Corridors . . .
SIR GOFFREY COX, Puzzle hears, is to be the next chairman of the Governors of the BBC. This is regarded as a sop to New Zealanders offended both by the EEC and the recently defeated immigration rules.
LORD O'NEIL OF THE MAINE, no longer loved in Ulster, is spending most of his time in London, where he still has followers. The other day he dropped into a haberdashers to by a new tie. The owner insisted that he accept one with the compliments of the house, in return for all he had tried to do in Ireland. His Lordship did so, regretting only that noblesse obliged him to choose a tie much cheaper than the one he intended to buy.
CHANGES OF TUNE about the operation of the Industrial Relations Act are still amusing enough to be worthy of note. The Minister of State at the Department of Employment, Mr Chichester-Clarke, was replying the other day to a question from Mr Robert Adley about subversion in industry. Instead of all that twaddle we used to get from ministers about the rule of law he solemnly informed the House that interference in industry and union affairs was a very dangerous thing, and potentially harmful to democracy.
THE ATTORNEY GENERAL, Sir Peter Rawlinson received, Puzzle hears, a wigging from the Prime Minister the other day, because of what Mr Heath now regards as his eternal capacity for putting his foot in things. Sir Peter has, so it is said, now given up hope of being Lord Chancellor. "When Quintin has to go," someone muttered grimly, "you can't have another bloody mule in the job."
TALKING ABOUT THE LAW, there is still a good deal of resentment on the Tory backbenches at the appointment of Mr Micheal Havers, QC, to replace Sir Geoffrey Howe as Solicitor-General. Forty-nine-yearold Havers Is a pleasant and able man, but he came into the House only at the last general election, and there are lots of ambitious Tory laywers ar9und who felt they should have been preferred before him. Puzzle, however, gives a red tick to the Prime Minister for picking the new arrival and not bothering about seniority.
WHATEVER HAPPENED, Puzzle wonders, to the Lord Chancellor himself, Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone? Nobody has ever denied that Quintin is bored stiff by the Woolsack. He had planned to make large numbers of political speeches on matters of controversy but, after one effort on law and order the Prime Minister shut him up, because his flair for creating embarrassment had clearly not diminished since his return to the Lords. He is now spending most of his energy resisting Sir Keith Joseph's plans for contraceptives on the National Health Service, on legal and moral grounds.
Tom Puzzle
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