Spectator's Notebook
THE most notable name in Mr Wilson's Cabinet reshuffle is that of the man who didn't move: Mr James Callaghan. It was, of course, rather tactless of the Chancellor to have advertised his job in the situations vacant column of the Guardian, but a more astute politician than Sunny Jim would have realised that a move was never on for him anyway. For one thing, it would have led to a massive run on the pound and probably instant devaluation —not, I hasten to add, because Mr Callaghan is so highly regarded overseas, but simply be- cause such is the distrust of the present Govern- ment that any change would be regarded abroad as the prelude to a new policy for the pound. Even more important, however, Mr Wilson desperately needs someone around as a fall guy for when the economy turns sour next year and the dole queues mount. This is the tradi- tional role for Chancellors of the Exchequer, and it would hardly be like Mr Wilson of all people to let this one off the hook.
Mr Brown's move to the Foreign Office at least ends the embarrassing situation in which the man who had publicly declared his opposition to Mr Wilson's economic policy was officially en- trusted with implementing it. It also gives Mr Brown the job he has always wanted—no doubt as a quid pro quo for consenting to remain in the Government at all. While harbouring (who doesn't?) some misgivings about George's tem- peramental suitability for so delicate a post, I wish him every success. Whether he'll be able to make much headway in achieving his dearest wish of taking Britain into Europe is, alas, more doubtful. The Prime Minister is clearly not com- mitted in any way to British membership of the Common Market; the proposition isn't on at the present time anyway; and when it is we may well find that European George is no longer in charge of foreign affairs.
Nimmo
Still there are some grounds for hope, which is more than can be said for the appointment of the Prime Minister's favourite functionary, the didactic Mr Stewart, to the Department of Economic Affairs. Mr Stewart is about as dedi- cated an economic expansionist as Nimmo, and can be safely left to preside in happy con- dominium with Mr Callaghan over the forth- coming recession while paying proper reverence to the pound and to Mr Wilson, as he has been until now to the third object of ritual devotion in the new Britain's new Trinity, President Johnson. As for the subsidiary moves, Alan Wat- kins know better than I do bow disastrous Mr Bowden has been as Leader of the House; as Commonwealth Secretary, he can hardly fail to be an improvement on the egregious Mr Bot- tomley, who, in turn, can do little harm at the Ministry of Overseas Development now that it has no money to spend anyway. Meanwhile, Mr Crossman has been graciously allowed to escape from Housing as his whole policy crashes in ruins about his ears. As that noted authority, Mr Harold Lever once observed, in the Labour party nothing succeeds like failure.
Meet the Press
It says much for the magnanimity of Lord Poole that he consented to take his place among the other City bankers at the Prime Minister's dinner table last week_ Nine years ago it was Harold Wilson's wild and unfounded alle- gations about a so-called Bank rate leak, including a particularly nasty insinuation, under cover of parliamentary privilege, about the then Mr Oliver Poole 'with his vast City interests,' that led to the setting-up of the Parker Tribunal which, after exhaustive inquiries, completely cleared Poole and everyone else of any of the alleged improprieties. Characteristically. Wilson never - apologised. Legal representation at the Tribunal was said to have cost Oliver Poole some £10,000.
No doubt, at any rate, this expensive experience helped Poole to assess the value of the Prime Minister's assurances at last week's Downing Street meeting that the pound wouldn't be de- valued and that everything would be all right if it weren't for the wicked press. All this, of course, was duly reported (except the last bit) in the public prints. But oddly enough the following evening—the Thursday—there was a second meet- ing at Number Ten which failed to be reported anywhere Nor can the press have been unaware of it. For the meeting was between the Prime Minister and the editors of the wicked national newspapers themselves, who, flattered in the very room in which they had been abused behind their backs the night before, were entreated to cry God for Harold, England and the Pound.
Needless to say, this synthetic patriotism found an echo in the likeliest place; and on the Saturday morning the Daily Express came out with one of its punchiest chauvinist leaders, headed 'No need to devalue the f.' 'Nobody,' it roundly declared, 'of any party contemplates the devaluation of sterling.' Nobody, that is, above the rank of Deputy Prime Minister.
Twelve Good Men In the year of this journal's foundation Lord Brougham, shortly to become Lord Chancellor of England, was able to declare that 'all we see about us, Kings, Lords and Commons, the whole machinery of the State, all the apparatus of the system, and its varied workings, end in simply bringing twelve good men into a box.' After 138 years of progress and law reform we can now amend this to 'ten good and two bad men.' For such is the significance of Mr Roy Jenkins's new proposals.
It's bad enough that in future, if the Home Secretary's 'reform' becomes law, a man will be able to be given a life sentence even if two mem- bers of a jury—perhaps the two most intelligent and conscientious members—are convinced he is innocent; but at least there's always the pos- sibility of appeal. What worries me more is the official reason for the change: the resigned acceptance of the fact that it's no longer realistic to expect to find twelve honest men. Apparently we must take it for granted, at any rate in Lon- don, that in any big criminal case at least one juror will either be bribed or intimidated into giving a false verdict. In part this has probably happened because juries are now selected from the public at large, instead of being confined (as they used to be) by various qualifications to a section of the community which, whatever its other failings, was at least fairly incorruptible. But I've no doubt that it also reflects a general decline in public morality. And nothing illus- trates that decline better than the fact that the press and public alike evidently regard Mr Jen- kins's explanation in the House of Commons that in future we must base our whole legal system on the tacit acceptance of widespread public corruption as a perfectly reasonable state of affairs, hardly worthy of comment.
NIGEL LAWSON
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