A Spectator's Notebook
CONSERVATIVE REACTIONS to Roch- dale have had a tedious predictabil- ity about them. The first response of the Tory press to the glum news was to urge that scapegoats should be sacrificed : Lord Hailsham and Dr. Charlie Hill would be on the carpet for their failure to put the Government policy across (how a Policy which does not exist can be put across was not explained). But the party line has since changed : Ministers are now busy pretending that nothing untoward happened. When asked whether Rochdale was discussed at Chequers over the weekend, the Prime Minister replied that it would rather amuse people to know how seldom it was mentioned. It does not amuse most Conserva- tives: they are rightly disturbed by the Rochdale result, and any attempt to pooh-pooh it merely increases their dissatisfaction. What the Govern- ment needs, I would suggest, is not somebody who can get across to the people what the Government is thinking, but somebody who can get across to the Government what its former supporters are thinking. It will not make cheerful hearing.
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