A Spectator's Notebook
THE INDEPENDENT TELEVISION AUTHORITY iS to be congratulated for its decision to cock a snook at the Government over the fourteen-day rule in connection with last Sunday's 'free speech' debate. The BBC, on the other hand, with its endemic timidity instructed its broadcasters to lay off the subject of the week— the Budget. A few days before this I'd had occasion to visit the ITA in its new permanent home and had come away, I confess, feeling that it would be unlikely to show much fight. But I suppose that this was because I had failed to find what I had expected—something large and intricate. After all, the word 'authority' has an imposing air. The ITA's home in Princes Gate is, outwardly, reasonably in character. I was astonished therefore to discover that, technicians apart, the ITA has an executive staff of only five. The Director-General, I was told, is determined to keep the numbers down. So much the better if we have repetitions of last Sunday. Is Mr. Hill or anybody else prepared to say with a straight face that Sunday's discussion did any harm at all?
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