Notebook
The breakdown of the Rhodesian negotiations is a tragedy which appears to have taken the Government by surprise. One wonders why. The white Rhodesians— Understandably after what they have been through—are a proud and sensitive people. Dr Kissinger did not feel it was beneath him to negotiate with Mr Smith. Mr Crosland apparently did. Mr Richard no doubt did his best, but despite his bulk, he is hardly a figure of sufficient standing to make much iMpression upon Mr Smith and his beleaguered Cabinet. Mr Crosland, who has now decided to 'take stock and to make a Cool appraisal of the situation,' will be wondering what to do next. The answer, of Course, is to try yet again to reopen talks With the Rhodesian Government. If he feels he is himself unsuited to the task (and he may he right), Mr Crosland might consider apPointing Malcolm Macdonald, who was a Cabinet minister forty years ago and whose achievements include the settlement in Kenya, where he had the confidence of both the whites and Kenyatta.
The only jarring note in the most soporific television spectacle of the week—the deate, interview or whatever on ITN between hwir Callaghan and Herr Schmidt—was the rrime Minister constantly addressing his °11eague as Bundeskanzler. It implied a Knowledge of German which Mr Callaghan es not possess and detracted from the air °I cosy intimacy which the two leaders aPParently wanted to convey. Here was the Ci.°rtimon Market with a human face—real, :Ive European co-operation at the highest ;eve!. They contrived, very cleverly, to make heir total disagreement on the support ccIsts of the British Army in Germany aPPear like a symbol of their harmonious r...elations. They also conspired to discredit ("1T, s Thatcher by ridiculing alarmism about ine Soviet military threat. This, unfortunate was on the same day that two American ,tlators, back from a fact-finding mission .`13 Europe, reported that NATO is now so :'veak that Russia could overrun Germany In a blitzkrieg any day.
Tube nuke of Rutland may look like acquiring NtlexPected allies in his struggle to foil the ational Coal Board's plans to extract five 'c'311ndred million tons of coal from the Vale at Beivoir. Miners in the Nottinghamshire stnd Leicestershire coalfields are said to be b:;°ftglY opposed to any plans for fear of fe, transferred to Belvoir. The miners' ie—drs have been exacerbated by the knowclge that a report by Nottinghamshire nleufitY Council Structure Planning Departern, 1n conjunction with the NCB, on the future of mining in Nottinghamshire which was prepared in 1975 is being kept secret. Not even the County Councillors have been allowed a sight of the 'Topic Report.' The suspicion is growing that pits will be closed long before necessary to make labour available to carve up the Vale of Belvoir. Dukes and Miners unite.
The now celebrated meeting between the leaders of the Tory Party and the TUC was an event of very little significance. 'Much cordiality and no substance,' Was the verdict of one of the participants. There will be no 'social contract' with Mrs Thatcher, who feels she has already done enough to appease the unions—and to irritate her supporters—by accepting the principle of the closed shop. The purpose of the meeting was for each side to demonstrate that there will not necessarily be open war between them if the Conservatives come to power. Despite these friendly protestations, there probably will be.
After some 2,000 years of continuous use the hot springs of Bath have been closed down. The National Health Service recently spent £240,000 of public money on building a new medicinal bath-complex three miles from the centre of the town (which is fed by mains water, and then has to be heated and filled with minerals to re-create a replica of Bath's most celebrated natural resource), and the bureaucrats have decided in their wisdom that they can no longer afford to keep the old baths open. This is sad. Without the medicinal waters, which have never stopped bubbling up at the same pressure and temperature (except for a mysterious gap of three days in 1812), one of England's most beautiful cities would never have been built.
The waters were said to be particularly effective at curing 'trench foot' in World War One. Between the wars, Bath was still an elegant spa. The elderly would stay at the Pump Room Hotel, from which they could go on to the baths in their dressing gowns without stepping outside But the hotel was bombed in a 'Baedeker Raid' in 1942, and the atmosphere of the baths became increasingly dingy and institutional. A local committee, including the Lord Lieutenant of the County and two local MPs, has now been set up to restore the baths, and the City Council is offering financial assistance. It is even hoped to restore the Pump Room Hotel, but the support of an imaginative hotelier would be required. So far, it is said that only Sir Charles Forte has shown any interest. It would perhaps be a pity if a hotel with such a unique atmosphere and past were to live again as just another plastic product of the THF assembly line, complete with soft muzak, a 'Beau Nash Bar' and 'Jane Austen Chicken In The Basket £4.40' on the menu. Any offers?
In Turkey, members of parliament have increased their salaries to £18,000 a year. A colleague who speaks the language has been studying the records of a recent parliamentary debate about expenditure on sex education. An MP for Istanbul', Mr Meting Tilziln, supported proposals for increased expenditure in the following manner: 'M istaken ways of finding satisfaction are a cause of depression among the young ... of a reduction in their physical powers. The provision of instructive sex education has become an absolute necessity. The young in Turkey are being taught mistaken things about sex. They indulge in self-abuse of the sort we have all tried at one time or another.'
There followed this exchange between Mr Tfizijn and another MP, Mr Ismet Angi: Angi: 'You still practise self-abuse, I imagine.'
'Don't you, Mr Angi ? All of us resort to it from time to time. Various sex publications on sale are putting the young on the wrong path.'
Angi: 'This is the first time the Turkish National Assembly has heard of it. I am learning something.'
Thzren: 'Which means that you are not sufficiently informed on the subject. Until today you must have been living an empty life, devoid of sex.'
That's surely the sort of thing the Devolution debate needs.
There is something of a sweet irony in the fact that, in the same week that Mr David Watson is sacked by Hertfordshire County Council for teaching the children of Rickmansworth Comprehensive School that the biblical account of the creation of the world in Genesis is literally true, another man who believes the same, Mr James Carter, should have been given a job as the most powerful man in the world.
Spectator
Previous page
