SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
NIGEL LAWSON
With the retirement in a few days' time of David Bruce as American ambassador in Lon- don this country loses a very special friend. Appointed by President Kennedy some eight years ago, and persuaded to remain beyond the normal retiring age of seventy by President Johnson, this tall, pink-faced, white-haired old Virginian Whig is an anglophile with a dif- ference. Not for him the false sentimentality and English-Speaking-Union-type parochialism of the professional Anglo-American: like many of his compatriots, David Bruce first came to know England during the war: but he saw us in the 'sixties as we are in the 'sixties, with neither illusions nor pity, but with affec- tion. Whatever an ambassador's job is (and it is a nice point) he did it to perfection, enjoy- ing at all times (but especially during the Ken- nedy years) his President's ear and confidence. I suspect he found it galling at times to have to leave to the two heads of government, or the two finance ministers, discussions on sub- jects about which he usually had a far better grasp than they did. And at times he could, beneath the impeccable surface, be (for some- one with such natural gaiety) surprisingly gloomy—but never without good reason.
To those who knew them it is impossible to think of David Bruce without thinking also of Evangeline. It is wholly appropriate that David, a lover of everything that is beautiful, should have a wife who is one of the few true beauties of our time. And she saw to it that their parties (of which, happily, there were many), especi- ally the smaller ones, had everything that a good party should have—plus the very special warmth of David and Evangeline_ Bruce. So England loses the wisdom of David and beauty of Evangeline; two true friends who have made Themselves a glittering focus of the London scene. It makes March a sad month - this year.
Eyes left
The real issue in the Dimbltby affair is not- Whether Master David's comments on the Nixon circus were silly or apt: some were one and some were the other. Nor is it a question of whether Prime Ministers and Presidents should be treated by television with respect or irreverence: there is a time for both. No; the point is simply that a running commentary on a news event is not the place for editorialising, and that had the aac wished to editorialise on the Nixon visit it would presumably have chosen someone better informed and -better qualified to do so than David Dimbleby.
In any normal, well-run organisation this relatively trivial error of judgment..(a product, largely, of Master Dimbleby's inexperience) would have been dealt with by a private re- buke. The BBC'S heavy-handed Public apology showed Auntie at her worst. But -since the powers that be at Broadcasting House are evi- dently so sensitive about Bac editorialising, let me draw their attention to a much more flagrant abuse—mic 2. This channel, when it is not putting on the best television to be seen in England today (such as the Forsyte Saga and the Laugh-in), has become the private plat- form of the trendy-lefties. Take, for exaniple, One Pair of Eyes, the programme in which one individual is given the freedom of the box to develop a thesis of his choice. A few weeks ago I was asked to record a snippet for one of these programmes so as to provide the owner of the pair of eyes with something to argue against. Out of curiosity, I asked the producer for a list of those who had been in- vited to do the programme since it began.-He courteously produced some two-dozen names, of which perhaps half a dozen were (at least in this context) apolitical. Of the remaining eighteen, seventeen turned out to be trendy- lefties (James Cameron, Alex Comfort. Gerald Scarfe, Claud Cockburn, Kenneth Tynan et hoc genus omne). The eighteenth was Sir Gerald Nabarro. Now that's what they call balance.
Boom
But I'd hate Auntie to think that I'm just a carper. So let me give her, entirely free, a suggestion for the cheapest, shortest and most effective current affairs programme ever to have appeared on attc—or any other channel, for that matter. It would last just ten minutes, during which a suitably reverential announcer would recite a selection from the thoughts of Chairman Benn on the wonders of tech- nology, from the 'QE 2' to the container revo- lution. There would also be an 'actuality' sound-track. As the programme began, we would hear a faithful reproduction of the sound of Concorde taking off (this, according to the Daily Telegraph observer at the maiden flight the other day, was audible for twenty miles). There would then be a scentifically authenti- cated full-volume reproduction of a Concorde- size sonic boom overhead, followed by further booms at two-minute intervals, until the pro- gramme closed with the noise of the aircraft landing. After this no government (pace Angus Maude) would dare go ahead with this mon- strous project; only an infinitesimal portion of the hundreds of millions of pounds saved would be needed to pay for the shattered television screens etc throughout the nation; and England would be saved for what's left of civilisation. I've even thought of a title for the programme —taken, appropriately enough, from the thoughts of Chairman Benn: A Respectful Silence. Over to you, Auntie.
All clear? ,
From time to time the Government exhorts us to pay our tax, not merely promptly, but in advance. The way we are asked to do this is to buy Tax Reserve Certificates, which pay interest at 4 per cent tax-free. Or that's what it says in the Treasury's advertisements. A year ago I bought some of these Certificates. When the time came for me to pay my tax I handed them in and innocently asked the Revenue how much interest they had earned. 'Nothing,' was the bland reply. Why? 'Well,' they replied, 'income tax, if payable in one sum, is deemed to be due [my italics], for Certificate purposes, on I January in the year of assessment for which the tax is payable--and that was before you had even bought your Certificates.' Yes, I riposted; it was also before I had even earned the income on which the tax was assessed, and long before the Revenue had got around to asking me for any tax. To whiFli I received the following mind-boggling reply from Inland Revenue (A). Office of the Accountant and Comptroller General : 'The deemed due date . . . is arbitrarily fixed; it is not affected by the date of ascertainment of the liability, the date on which the tax is technically due and payable, or any other circumstances. I trust the position is now clarified.'
Well, yes, it is. Advice to those about to bny Tax Reserve Certificates: don't.
Tailpiece
I leave you with these two extracts from 'The Candid Memoirs of Cecil King' (Sunday Times, 2 March):
'I have always been critical of the public school network and have been regarded, I dare say rightly, as a renegade because I think promo- tion should be by merit and not by reason of friendships formed in boyhood.'
Jim asked me if I would like to be a direc- tor of the Bank of England. I said yes . . . I never gathered why Rowley [Lord Cromer, then Governor of the Bank] objected. We had been on friendly terms; he had married my cousin; and I was chairman of two big companies.'
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