Angus Maude, never more impressive than in
his defeat, although he had every excuse f°,r, feeling like blue murder, blames the Beaverbro°k' press in part for the Tories' loss of South Dorset Ian Gilmour, who was not sandwiched like the unfortunate Maude, tells me that what struck hill most about the press coverage of the Centrae Norfolk by-election was the seriousness of th popular papers' approach compared with that of
the heavies. The Evening Standard got in touch with him a week before the campaign had started and came to the most distant corner of the constituency for an early interview. The Daily Herald kept a long-standing engagement to go out canvassing with him in a rural area. The Daily Mail interrogated him for two hours. The Daily Mirror made an appointment for an inter- view ten days in advance, after attending the meetings of all the candidates. Even the Daily Express, rigidly circumscribed by its pro-Labour and anti-Market line, went out canvassing for an hour in a hailstorm. Of all the papers there for any length of time it was only the Times which had no contact at all with this particular candi- date except at press conferences, and never came anywhere near a doorstep with him at any stage of the election.
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