A Spectator's Campaign Notebook

I hear two things, one discouraging, one !socouraging, out of the bowels of Conservative Party headquarters. The first is typical of the ineanness and lack of spirit which pervades that place: it is that Sir Keith Joseph, whose capacity as an intellectual luminary of the light must — especially after his Preston speech was printed in full in the Times — be unquestioned, has been banned from party Political (now called election) broadcaSts, by the fiat of the poor old losing horse, Ted Heath. If Heath really wants a coalition, he should start in his own party.

The more encouraging bit of news 1 have also relates to Keith Joseph, "a man," so said Lord Fraser, a vice-chairman of the Con , s ervative Party, "of exceptional personal

humility and exceptional intellectual arrogance" — by which he meant that Sir Keith was a nice man who did not alalways see eye to eye with Ted Heath. Anyway, Sir Keith, as is now quite well known, accepted the Post of Shadow Home Secretary only with the greatest reluctance, for he wanted to be free for a while to think about politics. When he took the wretched job he stipulated that he would be free to speak on economics; and he did so with effect at Leith and Preston. Now, I hear, he has told Heath that, if he is not offered the Treasury in a new Conservative governnient, he will go to the backbenches. His departure — another nagging voice of truth out of the Cabinet room — would, no doubt, delight the leader. Those of us who like Keith Joseph Would prefer to delight in his independence.

Old pro

There is always something fascinating in watching somebody get himself out of a mess in Mid-conversation. Never more so than when an 0,nld pro of a politician picks himself up in full 11_,ow, and makes the recovery from an elector'illy damaging, off the cuff admission. Like a Political Jonah Barrington, taking the ball from the back wall, Harold Wilson said rather foolishly on television, when discussing Marcia Williams and her peerage, "if the lady in question had been a man or an old hag — if there are any left, I haven't seen any around for the now — we wouldn't have had all this from .'"e press." The hoards of ladies of over thirty-five, with a streak or two of grey in their hair were, presumably, at once mollified before they had caught the wicked thrust and brought back by the sly old fox who showed himself to be not only a gallant but one with a kindly gleam in his eye for the ladies.

ttuoyancy

With the election result due this very week, and ,in spite of the opinion polls predicting a Labour landslide, I cannot but help feel not only a sense pf relief but a real buoyancy about the Immediate political and financial future of the cuuntry. If by some chance the Conservatives wi n handsomely, there will be a rejoicing, Probably very short-lived, in the City of London likely, also a general feeling of relief. If, as is more February there is a result similar to that of rebruary, it will be reassuring to witness the almost immediate whittling down of the extreme ideas of the three main Parties, as they bend to the electorate's unspoken will in the Preparation of yet another set of manifestoes to follow whatever sort of coalition an even result Might bring. More probably, if the opinion polls .are for once right, the Labour Party will romp home with a majority of over twenty, and Mr

Healey's pledge to reflate selectively and to give a higher priority to liquidity than to the immediate curbing of inflation will stimulate activity. Whatever the outcome on Thursday, it is almost inevitable that the winning Party, or combination of Parties, will agree to give priority to a system of rationing, perhaps overtly though more likely through exhortation, to limit the importation of raw materials and particularly oil. In spite of these activities a mild attempt to reflate, coupled with rationing in a selective form, will be more deflationary. than inflationary during 1975. Further, if my guess is right, it will be the Foreign Office as much as the Treasury who will be concerned with the political flow of events next year as the OPEC countries start to realise that their bloated expectations will not be fully fulfilled due to smaller offtakes of oil and the vulnerability of their balances and, more ominously, their frontiers.

All the talents?

Ted Heath has firmly declared that he will, if he has any sort of majority, seek a Government of 'all the talents'. This will be a broadly-based government of National Unity using "all the talent and experience available to a nation of 50 million people." Plainly the Liberals, whatever reluctance they may show before the polls, would be grovelling for any posts that they can get after their folly in not accepting Heath's offer last February. The various shades of Nats would probably want to get into the act in exchange for a degree more autonomy. The joker would be the Ulster Unionists. Would Enoch Powell be considered as being part of "all the talent and experience available ..."?

The oilin

Missing issue

The oilin

for my central heating system is delivered 1,200-gallon consignments. On March 15 last year I paid £104.88 for it to Hall (Fuels) Ltd. On July 31 this year the bill for the same quantity had leapt to £253.68. Needless to say Hall (Fuels) went in for a nice little bit of profiteering at the time of the fuel oil shortage "PDS last year by withdrawing the discount to which I had been entitled at a moment in the depths of the winter when I was in no position to argue or to look elsewhere. Enough of this, but it forced home the gravity of the inflationary price thrust that is everywhere about and still cannot have worked itself out.

In the United States, President Ford in a television campaign to save fuel has asked Americans to list twelve ways to save fuel and to exchange ideas with neighbours. He has suggested a revival of the post-war victory gardens scheme and the organising of groups to collect waste and scrap for re-cycling. Since all this is all so obvious and has been suggested in The Spectator and elsewhere for the past year it is difficult to understand why none of our

leaders make it an issue. They must have taken a moment from the serious subject of their continuance in office to consider the nation's plight and have for some reason deliberately decided to ignore the dangers. Possibly the decision has been taken for electoral reasons on the false presumption that the electorate are so purblind that they will vote for a £10 Christmas box for pensioners instead of for a party suggesting sacrifice and facing up to realities. The argument possibly runs that the first party leader putting forward the husbanding and care of scarce resources would be pilloried by the other parties as being in favour of 'controls'. The only other alternative — terrifying if true — is that the authorities are frightened of the withdrawal of the •e3 billion Arab short-term money in London and a run on sterling if anything is seen to be done that restricts the sale of oil products on the home market. Surely as horrifying as anything from the insect kingdom of an organism taking over a larger being.

Arts policies

In the Labour Party's arts policy statement, Hugh Jenkins says that he makes no secret of the fact that he is "continually pressing" Denis Healey to relieve the arts of the burden of Value-Added Tax. And, though he carefully makes no promises, he asks us to believe that Labour alone offers the chance for such an enlightened move despite the fact that he has so singularly failed to achieve the slightest . progress in this respect since Mr Wilson appointed him as Minister for the Arts last March.

The Liberal party's arts manifesto ignores altogether the issue of VAT on the works of creative people and makes no mention whatsoever of the appalling consequences to our national artistic heritage if the socialists succeed in their philistine proposal to impose a Wealth Tax on works of art.

The Liberals do, however, suggest that the responsibility for the arts should be transferred to the able and efficient Department of the Environment from that of Education and Science which, in the field of the arts, has repeatedly demonstrated its incompetence,

On the air

In conversation, Alan Watkins, of the New Statesman, has said that he believes that Tthrly Central Office and Lord Carrington in particular have made representations to the BBC and the independent television companies to the effect that Patrick Cosgrave, this paper's political correspondent, is not sufficiently compliant to provide Conservative balance to such as Watkins on the interminable chat shows on election night. So far as the BBC is concerned, the protests and attempts to have party hacks instead of independent journalists, even though critical of the Tory leaders, has gone unheeded. Cosgrave is appearing on BBC-1 early on Friday morning — though in reach of a telephone, as another little Cosgrave is expected on election night.