World

Who's going to win the British Elections?

SINCE JUST BEFORE the recent Labour Party Conference there has been a sudden feeling that the Government of Harold Wilson might, after all, retain power at the next British general election. The feeling was enhanced by a splendidly characteristic knockabout performance from the Prime Minister at the Conference itself, but it was fundamentally euphoric in character. The government has based its economic strategy on achieving a balance of payments surplus for so long that, when a balance appeared, it went rather to the head.

The Arab-Israeli conflict

AFTER THE FALL of the Jewish state of Palestine in the year 70, up to the fateful year of 1948 only two Jewish states were ever formed. One was in the Yemen in the sixth century and the other was on the Lower Volga and lasted for three centuries until 1000. During the Middle Ages Jews had formed tight, closely knit communities. But in the nineteenth century the movement towards cultural assimilation became much greater. Then in 1879 a tragic event took place. Bismarck for completely pragmatic reasons found it necessary to launch a campaign of anti-Semitism.

Britain's new morality

I WAS AT a dinner party the other night with some friends of mine who had been eager Labour Party campaign workers in the 1964 election and who had sweated for months to usher in the new dawn of the technological revolution then promised by Harold Wilson. Naturally, I twitted them with the present chaos of the Labour govcrnment and the widely accepted certainty of a Conservative administration after the next election.

Ho Chi Minh-Symbol of World Revolution

On September 4 the death of Ho Chi Minh, President of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, was announced in Hanoi. Cu Bac (the revered Uncle) Ho was one of the elder statesmen of the twentieth century, a man who contributed significantly to the course of modern history and, by his actions more than his words, to the development of revolutionary socialist ideology.

London squatter talks

TONY MAHONY is head of the campaign for clearing hostels and slums. This co-ordinates and publicises all the squatting campaigns taking place in Britain. At present there are five in London and many others in the North, notably in Manchester. For a national organiser of the most militant and successful left-wing campaigns in Britain, Tony has an unusual background. He was educated in a Jesuit school in London and proceeded to study for the priesthood for a few years. For a reason which he claims is incomprehensible to him he had chosen to be a Carmelite monk in Aylesford Priory in Kent.

The men on the moon

"ONE SMALL STEP for man, one giant leap for mankind." With words reminiscent of a children's game, Commander Neil Armstrong, at the culmination of a 204 thousand million dollar effort, took man's first step on the Moon. Does this association of ideas set the true tone of this achievement-a step in a game for children or is there something more?

Interview with Ian Smith

TOM McDERMOTT visited Rhodesia a few months ago. The following is a transcriptof a T.V. interview he did with Premier Ian Smith, which we publish without comment

Brazil-Cruciable of change

BRAZIL TODA Y IS, by virtually common consent, the country most likely after Cuba to erupt in some kind of a revolution. It is large and heavily populated, with some 90 million inhabitants-even though there are huge areas where human beings are relatively few and far between. This fact in itself is an indication of the road that Brazilian development is taking-a road which leads the Indians of the countryside inevitably to seek the supposed delights of the cities.

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