THERE was no reason, said Bernard Tapie, why he and Henri Emanuelli, the new leader of France’s Socialist Party, should not get along. The problem facing the spook’s offspring, Charlemont, is thus the obverse of that which confronts Hamlet, whose tragedy influences a number of features of Tourneur’s play. The last one to do so was Tony Benn who, nearly 20 years ago, was sacked as Industry Secretary by Harold Wilson after he ignored a formal warning that proposed subsidies to Meriden and other co-operative ventures could not be justified in economic terms.Mr Hurd, who is a cautious and pragmatic politician and could hardly have less in common with the radical Mr Benn, now finds himself in the same box, facing an inquiry by the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee as a result of an extraordinary train of events which threatens to cause the Government grave embarrassment.Mrs Thatcher’s determination ‘to bat for Britain’ led her to agree to a huge development aid package as part of an arms deal which she negotiated during a visit to Kuala Lumpur in September 1988. We can tell a robin from a chaffinch, but a chaffinch can distinguish between other chaffinches. Seeing the names personalised an enemy army which at the time of the war the British tabloids had been keen to depersonalise (they were simply ‘the Argies’).When I later plucked up courage to discuss the war with a group of Argentines, they told me that their army had been a ramshackle conscript force of young men, largely from the hotter northern provinces.

He used the house to make and store bombs and incendiaries and as a rendezvous point for other IRA terrorists. ‘The GPs were marvellous and did their best but they did not know what they were coping with They were scrabbling around for information. The hop is depicted on the label and on pump-handles in pubs.Whitbread recently introduced a beer hopped only with the east Kent variety Goldings, and is planning another one, based on the typical Hereford and Worcester Fuggle hop. But it would be surprising – indeed, Mr Major would be neglectful of his duties – if he did not discuss with the Queen the possible damage done to the monarchy during this dreadful summer of revelation, allegation and fabrication concerning the younger members of the Royal Family It is not just a formal duty.

Sir: Are one in eight would-be Liberal Democrat voters illiberate?

Yours,
A RENWICKLondon, W416 June. With all respect to the current heavyweights, imagine them in there with Jack Dempsey, Louis or Muhammad Ali.’When another great trainer, the 82-year-old Eddie Futch, was asked to speak about Arcel, he said: ‘Ray brought class, dignity and a high degree of professionalism to boxing.’ Those words said it all.. Since the job was not taxing, it did not matter that they grew old in office or that the great majority were dislodged only by death – including Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s consort, who served from 1858-61.The post is still part-time (Sir Simon estimates he will spend between one-and-a-half and two days a week on it) but is nowadays in no sense a sinecure The RHS is big business. True enough, Freddie can’t hit the high notes and Rod’s jackets are all too big across the shoulders and Elton hasn’t got a big white piano and his microphone conks out half way through ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’.