Westminster Corridors
The events of this past week at the Club have been so bizarre and the inaction of the Government so total, that I offer as some words of encouragement to Mr Edward Heath and his friends the notable verse of Virgil in his first book of the Aeneid: "Revocate animous, maestumque timorem Mittite." Unbeknown to Sir Simon and myself, the chief bellower and prancer Mr Dennis Skinner of Bolsover has been elected chairman of the Tribune Group. This Group comprises Ruffians so far to the left of their Party that they almost fall off the edge of it. Now one had hoped that elevation to this high office might have taught the Ruffian Skinner some sense of responsibility. Instead, he has begun to prance and bellow even more loudly and has compounded the horror of his normal presence in the Chamber by asking tortuous and wordy questions with what I assume he hopes is heavy sarcasm. Things have reached such a pass that whenever he gets to his feet the Tories all shout "too long" before he has uttered a syllable. The trouble is that the Prime Minister (who has in the past few days developed a nervous twitch) and his ministers are petrified of the Tribune men. Even Mr Michael Foot, the new Archie Rice of the Department of Employment who used to be once the standard bearer of the Left, has ceased to drink with the hard-line Ruffians and when he speaks from the Despatch Box keeps a wary eye upon them.
Mr Harold Wilson's twitch worries me. At question time he seems always to be fiddling with things and (so I thought) cleaning his nails with a paper clip. But his male (well I think so) nurse, Mr Gerald Kaufman, tells me that the Prime Minister is so neurotic about demands for a June election that he has chewed his nails away and there are, accordingly, none to clean.
The only minister who ploughs on, oblivious of the increasing Odium that attaches to the Government, is Mr Anthony Crosland. When asked by Sir Simon in the Smoking Room the Other day how he managed to remain so calm with mortgage rates being what they are, Mr Crosland replied that firstly he had no mortgages and that secondly he was "secure in the knowledge of his own intellectual arrogance" (his words, not Sir Simon's).
In its desperate attempts to be the Government of all the people, Mr Wilson's Administration has Offered us the Parliamentary answer of the year. Asked if the disabled might get some concession on television licence fees, Mr Alexander Lyon, a Minister of State at the Home Office, said: "Blind people not resident in a Public or charitable institution can obtain television licences at a fee £1.25 less than the standard fee." Really, Mr Lyon, who is leading whom?
Tom Puzzle
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