A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
T DO not myself share the view that appears to be gener- 1 ally taken about the significance of Lord Haw-Haw, and I hope the B.B.C. will think very seriously before they decide to try to produce replies to him within fifteen or twenty minutes of each of his talks. (This is one of the rare occasions on which I find myself in disagreement with my colleague Mr. Harold Nicolson.) I don't believe in the first place that an adequate reply could be produced in the time. Haw-Haw has a habit of quoting statistics when they suit him, and it would be too much to expect his opposite number at Broadcasting House to have available at any moment whatever book of reference may be needed for checking Haw-Haw figures. And anyhow, is this kind of argument on the air between London and Berlin in wartime really desirable? Its only effect could be to stimulate an increasing number of people in this country to listen to Haw-Haw, and (again pace Nicolson) there seems to me very little advantage in that. Just at the moment newspaper dis- cussion has given Haw-Haw something of a vogue, but it will die down, and can very well, in my view, be allowed to. Quite certainly no one would be more gratified than Lord Haw-Haw himself and his employers at the attention being paid him in Great Britain. * * * *
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