Corridors . . .
PUZZLE IS HAPPY to contradict the rumour that, following the sale of his five NAB motor cars Sir Gerald Nabarro is giving up driving.
SOME TIME AGO Puzzle wrote about nasty Cyril Smith, the new Liberal member for Rochdale, saying that he had made a nuisance of himself to Jack McCann, his predecessor in the seat, when McCann was very ill. Numerous Liberal letters of complaint have been received, the most interesting of which was from Birmingham, pointing out that Doris Fisher, the present Labour member for the Ladywootl division likewise pestered her predecessor, the late, and lamented Liberal Alderman Wallace Lawler. Puzzle's Liberal correspondent seemed to think that Doris's naughtiness excused Cyril's ditto. No so: both deserve castigation, but Puzzle is pleased to add Doris to his list of nasties.
WHO SAID THAT Duncan Sandys was pleased about being made a Companion of Honour in Ted's New Year list? Sandys, who has been in poor health, is still bitterly complaining, (a) about not being offered a peerage, (b) about not being consulted on the list of British politicians to be represented at Strasbourg.
WHEN TRENDY DICK TAVERNE is being guest of honour at the National Liberal Club dinner in a week or so he can contemplate the fact that the Labour Party is planning the dirtiest campaign ever waged in British politics for his Lincoln by-election. "We will execute him," observed Uncle Jim Callaghan recently; and it is certainly true that— with what justification Puzzle does not know — Transport House are convinced they have a killing dossier on Taverne's record as Labour member for the seat which, they think, will lose his several thousand votes on publication (scheduled for the first day of the campaign).
Tom Puzzle
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