27 JULY 1985, Page 36

Television

Snippety-snaps

Alexander Chancellor

Nothing diminishes a person more than a new peerage. People who may have earned our grudging respect as commoners are suddenly made to appear ridiculous by the acquisition of a title. It is as if the serious part of their lives has suddenly come to an end; as if they have given up being statesmen, philosophers, industrial- ists, or whatever, and joined the cast of a Gilbert and Sullivan opera. Not only that. They are often deprived of their most important distinguishing feature, their name, and become not only ridiculous but unidentifiable. Who, for example, are some of the people who spoke in last Monday's debate in the House of Lords in which they decided to continue the experi- ment of televising their proceedings? Who is Lord Aylestone, or Lord Stallard, or Lord Hatch of Lusby, or Lord Stoddart of Swindon? I expect they were all very famous in their day and that I would have known who they were. Now I cannot imagine.

Extracts from the debate were shown on Newsnight (BBC2) on Monday. Lord Soames (at least one still knows who he is) moved the motion for continuing the tem- porary televising of the House of Lords until such time as their lordships decided whether or not to make it permanent. He took the view that the experiment had already brought 'greater respect and re- pute' to the House in the country at large. I wonder what evidence there is for this? I am not saying it is not so, but where is the evidence? Lord Soames did not tell us. Lord Peyton of Yeovil, urging caution produced the familiar argument that broadcasters preferred to show what was short, sharp and exciting, whereas what was important was often the reverse. It seems to be a widely held view in the Upper House that what is slow and bumb- ling is more important than what is short, sharp, and exciting. The Earl of Lauder- dale, who being a 17th earl is protected against the ridicule which his more recently elevated colleagues invite, made the same point more shortly, sharply and excitingly. Triviality had triumphed, he said. All television showed were 'snippety-snaps' which failed to convey the full sense of a speech.

Their lordships, new and old, are united by a strong sense of insecurity. They are fearful that they may not survive. The difference between them is, I suspect, that most new peers believe that television publicity will strengthen their position, while the old ones appreciate the advan- tages of lying low. As to the viewing public, I doubt if it gives the matter much thought. It will tolerate, even enjoy, the occasional broadcast from the House, pro- vided, of course, it is confined to short, sharp, exciting snippety-snaps.

A Voice in the Darkness (Channel 4) was an hour-long documentary about an En- glishwoman married to a German who had spent the Thirties and the war years ill Germany. Now living in Ireland with her husband, Christabel Bielenberg — a niece, apparently, of Lord Northcliffe — de- scribed her experiences during the Nazi period in an interview with Peter Williams. The interview, in which her husband Peter and her two sons were included, was interspersed with bits of old film showing the rise and fall of Hitler. I found it slightlY disappointing because, although her ex- periences were of great interest, she had obviously over the years recounted them so often that they had become distilled into a number of over-rehearsed stories. This deprived her reminiscences of spontaneity. There was also a slightly accusatory tone in the questions of Mr Williams, who was for ever asking her what she did when con- fronted with some new evidence of Nazi barbarity. She could be forgiven if she felt slightly on the defensive. Nevertheless, she made it possible for one to understand how a perfectly decent Englishwoman could live in Germany through all those years without either growing to hate the Ger- mans or to appreciate the full horror of what the Nazis were up to. Her bewilder- ment seems to be with her still.