[Chris O'Carroll]

Wins this week for Basil Ransome-Davies, Adrian Fry, and Bill Greenwell. An hon mensh for me.

No 4230 Set by Leonora Casement
We want chatty descriptions – as they look back through the mists of time – of major historical events that took place under any still living former British PM, except Tony Blair, who, in his autobiography, has almost entered this comp already. An entry in the 1950s of a similar comp on Clem Attlee read as follows: “[Stalin’s] habit of scribbling vigorously on a pad with a red pen reminded me of my old English master” – his own take on the Yalta conference.
Max 140 words by 7 June comp@newstatesman.co.uk

[Brian Allgar]

They weren't looking for verse, then. (Sounds of gnashing teeth, the shredding of paper, and the pouring of medicinal whisky.)

[John Whitworth]

Lefties can't versify. Actually that isn't true but I feel it OUGHT to be.

[Brian Allgar]

But John, I'm not a lefty, I'm a right-of-centre anarchist.

[Norman Ball]

congrats Chris. what or where is your entry?

[John Whitworth]

Brian, did I say that? Of course you aren't. And you versify with great panache. I would have thought that all anarchists were right of centre though they often don't know it. Left in my book means being forced to be free i.e. under the control of the beneficent state.

[Roger Slater]

But you do love the benificent state's socialized medicine, right?

[Brian Allgar]

Roger, there was indeed a time when the National Health Service was the envy of the world, but that was before Mrs Butcher thatchered it.

[Norman Ball]

That's laying a lot at Meryl Streep's doorstep, Brian.

[John Whitworth]

Roger, the word is control. Free medicine has nothing to do with control. The deal is I pay in a lot when I am young and healthy and collect when I am old and sick. I'm busy collecting. I don't know what Mrs Butcher has to do with it.