Another Spectator's Notebook
I have been greatly interested in following the various more or less neurotic kerfuffles of the British press in their discussion of the consequences of Ian Smith's closure of the border between Rhodesia and Zambia. According to Smith this action •was designed to force the Zambians to cut down on their support for terrorist activity, because they needed Rhodesian outlets for their world trade. According, however, to the romantic interpretation of Fleet Street, Smith's bluff was called: shortly after his declared closure he had to declare an opening, and was sharply slapped down by President Kaunda of Zambia, who insisted — apparently against all self-interest — that the border remain closed.
Machiavellians
I wonder how many of our London reporters knew that stage three of the Tan-Zam railway — that iron channel linking Lusaka, capital of Zambia, with Dar-es-Salaam, capital of Tanzania—had been completed, and freed Kenneth Kaunda from any serious dependence on the Rhodesian outlet for his trade? Thus one might argue, with no necessary disrespect to the political acumen of the President of Zambia, his moral gesture was the immensely clever exploitation of a political fact — a gesture which aroused fanatical enthusiasm among our own white lefties, and which cost President Kaunda nothing.
Further to whet the appetites of such sentimentalists in Fleet Street as may read this column, may I ask if any British paper has explored in depth the consequences of that recent meeting between Kaunda, Nyerere of Tanzania and Mobutu of Zaire (formerly, the Congo), which further institutionalised the trade barrier surrounding Rhodesia, and found Zairean outlets for Zambian goods? I don't object at all to Nyerere, Kaunda and Mobutu playing politics. I do, however, object to British reporters concealing from their readers the fact that these three are among the dirtiest and cleverest in the business — as their survival shows — and should be considered, as Machiavellians, on a par with Ian Smith and Dr Vorster. But, then, I have always said that the journalistic as well as the moral judgement of Commonwealth correspondents is feeble.
Engaging Jeremy
When Jeremy Thorpe lunched at The Spectator the other day we all noted his remarkable ebullience, and the exceptionally sharp edge of his wit. We put it down to his obvious conviction that the Liberals were going to do well in the Chester-le-Street by-election, and it never occurred to us that there could be deeper, more personal, reasons for his fine humour. Sunday, however, brought the news that he is to be married to Marion, Countess of Harewood. Thorpe has had more than his share of political and personal sorrow, and even his severest critics were forced to admire the way he went doggedly on with his political duties after the tragic death of his first wife.
Smoke screen
A pregnant friend has just passed to me a Singularly nasty piece of propaganda published by the Scottish Health Education Unit in Edinburgh. Called You're Smoking for Two, it is designed, as you Itnight easily enough guess, to persuade' [women who are expecting babies not to smoke: I do not for the moment want tO uquarrel with the principle of the warning beyond quoting an observation recently made to me by a distinguished gynaecologist that smoking was often an indispensable method of reducing nervous tension which might ■ harm a baby during pregnancy.. What 1 I object to—and it is all too,typical'Of Modthli medical publicity — is the bkillying imagination the leaflet reveals. "'The coloured photograph on one side would do injustice to a Soho floozie. But it was the .text that sent me—and the girl who gave the thing to me — into a rage. Doctors all over the world," the leaflet says,. have "found that . . . out of every ten unsuccessful pregnancies one or two would have • resulted in a live child if the mother had not been a regular smoker." Even supposing one were to accept the terminological inexactitude implied in so general a description of the medical profession, how on earth do they know? Worse still, however, is the string of later assertions that some seven-year-olds were four months behind contemporaries in reading ability because their mothers smoked and were, in addition, shorter. This it is an unproven assertion—because of other and highly complex factors involved. Anyway, the report is statistically and not medically based, and so can provide no more than an indication, at best, of a medical situation.
Incidentally, my friend, ' while being examined, was told by her nurse, "You've the best pair of lungs I've seen in this hospital."
My friend has, nonetheless, been told that her doctor will be writing to her in a fortnight's time to find out if she has given up smoking. Heaven knows what will happen if she hasn't — though she was going strong when I last saw her. Perhaps he will refuse to deliver her baby? Or perhaps she will take some new drug, instead of cigarettes — a drug like, say, thalidomide, against which I remember no great stream of warning leaflets from doctors.
Keeping in touch
In the last couple of months I have been using, regularly, a remarkably valuable new compendium of political and parliamentary hews called the Review of Parliament. It is produced in regular numbers and gives an overall guide to what is going on in both Houses. Apart, however, from the general indication of what has been happening, the Review gives some account of Committee work and the most comprehensive index of what Parliament has been getting up to. For a hard-pressed political correspondent, as I am sure for a great many other people interested not merely in what is happening, but what stage legislation has reached, the "Legislation Progress Chart" provides invaluable guidance.
The general editorial charge is in the hands of Robin Page, formerly a lobby correspondent of the old Sun, and now leading light in the Newspoint agency.
Unionist Gollanc ve a jolly part for Eric Heifer's new book other day. Unusually for such literary functions the book, which George Gale discusses in this issue, was the subject of„heated contention among the guests, which 'bade fair to show that controversy over the fundamental principles of socialism is far from dead .in the Labour Party. The composition of the patty, too, gave rise to a certain amount of comment. Eric Heffer clearly chose his guests carefully, and the presence of Jack Jones and Vic Feather symbolised the important part 'getting on with tAt trade unions' plays in his view of politic But there were fewer Tribunites than I wthild have expected, 4nki none of the younger left unless 'one -includes Terry Pitt in that category. In the centre of it all, reasonably and properly pleased with himself, dispensing geniality and charm, stood Eric Heifer himself, " perhaps the nicest man of real ability in politics," as one of his guests said.
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