Election japes
I am told that there was a more than ordinary fl,.al3 in the higher reaches of the Tory Party about that leaked manifesto, and Ted Heath v‘h'as certainly in a storming temper when he !Leard the news in Washington. At first all the Instincts were to attempt to make it a kind of British Watergate, albeit on a smaller scale, and Thc, e Daily Telegraph and John Gordon of The 'unday Express did make one or two feeble gestures in that direction. But wiser counsels Prevailed: it was quickly realised that, the damage being already done, the British public Would regard the Labour scoop more in the ,nature of a japeand a successful one at that than a serious act of political espionage. "We got the egg on our faces," said one Tory chief ruefully, "and we can only hope that the wind `1111 blow it away in the course of the FarnPaign." It all recalls that delightful moment In the 'fifties when Transport House actually ,1:1c9eeded in planting a secretary spy in Central uffice: there were red faces and bad tempers When that was discovered, but it was rightly realised that the best thing to do was to treat it With good humour,
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