bame Irene's blow

krhen, at the end of Tuesday's debate on Industrial policy the idiosyncratic and ,sPlendid Dame Irene Ward voted with the \)Pposition her action was one of the most telling blows of the session against the of the Government's policies. And IllS was all the more the case because uatne Irene was acting, not on broad Philosophical, but on narrowly selfish, grounds. When, in the course of her Peech, she announced her refusal to 4IPport an administration that was Wasting millions in supporting the shipYards of Merseyside and Clydeside, she ?aVe as her reason, not that Government ttOtervention in industry was wrong, not hat shipbuilding was a declining industry, ttot that the work-forces in both the main 81th51dised areas were endemically i 4npotable--all reasons frequently found in Ile Mouths of the Tory right — but that tillt3t enough cash was going to her own eloved Tyneside. And such is the interventionist mess the Government is at p,resent in that one felt her logic had a sr11/1101e compulsion. With the greatest ,esPect to the lady, one must observe that swe are fallen on hard times indeed if a

ch by her on industrial policy arrents such recognition. Her point about Tyneside is worth more consideration than can be given to it within the context of a debating point. The Tyne yards are efficient and orderly; those in Scotland and Liverpool inefficient and disorderly. The message is clear — only when trouble is started, and threats made, do the strings of the public purse begin to loosen.

And it is this hard fact that makes absurd the pretensions of Mr Walker in Tuesday's debate to possession of a policy for seeking out and encouraging the boom and growth points in the national economy. It is his intention, said the Secretary of State, "to give every encouragement for the investment needed on a larger scale throughout the ecomomy." And he added, "We intend to study and back the potential winners in the British economy."

If that is so, it is a new development. So far in the life of this Government the taxpayer's money has been laid out much less on the coming thing than on the thing of the past. Neither the Clyde shipyards, • nor Rolls-Royce, after all, can be thought of as frisky young colts who might grow up into Derby winners. That more ridicule was not lavished on the speeches of Mr Walker and his junior, Mr Chataway, because of the almost total lack of intellectual coherence in their argument can, however, be explained. Since the

ministers — and many like them — are

doing, basically, the sort of thing the Labour Government used to do in regard to industry, the debate across the floor of the House must deal essentially with how well that thing is being done, not with whether it should be done at all, or whether some different kind of thing should be done.

Wedgwood Benn's decline

It is this lack of intellectual competition in the House of Commons which is the fundamental cause of the rhetorical and philosophical sterility which more and more voters are finding characteristic of the Party battle. Tuesday's debate was a typically depressing affair, particularly since none of the more formidable warriors of the Tory right could be persuaded to enter the battle. It did, however, serve to give some indication of the way reputations are moving.

Mr Wedgwood Benn, ex-Mintech, for example, made a deplorable, and for him surprisingly unvigorous, speech: its sheer lack of that ebullience and energy which has nearly always marked his efforts indicates the extent to which he has slipped downhill since Blackpool, out of the limelight, out of the argument, out of the running. His decline, moreover, indicates not merely the consequences for him of fluffing the great opportunity of his political life as chairman of his party conference, but the way in which the sterility of parliamentary debate which I have mentioned hurts the Opposition, and Opposition spokesmen, far • more than it hurts the Government: this is because ministers attract public attention because they are ministers, while Opposition leaders can do so only by being different. OVERHEARD IN THE CORRIDORS after the Parliamentary Labour Party meeting when 55 marketeers voted against the Wilson line, Michael Foot, furiously scowling, saying "it's high time we stopped being nice to these bloody marketeers," or words somewhat stronger, but to the same effect,

PUZZLE RAN INTO Russell Johnston, the doughty Liberal MP, at a party the other night, and found him wearing trousers. Is this an indication that the Liberals from the Celtic fringe are trying to move into the centre, and abandoning their more individualistic tastes?

PUZZLE TRIES TO BE nice to women. But when Dr Shirley Summerskill said the other day that giving free contraceptive medicaments to ladies only after they have had a baby or an abortion (or both, presumably) was "like shutting the stable door after the horse had bolted," he began to wonder if she was planning to go into partnership with Miss Ann Summers.

PUZZLE KNOWS IT IS UNFAIR (to continue on the same theme) to make fun of serious exchanges that happen to be couched in an unconsciously humorous way, but he cannot resist this:

Dr Stuttaford: It is cruel to expect a girl of 17 or 18 to have wires around her neck and tucked into her blouse (cheers).

Mr Alison: I am aware that the cosmetic aspect is crucial.

LIKE OTHERS PUZZLE has wondered why unputdownable Lord George-Brown was 'so (relatively) nice to Harold Wilson in his Times article on the consequences of the by-elections the other day: the bottle of vitriol used in the noble lord's memoirs about his leader had clearly been put away. The reason, Puzzle hears, that Lord George was so nice is that he is grooming himself for a new job as cheer leader for the Labour Party. He would enjoy it, and he would be no danger to anybody, and the cunning Harold Wilson thinks there should be such a job. But he won't get it if Edward Short has his way, in spite of the fact that at least two members of the National Executive would like to have him back in some role or other. Some members, at least, of the Labour Party must be getting desperate.

PUZZLE CONGRATULATES Lord Hailsham on eventual victory in the birth bill debate, about which he wrote last week. It is an unusual experience for Sir Keith Joseph to lose a battle in the social service field, even if he wasn't personally all that keen on totally free contraception.

ANOTHER BLACK MARK FROM Puzzle for that egregious ass Denis Skinner, the Labour member for Bolsover, who attacked the Prime Minister for selling the old Morning Cloud and buying a new one, all in time to escape the introduction of VAT. Why shouldn't poor Mr Heath try to escape the consequences of his own legislation, like anybody else? After all, if trade union leaders can defy him, shouldn't he be able to defy himself?

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