Spectator's Notebook
TIHE most remarkable feature about the run-up
to the vote for the Tory leadership is that everyone has been so silent. Television and the press have been hard put to it to keep the story going in face of the tight-lipped discretion of Members of Parliament. It is reported that Sir Ian Orr-Ewing suggested at the 1922 Committee a self-denying ordinance restraining members from television appearances. Certainly it seems to have worked.
The 'quality' Sundays produced their' usual quota of inside material, but it was apparent that their reporters had been kept on the outside. The digging for news was as competent and as This as ever, but it was remarkably inaccurate. fhis time much had to be guessed because the Tories had (rightly) decided that the actual elec- tion was their business, and theirs alone.
Revolutions in this country, and especially Perhaps within the Tory party, are rarely plotted. They just happen. This week's election for the Tory party is just as surely 'the changing of the guard' as John F. Kennedy's nomination was as Democratic candidate in America. Only the Conservative members of the House of Com- mons voted. The role of the Tory peers is now confined to joining in the applause for Edward Heath at the full endorsement meeting next Mon- day. A new era begins.
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