King George VI was pronounced officially out of danger last week.
The Melancholy Fact
The traditional toast had just been proposed: "Prosperity to the public purse and health to the Chancellor." At the annual banquet given by the Lord Mayor of London to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 200 of London's leading bankers and merchants & their wives got to their feet. The toast drunk, Chancellor Hugh Gaitskell (whose health was fine) responded with some distressing news about the prosperity of the public purse: Britain's dollar deficit for the third quarter of 1951 was 638 million. The audience gasped. A deficit...
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