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We’ll never forget.”An opposition senator, Luis Leon, went further. Tomorrow she flies to Patagonia to go whale-watching and take tea with the descendants of Welsh settlers.She flies home on Sunday to face the music with Buckingham Palace for revealing the secret life of Britain’s royals.If the Princess hopes to make a career as a kind of goodwill ambassador, this was possibly the wrong place to start. The theory implied that Mr Menem wanted the Princess here to push his rapprochement with Britain, partly in the hope of showing that he is making progress in his pledge to regain the Falkland Islands.President Menem, whose own love life – complete with a divorce and an illegitimate child – has often fed the gossip columns, will be host at a lunch for the Princess today. The ambassador normally drives a Rover.The cars, the first-class tickets for her and her staff, and the general costs of her stay raised the question of who exactly was footing the bill.

“You’d better ask the Argentine Foreign Ministry about that,” said a British diplomat here.His remark appeared to confirm a widely-held belief here that the Argentine government proposed, organised and financed the trip, although the Princess was ostensibly invited by the Infant Paralysis Association she visited yesterday. The Jag, and a twin model for the British ambassador, Sir Peter Hall, carried the diplomatic plates of the embassy But their registration discs gave the show away They had been imported from Chile especially for her visit. He is trying to push through measures that would allow him to bypass Congress and rule by decree on key issues such as tax reform and privatisation of industries.The Princess looked relaxed as she was greeted at the military airport by the mayor of Buenos Aires, Jorge Dominguez, and driven off in a new V12 Jaguar. She was no doubt unaware that it was at that airport, around the time she was courting Prince Charles, that Argentine Air Force planes used to load anti-government suspects, “drugged like zombies”, before tossing them out alive over the mouth of the river Plate.Insisting that her visit is about charity, she may also be unaware that this nation’s President, Carlos Menem, who will give a lunch for her at his official residence today, is being widely accused here of trying to garner near-royal powers for himself. She appeared to take a tablet, possibly a sleeping pill, and dozed during most of the 13-hour flight, they said.She had to. After a quick wash and brush-up at the British Embassy, she was straight into her first appointment, patting disabled youngsters’ heads at a paralysis centre and chatting to victims of road, rugby and swimming accidents.The Princess had flown into Ezeiza international airport, then on by helicopter to the capital’s military airport.

When she settled into her first-class British Airways seat for an overnight flight to Buenos Aires, the in-flight TV news review concentrated on one theme only – her BBC interview.Journalists , kept at a distance by the Princess’s detectives, said they were not sure whether she watched. PHIL DAVISON

Buenos Aires
If she thought she was going to fly away from it all, the Princess of Wales was mistaken. His main attack was on the car, saying the average speed in London is now 10mph, the same as it was 100 years ago.Also on the conference agenda was how the capital will survive as a financial world centre and how it is to be governed locally in the next millennium.. “For years people have commuted to and from work in appalling conditions but they never complain. Why not stage a one-day strike when everyone refuses to come to work unless things improve?” he suggested.”And the year after, a two-day strike, and so on until something gets done.”Also speaking at the conference, and equally critical of the state of London and concerned for its future, was the architect Sir Richard Rogers, who reiterated his blueprint for a 21st century London for the public, with pedestrianised squares and streets, plush public transport, and a revitalised river Thames.His plans include more bridges across the river, the planting of a million trees to reforest the Embankment, and increased river transport.”The public need somewhere to meet, they want somewhere to meet, we should be giving them places to meet,” he said. “But I can only think that for the Government, the 31st of December that year is just a date for a fireworks festival.”Sir David also said that for far too long Londoners had put up with inadequacies in their services and surroundings. The 11th earl, known locally as “Bill”, still lives near by and walks regularly on the land..

MATTHEW BRACE

London will slip into cultural obscurity and social decay unless radical changes are made in the next few years, City campaigners warned a conference on the capital’s future yesterday.
Speaking at the Royal Geographical Society in central London, the environmentalist and film producer Sir David Puttnam painted a grim picture of London in the next century, overtaken culturally by other world centres and plagued by a general malaise among its population.To avoid such a fate, he said, London’s 85 MPs urgently need to form a caucus to debate and drive change, not least in trying to establish it as Europe’s arts capital.”London seems unable to display any form of confidence and unless we get it back in the near future the result will be the most distressing, upsetting thing I can imagine,” he said.He added that the millennium and its associated festivals and events would be vital for London’s future, promising an estimated 100 million tourists.”The millennium is not just a chance for London, but its last chance,” he said. Owned now by a property developer, it is on the market and is not part of the package.The estate was sold off and the Coventry family moved out in 1948. Brown carried out the work only for the Earls of Coventry, but we are doing it for the nation – that is why we find it so exciting.”The park is being bought from the Sun Alliance, which has owned it since 1981 and is giving pounds 300,000 towards the restoration The house itself, Croome Court, is empty. We intend to restore it totally and will be opening it so that the public can see the work taking shape.”The centrepiece of the park is Brown’s mile-long artificial river, which is really a man-made lake. The land also includes his grotto to Sabrina, the goddess of the River Severn, made with some of the earliest artificial garden stone.Other features include a man-made island, two classical temples designed by Robert Adam and the statue of a druid and a memorial to Brown by James Wyatt.The trust’s regional director, Cecil Pearse, said: “This is a wonderful opportunity to restore a unique creation. “It would be more likely that the group would need to make disposals to help pay for any share purchases,” it says.Jim Michie, Littlewoods finance director, said: “If there are a few [shareholders] who want out, then why don’t we set up another buy-back device.”What we are saying is that, after 70 years in business, why rush? You have plenty of time to come to a rational conclusion.”Advising shareholders to reject the Dale offer, the Littlewoods board also urged Moores family members to wait for the outcome of two reviews of the business due for completion later this month.