SPECTATOR'S :NOTEBOOK

J. W. M. THOMPSON

I don't know whether other people have had the same delusion, but there have been some days lately when I have felt that I was being positively surrounded by Mr Humphry Berkeley. He seems to bear down upon the newspaper reader from all directions, usually from the centre of some storm or other. I was staggered the other day when he spoke of his hope to return one day to what he called 'public life'. Can it be that he really supposes his present existence to be one of unnoticed privacy? If so, then he underrates his fascinated public.

We have, for example, lived through the drama of his resignation from the Conserva- tive party; we have watched agog as he made the epic decision to join it again after all. We have endured the stress and strain of his great battle to remain at the head of the United Nations Association. We have wit- nessed his troubles at the Anti-Apartheid Movement. His weighty words on hanging (offered in his capacity as honorary treasurer of the Howard League for Penal Reform) earned their due attention. As former Con- servative Member for Lancaster he lectured us on the case of Mr Nigel Fisher, with some added thoughts on the precise conditions upon which he would himself be prepared to stand for Parliament again, and we were properly attentive. And when news of a row over the Tory candidate for the Louth by- election reached the headlines this week, I, for one, guessed what name I was going to find in the thick of it; and sure enough there was the ubiquitous Mr Humphry Berkeley locked in battle yet again.

Every day now I wonder where the latest eruption of Mr Humphry Berkeley may be expected. Will the United Campanologists' Guild split on a question of fundamental policy? Mr Humphry Berkeley will be there. Is the Duodecimal Society torn apart by some great issue of principle? Depend upon it, our hero will not stand idly by. I can only say that he recalls to my mind the old lady who, at the outbreak of the last war, uttered the sage opinion that things would have been all right 'if only that Hitler weren't such a fidget'. There are times when the mot juste has been spoken long ago, and it is pointless to try to improve upon it.

Trouble at mill

A schoolmaster once said to me that he believed his union was the only one in the country which set out to diminish rather than enhance the status of its members. He was referring to what he saw as a wish to turn teachers into a body of workers indistinguish- able, in union terms, from any other section of the industrial labour force. The pro- gramme of teachers' strikes now embarked upon is a major landmark in this process.

One essential for such methods is a willing- ness to accept public hostility. The dustmen accepted this and now, as the teachers take their place, they will have to face parents' anger. There are, in fact, fewer signs of public sympathy for the striking teachers than there were for the dustmen. The cause of teachers' pay never seems notably popular, partly per- haps because it's difficult for people to believe that the teachers' lot is really as arduous as they claim. Most professional men, at any rate, work harder than most- leachers--and they don't have those marvel- lous long holidays to punctuate their labour. either. They do, on the other hand, have , much better chance of earning good income in their later years if they make a success o their calling.

One pleasant by-product of the strike, a any rate, has been the sight of the Prim Minister's sister, evidently a headmistress ti be reckoned with, taking a very firm line skill her militant colleagues. Her crisp word advising the NUT to mend its ways and cu tivate a more professional approach sugg that the Wilson family has one politician reserve should the People's Harold es decide (unlikely thought) that he's ha enough. I would swap Miss Wilson for k Edward Short any day.

Mob rule?

There is a blank simplicity about the sequen of events concerning the anti-Springti demonstrations which is very nearly diva ing. One, demonstrators try to break up t games; two, this leads to violence and inju three, the demonstrators then call for games to be abandoned because they a giving rise to violence.

On this sort of reasoning any minority c stop anybody doing anything. To my anno ance, for I don't suppose I detest aparthe any less than do the demonstrators, I thi it increasingly important that the rugby to should not be abandoned. I am not persuad by the armchair militants who argue th apartheid is a special case ; everyone has own special case. If violent disruption acceptable or successful once, it is a certain that another group will judge it accepta in another cause and try to emulate the s cess. We cannot afford to surrender freed —even a minor freedom like the liberty play rugby football with South Africans to militant mobs, and that is, or ought be, the end of the matter.

Party gamesmanship

As the great tidal wave of party polem begins to engulf us, well ahead of the gene election, the sensible man takes precauti to ensure that he is as windproof, as sec from hectoring and impregnable to clic and blandishment, as is humanly possible. am thinking of forming a collection of specimens of naked party-political ha boozling as they come my way, an inn pastime which may soften the rigours of trying season. Who knows, it may even at Sotheby's one day. At present my bag two pure examples of the the form: (1) The report, in Hansard, of that a ing Tory attack upon the- Government 'cheating' over the trade figures-1 everyone knew that the figures' main oft (from the Tory point of view) was that were far too good.

(2) A pleasing miniature, this one: the tinction made. straightfaced, in last s Tribune between Labour and Tory hoe achievements, with an eye to the awks habit such activities have of prospering 1, there's an election in the offing. Thus' 1951, the Tories inherited a booming hots programme ...' but 'Only when thte ru to the 1964 general election started housing in Britain get a shot in the arm •

There will be more.

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