A Spectator's Notebook
After the referendum is over, on June 9 to be precise, a new sound will be heard in the land, the sound of the House of Commons at work, since it is then to be broadcast for the first time. Oddly enough the House actually has special sounds of its own which most people will then hear for the first time. These sounds are more than just the voices of MPs, which are in fact fairly often broadcast anyway. There is some difference hearing them declaiming to their colleagues in the Chamber instead of talking in a studio, but not much, since Commons oratory has a conversational style.
Apart from this, however, there is a background noise which will now be heard. This surges from hearty approval to thoroughgoing disapproval with, in between when the Chamber is less full, the sort of quiet muttering noise that is the accepted way of showing that the speech being made is appallingly boring. Sometimes, at its height, this strange sound has been compared to that of a pack of hounds but listeners will soon come to distinguish its component parts. One of the more remarkable is a strange high-pitched wuffing noise which could perhaps be emitted by a demented Pekingese but is actually the outward sign of the emotional turmoil that the sight of the Prime Minister arouses in Mrs Elaine KellettBowman. Prime Minister's Question Time is in fact a good time to hear the House of Commons sound.
Slow process
More important than this is the effect that boradcasting may have on politics. Soon after I was first elected, some ten years ago, I started to advocate the House being broadcast.
The process has been slow but it is now coming to pass. The length of it perhaps illustrates why some backbenchers get frustrated in the House of Commons but the facts show that what is really lacking is their own persistence. An ancient institution of more than 600 intelligent men and women does not suddenly change its views at the behest of one new Member. It has, quite rightly, to be persuaded. In this case the matter was considered by a Select Committee and a closed-circuit radio broadcasting experiment took place. I think that the public broadcasting experiment which we are now to have would then have taken place almost immediately but for a piece of obstinacy on the part of the broadcasting organisations and successive governments. They wanted television broadcasting to start simultaneously with radio and • this the House did not want. There is in fact much to be said for solving some of the problems raised by broadcasting by using radio alone to start with before proceedings to television but the television interests were too strong behind the scenes. After all there was no commercial radio then, so ITV disliked mere radio broadcasting on the ground of unfair competition.
Thus every time the Government put forward motions to broadcast the House, they were defeated. The sensible course would have been to put forward the two alternatives but this was not done until Ted Short did it recently. Then, of course, the House immediately permitted this radio experiments as, in my view, it would have done before, had it had the chance.
Now we will be faced with the results. What they will be no one knows but that there will be some can hardly be a matter of doubt. The most obvious is that people will now hear the House's reaction to a speaker, which is quite different from hearing his words read by a broadcaster or seeing them in cold print. A more subtle one is that the representative quality of the House will appear in sound. There are not many places in the country where one can hear in immediate juxtaposition voices of Old Etonians and North-Eastern trade unionists with a whole host of others joining in. It is somewhat like — but much less artificial than — a radio drama in which the characters are carefully chosen to have different voices and accents. As people come to realise that somewhere in the House of Commons there is an MP who speaks exactly as they do, whilst everyone else is vocally represented there too, I believe that respect for the House will grow.
Another implication is that some of the political chat shows may decline. If one can hear a Minister's first statement in the House and hear him cross-questioned by the front bench spokesman opposite, why put them in a studio later? Their second thoughts are much less interesting than their first ones and their exchange in the House likely ,to be much more expert than any questioning by a jack-of-alltrades broadcasting interviewer.
What of Committees
Some things, of course, worry me about the experiment. The greatest of these is the proposed absence. from it of any broadcasting of committees. The Standing Committees .which consider the details of legislation are very boring and I do not mind their omission but Select Committees publicly hearing some often very eminent witnesses can be almost as interesting here as they are in the United States, where they are broadcast. The Scottish and Welsh Grand Committees also are where most of the work of Parliament for those countries is done and they should be broadcast. There is still hope, I believe, that a committee or two may be broadcast during the experiment and I trust that this will occur. Otherwise listeners will get a completely false impression that the House alone is where Members work which would be a pity.
The greatest pity of all though is that we are not allowed to hear Parliament until after the referendum. Our masters thought that hearing MPs arguing about the EEC might influence the votes. What, one might ask, do they think everyone tries to do in a democracy, if not that?
Lobby sweep
The ways of the parliamentary lobby are passing strange but those who read their news might care to exercise their wits upon this one. I am bound not to reveal the names but I understand that five lobby journalists have a bet among themselves. The winner will be the one who goes one whole day without sending in any piece which includes either the name "Benn" or the word "split", with reference to parties as distinct from bananas. Perusal of parliamentary journalism should be interesting this week. It will certainly show originality if one of them succeeds.
Michael English MP
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