A Spectator's Notebook
AMONG THE SUBJECTS on the agenda for the next Cabinet meeting, I am interested to hear, is the future of Punch. Some Ministers feel, under- standably, that Punch after Mug- geridge is in the same groggy condition as The Times after Northcliffe, and that the same remedy should be applied: it should be handed over to a Trust. Sir Reginald Manninghatn-Buller, I am told, is likely to propose that the Trust, like the one in charge of The Times, should consist of holders of dis- tinguished offices of State: say, the Lord Chancel- lor, Lord Kilmuir; the Secretary of the TUC, Sir Vincent Tewson; the Chairman of British Rail- ways, Sir Brian Robertson; the Attorney-General, himself; Arundel Herald Extraordinary, Mr. D. Morrah; and the Lord Chamberlain, Lord Scar- brough. In this way the many, lapses of taste of which Punch has been guilty recently may be avoided. The original intention was to co-opt Sir Harold Nicolson as literary adviser; but when Sir Harold's views on Punch appeared in the Observer the other day this project had to be dropped. I gather Sir Frank Newsam will be asked instead.
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