Portrait of the Week— SUDDENLY 'the biggest Tory revolt since
1940' was over; ten compromising amendments from Mr. Heath to his r.p.m. Bill and the back-benchers abandoned the barricades ready to march through the lobbies. The Prime Minister visited Nigeria, for no apparent reason, mystifying his hosts with references to 'the steamy shadows of our minds' and the 'stirring of the pot of trouble.' Labour MPs were troubled at the possibility of the power-workers' overtime ban affecting their elec- tion prospects, but no cuts were made in the first two days. Meanwhile an unemployed beggar, of no fixed address, was acquitted in Oxford on a charge of stealing a Ifd. bread roll from Mr. Hogg, Jnr., and Lord Ancram.
Si monurnentum requiris, circum,spice: while a ninety-foot office block edged skywards to blot out part of St. Paul's, Sir William Holford vigor- ously defended his scheme. Without it, he insisted, TV cameras would be deprived of a magnificent vantage-point for views of Ludgate Hill and Fleet Street. Sir Keith Joseph promised there would be no land speculation inttle coming attempt to bottle an extra 3,500,000 into the South-East, while citizens of the new cities of Bletchley, New- bury and Southampton protested at the promised new neighbours. TUC leaders quietly protested, at the Government's hint of an inquiry into trade union law, but there were no protests at the Government donating £9,000 towards phonetic alphabet' research. Brendan Bohan died, and Nancy Spain, and Jack Cotton. The Great Train Trial, on its forty-eighth day, reached the moment of decision, when the jury were locked up with over 600 exhibits. Billy Graham promised a cru- sade in London in 1966, and London Transport postponed the introduction of summer services as It is 3,600 men short.
*
VOTE-CATCHING IN THE RYE goes Pierre Salinger, resigning as President Johnson's press secretary to stand for the Senate, while Dean Rusk denied rumours that he too was resigning. In Dallas Jack Ruby sacked Mr. Belli, while his new lawyer claimed there were 182 errors during the recent trial. The Revolutionary Government of Rangoon nationalised most industries, threatening ten years' gaol for 'those who obstructed the introduction of a socialist economy,' while Zanzibar also went on a State ownership spree. King Idris of Libya re- tracted his decision to abdicate, and Muhammad Alt, alias Cassius Clay, was again rejected by the US Army. President de Gaulle triumphantly toured the West Indies, while another French in- stitution, Venus de Milo, was chipped on her first sca voyage to Tokyo.
WHILE THE GOVERNMENT announced plans for compensating victims of violence, Cathy Gale d. isaPPeared from the TV screen for good, and "In Fleming sold 51 per cent of James Bond to SUgar producers. Also in the business world the Beatles bought a share in British Lion Films, and met Mr. Wilson and the Duke of Edinburgh, on separate. occasions. An unhappy week for the Loch. Ness Monster, with a panel of scientists deciding that there was still no proof that it did exist, and for a 3,000-year-old mummy in Brussels, with magistrates defining it as an antique and at a corpse. Neither's. troubles were as annoy-
,g as those of a Plymouth bungalow owner, who was told that a public footpath technically ran right through his new home.
Previous page
