Notebook
AColin Welch shrewdly points out on the opposite page, the ability at the toss of a golden lock to bring the Conser- vative Party Conference to its feet is not necessarily relevant to the task of per- suading a doubting nation that nuclear weapons are a good thing. In his efforts to win the nuclear debate, Mr Michael Heseltine will not — says Mr Welch — be able to rely merely on vulgar rhetoric. 'He must deploy soberly, sincerely and per- suasively, reasoned arguments which must be intelligible at least to himself if not to all.' It is doubtful whether Mr Heseltine is quite up to this task. His record in the deployment of sober, reasoned, intelligible arguments is definitely a poor one. One of his favourite forms of expression is the unintelligible metaphor, which he obviously takes considerable trouble to compose. There was a good example at last October's Party Conference when, in an attack on people favouring the repatriation of col- oured immigrants, he declared: 'No serious or realistic schemes exist, and those who hope that the problems will simply go away have their heads buried deep while the sands of time run out.' The sands of time will be running out for Tarzan if he doesn't do better than this at Defence.
On Monday Mrs Thatcher in the Falkland Islands was in full command of the newspaper headlines. On Tuesday the story of the falling pound began to nib- ble away at her pre-eminence. And by Wednesday she had been driven down most front pages by a full-scale sterling crisis which threatened to obliterate her Falklands idyll altogether. Furthermore, the idyll itself was being blamed for the run on the pound. The Daily Telegraph reported: 'International fears of an immi- nent general election, heightened by the Prime Minister's visit to the Falklands, were the main cause of the panic.' That was a confident statement, but does anybody actually know why the Gnomes of Zurich suddenly decide to start selling sterling on a massive scale? There are foreign exchange dealers in the City always ready with ex- planations which journalists automatically accept, but these explanations hardly ever sound convincing to the puzzled layman. If, for example, there is to be an early general election, why should this so terrify foreign holders of sterling? Everybody in Britain knows that Mrs Thatcher would probably win it, yet the panic could only be justified by the likelihood of a Labour victory. What do the foreigners know that we don't know? In any event, they are being an infer- nal nuisance. They have messed up the
Government's economic strategy by ensur- ,_ ing there will be more inflation, they have cast a shadow over the Prime Minister's love affair with the kelpers, and they will probably force her to hold the early election which they are alleged to fear. And unfor- tunately for Mrs Thatcher, she will not, as a free marketeer, be able like Harold Wilson to blame her misfortunes on foreign gnomes.
y have never really understood what I strange influences were responsible for persuading long-established companies like J. Lyons or Bryant and May that they would do better if they contracted their names to hideous things like Jolyon or Brymay. The explanation is to be found somewhere in the mysterious Sixties. However, in recent years both these firms have come to their senses and restored their proper names. Bryant and May have rolled the clock back even further by deciding that appeals to patriotism would be good marketing policy. The decision was taken long before the Falklands War and was in fact a revival of an old company tradition. It has always been a patriotic company. One of its oldest brands of matches is called England's Glory, and even before the First World War its match boxes sometimes car- ried slogans in praise of the British nation. But I only discovered that this tradition was still alive when I bought a box of matches last weekend and saw on the back of it the headline 'Why Britain is Great!' and beneath it the following question: 'If the people of Britain do not show their faith in British goods by buying them, why should the people in any other country?' It was at- tributed to 'Sir John Junor MA'. At first I thought it was meant satirically, for the sug- gestion that the British don't like buying British goods hardly seemed an explanation
of 'Why Britain is Great'. Nor did it seem to make much sense, for I could not see why British enthusiasm or distaste for British goods should be reflected automatically in the purchasing habits of other peoples. Perhaps some foolish person had plucked the phrase from one of Sir J'ohn's Sunday Express columns, mistaken- ly thinking that it was appropriate. But no. I learn that the slogan was specially com- missioned from Sir John, who was one of some 30 or so contemporary 'luminaries chosen to contribute to the series. I haven't seen any of the others, but if Sir John can find nothing better to say about Britain, then the outlook does appear rather bleak.
It is difficult to feel too ill-disposed towards the Arts Council with Sir William Rees- Mogg in charge. He so dignifies it with his presence that it is impossible to believe that its activities can be anything other than worthy and benign. And on the whole they probably are. But in announcing the distribution of its £92 million grant for the coming year, the Council did seem to have got its priorities in a bit of a muddle. Its principal boast was that, as a result of Mr Paul Channon's achievement in obtaining a seven per cent increase in its grant (three per cent more than the Government had at first wanted), there would be no cuts in the number of its clients. It said in a press state- ment: 'The Council is sensitive to the cur- rent unemployment situation and wishes to minimise the possibility of further job losses by its clients.' That is kind of it, but however one interprets the Council's rather vague statutory objectives — principally to improve the knowledge and practice of the arts and their accessibility to the public the business of keeping people in work doesn't seem to be part of them. If this were to become its principal aim, there would be little scope for investment in new projects unless Government funding were vastly in- creased. But I suspect that this talk of unemployment may merely be a way of disarming the Council's left-wing critics who feel it should spend more money on black saxophonists and less on grand opera and other 'elitist' art forms. If that is so, I am on the Council's side. I think it has got its priorities roughly right.
am taking a few weeks off from the Spectator on the grounds that one should have a bit of a break every seven years or so. Simon Courtauld will be editing the paper in my absence, and contributors to this page will include Jo Grimond and Peregrine Worsthorne. I intent to spend some of the time travelling in the Middle East and will send back the odd dispatch if I can think of anything interesting to say. In the meantime, I would like to thank readers for their excellent response to our Christmas subscription offer. We still need more readers, however, and I hope to find a huge increase in circulation on my return.
Alexander Chancellor
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