A Spectator's Campaign Notebook
As you might expect in a 'bitter' and 'divisive' election, there has been remarkably little humour during the campaign. Mr Heath jerks his hands in and out of his pockets, raises and lovvers his eyebrows, and bares his teeth in a semblance of a grin. His quips are more 9verpowering than they are funny—when one JOurnalist suggested that the names of political correspondents were "engraved on your s„o,o1" he came back as quick as a wink with m glad to know that you think I've got a soul." Collapse of stout party. Mr Wilson was slow to hit form; in the election of 1970 he Positively sparkled, but during the first week this time—perhaps a presage of things to come — he lost his timing and delivery. Gone ,Was the Harold who could rival Clive Jenkins; o...e'd have had a hard time standing up to Len lvlurray. Punch-drunk and jaded, he was delivering his lines in a whispered undertone Which did less than justice to him. Mr Thorpe is almost as witty as usual, with the throw,aWaY delivery of a head prefect lecturing the iourth form. If only he'd make more use of his considerable talents for mimicry, he would chc).nfirm the impression that all of us have of — as six characters in search of an audience.
Safe but uncomfortable
C,Mpaigning sedately through the mud of ;111(1-Oxfordshire is the elegant and gifted 11:mer private secretary to the Prime t,Mister, Douglas Hurd. Tramping through uat same mud behind his campaign train last "eek — when Oxford was living in practically j.500n conditions — I reflected that Hurd, °Weyer, delighted after some striving to gain safe seat, must to some extent regret his l• parture from the Prime Minister's personal ▪ tourage, travelling the country in much ore comfort than he could traverse his `-cmstituency. Hurd is not, of course, the only 04e of the 1970 team missing: Brian Reading, the man who wrote the "at a stroke" state is with the Economist, Cyril ,,"Wnshend and John MacGregor are both ;.a!ididates. Drafted in from the think-tank is em Waldegrave, and soldiering on is the 've,r-faithful Michael Wolff, former research '`Iissistant to Randolph Churchill, author of zlItnerous penological studies, and now 'Pecial Adviser in the Government. ,Wolff — who conceals a cunning and ipqothless political brain behind an air of sleepy thlThomie — must feel a little lonely without wief,colleagues who struggled so manfully Ted Heath's inability to master modern eclla methods both before and during the ast „,campaign, and young Waldegrave can C ulY be an adequate replacement for the til9u1red skill of such as Douglas Hurd. Two pr.l.ngs, I reflect, depress me about the present whirlie Ministerial team as opposed to those "0 helped Heath in 1970. The first is that
they are predominantly hard men, and probably inclined to encourage Ted Heath in what may be a mistaken idea of bashing unions, Labour Party and everybody who disagrees with the word from the mount in Chequers. The second is that, Wolff excepted, there is so little experience and skill in the Prime Minister's personal team: let Tories hope that their Central Office Buddha, Sir Michael Fraser, can make up some of the lack.
Postbag
There have been recurrent rumours that Conservative Central Office and Labour Party headquarters maintain teams of letter writers at election times to flood the correspondence columns of newspapers and journals. If this year's election experience is a guide it appears that that this story remains strictly a rumour and a tall one, sensible as it may seem to the cynical. The Spectator receives, for whatever reason, a spate of letters — many more than it is possible to publish. However, a close examination of the correspondence during this election period indicates that no more letters than usual are being received and that these show no sign, happily, of being the work of party out-workers.
Where are they?
Whatever happened to the Labour party proMarketeers? On Friday of last week Mr Jenkins appeared, decorously well-behaved, on the same platform as Mr Callaghan, and gratefully sucked at any bone of a question his fellow former Chancellor of the Exchequer threw towards him. Jenkins was not at all, it seemed, disturbed by the fact that, in the persons of Peter Shore and Harold Wilson, the Labour Party had already launched a fun
damentalist attack on the Market, and made no secret of their belief that this might yet be a crucial issue in the campaign. Ivor Richards, Jenkinsite pro-Marketeer and former member for Baron's Court (and, incidentally, a junior minister under Denis Healey), with considerable sang-froid pinched a nomination for a very safe seat from Labour MP Edward Milne, who has upset his constituency party since 1970: Richards was not inhibited, I am told, by his pro-Market past from making the right kind of noises before the selection committee for Blyth.
Going it alone
The Wilson entourage has never been as sleek and streamlined as that of Mr Heath, but I hear that the Opposition leader has in any event virtually dispensed with it. There have always been mutterings among pressmen about Mr Wilson's special reliance on his somewhat rough-mannered aid Joe Haines, and murmurs of a similarly critical nature have frequently risen against such Transport House workers as Terry Pitt, the director of research, and Percy Clark, who is in charge of information. All of these people and others Mr Wilson once consulted in greater or smaller measure. He also imported into his campaign train during the last election the redoubtable Will Camp, once chief PRO to British Steel until fired by the late Lord Melchett. Camp was seen standing forlorn and alone at the back of the Transport House conference hall last week, symbol of those now feeling their influence wane who were once deeply trusted by the Leader of the Opposition. Mr Wilson, so it is said, now spends a great deal of time brooding alone, spinning out in solitude not merely the words of his speeches but the details of his tactics as well.
Powell's silence
According to the latest ORC poll on the subject, Mr Powell has virtually disappeared from the election — though, by the time this piece has appeared, he may have ,re-appeared. There are one or two footnotes to this deliberate self-occlusion. First, the Conservative Party machine, and particularly that bit of it surrounding the Prime Minister, seems preoccupied with Mr Powell's silence, as much as it once was with his utterances. I quote in this respect not my own evidence, but that of foreign diplomatists travelling with the Prime Minister, who found his entourage unduly preoccupied with the likely activities of the former member for Wolverhampton SouthWest. Second, there is the strange business of the attitude of Conservative Central Office to anybody who might seemed to be tarred with the brush of Mr Powell (if that is not too infelicitous a phrase). Almost alone among Conservative backbenchers with a secure majority Mr John Biffen, the member for Oswestry, thought by many, including my friend and colleague, Tom Puzzle, to be a devoted follower of Mr Powell, has not been invited by the party machine to speak outside his constituency during this election campaign — and this in spite of the fact that Biffen is one of the most compelling stump orators among the younger Tories. Nothing daunted, Biffen proposes to make five speeches in his constituency outlining the essence of what modern Toryism ought to be; and is, moreover, speaking for Mr Budgen, the replacement for Mr Powell in Wolverhampton South-West, on February 21. This is bound to be an intellectual and political treat, even if those who regularly watch the performances at press conferences of Heath and Wilson are too dulled in mind and spirit to appreciate it.
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