Notebook
It might be supposed that Mrs Thatcher and her policies would commend themselves to the National Association for Freedom, with Whom she appears to have much in common. Not so in respect of industrial relations, or of Mr James Prior, the Shadow spokesman in this field.
Mr Prior is savaged in the current issue of the association's journal, The Free Nation. Here is an extract : 'The trouble with Jim Prior, as with so many of the members of the 1970-74 Government, is the lack of any real belief in anything. The trouble with that lot was that they were intellectually flabby, short on ideas, responsive to whatever bright, modern and "radical" proposal like local government reorganisation or a "dash for growth" most caught their eye . . . Nothing gives away this weak and shallow quality quite so much as the total'disorientation of their attitudes towards the trade unions. The Prior thesis, which has just been launched on the world, is one of submission. Supremely it advocates the continued enforcement of the closed shop by legal sanctions as devised by Michael Foot. So Mr Prior has evolved from a position of loyal support for a policy of registering and regulating the unions ("curbing" was the word in those days) to a position of saying that unions must retain their new powers to instruct employers to dismiss non-union workers', Bitter conclusion: 'If the Conservative Party can live with this attitude, is there any compelling need for it to continue in existence? Mr Prior speaks for the nerveless, idealess, rubberised part of his party, whose highest ambition seems to be that their privileges should last for their lifetime.'
Tough talk—strong language—from Mrs Thatcher's fellow Tories. What will she do— endorse Mr Prior, or dump him?
Traffic congestion in central London is now quite appalling—and it will not be alleviated until lorries delivering goods to shops and other establishments are banned between, say, 8 am and 8 pm. Parked in busy streets, often for long periods while being unloaded, they are the greatest single cause of the hold-ups to which London is increasingly subjected every weekday.
There is no reason why traders and suppliers should not be obliged to accommodate themselves to more sensible hours of delivery, late at night or very early in the morning. The social and financial price of allowing them their present freedom is too high for the community to pay.
A year ago Mrs Thatcher, as new leader, took up a proposal that the Conservatives should establish a proper system and machinery to ensure that academics had a line of communication with the party, and especially to those concerned with the formulation of new policies. She appointed Leon Brittan, the MP for Cleveland and Whitby, to take on this responsibility. The operation has since been conducted without any great bureaucratic back-up, and Mr Brittan has had the voluntary assistance of a small team headed by Eric Koops. So far, there have been approaches to nearly half our universities. The reception has been friendly and the 'no promises' approach respected.
Recently, academics from the universities already visited were invited to join a seminar to discuss 'the role of Government in encouraging and using the fruits of research and discovery'. Some twenty-five attended, from as far afield as Strathclyde and Southampton. From the Shadow Cabinet, Sir Geoffrey Howe and Michael Heseltine took part.
Coming shortly from Oxford academics is a book, The Conservative Opportunity, with essays from eleven contributors covering the whole spectrum of politics. Lord Hailsham has written the foreword. Brought together by Lord Blake and John Patten, the prospective Conservative candidate for Oxford, the essays are intended as a contribution to the rethinking now taking place— 'for the first time since 1945-50', as Lord Blake has it. , Seasons come and go in the London theatre and still there is no production of any play, ballet or opera that could be called visually stunning, let alone arresting or surprising. The English stage seems condemned to visual dullness. Our painters and sculptors are forced into art teaching for a part-time livelihood whilst their various gifts are essentially unemployed, their only outlet the increasingly artificial world of temporary exhibitions.
Henry Moore was going to design a complete Ring, many years ago, but nothing materialised; rumours of Moore designing the sets and costumes for The Trojans of Berlioz also came to nothing. Ceri Richards died four years ago and, disgracefully, his rich decorative gifts were never seen on the London stage. David Hockney's sets for The Rake's Progress were rightly applauded, but Glyndebourne might have secured a greater prize for posterity if the management had pursued suggestions to ask Braque in the last years of his life to design a production of Pelleas and Melisande. Why are our theatrical managements and, most conspicuously. the directors of our Royal Opera House and Royal Ballet, so totally out of touch with the work of our leading painters and sculptors ?
Bridget Riley has never been invited to design for the stage; one of our finest sculptors, Tim Scott, was brought up in the scholarly world of his father's books on the Kabuki Theatre and Noh plays: his own sculpture is spectacular and has a sense of ceremony, and he had early architectural training. There is also Richard Smith, one of our finest colourists and designers, Howard Hodgkin, Michael Sandle, Victor Newsome, Allen Jones and about thirty other artists whose imaginative energies could transform our theatre, opera and ballet.
If Mrs Shirley Williams, the Prices and Consumer Protection Minister, is in earnest about protecting the consumer and taxpayer from conspicuous waste, she should address herself to a booklet that arrived on her desk last week—the annual report of the South Eastern Gas Consumers Council. Consisting of fourteen pages of good quality paper, with a glossy, two-colour cover, it cost £700 to produce 2,000 copies—roughly 33p each. One entire page is devoted to a reproduction of, as it were, an historic document, a fourline letter to Mrs Williams in which the Council's chairman, Mrs Marjorie Grimes, declares that she has 'the honour to submit' the report in accordance with the 1972 Gas Act.'
The Council is supposed to be the watchdog for 1.8 million SEGAS customers, and may well do useful work in taking up complaints, of which there were 6,868 last year, although it is hard to find any evidence of what has been achieved in the sixty-eight ponderously-worded (although beautifully printed) paragraphs in the report. The one thing that it omits, unusually for an official report, is any reference to the cost of running the organisation. As it is financed by Mrs Williams's department, she could do worse than tell Mrs Grimes and the Board's Secretary, Mr L. J. V. Yates, that if they want their activities commemorated in this extravagant fashion they should meet the expense themselves.
Slogan painted on wall in Shaftesbury Avenue: The Spectator is a Beast. Ah well, you know the old saying: Any publicity . . .
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