Notebook

In terms of political influence, Mr Reginald Maudling may now be near the end of the road. Holding Shadow responsibility for foreign affairs, he is at loggerheads with his leader, Mrs Thatcher, over policy towards the Soviet Union. To put it mildly, she is mistrustful and critical of the so-called détente agreed at Helsinki a year ago. Mr Maudling is less sceptical.

The conflict came to a head over the speech prepared by Mrs Thatcher for delivery at Dorking this Saturday. Mr Maudling disapproved of it, and told her so: too strong, he said, wrong tone. Others in the Shadow Cabinet were in agreement with their leader's assessment.

The difference is fundamental and unless Mr Maudling is rapidly converted can have only one conclusion: his resignation from the Shadow Cabinet or transfer to other duties—probably the former.

Detente can take curious forms. A colleague has been travelling in Georgia with an American television crew, who have been filming centenarians eating American yoghurt. The film is to be used in a series of television commercials in the United States— the first time that the Soviet Union has allowed itself to be used for advertising purposes in the West.

Victor Feather, who died this week, was among the most genial, generous and goodnatured figures in the Labour movement, or indeed in public life. His long services to the TUC will not be forgotten, nor will the manner in which he performed them.

Lord Feather was at once robust and gentle, with an understanding air that truly reflected an understanding mind. He was kindly and patient, a convinced socialist in the old romantic mould, never bitter or strident, always ready to reason. The Labour benches in the House of Lords—and not only the Labour benches--have lost one of the finest recruits of recent years.

The arrest of Mr Tanaka, the former Japanese Prime Minister, draws attention once again to the incredibly disruptive effects which American bribes have had on at least two of the world's major democracies. In both Japan and Italy, the ruling conservative parties are suffering from a serious crisis of public confidence, caused largely by the impression that their survival in office for so long has been due only to enormous injections of funny American money. And we do not know yet what effect the allegations of bribery by Lockheed may have on such a stable institution as the monarchy in Holland. One result of the recent Lockheed and CIA scandals has been the abrupt termination of the flow of American money to both the Japanese Liberal Democratic Party and the Italian Christian Democrats. If they are to survive without it, it can only be by purging themselves of corruption and presenting themselves to the electorate in a new and purified form. There is no evidence that either the Italians or the Japanese would in principle prefer a socialist to a conservative administration. If they should settle for the former, the Americans will have a lot to answer for.

One of the consequences of the assassination of Mr Ewart-Biggs in Dublin is almost certain to be an increase in the penalties handed out by the Republic's Special Criminal Court for membership of the IRA. New legislation to increase the maximum penalties has been on the stocks for some time, but the climate of public opinion after the explosion will probably ensure that it goes on the statute books a great deal more rapidly than would otherwise have been the case.

Membership of the IRA is, in fact, virtually the only way that many terrorists can be brought to book. And the rules of evidence have been spectacularly bent by allowing the unsupported evidence of a police superintendent as sufficient grounds for conviction in the Special Criminal Court. Such evidence is rarely challenged by the accused, because IRA policy precludes its members from recognising the court. If it is challenged, however, the judges have to take the rebuttal into account as well as the superintendent's evidence, and a number of defendants have been acquitted in these circumstances.

Up to now the customary sentence for IRA membership has been a mere six months. With good conduct, this means an effective sentence of no more than four months, which is taken by many IRA men as simply one of the occupational hazards

they have to face. Doubling the customary sentence will make it a bit more of a deterrent: trebling it, no doubt, would be even better.

The magazine New Society acquired a little notoriety last week with an article by tw° Oxford dons, R. W. Johnson and Douglas Schoen, on Enoch Powell. The piece argued, first, that Mr Powell had won the 1970 general election for the Conservatives and the February 1974 one for Labour and, second, that the Tory front bench, fearing the harm he might do next time round, had been intriguing with the constituency chairman in South Down, Colonel E. H. Brush, to procure the dumping of the former sage of Wolverhampton. It is, of course, no secret that Mr Powell has had some difficulties with his Ulster constituency—though largely because of Unionist unhappiness with his version of their creed, rather than TorY fears for the future. Nor is the Johnson-Schoen suggestion (based on opinion poll evidence) that the Powell factor was the clinching one in 1970 original: it was all admirably spelt out in the Elliott Right-WaY publication Enoch Powell and the 1970 General Election, edited by John Wood. The idea that the Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Mr Airey Neave, his deputy, Mr John Biggs-Davison, and the Shadow Leader of the House, Mr John Peyton have been making eyes at Colonel Brush to do down Mr Powell bears little examination. All three realise perfectly well that (the principle quite apart) such activitY would more likely than not be counter' productive. That Mr Peyton entertained the Colonel recently in London is innocentlY explained by the fact that they were prison' ers of war together. Mr Neave and Mr Biggs' Davison, of course, would see so prominent a Unionist regularly in the course of ordinarY business.

Not for the first time Lord Denning has Pot the cat among the political pigeons when (with Lord Justice Scarman and Lord Justice Lane) he ruled that the Conservativedominated Tameside Council should be allowed to continue with selection in secondary schools, in spite of the fiat of the Secretary of State, Mr Fred Mulley. Con' servatives are naturally cock-a-hoop, if 3 trifle careless of the undoubted problerns certain to ensue for parents and children over the next few weeks. After all, the Tories won Tameside largely (if not solely) becau.se they promised to retain selection, and resist to the last the Government's plans to abolish grammar schools. Labour are in something of a muddle over the whole business, what with the Prirne Minister's granddaughter being sent to. St Paul's and Mr Callaghan's recent assertion to the effect that parents should always haye the last word about the nature of then; children's schooling. The Tory defence. °I grammar schools is based on the conviction that parents—not teachers, and not Pollticians or civil servants—should decide the

future pattern of British secondary education. Parent power is certain to be a prominent Conservative slogan at the next general election and, if Tameside and Lord Denning are anything to go by, a potent one.

Making fun of the idiotic broadcasting comMentators of the Olympic Games has become a national pastime, and rightly so. What gives the BBC bloomers their special flavour is their combination of gaucherie and bathos, as it is often a British failure they are inspired by. A particularly rich example was heard on the news last Monday morning: Britain breaks the bronze barrier'. Not bad for a way of saying, 'They were beaten into second place'.

Having said that, there is one British achieveMent which really is remarkable, even though it was not a victory, and has scarcely been noticed outside rowing circles. The British eight won the silver, three-quarters of a length behind East Germany, ahead of the Russians. Those who know how rowing has become an entirely professional occupation

the Iron Curtain countries, pursued with fanatical rigour, will realise what a triumph that is for our genuinely amateur eight.

According to one of his close friends, Lord Selwyn-Lloyd is contemplating a book of inemoirs—not his volume about the Speakers* which has been announced, but something much more interesting. According to another close friend, he has set his mind against any such enterprise for fear of trouble over what would undoubtedly be the Most arresting of his recollections as Foreign Secretary under Eden : Suez, and Britain's collusion with France and Israel in the invasion of Egypt.

Dare he publish them, even twenty years after the event ? Which of his friends will Drove right ?

The grovelling to the United States which has marked the 'Bicentennial' has reached new depths in the Burlington Arcade. The Arcade was built by Lord Edward Cavendish, a Patriotic man, who raised money to fight the rebellious colonials. Now the American Attorney for Federal Pardons has issued a Pardon to the shopkeepers of the Arcade, 9rsominently displayed there. This abject facetiousness has been taken even further by One shopkeeper who has a notice in his window 'beseeching and imploring' any idloerican passers-by to enter and pardon fro. It seems that a nation of shopkeepers is an, inadequate description: perhaps we should say a nation of crawlers.

k, caw of Britain's national decline can be netected in the appalling traffic jams which eecur at weekends at this time of year. What We need to escape from our quagmire is iniative, and inventiveness, not the 'Ind of mindless and self-satisfied patience that is reflected in the faces of thousands of thotorists as they swelter for hours in their ears, with their engines switched off. This is

not to denigrate patience, which is of course a virtue. But there is something very sick about people who actually enjoy this sort of experience. Are they immune to ordinary human feelings of frustration ? Have they no goal at the end of their journey more desirable than sweating on the M5?

Those Glyndebourne regulars who have never seen or heard a helicopter over the last twenty years or so may have been surprised by the heated correspondence in The Times. but one writer, at least, mentioned a far more serious distraction—bats. One of these animals taking its evening exercise in the auditorium for a minute or two can be an agreeable joke, but last week the final acts of excellent performances Of The Marriage of Figaro and Cosi Ian tulle were compromised by whole squadrons of the wretched creatures—five or six at a time—on persistent dive-bombing expeditions. The audience shifts and chuckles uneasily, but it can be no joke for the singers who, unlike some members of the audience, have their minds on higher things. This has surely gone beyond the sort of amiable eccentricity associated with this unique opera house.

For many years, Olga Davenport, the wife of our economics correspondent, has been a vivacious and elegant presence at innumerable private views of art exhibitions in London, but paying rather more attention to the work on the walls than most people contrive to do in those often hectic gatherings. As an artist, the occasions have meant less to her as social gatherings than as opportunities to explore new extensions of vocabulary in the changing language of modern art. Olga Davenport's exhibition of paintings at the Piccadilly Gallery shows a singular freshness of eye and, considering her unjaded involvement with art, a marked independence of outlook. It is not particularly fashionable in fashionable circles to pursue the theme of landscape, with no other figurative digressions, with the clearness of purpose shown in these gently abstract paintings which always retain a consistent sense of place. The work is strong in colour and evocative contour, and it is not surprising to find that many paintings have been bought by discerning collectors, including Lord Esher, as well as the University of Warwick.

In 1846 Lewis Harding, 'a Gentleman returned from a distant climate in a very imperfect state of health,' returned to Trelawne, an ancient house just two miles from the Cornish fishing village of Polperro. He was suffering from an acute nervous disorder, after acting as chaplain on an Australian penal colony and the local doctor Jonathan Couch prescribed an unusual course of treatment : 'He was requested to observe the actions and the habits of the Rooks through the varying months of the year . . Lewis Harding was also an amateur photographer, and he extended the calm certainties of natural observation from the rooks to the fishermen of Polperro, their Wives, their children and their surroundings.

But Lewis Harding was a nervous and reticent man, and he has waited 130 years for proper recognition. Mr Andrew Lanyon, himself a photographer, has successfully identified some ancient photographs as those of Harding, and he has brought to light Harding's 'Rook Manuscript'. The items together make up a picturesque and moving exhibition now being held at the Photographers' Gallery, near Leicester Square, with Harding's photographs—in their original sepia tones—bearing a natural relation to his comments on the bird life of the peninsula. There is one picture of five fishermen's children scratching out a tune on pieces of wire and string; underneath is the diary entry of 9 March 1847: 'The jackdaws particularly have kept up a concert for more than an hour'. There is another picture of two young girls rustling their dresses: 5 November 1847. 'Some shake their feathers and stretch out their wings as if yawning'.

Mr Lanyon's catalogue The Rooks of Trelawne explains very clearly the state of early photography, its role in the Victorian cure of nervous diseases and the natural manner in which Lewis Harding related the life of the rooks to the life of his Cornish community. As W. H. Hudson wrote in 1898, rooks see us as 'nothing but bigger rooks somewhat mis-shapen, perhaps featherless . . ." It is an intriguing exhibition, and Mr Lanyon has written a catalogue of great charm; the two events speak for the now forgotten life of Lewis Harding and through it all comes the note of his sadness, seclusion and eventual repose among the Rooks of Trelawne.