Notebook
Brighton 'He eats more oysters than the Dukes' was the saying attributed to a waiter at the Beef steak club with reference to Paul Johnson, who this week addressed a Conservative Meeting at Brighton. Such jokes were of course more piquant when Paul was a socialist and editor of the New Statesman. I can remember once in an editorial con ference how he was holding forth on some Labour measure — the Industrial Relations Act, I think — and clinched his argument by saying that 'Everybody I meet is in favour of for instance the Duke of Devonshire told me Yesterday. . . 'There was a splendid misunderstanding, also in conference at the New Statesman, when Paul and an earnest, bearded contributor spent several minutes discussing the Marquess of Anglesey, with Paul referring to his friend the nobleman, and the ebc referring to a pub of the same name. I have not yet read Paul's expla nation of why he changed parties but I am sure he has been consistent. He has always as long as I have known him opposed the excessive power of trade unions; now that trade unions have not only won huge power but taken over the Labour Party, Paul has left it. Consistency in support of aims rather than party labels is part of the Jesuit wisdom that Paul learnt at Stoneyhurst. This up bringing also revealed itself, when Paul was an editor, in a reluctance to print opinions dis senting from what he saw as truth, a reluctance that led to some angry but not lasting quarrels. Paul often got things crazily wrong: he seemed to think that events in Paris in May 1968 presaged a new age of innocence. On the other hand, he got some things remarkably right. In 1962 he was almost the only journalist in England, certainly on the left, to support President Kennedy in warning against the build-up of Russian missiles in Cuba. I predict that the Conservative Party will find Paul quite as awkward and even unwelcome an ally as did the Labour Party.
What a drab and diffident bunch are the modern Tories compared to those of fifteen Years ago. Gone are the fierce, braying ladies who set about hecklers with hatpins, umbrellas and metal-heeled shoes; gone, or at least disguised, are the ad-men and publicists in their uniform broad-striped shirts and detachable collars; gone are the flamboyant party leaders — Macmillan, Hailsham, Macleod — whose faces one could recognise in the newspaper cartoons. Today's Tories look so unassuming, even apologetic, that one might forget what they were like in power and why one hated them. Indeed the Tories hold the responsibility for almost all the most dreadful things that have happened to Britain since the war, or at any rate since the benign Attlee and Churchill governments. the Suez campaign, commercial TV, the destruction of the railways, the closing down of the coalmines, the motorway boom, the planned demolition of city centres, the 'Never had it so good' spending spree, the growth of monopoly, the end of conscription, access cards, the switch of investment from industry into property, the Heathian public spending spree and, perhaps most infamous of all, the Walker destruction of England's ancient counties. Indeed I would suggest that the Tories, with their appeals to greed and selfishness, have done more than Labour to promote the rise to power of unscrupulous trade union leaders.
The Conservative shadow cabinet seems determined to resist any show of support for the Ian Smith government in Rhodesia. They may understand the emotions of all those delegates who want to recognise an internal settlement and to lift sanctions; but they want to be on the right side of whatever black government comes to power in Zimbabwe. A show even of sympathy for the whites in Rhodesia might prejudice Britam's future commercial interests in the country and alienate other black African powers.
I had forgotten, if I ever knew, that the Conservative Party Conference began with a church service. Although the Church of England used to be known as 'the Tory Party at prayer', the proceedings these days are modishly ecumenical, with contributions from Free Church Minister, Rabbi and Roman Catholic. The last read a passage from Paul to the Ephesiaris — 'Take up all God's armour' — which was likely to be the sole statement heard during the week that was not compromising and 'moderate'. The Tory speakers these days are almost as dull as they look. To give an idea of the dreariness of the first day, I need only say that the scene was stolen by Reg Prentice, a recent convert to the Conservatives, who as an orator at Labour Party conferences was somewhere near the base of the third division. Listening to these Tory speakers, I came to the conclusion that Peregrine Worsthorne has once again, in his weird fashion, got things right. As he suggested in the last Sunday Telegraph, the Tories are simply not fit to form a government and can at best hope to serve in a coalition headed by James Callaghan.
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