PORTRAIT OF THE WEEK
Hell, said the Chancellor of the Exchequer, might be just around the corner. This view he offered the TUC, who were asking for a 6 per cent growth rate and getting half that. He was said to be reserving Limbo for the Department of Economic Affairs, although (or because) the Prime Minister thought it most - useful. The Stock Exchange, relieved to learn that Hell was not here already, pushed share prices to another new record.
Mr Desmond Donnelly was expelled from the Labour party; but Mr George Brown made up his mind not to resign the deputy leader- ship, an event described by the Evening Standard as 'GEORGE SITS TIGHT.' His successor at the Foreign Office, Mr Stewart, confirmed suspicions that the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands has been discussed with the Argentine government. There was no question, said Mr
Stewart, of ceding the Falklands without the islanders' consent. Other islanders, though, felt their liberties eroded as the Government planned to repeal the Ship Money Act 1640 and all but a clause of Magna Carta. Voting took place in by-elections at Labour-held Acton, Dudley and Meriden and Conservative Warwick and Leamington, with the Tories hoping for a grand slam.
Pocatello, Idaho, heard from Senator Robert Kennedy, whose campaign for the Democratic nomination drew encouragement from the polls but none from Senator Eugene McCarthy. To President Johnson's anxieties was also added an outbreak of the black death in Saigon—'the ideal place for it,' said a spokesman of the World Health Organisation; American troops struck back at the plague-bearing rats with poisoned peanut butter. Miss Vanessa Redgrave
denied having said that anyone who didn't sup- port the Vietcong was a Fascist; and was cast as Mrs Pankhurst in Oh What a Lovely War.
Bodies and wreckage were found from the Aer Lingus Viscount which came down in the Irish Sea, but they gave no clue to the cause of the accident, which killed sixty-one people. Sir Alec Douglas-Home offered to negotiate with Mr Ian Smith. Mrs. Castle, turning her ministry's attention from drink to decibels, an- nounced plans for punishing the noisy driver; there would be listening posts at the roadside.
Professor Richard Russell, late of the Royal College of Art, recommended 'modesty screens' for the desks of secretaries in mini- skirts. 'In the country's present state,' said Professor Russell, 'we need to cut office dis- tractions to a minimum.' No doubt be bad looked around the corner.
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