No High Flyer
The choice of Mr. A. N. Halls to succeed Mr. Derek Mitchell as the Prime Minister's Principal Private Secretary certainly seems to justify the concern I expressed here last week. This is a job that normally goes to one of Whitehall's golden boys: young men destined to go to the top. The Head of the Civil Service, Sir Laurence Helsby, duly offered the Prime Minister a choice of suit- able high flyers; but he turned them down and
(against official athice) chose Mr. Halls, who had been his private secretary at the Board of Trade some eighteen years ago.
Now Mr. Halls—at fifty well above the normal age for the job—is a man of unflagging energy : Mr. Edward Heath, too, formed a high opinion of him when he wa: at the Board of Trade. But whatever else he is, he's no high flyer. A military figure (he is—or was—a keen-as-mustard lieutenant-colonel in the Territorial Army). he has the military virtues of obeying orders without questioning and carrying them out with efficiency, rather than the independence and initiative that characterise the alpha civil servant.
There's a strong case for adding a political wing to the Number 10 staff : there's no case at all for weakening the official secretariat there. Yet this is the almost inevitable result of Mr. Wilson's unprecedented appointment. I must admit, though, that the picture is rather con- fused by the excellent choice of Mr. Michael Palliser, the quintessence of the high flyer, to succeed Mr. Oliver Wright as the Foreign Office (and second senior) private secretary to the Prime Minister. Perhaps Mrs. Marcia Williams isn't so interested in foreign affairs.
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