- -Portrait of the Week THE SECOND Romb of the French
elections ended in several different kinds of knock-out, the inter- national boycott of flags-of-convenience was a tame draw, and Mr. Nixon went on his way victorious. Meanwhile, the hot-air war over Berlin continued, and Mr. Macmillan, to show that Britain means business, brought Mr. Hugh Fraser into the Government.
OVERWHELMING VICTORY for the Union of the New Republic and the Conservatives emerged from the second round of the French elections. M. Soustelle's vaguely-defined organisation secured nearly 200 seats, and this total will be swollen almost into an absolute majority when the seventy tarne deputies from Algeria arrive to Join them. M. Pinay's Conservatives were the runners-up, and the rest were nowhere. The Com- munists, indeed, were not even nowhere; with only ten seats (compared with 145 before the election) they have virtually vanished. M. Soustelle, after his landslide victory, began to back-pedal, claiming that his Union is in fact a party of the Left. But the victory of those who organised the coup against the Fourth Republic Was complete, with practically all its opponents defeated.
MR. NIXON went back to the United States amid salvoes of congratulatory . editorials. There was general agreement that he h'ad not put a foot Wrong during his visit to Britain; those not con- vinced by his magnetism still insisted that the man behind the mask would need watching. While here, he had said some firm but cautious things about the Berlin situation. This, however, seems to have quietened of its own accord.
THE LAST-MINUTE defection of the Dutch, the long- term defection of the Germans, the hard-headed defection of the Italians and other such gaps in the line made the, International Transport Workers' Federation boycott of the Panlibhonco fleet a somewhat haphazard affair. It appeared to have been fairly solid in the United States, and such flags-of-convenience ships as were being serviced in British ports seemed to have slipped through the net because of confusion rather than lack of solidarity on the part of British dockers.
SEVERAL NEWSPAPERS, led by The Times (which had some very tendentious headlines for its report of the matter), attacked the introduction into the House of Commons of a Bill to make illegal the publication of the details of wills. The Press Council's annual report vigorously defended the press against charges of intrusion into privacy. The Bill, however, had a Second Reading. This Was more than Mr. Roy Jenkins's Obscene Pub- lications Bill received. Its stifling by the action of a few ConservatiVes brought the threat to stand for Parliament (in the Harrow East by-election) from Sir Alan Herbert.
THE 'GOVERNMENT reshuffle necessitated by Mr. Ian Harvey's resignation turned out to be a Suez Group field-day. Mr. Julian Amery moved up into the place vacated by Mr. John Profumo (who got Mr. Harvey's job), and Mr. Hugh Fraser Was made Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the War Office. A speech from Sir Anthony Eden completed the week's nostalgia.
A MASS ESCAPE from the Curragh internment camp of Irish terrorists reminded people that Cyprus was not the only place left where the Britiih Were unwelcome to at least some of the inhabit- ants. At the UN, the delegations of a dozen different countries sought in vain to find a solution for Cyprus—where a judge, commenting on the excessive violence used by the forces after Mrs. Cutliffe's murder, exposed the hollowness of Mr.
Christopher Soames's apologiafor them. '
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