Portrait of the week
Sterling's back was to the wall; Sir Leslie O'Brien returned from Basle saying that he had 'every confidence in the pound"; the Bank of Eng- land rushed to its support; the Board of Trade announced a 'visible deficit' in October of il07 million—the biggest on record; the sank of Inter- national Settlements lent £90 million, and in Paris another $1,000 million was sought.
Miners reacted angrily to the Government's White Paper on fuel policy. Mr Marsh, Minister of Pow.er, precijcted that the present force of 395,000 miners would be cut to 190,000 by 1975, but re- !tiled to ,confirm Lord Robens's figure of 65,000 by 1980. Thirty-six Labour backbenchers published a motion condemning the Government's economic policies, and Mr Peter Shore, Secretary of State tor Economic Affairs, said that the Government would never abandon its aim of full employment.
To Labour cheers, Mr Brown told the Commons that he would be handing over South Arabia to the NLF on 30 November. Mr George 'Thomson's statement to the House cast a gloom over any who were still optimistic about a settlement in Rhodesia. Mr Wilson spoke at the Lord Mayor's banquet of a plan for greater cooperation on technology amongst European countries, which curiously enough was roughly what he said at the same banquet last year. It was rumoured that Britain is to present the Security Council with a new peace initiative for the Middle East, and the Queen spoke of economics to the Maltese.
In Tokyo 320 policemen were injured in student riots protesting at Prime Minister Sato's visit to America. There were anti-Rusk riots in New York and anti-American riots in San Francisco, where Negro private Ronald Lockman was sentenced to two and a half years' hard labour for refusing to serve in Vietnam. President Johnson was harangued from the pulpit when he went to church in Virginia, and Mrs Shirley Temple Black failed to get into Congress despite her support for a policy of escalation. The neo-Nazi two held a successful congress in Hanover: M Couve de Murville denied France's part in prompting German nationalism.
An all-male jury took six and a half hours to read Last Exit from Brooklyn at the Old Bailey obscenity trial. It was reported that drug pedlais are under constant surveillance hy policemen di:- pined ss hippies.
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