Westminster Corridors
As my Cousin Addison once wrote: -1 have often thought there has not been sufficient pains taken in finding out proper employments and diversions for the fair ones. Their amusements seem rather contrived for them as they are women, than as they are reasonable creatures; and are more adapted to the sex than to the species."
Now there is nothing .Gwendolenish about Mrs Margaret 'Harmony Hair Spray' Thatcher and she believes in calling a spade .a spade when she sees one. Her response to my Cousin's words was direct if not especially eloquent. "My dad's the Grocer," she said in the Powder Room at the Club. Her clear, bell-like vowels rang out along the corridors and fell upon the ears of Mr Edward Heath.
Those of my readers who betimes peruse a fortnightly broadsheet of 94 pages will know that the said Mr.Heath likes to be known as 'the Grocer.' So, when Mrs Thatcher claimed this very particular filial link, Mr Heath was uncertain whether to be flattered or outraged. At any rate he saw the wisdom of Addison's words and vowed that he would find some proper employment and diversion for her.
Meanwhile, with feminine subtlety of a rare degree, Mrs Thatcher let it be known that now that she was approaching her fiftieth year she felt that she was of an age to lead the Tory Party. Old enough to have some wisdom and young enough Lobe her father's daughter. Mr Heath was doing press-ups in the office of the Leader of the Opposition when he heard this.
"Here I am in strict training for my arduous carol conducting duties while this woman slanders me behind my back. Besides, I will only be thirty-nine next month and with my suntan I
look declared. lik e Mchael Heseltine's younger brother," he At this point, Sir Alec Douglas-Home wandered in with an abacus which he had procured at 15 per cent off from a man in Tottenham Court Road. "Look, Ted," the ancient man said not unkindly, "better than matches." At a stroke (no, not from Mr Bob "Whipper" Mellish) Mr Heath saw the solution to his problem. If old Alec could hang around till he was ninety, then so could young Ted. He rang the editor of the aforementioned broadsheet at an office in Greek Street. "Richard, baby," crooned the Tory leader, "hullo. No this is not Margaret's old man, it's me, Grocer." He then explained that he wanted to lead the party until he was ninety and accordingly had changed his name by deed poll to Sir Alec Douglas-Home. So could the broadsheet stop calling him the Grocer and thus end Margaret's nasty rumours?
Whereupon Sir Alec changed his name to the Fourteenth Mr Wilson; Mr Wilson changed his to Viscount Stansgate so that he could sit in the same Chamber at the Club as the Duchess of Falkender; and Mr Jeremy Thorpe went to Broadstairs to conduct a carol service.
My friend Sir Simon d'Audley found all this very confusing and came upon the trot from the Club to tell me that he had just seen Mrs Thatcher dining in the Harcourt Room. Her guest had been none other than Professor Hague, now of the Manchester Business School. Those who doubt Harmony Hair Spray's determination to wrest the leadership crown from Daddy Ted might recall that the worthy Professor is author of a standard work for first year students at Oxenbridge.
His opus, entitled A Textbook of Economics, is designed to give illiterate undergraduates some grasp of the thorny problems of economic philosophy and practice. Mrs Thatcher as Opposition Spokesman on the economy, has clearly found a worthy tutor. It can only be a comment on the Prime Minister's view of the abilities of Mr Chancellor Healey that the Duchess has been ordered to arrange a dinner in the Harcourt Room for Professor Hague and Mr Healey. The Duchess was also to be observed at Hatchards Bookstore in the Dilly last week purchasing the last copy of the all-important textbook on the flyleaf of which she inscribed these words: "To Denis, in the hope that it might provide some inspiration, with love for Christmas from Gladys, Harold and Marcia."
Tom Puzzle
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