A Spectator's Notebook
I WAS amused to see that the Daily Express had managed to decipher from the official photograph of the new Foreign Secretary all the papers on Mr. Selwyn Lloyd's desk. They discovered that Mr. Lloyd was about to `top and tail' a letter to Lady Eden which said : 'Thank you for your hospitality to me on Tuesday night. I think you are marvellous about putting up and putting up with Anthony's colleagues.' Beyond a doubt Miss Nancy Mitford will shortly be telling us in Encounter whether puns in a thank-you letter are U or non-U; but even before a definitive pronouncement arrives from her I think it safe to say that typewritten thank-you letters are undoubtedly non-U. They are also, I would have thought. blatantly bad manners, particularly when only two sentences long. Mr. Lloyd's social blunder gives Sir Anthony Eden an opportunity to establish himself as a man of action and decision. He should follow up his bold decree that policy matters should be cleared by the Cabinet before being made public by the firm and irrevocable order that Ministers must write all letters of thanks to Lady Eden in their own hands. We should then be comforted by the knowledge that, however incompetent the Government may be, the ordinary social conventions are being scrupulously observed.
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