Westminster Corridors
As I was sitting in my chamber and thinking . on a subject for my next Spectator, I heard two or three irregular bounces at my landlady's door, and, upon the opening of it, a familiar voice enquiring whether there was room at the inn. The child who went to the door answered very innocently that she thought not. So I called from my window to Mr Edward Heath that he should step in and take a glass of October with me.
My old friend Sir Simon, who had been reading before the fire and had dozed off, started when the former Prime Minister entered. We were both much amazed at the change in the Tory fellow's condition, for his wig was askew and his hose sorely in need of cleaning. He clutched in his frozen, mittenea hand some scores by Master Bach and looked with envy at the clavicord.
"Hello, Simon," he said, and he nodded at me. "The Wilsons will not let me stay at Downing Street even though they mean to dwell at their place near Smith Square. With house prices soaring and mortgages unobtainable, I have nowhere to live," Mr Heath added plaintively. Sir Simon, none too helpfully I thought, suggested that the Queen's erstwhile first minister might inhabit Morningcloud or go to Broadstairs. But Mr Heath said that his piano would not fit upon the yacht and that he liked not his stepmother's cooking. At which point his gaze encountered the dining table where the Knight and I had been eating our mutton. There were only scraps and morsels left, but when I indicated, the poor man fell upon the board with such zest that I fain could not bear to think of his pitiful plight. So I told him that as I was about to sail for Strasbourg for the European Parliament there, he could take my chambers for a short time until he found himself better suited. A tear welled in his eye as he gratefully crunched a mutton bone. Which was a far cry from Downing Street where, installed with almost indecent haste, the new Ruffian Prime Minister and his Lady were holding something called a Tupperware party. Mr Wilson, already on his third bottle of Wincarnis, was telling the, assembly of sycophants how he had sent his manservant, Wide Boy Joe Haines (who has been given the title of chief press secretary) to evict Mr Heath from Number Ten before even the former Prime Minister had tendered his resignation at Buckingham Palace. This Mr Haines, who had opined that his master and he would be installed in Downing Street "in two shakes of a Grocer's tail" (whatever that might mean), then led the company in a hearty rendering of the Red Flag which was only slightly marred when Mr Wilson tripped over the cord of his dressing gown and expired beneath a priceless Chippendale table. In that he was lucky, for he missed the stormy and emotional entrance of. Lord George-Brown, who drove his Jaguar right through the front door and demanded to know why he was not in the Cabinet. He pointed out, so I am told, that every other has-been in the Ruffian's Party was in the Cabinet and that, in effect, it was the same Cabinet that had been ousted from office so ignominiously in 1970. With that cunning for which he is famous, the wild man from Ebbw Vale, Mr Michael Foot, who for some reason wears suede pumps and never shoes like anybody else, sidled up to the bucolic Lord and pointed out that he (the Peer) had not been in the Cabinet in 1970 and that he (the Foot) had neither. Oh how the Toadies chortled until Lord GeorgeBrown replied rather soberly that perhaps if they had been the Ruffians would not have lost the ruddy election.
It was, says the third footman, an ugly scene until Mrs Wilson restored some order by threatening to lock up all the brown ale if the Gentlemen did not behave themselves. Mr Eric Heffer, that urbane new Minister of State for Industry, belched loudly and was sick.
As a spectacle, the Wilsons' party was only marginally more disgusting than the swearing in on the day the Club reopened. The revolting Mr Dennis Skinner, the Ruffian's MP for Bolsover, about whom I have had occasion to protest in the past, ignored tradition (women and children and the two front benches first) in the matter of taking the oath.
Prancing and bellowing before the Tory benches and shouting (rather ungrammatically) "Who's the masters now then?", this dreadful Ruffian jostled and shoved his way to the Speaker's chair, maiming several Tories and even one or two of his own colleagues.
When the Speaker called him to order. Mr Skinner said "SOS" (well in fact he said "sod off Speaker"), waved a number of fingers in friendly salute and departed the Chamber to the acute relief of almost everyone there present. Sir Simon says that something is going to have to be done about this _Mr Skinner. In my view, something is going to have to be done about a great many of the Ruffians.
The whole business, not to say the arrogant behaviour of the Whigs, was so heartily depressing that Sir Simon and I changed our plans and left some days early for the European Parliament. Mindful of the amusing tag of Professor Porson: I went to Strasbourg, where I got drunk With that most learn'd professor, Brunck. I went to Wrotz, where I got more drunken With that more learn'd professor, Ruhnken, we thought that there might be some solace upon the Continent.
Besides, it is in Strasbourg that the best Topes are to be found. In conversation last night with Mr Peter Kirk, the leader of the Tory delegation, I learned that he and his colleagues were far from happy with the Westminster situation. Although a Bishop's son, Mr Kirk has distinct military leanings.
The fact that he and his entire delegation appeared in the Parliament today clad in service dress with gleaming Sam Brownes did nothing to dispel the rumours hereabouts that there is to be a military putsch to take over the Government so as to restore some sanity and order to our affairs at the Club.
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