ACCORDING TO REPORTS, politics and politicians are now the television
equivalent of box-office poison in America : I am interested to see that this is not yet true here; the films take° at the party conferences have had a good press. A word of warning, though, , to aspiring politicians : remember that the cameras have telephoto lenses, so that your smallest gesture is projected almost into the laps of people in homes through out the country. I am not here thinking of the speakers, whose Mannerisms may be acceptable, but of the people on the Platform beside and behind them. Immediately behind the sneakers at one Llandudno session, for example. were a couple of nodders. Wilmot Mulliner (P. G. Wodehouse's admirers will not need to be reminded) was a nodder : his function was to wait until the chief executive had made his statement, and the yes-men had said yes; 'only when all the Yes-men had yessed do the nodders begin to function. They nod.' Whenever the speaker's tone of voice began to indicate that he was moving in to score a point, the heads behind him rose to the nodding position : then, began to nod, gently : then, as the point was made, began to nod violently, to the accompaniment of clapping. It was, I am sorry to say. extremely funny to watch, quite ruining the speaker's effect.
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