—Portrait of the Week
A WEEK OF SHADOW-BOXING at home, with political pundits ruling out a February election. The Prime Minister made an eight-hour tour of Scotland, and contrasted the 'asphalt socialism' of the Opposition with the concrete steps made by the Government. Sir Alec Douglas-Home was de- nounced by President Nasser as 'a man with a twisted mind, chosen by politicians sitting in night clubs,' which Whitehall sources took as a 'scurrilous personal attack.' With the country talking itself into an economic crisis, Mr. Maud- ling and Mr. Callaghan faced each other in the first, and probably last, TV confrontation, and provided both political stalemate and stale tele- vision. Mr. Enoch Powell insisted that Neddy was not nonsense, but Nottingham libraries com- mittee decided that Noddy was, and banned Enid Blyton's works from its shelves.
MORE SHADOW-BOXING abroad: the Cyprus buck was passed to the. UN without success, while more British troops flew out to the island and British rifles were stolen from a ship docked in Fama- gusta. Southern Rhodesia huffed and puffed against the British delay in granting indepen- dence, and Russia protested at Albania ioting its embassy at Tirana. The Turkish Premier, Mr. Inonu, survived a shooting attempt, and Dr. Nkrumah took over finance responsibility, after Mr. Goka resigned. British trade with Cuba was again criticised in the US, with right-wingers claiming, 'Castro is a passenger in every Triumph car,' and South Africa threatened to cancel a shipbuilding order from Aberdeen because the city council was boycotting its goods. After forty- five candidates, three jurors had been chosen for the Ruby trial, while Bobby Baker again refused to answer Senate committee questions. Mr. Butler produced disarmament plans in Geneva, a Mexican ambassador was charged with drug- carrying, and Malaysia and Indonesia squabbled yet again.
THE BEATLES RETURNED from the US, praised by all, and credited with the feat of wiping out gang warfare in Liverpool. Meanwhile the group was named by a bank as an 'invisible' item in the balance of payments accounts, and their Stateside visit may have accounted for last month's record trade gap. Mr. Heath's price-fixing Bill was pub- lished, just as a Government report lambasted butchers, typical of the small shopkeeper Mr. Heath is supposed to be ruining, for failing to provide a reasonable service. Postmen, steel- workers and electricity workers all threatened strikes, and over 100 office staff at the AEU headquarters walked out. Down went unemploy- ment, Army recruiting, Prince William's hopes of joining the Commonwealth Relations Office, and Lord Sandwich's hopes of returning to the Commons, with Mr. Macmillan's constituency providing the latest snub. Down went Sonny Liston, upsetting the form book and most of the world by losing to Cassius Marcellus Clay, who before the fight had threatened, 'After this I'm gonna be so great I'll run for Congress.'
FANNY HILL got into trouble again, with the 45s. edition suffering a police raid in Manchester. The BBC announced plans for its second channel, just the first channel writ small: meanwhile Child- ren's Hour is to be shortened to half an hour. Oxford and Cambridge women are to have their own Boat Race on March 14, and the SRUBLUK —the Society for the Reinvigoration of Un- remunerative Branch .Lines in the United King- appealed to members to send in suggemions for a new title.
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