VIEW FROM THE GALLERY SALLY VINCENT
In the House of Lords, five days earlier, they talked of Jesus Christ and disarmament. And one noble lord layed claim to personal knowledge of Ho Chi Minh. He was not, he explained, the rampaging communist of popular western assumption, indeed, accord- ing to all French philosophers and poli- ticians, he was merely a man who wanted the independence for his country to which it was entitled. Our noble lord later apolo- gised to his companions for speaking with 'a little feeling', but he resented, he said, the flippancy with which other peoples' efforts to achieve peace were scoffed at.
The debate on the statement for the de- fence estimate is hardly an occasion to attend for comfort, even in the Lords, where members do not question the price of votes and consequently feel no need to repress their patriot throats; but to en- counter a man within these halls who actually knew Ho Chi Minh personally is in fact a serenely satisfying experience. Some- body, for God's sake, should have met him. Just as somebody, while paying lip service to the inevitability of paying two and a half thousand million pounds in order to defend ourselves from this, that and what Lord Carrington in his wisdom describes as 'the shadow of the present and potential threat of the vast military resources of the Soviet Union'—somebody should say 'disarmament' and mean it. Even if it is only to get it said. It lightens the load, somehow, of having to hear Lord Monckton of Brenchley, in haste because of a regimental dinner engagement, express the strangely illogical view that 'so long as armed forces are kept, wars are least likely to occur'. If you don't go along with that assumption you can always rest con- tent that once upon a time Ho Chi Minh called our own Lord Davies of Leek 'Harold'.
In contrast, the same debate in the House of Commons is totally comfortless in its quality of reminiscence. Just a few intro- ductory words of party political carping about how much more commendable is the Government White Paper compared with Opposition White Papers on account of the former being more cheerful reading for members of the services. Steadfast, in some- what faint self-praise. But then Lord Balniel hasn't got much to say of a cheery nature to anyone else. Through no fault of his own he is an unbearably dull speaker, reading staccato fashion as though from an infant's story book, grouping three words together at a time regardless of the sense or nonsense of his theme, and monotonously pronounc- ing virtually all his As as in 'bray'. Hence the alarming nature of his text becomes
hopelvssly absurd in its rendition: where- as in the . . . past aggression could . . . be deterred by a . . . nucleir response which
• . . could not be . . . countered now each • . . side has the . . . power of second . . . strike. The strategic . . . nuclear forces of • • . each could survive ... an attack by. the other and ... could still retaliate.'
By the time he has finished a miserable gathering of about fifty members has dwindled to twenty drab figures flopped like dropped puppets discarded by bored masters. Rarely has a debate been so infinitely dull. Where, one soon forgets to wonder in the stultifying boredom of it all, have all the left wing pacifists gone? Gone to Lords, every one, no doubt. We are left with George Thomson for the Opposition, mildly sug- gesting that while our troops are doing a grand job in Ulster, they are being unneces- sarily overstretched East of Suez.
If this is a criticism, nobody seems to mind. There is nothing for it but to switch off, first programming myself to spring back to full attention at the mention of the magic word, 'disarmament'. Unhappily the self- hypnosis failed, or the word never came, but another more startling term did emerge. The word is 'conscription'. It fell from the dainty lips of one Lt Col Colin Mitchell, a sort of prototype Tory backbencher, signet ring on pinky hand on hip, watch chain across waistcoat of three-piece suit, fourteen year old face under thatch of grey hair, im- modestly plummy voice raised in quotation of Henry Kissinger. His views are later de- scribed as 'sincere' by Opposition speakers, and 'refreshingly independent' by members of his own party.
Our problem, according to the gallant Lt Col, is the falling-off of recruiting attractions to young men. Recruiting aids, such as the names of our great regiments, have been thrown away; an expedient which has had him, he confesses, wincing with pain. His heart, too, is breaking for the knowledge that to many of our younit people, the image of the Army is something filthy.
Within the next five years, then, the Government should consider bringing back conscription. For Lt Col Mitchell believes that all defence effort should be based on the 'encouragement' of national morale, since at this lamentable moment in time half the country does not believe in patriotism, let alone military preparedness.
'Why should we', he cries with something approaching passion, 'have to beg for soldiers to defend our country? Why should we have to advertise?'
We must start to change our tune, he recommends. And if Tom Dalyell (Lab, West Lothian) thought he wasn't going to tell us how, he was very much mistaken.
We should, he said (and in fairness, he did mutter 'perhaps') have a conscripted national military reserve for all men and women between the ages of eighteen and thirty five, with a four-week annual reserve liability. By this method, we may combat our two major problems, Russian imperial- ism and internal subversion—and the greatest of these is the latter.
There were, at a rough count, about fifteen members in the Chamber when the Lt Col ceased his pompous tarradiddle and con- sidered he had pulled enough of our chest- nuts out of the fire to rest his case. Such a small and weary gathering, one hopes, is not necessarily typical of common response, and yet I have to report, lest something is in the wind, that nobody laughed. More insidiously, nobody cried either.
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