13 DECEMBER 1957, Page 7

I SEE THAT TAPER discusses the Prime Minister's broadcast at

length. What surprised me about it was not the banality of phrase but what he was trying to say. Whoever put it into Mr. Macmillan's head that it was the Prime Minister's job to deliver a pi-jaw to the nation? Admittedly it was not all pi-jaw, but the bits that weren't were an elemen- tary history lesson and a pep-talk. I suppose a pep- talk is within the Prime Minister's province, but surely history lessons (particularly as they were ones which Mr. Macmillan himself seems only to have learned during the last year) and pi-jaws are better left to other professions.