The Week
Christmas is coming and the IMF men are no doubt getting bored. Inspired leaks told us that a compromise had been reached in the negotiations between the British Government and possible money-lenders: Public spending cuts would be no more than £1,500 million next year. There was also some talk of the IMF setting the Cabinet a deadline for making up its mind: it seemed a pity to kill a story which rivalled the Geneva talks for interminability.
Following the shadow cabinet's decision to impose a three-line whip on the devolution Bill Mr Edward Heath claimed a right to be exempted on grounds of conscience. Some ill-conditioned Tory MPs were quick with memories of the day when as Government Chief Whip, Heath was not notably tolerant of such scruples. The Government got a third reading for the Aircraft and Ship Nationalisation Bill by three votes. It won a Previous division in the House thanks to Mr Enoch Powell, Mr Silkin, the AttorneyGeneral, gratefully announced that he would not be prosecuting Mr Powell under the Race Relations Act.
In the Japanese general election the ruling Liberal Democratic party scrambled to a sort of victory, although the Prime Minister, Mr Takeo Miki, said that Japan faced her Most serious postwar crisis. In France 50,000 Gaullists met to declare M Jacques Chirac head of the re-constituted party. The French newspapers went on a two-day strike. The Libyans, who now own a large Share in Fiat, ordered the Turin paper 1-0 Stanipa--owned by Fiat—to toe a proArab line.
The Irish Peace Movement held another rally, in Ireland, near the site of the Battle of the Boyne. Many shops in Londonderry ‘'vre gutted after fire-bombs had exploded. 'It's Maureen Colquhoun—the 'left-wing' Labour MP and 'feminist', who had protested against a previous peace rally in the company of Miss Pat Arrowsmith, an authority on life in women's prisons—lost 11A ,er appeal to the Press Council: the Daily
had told of how she had set up house With another lady.
Another great public figure, Lord Wigg, ‘y, as acquitted of certain charges in a London magistrates court, although the agistrate said that he could not accept r"Igg's evidence. Mr Tom Swain, a Labour became overwrought in the House of \-_ommons and shouted at Mr Norman tebbitt MP, 'If you say that outside I'll Punch your bloody head in.' in Rhodesia terrorists killed three L,atholic missionaries. Sir Seretse Khama, itaresident of Botswana, left a Johannesburg °°sPital where he had been undergoing in
tensive treatment. President Bokassa of the Central African Republic proclaimed himself Emperor. Israel put down her first resolution since 1949 at the General Assembly of the United Nations in an attempt to outflank the pro-Palestinians.
Sir Harold Wilson joined in the notorious witch-hunt of Trotskyists within the Labour Party, attacking 'bed-sit' infiltrators. Mr Bill Grundy was suspended by Thames Television after the absurd 'punk rock' incident. Mr Callaghan said that he had not been 'over-impressed' by the Labour Party broadcast about 'the Honourable Algernon.'
The cold spell continued in England and led to the cancellation of all racing on Saturday. Cambridge won the varsity rugby match.
Mr Jimmy Carter announced that his new Secretary of State would be Mr Cyrus Vance and that he would be appointing to high office a Georgia banker to whom he owed much money. Benjamin Britten, the greatest English composer of our time, died aged sixty-three. Spiller's brought out a turkey-flavoured cat food in time for Christmas. A Peking newspaper claimed that Mao had berated his wife because 'You have my books but stubbornly refuse to read them.' There were riots near Delhi in protest against compulsory sterilisation. The police in Djakarta were given permission to stone recalcitrant drivers. And the world thrilled at the news that Elisabeth Taylor had been married for the seventh time.
Previous page
