Westminster Commenta
hr did not seem strange that my taxi-driver should have had four heads, though I remember feeling slightly surprised at the fact that all the doors at Westminster were guarded by Chinese policemen (incidentally, Chinese eyes are not set slantwise in their faces; they only appear to be so, owing to a fold of skin—called the epicanthine fold— which cuts off part of the eye and gives the im- pression of slanting). As I took the first step on the stairs, however, my knees buckled beneath me, and to a great clashing of gongs the truth dawned; the mysterious Orient (as the Earl of Home, left to himself, would call it) had me in its grippe. Not to be outfaced by this upstart foreigner, good old English lumbago promptly retaliated with a left-and-right to the small of the back, and I am now propped up on the pillows, clutching my burning forehead with one hand and my groaning spine with the other, and typing with my elbows. I have, however, stopped raving, though I am aware that it will take more than my unsubstantiated say-so to convince even my least sceptical readers of that.
Surveying the political scene, then, with an eye which for once is literally as well as metaphori- cally jaundiced, certain things stand out. Perhaps I may be forgiven for putting first my conviction that it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good 'flu-germs; to miss a 'debate opened by Mr. Douglas Jay and closed by Mr. Alfred Robens I would willingly undergo the torments of Tantalus. But sternly eschewing so subjective an approach, there are still views to be taken.
On Ipswich, for instance. It seems only yester- day that Lord Hailsham was announcing that from now on any bloody noses and cauliflower ears that were going would be signed for by him. The voters of Ipswich promptly took him at his word, and told him, in no uncertain fashion, what he could do with his bell. Lord Hailsham came up for more by declaring that the debacle was some small sliver of a percentage better than at Gloucester (he should try telling that one to, some of his marginal members); but Lord Hailsham- and indeed the Tories in general—should remem- ber that East Anglian Liberalism, like that ,/ Cornwall and Devon, is Radical in temper. and- that without the dashing Miss Sykes it is beyond conjecture that the Labour infi would have been even higher. And a further wirf of psephological warning : many pundits w1°' should have known better, when analysiri; Ipswich result, counted the 8,000 votes that last Liberal candidate received at 1pswicl. as sort of 'hard core,' and went on to theorise ahoyi where the remaining 4,000-odd had come /0 But the last Liberal candidate at Ipswich stood 1951, and the turnover in those 8,000 vote already have been considerable. There are ra° things in Heaven and earth than are dreamt efta Dr. Gallup's sterile philosophy. Still, it would be foolish to write off 1-.(71j, Hailsham merely because the goods were delivered at Ipswich. There will be more 1/Y elections soon, particularly if green Dee, .4 fills the graveyards (there is going to be Ole South-East Leicester almost immediatelY they'd look pretty silly if they lost that). may be that the harvest is still to reap. Tru, slightly chafing to one who has so recently :-Olv Briiderschaft to his Lordship to observe cheerfully appealing to the most notoriouslY Inv becilic of the population—those who wish to hanA Lord Altrincham, draw Lord Londonderry quarter Mr. Malcolm Muggeridge—by st iki/1!• attitudes in defence of the Queen and imI that he will bash her next critic with his owl' /4'; fists. But Lord Hailsham is a politician in a hole i,1 and must seek his votes where they are 1° ,' found—though he should still be chary of raakil4 boasts it may prove uncomfortable to cart"!0 1; what if the next person to criticise the (Pe' should be Mr. Julian Snow, who is nine feet or Mr. Arthur Lewis, who is one hundred thirty-six inches round the chest? e For apart from anything else, it looks as toot Lord Hailsham may soon have something 111°. important to talk about, I do not know al° 111A Mr. Macmillan and Mr. Eisenhower decided their conference (and neither does Mr. though from the way he shot his mouth oil why the Prime Minister was on his way home would think he had been under the conference table throughout), though 1 presume it was rather more than appeared in the communique. After all, gestation in human beings takes nine months, and in elephants, I understand, even longer; surely It is not unreasonable, then, to expect some delay between conception and birth when the creatures Involved—Presidents and Prime Ministers—are even lower down the evolutionary scale? Suppose, for instance, that Mr. Macmillan made some really' substantial gains in Washington; suppose that in a comparatively short space of time he really can go about proclaiming himself the man who reconstructed the Anglo-American alliance, so rashly destroyed by his predecessor (not that he would use such language—though Mr. Butler Might)? Suppose, indeed, that under his guidance and pressure the Anglo-American alliance has been not merely reconstructed but built anew, and not merely built anew but built on foundations rather more solid than those upon which it has been hitherto wont to rest? Would not Mr. Galtskell have reason then to look pale, and Mr. Bevan to sneer the other side of his face?
These are only hypotheses, it is true, and in any case Transport House is not particularly con- cerned, as far as gathering winter fuel in the shape of votes goes, with foreign affairs. What shifts the ?Cs from one column to another at the moment Is a spectre with two heads. One head consists of
railkie-boy and the International Bacon Council and the Postmaster-General and Sir Brian Robert- son and the Industrial Disputes Tribunal and the Master Bakers' Federation; the other head is composed of the Salk vaccine and the Bank rate leak and the Egg Marketing Board and Mr. Niall Macpherson and the nonsense put out about the Windseale near-disaster and the sight of the Bournemouth Conservative Association, having rigged themselves a new prospective candidate by methods which would have had Tammany Hall looking nervously over its shoulder for the cops, disbanding a local branch of the Young Tories On the breath-taking grounds that it had refused to abide by a democratic decision. In other words, the electors are concerned, in the main, with but two issues: the cost of living and the incompe- tence, allied with shiftiness and sometimes down- right dishonesty, of the Government. Now no amount of bell-ringing is going to knock either of the heads off this particular bogie, but what If truly resolute marksmen should be seen taking aim; would not the bell then have cause to ring to some purpose? And if Mr. Thorneycroft's Speech in the debate on oconomic affairs was not an indication that aim was indeed being taken, What in the name of glory was it? One less cynical than I has already declared to me his conviction that if the Government gives way on pay claims how, even Mr. Thorneycroft will be forced to resign. Myself, I have a higher regard for the thickness of Mr. Thorneycroft's skin and the suPPleness of his backbone, but the point is well
taken.
The only question now remaining is : Do they mean it? Certainly, as far as the printed page can convey anything, the reports indicated that Thorneycroft meant it. Would that I had been there, though, to see Mr. Wilson, his horn- rints going positively radio-active with the indig- nation he was generating, say in those measured tones that 'many people [note that Mr. Wilson did not explicitly include himself—oh, he's a crafty one, all right, that Mr. Wilson] will take the Chancellor's statement, or some of the sen- tences he uttered [more hedging, you see; oh. he's a crafty one, that Mr. Wilson], as a straight declaration of war.' Because, after all, that is what Mr. Thorneycroft's statement was—or at least it had better have been. Rica, in plain English, tie va plus. From now on, when Frankie-boy asks for twenty-five bob and the employers offer seven, there are going to be no more three-week shilly- shallyings followed by a recommendation to the employers to compromise on eighteen-and-nine. It is the first sign that the curious mildewed thing on the Front Bench is a Government; a few of
the tea-leaves obstinately indicate that Mr, Thorneycroft will rat on it yet, but if he doesn't then we shall really see some action. Of course, they will probably mess the whole thing up by forgetting that resistance to wage claims is only part of the battle against inflation; their own policies form another, and even more important, part. But at any rate a beginning has been made. After this—well, softlee, softlee, catchee monkee. Which reminds me : should the pattern on the wall-paper be revolving quite so fast? And who is that little man made of wicker-work, and why is he drilling holes in my head—from the inside? , These are mysteries that are at the moment
beyond me. I can no more. TAPER
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