BAY and Benn When I dial a Bayswater number a
voice, sometimes live and sometimes recorded, tells me that, to get through I must now dial the four digits of the number prefixed by either 602 or 603 —that is, if I am telephoning from London. On the London dial, of course, BAY is the same as 229. Can the Postmaster-General kindly tell me how the cause of modernisation and technical progress is served by transferring, at considerable expense and inconvenience, from 229 to 602— or even 603?
And another thing, Mr Benn. Why is the post now slower than it was a century ago? (That is, assuming letters arrive at all : half the SPEC- TATOR'S mail for May 10 has still not reached us, and I apologise to readers whose letters remain unanswered for this reason.) In this issue of the paper, Mr Beckerman's article, posted from Oxford at 7 p.m. (last post 7.45 p.m.) didn't arrive at this office until 4 o'clock the next after- noon. And the Dean of St Paul's, less than a mile from the Mount Pleasant office where copies of this paper are posted each Thursday afternoon, now has to wait until Monday morning before the postman delivers his SPECTATOR. If Mr Benn were to spend more time attending to the proper business of his office, and less to trying to promote boxing matches on television, we should all be a lot better off.
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