PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
The Queen's speech at the opening of Parlia- ment promised legislation to reduce the voting age and the age of majority to eighteen, to re- form the Hotise of Lords, to decimalise the cur- rency and to convert the Post Office into a pub- lic corporation. Among other delights envisaged were proposals for public discussion on an earnings-related national insurance scheme, and `proposals for action' on the Donovan Report on the trade unions. Hubert Humphrey's posi- tion continued to improve slightly in the polls, but Mr Nixon still had a lead as the American presidential campaign entered its final week. The New York Times, in an editorial, accused the Republican Vice-Presidential runner, Mr Spiro Agnew, of financial impropiety.
In Prague, the fiftieth anniversary of the Czechoslavakian Republic was celebrated without a massacre, while in England the Great Revolution fizzled out in an orgy of self-con- gratulation when Vietnam agitators, denounced as 'foreign scum' in the House of Commons, joined handS with policemen to sing `Auld Lang Syne' at tfie end of a thoroughly British demo.
In Nigeria, Col Benjamin Adekunle, Com- mander-in-Chief of Federal forces on the south front, threatened to flog Major-General Raab, of Sweden, one of the team of international observers which is investigating Biafran claints of genocide. Meanwhile, the Biafra* continued to hold their own .with a vastly improved supply position, despite a false report that Colonel Ojukwu had been gravelY wounded by a would-be assassin.
While Gerinan intelligence chiefs continued to commit suicide, it was alleged that three spies had driven hundreds of Miles through West Gerinany with the nose of a Stolen NATO rocket protruding from the windoW of their car. They then wrapped it up in a parcel and sent it to Moscow through the post, it was claimed. Three prisoners; said to be among Britain's most dangerous, escaped from the !OP- security wing at Durham Jail. The Olympic Games ended, with Britain the proUd winner of five gold medals, five silver and. three bronze. The National Gallery paid £150,000 for a Virgin and Child by the Siennese painter Dtiteio, which had been bought for £2,700 by an American dealer, Mr Julies Weitzner, at a sale in Somerset. Allegations of a dealers' ring were hotly denied, and Mr Crosland has sent the,papers to the Director of Public Prosecutions for closer study. At the Old bailey, a man found guilty of receiving stolen cats, was said to have told police that he made £500 a week profit selling cap to Birmingham ikiiverkity and other places. Before reieiveing a two-year suspended sell: tence, he said that he hoped to increase his profits to £1,000 a week as a bona-fide dl dealer.
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