A Spectator's Notebook l have for a long time supported

the proposal ' th,.st it should be compulsory for all Members Parliament to register their business ' Interests. Such a step would be helpful for 1.! those whose business interests in no way , conflict with their parliamentary duties and Iwould act as a deterrent to the small minority ; IVIPs, whose interests might be thought to e on the borderline between propriety and ,111.113ropriety, in what is admittedly a „43,11rlewhat grey area. was myself, during my period in alillament, the victim of a smear campaign e Wnich was started, I believe, by the extreme !right wing of the Conservative Party. They ' w'Shed to discredit me because of the 1.W,holehearted support which, in the early ' AsIXties, I gave to ridding Africa of colonialism. ational newspaper accused me of being ,IN„krumah's stooge ' early in 1960. This '–'egation arose solely because I was a rector of a merchant bank, which had made ah loan to a public relations company which ad among ts clients the Government of 1Gharia. g ' r Although I was a director of the public ' elations company, I was in no way connected I With the operation of the public relations side °Of the business. I sat on the board solely to 1°tect the interests of the merchant bank. 5::.le Public relations company repaid the loan 0.with scrupulous regularity, and when the debt lrjwas discharged I left the board. The national ,11:1,aper apologised and paid me substantial I. "...Inages in an out of court settlement. 0 the rumour then circulated among Con31e.,,rvatives that I was managing director of ihe Bank of Ethiopia' whose credit rating so the story went, shaky — "here today IL"d gone tomorrow" was the legend. The of Lord Salisbury went even further • AnA (1;pm told a friend of mine that I owned nearly to l' of Zambia's copper. I have never held a , a";le copper share. lwiLhe Tory right wing briefed an emissary to f,'''',With me about my interest in African loi•,airs. " Look here, Berkeley," said my 0„11clu1sitor — a knight, but all too obviously ii?t from the shires, " All sorts of ugly hinours are circulating about you and your f° ',session with Africa. You have plenty of ,,leht. There is no reason why you should not ; (1 right to the top, but none of us can und:rstand what the hell you see in these Piled niggers."

/1.

riled at his face, coarsened by forty years cieioronlore of over-eating and over-drinking, and elthniteld at his eyes — as uncomprehending as okh"se of a battery hen. Clearly, rational disol' "ssieo was impossible. "I like their woolly 3r----___

Od

'It -round sportsman 'C "Ile politicians through the nation 13°11smen must not be choosy what

aCh claim that they can cure inflation,

e Casual birds that they have shot.

-4211Y Writ we clearly find

e blind are leaders of the blind,

11"le. moderately deaf won't hear, the deafer ailte truly can't — not even Heifer.

11

hoes may find their targets quite ."Partially to left and right. 1.se marksmen use a double-barrelled, 0 1th one for Ted and one for Harold.

heads," was my reply. He abruptly left me, and an hour later I saw him in the smoking room flushed with excitement surrounded by his cronies. "I tell you there is something the matter with the fellow; he's not quite all there," he was saying triumphantly, scarcely bothering to lower his vpice as I passed. In fact, I made a commercial sacrifice in proclaiming my views. I was asked to resign from the Board of John Howard and Company (Africa) Limited which worked extensively in Central Africa, after it was learned that I had entertained Kenneth Kaunda, now President of Zambia, in London. I do not blame John Howard's for its action. So long as Central Africa was controlled by whites I was bad for business.

Parliamentary perks

Members of Parliament have opportunities to travel denied to most ordinary people. There are the official visits made under the auspices of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, and the Inter-Parliamentary Union. There are also the more dubious invitations issued by governments seeking United Kingdom contacts and approval. Over a hundred Members of Parliament went to the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland under the auspices of Colman, Prentice and Varley, their expenses paid for by the Federal Government, some of whom were brainwashed into thinking that Sir Roy Welensky was genuinely trying to build a multi-racial country with the blacks as equal partners with the whites.

Twice in my seven years in Parliament I accepted invitations to visit foreign countries at the expense of their governments. I would not do so again because it is almost impossible not to feel obligated in some way to a government whose hospitality one has accepted. A register of who has paid for any foreign travel and expenses should form part of the proposed register of outside business interests of Members of Parliament.

Official visits

My reservations about official visits under the auspices of the IPU or the CPA are somewhat different. I just don't believe that they do much to improve relations between the host country and British parliamentarians. I can think of two visits in which I was involved. In one case one of the MPs (now dead) partook lavishly of the free drinks offered to us in the first class compartment of' our aeroplane. When we were met by a guard of honour, the Foreign Minister of the country, and the British Ambassador, my former colleague was being sick on the tarmac.

I also recall an official visit which I made to Tunisia in 1961. The leader of our delegation was Bert Bowden (now, Lord Aylestone) and the members included Barbara Castle. Everybody behaved impeccably. The highlight of our visit was a meeting with President Bourguiba. We were shown into an impressive room and were greeted by a fat man sitting behind an imposing desk. Bert, as our leader, commenced his speech, " . . . very great honour . . . your name a household word in our country . . . your face known to every British schoolchild. . . ." As I half listened to Bert's praise of Bourguiba I looked at the presidential photograph over the desk of our corpulent host. He resembled the photograph rather less than President Pompidou resembled his former self in the final days of his illness. I whispered to Barbara, "This is not the President." She could not hear, so I wrote out this message, also a'ading, "pass to Bert." Bowden paused for a moment and obviously decided that he had gone too far in his adulatory remarks to go into reverse. He quickly finished his speech, whereupon the fat man briskly rose to his feet saying in perfect English, "Thank you very much for your kind remarks, I will now take you in to see the President ". Double doors were opened and we sheepishly entered a room very nearly as large as the Festival Hall, where the President was waiting to greet us.

Which archbishop?

The speculation as to who is to succeed to the See of Canterbury has reminded me of an event of nearly twenty years ago. It was in the middle of the EOKA trouble in the 'fifties in Cyprus, and not for the first time, the figurehead of the independence movement (or in this case, to be more accurate, for the demand for union with Greece) had been deported.

I rushed into the office of David Dear, an old friend, and who is now about to retire from the post of deputy-director of the Conservative Research Department which he has filled so admirably for many years." They have deported the Archbishop," I cried excitedly. "York or Canterbury?" was his laconic response. Since those days I have visited Cyprus many times and, like everybody, I have fallen to some extent under the spell of the charm of Archbishop Makarios. I last visited him in 1972 with Peter Tapsell, the Conservative MP for Horncastle. We were both astonished when he asked us whether we could negotiate for him the purchase of the house in which he had spent his exile in the Seychelles. I subsequently made inquiries and found that the British government had disposed of the house to a private buyer who was unwilling to sell, even to so distinguished a former occupant. Peter said to the Archbishop, "Do you suppose that Napoleon would have wished to buy the house in which he spent his exile in St. Helena?" " Ah," replied the Archbishop, "You have forgotten something — I won.".

Envoi

By the time that this column is read I should be in Kampala: I have thoroughly enjoyed the experience of writing it and would like to pay a return visit. Whether I do will depend on the grace of the Editor and the favour of His Excellency Alhaji General Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, the President of the Second Republic of Uganda. He has been known to press his guests to stay.

Humphry Berkeley