The Press
By RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL
• -• FOR months the news-
papers have been agitating
An unsigned piece by Mr. James Margach in the Sunday Times has just put forward a different view and one that deserves close consideration. It is one that might well commend itself to Sir Alec if he has those qualities of leadership which his friends have detected in him. The suggestion is that the date of the general election should be announced before the London elections. Such a decision might well influence the outcome of the London elections and thereby indirectly the result of the general election.
There is something rather unlovely in the great Tory Party hanging around waiting for some omen or portent which might give them hope of victory. In ancient days there were high -priest& and magicians who by studying the flights of birds or by closely examining their innards claimed that they could predict whether it was auspicious or not to go into battle. Of course, particularly under the Romans, the high priests rigged their advice to suit the Consul or Emperor in power. The only object of going through the paraphernalia of consulting the high priests was so that the superstitious mob could be induced to pull itself together and support the calculated decision that had already been taken.
Nothing would pull the Tory Party together so quickly as to be given a definite and an early date. Many laggards and weaker brethren might well be galvanised into energetic action. To hang en, hoping that something will turn up, is a nega- tion of leadership. After all, something bad is just as likely to turn up as. something good. An apparent reluctance to face the electorate with- out a scrutiny of its metropolitan entrails, an invitation to the citizens of Greater London to discharge the job which traditionally and con- stitutionally is that of the Prime Minister— these are symptoms of impotence and decrepi- tude. Such, I gather, is the case of those who flew their kite in the Sunday Times.
Some time in the late Forties or early Fifties Sir Winston Churchill rather naïvely asked the late Oliver Stanley: 'Why does Max always attack the Tory Party but never me?' Stanley replied: 'Well, you see, Max wants the jockey to win but not the horses.'
Lord Beaverbrook has until recently been pur- suing an ambivalent policy towards the Tory Party and Sir Alec Douglas-Home. In the same way that Beaverbrook attacked the Tory Party in its plan to get into a United Europe and never criticised Macmillan, he has been attacking the Tory Party over Resale Price Maintenance while eulogising Sir Alec. But Lord Beaverbrook has suddenly seen the truth, and has realised that Sir Alec is the boss and must at least share the blame with wicked men like Mr. Edward Heath. The Daily Express on Monday in its editorial column uttered these words under the heading 'FAILURE AT THE TOP': What is wrong with the Tory Government? Why, is it making such a sorry spectacle? Why is its performance so wretched?
Of course, the Administration has its albatross, Mr. Edward Heath. But the chief fault lies with the Mariner himself, Sir Alec Douglas-Home.
Since he became Prime Minister five months ago he has utterly failed to impose his leadership and authority on his Cabinet.
On issue after issue, Ministers seem divided and quarrelling among themselves.
Thus it is on that most disastrous measure, the Bill to end resale price maintenance.
Last week I inailvertently did the Daily Mirror an injustice. I wrote about the threatened 'go- slow' in the power stations: [The Daily Herald] ... preached a great deal of good sense, unfortunately to a small audience. Neither on Saturday [March 21] nor on Mon- day [March 23] did Mr. Cecil Harmsworth King leave [give] any guidance on this (or any other) subject to the more numerous readers of the batty Mirror. This was true; but I had overlooked a very powerful leader in the Daily Mirror on Wednes- day, March IS, entitled 'A Pledge is a Pledge' in which the unions were strongly urged to accept arbitration. I apologise to the Daily Mirror tad to my readers for this oversight.
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