PM v BBC (2) Since I wrote last week we
have now had the customary Prime Ministerial dementi, in the shape of a letter to The Times from the general secretary of the Labour party maintaining that the hullabaloo was all got up by the press and that Mr Wilson really loves all BBC interviewers after all. This is standard practice. After the earlier clash at the time of last year's Labour party conference, The Times's political corres- pondent reported, on October 5, that 'the BBC's use of Mr Nigel Lawson, a former official at Conservative Central Office [not true, inciden- tally] and 'a speech writer for Sir Alec Douglas- HOrrie, his given particular offence.' Two days later, after a further meeting with Mr Wilson, the same Times correspondent wrote 'nor is there any particular complaint left about the use of Mr Nigel Lawson, a former speech writer for Sir Alec Douglas-Home, as a commentator on the party conferences.'
In short Mr Wilson's customary psychological technique is to launch a sudden onslaught on the BBC, and then just as suddenly to withdraw, leaving the Corporation a quivering jelly, before the row can build up into a major public issue. Then, at the right time, comes the next surprise attack. Mrs Grace Wyndham Goldie, who knows more about this than most people, was absolutely right to argue, in the Sunday Telegraph last week- end, that this is a very serious business indeed. (I was sorry, however, to see, in the Observer, my friend Kenneth Harris allowing himself to be the vehicle for Mr Wilson's latest rewriting of history. He's too good for that sort of thing.) But the question is what can be done about it?
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