Westminster corridors

It is something pleasant to consider the different Notions which different Persons have of the same thing. To read the popular prints, you would suppose from the reports of the Westminster Lobby Men that their banishment from audience at Downing Street was in some way an accomplishment of their own.

The Scribes suggest that there has been a loss of rapport between themselves and the odious storm trooper of Number Ten, Mr Joe Haines, the Prime Minister's so-called chief press secretary. This is far from the truth.

Mr Haines, who is not only a Ruffian (having once served on something known as "a local council") but an insensitive one to boot, does not in the least mind holding confidential Lobby briefings where he can chew Micham Mints and make cheap jests at the expense of the simple Lobby fellows.

But his assistants, two charming Ruffian ladies and some assorted (more or less) Ruffian gentlemen have become much irritated by the pompous antics of the Lobby chairman, one Mr John "Verbosity" Egan, about whom I have had; occasion to write before.

My readers will no doubt be much amused to learn that Mr Egan is to be dismissed his high office at the end of this very month. Further

more, having banned my worthy colleague Master Cosgrave from their meetings, it is a great consolation to know that there will now be no Lobby meetings — not that Master Cosgrave ever went anyway. But that is by the by.

So pompous did Mr Egan become (take not my word for it, but simply peruse his correspondence in this Paper as well as in the Thunderer) that the ladies of Mr Wilson's press department refused to have any sort of intercourse with him.

This coupled with the fact that although I always pretend to be asleep at Lobby meetings I yet report them faithfully in these columns, finally became too much for our tired Prime Minister. He summoned the faithful Haines and ordered him to end the meetings. "They can get their information from the press", screamed Mr Wilson.

"But they are the press", ventured Mr Haines, who was roundly rebuked for his insolence by the Duchess of Falkender who just happened to be present and who has always been very particular about which member of the press she -talks to."

In the event, the Lobby men seem not unduly worried. They will in future be able to spend 'even more time in the bars of the Club. Mr Egan's pomposity being catching, it is no surprise that the Lobby scribes have banned the ancillary pressmen from the BBC from their own, private Press Gallery Bar.

During the course of the experimental broadcasts from the Club, a great number of BBC journalists have been drafted in to strengthen that media's team of reporters. These new men naturally hoped, in the heat of this summer, that they might be allowed access to the Press Bar so that they could refresh themselves.

Mr Egan and his colleagues said 'no". That Bar was for their "private use and that of their guests" — and a hopeless lot of hangers-on and underworked policemen "their guests" normally turn out to be.

Fortunately, the sensible Mr Tom Litterick, the Ruffian MP for Selly Oak, has written to the BBC offering the new BBC scribes the hospitality of the Strangers' Bar in the Club, where, he says, "I will always be willing to guarantee them access". Some Members of the Club have been surprised to hear a great deal of Mr Litterick on the radio over the past few days.

Lastly, spare a thought (if you can bear to) for Mr Frank Allaun, the very red Ruffian from Salford East. This leading light of the Tribune Group is, according to his friends, looking for "a new platform". He is also urgently in need of "any help that can be offered".

Has, I hear you ask, he lost his salary from the Club? No, I can tell you, he has not. But now that the journal of the AUEW has been sold (and with IL Mr Allaun's considerable retainer to write for the journal) the little man from Salford East is suddenly feeling the pinch. Donations, and ideas, to the Tribune Group at the Club, please.

Tom Puzzle