4 DECEMBER 1964, Page 11

A Year of Quoodle

A YEAR ago, a grief ago I first sat in this chair. I was regarded in Fleet Street as a freak, an amateur, a

snatcher of bread from the starving mouths of journa- lists. There was much weighty talk about the dilemma in which I was sure to find myself : that of failing to criticise the actions of the Tory Gov- ernment or, alternatively, of failing to do my duty as an editor. It all seems long ago. The only dilemma is that of finding new words to explain to irate readers that the opinions of con- tributors are not necessarily my own. In my salad days is an editor it used to worry me if the back of the paper contradicted the front.

Now it worries me if it doesn't. And. even that position is changing. One more Budget" from Mr. Callaghan and Nicholas Davenport will be applying for membership of the Primrose League.

And it is easier for me now to deny paternity. For the first few weeks everything, even the family-planning advertisements, were attributed to my pen. Quoodle, then, is one year old. A

turbulent year, a switchback year, but, thanks to splendid support from the whole of the Spectator staff, from the proprietor to the editorial boy, a happy year.

Why Quoodle?

I explained this a year ago, but I still get a drizzle of letters asking why I have adopted this Pen name. Quoodle was half-Cairn, half-Aber- deen and belonged to G. K. Chesterton. I have always been enchanted by the 'Song of Quoodle,' Which begins;

They haven't got no noses, The fallen sons of Eve; Even the smell of roses Is not what they supposes; But more than mind discloses And more than men believe.

and which concludes: And Quoodle here discloses All things that Quoodle can . . .

Not everything, you understand. I am, I take it, still bound by the Official Secrets Act. But 'all things that Quoodle can . .

A columnist has a number of unfair advan- tages. He can inflict his enthusiasms and his prejudices on his readers. The readers of this column may not care what happens on the third Saturday in March, but Quoodle does. And, at length and in triumph if Scotland win, shortly and in sorrow if the heathen prevail, I shall record the scene.

On another front, an anxious correspondent asks if there has been a reconciliation between the BBC and Quoodle. No. My fires are banked, but still they burn. I see the BBC are asking the Government for a combined licence fee of £6 so that inter alga there should be an 'extension of BBC-2 as fast as possible to main population areas throughout the kingdom. . . .' Why people who don't want to look at BBC-2 (or, for that matter, BBC-1) should pay for the ex- tension of an expensive and proved failure is naturally not explained. It is time we returned to the attack. Starting next week.

The Staggers

Naturally, since I came to the Spectator, I have looked at other weeklies with a fresh eye. Much innocent pleasure has come to me from observing the tender warmth with which the New Statesman. has responded to Mr. Harold Wilson and all his works. This has been one of the great love affairs of our time. I hardly foresaw that it would lead so soon to cruel disenchantment. Yet in the last issue I read a stricken account of disaffection and squabbling inside the Parliamentary Labour Party. Anguish dripped from every phrase : . . . Threatened the stability of the govern- ment's majority . . . a failure of the leader- ship . . . Back-bench dissatisfaction mounted . . . Dismay about the Bank rate increase . . widespread and often malicious criticism of Mr. Callaghan . . . what looked like a Labour sur- render to Stop-Go economics . . . dissatisfac- tion . . . the party was unhappy about the government's showing in Monday's defence de- bate . . . Mr. Wilson's speech signally failed to raise morale . . . Mr. Healey's strangely inept contribution . . . unilateralists who were dis- mayed . . contentious . . . acrimony ... emo- tional . . . irritating . . . tragic irony . . . Et cetera.

The author of this cry of pain was Mr. Gerald Kaufman, who also supports another less-than- successful enterprise on television. He must be distressed to have to publish so sombre a pic- ture of his party. Not so much a party, indeed: more a way of strife.

Life Without Randolph

A few days ago I sent my press columnist the gentlest of remonstrances because he hadn't tiled copy in two weeks out of three. Randolph promptly mounted his high horse and rode off, in all directions. In the course of an interview to the Jack Parr show on. American TV, he an- nounced that he had been sacked, and he gave my letter to the press. Like Clive, I stand astonished at my own moderation. Still, that's my boy!

Being without Randolph is like being without an aching tooth, a gentleman at arms, a torturer, and a trumpeter. Randolph is a bladder of lard, and the stoutest of friends. He talks better (and louder) than anyone I know. I have a wholly irrational affection for him, which has survived everything. With a little bit of luck it should sur- vive this paragraph.

QUOODLB