Short Commons I referred last week to the Government Chief
Whip's warning to Labour MPs invited to appear on television, and suggested that Mr. Short had succeeded in persuading the BBC to withdraw an invitation to Mr. Tom Driberg to appear on a 24 Hours programme on Vietnam. Auntie now claims (in a 'personal' letter to me) that she changed her mind about Mr. Driberg without any pressure from anyone. Who's right? I leave my readers to judge: the material evidence is a letter from a Top BBC Person to Mr. Driberg claiming, it seems, that the corporation realised, 'even before it was pointed out to us,' that they were in danger of over-representing the left. But the 'pointing out,' it appears, was done on this occasion, not by Mr. Short, but by No. 10 itself. I apologise to Mr. Short, who's a popular figure at Westminster, for implying that he might be responsible for the activities of the Prime Minister.
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