I observed the bricklayer laying the first three or four courses of bricks in our conservatory today after calling Daniel early to make sure we all had breakfast together. The pond foundation was also begun. A tour of the Buckden County Ward villages with our candidate Percy Meyer on a fine and sunny day, taking 36 publicity photos. Good press stories today castigating Tory Mayor Bill Longford about his betrayal over Eaton Meadows. Ex-intelligence officer, Peter Wright, wins his legal case allowing him to publish the Spycatcher book, which contains details of a Secret Service plot to undermine Harrold Wilson’s Prime Ministership. The Health Minister makes a U-turn and announces an extra £125million to meet the nurses regrading costs but the government fiddles the unemployment statistics for the 24th time to exclude school leavers this time.
Awake quite early this morning and I called Daniel at 6:50am, so that we could all have breakfast together at 7:30am. The builders soon arrived and today the bricklayer laid 3 to 4 courses to bring the walls up to the floor level of the conservatory. They also dug out the perimeter of the deeper pool section and laid a concrete strip footing for the pool blockwork. This morning I called Percy Meyer, and arranged to go out with him around the village is taking shots for publicity purposes. We went to Offord, Buckden, Waresley and Paxton and got 36 good shots but it took all morning. The weather was fine today in the sun good for photography. This afternoon, I made a few calls and composed a press release on my recent Little Paxton history lectures and forthcoming publication, then, when I took Debbie to horse riding after tea, I drove off during the lesson and delivered the copies to offices in Huntingdon and St Ives.
The papers carried good stories about Bill Longford, St Neots Mayor he had turned about-face on the issue of the development of the Eaton Meadows. It was good teamwork that led to the story being covered in this way. In the national news, the main story is of the government losing its last legal battle in the House of Lords over the publication of the Spycatcher book by Peter Wright. There have been 22 judges involved over the two-year period of the legal actions. The editors of the Observer, Guardian, and Sunday times are jubilant and there was a full hour’s TV programme on BBC1 this evening that featured the book’s allegations that the security service conspired to overthrow the prime ministership of Harold Wilson. This decision came as a blow to the government. A climbdown also today as the health minister announces an extra £125 million to meet the nurses regrading costs in full. On the economic front, Chancellor Lawson warns that interest rates will stay high for some time against a background of the new statistics showing higher wage settlements and, surprisingly, the resumption of the upward trend in unemployment despite the 24th statistical adjustment to the figures – this time to exclude school leavers from the unemployment total.