FOR BRITAIN, clearly a contentious New Year was ahead, with
not only a general election likely but also a contest for the Oxford chair of poetry (between Robert Lowell and Edmund Blunden) in prospect. Lord Attlee celebrated his eighty-third birthday by advising Mr. Wilson to go to the country in March, and Mr. Grimond sought to reassure the Liberals that he would certainly be on hand to lead them then. In doing so. however, he spread gloom at the implication that he might step down soon after the election. Britain's gold reserves rose again, but the economists' prognosis for 1966 was joyless. Mr. Maudlin& hotly denouncing the Government's handling of prices and incomes policy, warned them: 'The dams will soon burst.' America, too, had her difficulties, with a high-level squabble over increased steel prices, a transport strike which paralysed New York and led to the imprisonment of nine union leaders, and a strike of convicts at Sing Sing for better working conditions and more time off.
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