Notebook

It didn't take long for the evidence of Fleet Street's new labour-management harmony, discovered by the Royal Commission on the 'Press, to look flimsy indeed.

Following a confrontation between Mr Fredy (sic) Fisher, editor of the Financial Times, and the Imperial Father of the NGA on the very evening of publication of the Royal Commission's report, the paper failed to appear.

The basis of the confrontation was Mr Fisher's deletion of the figure of £360.50 a week (L18,746 a year) given in the report as the average salary for a group of journalists in one publishing house. Undeleted was a phrase referring to the pay of NGA men: 'average earnings in fact go as high as £240 a week for one category of workers in one house.'

The Imperial FoC said his men were Worried about this and why must the deletion be made.

It is understood that Mr Fisher's reply was imperious; that he first asked his questioner whether he was there officially or Personally and, told that the visit was official, retorted that if the NGA set the copy and, after the machines were running, the Imperial Father subsequently returned on 'a personal but not an official visit, he would then give his reasons.

So no paper.

Now given that Mr Fisher's scepticism about the journalists' pay figure was wellfounded, readers of Harry Evans's textbooks on journalism will be wondering: Why not put an editor's footnote expressing scepticism and promising more later?

Well, maybe Mr Fisher hadn't read the books or was acting on that precipitate advice to journalists, 'When in doubt leave out' rather than the more sagacious, 'When in doubt, find out—or tell 'em what you are doing.'

Next day found Mr Foot in the Commons remonstrating with the NGA—as, indeed, their leader Joe Wade already had—but also making cutting remarks about Mr Fisher— 'The people who have been denied access to the press by the action of the editor of the Financial Times are the members of the Royal Commission on the Press.'

Mr Fisher sent a letter to Mr Foot, after ringing his private secretary and informing him of the contents, asking for a public retraction by Monday evening. Mr Fisher's letter and Mr Foot's courteous but firm reply—he still thought the excision 'extraordinary'—were published in Tuesday's Financial Times. Readers were also treated to a re-statement of the editor's reasons Which made it clear that an alternative course—the simple editor's footnote—had

still not been considered. Altogether it was a costly exercise for the Financial Times on what appears to have been an easily avoidable issue.

Meanwhile, journalists are speculating as to who those colleagues are with an average of £18,746 a year.

, The sample in the report is believed to number four. Favourites for this estimable tax bracket are Beaverbrook Newspapers, with Messrs John Junor (a director as well as editor of the Sunday Express), Charles Wintour (editor of the Evening Standard and also a director), Roy Wright (brand-new editor of the Daily Express) among them with, possibly, a cartoonist thrown in. As the figure was an average, they may well be looking askance at each other.

More striking than in any other post-war leadership contest in either of the main political parties has been the attention devoted by the Labour Party to the kind of arrangements a successful candidate will make with his nearest rivals. It is beyond question that the three top runners will be Messrs Callaghan, Foot and Jenkins. Mr Jenkins's campaign has stood up remarkably well to the pressure of events, especially when it is remembered that only weeks, let alone months, ago he was regarded as a total outsider in any race that would take place. However, in any post-third or fourth ballot deal it will have to be considered whose election makes possible the largest subsequent number of ministerial moves. If Mr Callaghan were to win, the Foreign Office would become vacant, either for Mr Jenkins or Mr Healey (who has long been ambitious in that direction). A victory for either Mr Foot or Mr Jenkins is much less promising from the point of view of change and promotion. If Mr Jenkins sees he has no chance of winning, he might well advise his backers to support the man most likely to get him out of the Home Office. Both Mr Callaghan and Mr Foot will therefore have to consider very carefully whether they would be willing to see so passionate a European in charge of foreign affairs. An intriguing conference was held in Brighton last week by the International Association Against Painful Experiments on Animals. Notice the 'against'. Societies used to be 'or tliis or that. Now they tend to be 'For', or tAgainse something. Despite that, the gettogether was notable in showing just how far attitudes on both sides of what was once a bitter disputation are softening. The 'antivivisectionists' have begun to recognise that it would be impossible to end overnight the use of animals in, for example, screening potentially life-saving new drugs. At the same time, scientists are growing less dismissive of their critics' arguments. In the middle ground, important initiatives are under way to encourage the search for positive alternatives to animal experimentation. The Lord Dowding Fund for Humane Research, which gives grants to scientists working in this direction, is one such sign. Alongside some impassioned prose and immaculate millinery, the Brighton conference heard speeches from 'orthodox' university researchers funded from this unorthodox source. With both scientific and political attitudes changing, this is surely a subject which the Select Committee on Science and Technology could usefully study. Their deliberations—not least in translating a highly technical subject into tel ms understandable by MPs—could provide an invaluable preface to parliamentary debate. And the object of that debate should be to modernise the 1866 Cruelty to Animals Act, which still regulates animal experimentation in Britain, and which is more than due for overhaul.

Several political commentators have said— like Mr Alan Watkins in the Observer—that 'for the first time a British political party is electing a Prime Minister'. That is only true in a formal sense. On 19 October 1922 the Conservative Members of Parliament resolved by a vote to fight the next general election as a party independent of the coalition led by Lloyd George. Although the Tories were not strictly electing a Prime Minister they knew that the result of their vote would be the resignation—it came immediately—of Lloyd George and the succession to the premiership of Bonar Law, the Tory leader. Bonar Law, indeed, insisted on waiting until 23 October when another vote, this time including Conservative peers and parliamentary candidates, confirmed him as party leader, before taking office.

The assertion by the Post Office that cancelling Sunday collections is of no real consequence since it represents only three per cent of mail is a striking example of the abuse of statistics. In the first place it is a false comparison since it takes Sunday as a percentage of the whole week whereas the true comparison should be a daily average. The Post Office handles 10,800 million letters a year of which 324 million are posted on Sunday—Sir William Ryland's three per cent. But weekday daily average is 33 million and six million on Sundays so the real proportion is nearer twenty per cent. Secondly, it is comparing two totally different sorts of user. The bulk of weekday mail, about eighty per cent, is business, commercial, government, etc, while on Sundays, the great letter writing day for many people, it is almost whollyfamilycorrespondence. Would it not be better to drop all the Saturday collections instead ? Saturday mail is not despatched around the country until Sunday night anyhow, and so presumably the sorters and mail trains will still be needed then—

unless what Sir William really has in mind is to leave everything over until Monday morning, which would mean a letter missing the last (and increasingly early) post on Friday would not be delivered until Tuesday or Wednesday.

What can Lord George-Brown be thinking now about Alexander Solzhenitsyn ? Could he be thinking of re-joining the Labour Party ? For he can hardly have been pleased by his hero's remarks about Spain last weekend. In warning against the dangers of 'rapid democratic reform', the Russian novelist asked: 'Spain could have a democracy tomorrow, but do they know how to prevent it from falling into totalitarianism ?' What other people have ever asked themselves this question before embarking on the road to greater democratic freedom? And if they had done so, what possible answer could there be ? Let the wretched Spaniards at least be permitted to seek a more democratic society without being made to feel that the whole thing is inevitably doomed. If Mr Solzhenitsyn is to retain his credibility, he will have to do better than this.

The Institute of Economic Affairs is celebrating the two hundredth anniversary of the publication of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations in fine style. The I EA's ebullient Director, Ralph Harris (one of the most effective fund-raisers in thecountry), recently announced an essay competition with the title The relevance of Adam Smith to 1976'. The first prize will be a munificent £2,000. For authors under thirty, who need write only 3,000 as opposed to 5,000 words, there are a separate series of prizes—of £600, £400 and £200. All essays reaching a sufficient standard will be published in the autumn, and non-prizewinners will receive an honorarium of £50. Details of what, in these straitened times, is a splendid opportunity for political and economic writers, can be obtained from the I EA at 2 Lord North St, SW1. All entries must be in by 31 July.

Not all the tributes to Lord Montgomery on his death have appreciated the difficulties which he faced on taking command of the Eighth Army. It is perfectly true, as Correlli Barnett has argued (and as Alun Chalfont argues in his forthcoming biography of the Field-Marshal), that the first battle of Alamein was planned by Auchinleck ; and that Montgomery benefited greatly from his sudden access to lavish supplies of materiel such as were not available to his predecessors from Wavell onwards. But

Monty on taking command found, above all, an army that was seriously demoralised, and a war effort that probably could not have been sustained through another beating from Rommel. He husbanded his mighty resources with an almost fanatical care, and devoted a large part of his substantial energy to raising the spirits of the troops. It was his success in the latter task that made him, to a greater extent than any other Allied general, a soldiers' officer. It is not clear that historians—even Lord Chalfont, whose book was to have been written with Monty's help until the arrangement was brought to an end when differences of opinion between the two men became unbearable—appreciate the importance or the genuineness of his popularity. As every great general has insisted, an army's morale is its principal asset.

Much has been made of Mr Wilson's decision to stay in office until Labour had a new leader as being inimical to the Royal prerogative. It is not generally known, however, that the threat of use of the prerogative played a very important part in recent British politics, during the 1968 crisis over Mr Wilson's planned trade union legislation. Faced with mounting opposition to legislation based on In Place of Strife in his own party, Mr Wilson announced his determination not to attempt to carry the Bill with the Tory support of which Mr Heath had assured him. Rather, he threatened, he would go to the country, and if Labour was smashed in the election nobody could blame him. Frightened by this prospect some senior Labour figures undertook informal consultations with the Queen's advisers, pointing out delicately that, if Mr Wilson had his way, the body of the Labour movement would be convinced that the Palace had conspired to put the Tories in, and an ineradicable hostility to the Monarchy would be created. They were able to return to their colleagues and

report that Mr Wilson would certainly be refused a dissolution and, if he asked for one, another Labour politician would be asked to form a government. Mr Wilson has never since been inclined to take as big a risk.

We agree with the editor of the New Statesman that the way in which the price of the Listener is subsidised by television licence fees is little short of scandalous. It is therefore particularly galling to find ourselves confused in any way with the BBC. Nevertheless, this happened in last week's issue of Motor magazine. Attacking—and justifiablY so—the Corporation's double standard in its attitude to advertising, Motor stated: The BBC itself devotes much air time advertising its own publications, the Radio Times and the Spectator.' It was, of course, an inadvertent slip, but one we hope nobody will repeat.

Within three days of Mr Wilson's resignation announcement a chorus of denigration was to be heard up and down the land from Conservative MPs determined to offset anY earlier expressions of even the mildest good will or regret. It was, of course, the prelude to a concerted andco-ordinatedcampaign of personal belittlement—a campaign as mean as it is misguided. No electoral profit is to be had from decrying Mr Wilson on his retirement—only damage.

Moderates and extremists are not only to be found in political parties and trade unions. Confirmation of this comes from the recent internal squabbles in the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA). CAMRA is a broad-based coalition of real ale enthusiasts, whose membership ranges from people who adopt the entirely reasonable view that top-pressure pasteurised ale is pretty awful to those flashing-eyed zealots who are convinced that beer should only come from wooden casks via a gravity tap.

In contrast to the extreme purists the majority of CAM RA are prepared to accept beer engines, electric pumps and metal casks so long as the beer is live, that is with an active yeast content. At the recent CAMRA conference the issue came to a head over the question of filtration. The big brewers are in the habit of filtering all the yeast out of their beer, which makes impossible that vital secondary fermentation, the process that adds flavour and strength to the ale.

According to the moderates a little filtering is in order, to remove the excess yeast. For the extremists this was an unconscionable interference with the mystic process. In pursuit of their view they called for the excision from CAM RA's approved list of the product of the Hull Brewery, who practise a modicum of filtration.

It was only an eloquent speech from CA MRA's chairman, Chris Bruton, It was only an eloquent speech from CA MRA's chairman, Chris Bruton, that

saved the organisation from the wilder extremes of beer fanaticism. The upshot of.all this is that the extremists are now muttering darkly of splitting and forming a Campaign for Real, Real Ale.