Alan Watkins
Anthony Howard's Rab (Cape, £15) is most readable, and masterly on Tory High Politics, those of the 1951-63 period parti- cularly: I never realised before how close Butler was to the succession not only in 1963 and 1957 but also in 1955, when Eden took over from Churchill. However, part of the reason for — or the price of — the readability is that Mr Howard gives a polite but perfunctory nod when faced with de- partmental detail and hurries on to more interesting matters. I could have done with more on the eleven-plus and the tripartite system, less on Church Schools. A few sour persons have asked 'What is this book for?' when confronted by Roy Jenkins's Baldwin (Collins, £12.95). The answer is that it is a lucid, civilised essay which usefully supple- ments H. Montgomery Hyde's biography of 1973. Mr Jenkins's most original conten- tion is that Baldwin should have formed a Conservative administration in 1931, in- stead of serving under MacDonald. The brief lives at the back of the book are as funny and informative as Beaverbrook's. Peter Wright's Spycatcher (Viking, $19.95) is not quite what the comments about it led me to expect. The villains are Mr Edward Heath and Sir Michael Hanley, who started to use MI5 improperly (on domes- tic agitators of one sort or another) well before 1974. Mr Wright refused to join either this official campaign or the later, unofficial one against Lord Wilson, being too busy persecuting Roger Hollis. Some of the technical stuff is beyond me, but Mr Wright informs us that the Burmah lock is the one to keep the spooks out.
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