THE PRESS
The Big Yawn
By DESMOND DONNELLY, MP
THE general election is off to an extraordinary start. I cannot recollect a comparable situa- tion. The press made the decision. It announced the date. All that was left was for the politicians to comply. The result was bored anti-climax when the Prime Minister made his announcement after his carefully staged stroll in St. James's Park. As The Times put it: 'Everybody's secret is now nobody's news.' One TV news bulletin I heard on Monday night led with Nkrumah and did not even mention that a general elec- tion had been announced.
- The man who first gave the date as a bald statement of fact was Mr. David Rosser, the extremely shrewd political correspondent of the Western Mail. He made the unknown Mr. Trevor Lloyd-Hughes's announcement for him (186 hours in advance of last Monday's statement) to the travellers on a certain sleeping-car from Cardiff to London on the night of Sunday, February 20. These privileged beings were handed an early edition of the next morning's paper. I am sorry to be told_ that most of them yawned and went to sleep even then.
The press is now occupied in setting the tone of the election. This is good news. Most papers came out on March 1, the day following the fe9i-mal announcement, with leaders that seemed strangely uninterested in the spate of White Papers and those accounts of easier mortgages and predictable Tory counter-charges. The Daily Mirror, which is very good when it is good, put its finger on the real issue: 'This is no time for political Party tricks . . . Is it going to be commoNsENsg or CHAOS about prices, incomes, productivity? . . . Wilson or Heath . . . get on with the job before the job is swiped from us by other nations. There isn't a porpoise close behind us—there's a school of energetic sharks.' The Sun (from the same stable) was in the same vein. It added : 'Britain must take the plunge into the Common Market—or accept the tides of European development will leave us isolated on an increasingly barren beach.' I wonder how the temporary Minister of Technology took that one? If Messrs. King and Cudlipp continue like this, they will succeed in raising the whole stan- dards of electioneering in Britain and thereby place us all in their debt.
Before we become involved in the usual casti- gation of the leelthy capitalist press,' another point must be recorded. The British daily press is divided between Government and anti-Govern- ment to a surprising degree.
FOR THE GOVERNMENT
Daily Mirror .. .. 5,019.314 Sun .. .. 1,273,751 Guardian .. 270237
AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT Daily Express ..
-Daily Mail .. Daily Telegraph • Daily Sketch .. 8,632,150
And on the fence so long that the iron is sometimes impregnating his moralising soul is Sir William Haley. His leading article on St. David's Day, 'March Past,' was a splendid ex- ample. Both Mr. Wilson and Mr. Heath were paraded, patted on the head and awarded the toffee. We were none the wiser at the end, ex- cept that even Sir William had caught something of the King-Cudlipp spirit. The Times wrote: 'The election should present the nation with the party leaders submitting themselves in the role of statesmen; not as political hucksters con- ducting an auction with different classes of voters.'
In fairness to Sir William Haley, however, he usually gives his correspondents free expression. Not since the late Dr. Johnson has any promi- nent figure had a more faithful chronicler of his hopes and fears than Mr. Wilson has in The Times's political correspondent. This week The Times produced my eve-of-the-poll peroration for me: `Mr. Wilson . . . wants to dissipate the electioneering atmosphere. . . . Persistent elec- tioneering, he feels, is not good for sterling. Looking beyond polling day Mr. Wilson sees a Labour government with a well-established majority, with five years ahead of it, and with enough legislation already presented or pre- pared to occupy Parliament for two years.' Onward, upward, forward, into broad sunlit up- lands! I can hear my constituents cheering The Times. I am suspiciouS,by nature: Sir William may be seeking nomination as the 'sound' Labour candidate for Pembroke.
All that remains now is for the press to count the votes before they have been cast. I have no doubt that some newspapers will do that, too. But I return to the most significant develop- ment exemplified in the Daily Mirror leading article of March 1. Grim tasks have to be faced after the election and the press will serve the nation well if it prepares the electorate for these.
6,563,302 3.987.439 2.463.972 1,336.775 843.964
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