I HAVE BEEN watching Commercial Television (Independent Television?—strong pressure is
being brought to substitute the nobler word) with interest: I share the view Miss Isabel Quigly expresses on a later page that the great thing is to have an alternative programme, even if the quality is not startlingly better. She cites Sunday's debate between Boothby, Taylor, Brown and Foot as one of CTV's blessings. But the 'frabjous four' owe their fame to the BBC; and they will not be allowed to continue as a team for long—not, that is, if the party Whips are going to apply the same thumbscrew to CTV as they have applied to the BBC. It is worth remembering, too, that their main bone of contention, which they gnawed with the arrogant ferocity of Armand and Michaela Denis's hyenas, might not have been thrown to them had Parliament been sitting. Parliament would undoubtedly have set aside a day to debate Burgess and Maclean, and the 14-day rule could have been invoked.
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