Television
Folk tune
Alexander Chancellor
Panorama interview with the Prime Minister. This was on the famous occasion during the election campaign when she ad- dressed him eight times as 'Mr Day', although it was she who had secured him his knighthood not long before. She claim- ed later that she had not intended to so much on the questions that I quite rn,ainlY because she had not concentrated on tne questions at all but had bulldozed poor sir Robin Day has now had a year to f°rgoe• Most people did not believe her, Sir Robin into the ground with reams of tedious facts and figures. He was so upset by the whole thing that he later apologised Publicly for his failure to ask her the sort of searching provocativequestions that his 'demote' him, but had been 'concentrating fans expect of him.
to redeem himself, and he tried to make up he Past failures by pressing her as hard as ne could to say something about her son Mark and the famous Oman contract. He got nowhere, of course. Indeed, she manag- ed to survive the whole interrogation Tins was understandable and consistent without mentioning her son's name once. With her previous positions, but I felt that it Might not have made a very good impres- sion on the viewers. She sounded shifty, if °,nlY because her answers bore so little rela- tion to the questions. Her line was that she had been 'batting for Britain', that she had a_nd that she wasn't going to break the con- and that what she had done was beyond hfidentiality of her discussions with foreign ,,,eads of government. She insisted that she hn the Oman contract without mentioning reproach. What Mark had done, and something she has never discussed, and she did not discuss it last Monday. whether that also was beyond reproach, is , We were all waiting, of course, to see !i.ow she would address Sir Robin Day. This i_urne she did not try to deprive im of his knighthood. However she did onto ne occa- sion slip immediately corrected herself: 'Sir Robin 6i' much emphasis and Sir Robin looked tin m. Perhaps he thought she was still get-
dress may say so, Robin' — but then
a — `11.
sg at him in some way. Just in case we .4)1" only answer for what she had done, Anyway, he had his chance last Monday recover from the trauma of his last sorry, so sorry.' She did this with rattier
name of the company bidding for it, into a more intimate form of ad-
I
thought she had finally got to grips with the English honours system, she referred to Lord Wilson as 'Mr Harold Wilson'. For a Prime Minister who has revived hereditary peerages, she is curiously off-hand about the whole business. I hope Sir Robin was not as depressed after this interview as he was last time. Even if he looked a little subdued, he acquitted himself well, asking all the questions that needed to be asked. It was not his fault that Mrs Thatcher did not give any interesting answers. Her purpose in granting the inter- view would seem to have been to show that, a year into her second term, she was still full of beans and ready for anything. When Sir Robin pointed out to her that by the time of the next election she would probably be 62 years old, she replied that she would be a very fit 62. On the evidence of Monday night, she ought to be, too. The only thing detracting from the picture of fitness and energy was a bloodshot left eye. I suspect that after the eye trouble she has had, she ought to wear spectacles. I hope it is not just vanity which is stopping her.
The problem with the interview was that Mrs Thatcher had absolutely nothing new to say. It is difficult to think of new things to say, but it is perhaps unwise for a Prime Minister to go on for too long saying the same things in exactly the same way. If the people — or 'ordinary folk', as she jarring- ly called them — are not to get bored, they need at least a change of harmony, if not of tune, and Mr Kinnock has been creep- ing up in the opinion polls. Mrs Thatcher's is a simple tune, if quite a good one, and is played on an unaccompanied trumpet. She has set out to 'create' a 'go-getting society' and she is succeeding. 'We have got it right, Sir Robin; we have got it right....' We are doing all the right things, and Sir Robin, it is working.' These are her answers to all questions — possibly quite truthful answers; but God aintya sick of 'em?
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