A Spectator's Notebook
SIR JOHN SIMON did well to take the opportunity a week ago to drive home the fact that the Government does nothing to inspire the B.B.C.'s talks on foreign affairs, and to add his personal hope that it never would. It is a rule from which there should never be a departure, for just as a newspaper which is known to be in some sort of touch with a particular public man is supposed quite erroneously to be reflecting his views whenever it expressed any of its own, so the B.B.C., if on any single occasion it could be proved to be acting on a hint from the Government, would be supposed to be always acting on hints from the Government. In any case, with over six millions of wireless licence-holders, which means a potential audience of much more than double that number, the B.B.C. has an enormous responsibility when it deals with foreign affairs. Mr. Vernon Bartlett, whose ancient, solitary reign is now to be ended, has handled the foreign situation week by week with conspicuous fairness as well as conspicuous ability, but being a man of intelligence he has naturally a definite point of view, and most of his hearers can divine by this time broadly what it is. The B.B.C., it may reasonably be argued, ought not to have a point of view in foreign affairs (though that is to some extent debatable), and the foreign talks ought therefore to be in the hands of a rota of experts and not only one. The first and most obvious name on the rota should be Mr. Bartlett's own.
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