The miners have shown more sense than their leaders by declining to strike for an increase of more than 20 per cent. The Coal Board's offer, given the circumstances of its...

Ferdinand Mount In all properly furnished Houses of Horror, there is a Keeper. The task of this functio nary, typically a smooth, well-tailored fig ure, sometimes possessing...

Should the press, radio, television — anybody — give a platform to terrorists and murderers? There are certainly those who would hold absolutely that they should not. But even...

Auberon Waugh Some months ago, I was intrigued to read that a large firm of underwear manufacturers in this country was altering its designs to take account of the changing...

Geoffrey Wheatcroft Or Much Ado About Nothing? As the Common Market Summit ground to its close on Friday afternoon a group in the press bar discussed which title fitted the...

Xan Smiley Success for whom? Almost all Zimbabweans, black and white, have been scarred and saddened by the war, and to the vast majority of them the signature by all...

Peter Kemp Salisbury Whatever the outcome of the Lancaster House Conference and however protracted the efforts of the Patriotic Front to delay it, it seems almost certain, at...

Henry Fairlie Washington . YVhat America needs to distract it just now Is to discover its very own upper-class, homosexual, nimble-footed and arty traitor 1 1 ,1 the heart of...

Richard West The late Herbert Morrison, who had been briefly Foreign Secretary at the end of the Attlee government, was to write of certain 'unwelcome surprises' during his...

Christopher Booker It is probably premature to see the events of the past two weeks as having marked a significant turning point in the appalling psychological stranglehold...

Great Britain has been visited with what the Americans call a 'cold snap'. The frost has been continuous since Saturday, and since Sunday has been severe. If it continues, the...

Peter Paterson The pit yard was crowded for the changeover of the morning and afternoon shifts. The black faces mingled, briefly, with the white faces before all went their...

Alan Watkins Mr Peter West is not only the former compere of Come Dancing, the presenter of cricket broadcasts on BBC televisioitand the owner of a public relations concern. He...

Sir: Further to Richard West's excellent article on 'The myth of 1916' (1 December): myths require that physical as well as historical facts be forgotten. Memorials to the few...

Sir: As an honourable man, Sir Cecil Parrott (Letters, 1 December) affirms that in his case principle, as well as vetting, militated against any betrayal to that pre-war Germany...

Sir: I don't know about Brahrns, but lg Mortimer has no right to denigrate Mil ton in such a cavalier fashion ( 2 ' November). The description of the 'rite mysterious of...

Alastair Forbes Memoirs Jo Grimond (Heinemann £7.95) Some Spectator readers must have been surprised, in the week of this book's recent first appearance, to see a picture...

Ian Jack Bhutto: Trial and Execution Victoria Schofield (Cassell £7.95) Famous men who are hanged unjustly after long and public trials tend to become martyrs, and martyrs tend...

Jeffrey Bernard My Greatest Race Ed. John Hughes (Michael Joseph £7.50. Stable Rat Philip Welsh (Eyre Methuen 25.95) The first thing that struck me most forcibly about My...

J.A.G. Griffith J.P: Magistrate, Court and Community Elizabeth Burney (Hutchinson £6.95) In a semi-official guide to the French judiciary, Georges Verpraet records that in...

A.N. Wilson Ahead of his Age: Bishop Barnes of Birmingham John Barnes (Collins 2.95) Mr Prendergast's return to clerical life from his exile as an assistant master at Llanabba...

Paul Ableman Sleepless Days Jurek Becker (Secker £4.95) Some months ago, reviewing Arno Schmidt's The Egghead Republic, I asked rhetorically: which is the more bleakly unfunny,...

Rodney Milnes Orfoo ad Euridice, Don Giovanni (Sadler's Wells) Coal fan tufts, Norma (Covent Garden) What is known as 'reverse-touring', or regional companies showing off...

Peter Jenkins Uncle Vanya (Hampstead) Mayakovsky (Half Moon) Quite slight and tender adjustments of emphasis can have drastic effects on a Chekhov play and Pam Gems and Nancy...

John McEwen The importance of The British Art Show (Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield, 1 December to 27 January; Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, 15 February to 23 March; Arnolfini...

Peter Ackroyd The Outsider ('A' Gate Two, Russell Square) The Outsider is filled with photographs: not the thirty-frames-per-second variety, which create the illusion of...

Richard Ingrams A motley assortment of persons are being interviewed on Platform One, BBC-1's latest series of one-to-one confrontations. I saw Victor Matthews a week or so ago...

Taki If there is one of Doctor Johnson's aphorisms I do not agree with, especially in these times, it is the one about patriotism being the last refuge of the scoundrel. It...

Jeffrey Bernard Browsing through a strange bookcase over the wdekend I came across a lovely little number entitled Tearth Yourself Journalism which is. of course, one in that...

Raymond Keene Some months ago I wrote that I was planning to organise an all-play-all tournament in Brighton, in order to give some of our promising juniors vital experience...