SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK J. W. M. THOMPSON On one level the
Ford's affair is just another in the long series of motor industry disputes. It may even be less damaging than has been made out, for some lost exports will probably be made good later and some may go to other British firms. But on another level it's different and more important. The AEF under Hugh Scanlon has clearly picked Ford's as the battle- field on which to crush Mrs Castle's union re- form plans; and Jack Jones, the transport workers' new leader, is afraid he will be dis- owned by his militants if he doesn't go along with him. Of course it takes two sides to make a fight, and Mr Scanlon is convinced that Mrs Castle is behind Ford's tactics—both the idea of bonuses for non-strikers (the so-called penalty clauses) and the idea of testing the issue in court. In this he is certainly correct. Mrs Castle is hand in glove with Mr Leslie Blakeman, Ford's labour director, and it's not hard to see why. She is anxious to grasp the union nettle. If successful these strategems would answer the Tories' proposals—while if they failed there would still be more popular support for her reforms. Mr Scanlon's tactics don't look very intelligent. A 'victory' for him must almost inevitably lead to Mrs Castle pro- ducing a Bill along the lines of the White Paper he's attempting to kill off, only with added public backing. Either way, though, it seems an expensive method of conducting what is really an internal Labour party policy debate.
Traveller's load
I have spent a thought-provoking half-hour with the new, enlarged edition of the High- way Code. The first version of this homiletic work that I recall was a slender booklet of blissful simplicity. There were engaging line drawings of men driving horses-and-carts, sig- nalling cheerily to other traffic with neat twirls of the whip. Nothing so carefree interrupts the fifty-two crowded pages of the new Code. It is more like a manual of military training, de- signed perhaps for troops marked out by their indifference to personal survival and their in- adequate discipline. They would have to be intelligent and literate troops, though. The sheer volume of instruction and advice is daunting—so much so that I can't believe many of the licensed motorists already at large on the roads would score 50 per cent in an ex- amination based on this text.
This isn't a criticism of the document (which seems entirely sensible) but a reflection of the mess we have got ourselves into with the be- loved, lethal car. When I passed a driving test it was the custom for candidates to learn the code pretty well by heart in order to answer two or three random questions. What with the enormous proliferation of signs, the com- plexity of correct driving techniques on motor- ways and elsewhere, and the vast variety of restrictions which has accumulated over the years, it is hard to imagine many learner- drivers doing quite that henceforth. Every motorist, though, ought to sit down with the booklet and profit from the salutary glimpse of one's own ignorance which it affords. I have never even set eyes on *MX of the warn- ings signs illustrated. One such cansists of a wormlike line between two black blobs. Half a dozen drivers I've consulted had no better idea than I that it means 'change to opposite carriageway.' What is more, it sounds so alarm- ing a manoeuvre that we all strongly hoped we never would come across a specimen.
Slow or sure
Prison authorities, I'm told, are worried about their responsibiNty of guarding the Kray twins. Since the Krays' speciality was preying on the underworld, the prison population pre- sumably contains a large number of bitter enemies of the fallen bullies. But for most ordinary people the problem remains the moral one. People shudder in horror at the thought of such long sentences; they are scarcely less ugly to the imagination than hanging. And yet society has to protect itself against evil (if I may use the old-fashioned expression) and short of the rope, only one other treat- ment seems likely in the future for men of surpassing evil. This is the resort to brain sur- gery or other medical means of changing a dangerous criminal's personality into a harmless state. The prospect seems at least as repug- nant as locking up men to rot for thirty years. Nevertheless, it is the direction in which society is almost certain to be urged, and it will pose acute questions, not only for the medical men concerned. There was a case this week, I note, in which doctors declined to carry out a brain operation on a supposed 'compulsive gambler.' Quite apart from the chilling Orwellian over- tones, which of these is in fact the more humane act : to diminish a man's individuality swiftly in the operating theatre, or slowly in a cell?
Spring offensive
We inhabitants of the Wen's rural fringe have to work hard for our rewards. Bludgeoned by British Rail, engloomed by British Standard Time, frost-bitten or immobilised by British winter—all in all we learn that, as they say, you get what yotl pay for in this life. Every year, though, there comes a moment when some climatic master-switch seems to have been turned. Springlike things start to happen in all directions, our rustic lairs assume a benign and kindly aspect, we think pityingly of the prisoners of city or suburbia. That moment occurred last weekend. I walked down the lane noting the blue sky, the warm air, the new indulgent face of nature. Three deep breaths later I was struck smartly on the head by a length of dead branch which came flying out of a tree. Indignant inspection dis- closed a grey squirrel clinging to the tree and. I was inclined to think, sneering at me. The incident has come to seem unsettling in retro- spect. Any fool can get himself bitten by a dog, but to be pelted by a hostile squirrel sug- gests a developing talent for mishap which 1 find personally alarming. Alternatively, I ha% e an uneasy fantasy that this year's vernal spec- tacle is mere window-dressing, that behind it nature is plotting some catastrophic counter- stroke against the human enemy. I didn't like the look in that squirrel's eye at all. As if to underline the warning, we were shivering in an unforeseen blizzard of sleet in no time at all.
Previous page
