Sir: Are we in for a few years of quiet
politics 'because of Europe,' a neutralisation of domestic politics and the reverse of Mr Wilson's 1964-66 tactics, as Alan Watkins suggests?
From the sidelines perhaps I am not qualified to judge, but pro-Europe members of the Foreign Press Association will have their own thoughts, especially about some of Mr Wilson's immediate entourage.
I remember at a conference on the suppression of Scottish and Welsh rights, held at the Picca- dilly Hotel on 31 August 1964, that the representa- tive of the Liverpool Daily Post was particularly and aggressively sceptical over any European press being present at all and this tactic was met with smiles and exchanged glances by several distin- guished European journalists, some of whom bad seen the conference advertised in the SPECTATOR. Even Tass raised his eyes Chicagowards.
Was that the man Mr Wilson made his chief mouthpiece, one of them asked me later in 1964. Yes, it was, they both belong to the same Oxford college and the swinging Liverpool scene.