Portrait of the week
Lord High Executioner Wilson finally steeled him- self to cut some heads off: all the expected victims fell to his axe. The largest savings were on defence: the F 1 1 ls were cancelled, withdrawal from the Far East and the Persian Gulf was brought forward•to 1971 and this was to be followed by the run-down of the aircraft carrier programme. Cuts at home hit roads and housing, the raising of the school leaving age was postponed two years, free school milk was stopped for over-elevens and prescription charges reintroduced at 2s 6d a dose. Lord Longford re- signed, and was replaced as leader of the House of Lords by Lord Shackleton; Mr Gordon Walker and Miss Jennie Lee did not feel obliged to follow suit. Mr Jenkins warned of a very tough budget to come, and announced the date: 19 March. Meanwhile, the pound stumped. share prices went through the roof and BMH and Leyland thought it a propitious moment to announce a merger.
From the pulpit of St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh, Mr Malcolm Muggeridge denounced 'dope and bed' and resigned as Rector of the University, indignant that he should be called upon to support a student ,plea for free contraceptive pills. Mr William Wilson's Divorce Law Reform Bill was given its first public airing, as was the Industrial Expansion Bill; a company was formed to build an airport— plus harbour—on reclaimed land at Foulness as an alternative to Stansted and it was revealed that post- Mountbatten Report escapes from closed prisons fell by sixty-two last year.
In Sicily a violent earthquake killed an estimated 500 people, destroyed whole villages and left 10,000 homeless; in Scotland a hurricane, with gusts of 134 m.p.h., killed over twenty people and made 646 Glaswegians homeless. The submarine 'Alliance' ran aground and was refloated; the oil-rig 'Sea Quest' came adrift and was towed to harbour. Mai Van Bo, chief of the North Vietnam mission in Paris. echoed Foreign Minister Trinh when he affirmed that a cessation of bombing would lead to talks. Alec Rose set sail for the homeward leg of his round-the-world voyage, and a German baron was killed by an angry elephant in Tanzania.
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