THE PERSONAL TOUCH.
(By our tireless Political Penetrator.)
For some time past, I understand, the Government has been considering steps to bring the personalities of Cabinet Ministers more prominently into the public eye. “We are not sufficiently known,” said Sir William Sutherland, who has the matter in hand, “as living palpitating figures to the man in the street. We do not grip the nation’s heart. We lack pep.”
I told him that it was a pity about pep. I felt that the Government ought to have pep. and plenty of it. If possible they ought to have vineg. and must. too.
“You are right,” he said. “Occasional paragraphs in the Press, snapshots which take us very likely with one leg stuck out in front as if we were doing the goose-step, rare provincial excursions and bouquets from admiring mill-girls are all very well in their way, but they are nothing to constant personal appearances at stated times and in stated places before an admiring mob. The heroes of sport are overshadowing us,” he continued with a sigh, pushing me over a box of cigars.
“What are you going to do about it?” I asked, lighting one and putting another carefully behind my ear.
“You must remember first,” he replied, “that this is quite a modern difficulty. Statesmen of the past used to make their leisurely progress through the town surrounded by retainers on horseback, or in sedan-chairs, beautifully dressed and scattering largesse as they went. Thomas à Becket, the great Primate and Chancellor, used to have poor men to dine with him and crowds thronging round to bless him. To-day, I suppose, Joe Beckett in his flowered dressing-gown would be a more popular figure than Lord Birkenhead and the Archbishop of Canterbury, if you can imagine them rolled into one. In Charles II.’s reign, when politicians used to play pêle-mêle where the great Clubs are now, anyone could rub shoulders with my lord of Buckingham and, if he was lucky, get a swipe across the shins with the ducal mallet itself. That is the kind of thing we want now.
“I had thoughts of running popular excursions down to Walton Heath, but I am not sure that the people would care to go so far even to see Sir Eric Geddes carrying the home green and Lord Riddell—the Riddell of the sands, as we call him affectionately down there—getting out of a difficult bunker. So I am trying to arrange for a few putting greens in railed-off spaces in St. James’s Park near the pelicans, and we also propose to hold there on fine summer days the breakfast parties for which the Prime Minister is so famous. We shall make a point of throwing not only crumbs to the birds, but slices of bread and marmalade to the more indigent spectators. We shall also try to get two or three open squash racket courts in Whitehall, so that on hot summer days the most carping critic who watches a rally between Mr. Austen Chamberlain and the Secretary of State for War will have to admit that we are doing our utmost to eliminate waste-products.”
“But what about the clothes and the stately progress and the largesse?” I asked; the largesse idea had struck me with particular force.
“We are thinking of goat carriages and overalls for economy,” he said, “and the largesse cannot, I am afraid, be allowed for in the Treasury Estimates. But we shall certainly scatter a handful or two of O.B.E.’s as we go.”
“And how will you deal with the country and the outer suburbs?” I asked when my admiration had partially subsided.
“Ah, there you have the Cinema,” replied Sir William enthusiastically. “We are going to make great strides with the Cinema. Our first film, which is now in preparation, deals with the Leamington episode and has been very carefully staged. It has been necessary, of course, in the interests of art to elaborate the actual incidents to a certain extent. Coalition Liberals, for instance, were obliged to board the train in the traditional manner of the screen, leaping on to it whilst in motion and climbing, some by way of the brakes and buffers, some along the roofs of the carriages, into their reserved compartment. Then again we could not reassemble the actual gathering of Wee Frees to represent the enemy, but we secured the services of actors well trained in Wild West and “crook” parts, capably led by those two prominent comedians, Mr. Mutt and Mr. Jeff. The film ends, of course, with the second meeting at the Central Hall, Westminster, when Messrs. Mutt and Jeff again appear as comic and objectionable interrupters, and are ignominiously hurled into the street.
“Very soon we hope to have all important Parliamentary debates filmed. It will be essential, of course, to provide some comic relief, and we are relying confidently on certain Members to practise the wearing of mobile moustaches and to take lessons in the stagger, the butter slide, the business with the cane and the quick reversal of the hat.”
“In short you think politics should be more spectacular?”
“That’s it,” he said. “Hobbs the mammoth hitter and a little less of the Leviathan.”
Greatly impressed I bit off the end of his second cigar and went back to the office to look up Leviathan.
V.
Farmer. “Dear me! C-can I do anything?”
Airman. “Thanks, but really I think I’ve done all there is to be done.”