21 MAY 1977, Page 5

Notebook

Apart from a handful of political correspondents and those politicians who want a managed press, few people in Whitehall, Fleet Street and elsewhere will feel any great regret if the chief casualty of the Peter Jay business turns out to the the lobby system. Between them, Joe Haines and Harold Wilson stopped it; but Callaghan brought it back again, and it has now rebounded upon him and his press Officer, Tom McCaffrey. There is little doubt that McCaffrey, on Callaghan's behalf, endeavoured to convey the impression that a stuffy diplomat of the traditional school was being replaced by the trendy, clever, up-to-date Peter Jay. Whether or not, after the formal briefing, McCaffrey used the word 'snob' to describe Sir Teter Ramsbotham is pretty immaterial. What • McCaffrey was doing was to explain away the appointment; and however much Callaghan may huff and puff, the Jay decision cannot be defended without implicit criticism of Sir Peter. On my visits to Washington last year I did not meet the ambassador and I have no gt,°11nd5 for making any judgment upon him But I think that Jay will make an excellent ambassador, if he has time to settle in. T,,,he practice of stepping outside the "„.iP;omatic service every now and then to rind an ambassador is good in itself. It ought to be done much more often, particularly ow that the actual business of diplomacy as become very largely the diplomacy of business. An ambassador's is a selling., Job; and I fancy that Peter Jay will turn into a first-class salesman. Alan Watkins has criticised him for taking the job. I cannot understand this. It is a marvellous job: a Splendid house, £40,000 a year expenses, almost

everybody who matters constantly

Passing through, prestige, secretaries and Junior diplomats to do all the donkey work — What more could any Times columnist and telly Person want? I suPPose that in the normal run of things, the Queen would be asked to confer a Knighthood. But with all the fuss about nepotism, this may well be thought to be Pushing it a bit.

am somewhat surprised to see it reported t, _hat Morarji Desai, India's new Prime 1. Mister, is thinking of prohibiting alcohol. lie has always been against the stuff, of co. urse, but I received the clear impression Delhi last month that he proposed to address himself to India's major problems and did not intend to get tangled up with such unnecessary complications as prohibition. Drink is not a major problem in India, but it could become so if the stuff were to be banned. Corruption and crime would

receive an enormous boost and alcoholism would undoubtedly increase through the production of hooch. Desai it was who turned Bombay 'dry', which meant that if you wanted a drink you had to get yourself registered as an addict. The technique was to get a month's permit — the document was large, and every drink you bought was duly entered upon it, until your quota was consumed. A month's quota lasted about a weekend: everybody with a new permit was very welcome in the bars. In those days, there were bars in Bombay, where drinking except by addicts was illegal, and no bars in Delhi, where drinking however was legal. Now India is much more relaxed. But Desai, who eats nuts and drinks milk and who wears spotless white clothes and looks amazingly fit and far younger than his eighty-one years, is now riding his old hobby-horse again. It is a pity. Otherwise, old Morarji looks to be doing a good job. The extent of corruption and intimidation that went on in the closing months of Indira Gandhi's regime is only now becoming clear. The most unpopular and despised man in India is her son Sanjay. The most reviled foreigner, as far as I could make out, was Michael Foot. His defence of Mrs Gandhi has made him, when not an object of contempt, a laughing-stock.

More than once, on this page, I have praised the English climate, especially for its sense of season. But this spring has really been atrocious. I was beginning to think I might have to modify my esteem for our weather; but I have noted with much satisfaction that last week there was a foot of snow in New York and that holidaymakers have been returning, pale and cold and fed-up, from the Mediterranean. Such observations have restored my faith in nature.

I don't know who Richard West's colleague was who remarked 'how splendidly Orwell had captured the horror of metrication' in the opening sentence of 1984, 'It was a bright cold day in August and the clocks were striking thirteen' (this page last week) but whoever he was, he didn't know his decimal system. Orwell's thirteen is the airlines' 1300 and our own 1 pm. The day remains divided into 24 hours of 60 minutes. Nothing metric here at all.

However, had Orwell gone metric (or more accurately, gone decimal), he would presumably have divided the day into ten new hours. One ne‘i hour would be equal to 2.4 old hours. This fits in very, well with the decimalisation of our money. 1 np = 2.4d. Time, in this event, would doubtless suffer the same depreciation as our money has done. Just as 1 np is worth now about what a penny was worth in the days of good old money, so a new hour would become worth what an hour was of the good old days themselves. We would only have ten hours from sunrise to sunrise each full day and, with galloping inflation, in scarcely no new time at all we would all be dead.

Last week this office received thirteen identical letters from the Post Office explaining how 'we have not been able to provide our normal standard of telephone repair service.' The letters were all sent first-class. Four were addressed to 'Mr Henry Keswick, The Spectator 56 Doughty St', two to 'Mr Henry Keswick T /A The Spectattor 56 Doughty St', four to 'Spectators 56 Doughty St', one to 'Spectator 56 Doughty St', and two to 'The The Spectator 56 Doughty Se.

The letters were all signed J. Lennox, who is the General Manager of the London North Central Area Of Post Office Telecommunications. Mr Lennox tells us that because of industrial action 'we now doubt the validity of our record of reported faults. To control the situation we are now wiping the slate clean' and he asks us to report again any existing fault. But this of course 'will temporarily increase the number of calls to "151". I would therefore be grateful if you could bear with us if you find that calls to the Fault Repair Service are not answered as promptly as you would wish.'

Oh yes, we will bear with you, Mr Lennox; but bear with us, too, and don't send us thirteen letters telling us that you have wiped your slate clean of reported faults and asking us to report them all again if we can get through, which we probably can't because of everybody else trying to report in their faults which you have also wiped off your slate. And thank you very much, Mr Lennox, for promising 'We shall write to you again to let you know when things have returned to normal.'

Just you do that, Mr Lennox.