Notes
'thought "I'm going to sock this man -1-with all the strength I can muster." He hit me on the head. I hit him in the stomach.' Breathes there a man with soul too dead to thrill to this confession by Mrs Shirley Williams that she thoroughly en- joys fighting 'physically with my fists, more like a man than a woman'? On this occasion in the late 1960s, she says, she was coming to the rescue of her then husband, Professor Bernard Williams, now Provost of King's, who had been hit on the jaw by a National Front supporter. Contrary to Burke's fears, the age of chivalry is not gone; it has merely gone unisex, with Prof. Williams in the role of Marie Antoinette. Curiously, the latest biography of Neil Kmnock reveals that the Labour leader too enjoys a punch-up. After being kicked on the elbow by a Bennite youth in a hotel lavatory, he apparently seized his attacker and 'I beat the shit out of him.' One of Mr Kmnock's companions went to investigate and found blood and vomit all over the floor. We can hardly wait to hear Mr Roy Jenkins shout, 'I can lick any man in this bar' and Mr Roy Hattersley tell his Guar- dian readers how he inflicted grievous bodily harm on six rogues in buckram. Amateur psychologists have long sus- pected that politics attracts maladjusted Personalities who wish to discharge their superfluous aggression. But the poignant thing here is to see politicians doing their own fight promotion. Somehow, they don't Inspire much terror. Indeed, the thought of Mrs Williams's fists gamely .pummelling the solar plexus is rather enticing. With genuine brawlers like Mr Denis Healey and Mr Norman Tebbit, there is no need for round-by-round commentaries. One menacing look is enough.
Previous page
