A Spectator's Campaign Notebook

hear that Conservative headquarters is not ,anything like as happy as it might be at reports roin North of the Border that Sir Alec "unglas-Home, just retired, is fighting fit and On the stump. This is not out of any dislike or envy of Sir Alec. Nor does it even arise from the iact that, since he is pulling in huge crowds everywhere he goes — there are overflow audiences at any hall on which he descends — but because he is bidding fair to make a terrible mess of Tory Scottish strategy. Not only now, but last February, the Tories calculated that sufficient Nationalist gains in Scotland would eat into Labour's plurality there, thus leaving Me Conservatives, natural majority party in England, in a position of power. This strategy, Machiavellian and displeasing though it is, served many as a justification for supporting Heath's policy of breaking up the United r'ingdum by providing parliaments for Scotland and Wales. Sir Alec, alas, himself went along with that policy — and still does, to the extent that he continues to support a Scottish assembly: a sort of glorified rural council. But, While his first message to Scottish voters is, vote Tory, his implication in the rest of his Speeches is, vote Labour rather than Nat. Given the pulling power the ex-Prime Minister is now oemonstrating, he may yet save Scotland — his OW n country, for which he has a special and worthy vision — for Labour, and scupper Mr Heath. In the intervals of campaigning he is, I am happy to report, devoting some thought to the preparation of his memoirs.

Pree speech

The story has yet to be told of the furious row that followed, let alone that which preceded, Mrs Shirley Williams's extraordinary and brave intervention at a recent Labour press conference, in the course of which she said that she would retire from public life if the people voted against British membership of the EEC in a referendum. I persist in regarding her announcement as courageous and,principled in the highest degree, for all that many of my Labour anti-EEC friends are gnashing their teeth at it. However, it appears that the poor ad) had been brought to the conference that morning not to make any such high-minded utterance but to repeat her marvellous and compelling performance of last February in su. nPorting with apparent logic and real sincerity an impossible economic policy, and thus undoing some of the damage created by the thug Healey in his accusations of lies against Tories and Liberals at the outset of the ,campaign. When it was learned that she wished ‘,.1-0 say a word about Europe chaos ensued: Mr Wilson, who believes what he wants to believe, `nought he had persuaded her to keep quiet, so another emotional heart to heart had to take 13,1.ace subsequently, after she had failed to obey IS wishes. Even these sessions were, however, as nothing compared to the difficulty subsequently endured by the Labour Europeans — 11c1Williamsites in particular — in trying to get nuld of Roy Jenkins by telephone, to let him know what Shirley had done and persuade him that there was, in honour, nothing to do but ikewise ParieZ anglalS9 Following the story in last week's Notebook about the 1922 Committee and the Chief Whip Humphrey Atkins (certainly no Heath-lover) further evidence has come from a member of the 1922 of the yawning gap between Heath and

the other ranks in the party. Atkins visited Heath on behalf of a Conservative group to press a particular and, to them, important, issue. Heath, as has become increasingly common nowadays, was uncomprehendingly dismissive. Atkins pressed his argument more loudly, to be rebuffed once again. The next day Heath turned to Willie Whitelaw and said, "What's got into Atkins? He came to me last night and started shouting about something — he must have been drunk." Heath, plainly, 'cannot understand English even when it is spoken loudly — which is not the sign of a good European.

Welsh wit

There are many stories usually involving Samuel Johnson, Winston Churchill or Lord Birkenhead with a crisp punch line. However, it is rare to be present during a lightning exchange and 'put down' that cannot possibly have been rehearsed. Last week Bill Grundy, that GOP of newscasters, and Clive Jenkins lunched with some others at The Spectator. The conversation solemnly turned to decimalisation and Clive Jenkins said he regretted the passing of the old sixpenny piece. Bill Grundy mordantly suggested to Clive that he probably missed being able to use it as a tip for cabbies. There was not a moment's hesitation in the reply: "Yes but I always used to give their horse a lump of sugar as well."

Gold bug

At election time and over most political matters the BBC and the IBA show a remarkable sense of balance. This said, there are other sensitive areas, particularly over that of money and confidence, where they appear to lose all track of objectivity. A night or two ago BBC Two's delectable newscaster Angela Rippon, for no special reason, took off on the gold bugs'

commemorative medal trail. She interviewed a partner in Spinks, who not unexpectedly could be counted on to be bullish about gold which he duly was. However, Angela R ippon did not take him up on the definition of value when he said that Kruggerands weighed a fine ounce and were priced at the open .Market value for gold, plus a small percentage. She finished her cheery interview, though it appeared to be more of a commercial for the South African mint and the private mints over here, with the words, "Gold finished 134 per cent up tonight." In fact though the price was up on the day, it was down on the week. Programmes of this kind that are derogatory to sterling should have a jaundiced, objective observer also present. Gold, at its socalled free market price, is a risky investment. The smallest sale of gold by the US authorities will have this free market price falling. Gold is a funk security, useful when countries are invaded or when Reserve banks fail. At other times it is a speculative commodity and nothing else — at anything above the official price. Even then, if liquidity is difficult, it is problematical how much credit money would be provided internally by a squeezed central banking system against the security of bullion.

Kept dangling

There are strong and recurrent rumours that Bill Deedes, who has retired from the Commons and has taken up the Editorship of the Daily Telegraph, has been promised a life peerage as firmly as it is possible to guarantee these things. This has been the price paid by the Conservative Party to ensure that neither Peregrine Worsthorne nor Colin Welch got the reversion to the editorship of the Sunday or Daily Telegraph respectively. These prizes — if you can call them that — have been kept dangling in front of both of them (and in front of Andrew Alexander as well as, so it is rumoured, Kenneth Fleet) for far too long. Lord Hartwell, who received a crawling profile in last week's New Statesman by the unsigned hand of Peter Paterson has been cruel and insensitive in toying with them all for as long as he has.

Pay up

The electors of Buckingham are to be once more given the chance of returning Robert Maxwell as their Member of Parliament — or, more likely, not. Already he is enmeshed in a customary quarrel: this time over the Aston Martin motor company, and their troubles. Maxwell had offered to help them by putting 'money into the business, though so far he has contented himself with buying one of their cars for £11,000. Lamentably, Maxwell's zest to invest in ailing companies, such as the Tilling Group, the Scottish Daily Express, and Peter Paterson's forthcoming newspaper, the Globe, is in inverse ratio to the amount he actually forks up. For the moment, The Spectator would be content on behalf of a member of the editorial team if Maxwell would stump up the £30 he lost at the last election by way of a wager.

Haiti fund

The cruel suggestion by the New York Times correspondent that "some foreign diplomats

have privately suggested that the Hondurian Government intentionally inflated the number of dead to emphasise the country's plight and ensure sufficient aid" should be ignored in any decision regarding the scale of this country s official help and the private charity that should be unstintingly given. If the death roll is "only one thousand" or the more likely official estimate of 7,500 to 8,000, it does not in any way reduce the scale of the devastation and the urgency of the need for the maximisation of the British effort in which Mr Callaghan, the Foreign Secretary, has shown commendable initiative. Private donations are needed and should be sent to: Honduras Hurricane Appeal, P.O. Box 999, London EC 2.