The Press: Puzzles & Politics .

The British press, much more than the American, is like the little girl with mid-forehead curl. No U.S. yellow journal is worse than Britain's biggest & worst, News of the World. But few U.S. newspapers can match the literary quality and accuracy of Britain's best (e.g., the London Times, London Telegraph). And in a half-dozen opinionated weeklies, the British press sets a standard, intellectual and literary, that is unmatched elsewhere.

A weekly that exemplifies British journalism at somewhere near its literary and critical best and prejudiced worst is the New Statesman and Nation. It is the biggest, orneriest and—in its rear parts—the smoothest of British literary weeklies. Since 1931, the New Statesman's circulation has soared from 14,830 to 87,156 (including 5,000 in the U.S.).

Maddening Muddle. The New Statesman is beloved, as Editor Kingsley Martin admits, by a "very high percentage of readers who say . . . that they read the front political part last and agree with it least." Politically, the weekly is a mishmash, an often-maddening muddle of Socialism, appeasement of Russia, and anti-Americanism. On the Korean war the New Statesman has adopted a "plague on both your houses" attitude, and has implied that worldwide Communism would be preferable to an atomic war.

The New Statesman's position as a kind of Chamberlain-of-the-left has endeared it to pacifist-minded intellectuals and greying Socialists who loved Russia in their youth, but it raises the hackles of most leaders of the Labor Party. When Prime Minister Clement Attlee was asked what publication he most disliked, he snapped: "The New Statesman."

Winged Barbs. In the sparkling back-of-the-book sections, directed by Literary Editor Thomas Cuthbert Worsley, surprisingly little of this left-wing fuzziness appears. Worsley, who is also drama critic and chief puzzle-master (under such pseudonyms as "Thomas Smallbones"), leans heavily on a few steadily brilliant contributors: Desmond Shawe-Taylor (music), Patrick Heron (art), G. W. Stonier, who also writes as "William Whitebait," (books, cinema) and topflight Book Critic V. S. Pritchett.

Though the magazine's pay is nominal, it has attracted such writers as G. B. Shaw, E. M. Forster, J. B. Priestley, Rebecca West and Elizabeth Bowen. A weekly feature is the barbed verses of Sagittarius (Olga Katzin, 54, a housewife who makes daily trips to the cubbyhole London office where she writes her poems). Recently, Sagittarius winged the government on the newsprint shortage. Said Sagittarius:

A little newsprint, shortly to be less, Outrages and insults the British Press A little muddle makes a pretty mess.

Wry Notes. In the column, "This England," the magazine regularly passes on to readers with an amused smile such deadpan comments on manners & morals as "The true story of the worst criminal in London's history. An admirably ghoulish play suitable for all the family. From poster for Shepherd's Bush Empire."