POLITICAL COMMENTARY
Hugh Macpherson' It'.' ti-relltime Minister's mind
turn late at night as he sits cross-legged on the Downing Street carpet practising sheepshanks and running bowlines on an immaculate piece of white rope? Bringing the America's Cup back to a grateful nation? Conducting the Black Dyke Mills Colliery Band? Or a government re-shuffle? Prime Ministers do ponder the delights of patronage. It is one of the perks of the job, but Mr Heath has set his face like a hardboiled egg against any tendency to musical chairs at the top. And whatever the old salt thinks late at night he cannot but take pleasure in the fact that his own position is completely unassailable. It is not the wardroom that needs looking at but the petty officers' mess at about Minister of State level.
Still he must look round the upper deck with some pleasure. There is now not a single rival for the ship's command. Until recently it was thought that the party would turn to Mr Reginald Maudling should the Skipper go over the side. That now seems highly unlikely. Mr Maudling is known to some of his colleagues as the heavy roller because, it is said, he can take the life out of any pitch.
This is an admirable quality in many ways and the Home Secretary is still held in high regard for his chairmanship of Cabinet committees. But his almost complete inertia over subjects such as Northern Ireland is now causing concern among government backbenchers. This reached considerable strength when the Home Secretary recently trundled into a meeting of the 1922 Committee to address them on the Ulster crisis only to announce that he would not say anything but simply answer questions. This drew a rebuke from no less a figure than Sir Harry Legge-Bourke who told him that the committee really wanted a report. Most appropriately Mr Maudling now lumbers round Westminster like a great buffalo faced with extinction.
The other chap who recently seemed capable of becoming Crown Prince is Mr Willie Whitelaw. The trouble about Mr Whitelaw, apparently, is that he is unknown to the nation. True, but for the moment his jolly star is in the descendancy for he made a dreadful mess of winding up the Queen's Speech with a mixture of bluff buffoonery and bad temper. He will, no doubt, come again but as a good Guards officer he knows there are times to put one's head below the trench and wait. There is simply no one else since Mr Barber is Mr Heath's pocket Chancellor, although he has now taken as firm a grip on the House as the Prime Minister has on him.
As far the other major ministers are concerned the PM is well pleased with the way they have settled down. Sir Keith Joseph is writhing nicely on the bed of nails at Social Security. As a super civil servant himself the Skipper must sure y have spilled his cocoa with an abandoned shake of the shoulder when he was told how Sir Keith had outgunned the Civil Service. Tired by their indefatigable master's command of minutiae they gave him a batch of papers one weekend which was as large as the manuscript of Mr Richard Crossman's forthcoming memoirs. But Sir Keith did not become a Fellow of AU Souls by sloth and he was on the telephone Sunday afternoon asking for more.
Mr Robert Carr has been an enormous success. His recent television appearance, in which he chatted with questioners for a half-hour was, in the opinion of one young backbencher, worth a million votes. Peter Walker has done well at Environment although his big test is now on the way in the subsequent stages of the new Housing Bill.
It seems therefore unlikely that Mr Heath will disturb this happy state of affairs at the top until Sir Alec Douglas-Home decides to go — but apparently Sir Alec is enjoying himsdlf at the FO. As evidence it is said that he has taken to writing his own telegrams and that these are immediately apparent — probably because he still uses colonial names like Tanganyika. About a year hence would be a suitable time for Sir Alec to depart.
The Solicitor-General Sir Geoffrey Howe is now hard at work and will be for some time on legislation concerned with Common Market entry. Sir Geoffrey is widely tipped for a major government department but is at present required to do the same job for the government attempt to enter Europe as he did so brilliantly on framing the Industrial Relations Bill.
Further down the list of ministers all is not well. The government is weak at Minister of State level and the Skipper must be pondering changes. It is some time now since I remarked sadly on the fact that the DTI was in poor shape. It started badlY — and now it has fallen away. The three Ministers of State, Messrs Noble and Corfield and Sir John Eden, will be luckY indeed to survive a re-shuffle.
Other ripe candidates for the Black Spot, at the same ministerial level, are Mr Paul Bryan at Employment and Mr Richard Sharpies at the Home Office. Then Mr Joseph Godber, who happily is recovering his health after a recent illness, may well be moved to the more congenial atmosphere of the Lords where Lord Aberdare, Minister of State at the Department of Health and Social Security, is not regarded to he particularly secure, social, or politically healthy.
Naturally enough there are many young under-secretaries itching to move up a rung to fill the vacant places. For example at Defence Mr Anthony Lambton sees himself as a bright future prospect — although there is a feeling in the department that he has overstated his displeasure that the Air Force responsibility has not taxed his abilities. Then there is Mr Peter Kirk in the same department, a man who is as earnest as he is godly, both of which are excellent qualities for a war minister.
Alas, some young under-secretaries have already shown themselves •to be wanting. Mr Michael Alison at the DHSS is a gifted man in the wrong department and Messrs Ridley and Price have proved wayward midshipmen on the good ship 'Hesperus which is the DTI. Mr Anthony Kershaw 'has not, I am afraid, revealed the right qualities at the FO where they still recall how he was dismembered by Mr Powell at a recent committee. Such is Mr Heath's paranoiC disregard for Mr Powell that this incident could well wipe out all the memories of how much work Mr Kershaw did in the campaign for the leadership the party. So who will step into the places of the fallen? Mr Kenneth Baker of Marylebone seems a likely choice, since he has much financial experience and assisted the late lain Macleod in drafting his tax refornis. Timothy Raison, the former editor of NO Society, is another. Nick Scott, another 01 the late Chancellor's protégés, might novi get his chance. There are also bright young men with obvious flair such as Hugh Dykes, who 'is another City man, and two former presidents of the Cambridge Union. Kenneth Clarke and John Selwyn Gummet One man whose promotion would not give much cause for rejoicing is the Skipper's own PPS, Mr Timothy Kitson. Dilf Kitson is for ever rushing around clutching pieces of paper — a vulgar provincial habit. Of course it 'is no easy task being PPS t° any Prime Minister but Mr Kitson has a tendency to treat young MPs as if theY were the butler Mr Heath never had — that is, of course, before he acquired Mr Kitson himself. He must soon acquire solve redeeming vices. So as the Skipper swigs a tot of rum arid consults his log book his eye must be orl those worthy fellows on the lower deci( who await the call to greater things. But he does not watch them half as keenly as the)r watch him.
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