SOMEBODY, even if it is only somebody in Con- servative
Central Office, will soon have to decide whether Mr. Heathcoat Amory's personal pub- licity is of more value to the Government in general and him in particular than his dislike of it. Atticus, of the Sunday Times, wrote on Sunday, 'The most elusive man in the country this week- end is Mr. Heathcoat Amory. The Chancellor of flat, then a threepenny bus ride for a fivepenny cup of tea in a Strand teashop. . . . Mr. Heathcoat Amory was not impressed by the experience. He decided that his private life would be really private this Budget weekend.' Admirable sentiments! And one can hardly suppose that Mr. Amory would dissent from that picture of himself—the simple-lifer buying his own potatoes and struck dumb with astonishment and horror when he notices the thirty-four press photographers taking a picture of him doing so. This being so, it seems a pity that Atticus did not have a chance to see the other Sunday papers before he wrote his para- graph. The Chancellor, whom Atticus considered 'appalled at the publicity given to his pre-Budget culinary exploits,' had announced that his break- fast egg had been bad, but that fortunately he had had another one handy. And the man who, again according to Atticus, 'decided that his private life would be really private this Budget weekend,' and who had 'gone to ground with his Budget secrets,' commuted on Saturday between those two secret hide-outs, the Treasury and his flat at Marsham Court, pausing somewhere between them to pose for a photograph shaking the hand of an eight- year-old girl. Mr. Amory really must either stop telling us how much he hates publicity: or take some rather more practical steps to stop getting it.
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