Corridors . .
PUZZLE REGRETS to report that Tory backbenchers are not enthusiastic about the performance, so far, of Mr Maurice Macmillan. Although there is a measure of justification for their attitude, it is also another case of the excellent political precept that one should never be in the wrong place at the right time.
Mr Jenkins proved this splendidly, moving from the Home Office to the Treasury leaving nasty local difficulties such as Kenyan Asians a step behind. Mr Carr and Sir Geoffrey Howe have eaten sour grapes, but Mr Macmillan's teeth are set on edge.
MR HUGH JENKINS is conducting an aloof campaign to have zero rating on VAT for the theatre — he is of course the Equity man in the Commons. When it was suggested that a joint campaign should be mounted with taxi drivers, involving a long cavalcade of taxis filled with showbusiness people proceeding down Whitehall, this alluring theatrical suggestion was loftily rejected. So was an attempt by the cinema to join fortes with the actors against VAT. Advertising was confined to the Stage newspaper.
PUZZLE IS IN mortal danger. Last week in narrating an amusing little tale of how a lady MP's bottom was pinched he meant to attribute this enterprising act to the late Hector Hughes. In fact such was the confused state of his mind — it could only be put down to the fact that he was sober at the time — that he awarded the accolade to Mr Hector Munro.
In other words he suggested that the worthy Under-Secretary at the Scottish Office was dead, and had gone round the Commons pinching ladies bottoms in his mid-eighties.
The consequences could be dreadful for Tom Puzzle. Mr Munro was recently the most feared rugger captain in the Borders, where it is deemed effeminate to leave the field with a broken neck.
Normally one may take sanctuary from any enraged citizen in a church or a pub. Presbyterians are different. Puzzle, the orthodox coward, has nowhere to go for safety but sends his profound apologies Winging down the corridors of Westminster.
PUZZLE TAKES no pleasure in the difficulties which Mr Dick Taverne is experiencing with his constituency party, even though Mr Taverne was an arch Marketeer. Many of his fellow rebels have had little to lose since they were near retiring, and some of his younger rebel friends have gone unscathed. Dick Taverne could hardly be described as an archtypal socialist, but his party has had good service from him and presumably his constituency party only object to him on the basis of his views on the Market. It is time to forgive and forget. Puzzle is positively sentimental.
Previous page
