Westminster Corridors
As anyone who ever downed a molecule of Malmsey, or pursued a wench with Puzzle will readily inform you, he is the most charitable of fellows when it comes to personal failings. It has been suggested that this is due to the fact that he embodies many a verdant vice himself. Be that as it may, let Thespian Faulds bellow incontinently, let Chancellor Hogg wheeze asthamatically, indeed maniacally, at his own jokes, let Sir Harmar Nicholls try ineffectually to screw his monocle into his eye like a truly pongo gentleman, or Mr Eldon Griffiths do his best to look capable and intelligent and Puzzle will simply say a word or two about gently scanning brother man, and thereafter turn to the bottle, to the wench, or to both.
It is curious, therefore, that Mr Roy Jenkins does not evoke this celebrated charity. This troubles Puzzle. But he is ever willing to repent his evil ways especially with the help of veteran colleagues such as that wise old owl Watkins. (He once wrote for this journal before falling among radicals in a peculiar modern broadsheet called the New Fabian or the like, which boasts an excellent court and religious correspondent in Master Johnson and a dangerous revoluntionary columnist called Waugh, who has been known to wear a red cummerbund to dine.) The Essayist Watkins is indeed sage and learned and much admired by Puzzle save for his attire, which he perhaps affects so that he may pass unnoticed in the working clubs of North England where I understand much of the readership resides, and for his peculiar taste in gaudy alcoholic beverages which I pray to Almighty God he did not obtain from the ladies of St John's Wood who usually favour them.
Now Master Watkins recently said that it was most peculiar that the fastidious Mr Jenkins should incur much more oppobrium than other bearers of the Red Flag for his genteel ways since his manner of speech is no more affected than that of the lively wench Judy Hart with whom he shares humble origins. And, as Master Watkins reminded us, the taste of Beau Jenkins in wine is matched by that of the Prime Minister in brandy and cigars, without the camouflage of the proletarian pipe. He even suggested that the Balliol man was no less a Socialist than Citizen Foot — although here Puzzle must take issue, for whilst the sight of a barricade would only make Mr Jenkins swoon, it would cause Citizen Foot to clamber to the top to make an impromptu oration which he had carefully prepared in the elegant library of his Hampstead home. Alas this is not helpful to the fellow. He resigned from the deputy-leadership of the Socialists on the issue of the referendum and returned when they were committed to consult the people through a 'general election or a consultative referendum.' He talks of great moderation and is a known opponent of the nationalisation policies which are identified with Comrade Benn. But he fought the election with a manifesto which 'promised the take-over of 'profitable sections' of industry and mentioned in particular pharmaceuticals, road haulage, construction, machine tools and North Sea Oil. It even threatened banking, insurance, and building societies. Was he being quite forthright?
Now he is much exercised about 'moderation' and in a recent speech equated the NEC, which is the democratically elected body controlling his own party, with that of the Employers Federation, the CBI (and the TUC) as outside bodies. It really is all most curious. Were not Puzzle so often informed by those eminent journals of Socialist opinion the Times, the Economist and the Observer, what a splendid, stable, moderate, fellow Mr Jenkins is, then Puzzle could even think that he did not actually want his party to win the next election lest it came out of the Common Market and prosecuted all those radi cal policies which Mr Jenkins pledged himself to in the manifesto for the last election. Such uncharitable thoughts are alien to an innocent like Puzzle. Despite the wise advice of Master Watkins he will simply apply himself to the personal idiosyncracies of Mr Jenkins rather than his political record. That way Puzzle can be his usual charitable self. The fellow dresses abominably.
Tom Puzzle
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