Westminster Corridors

Take Mr Eric Heffer, the suave and urbane Minister for Industry. In truth, I assure my readers that is what the Prime Minister said to

me. Well, his exact words were "Please take Mr Heffer, anywhere". Which seemed an un

common churlish thing to say and I was reminded of the words of my Cousin Addison some time ago (though not on that occasion applied to Mr Wilson). "There are some men who have such twisted natures they cannot see virtue in another without hating it".

What, many fair and gentle folk have been asking me, is Mr Heffer's sin? Is it that he is a left winger who is bringing the Ruffian Party into disrepute? Or is it that in refusing to toe the line he has been seen to evade something called "collective responsibility"? Collective responsibility, you will recall, is all Ministers taking the odium and blame when things go wrong and Mr Wilson getting the praise when they go right. Well, I will tell you about Mr Heffer's sin. His problem is that he is honest.

Having taken a strong Tribunite line in Opposition, along with all the other Ruffian MPs,

over the issue of the sale of arms to fascist

countries (though not of course to Communist countries, which are intrinsically good), Mr

Heffer saw no reason simply because he is now a Minister to change his view for the sake of expediency. Beating his honest breast and set ting his bovine mind slowly into motion, Mr Heifer thought that if it was a bad thing once to sell warships to Chile then it must still be a bad thing now. So he said so. However, as Mr Wilson told the errant Heffer at their stormy meeting in the Head Boy's Study at Number Ten, he (the Heffer) had only been made a Minister to placate the wild men of the left. He (the Head Boy) did not expect him (the former Tribune man) to use what little intelligence he possessed nor to go about "stepping out of line". Mr Heffer took the advice of the chief bellower and prancer, lovable Mr Dennis Skinner from Bolsover, and told the Prime Minister exactly where he could put his job and his pipe and his whole ruddy Administration — I have somewhat paraphrased the conversation.

Inevitably, Mr Wilson took fright — I mean to say he became pragmatic — and grovelled before the seething Mr Heffer. Which was mightily to the embarrassment of Mr 'SS' Haines, the Downing Street press secretary, and of Mrs Williams, who happened to be arranging some flowers in the room at the time. So the Prime Minister promised Mr

Heifer that all the Tribune MPs could be in the Government after the glorious October revolution when the Ruffians sweep back to power.

Mr Heffer, somewhat unwisely in the view both of Sir Simon d'Audley and myself, asked for this in writing on Commons-headed notepaper. Mr Wilson said it would be signed later and the junior Minister left greatly mollified.

Which was not the only excitement of the Past week. Sir Simon and I received a surprise visit from Sir Tetton Hall and my Lord Trysull who do not often visit the Club these days. They had, they said, been about some business near Wolverhampton and had come upon the trot to tell the Town all that they knew.

Lawks amercy, what tales they told. Sir Tetton being a fine exponent of the art of golfmanship and the noble Lord an expert in reclamation, the two sportsmen were full of grisly but enthralling news of developments in the Midlands.

Sir Simon and I both agreed that we would have to pay a visit to Wolverhampton in the near future to see all this for ourselves.

Meanwhile, however, at the invite of Lord Z, we have arranged to take the waters at

Baden-Baden en route for the European Parliament in Strasbourg. Sir Simon is even now tugging at my quill saying that unless we take post instantly for Dover we will never catch a packet.

Tom Puzzle