UFO Info Week-End

He helps people to believe in the American Dream because that has been his own life

He helps people to believe in the American Dream because that has been his own life. He climbed from a broken home in Arkansas all the way to the White House.He was born in down-at-heel Hot Springs, Arkansas, William Jefferson Blythe IV on 19 August 1946 in unhappy circumstances. His father had died in a traffic accident three months earlier and when he was four, his mother, Virginia, married Roger Clinton, an alcoholic who liked to play the ponies. In his book, he says that counselling has taught him how the loss of his own father, the privations of life with his grandparents and the beatings his stepfather used to administer to his mother made him prone, later in life, to self-destructive behaviour when he was tired, angry or alone.He was in high school when he became a delegate to a national movement called Boys Nation and he met John F Kennedy in the White House Rose Garden. With that encounter came the first political stirrings in the overachieving young Clinton, who later graduated from Georgetown University and, in 1958, won a coveted Rhodes scholarship to study for a year at Oxford. Evans, who served 32 years at the paper, recalled being sent to doorstep Sinead Cusack (pictured) and George Best as a young journalist. May all go well.Peter Cole is professor of journalism at the University of SheffieldDIARYOld waterworksThe Evening Standard’s departing executive editor, Philip Evans, was full of jokes at his leaving party on Thursday.

We believe this commercialisation has further to go.”Proliferation of sport on TV has also encouraged further business into these betting shops, although racing tends to be the main source of revenue. The reforms are positive, but the casino stocks are not going to have as many opportunities as they had initially thought so this has put a dampener on share prices,” he says.In favour of the operators, the current system, whereby customers must become members at least 24 hours in advance of using a casino (called the 24-hour rule) will be abolished. Additionally, casinos will be allowed to advertise and promote themselves, a practice which is currently prohibited.However, the draft Bill announced by Tessa Jowell, Secretary of State for Culture, included the unwanted surprise that there would be strict limits on the number of Las Vegas-style slot machines that casinos can offer. Additionally, only the largest resort-style casinos will be permitted to operate machines with unlimited prize money. Even then, these will be restricted to 25 games per table and 1,250 on any premises. Other casinos will be restricted to fewer machines that can offer much less attractive £500 payouts.The Government’s cautious approach follows the raising of concerns about gambling addiction, a problem that has emerged in Australia following the deregulation of its gambling industry. The softened approach is expected to ensure a smoother passage for the Bill through Parliament.Leigh Harrison, a UK fund manager at Credit Suisse Asset Management, adds that there is a slight positive to come out of the tighter rules.

“This will make entry into the UK markets by the big overseas companies looking to open resort-type casinos less attractive, so ultimately there could be less competition for UK operators.”Few investors are now excited about the prospects of pure casino stocks, with many investment analysts downgrading their expectations for share price returns following details of the Bill.Neither Mr Phillips at Britannic, nor Mr Harrison at Credit Suisse, holds casino operators in his UK equity portfolio. Casino operators represent only about 0.25 per cent of the FTSE All Share index. Mr Harrison says: “The heat has gone out of the casino operating stocks following the government announcement. Share prices will drift for a while yet while the market digests the information.”The picture is much brighter for bookmaking shops like William Hill and the Hilton Group, 60 per cent of whose business is the Ladbrokes chain of betting shops.