Westminster Corridors
When I look about_me and behold the strange variety of persons which fill the Corridors and Lobbies with Business and Hurry, it is no unpleasant amusement to pick out the timeservers and judge by their countenances what it is that so anxiously engages their present attention. Of all this busy crowd there are none who would give a man inclined to such inquiries better diversion for his thoughts than those whom we call Ministers and Shadow Ministers and such as are assiduous at the levees of great men. These Worthies, because they are appointed by their respective Leaders, are got into an habit of being Servile with an Air and enjoy a certain vanity in being known for understanding how the world passes. In the pleasure of this, they can rise early and go abroad with no other hope or purpose but to make a bow either to Mr Harold Wilson or to Mr Edward Heath, and be thought (by some insignificant smile of one of them) not a little engaged in his interests and fortunes.
Alack, though, for there are problems. Someone has told Mr Heath that when they smile, Gentlemen do not show their lower teeth. And as for Mr Wilson — well, the poor Prime Minster fain cannot bear to laugh at all these days and prowls about the tea room Ignored by all who see him there save his fawning Ministers.
Could it be, the dapper Courtier Mr Roy Hattersley asked me the other day at the Club, that Mr Wilson is ill? There are fearful rumours that he is attended daily by his Physick, Dr T. Dan Cortisone. I asked Sir Simon d'Audley about this as we took a little small-beer in the Smoking Room. He said that he would consult with my Lord Sutton Benger (who is a horse doctor) and pronounce on our beloved leader's health in due course. My Lord is mightily engaged in trying to divest himself of something called Members' Interests before he has to declare them on the Register that has been devised by the chief bellower and prancer, Mr Dennis Skinner from Bolsover:
The Ruffian Skinner has surely lost his senses, for he even rails at his own colleagues at meetings of the Parliamentary Ruffian Party. When called to order by the chief patronage secretary, Mr Bob Mellish, a few nights ago, Mr Skinner Shouted: "And you're top of my list." "Get you, ducky," replied Mr Mellish, gay and happy as ever. Fortunately, the incident was soon forgotten as Members looked hastily to their own Interests.
The news that we Scribes are to be included on the Register is in no way welcome. My Interests, as readers know, are so extensive as to be a positive embarrassment though of course they hardly rank with those of many of the Lobby Journalists. It is rumoured that several of these worthy gentlemen have.been seen hurrying to the Embassies of Foreign Powers to pay their respects. Fortunately, as Adviser to the Governments of Portugal, Chile, South Africa and Spain, as well as the Holy See, I have nothing to fear.
It was much to my amazement recently when Mr Eric Heffer (the rascal) in a fit of left wing Ruffian pique demanded to know how I could countenance the giving of alms to Chile. He seemed not to have heard that to give alms to the poor was a basic precept of Christianity and I advised him to start putting his own house in order before preaching to the meek.
My cousin Addison reminded me of Mr Heffer. In Oxenford, aptiarently, some ludicrous Schoolmen have 134C:the case that if Heffer Were placed between two bundles of hay (call them his principles and his lust for poWer) which'affected his senses equally on each side and tempted him in the very same degree, whether it would be possible for him to eat of either.
They generally resolve this question to the disadvantage of the Heffer who they say would starve in the midst of plenty as not being able (or perhaps not allowed by his keeper, the Prime Minister) to determine him more to the one than to the other. As to Mr Heifer's behavioOr in -suchl'elre circumstances, I of course-Vould not prehume tCrPda.
Tom Puzzle
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