A Spectator's Notebook

When the entire Conservative Party conference, including the Prime Minister, rose to applaud Willie Whitelaw after his speech concluding the Irish debate at Blackpool, old hands present had a sense that a conference master had been in action. Whitelaw managed beautifully, I am told, to combine a statement of principle on Ulster and a command of the very disparate moods on that vexed subject which afflicted the delegates. There had been a number of powerful Unionist speeches from the floor — especially that of a Belfast housewife, Mrs Maureen McClure, who told Tory delegates that, if they betrayed Ulster, they would shortly suffer the same fate at the hands of terrorism as she and her fellow unionists were suffering now. White law did not challenge speeches like this. Rather, so my informant tells me, he trans cended them. He ignored hecklers. He ignored doctrine. And he restated his flaith both in the possibility of a peaceful solution in Ulster and in the activities of the Army. It is difficult to convey from this bald summary why he was so effective. But the undoubted fact is, he convinced conference that he was to be trusted.

Remarkable performance

I must congratulate the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Earlier this year he devalued the pound by floating it. This week he has put up Bank Rate by abolishing it. He followed this up with his Tax Credits Scheme. This will not be introduced for years, if ever, but the papers the next day were full of it, tables and all, telling everybody how much better off they were going to be, as if he'd just announced another triumphant Budget. Remarkable performances. I look forward with confidence to his next move, which surely must be to increase Income Tax by reducing it.

Silly idea

Andrew Faulds writes this week about the wretched business of the admission charges to museums. I am surprised that Mrs Thatcher — Who received some nasty publicity from her sensible idea about schoolchildren drinking free milk — should not have told Lord Eccles to stop making a fool of himself over these admission charges. I know that some civil servant or other, in those far-off palmy days when civil servants were expected by the incoming Tory Government to produce economies instead of producing prospective recepients of subsidies, said to himself, "Let's save a million quid by charging admission to museums," sold the idea to Eccles, and now fights tooth and claw for it. But really, it is a silly idea, and mean and nasty besides. Margaret Thatcher should tell David Eccles to tell the appropriate civil servant that the idea has now been dropped, and she herself should drop the Bill.

It would be quite a good idea to drop Eccles as well; but that is a matter for Mr Heath. Thus far, the Prime Minister has shown himself far readier to change his measures than his men.

Museum plotting

Talking of museums: a report is being prepared by a departmental committee on

the question of the running of the provincial museums and galleries, after the re-organisation of local government which is about to take place. The civil servants on this committee — which is mainly made up of provincial directors of museums and galleries and of local government representatives — have produced their report, naturally expecting the committee to sign it. But the members of the committee who are not civil servants are refusing to do so, and are proposing to write their own report: a ' minority' report written by the majority of the committee, in flat disagreement with the majority' report written by the bureaucratic minority. The museum directors are plotting to gather together secretly in a London hotel next weekend, if necessary, in order to produce their own report. One such director asked me what to do about the 'official' report, and I suggested that he and his colleagues should take it to the main entrance of the Ministry of Education in Curzon Street and, 'having soaked it previously in petrol, or failing that paraffin, burn it. First, of course, they must ensure that press and television cameras are present. He took note.

Psst! Want a candle?

The East Anglian Daily Times — an excellent and influential Conservative daily Prophesies of the forthcoming byelections, "Uxbridge seems sure to go to Labour; the Tory candidate will probably finish a poor third at Rochdale; and, another third place at Lincoln behind the two Labour candidates is a strong possibility; particularly if the public rus'n to buy oil-lamps proves to have been a justified precaution."

Comments like this, in the serious i provincial press, rightly scare the experts of Central Office. As for myself, rummag ing around a disused room a couple of ;:days ago, I came across a box filled with 'candles and I said, "Whatever happens, • ' we must remember we've got these candles."

Miss Laing and Mr. Harvey

Margaret Laing, in her biography, Edward Heath Prime Minister, published this week quotes the opinion of "an admitted homosexual" who says he knows him that the Prime Minister is not a homosexual. At a press conference presided over by Lord ' Porn ' Longford, chairman of Sidgwick and Jackson, the book's publishers, a former Tory minister and admitted

homosexual, Mr Ian Harvey, was prominently sitting in the front row. Lord Longford asked Mr Harvey to "start the ball rolling" by asking the first question of Miss Laing, which was, "Did you get the impression there was anything peculiar about the man?" Replied Miss Laing, "Are you asking me whether I think Mr Heath is a homosexual?" "That's exactly what I mean," replied Ian Harvey, former Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign Office, who was caught with a guardsman in St James's Park.

Miss Laing then gave her considered view; "1 ao not think he is a homosexual. I do say in the book that it is unlikely that he is a homosexual." Lord Longford's role in this bit of publicity work was, as usual, ambiguous.

There have been a lot of tut-tuts about the propriety of such discussion. I fail to see what is wrong about people's natural curiosity about the sex lives of their rulers. It is a constant subjection of conversation. It can also be the subject of legitimate public concern, for the vulnerability of homosexuals and of others who lead irregular sex lives to blackmail is very well known to policemen and security service chiefs. Were there evidence that a prime minister was an active homosexual, then I think there would be good grounds for arguing in the interests of national security that he was unfit for the highest office. I know of no grounds for such argument in the case of the present Prime Minister, who would, I think agree with the view I have expressed.

Henry VI concluded

As I expected, after last week's confession of ignorance shared with Harold Wilson, I have been inundated with people telling me what happened to Henry VI, the general consensus being that he was assassinated in the Tower by men acting upon Edward IV's orders. The evidence is shaky, but let it pass. I was discussing the affair at Blackpool with M and Mme Henry Pierre, old friends, he being the distinguished correspondent of Le Monde. The French know far more about our Henry VI than we do, he being the last English king with an effective claim upon the French throne. It could be held that he lost us France and that he was therefore defeated by the French, which doubtless was what Harold Wilson had in mind when comparing him with Ted Heath. The Pierres and I discussed the matter further, wondering exactly what it was that the Leader of the Opposition was trying to say, until at length the penny dropped: "Alta! I've got it," I exclaimed, "Harold wants Calais back!"

Jac wins

W'nen the first Jac crossword appeared in The Spectator last year, an accompanying note provided for the possibility of Jac occasionally defeating solvers. At the time this was thought by some to be rather unlikely. However, Jac has done it at last. His normal puzzles have been occasionally varied wit'n somewhat more difficult ones. No. 66 was such a one, and this week there is no winner. Spectator crossword solvers are a tough breed, but Jac has beaten them for once.