There can hardly be any doubt that Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition is undergoing a serious crisis of authority. At the beginning of last week the leader of the party...

Sir: I would like to draw attention to the case of thirty-four year old Mr Geoffrey Ayling who in September of this year was acquitted at the Chichester Crown Court of a charge...

Sir: I agree with Mrs Ewing (Letters. December 1), though I think Mayo McDonald's personal merits as a candidate also has something to do with the Govan result. It might be...

Sir: Hurrah for the silent majority, the ordinary citizen and Rhodes Boyson (December 1)! A day of retribution is coming, says he, presumably when the ordinary citizen and long...

Sir: Your editorial of November 24 was the most brilliant political commentary I have ever read. But how the hell can we make Heath, Walker and company take any notice? I'm just...

:Sir: From my point of view as an author, I naturally regret that Bookbuyer should have heard somehow and reported the Granada hardback division's dilatoriness in paying me for...

From Dr C. E. Foister Sir: In his article on vivisection Dr Linklater made some encouraging references to Frame and we would be grateful for the opportunity to comment on these...

Sir: John Linklater's article 'Dial a sex chat' is critical of this method of helping the young to understand and cope with their sexuality. The Family Planning Association has...

Sir: Mr Kestelman (Letters, November 24) wants to know how a fertilised human egg-cell is properly describable as a person. If he, and others desiring the answer, will read the...

Willie's next trick Patrick Cosgrave In deepest Ulster Mr Heath's withdrawal of his proconsul, Mr William Whitelaw, has given rise to acute concern, since political leaders of...

On being asked whether he had any favourite superstitions the late Sir Nal Coward replied, "Not many. But I do think that its terribly unlucky to sleep thirteen in a bed." I...

Lord Robens Whatever may be the final outcome of the Arab/Israeli confrontation, there can be no doubt that life will never be the same again for the oil-importing countries of...

The fight for Drumbuie Naomi Mitchison The fight is on at the Drumbuie inquiry. Will Mowlem and Taylor Woodrow be allowed to build a particular type of platform for oil rigs,...

Revolution in the night Joyce Rackham "Don't get alarmed, but we've had a revolution in the night," my Greek hostess announced as we met for a leusirely breakfast on that...

The other face of Gaullisme Piers Dixon At the very moment that President Pompidou was sitting at Chequers recently in eager consultation with Mr Heath over a new Anglo-French...

Indeed, demoniac frenzy, moping melancholy and moon-struck madness. What is Puzzle to make of the spirit of the Commons these last days? If he had not a service to the diligent...

What kind of lunar lunacy is this? Surely any attempt to change the leader of the Labour Party now would lead to even more bitterness and strife. Alas, there is a more sane...

These endeavours receive much support from the public prints. Daily Telegraph readers have been much surprised of late to find that robust Tory organ lament the fact like...

The marginal person Mervyn Harris Mervyn Harris is a South African writer who is investigating various aspects of contemporary British Society. This is the last of three...

'A Son of Man' . Martin Sullivan 'Son of Man' is a Biblical phrase variously interpreted by scholars. I do not wish to open that rich vein of inquiry, but rather to look at...

Destroying the destroyers Bernard Dixon During the early 'sixties, the US Army was building up a formidable stockpile of chemical weapons — nerve gases and other deadly...

In 1962 The Spectator had yet to saddle itself with a racing correspondent — male or female — but that didn't prevent its doing justice, in the shape of a full-length...

Memories of Hugh Bill Grundy The first, and indeed the only, time I appeared on a television programme with Hugh Cudlipp, we preceded it with dinner in a penthouse somewhere...

E. M. Forster published only a single novel after the First World War, and died at a great age in 1970. Howards End (1910) had been a notable success, and the reputation...

George Axelrod As Ever, Scott - Fitz edited by M. J. Bruce°li. (Woburn Press £4.25) The jacket copy for As Ever, Scott - Fitz, or 'Letters between F. Scott Fitzgerald and his...

Peter Ackroyd Sadness Donald Barthelme (Jonathan Cape £2.50) Hail To The Chief Ed McBain (Hamish Hamilton £2.00) Vermilion Sands J, G. Ballard (Jonathan Cape £2.25) The only...

A.L. Rowse Splendour at Court. Renaissance Spectacle and Illusion Roy Strong (Weidenfeld and Nicholson. 0.95.) We already owe a great deal to Dr Roy Strong for his discoveries...

Robert Blake The Eldest Brother, The Marquess Wellesley 1760-1842 Iris Butler (Hodder and Stoughton £5.95) Richard Wellesley, Earl of Mornington, first and last Marquess...

Charles Marowitz Olivier edited by Logan Gourlay (Weidenfeld and Nicolson £3.25) Logan Gourlay in his book Olivier presents himself more in the guise of an impresario than...

Larry Adler Nixon's Road To Watergate Frank Mankiewicz (Hutchinson £3.75) Watergate: The Full Inside Story McCrystal, Chester, Aris and Shawcross (Andre Deutsch £2.95) It...

David Holbrook Woman as Sex Object edited by Thomas Hess. and Linda Nochlin (Allen Lane £6.00) Although this book is about erotic art, it could also make a good subject for a...

Colin Wilson The Mind Possessed. William Sargan t (Heinemann £3.25) In 1924, the River Neva in Leningrad flooded , and the water swept into the laboratory of the 'psychologist...

Historians at play Benny Green The anomalies of Edwardianism continue to exercise the minds of an age which is more extravagant only in its method of dealing out death and...

Bookend The splitting of the NUJ's book and magazine branch into two autonomous halves marks another significant step forward in the union's invasion of publishing privacy. Up...

I read the other day . — where, I can't for the life of me remember — about a Canadian teacher who decided to carry out an experiment. A parade of some kind was being...

Greenwich Greek Kenneth Hurren As one who has neither read the Nikos Kazantzakis novel, Zorba the Greek, nor seen the celebrated motion-picture based upon it (though I know...

Don to rights Rodney Milnes, The first revival of an adventurous opera production is always fascinating. John Copley's semi-abstract Don Giovanni was given a rowdy reception...

Power games Clive Gammon Mixing easily with the powerful, Hugh Cudlipp (Cudlipp and Be Damned, BBC 1) might reasonably regard himself as having been as powerful as any of them...

Many strange things appear in the arts pages of the Times (not least the reviews), but none has been stranger than the reproduction across two columns last week of a full-length...

Nicholas Davenport The sensational fall in equity shares during the last account of the Stock Exchange — if we take the lowest figure of the FT 'thirty' index last week it...

My view, which is worth as much as anyone else's, is that the news and phone-in London commercial radio channel is not as bad as its critics and enemies would like. My one-time...

Selling Out Nephew Wilde Back in May, 1972, when the FT index stood at 543.6 readers may remember that with a legacy of E10,000 from my late Aunt Maud I began investing in...