WHAT APPALS ME most about the Daily Sketch is its
assumption (almost certainly justified) that none of the people who buy it can read. On November 10 last, short of a front-page story, they came up with a suggestion not a great deal more practical or sensible than Mr. John Gordon's famous advice to the Allied High Command during the war that they should drop a bomb into Vesuvius and drown the Italian war effort under the resultant flood of lava. 'Send Monty to Cyprus!' shrilled the Sketch, and urged that the crushing of EOKA 'is a job for Britain's most famous fighting man—Field- Marshal Lord Montgomery.' The job, it was sug- gested (though only by the Daily Sketch), might have gone to Sir Gerald Templer. But the Sketch urged. (in capital letters) Give it to Monty. That's the size of the task confronting us in Cyprus. And no one less than Monty's size can do it.
On April 6, after Lord Montgomery's visit to Russia had been announced, the Sketch had a headline even larger than the other one. 'MONTY! The Sketch says to an old and meddling soldier—FADE AWAY.' And it went on : . . every time Monty blunders into politics he makes an ass of himself. This time he can do untold damage to the West as well . . . a meddle- some old man who will be considered by Britain's allies as an official emissary of his country. . . . What does Monty expect to bring back that the Prime Minister didn't—Burgess and. Maclean? . . . Monty—Fade Away ' Now obviously no- body will take the second piece of advice any more seriously than the first—or any more seri- ously than anything else in the Daily Sketch. But one would have thought that some of the readers might notice the discrepancy. Apparently not. Well, I suppose Mr. Gunn knows his public.
Previous page
