Notebook

Mr Jo Grimond's principal task as care-'

taker will be to direct the search for an acceptable way of choosing a new leader of the Liberal Party. The problem could hardly

be, more daunting. Election by Liberal M Ps IS slightly ridiculous in view of their very

small number and rather eccentric character,

Yet any alternative method is open to serious objections. To involve the Liberal Peers would be called an affront to democracy, and to involve the constituency Parties would pose all sorts of difficulties, because their membership tends to be more fluctuating than that of the big parties.

It is sad, in a way, that Mr Grimond has not agreed to return as permanent leader. But his decision is wise. The last Liberal

leader to make a sensational comeback was Gladstone, and the precedent could not be regarded as encouraging. Though he was considerably older at the time than Mr Grimond is now, he stayed on for nearly fourteen years to the growing exasperation of his colleagues. Moreover, he left the from in a state of weakness and disunity 'rum which it took a decade to recover.

Now there will be a power struggle between Cold Steel, Pushing Pardoe, Hopeful

1-1Pnson and perhaps other comparatively

Youthful members of the Liberal stage army. But whoever emerges as the winner, the Voters may put them all out of their misery

at the next election. Mr Grimond at least is ilkelY to survive at the polls. He has a special relationship with his remote archipelago and many Scottish Nationalists regard him almost as a fellow-traveller in their

movement. (He was the only Scottish 'AP not opposed by the SNP in the election

of February 1974.) His chances of becoming the first Prime Minister of Scotland are certainly brighter than his chances would ever have been of becoming Prime Minister of trngland—or the United Kingdom.

There was a great deal of the ludricrous, and a, certain amount of the sordid, in the behaviour of the Parliamentary Literal

Party as it hounded its leader to his Pelincal death. Most ludicrous of all, how

ever, was the behaviour of Lord Beaumont ut Whitley, self-appointed censor of Mr Thorpe. Since he was ordained as a

Church of England clergyman Lord Beaumont might be thought a highly appropriate figure to pronounce upon and even

Judge the propriety of his leader's actions and statements. His own activities should, ,n°sIvever, be remembered. Attention should, loa Particular, be paid to his writings: one f his most recent efforts is a little essay entitled 'Change these sex laws', in Verdict, Which is a subsidiary of Penthouse. Lord Beaumont's appeal, couched in somewhat emotive terms ('Let us have freedom ... the puritans display such illogicality.') takes its place beside 'Green light for the red light girls', 'Blueprint for a modern brothel', 'Stripper Toy and those filthy birds', 'Castrate me', and similar examples of modern theological writing. Verdict specialises in the presentation of the more unpleasant of police court proceedings. Lord Beaumont is to be a regular contributor.

It was the unkindest cut that on the day Jeremy Thorpe resigned Mr Norman Scott should start proceedings for libel against him. It had been suggested that Mr Thorpe should himself sue Scott for libel. In the unlikely event of Scott s action ever reaching court Mr Thorpe can be confident of the outcome. If a jury were called upon to assess damage to Scott s reputation who would put its value at more than one halfpenny ?

There was a quite genuine and unforced sympathy for Mr Thorpe in the ranks of the other political parties at Westminster. Particularly notable for its warmth was Mrs Thatcher's official statement, released immediately after the Liberal leader had announced his resignation. Though she does not know Mr Thorpe at all well (and although he was exceptionally unkind about her in a recent Sunday Times interview) Mrs Thatcher was, privately, deeply distressed about the circumstances which led to his downfall. The least censorious of people, Mrs Thatcher saw the serious implications for political life of the use of accusations of doubtful truth about a private episode in the distant past to destroy a senior political figure. Most of all, however, she felt the horror of Mr Thorpe's predicament ; and sensed the suffering which his family must be enduring. Not only was Mrs Thatcher cordial in her statement about Mr Thorpe. She was also surprisingly so in her reaction to the news of Sir Harold Wilson's Garter. 'I offer him my warm congratulations. I am very pleased.' Not a hint of irony.

Was she perhaps dreaming, unconsciously, of some day in the future when, if all goes well, a Leader of the Opposition has to comment on her own admission to the Order, on her retirement from the Premiership ? There have been no nonroyal Ladies of the Garter since the Middle Ages, and the precise status of those who then 'received robes' of the Order is a matter of some doubt in heraldic circles. Anyway they were all noblewomen. Today the royal Ladies of the Garter—who are the Queen, the Queen Mother and the Queen of the Netherlands—are supernumerary to establishment, but this may be because they are royal rather than because they are ladies. What is certain is that if Mrs Thatcher, a genuine commoner, were to join the normal ration-strength (twentyfour) of the Order, she would be adding yet another 'first' to her entry in The Guinness Book of Records.

Rear-Admiral Godfrey Place, VC, has an important role to play in the administration of the law. Appointed last year as Lay Observer to the Law Society, he has just published his first annual report. He is charged with investigating allegations from the public about the handling of complaints against solicitors; and has taken the opportunity to make some wider comments on present procedures. The report contains a valuable suggestion that a solicitor should not have the right to retain his client's papers until he has paid the bill.

In view of his distinguished service record Admiral Place should not lack the courage to extend his brief for next year's report. Lawyers are notoriously resistant to change and will always find compelling reasons why proposals for reform of their procedures should be rejected. But if constructive, broader proposals were made by Admiral Place in his reports to the Lord Chancellor, proper attention would have to be paid.

It is now becoming apparent that the wound inflicted on President Ford as long ago as the New Hampshire primary was serious; and perhaps even mortal. Ready though pundits were to dismiss Mr Reagan's chances of seizing the Republican nomination from an incumbent President when he faltered in primary after primary his present success is forcing even the most blinkered to think again: already he leads Mr Ford in committed convention delegates, and the three hundred or so uncommitted—the majority of whom are thought to favour the President—are likely to be strongly tempted to leap on his bandwagon. To add to the piquancy of the situation the runaway progress of Mr Carter towards the Democratic nomination has been arrested: the relatively obscure Senator Frank Church has achieved one victory over the former governor of Georgia; and Governor Brown is still waiting down the trail. It is even conceivable that the Democrats will yet return to the state of internal strife in which Mr McGovern left them, and that the Republicans will unite behind Mr Reagan. One of the significant things about his performance so far is that everywhere cross voting—the process by which Democrats may vote in a Republican primary and vice versa—was allowed he gained considerable Democratic support. One of the oldest rules of Presidential politics is that which states that to win a man must be able to attract voters from the other party. We may yet see a 'Democrats for Reagan' movement akin to die now legendary 'Democrats for Eisenhower', who did so much to end the Presidential hopes of Adlai Stevenson.

Mr Callaghan's decision to invite Lord Cudlipp to publicise the Government's counter-inflation policy seems to be based on past affection rather than present wisdom. Admittedly, it reduces the ranks of the unemployed by one, if without benefit of salary.

But even Lord Cudlipp's greatest journalistic admirers would not argue that his grasp of matters fiscal or economic was particularly great. One of those admirers was, of course, Lord Ryder, now head of the National Enterprise Board, who, on the occasion of the then Mr. Cudlipp's retirement, called him the greatest journalist of the century — an exaggeration, some thought, born out of profound relief.

Lord Ryder, of course, was chairman of Reed International when it took over Cudlipp's IPC.

TUC members, with whom it is said Lord Cudlipp will consult in addition to the CBI in search of an agreed advertising platform, may remember, too, that the Mirror, under him, was a vociferous supporter of the Industrial Relations Act.

The Home Secretary's decision to release Mr George Davis has grave implications for the practice and reputation of English law. It is nothing less than an attempt retrospectively to introduce, not by the normal legislative processes, but by executive decision, the Scottish practice of giving a verdict of 'not proven' in some criminal cases. If the full report of the committee investigating the arrest and trial of Mr Davis demonstrates his innocence, Mr Jenkins's action will look somewhat better. But it still hard to resist the conclusion that the release of Mr Davis was to some extent procured by the agitation carried out on his behalf—much of it illegal.

Unhappily, this is not the first time a Labour government has bowed before extralegal pressure. The Prime Minister, when he was Home Secretary, persuaded the MCC to cancel a visit to Britain by the South African cricket team, simply because of threats made by Mr Peter Hain and his friends to disrupt the tour. Again, the present government passed legislation to relieve certain members of their party—the Clay Cross councillors—of some of the penalties imposed upon them for breaking the law. The attitude of the Wilson and Callaghan administrations to the whole legal process is, to say the least, ambiguous.

Mr Jenkins's decision is unfair even to Mr Davis. For the moment, though he has gone free, he is adjudged neither guilty nor innocent. He cannot sue for wrongful imprisonment. There is no certainty that his name will be eventually cleared. Neither compensation nor apology has been profferred. Mr Jenkins has merely used executive privilege to remove an embarrassment.

The privilege is, of course, useful; and may often be used to repair injustice. But its excessive use can amount to an abuse. Increasingly, modern laws—the Gaming Act and the Children and Young Persons Act are two examples—reserve large areas of initiative to ministers, who are empowered to take action with the minimal reference back to Parliament. The consequence is that ministers are encouraged to act in the heat of the moment, and under very questionable pressures, without considered debate, and from uncertain motives.

The recent announcement by Lord Brimelow, Sir Michael Palliser's predecessor as head of the Foreign Office, that he will in future be taking the Labour Whip in the House of Lords, prompts the question: should senior ex-civil servants get involved in party politics? Lord Gladwyn became deputy leader of the Liberal peers after his retirement from the diplomatic service, but he is a rare exception. The normal practice of ennobled Whitehall mandarins is to sit on the cross Benches. Lords Caccia, Gore-Booth, Sherfield, Inchyra, Strang, Trevelyan, Helsby, Armstrong and Garner are among recent examples that come to mind.

On the whole this seems the right practice, because civil servants are meant to serve the State with complete impartiality and any suggestion that those at the top may, in spite of appearances, be active partisans is necessarily bad for public confidence. Of course they must all—or nearly all—have a personal bias towards this party or that, but it is surely better that they should keep it to themselves, even during their years of dignified retirement.

As for Lord Brimelow, though he is evidently a little soft on socialism, no one could accuse him of being soft on communism. Like most others who have served a large part of their time behind the Iron Curtain, he is a noted hard-liner in his attitude to the Soviet Union. His nickname in the office—Brimeloff—was, therefore, purely ironic.

Like most industrial disputes it is hard to establish the rights and wrongs of the strike by 200 members of the National Union of Journalists that has disrupted production of the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph for the past week, leaving their readers with only a truncated version

produced by members of the smaller Institute of Journalists and a great deal of agency copy.

It is less than twelve months since a dispute over pay negotiations provoked even such eminent figures as Sir (as he now IS) Harry Boyne, the doyen of the Lobby and impeccable conservative loyalist, to Man the picket line outside 135 Fleet Street and to try to make a personal protest to Lord Hartwell as he entered the building. There was a near strike recently over the enforced retirement of a staff member, not because anyone disputed the management's right (and justification) but because of the crude and humiliating way it was done, more worthy of a 19th-century steelmaster than an enlightened 20th-century employer whose editorial columns are much given to advising industry and unions on how t° conduct themselves. There have been other examples which all go to account for the mounting bitterness and resentment. Nor is it the work of a handful of wildcat extremists—the Reds under the beds that Telegraph leader writers are so ready to detect. The current strike was confirmed on Monday by 170 votes t° seven and was supported by almost eve/ senior specialist writer, as well as lowlier subs and reporters. It centres around what the NUJ call the 'locking out' of forty-two journalists in the Manchester office after what the manage' ment claim to be an unjustifiable refusal,t0 work a new rota introduced, the other side, claim, arbitrarily and imposing additional unpaid work in breach of the House agree' ment. The Manchester office is being rea down with a reduction in staff—agreed t° by the union and staff—from 5eventy-1We to the nine or so in the next two years will be required when much of the vvor" will be done from London. The Guardian and Mirror seem to be coping with similaf problems in the difficult transitional perloai but in the words of the NUJ general, secretary the Telegraph are showing of social responsibility when men lose then jobs'. Neither this or the earlier disputes an aimed at Lord Hartwell, the proprietor arn" Editor-in-Chief, for whose sheer profession alism and character there is wide respeet,i Nor against the Editors, Bill Deedes an! Brian Roberts, who find themselves in it extraordinary position that even thougati responsible for the contents of the paper., lie law as well as practice, they have lithe control over staff relations which are in tu, hands of the management and the DePeli?e General Manager, Hugh Lawson. He is till. son of the old Morning Post's proprietd, Lord Burnham and a man not noted f°,0' either subtlety or tact, who, according t NUJ negotiators, arouses rather than st p passions. If Lord Hartwell wants to st°,,e the situation deteriorating still further l'of should look first at the quality of some his top management.