Election TV
The Soloists
By 3. W. M. THOMPSON
FINE one leading politician who has un- I questionably gained substantially in popular appeal through television in this election is Mr. Jo Grimond, and this fact is enough in itself to deflate some of the larger claims made for the persuasive powers of the medium. As 1 write this very few things are certain about the election, but one of them is that Mr. Grimond will not be the nekt occupant of 10 Downing Street. I shall be suhprised, nevertheless, if the appearances of Mr. Grimond on the small screen have not pulled a fair number of votes towards the Liberal candidates and prevented a respectable quantity of support from slipping away to join the bigger battalions. With due respect to his efforts, this goes back to the point that television inevitably tends to over-emphasise the incidental, personal details of a man putting a case: whether he is easy and pleasant or nervous and stilted, whether he is the sort of engaging conversationalist one likes to come across at a party or whether he is inclined to be stuffy and rather heavy going. Mr. Grirnond is.not just an engaging person, of course: but then, one can be quite prepared to accept that the leaders of the other parties are his equals in sincerity and intelligence and yet rate them well below the Liberals' hero as tele- vision persuaders. The 'television election,' if it ever comes it certainly has not happened yet-- will be full of unpleasing implications.
Mr. Wilson clearly ma,le an enormous effort te dcainake a few nlIiun ii estl s with his final appearance on Monday. He sought to do by art what Mr. Grimond seems to do by instinct, and he Was by no means unsuccessful. A touch of idealism (one imagined him saying beforehand) is what the campaign needs at this stage; and with some skill he succeeded in suggesting it. Of course, he so densely packed his script with appeals to every kind of discontent that the argument was disjointed and probably little of it would stay with viewers—but then, that is probably true of practically everything on tele- vision. A general effect was what he was after. One interesting piece of tactics was the absence of any invocation of Labour history: instead Mr. Wilson invoked two American Democrats —Roosevelt and Kennedy—and one Liberal— Lloyd George. He left it to Lord Attlee, looking very old and shrewd in his armchair, to summon up Labour's past—and he managed to invoke ' Winston Churchill while doing so. This must have been one of the most successful pieces of televised electioneering, and the technique could hardly have been simpler : two men in turn talking to the camera.
The last burden of the Tories' campaign also fell, on Tuesday night, on to the shoulders of the party leader. Their earlier essay in group persuasion was not at all bad. Mr. Butler and the others produced a proper and timely sense of seriousness--especially Mr. Thorneyeraft. who called in a nicely-controlled histrionic skill for his contribution about the Bomb. He had the successfully disturbing effect of making it seem that he had suddenly let an icy blast of reality into all the political hot air.
Sir Alec's style on television is now familiar. His appearance on Tuesday produced no stunning release of new screen personality. He has no great gift for the business, but he toils on, a sense of earnestness getting through the hesitations and the tension. This time he was clearly making his greatest effort, and he had distinctly gained in authority and sureness. Still, one reflected that he had sometimes been seen to better advan- tage less formally in the filmed news reports which have been television's best contribution to the election: yet the rules of the game require him to undergo the rigours of the solitary exposition in a studio. They are harsh rules, perhaps, for anyone not endowed by nature to take the fullest advantage of them. However, Sir Alec could be the next Prime Minister, and the telegenic Mr. Grimond hasn't a hope, so perhaps it does not mean so very much after all. •
'Woo me with false ptomisesr
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