Westminster Commentary
THE House broke up for the hols without showing any signs of standing at the threshold of triumph or disaster, national or party-political. Indeed, Mr. Shin- well was moved to complain at the last that, while world-shaking events were taking place just across the Channel, the House of Commons was spending an excessive amount of time discussing matters of considerable triviality —a charge which knocked the breath out of my lungs with such force that I began to doubt whether it would ever return. I do not know who that troglodyte may be who needs convincing on Mr. Shinwell's point, but the following may help to persuade him :
Mr. Mason : On a point of order . . . Mr. Speaker : I do not understand the hon. Member's point of order. . . .
Mr. Rankin : Further to that point of order.
Mr. Speaker: There is no point of order.
Mr. Rankin: Further to that point of order.
Mr. Speaker : There is no point of order. The hon. Member was proposing to speak further to a non-existent point of order. He cannot do that, Mr. Rankin : On a point of order. May I ask your guidance, Mr. Speaker? How is it possible to judge my point of order before it is heard?
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member did not say that. He said it was 'Further to the point of order.' I had just ruled that there was no point of order. The hon. Member cannot speak further to something that does not exist.
Mr. Rankin: This is a new point of order . . .
Mr. Speaker : Order. There is no point of order in that. The hon. Member ought to know that.
Mr. Wigg : On a point of order . . .
But it was not only the flatness of the surround- ing countryside that made Mr. Marples stand out so with his announcement of cheaper trunk calls. It is said that the late Sir Kingsley Wood (and What worlds away seem the days when people like Sir Kingsley Wood and Sir Thomas Inskip and Sir John Simon and Lord Runciman roamed the land, laying waste the great primeval forests of sense and good policy like so many diplodoci) drew up when he first became Postmaster-General a list of 125 separate things that needed doing in the Post Office, from improving tlit quality of the pens with which the public were expected to fill in forms to reducing the cost of the post. In the end, the tale runs, he had managed to achieve only one positive advance, and that one not on his original list; he had laid it down officially, after a case in which the question had arisen, that if two postal workers of different sex-should be found together after dark in the post office at St. Martin's-le-Grand, it should no longer be -automatically assumed by the ap- propriate disciplinary body that they were there for an immoral purpose. (Autres temps, autres mceurs; Mr. Marples may yet have to give a ruling that no such assumption should be made in the case of two postal workers of the same sex.) Well, it is not known how many items there were on Mr. Marples's list when he followed our proper Charlie into this unpromising office, but he has already got a good way down it. It was good to hear, after the mean and miserable terms in which Mr. Hobson (the Shadow. Post- master-General, and long may he remain so) had greeted Mr. Marples's announcement, that not everybody on the Labour side of the House had parked their manners alongside their brains in the division lobbies; Mr. Randall was quick to pay tribute to one of the very few statements the House has heard in recent years that has been concerned with lower prices rather than higher. He also added a tribute to the eager beaver behind the announcement, no doubt to the fury of the large Labour contingent that regards praise of Conservatives, in any circumstances whatever, in much the same way as the College of Cardinals would look upon one of their num- ber who was seen marching round the Vatican perimeter with a placard reading 'Joseph McCabe for Pope.'- (Mr. Randall is one of the newer members; 'nuff said.) This attitude provides one of the reasons, and not the least important, for the public disesteem in which Parliament languishes today; it also, and more pertinently, goes some way towards ex- plaining why the Labour Party has not been reap- ing the reward historically due to Oppositions when • Governments begin to lose electoral sup- port. On the whole, and except for those of us whose ladies will use the excuse of the new charges to spend an hour on the telephone when they would previously have spent but forty minutes, the country can be safely said to have welcomed the announcement about cheaper calls. Its timing, it is worth noting in passing, was ex- cellent; it came less than a week after the an- nouncement about the new design of telephones had given the smart-alecks just sufficient Tope to hang themselves. The minute they had all gone on record as saying that they wouldn't care what colour or shape telephones were, provided it was a bit cheaper to talk on them, along comes Mr. Marples and declares, with a barely stifled yawn, that that is exactly what it will shortly be.
Now there is a theory that our legislators have their ears firmly to our pulses, and that they are quick to leap into the saddle and gallop sharply off in all directions the moment any change in the rhythm of the public's political heartbeat is detectable. Don't you believe it; one of these days we are going to find in the obituary columns an account of the tragic death of one of them who was drowned because he didn't' know enough to come in out of the rain, or at any rate to keep his mouth shut while it was falling. Almost the first thing that the Member for Woodford did when the Conservative Party won the general election of 1951 was to give Mr. Attlee the. Order of Merit, despite the frequency and bitterness with which they had clashed in the House during the six years of Labour Government. Nobody imagined that Mr. Churchill's action was his way of announcing his conversion to a belief in the nationalisation of the means of production, dis- tribution and exchange; it was his way of sig- nalling the departure from office of a man who had done well by his country and deserved well of it. Now nobody expects Mr.. Gaitskell to give Mr. Macmillan the Order of Merit as soon as he is in a position to do so, still less to announce at this time that he will. But could not the Labour Party—oh, not for decency's sake, but for its own—at any rate give credit where it is (as it is occasionally) clearly due? For if the public pulse has indicated anything in the past few years, it is that it is getting increasingly huffed with the incessant trundling of party hoops. And none of us is likely to get any less huffed at the sight of the Hobsons of this world paying tribute, when they hear about reduced telephone charges, to 'the Post Office engineers who have made this de- velopment possible.' Post Office engineers, as far as a good deal of public experience goes, are sometimes incompetent, usually disobliging and always late, and the public, which is by no means such a goose as the amount of stuffing the parties provide might indicate, can see a church by daylight.
On the very some day as the telephone state- ment, the Writ for the Argyll by-election was moved. Now there is only one reason for by- election Writs being called for; the timing is dictated solely by the decision of the party holding the seat before the by-election became necessary as to the most favourable moment for its candi- date. There is nothing national or constitutional involved; it is a purely party matter. Everybody knows this, and until lately there has never been any attempt to deny it. But listen to Mr. Butler, after the Labour Party had objected (also on purely party grounds dressed up as fairness to the electors) to the Writ being issued so early : I should like the House to know that before
deciding to move the Writ, and authorising the Patronage Secretary so to do, the Government made inquiries about the circumstances in the constituency with a view to the fairest condi-
Previous page
