SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK

NIGEL LAWSON

Sir Harold Nicolson's death has come at a time when his literary reputation has gained a new lustre by the publication of his diaries. Although these display him also as diplomatist, Member of Parliament, wartime junior minister, and historian, what made him unique was his pre- eminence as an essayist. And ' it was in the SPECTATOR, of course, that his gifts in this line Were most happily employed. A note in his diary on 22 December 1938 reads: 'Lunch at the Reform with Wilson Harris. I agree to do a weekly article for him.' That was the origin of 'Marginal Comment,' which he con- tributed from the beginning of 1939 until the end of 1952 with only a year's interruption, when he held junior office under Churchill dur-' ing the war. There were 670 articles in all, each of 1,500 words. 'Marginal Comment' became one of the most remarkably sustained perform- ances in journalism : each week within its com- pass Nicolson blended wit, learning ' add' opinions in his own elegant style. He may well come to be regarded, as his son Nigel NicoIson suggested not long ago, as the last of the great essayists in the classical mariner.

They like Adolf

The success of the rieo-nazi NPD in winning 10 per cent of the votes in last week's Baden- Wurttemberg elections, had a depressing in- evitability abobt it. It, is only four weeks since I was writing in these columns of the alarm- ing growth of Germany's extra-parliamentary extremists, of the left as well as of the right. Since then we have had the shooting of the Berlin student leader Rudi Dutschke, the left- wing student riots and—inevitably—the authoritarian backlash.

Yet I see little reason to doubt the judgment of the NPD's own leader, the plausible Herr Adolf von Thadden, that his party's success was due less to the anti-student backlash than to disillusionment among lower-paid workers and farmers with the Socialist party since its entry into the immobile and stifling 'grand coalition' Some seventeen months ago. Certainly, the other striking outcome of the election was the sharp drop in the SPD vote. If the Baden-Wurttemberg result persuades the socialists that there is no future for them—apart from humiliation at the federal elections next year—in remaining within the coalition any longer, it may prove to be a blessing in disguise.

Grace notes

Mrs Leila Berg's scrappily written polemic Risinghill : Death of a Comprehensive (Pen- gum Books 6s) is so ludicrously one-sided that I can't imagine it convincing anyone (who doesn't already want to be convinced) of the success of Mr Duane's novel teaching approach there or of the wickedness of the Lcc in getting the school closed (with Mr Crosland's approval) in 1965.

What the book does underline, however, is how the very structure of the state school system inevitably makes radical educational experimentation within it difficult, and how precious (by contrast) is the genuine inde- pendence that only the schools in'the private sector can provide. Unfortunately, we can't ex-

pect this moral to be drawn by Mrs'Elerg, who reads from the publishers' blurb (She has had Youth Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament meetings, folk song sessions and a nursery school running in her house simultaneously') like a character out of Peter Simple. And how's this (from page 143) for a choice piece of left- wing inverted racialism:

'It is one of my greatest regrets that I never saw it, this [Risinghill school nativity] play in which every child's nationality was something to contribute . . . the West Indian- children's calypsos and the Turkish children's graceful belly-dancing . . . the Chinese emperor in pale blue silk, entering to his fascinating music, the African king dignified and graceful, carry- ing assagais and furry spears, and the loutish British king, his men stumbling uncouthly in leather and brass tunics . .

Had the sense of the references to the Afri- cawand British kings been reversed of course, the Leila Bergs of this world would have been writing outraged letters 'to the Guardian and complaining to the Race Relations Board before you could say 'Enoch Powell.'

Anything goes

What worries me about the permissive society is not its tolerance of sexual laissez- faire but its resigned acceptance of bloody- minded lawlessness. Ten days or so ago seventy-six RCA flights were suddenly cancelled, thousands of people (of whom, as it happens, I was one, marooned at Glasgow) bad their travel plans utterly disrupted, and the airline suffered a £40,000 loss of revenue, all because a group of stewards had suddenly called an unofficial strike to .protest against an increase of- a half- penny in the price of a cup of coffee at London Airport's BEA canteen. Yet such is the privileged position given to any so-called trade dispute under our present crazy trade union laws that selfish and irresponsible action of this kind enjoys total legal immunity. We can only shrug our shoulders and accept it—until, that is, British trade union Taw is brought into line with that of every other civilised country.

But one thing we don't have to shrug our shoulders about is last Friday% strike of 4,000 London dockers, with all its damaging side- effects, in protest against the dismissal of Mr Enoch Powell from the Shadow Cabinet. This was a cause that not even existing trade union law could accept as constituting a trade dispute, and as a result the strikers enjoyed no legal im- munity whatever. Yet so far not a single one of the ringleaders has been taken to court. And we all take it for granted. Why?

In confidence

'Those who hold Government appointments must enjoy public confidence:—Mr Anthony Wedgwood Benn, justifying the removal of the former chairman and business director of Bristol-Siddeley Engines from all public bodies, 25 April 1968.

`Q. On the whole do you think the Govern- ment is running the country well or running it badly? A. Well 20 per cent, Badly 69 per cent, Don't Know 11 per cent. —Opinion Research Centre poll, 25 April 1968.

Your move, Mr Benn.