Political Commentary
From Lianmad with love
Ferdinand Mount
It is devolution-time in the little town of Llan mad, and all the members of the lulled and dumbfound town are listening With their eyes closed to the mindblowing balderbabble. Hush, they are sleeping on the snot-green, bottom-squashy benches, the windbags, the buffoons, the drunkards, the creeps, the plump puffed ministers and the fancy dans. From where you are, you can• hear their dreams. The boys are dreaming wicked of quangos and ministries and softthighed research assistants and fact-finding missions to rumsoaked, jolly-rogered Caribbean islands.
Listen, it is ennui sighing in the lobbies. Listen, it is tedium snoring in the strikestruck lifts and the goslow-snoozing cafeterias of the dull dreaming town.
Order, says Mr Speaker Thomas, bibleblack, bigwigged, voice of hellfire and treacle, preacherboned Georgie Thomas, never touched a drop, Wales Bill, Second Reading. No I never, tell a lie, forget my own name next. There is Rees the Pump to come first. Where have all your firemen gone, Mr Rees the Pump? We cannot move outside our guidelines, says Mr Rees, We must establish a benchmark. But you cannot put a fire out with guidelines and benchmarks. What you need is firemen, brave: curly-helmeted, shiny-booted, get little Dylan's head out from between the railings, boldpumping, ladder-shinning firemen. And where, are your firemen, Mr Rees the Pump?
And if it wasn't the firemen, it would be somebody else. When you control the wages, you always hurt the one the people love. Mr Selwyn Lloyd was smothered by those browsoothing, starchstiff, blackstockinged nurses. And the lurcherloving colliers did for poor Teddy Heath. And didn't that wicked boyo Dennis Skinner teach Mr Merlyn Rees what for? When they were elected, they had sworn rotten that they would not interfere with the wages. And if you meddle in things you promised not to, then the bogeyman will get you.
Look, there goes lovely Myfanwy Thatcher, doily-dainty Myfanwy Roberts as was, never a hair out of place and you can see your face in her worksurfaces. Myfanwy is going out to Aberdare to ask a favour of Mr Glyn Griffiths of Commercial Street, at the offices of the Aberdare Leader which he is the editor of, a scoopspunky weekly newspaper circulating through the Aberdare and Mountain Ash districts and exulting in a circulation, ABC registered, look you, of 13,647.
Issue of February 22nd, 1974. That's the one, Mr Griffiths Mountain Ash Man on Serious Charge, no. Toilets a Disgrace Councillor, not that one. There you are, that's Captain Jim says Labour Backs The Miners All The Way. There it is in black and white — 'I wanted to come into the mining valleys to place the Labour Party firmly behind the miners claim for a just and honest wage.' What do you say to that now, Captain Jim?
But Captain Jim, the retired sea captain, is taking snuff with the Lord Mayor and dreaming of Jubilees and banquets. Clear turtle soup and a nice bit of poached turbot, then a baron of beef, and bubble and squeak, the cabbage is good for you, and fine foreign wines, but Captain Jim never touches a drop now, not like some no good boyos I could mention.
Listen to Myfanwy, the grocer's unmelting icemaiden daughter: Does the Prime Minister also remember saying that to fight inflation by resisting such pay claims was utter drivel and when did he change his mind?
But he hasn't changed his mind, lovie, only his position. And you won't catch the Captain napping that way. For the Captain is a famous double-dyed, yarn-twisting, sortsoap-lathering, slitherslippy old campaigner. Listen to the Captain dreaming in his penguin-black evening coat and his butterfly collar, roaring glorious amid the tittuppy tiaras and mayoral neckchains: Heartfelt thanks to Her Majesty the Queen . these blessed islands . . haven of stability . . . me the harbourmaster . . the Elder Pitt . . . myself. . . God bless the baby . all sections of the community . . . respectful best wishes to Princess Anne. . . public support . • the birth of a child to a family is always something over which everybody is delighted . . . this great nation of ours . . God bless you all. Oh there's a fly one, just listen to him. He's collared the cream all right.
Look, there goes Owen the Comb. There's another one has a fine conceit of himself. Well, wouldn't you if you were where he is and had his profile and only a slip of a lad. But this dull-dreaming day is not for him, for there are no blackamoors in it and isn't Wales the old country and aren't we all Welshmen here in Llanmad? You never saw such a lot of Welshmen in your life — Sudeten Welshmen, renegade Welshmen, immigrant Welshmen, fake Welshmen, stage Welshmen. There goes Geoffrey Howe from Port Talbot, a lovely man only they knocked a bit of the hwyl out of him at Winchester College and put in notions instead. And that's Mr Michael Foot, Lord President of the Council is it, who isn't Welsh at all but who is foaming hywl (hwywl? hywyl? Oh, hwell) all over the Valleys and now taps his feet and drums his fingers and tosses his weepingwillow-white hair and glares at the ceiling and glares at the floor because he has to sit here and listen to this stuff till cold cockrow when he himself might be up on his pins ranting and bawling and wagging his quaker-quivering fingers at the lulled and dumbfound town. And there heaves Dr Alan Watkins, basso-chuckling lexicographer and sage, the Sam Johnson of West Glamorgan. And one row from the back, at the end of the snot-green, bottomsquashy bench that is Mr Enoch Powell who sits there night and day come devolution time, parchment-pale and soberblack like an undertaker waiting for trade. He'll nail down a false premise for you. He'll hammer home an implication you never meant to imply. Take the knickers off the argument for a Welsh Assembly is it, then he's your man.
Why, there's every blessed Welsh soul here bar Shirley Bassey. Devolution, who needs it? They run the little town of LW' mad already, and no questions asked. Order, says Mr Speaker Thomas, Wales Bill, Second Reading, Mr John Morris. And Mr Secretary Morris, Privy Councillor, Queen's Counsel, quondam Holker Senior Exhibitioner of Gray's Inn, little JohnnY Morris from Talybont, pats his softsheeny, collarnuzzling hair and flicks. the dust from his slickstripy shirt and sets the ball rolling or wolling: we are wesponding to repwesentations fwom the Libewals , • incwease democwacy. . . urgent weview of the pwesent system. You can tell a Welshman made good by his r's. For listen, and far away under the butter mountain you can hear the faint wah-wah of Mr Roy Jenkins's r's as he lies dreaming of agwe able clawets. Does he dream too of his old schoolmates of Abersychan Grammar School and bank holiday outings to Porthcawl? Does he hwell. It is the Berkshire downs and ladies night at Brooks's he dreams of now.
And the night darkens on the little toWn of Llanmad. And the leaves fall and the snot-green, bottom-squashy benches emPtY and only Mr Enoch Powell and the dandY: jacketed Mr Leo Abse and fidgety Mr FoT and a hard handful of sleepless legislators sit on and listen to this mindblowing derbabble. And all over the calling da."'„,' babies and old men are bribed and killable") to sleep. And Captain Jim is curled in Ills sober bed, dreamless and content, until the windshaken morrow anyway.
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