16 JUNE 1967, Page 10

SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK

J. W. M. THOMPSON Enjoyable as it has been for many people, it's to be hoped that we shall never again witness anything precisely like this week's hoop-la over the handing-out of new commercial television contracts. True, it seems likely that the new dispensation will result in some improvement in the programmes, and clearly Lord Hill and his colleagues feel confident that it will. But that is only supposition. What is certain is that the element of competition has now been largely eliminated from commercial television for the next seven years—until, that is, the new con- tracts expire; and it cannot be a sensible situa- tion when all the strongest competitive incen- tives are exhausted during the period of promise, before the period of performance has actually begun.

In a sense the present arrangements appear to put commerce on the same footing as Parliament—but without either the sanction of the popular vote, or anything like the same chance of the incumbents being turned out of office after (or even in extreme cases before) the allotted term. The complaints which have been heard this week against active politicians being allowed to take part in these enterprises don't go nearly far enough: it is not really satisfac- tory that anyone should be able to enjoy the fruits of a monopoly licence to print money provided by the Government.

I don't see how this can be put right except by a second commercial channel. At the moment the Government's only commitment in this connection is a promise (in last year's White Paper) not to authorise one before December 1969. And yet it's far more desirable than colour television, which is almost upon us; and getting it going before 1974 offers the only way out of this unsatisfactory carve-up of monopoly profits.

Off the ground

Mr Peter Masefield, the chairman of the British Airports Authority, has long been known as one of the men determined to push through the Stan sted airport scheme in spite of all opposition. But some of his observations this week must have done his cause more harm than good. There has always been a whiff of disingenuousness about the propaganda of the pro-Stansted lobby; and Mr Masefield's picture of a tranquil, beautiful rural airport in park-like surroundings, causing only trifling local disturb- ance and barely perceptible changes to the area, was in the highest tradition of bamboozling nonsense.

But if this line of talk at Mr Masefield's press conference was self-defeating, the remarks which he made in an Evening Standard inter- view were even more so. There he even sneered at the suggestion that any large influx of popu- lation would have to be housed in the country- side as a result of the airport (it would 'add a little to each existing village,' le thought). I recall that on another occasion, when it suited him to take the other tack, Mr Masefield claimed that Heathrow airport employed 40,000 people and supported 250,000 indirectly: and Stansted is to he the biggest airport in Europe, apparently! Perhaps Mr Masefield means to 'add a little' to every village for hundreds of miles around.

It's sadly true that this kind of contempt for

the public's right to know the true facts about this huge development has already given a bitter flavour to the opposition and at this rate it will get much worse. The fact that Mr Mase- field even thought it appropriate to throw in some offensive remarks about the local people campaigning in defence of their homes will, of course, powerfully support their sense of being pushed around by arrogant bureaucrats in London.

Change of mind

That was a perplexing threat held out by Sir Douglas Glover the other day—that if we as a nation did not mend our ways we should dwindle into becoming 'the Portugal of Europe.' Where, I wonder, will Portugal have become the Portugal of by then? But the Commons debate in which this occurred was in fact notable for clear thinking. Having been initiated by Mr Desmond Donnelly with a motion demanding less complexity of government and lower levels of taxation, it uncovered a rather reassuring amount of all-party support on both these counts.

But the important point to emerge from this release of back-bench feeling was that Labour opinion on the social services is going through a significant change. The shift away from the universal and free benefit (in the health service, say) towards the selective charging of the con- sumer is more and more plain. Even Mr Douglas Houghton, until recently the Cabinet minister in charge of this field, declared him- self for raising money for the health service by charging the public. -I suspect a giant stride away from the old Bevanite orthodoxy is under contemplation. No wonder Mr Michael Foot decided this week to raise the ancient banner and stand for the party treasurership against Mr Callaghan.

Stop press

The newspapers had a needlessly difficult task put upon them this week with the publication of the Radcliffe committee's report on the D Notice affair and the Government's dissenting White Paper. In the space of a very few hours they had to absorb, summarise, and pronounce judgment upon an extremely complicated argu- ment extending, with a mass of detailed evi- dence, over some 200 pages. Why weren't they given the documents a day ahead of publica- tion? One distinguished Fleet Street man re- marked, `Whoever inflicted this upon the press is guilty either of incompetence or of an attempt to make an embarrassing episode as difficult to handle as possible.'

However, it was handled adequately, although inevitably lots of jolly detail has been lost in the rush. There is, for example, the glimpse of how Mr Chapman Pincher, the Daily Express's ace scoop-getter, obtained his great disclosure. He got it from a man who had offered it to the Daily Mail and then to the Manchester Evening News---'who had told him it was too big a story for them to handle, and referred him to Chapman Pincher of the Daily Express.' Such journalistic modesty is rare enough to merit a salute, even if it seems a bit hard on the Manchi-ster Evening News's big sister, the Guardian.