Herewith a loosely wrapped bunch of Ideas—or reflexes—dedicated to the National Party on the occasion of their threat to remove the subsidies on food.

Little sum for you, Hollyhock. Remember that we have never had It so good: that we have a 40- hour week: and an hourly wage of, say, six and six. At M2 on the Ir 12 (that is, a man's keeping the old girl and a couple of sprogs) the result is a take-home pay of just over 12 notes a week.

The heart of the matter is this. One cannot live well on £12 a week, in our present conditions. The lower incomes could be raised in our present conditions. They could be rained further in different, and possible, social conditions. And this—in terms of living standres—is one of the wealthy countries of the world. And yet we are always short of overseas exchange; we cannot sell our food, and our neighbours are hungry. Nor, perhaps, are we In the most healthy of places. A country rich in food, within reach of a hungry continent is living, as they say, on borrowed time.

It is doubtful whether we should go on trying to solve our problems in the time-honoured way of pretending that they do not exist. Yet this is a speciality of the National Party (whom we have just voted in) and of the Labour Party, whom we have thrown out. Therefore, as a radical third party is out of the question, it remains to us to reform the Labour Party.