Thank you for your letter of Oct 15 with the interesting forecast of the elections. We shall know how far they have come true in a couple of days. I wonder if the Russian scandal will affect the result. Candidly I don't know what to make of it except that it seems to me to matter very little what one Russian Communist writes or doesn't write. But I don't know that when all is said it had done us in Asia much practical harm.
Irritation is about the sum of it.
We are having awful alarums and excursions over the Hijaz business. Faisal is all agog to induce his tribes to make huge raids on the Akhwan. Luckily the tribes are extremely lukewarm for if they raided it would only mean that the Akhwan would counter raid and the 'Iraq Govt clamour for defence by our aeroplanes. H.M. has been frankly told that we won't help against any attack which has been deliberately provoked. Having been laid on the shelf I have not been able to see him recently but he writes huge letters to Sir Henry almost every day.