A Spectator's Notebook EVERAL obscure principles are entangled in a
the small affair of Mr. Ray Gunter and TW3. The incident itself is quite simple. Mr. Gunter agreed to appear on television and be interviewed, or whatever, by the cunning ferocious Bernard Levin, but, on the morning of the programme, Transport House told the BBC that Mr. Gunter wouldn't be able to show up, having a previous engagement. The feeling at Transport House in fact is that TW3 is essen- tially a frivolous light entertainment and not a suitable context for serious political discussion. To my dismay, I find myself in sympathy both with Levin and Gunter. In the case of Mr. Gun- ter, two principles spring to mind. One is that a public representative should be ready and willing to be interrogated in public. Another is that a public representative has no obligation to ex- pose himself to what might be a misleading and unjudicial examination. In the case of Levin. I assume that his motives are perfectly serious, and that like me he would reject the notion of separating life into categories such as Light and Serious. Anyway, this confusion of categories, Light and Serious, must be worrying the BBC. I hear that the Corporation has been looking round wistfully for some right-wing satirists in the hope of bringing more balance into the heavy end of TW3. How about that? You may now amuse yourselves by framing a suitable Situations Vacant for (a) The Times, (b) the New' Daily, (c) the Melody Maker.
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