A Spectator's Notebook

Mr Heath is a child of ill-fortune. He was not trained for the role of prime minister by himself. He was trained for it by nearly 100 Jrears of predecessors. He is the last of ?rofessor Pavlov's prime ministers and in his _tour short years he has brought the entire epe.riment of governing homo sapiens in dritamn to near collapse.

However, this line of prime ministers, unlike

danqUO'S, will not stretch out to the crack of ,cIc'om. It may stop with Mr Edward Heath. ;ndeed, with God's grace, he may himself have neen the catalyst of change.

p NOW, we must ask ourselves, who is rofessor Pavlov? He is, of course, an

emanation, a will-o'-the-wisp, the spirit of Man's folly (and heresy) in believing that he is a. goody' and that collectively he can jump Illimself into new realms of social satisfaction.

aylov is the architect of a society which is

ruining itself by building too bit for its boots, and not building big merely on the sufferances of new science, but building big emotionally ?ri tides of irrational compassion or fear at !lorrie and all over the world. Britain, and Indeed most Western nations today, are hagridden by both hope and guilt. Professor Pavlov has left shrines to saints

and

4martyrs of the past order along the road. '1)t one of them I myself worshipped, rose and became a minor disciple. Sir William ”everidge, in a relatively simple actuarial exercise, provided that for a few shillings a Week a man could keep himself and his corn from being crippled by some of life's fortunes. Alas, before the poor Sir William sdied the shrine was cracked. The Welfare tate is now vastly overblown. It cossets Malingerers, deters determination. Another great figure has an even larger °Miment. Pericles spoke of it. I would fain L'ranslate his words — "all the earth may ue.come his sepulchre," but the prospect of jthis happening is too awful to contemplate. ci°h.r1 Maynard Keynes devised the theory that

cit state financing reduces unemployment. at crimes are now being committed in his ria m e all over the world? In Britain we have a

0,00 million government borrowing deficit, n inflation of 15 per cent per annum, and the rhmediate prospect of four million ItheMployed. e Like Pelion upon Ossa, we have in this t011ntry piled public spending on private need, 1,°InPassion on violence, mercy on justice. We i:ve brought the conception of politics to the wighest parallels of Christian virtue. And yet 1,e are tormented. And yet we are cast down. „Ile reason, of course, is Insolence. The crime

assaulting human nature. The crime of

`areating a Utopian standard of fairness and pPoplYing it with the full panoply of public th,,IcY. The crime — yes, the blasphemy — of Wing to create Christ's Kingdom on earth. venlesis is the reward you get. Fate is your isitor. And, as in Greek tragedy, when the ' a Ment of recantation and contrition comes

i the hero prays for salvation, then it s at the furies are let loose.

teL hope that the British polity and its con10P0rary troop of saints and martyrs to a St cause survive. .111,0e s tm. g place

nlake us love our country, our country It to be lovely." The Department of the j4"vironment is large and timid and is a rests4 Place for ambitious ministers. It should be all and bumptious, as close to the Prime Minister as any 'think tank' and be presided over by someone like the Poet Laureate. England is growing more ugly every day. I took a car to Essex at the weekend. For once it seemed to me that to arrive was better than to travel hopefully. For there was no hope. London travelled all the way with me — the same hoardings, street furniture, parked cars, stop lights, a continuous garish, tattered clatter. Epping Forest should be mysterious and inexplicable. It was flyblown, with newspapers and empty polyester sacks deep in the glades.

What is the DOE doing to make us love our country? How much further does the breakdown of our society have to go before the department crocodile, now supine and basking, winks an eye, opens its jaws and shuts them on a few destroyers of our inheritance? Vast continental lorries are still pounding up St James's Street and no doubt through sleepy hollows and leafy lanes as well. These lorries are meant for long distances and M-roads only, and where these terminate depots, rigged like freightliner ports, should be established at which lorries would 'break bulk,' the contents being delivered by small vans. If this is impracticable the trade should be steered by statute on to the railways.

What is the DOE doing to let us see our country? Not enough. Farmers do not need high hedges to shelter their stock. Modern hedge-cutters are doing good work. Motorists, more and more, can revive their spirits by glancing at distant views. But great stretches of characterless road remain, with sucker-elm clogged with ivy, thorn and holly forming a channel, sometimes a tunnel, which is blinding on corners and hypnotising on the straight.

We had in Dorset an imaginative road planner and martinet, a Mr Leeming. He selected trees or stands of timber and swept the carriage ways round them in giant curves. He was expensive but he created both utility and beauty. Such men should be promoted, brought back from retirement, or at any rate consulted to the end of their days.