SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK

J. W. M. THOMPSON

On the latest evidence, the anti-Springbok campaign seems as likely to whip up pro- South African sympathy as to rally opposi- tion to apartheid. That, of course, is the risk run by any movement which chooses violent methods (even when the violence is compara- tively mild). It will be a sour joke, and a pointless little gift to Vorster as well, if its lasting achievement is to import a new harsh- ness into racial arguments in this country. Peaceful demonstrations, which didn't seek to advocate South African liberty at the expense of our own, would have been equally eloquent and (I suspect) much more widely supported.

But at the moment what troubles me is the whiff of hypocrisy in the air. One might almost think that rugby football is the main link between Britain and South Africa. It tends to be forgotten, or at any rate not men- tioned, that our relations with South Africa have in reality almost nothing to do with kicking balls about, and almost everything to do with money. We as a nation do very well indeed out of South Africa. Last year British firms sold £265 million worth of exports there, thus contributing handsomely to the British standard of living. We are all beneficiaries of the South African economy; and that economy is based, deplorably I agree, upon apartheid.

I don't much relish seeing Britain appear in this rather shifty double role—part smil- ing and eager-to-please salesman, part high- minded and militant moralist. One would respect car workers who objected to making money out of trading with the land of apart- heid, or dockers who preferred to lose pay rather than help this trade. But with the best will in the world, it is hard to be greatly stirred by demonstrators who choose an easy target in the sure knowledge that their efforts cannot cost us anything.

Royal red

Tact has never been the Duke of Edin- burgh's outstanding characteristic, and he seems to have trodden on a few toes in Can- ada and the United States. Obviously the fact that he spoke fairly frankly about the royal finances on American television has fluttered some traditionalists in this country, too. But the Duke has long made it plain that he takes a briskly practical view of the royal function, seeing the monarchy as a convenient working component of the machinery of state and leaving romantic or mystical interpretations severely alone. What more reasonable, then, that he should be actively concerned with getting the appro- priate allocation of public funds for his department?

The trouble is that many people have not yet fully caught up with the Duke's dis- entanglement from older and less business- like ideas about the monarchy. If they don't still feel that there's a divinity doth hedge a king, they do still see in a monarch some- thing more than a handy alternative to an elected president. This obtains at least as strongly among those puritan critics of royal expenditure in Parliament as in quarters where loyalty to the crown is most fulsomely talked of. So it's hardly likely, I fear, that the discussion which the Duke has initiated will be as matter-of-fact as he would wish.

It's gruesome to think of the painful stories we would be subjected to if Parliament were still expected to do its work on the funds thought adequate eighteen years ago, but that's another story. So, I suppose, is the diverting fact that the Duke could himself provide adequately for the monarchy—and in dollars—if he chose to make a career on American television.

. In all directions

Our present bombardment by opinion poll findings tends to encourage the belief that the electorate has become politically volatile to an unprecedented degree, to a degree in fact that borders upon the demented. I hope it won't be entirely forgotten that this notion, while no doubt possibly true, is not yet a proven fact. It ought to be treated with what George Robey called 'a modicum of reserve'.

For example, the findings of the Opinion Research Centre indicate that the Tory lead has now shot up again, to 9 per cent. A month ago this poll showed it at 4 per cent ; a month before that it was 11 per cent; but in March it was 25 per cent. It is almost alarming to think of those millions of voters witlessly shifting their allegiance around. One could imagine the handsome features of the Even- ing Standard's Political Editor assuming an expression of austere disapproval as he com- mented: 'The voting mood of the country is more unstable than ever . . . The explana- tion has to be sought in the volatility of voters reacting swiftly to events.'

With respect, it doesn't have to be sought there at all. One can conclude that the voters are a madly volatile lot: but one could also guess that the explanation lies in the falli- bility of the polls themselves, especially when putting a hypothetical question. I wouldn't altogether rule out the first possibility; until some firmer evidence comes along, however,

I shall prefer to believe the second.

Better late than never

The fund for the railwayman who was the chief victim of the 'great' train robbery is now nearing £30,000, I'm glad to see, a figure which puts him in roughly the same financial bracket as Mrs Ronald Biggs after the sale of her memoirs. I happened to see Mrs Biggs being interviewed on television the other day and heard her talking with a certain toughness about this fund: why, she asked sharply, had it not been started years ago? Leaving aside the touch of effrontery which permitted her to ask it, I must say this seemed to me a good and pertinent ques- tion. How was it that so many years slipped by? Public sympathy seems to have been generous enough, once an effort was made to direct it.

Include us out

I salute the people who have been attempt- ing the impossible with the new pension scheme—attempting, that is, to explain its infinite complexities. They have, of course, failed, and my private sample of public opinion suggests that only one person in every million knows, or thinks he knows, what it means (apart from a universal assumption that it is going to be expensive). I don't sup- pose that it will prove to be either a vote- getter or a vote-loser, but will merely lodge in the public mind as one more incompre- hensible manifestation of well-intentioned bureaucracy. Public feeling may have been slightly overstated by the Observer when it said on Sunday that the scheme 'has reduced so many of us to tears of incomprehension', but the debate seemed to be neatly crystal- lised by two quotations from the article accompanying this lachrymose appraisal:

(1) `... the twin factors of transferability and protection from inflation make the state scheme very attractive and long overdue.'

(2) 'If everybody who wanted to contract out did so, the state scheme would be bank- rupt before it started.'

All clear now?