Mr. Short's Early Warning I have before me as 1
write a duplicated letter from the Government Chief Whip, dated Febru- ary 17, 1966.
'Dear Colleague,' it begins (I hasten to point out that it isn't in fact addressed to me; but then it isn't marked personal either) ...
It is a long-standing rule in the Parliamentary Labour Party that Members who are invited to take part in TV or Radio programmes should inform the Chief Whip.
Recently there have been a number of diffi- culties—not least for Members themselves— because, in some cases, this rule has not been observed.
1 should be grateful for your co-operation in this matter.
Yours sincerely.
EDWARD SHORT
Well, well. I'm not surprised to learn that Mr. Short is sensitive about television: the last time I saw him was in the BBC's TV room at the Imperial Hotel, Blackpool, during the 1965 Labour Party Conference, when he was hopping up and down with indignation because the BOG had had the temerity to allow on the screen a trade union leader (Mr. Clive Jenkins) who disapproved of the Government's incomes policy. But some of my Labour friends are surprised. For one thing, they had no idea of the existence of any such 'long standing rule.' And what are the 'difficulties' that have recently arisen? Could this refer to a recent occasion when Mr. Short successfully per- suaded the ever-spineless BBC to withdraw, at the last moment, an invitation to Mr. Tom Driberg to appear in a programme on Vietnam? (The Corporation subsequently wrote to Mr& Driberg to apologise. The BBC is by nature a confessional organisation. It would always rather apologise for its sins than cease sinning.) If so—and I'm sure there have been other occasions like this -Mr. Short's missive is little better than a warning to Labour members that if they don't get his permission before appearing on the box he will browbeat the television authori- ties into not inviting them. The tragedy is that both channels are so dependent on the Govern- ment for their income (either in terms of money or the licence to print it) that this totally uncon- stitutional political censorship works.
Previous page
