Conservatives
Where have the good men gone?
J. R. Bevins
Bores, like boredom, are evil, as any doctor will tell you. This not very profound statement come to me from reading a recent book on the late Randolph Churchill and also by keeping a wary eye on the antics of the organist who, somehow, happens to be our Prime Minister.
Essays on Randolph, whose comments on them would have been unprintable. even in Private Eye, have come from such prize bores as Birley (ex-Head Eton), Roy ; Harrod (alleged economist), Fitz Maclean I (the funniest fluffer in the .House of Commons), John Foster (long-winded lawyer), Muggeridge (no comment), and a wide selection of other bores.
Together these people have succeeded in the impossible task of converting Randolph into one of their own species. But of course he was no bore. Back in the 'thirties his oratory easily outshone Winston's. I first essayed a chat with him at the Imperial Hotel, Blackpool, manY years ago, when, impatient for another drink, he had sent David Eccles flying to the floor and then had had the nerve to label him "smarty pants" in print. He was as partial to married women as to alcohol. His other abiding addiction was the telephone which he used to pester film stars and statesmen, always when they were fast asleep.
I come, by contrast, to Edward Heath. the great conformer. What can his poor biographers say about this boorish man who actually believes himself to he infinitely more infallible than the Pope and for whom the most vainglorious peacock i5 no more than a sparrow? They are stumped, lost for words (like their subject). For one moment Heath is a man with el vision: of private enterprise, clear-eyed like the men stepping off the boat, strong' armed, standing at the ready on its oval two feet. The vision fades: out come the stilts for the nationalised outfits and the quack-quacks. One moment the awful plummy voice, which affects even his most ardent admirers (not that there are too many), waxes lyrical about freedom and then, , at another, gets us closer to the fascist state than Mussolini ever did Where have all the good men gone? People are puzzled. Well, Hailsham and Thorneycroft find themselves in the Siberig of the House of Lords. For the rest the back benches of the Commons are littered with figures like Sandys, Powell, Marples, Maude, Deedes, Woodhouse, while the Prime Minister preens himself on the Treasury Bench, flanked by sycophant; who would not say boo to a goose and lightweights who would not be allowed re grace a provincial debating society.
What to do? That's obvious.
J. R. Bevins, former Conservative MP IWO
, Postmaster-General in the governments °I Harold Macmillan and Sir Alec Douglas' Home.
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