Election Corridors

My friend Sir Simon d'Audley attended me the other day where I was laid low in the country suffering from a highly infectious attack of election fever. So palsied was my condition that my old friend brought with him a skilled physick together .with two Samaritans from the Club, my Lord Sutton Benger and his precocious offspring, young Gonville Caius.

Nothing had more surprised these learned colleagues than the news that the Prime Minister, far from soldiering on with the firm and fair measures about which some time ago I told you, had decided to throw in the towel, which, says my Lord Lonsdale, is something to do with boxing (though in this case I would fain have thought that it was entirely to do with not boxing but hiding instead behind the skirts of a confused and hapless electorate).

For my own part, I would heartily wish that all honest men at the Club would enter into an association, for the

support of one another against the endeavours of those whom they ought to look

upon as their common enemies, whatsoever side they may belong to. Were there such an honest body of neutral forces, we should never see the worst of men in great figures of life, because they are useful to a party; nor the best unregarded because they are above practising those methods which would be grateful to their faction.

Sir Simon says these are idle fancies, for self interest has become the talisman of all the fellows at the Club. Even Mr Dick Taverne of Lincoln, of whose Commonsense Party I had high hopes, has placed the god Electoral Gain before the common and good sense of his principles. Mr Roy Jenkins of Stechford, whom I had quite begun to like again, once the Election had been called forgot those high designs for which he had but some months ago gone into the desert. This Mr Jenkins, who entertains great hopes of soon leading the Ruffian's Party, bellowed and pranced with the worst of them last week. His demeanour caused the Club almost as much pain, Sir Simon says, as the astonishing antic of Mr Enoch Powell from Wolverhampton in saying that he would resign from the Club because to do otherwise would be an act of "gross irresponsibility."

Even Mr Powell's three wise men Ridley, Biffen and Body seem perplexed and bewildered by the decision of Mr Powell.

Their initial plaint was that they had lost their star. But as reason took some hold (for even these fickle fellows have some reason) and they talked with the sage from Stafford and Stone, Mr Hugh Fraser, and that urbane Westcountryman from Taunton, Mr Edward Du Cann, the three wise men admitted that they began to see through the ploys of the Wolverhampton man. As my Scottish colleague, the historian Mr David Hume has said: "Avarice is the spur of industry." Political avarice being of a somewhat special kind, the industry this past week has been most notable. The aforesaid Mr Du Cann, whose love for the Prime Minister is

not well known and who has been heard to say, furthermore, in recent months that another Leader for the Tories might be no bad thing, astonished Sir Simon in the 1922 Room at the Club.

Sir Simon quite distinctly heard this banking fellow tell Mr Heath that he could rely on his loyalty because he (the banker) so much admired the Prime Minister's deter mination and courage, which virtues were his 'hallmark.' It is said that Mr Heath raised an eyebrow at this and sat with his quill poised above the space on a piece of paper where he was idly jolting in some dispositions for his next Cabinet. The quill quivered near to the words Chancellor of the Exchequer, where there was a question mark.

Which means not that I have prejudged the issue of the outcome of the Election, but rather that I hope for some commonsense result even if that is an idle fancy. I remember when the Pitt Club was opened in Cambridge, Mr William Pitt gave an amusing ditty, hummed somewhat out of tune, which commenced "Here's to the Pilot that weathered the storm."

Not that the storm will abate with the holding of the Election and indeed I foresee hurricanes and gales thereafter. But if Mr Pitt's cheer is to be noted, then I might ask how the three chief Pilots will fare. Mr Heath is a hardy mariner with much skill, it is said, of going about (which is the nautical parlance for U-turns and involves luffing, touching the tiller, trimming the sails of the economy and tacking).

The Ruffian's Leader, on the other hand, apparently has no liking for messing about in boats. The last time he got into one, it is rumoured, Mr Harold Wilson promptly fell out and was only saved by his faithful canine companion, one Paddy. But he is a great huffer and puffer and can make his own wind when occasion demands.

Mr Thorpe, for his part, modelled the Whigs' Party on something called 'Three Men in a Boat.' This was all very well until there were four, then five, and when the gargantuan but lovable bit of an ass, Mr Cyril Smith, arrived from Rochdale, the Whigs became very wet.

On past record then, Sir Simon (who is a betting man) says the odds must be on Mr Heath who was, after all, the winning Pilot in 1970. When the storm abates, we shall see. What we will not see, and what I will much miss, are the only three gentlemen the Club possessed, all of whom have retired along with an assortment of riff-raff, whom I certainly shall not be missing.

The closing of the Club was, Sir Simon adds, a moving and sad occasion. After all the banter and bellowing had stopped, there were emotional scenes in the Lobbies as friends departed, some into retirement, others no doubt to the obscurity of defeat at the polls. The affectionate and diminutive Mr Leo Abse from Pontypool had a kind word for everyone, though he had to be lifted up to bid farewell to the towering Sir Douglas Dodds-Parker of Cheltenham.

No one said farewell to the unspeakable Mr Dennis Skinner from Bolsover. I said to Sir Simon that I hoped Mr Skinner might be defeated; but the Knight said that was unlikely as the chief bellower, the roughest Ruffian of them all, sits upon a majority of twenty thousand. But then "Even Palinurus nodded at the helm."