19 MARCH 1965, Page 9

Spectator's Notebook

LAST week I wrote about Herbert Morrison. L./Re-reading what I wrote and comparing it With all the other tributes it is striking how often his brilliant political career was accounted a failure. Politics is really a very rummy profession/ occupation/art. Biographies of, say, a Bishop of London are unlikely to concentrate on the failure to reach Canterbury: Adjutant Generals are not dismissed because they fail to become Chief of the Imperial General Staff : not all judges can sit on the Woolsack. Those who write about politicians think only of the summit. There are no North Cols. Perhaps this is evidence of the coming of a presidential system to Britain.