VIEW FROM THE GALLERY SALLY VINCENT

They seem, always, a specially touching little group, the sparse sprinkling of the faithful who linger in the Chamber as the weekend looms in order to pursue what Thomas Carlyle scornfully described in more whole- some days as the idle habit of accounting for the moral sense. Times, however, have changed, and while Mr Carlyle probably never found anything more offensive than a butcher's bill upon his doormat, our valiant representatives in the House would seem to be fairly inundated with missives of an al- together more repugnant nature. Not only do rude advertisements, leaflets and pam- phlets come thick and fast through their letter boxes, addressed to them and their families, but when their constituents are similarly afflicted they send them on. trust- fully, like old Dandy comics. for their more expert perusal. All in all, it has not created a situation to soothe the minds and hormones of worthy fellows of advancing years.

The whole thing has even proved a bit much for the clean-living young Liberal David Steel, who at thirty-two may scarcely be expected to be totally immune to the sal- aciously helpful literature piled at his door. Poor fellow, he is pinker of cheek than usual following an onslaught of a circular entitled 'Manual of Sex Technique', which while not necessarily a work to offend the more urbane members of society, is not quite the ticket when sent, he kindly assumes in error, to constituents including schoolchildren, a ' recently widowed woman and most bizarre, to a dead man.

It does not, at the time, seem unreasonable of the inoffensive young David to suggest a new clause in the Unsolicited Goods and Services Bill, which if implemented would make it hot for dirty-book publishers to the tune of fines from between £100 and £400. Not, Mr Steel is very quick to assure us, that there is anything wrong with sex man- uals as such, only the indiscriminate oversell of such literature.

Mr Phillip Goodhart, who follows. (Con, Beckenham) being a literary type of gentle- man, comes to indulge himself in a positive welter of cleverness. He has, ah ah ah. turned to the ah ah ah Shorter Oxford ah ah Dictionary in order to equip himself with a definition, ah ah ah of the word ah 'tech- nique'. And discovered ah ah that such a definition is ah ah very wide ah indeed. If we think we are not going to hear the whole lot of it we have (ah) another think coming. Having gone so far as to familiarise him- self with the de4inition, what does the re- doubtable Mr Goodhart find lurking next his Shorter ah Oxford hut the Spring List of a firm of publishers so far removed from the taint of pornography as to be entrusted With the sobering responsibility of producing an epistle no less res'pectable than the memoirs of Harold Wilson. Not to ah men- tion Charles de Gaulle's Menzoirv of Hope.

But where is all this leading? With the Ultimate in confidence to the fact that Mr Goodhart cannot quite remember the con- tents of Lc-dila. also advertised in the respect- able and unsolicited handout. but wouldn't he ah surprised if it did not ah have a word or too within its ah pages apertaining to

sexual technique. We grow warmer. Before we know it the point has been rammed home like a rapist's intentions and advertise- ments for Edna O'Brien and Maureen Duffy belabour our patient ears.

Overcome by the developing prurience of it all, Arthur Palmer (Lab. Bristol Central) bounds to his feet with ill-concealed relish to add The Rape of Locrece to the list like someone scoring a bullseye at Nebuchad- nezzar.

Mr Goodhart's legs wax hilarious. Thus encouraged he embarks on stage three of being clever. Not only, he says, will this reputable publisher be liable to prosecution under Mr Steel's proposed clause, but ah ah ah so will the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, since he tends to sponsor works relating to artificial insemination for farmers which are shamelessly advertised by the Ministry. As for Mr Steel himself, could he lay his hand, wonders giggle- legs, upon his own heart and swear that material published by the Family Planning Association, of which he is so fond, does not include descriptions that could conceiv- ably all ah all be held to relate to sexual technique?

In his heart, no doubt, somebody passed the port for Mr Goodhart. And it is the turn of Mr William Handing (Lab, Woolwich West) an , anti-censorship fellow who is sympathetic to the suggested clause but rueful beneath his wild white hair that when the smutty leaflet featured in Mr Steel's complaint wafted on to his own door-mat he did not seek to explore its contents. He is he explains with commendable modesty. 'get- ting a bit past it'. Not that it would have worried him one way or the other. What worries and offends Mr Hamling is the fact that the Parliamentary Register is used by

advertisers who cause their miserable prop- aganda to swell the dustbins of the House of Commons. Most repulsive of all such resist- ible documents being a disgrace by the title of South Africa Today.

The last unadulterated blow for purity, before the Minister's struggles for the status quo, is dealt by a large and embarrassed looking gentleman, raw-faced and stooping, with hands clasped across his abdomen as though in defence of some nightmarish nakedness. Mr John Farr (Con, Harborough) has, in fact, little more lewd to remark upon than the story of a circular for the

attention of all married women which was addressed to the twelve-year-old daughter of a constituent. Appalled, no doubt, at his own presumption in recounting such a 'tor- rot-. Mr Farr dwindles into assurances that our Minister of Agriculture does not, so

far as he is aware, actually send out leaflets about artificial insemination to unsuspecting families. But if he did, reckons Mr Farr, whose sense of humour is nothing if not unique, and if they were highly detailed and technically illustrated, then the new Clause would be just the job to stop him in his recalcitrant steps.

The Minister of Agriculture is not, how- ever, around to defend himself from such speculative mischief. We have only Nicholas Ridley, the Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, a sublimely dull speaker. The definition of sexual technique, he asserts with something one hopes is approiching irony, is not only as wide as life itself, but life itself derives from it. It is difficult to grasp what this has to do with people putting smut through letter-boxes, and when he argues that Mr Steel's proposed new clause would jeopardise the publication of books on the reproductive life of the newt, one might as well give up all attempts to make the connection.

Some things, after all, must remain eter- nally allusive. Mr Ridley, however, makes it clear as dusk that whatever his sentiments he is determined that members of the public whose privacy and sensibilities are invaded by the menace of unsolicited rudenesses will continue to be protected by the existing Obscene Publications Acts and the Post Office Act and maybe, if all goes well, the pending Younger Report.

Our champion of privacy and purity, however, is not to be quelled. Young David insists that he doesn't care how they re- word his clause so long as something as near as dammit gets itself into the statute book. It would, he concludes, be very wrong to wring hands over today's situation and then go away and do nothing about it.

The call to conscience is answered. As though by some magic and invisible sign the number of members present trebles and we have enough for a Division. The clause is halfway there. Once again, a tender hand is placed over the vulnerable eyes of the pub- lic. An idle habit has its way.