Notebook
The devolution nonsense at least promises an entertaining parliamentary session. I hope that someone will be making a book on the Bill's prospects. It must now be odds-on that it will pass on its Second Reading, but the variables multiply. Will the Tory devolutionists vote for the Bill, or abstain ? Vice versa, the Labour rebels? And precisely how many cross-votes and abstentions Will there be on either side? Already delicate lines have been drawn: Tory front-benchers outside the shadow cabinet can abstain; Members of the shadow cabinet, including Mr Alick Buchanan-Smith, will vote against the Bill (or resign).
But the odds must be much longer against the Government's carrying a guillotine motion and thus against the passage of the Bill this Session. The large imponderable, of Course, is Heath. His odiously smug and self-regarding speech on Monday night ('I have never been afraid to stand up for my own convictions . . .•) has left him—in his own view, at any rate—with great freedom of movement.
It is difficult to read Heath's pharisaical wafflings without a sardonic smile. He is delighted that Tories will be allowed to 'act according to their convictions . . . What is important . . . is that these differences are debated in a relaxed, tolerant and rational Way.' The unintentional ironicness of the esteemed ass must seem particularly terrific to those Members who endured every sort Fol. blandishment and pressure, down to Inspired intrigues within their own constituencies, when they stood out against the Heath line on Europe.
The shadow cabinet's decision on a three-line Whip is surely Margaret Thatcher's finest flour since winning the leadership. It represents a victory for her own convictions, and She will gain popularity in the country for taking a principled stand against a measure Which, after all, almost no one wants in its Present form. With luck the whole exercise Will win her a great additional prize. If the TOry Party does split for the moment into a successful majority faction and an unsuccessful minority it may enable her to see off Heath for good.
High passions about devolution seem to have momentarily affected our grip on the facts. At least, a mischievous gremlin got at our leading article last week and had us state that 'Labour has never held a majority of Parliamentary seats in England.' In fact Labour has won more English seats than tile Tories five times since 1929. What remains true, and is at the nub of the argument about this Government's gerry
mandering Bill, is that it is possible for the Labour Party, not merely to take a minority of English seats, but to win fewer of them than the Conservatives, while winning the United Kingdom general election—as happened in 1964 and in February 1974.
The serious debate about a closed shop in journalism needed some light relief, and last week got it. A 'hearing' of the National Union of Journalists was held to consider complaints against a Union member, Miss Jenny Harris. Her offence, it seems, was that at the NUJ's Conference at Buxton in the spring, she complained that it was impossible to find balanced reporting in the Union's official publication the Journalist, edited by Mr Ron Knowles. As a totally loyal, committed and (I trust) paid-up NUJ man I should not think it proper to comment on the hearing, or on the editorial policy of the Journalist (although I particularly enjoyed an article which the magazine recently published entitled, 'The Soviet Press: A Weapon for Democracy'). But one would need a stony heart not to have been tickled by the events at the hearing. The NUJ apparatchiks—sorry, permanent officials— remembered halfway through this kangar1 mean hearing, that they were working to rule over a claim for higher entertainment expenses, and duly walked out. Mr Knowles was no doubt torn between conflicting emotions (as opera synopses used to say), but at last decided that he should walk out himself in solidarity with his brothers and sisters. As a result, the executive committee has recommended that his case should fail. But with a little luck we should be hearing more before long of Knowles v Harris.
No future historian studying twentiethcentury England through its newspapers will be able to ignore the News of the World, 'as English as salt beef and gnocchi' as I recall one of its proprietors once saying. Particularly interesting to the social historian are the concise descriptions of participants in the sort of stories in which the NoW specialises. I have remarked for some time past that the characteristic 'company director' in court cases (`Mr Joe Nargs, 49, described as a company director . . . "we were just having a kiss" ') has been replaced by 'a lecturer.' I'm not sure if one can fit into this socio-economic ongoing pattern-changing situation an enthralling account of suburban orgies in last Sunday's paper: the main protagonists were tantalisingly described as 'a land-surveyor for Bedfordshire County Council,"a British armycapta in' and 'a freelance aircraft engineer'—on balance, I suppose, a victory for the public sector.
The preposterous 'psychiatrist' Dr Greenberg, who thinks that he can analyse politicians by looking at them on television, has been effectively dealt with by Bernard Levin. But one part of the doctor's diagnosis seems a common attitude: Sir Keith Joseph's 'several public confessions of collective guilt after leaving office' is seen in itself as a symptom of mental disorder. In a recent New Statesman profile of Joseph there was an alarmingly-drawn description of him covering himself with self-reproach (as well he might) at the sight of hideous tower blocks erected during his spell at the Housing Ministry and in which poor wretches now have to live. The imputation of neurosis to a politician who admits he has made a mistake is an interesting comment on our times; although on that basis Mr Heath becomes a paragon of mental hygiene.
The valedictory tributes to Benjamin Britten have been curiously grudging. Part of the reason for this is no doubt the modern fashion for 'placing' artists. Britten could not be fitted in to any school or tendency, certainly not into the official avant garde. He did not suffer neglect—as did Bartok for the same sort of reason half a century ago—but many music-lovers seem to be uneasy as to what to think about him. The one respect in which he was genuinely unfortunate was that, as a composer who wrote so much for the lyric stage, he was ill-served by his librettists (though not as much so as Tippett). So, to step away from this cautiousness, I can say that Britten's music has been a continuous delight to me since I first heard Peter Grimes many years ago. I know nothing like enough of his music, especially of his work outside the opera house, but then exploring it is a long pleasure in store. As for the operas, knowing most of them fairly well and with memories of a fine performance of the extraordinary Turn of the Screw at Wexford last month still in my memory, I would make this prediction (and bet on it if I was sure about being around to collect): there will be more operas by Britten than by Richard Strauss in the repertory in fifty years time.
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