Westminster corridors

Last night we received a Piece of Ill News at the Club, which very sensibly affected every one of us. I question not but that my Readers themselves will be troubled at the hearing of it. To keep them no longer in Suspense, Sir Simon d'Audley is dead.

He departed this Life at his Place in Hertfordshire after a few weeks' Sickness. I am informed that the Poor Man caught a Cold in the County Sessions even as he was warmly promoting an Address on the subject of law reform for Minors (or it may have been Miners).

So distraught was Lord 'Peter Wimsey' l'horneycroft, the chairman of the Tory Party of which Sir Simon has long been an active member, that he was immediately admitted to King Edward VII Hospital for observation. The Physicians there believe that Lord Peter has something known as sciatica, a painful complaint contracted by sitting too long on one's • . . well, from sitting too long.

A somewhat less than solicitous Mrs 'Harmony Hair Spray' Thatcher sent the ailing chairman a curt note saying that if that was the best he could do after only a few weeks in the hot seat, then there were others of sturdier constitution.

• Mrs Thatcher is understood to be much impressed by the stamina of Mr Edward Heath, a Politico, and is thought to have been of the mind to offer him the job. He is so busy, however, with his conducting duties ' and installing a large (replica) organ on his new yacht that he, will almost certainly refuse the honour.

Now that he has dispersed with his dreadful speechwriters, it has not gone unnoticed that Mr Heath is a much improved man. His first speech at the Club last week since he lost the leadership of the Tories was an unqualified success. He actually spoke without notes (indeed with his hands in his pockets) and what he said carried far greater weight and conviction than the utterances of anybody else during the Common Market debate.

The only people in a packed Chamber who did not attend to him were Mr Secretary Callaghan, who cares so wisely for our Foreign Affairs, and Mr Walter Harrison, the discreet and urbane deputy chief whip. These Gentlemen were holding a debate of their own, which has been widely misreported in the popular prints.

Far from abusing one another, as has been suggested, these two old friends were discussing a social engagement of a rather delicate nature. Mr Callaghan eased himself along the Treasury Bench and asked Mr Harrison what he was doing later that evening as he (Callaghan) had a spare ticket for the muchacclaimed production of Let My People Come (an adult musical at the Regent Theatre).

Mr Harrison (or Walt, as he is known by his friends) explained, very courteously I thought, that most of his people (as a whip he gets rather proprietorial about his charges) had already come and he intended to hang around the Lobbies to make sure those who had not did.

The Foreign Secretary, for reasons best known to Mr Roy Hattersley, the Billy Bunter of the Ruffian Party, took Mr Harrison's reply to be a direct attack on the principle of membership of the Common Market and rushed in search of the Prime Minister who happened, for once, to be at the Club.

Bursting emotionally into the Harcourt Room, where Mr Wilson was having a very private dinner for two at a table for six, Mr Callaghan screamed: "Harold, that Harrison has gone and done it." To which Mr Wilson replied: "Do not call me Harold in public and I wish you would go and do it." Thus chastened, Mr Callaghan left the Prime Minister to his overcooked Dover Sole (none of your foreign fish for him) which he washed down with a jug of bitter, This only goes to prove that the gossips are wrong about Mr Wilson drinking Wincarnis and eating pork pies with HP sauce. His taste (though he is no Giscard) is excellent.

It was good to see Mr Wilson in such fine fettle. A sacking here and an admonition there seemed wondrously to have perked him up. Those close to him say that win or lose the Referendum, he is determined to remain Prime Minister for at least another decade.

Besides, he does not expect to lose the Referendum. With a degree of arrogance that I for one find frankly most heartening, our beloved Prime Minister really does believe that there is nothing inconsistent in his opposing the Common Market, then supporting it, then opposing it and now supporting it again.

He tells his friends that he has negotiated a "new deal with peace in our time." The only person with nerve enough to remind Mr Wilson of what happened to Mr Chamberlain after he had used similar words was poor Mr Eric Heifer.

And look what happened to Mr Heffer.

Tom Puzzle