Portrait of the Week— WITH LABOUR BASKING in self-congratulation, the
Conservatives gathered at Blackpool, ready to ollow their leader, whoever he may be. Hints that the Prime Minister would reveal all on Saturday
were made useless by his sudden illness. Mr. Butler, who commented on Panorama that Lady Luck had been a good friend to him, deputises. Previously confusion reigned supreme in the Tory succession stakes: the Guardian had thought Lord Home would take over, the Daily Mail detected a move towards Lord Hailsham, while the New Doily's. poll of its readers showed 484 votes for Hailsham Mr. Selwyn Lloyd collected 159 votes and Mr. Henry Brooke I. One Minister certainly not in the running is the Attorney-General. Sir John Hobson, who is to appear before the benchers of the Inner Temple following a com- plaint.
OTHERWISE A HUMDRUM WEEK at home: the police issued yet more photographs of train robbery suspects, the Press Council censured the News of the World, a London bus strike was threatened. railwaymen put in a, '10 per cent wage claim, Oxford heard a new road proposal, just thirty-six years after the first designs were produced: but the university is to have more science professorships, though not before 1967. BOAC was given permis- sion to introduce night 'stand-by' fares on the London-Prestwick route. BOAC does not run any night services from London to Prestwick. The Minister of Housing withdrew the 1963 Good Housing Design award from the Basildon Development Corporation, as 374 of the prize- winning houses have leaks, but promised 400.000 new houses a year. Meanwhile the house that Mr. Barry Bucknell renovated for a BBC series remains unsold. The Tomato and Cucumber Marketing Board died an ignominious death, and a Gallup Poll in the Sunday Telegraph reported that the people of Britain, and to a lesser extent France, seemed to be suffering from a national inferiority complex.
AN EMBARRASSING WEEK for the Kennedy adminis- tration : Mme Nhu came to the US, avoiding paint pots thrown at her in Paris, commenting that her Buddhist opponents were 'hooligans dressed in saffron,' and complaining that US aid had petered out. Aid to Honduras was similarly suspended, after its revolt, and further South American revolutions are anxiously expected. While the Big Three agreed to ban nuclear Weapons from space, it was revealed that capsules used in US space shots had as many as 500 techni- cal faults. tuba was ravaged by hurricane Flora, while five anti-aircraft officers were imprisoned for trying to shoot down a plane carrying Dr. Castro and the Russian Ambassador: Dr. Adenauer determined to leave office with a bang to compensate for the whimpers of the last few years, by urging the West to take political advan- tage of Russia's wheat shortage. There were riots in the Milan stock exchange, threats of an Algerian guerrilla war, the Kenya talks in London plodded on, France tested the steely nerves of the EEC, and Denmark opened a minor meat and cheese war. against the Six.
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CHELSEA may be wiped off the map in a merger with Kensington on the death of the LCC, while the chairman of the LCC 'resigned. Mr. Ray Gunter declined to appear on TWTWTW, Colin Jordan was married, London courts now have a three-month backlog of cases, and three-quarters of a milliOn pints of beer were tossed away in Birmingham during a brewery strike. Merseyside singers have been banned from some Glasgow halls following damage done by fans during one show, and British Railways is withdrawing foot- ball special trains for Mersey soccer supporters because of the continuous damage to their trains.
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