement (when Britain joined the EEC) affirmed an...

Nicholas Bosanquet A book on low pay by supporters of the Child Poverty Action Group IS not the obvious Christmas present for many readers of this journal. But we have not...

Sufficient unto the day . . . Martin Sullivan There is a deceptively sharp sentence tucked away in one of St Paul's letters, his first to the Corinthians to be exact, in the...

Useful chinks in the bamboo curtain John Link later When news of the Chinese technique of acupuncture analgesia reached the medical press, it was received with varying shades...

Daffodils in the landscape Denis Wood It is fitting to see daffodils in large drifts of one kind growing in the grass as we see native Lent Lilies in sheets in water meadows....

Benny Green A fortnight ago a blind osteopath called J. Bradley Hoskisson died after a car crashed into the horse he was riding and flung him from the saddle, and at the risk...

It was Horace Walpole's opinion that September and October are the only two possible months. In order to conform to the British climate the rational plan would be to stock up...

r h eter Ackroyd The Centre Holds Anthony Storey (Calder and Boyars £2.75) p p ,,,i „ ;ghts Francis King (Hutchinson £2.40) 1 .ne Eighth Square Herbert Lieberman , - lutchinson...

Eric Heffer Labour, the Unions and the Party, Bill Simpson (Allen and Unwin £4.50) The British Labour Party is unique, because of the one simple fact that it was created by...

Clive Jenkins Victor Feather TUC Eric Silver (Gollancz £3.50) Victor Feather is the last of the barefoot TUC General Secretaries. There is not going to be another who had to go...

man Roy Hattersley Herbert Morrison: Portrait of a Politician B. Donoughue and G. W. Jones (Weidenfeld and Nicolson £6.00) Herbert Morrison was one of the great politicians of...

Rhodes Boyson Inequality Christopher Jencks (Allen Lane £5) It is very fitting that the English edition of this at times brilliant and clear . thinking American book should...

fashion Kenneth Minogue Tools for Conviviality Ivan Illich (Calder and Boyars £2.25) Tools for what?. the reader may well ask as he picks up the new Ivan Illich. Anyone...

1907-1973 Mr Auden wrote to us a few days ago, saying that he would be back in England on October 4. We now know that he has died in Austria, his summer retreat, at the age of...

Anthony Shaffer's ingenious Sleuth (Calder and Boyars Playscripts 85p) is dedicated to a number of fictional detectives, including Father Brown and Gideon Fell. They are all...

Bookend It is heartening to hear that the National Book League's valuable library of books about books is soon to get a much-needed boost. It is even more appropriate that the...

Clever these Chinese. It 'seems oncy yesterday that the west was salivating over the prospect of a visiting ping-pong team from the east. That was followed by those marvellous...

Hell and high camp Christopher Hudson L A well researched and fascinating new book on British horror films* makes the claim that we are the only nation not to take the...

which used to house their rather impoverished classical productions until they stopped struggling along that particular rut eight years ago. They have made a lot of innovations...

was intrigued to read that Paul Fox, ex-controller BBC 1 and now Controller of Programmes at Yorkshire TV, has lured his old colleague DuncanWood to join him up in the dales as...

The Earl of Kingston The pamphlet published recently by the Campaign for Nationalising Land (CNL) failed to draw an official comment from either the Conservative Or Labour...

In another article in this week's Spectator, Lord Kingston argues well the case against the particular scheme for land nationalisation which I claim to have fathered, and which...

Enthusiasts who prefer their racing ' live ' will have their stamina stretched to the limit this coming weekend. Six days gossiping, gambling and drinking at Newmarket's sales...

Last Wednesday three young Polish artists, Piotr Paleczny, Konstanty Kulka and his accompanist Jerzy Marchwinski made an outstanding impression in a shared recital at the...