Election Corridors
It is an old observation, which has been made of politicians who would rather ingratiate themselves with their electors than promote their real service, that they accommodate their counsels to the electorate's immediate inclinations rather than to the good of the common weal. Never more than in this past week has the saying found truth.
Aweary of the hustings, I returned with my friend Sir Simon d'Audley to the Town to find a tallow-faced youth attending me at my lodgings. I was to go, he declared, to Chequers where the Prime Minister would have speech with me. When I came upon him in the countryside, I was much amazed at the change, so shortly wrought, in Mr Heath's person. Gone was the heaving-shouldered, happy Leader of yesterweek. He was, instead, in pensive mood and thoughtful to a degree almost of melancholy. So sad was his countenance, that I quoted to him the words of my colleague, the poet Mr Alexander Pope: A brave man struggling in the storms of fate And greatly falling with a falling State. For some reason, the words seemed not to cheer Mr Heath at all and he protested that he found the electorate "fickle and ungrateful." "I keep telling them the issues before the nation," he went on, "that they need a firm and fair Government. But they seem not to heed me."
He found much evidence, he said, of the truth of my opening observation and was aggrieved that the Ruffian's Leader and the Leader of the Whigs had so much debased politics by their blatant and shamefaced "electioneering." Stoically and not to say in a pedestrian fashion, the Tory Leader sought "to drive home to the people the crucial issues that face us." Mr Wilson, the while, was being tricky; though I thought his performance (in terms of guile and subtlety) fell far short of his earlier ones in previous election campaigns. When he had nothing to say, he asked his sycophantic lieutenant, Master Ron Hayward (who has the grandiose title of general secretary of the Ruffian's Party) to explain that he (the Leader) had lost his voice. Even without a voice, he was able to tell a much amazed conference of newspaper scribes that he had taken his wife's pill by mistake. Whether the consequence of this mishap will be greater for Mrs Wilson or for her spouse remains to be seen. Sir Simon says he hopes the outcome will be a happy one, for he fain could not bear for there to be any more Wilsons. Mr Thorpe, for his part, has become petulant. Whether this is because he has been obliged to give up wearing theatrical slap (so stung was he by my recent remarks), or whether because he now realises that he will lose his seat at North Devon, I know not.
Twice in the past few days when gremlins have been discovered in the closed-circuit television apparatus (via which he cares to put the Whig's case to the nation) this hollow-cheeked Etonian has called his audience of scribes (and one or two Pharisees from the Times) "monsters." On one occasion he even impugned the intelligence of us scholars from Harrow, which Latin jest I thought a worthless fribble. Each of the leaders blustered, and Mr Wilson of course huffed and puffed. But none seemed really convinced that his Party would win or, indeed, that his Party had any right to win. All three took the view that the average voter is a creature who has all the organs of
speech, a tolerable good capacity for conceiving what is said to it, together with a pretty proper behaviour in all the occurrences of common life — but naturally very vacant of thought in itself and therefore forced to apply itself to foreign assistances.
Which may, perchance, be true. The problem, as Sir Simon and I agreed in a Coffee-house the other day, is that each of the Parties has sought to rely on such very unlikely foreign assistances. Take, for example, the aforementioned Mr Hayward.
This common man, who has sought to play an important part in the campaign as though he were an official at the Club rather than the hireling of the Ruffian's Party, was much incensed at something called a party political broadcast which the Tories had put out upon the networks. So, protesting that Mr Heath and his colleagues were vile to a man to indulge in "smear tactics," this uncouth general secretary swore that he and his friends would never sink so low.
Whereupon, he held up before the corps of journalists there assembled a picture of my friend and colleague Mr Robin Day of the BBC, and proceeded to abuse and smear this worthy tribune of the press. So amazed was Mr Day that he could not even rise from his seat to inquire the reason for this bitter attack. Had he done so, Mr Hayward would have told him that all the Ruffians were much annoyed with the BBC man's manner of interview on television.
The Ruffians believe that Mr Day is proTory (and therefore anti-Ruffian) which is illogical and only goes to show that they have -never watched Mr Day and the Prime Minister cross swords upon the box. Be that as it may, both Mr Wilson and Mr Short (the toothless deputy leader of the Ruffian's Party) have abused the hapless Mr Day during recent interviews. In Sir Simon's view, Mr Short actually slandered Mr Day — though as he is a lawyer by trade, Mr Day will no doubt judge that issue for himself.
It has, in faith, been a humourless campaign. The only light relief, Sir Simon says, came last week when Mr Heath visited Castle Donnington. There to meet him was a charming bride, fresh from the nuptial service, and when she kissed the Prime Minister, his supporters oohed and aahed. The photographers present naturally wanted to record the scene for posterity and shouted: "Go on, kiss the bride." Whereupon theembarrassed bridegroom stepped forward and obliged. "Not her, you git," said a gentleman of the press. So the even more embarrassed bridegroom kissed Mr Heath, who heaved and chortled and was heard to murmur, "Hello, sailor."
I hope most fervently that Mr Heath is still your chief when you awake tomorrow. Many say he will be, others that he will not. I, for my part, am exceeding worried.
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