Election Corridors

This past week I came upon the trot for a visit with my friend Sir Simon at his seat in Huntingdon. The journey was a long and tedious one, my coachman getting frequently lost because the name of the place had been changed on the instructions of the Editor of the Times to 'Middletown.' Sir Simon and I could scarce see the reason of this disposition as the township has long thought itself rather upper and the residents like not the sound of Middletown at all.

But with that logic for which editors of our illustrious rival journal are famous and by deft use of a geological instrument known as a Heren, the Times established that the village church at Huntingdon was (geographically) in the exact centre of England. This astounding information, coupled with the figures for the annual rainfall and the theorem from Pythagoras that squares at the Printing House are equal to the squares elsewhere, enabled the newspaper to determine what it called 'election trends.'

My own samples

Even so, being of a somewhat independent mind, I have been taking my own election samples and in faith must declare that I find confusion all about me. Which means not that my findings are of the necessity more right than any others. As the poet, Mr Alexander Pope, said but the other day: 'Tis with our judgements as our watches, none Go just alike, yet each believes his own.

Some hapless voters fell upon us in the Town and beseeched Sir Simon to advise them on the course that they must take next week. The Knight told them, with the air of a man who would not give his opinion rashly, that much might be said on both sides. His main fear as a High Tory was that the Prime Minister had delayed his appeal to the country too long and he reminded me of the tag of my Cousin Addison that the woman that deliberates is lost.

Without foundation

So I went myself upon the hustings and found that much indeed was being said on both sides. Far too much was in fact being said on all sides and gadgetry and gimmickry were deployed with abandon by all. Mr Jeremy Thorpe chose to present the Whigs' case via something called closed-circuit television.

By deft use of the cosmetic products of one Widow Leichner and the careful adjustment of the colour balance control, the Whigs' leader was able to look healthy and confident at all times. Beauty in this case was truly only skin deep, for once Mr Thorpe had removed the number four (bronzing) foundation, there appeared a haggard and worried Whig. Which is understandable as his majority in North Devon is miniscule and his tenure precarious.

Like Mr Edward Heath and Mr Harold Wilson, Mr Thorpe contrived at his election meetings to say absolutely nothing in the greatest possible number of words. Unlike his opponents, he managed to say nothing rather well, with all the assurance of a practised thespian.

Poor Mr Heath and dreadful Mr Wilson. So glum were the prospects of the Ruffian's Leader that he might well have assumed that he would never again set foot in Downing Street. Accordingly, he hit upon the device of suggesting that the three leaders hold a summit conference at Number Ten, with the intention once the meeting was over of secreting himself in some closet and then proclaiming on March 1 that possession was nine points of the law.

The Tory Leader, of course, would have none of it and immediately saw through the Ruffian's ploy. Whereupon Mr Wilson huffed and puffed and quoted the immortal epigram on Latin gerunds of the much lamented Professor Richard Porson: When Dido found Aeneas would not come, She mourned in silence and was Di-do-dum.

Dog's life

Which is not to say that Mr Heath did not seek to match gimmick with gimmick. He had already complained to Sir Simon that I was writing far too much about Mr Wilson's canine friend, the lovable Labrador Paddy. Knowing the predilection of the working classes for pets, Mr Heath inquired of Sir Simon where such a creature might be procured.

Imagine my surprise, therefore, when the other day I sat humming to myself at 32 Smith Square, awaiting converse with our Prime Minister, at the bounding entrance of a playful Labrador pup. It was clearly not the Ruffian's pet for it had a high brow. "Hello," said Mr Heath, as he panted after the dog, "This is Disraeli. Down boy."

The Prime Minister seemed somewhat embarrassed at this unseemly display of emotion. So he hastily explained that while the dumb creature was in fact his own, it was being specially trained to sniff out bombs, combustibles and other explosive devices..

To give some verisimilitude to this unlikely tale, a Peeler rushed about shouting "All out, all out, a bomb scare." Needless, to say, in the ensuing pandemonium, Disraeli was first out, followed by me. Mr Heath came a close third.

As Mr Heath surveyed the ruins that had once been a press conference, I distinctly heard him murmur: "I am in no need of camps and fields of battle to support me. I call not out for generals to my assistance. Though my officers be discharged I shall still be safe as long as there are men or women who will listen." I crept away to the Club which, though empty, offered greater comfort than the rude provisions of the hustings.