6 OCTOBER 1990

Page 4

PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK

The Spectator

The Socialist Circus, Blackpool 1990 A t the beginning of the Labour Party conference, polls suggested the party was more electable than it had been for 20 years. Neil Kinnock...

Page 5

THE

The Spectator

SPECTATOR 56 Doughty Street, London WC1N 2LL Telephone: 071-405 1706; Telex: 27124; Fax: 071-242 0603 MIKHAIL THE TERRIBLE C ompared with the programme of re- forms that...

THE SPECEATOR

The Spectator

SUBSCRIBE TODAY — Save 10% on the Cover Price! RATES 12 Months 6 Months UK 0 £66.00 0 £33.00 Europe (airmail) 0 £77.00 0 £38.50 USA •-,.. Aippeed 0 US 199 0 149.50 Rest of...

This week the cover price of The Spectator is increased

The Spectator

by 10p — just over 7 per cent — to £1.50. This is necessary to cover some of the increase in our costs over the past 12 months. The subscription price, for the time being, will...

Page 6

POLITICS

The Spectator

Signs of the old Adam in the new model Labour Party NOEL MALCOLM Miss Cossey is very beautiful. A highly successful model, she has appeared in a James Bond film and is due to...

Page 7

DIARY

The Spectator

JOHN WELLS I n the middle of last summer I was in East Germany making a programme for the BBC. We had just finished filming in a community centre dedicated to the mem- ory of a...

Page 8

ANOTHER

The Spectator

VOICE Should the problem of sentencing be left to Mum and the Daily Mirror? AUBERON WAUGH L ast year, for the first time since 1973, the average number of people held in...

Page 9

THE LAST NICE PRIME MINISTER

The Spectator

The after-eighties: A. N. Wilson talks to Lord Home about Mrs Thatcher, drawing room comedy and Hitler MANY of the younger delegates about to assemble in Bournemouth for the...

Page 11

OUTCASTS FROM THE NEW GERMANY

The Spectator

Poles and Soviet Jews are suddenly unwelcome in Grossdeutschland reports Amity Shlaes Berlin THE photograph of the Brandenburg Gate shows pillars ringed by men in uniform,...

Page 12

UKRAINIAN POWDERKEG

The Spectator

Russian experiments in Ukraine have destroyed a nation and a culture reports Anne Applebaum WHEN the Chernobyl nuclear reactor first began to overheat, it was because a few...

Page 13

THE SUITS

The Spectator

Michael Heath

Page 14

GATT FIGHT, TRADE WAR?

The Spectator

James Bowman on the threat of recession posed by the protectionist mood in America Washington IT began its run during the televised Miss America pageant on 8 September. It is...

Page 16

THE SPECTATOR £1000 Whisky Competition

The Spectator

Page 17

If symptoms

The Spectator

persist . WE WERE called to a very important emergency meeting at district head- quarters last week. It was convened by the hospital managers — men to whom, their many...

SILVANA'S FOUNTAIN

The Spectator

Vicki Woods follows a carving from Carrara to Rodeo Drive MY NEIGHBOUR the urologist has a vineyard at Camaiore near Lucca, from which it's only a half-hour drive to the...

Page 19

One hundred years ago

The Spectator

A REUTER'S telegram from Kimber- ley received on Tuesday gives an account of an interesting speech deli- vered by Mr. Cecil Rhodes, the Cape Premier, at a banquet given him on...

Page 20

DARK DEALINGS AT WADI RUM

The Spectator

Thomas Rees, on a clandestine mission to Iraq, is offered Saddam Hussein's plans to invade Saudi Arabia LAST week the pool bar of the Marriott Hotel in Amman, Jordan, was...

Page 21

DO WE HAVE A PAY POLICY?

The Spectator

The Prime Minister must say what her inflation policy is, argues Nicholas Budgen HAS Mrs Thatcher's monetarism gone the same way as Nigel Lawson's? This question is provoked by...

Page 22

WHEN THE DIALECTIC FALTERS

The Spectator

broadcasting balances raises deeper issues than the public realises LAST week The Spectator published an attack on myself and others who favour balance in public sector...

Page 23

No claims bonus

The Spectator

THE Senate Banking Committee is wondering just now how the lenders got themselves and everybody else into such a tangle. The cry goes up: where were the regulators, why weren't...

Lost property

The Spectator

SIGN of the times, which I observed outside a house-agent's office in Staunton, Virginia: GRIM REALTY.

CITY AND SUBURBAN

The Spectator

Technological trouble with a flying clipper aimed at Saddam's moustache CHRISTOPHER FILDES I New York t would be nice to have a short, sharp recession, in the same way that it...

Fudget

The Spectator

THE United States is in danger of running out of money this weekend. No panic is expected, though, and it is thought that the population will be watching football on television,...

Page 24

LETTERS Inflation link

The Spectator

Sir: 'To stop Inflation go for Indexation'. Let the Chancellor announce the immedi- ate end of all official index-linking, includ- ing pensions. A modest beginning has already...

Lop-sided Liberals

The Spectator

Sir: In your issue of 22 September, Ian Hislop (Diary) makes perhaps rather ex- aggerated fun of the Liberal Democrats' new logo, for it is a harmless-looking and indeed rather...

VI not V2

The Spectator

Sir: Your Literary Editor may be, as Shakespeare had one of Henry Vs soldiers say of his sovereign before Agincourt, 'but a man, as I am: the violet smells to him as it doth to...

Remote from reality

The Spectator

Sir: How clever of the Independent to have found a Scottish poll tax payer living 'in a remote cottage without piped water, elec- tricity, gas, sewerage or roads' and there-...

Angry young Conservative

The Spectator

Sir: Brian Inglis's article (`No one wants Ulster', 22 September) reveals his com- plete misunderstanding of Conservative Unionism, and the reasons for the appa- rent rise of...

Celia Johnson

The Spectator

Sir: I am writing a life of my mother, Dame Celia Johnson. I would be most grateful for any information about her life and her work in the theatre that readers might have. Kate...

Page 26

BOOKS

The Spectator

A war without limits Eric Christiansen THE HUNDRED YEARS WAR: VOLUME I, TRIAL BY BATTLE by Jonathan Sumption Faber, £20, pp.659 THE HUNDRED YEARS WAR by Robin Nei!lands...

Page 27

Who loves to lie with me

The Spectator

Ned Sherrin THE PENGUIN BOOK OF LIES: AN ANTHOLOGY edited by Philip Kerr Viking, £15.99, pp.543 I have never worried too much about the odd lie and this book furnishes a lot of...

Page 28

Prince Charming in the mud

The Spectator

Antony Lambton KING EDWARD VIII by Philip Ziegler Collins, £20, pp. 654 I hope the Queen will make Philip Ziegler a knight. His Edward VIII is a good book. He writes with style...

Page 29

The return of the beast

The Spectator

Patrick Skene Catling A GRAVEYARD FOR LUNATICS by Ray Bradbury Grafton, £13.99, pp.285 S ome masters of denigration, such as Nathanael West and Terry Southern, have already...

Page 30

Plots, true or false, are necessary things

The Spectator

Mark Ills DECEPTION by Philip Roth Cape, £12.95, pp.208 TEMPLES OF DELIGHT by Barbara Trapido Michael Joseph, £13.99, pp.317 THE CIRCUS ANIMALS by James Plunkett...

Page 31

Circling the Square

The Spectator

Geremie Barme MOVING THE MOUNTAIN: MY LIFE IN CHINA FROM THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION TO TIANANMEN SQUARE by Li Lu Macmillan, £13.95, pp.224 THE SEARCH FOR MODERN CHINA by Jonathan...

Who do you think you are?

The Spectator

Already bespoke on his last day at boarding-school Nobody missed him which wasn't surprising Because his lost name still appeared on the roll call Of embryo Old Boys from Alpha...

Page 33

Among the jostling Philistines

The Spectator

Geoffrey Wheatcroft THE FABER BOOK OF THE TURF edited by John Hislop and David Swannell Faber, £14.99, pp-362 RACING IN ART by John Fairley John Murray, £35, pp.224 C...

Collapse of rich vein

The Spectator

David Jenkins DANGEROUS CANDY by Raffaella Fletcher and Peter Mayle Sinclair-Stevenson, £10.95, pp.88 R affaella Fletcher, a nice middle-class girl with loving parents,...

NEXT WEEK Piers Paul Read on divorce Michael Lewis on

The Spectator

Donald Trump Anthony Flew on Wittgenstein Caroline Moore on Patricia Highsmith

Page 34

ARTS

The Spectator

Grinling Gibbons A case of Dutch iris N o upside-down or backwards- mounted carvings this time (The Specta- tor, 28 October 1989), but the latest revelations from the fire...

Page 35

Theatre

The Spectator

Cyrano de Bergerac (Greenwich) Fences (Garrick Moscow Gold (Barbican) Knight in a swagger Christopher Edwards I t is hard to think of a more absurdly romantic play than...

Page 36

Pop music

The Spectator

Tuneful exceptions Marcus Berkmann h e huge and merited success of the new albums by George Michael and Prefab Sprout doubtless due entirely to the rave reviews given to them...

Page 37

Cinema

The Spectator

Presumed Innocent ('15', selected cinemas) Regions of disbelief Hilary Mantel T his is a big film (over two hours) of a big book (over 400 pages in the Penguin edition) — a...

Jeffrey Bernard is on holiday.

The Spectator

Page 38

Opera

The Spectator

Greek (ENO, London Coliseum) Nothing offensive Rupert Christiansen S uch a flurry of excitement, I can't tell you. As someone in Time Out put it, the first London...

Page 39

Exhibitions

The Spectator

Malcolm Morley (Anthony d'Offay, till 12 October) George Baselitz (Grob Gallery & Runkel-Hue-Williams, till 2 November) Frank Auerbach (Marlborough Fine Art, till 20 October)...

Page 40

Television

The Spectator

Blind to reality Martyn Harris T he great puzzle of Blind Date (ITV, 6.30 p.m., Saturday), is why none of the Daters — or should it be Blinders? — have yet got married to each...

Page 41

High life

The Spectator

Faulty recall Taki I New York t is amazing how good the Bagel feels after the stench of the Big Olive. As long as one sticks close to Park Avenue, that is. Autumn is the best...

New life

The Spectator

Squatters' rites Zenga Longmore 0 lumba is busying himself in the kitchen having just prepared a dainty array of cold collations. Omalara plays around my feet, re-designing...

Page 42

1 More Fun and Game

The Spectator

PHEASANT shooting began this month so I shall continue in the same vein as last month's cooking of game. I was reminded of an old favourite by Patrick O'Connor in the Literary...

SPECIPAT THE OR How to save yourself 51 trips to the

The Spectator

library ... or over £30 on The Spectator If you're forced to share The Spectator with fellow students, then you'll know how difficult it can be to track a copy down. Now you...

Page 43

Restaurant Al Bustan

The Spectator

THERE is a game I used to play and, as far as I know, coined, which I recommend to all those with suitable temperaments. It is called Deprivations, and it is a game I can...

Page 44

COMPETITION

The Spectator

Wislonry Jaspistos I n Competition No. 1645 you were in- vited to imagine A. N. Wilson at work interviewing an octogenarian celebrity of the past. Most of you put the...

CHESS

The Spectator

Fire and ice Raymond Keene h e Kasparov-Karpov world chess championship match, their fifth, starts in New York on Monday. Any Spectator reader in New York who wants to visit...

Page 45

So ution to 976: Inside out

The Spectator

anmalananamnam amC me.rannum Anna ounnennum 1 . , evniamenaca it,Erinnemonco. plunarmmrhaan utionenOURnoMME ommunn ulacAlp N ES mimeo mous 1 A Imaimil donnonn 190,...

No. 1648: Bouts times

The Spectator

You are invited to write a poem with the following rhyme-scheme: wax, knocks, cocks, thwacks, lacks, unlocks, ox, axe, frivolousness, glut, less, belief, thief, occi- put....

CROSSWORD

The Spectator

A first prize of 00 and two further prizes of 110 (or, for UK solvers, a copy of Chambers English Dictionary — ring the word 'Dictionary') for the first three correct solutions...

Page 47

SPECTATOR SPORT

The Spectator

Welsh rugby gloom Frank Keating THE BARBARIANS rugby club, chival- rous and shimmying in intent, continues its merry celebrations in Wales. Merry? Not across Offa's Dyke these...