A Spectator's Notebook
THE ATTEMPT being made by the Conservative leaders to make the election a polite, well-bred affair would be fine if it were simply designed to spare us all the once-fashion- able political rhodomontade . about wicked face-grinding capitalists and villainous cruel Gestapoliticians; but I suspect that the mellowing influence of TV has already achieved that. The design appears to be something rather different—and much less worthy: to keep the election non-controversial. It comes as no surprise to hear that the chairman of the Prime Minister's Manchester meeting announced that hecklers were not going to be tolerated. Chronic interrupters can be a nuisance, as the members of the League of Empire Loyalists have so often shown; but there is, or should be, a distinction between them and the ordinary heck- ler—whom the Prime Minister should not only tolerate but, if he has any of his former political instincts left, actually welcome. Boredom in the long run is going to be just as dangerous to the Tories as it has already proved to Labour; and reluctance to face hostile questioning is one of the first symptoms of a party's decay.
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