— Portrait of the Week— SIR ALEC DOUGLAS - HOME survived his first
Ques- tion Time in the Commons, but harmed his 'man of the people' image by shooting 199 pheasants and 19 partridges on Saturday. With defence costs rising, a whiff of an imminent aeroplane can- cellation was in the air, while in the Commons Mr. George Brown almost shot down his own party's defence policy: meanwhile the Minister of Housing, Sir Keith Joseph, virtually borrowed the Opposition's housing policy. The electors of Dundee treated their by-election with a supreme display of indifference, but the Marylebone cam- paign, with Lord Hailsham becoming common again, promises to be livelier. The new Mr. Hogg may become Minister for Higher Education; Mr. Macmillan was chosen as a Man of the Year by the British Council for Rehabilitation of the Disabled; and a new Bill before Parliament allays all fears about police behaviour by giving increased power to Mr. Henry Brooke 'NINE KILLED, 70 injured in Turkey elections' was the Times headline that illustrated a troubled week abroad. The Ghanaian deputy Minister of Trade was murdered with a cutlass, and Iraq experienced a week of revolt and chaos, with the army and air force under President Aref on top. US aid is to be given again to South Vietnam, and Mme Nhu went to Rome, leaving vast unpaid bills in the US. The Russian Government released Professor Barghoorn, mistakenly arrested on spy- ing charges, launched Cosmos 22, and survived yet more attacks from the Chinese press. Fifteen political prisoners were released by the Greek Government, and Argentina tore up all oil con- tracts with foreign companies. The bandmaster who enraged President de Gaulle by failing to Play the call in 'Aux Moils' during the Arc de Triomphe remembrance ceremony last week was placed under open arrest for thirty days.
qtr
THE FOREIGN OFFICE is to be knocked down, but as Mr. Butler promised that his policy was one of 'peace in the world', the rebuilding is not expected to apply to British policy as well. There were hints of yet higher fares for Londoners, of a salary increase for MPs, of the Duke of Bedford giving trading stamps at Woburn, and of the Goya portrait of the Duke of Wellington being destroyed unless a ransom was paid. Pay-TV is definitely coming next year, and Mr. Edward Martell applied for an independent TV. contract. The possibility of a tourist tax was this week's bitter pill for Scottish tourism, while the pill was recommended by Which? (now available under plain cover). Leeds and Edinburgh each lost one evening newspaper, Fords of Dagenham just prevented a strike that would have brought the entire plant to a standstill, and Mr. Marples opened another minor stretch of Britain's minia- ture motorway system. He also announced that he had not as yet been able to get a 'Marples Must Go' sticker for his car—possibly because demand has been so great.
*
SIR WILLIAM DUTHIE, ME, had the Tory Whip restored, after renouncing it two years ago because of 'dissatisfaction with government action against indiscriminate drift net fishing for salmon off Scottish estuaries'. TWTWTW is to end at the New Year, and the BBC produced confused explanations of its end that smacked of the very, humbug the programme was rumoured to have swept away (especially in the BBC). The head of Britain's biggest private security firm was robbed, an attempt to form a prisoners' trade union foundered, harps are to be made in Wales --for the first time since 1920, and the Meteoro- logical Office is to give monthly guesses of what our weather may be.
Previous page
