When Mr Iain Macleod, former leader of the House of Commons and the joint chairman of the Conservative party, refused to serve under the new Prime Minister, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, last month it was generally accepted that he had assumed the role of the party’s conscience keeper. His action fitted neatly into the country’s political tradition in which the voice of protest provides the necessary balance against the proverbial British capacity for compromise. Even the supporters of Sir Alec showed respect for his decision. Mr Macleod has dissipated much of this goodwill for him as a man of principle by agreeing to take over the editorship of The Spectator, the oldest political weekly in this country, in rather dubious circumstances.
A great deal of controversy has been provoked by the manner in which the matter has been handled by the proprietor of the paper, Mr Ian Gilmour. At no time did he indicate displeasure with the present editor, Mr Ian Hamilton. Mr Hamilton first learnt of the proposed change from a fellow journalist. This was so unusual that Mr Hamilton did not believe the report. When he went to a pre-arranged meeting with Mr Gilmour that evening the latter said: “I cannot begin to apologise to you for the unspeakable way in which you have been treated but before we talk any more are you willing to do an Oliver Poole?” Lord Poole, it might be recalled, lately joint chairman of the Conservative party, had agreed to serve as vice-chairman in the recent organisational changes consequent on the resignation of Mr Macmillan and appointment of Sir Alec as Prime Minister. Mr Hamilton turned down the proposal.
Surprise
Mr Hamilton was not the only person to be taken by surprise. The chairman of the paper’s board of directors, Sir Evelyn Wrench, first learnt about the proposed change of editor from the press. Sir Evelyn incidentally had been associated with the weekly since 1922 when Sir Hugh Strachey, who was then the chief proprietor, sold his shares to him. Sir Evelyn has pointed out that he himself had sold his holdings to Mr Gilmour in the belief that the latter would be a non-partisan owner-editor in keeping with the paper’s tradition. Mr Gilmour ceased to be the editor when he took to active politics. He got elected to Parliament as a Conservative candidate this year. On Mr Gilmour’s own statement only two directors were consulted by him.
The trustees, who are the chairman of the London County Council, the presidents of the Royal Society, the Royal Historical Society and the Institute of Chartered Accountants and the chairman of the Headmasters’ Conference, had been treated with similar disdain. One of the directors, Mr Brian Inglis, said that Mr Macleod’s appointment contravened the trust which had been set up to guarantee the paper’s political independence. Mr Inglis was editor till February 1962 when Mr Hamilton was invited to succeed him.
Mr Gilmour expressed the view that the trustees had nothing to do with the matter because “they come into existence only when a controlling shareholding interest is sold”. This raised another interesting point. Two of the three former trustees who had approved the sale of the paper to him in 1954 said that they would have vetoed it if they knew that Mr Gilmour would become a Member of Parliament and appoint Mr Macleod as editor.
Under a clause of the company’s articles of association no one can hold more than 49 per cent of the voting shares unless he is approved as a “proper person” by a committee of the trustees. The committee is required to have regard to “the importance of(a) maintaining the best traditions and political independence of The Spectator and national rather than personal interests, and (b) eliminating as far as reasonably possible questions of personal or commercial profit.” In view of Mr Macleod’s ambition to be Prime Minister one day, the relevance of the clause is obvious.
The Issue
There is a difference of opinion between the trustees who approved the sale to Mr Gilmour as to whether he had explicitly disavowed political ambitions. Two of them said he had done so and the third that he had not. That apart the wider issue remains. It was ably stated in a letter to the editor The Times carried last Saturday. It said: “Newspapers and periodicals are in a sense also public property, and their conduct, both internal and external, is a matter of close concern to our society …, it is for this reason, for example, that several journals are governed by deeds of trust to protect them (at least that is the intention) against the vagaries of capricious proprietors …. newspaper ownership is a public responsibility which, if the press is to retain the confidence and support of the public, must be seen to be decently discharged. The circumstance in which an editor is sacked or a paper committed to a certain line of policy is more than a private affair”.
Though he himself had an experience which he described as “not wholly dissimilar”, the writer said he doubted whether in the whole history of Fleet Street a proprietor had behaved to an editor the way Mr Gilmour had to Mr Hamilton. This may well be so in that in this case the dismissal of the editor is not the result of differences over policy. But there is another aspect of the matter. Only recently the editor of a Sunday paper here had to resign because the proprietor had suddenly decided to support Mr Macmillan’s decision to stay in office. The swiftness with which even contributors to the chain, some of whom had so far played a leading role in the campaign to force Mr Macmillan’s resignation, fell in line was truly breathtaking. Last month most of the leading papers made a spectacle of themselves when after a bout of the most virulent opposition to the selection of Lord Home as Mr Macmillan’s successor, they began to discover hitherto unknown virtues in him within a day or two of his appointment as Prime Minister.
The popular press m this country has come in for a great deal of criticism from time to time. Earlier this year it cut a poor figure indeed when the Radcliffe tribunal established that many of the reports in connection with the Vassall espionage case were plain fabrications. The interest in crime and sex and its frequent use of the cheque book are too well known to need mention. What appalls one even more is that in most of these papers, reporting of political events both at home and abroad are unashamedly distorted. Invariably prejudice has the supremacy over facts to a degree that the readers of at least English language papers in India cannot even imagine.
This kind of journalism across the Atlantic has already contributed to the growth of conformity to a level that is truly frightening. The British public is exposed to similar hazards. For instance, it is interesting that to the best of my knowledge not a single national daily or weekly or Sunday paper felt interested in expressing an editorial opinion on the manner in which the Pakistan Government recently manufactured a crisis over Chaknot village on our side of the cease-fire line in Kashmir. It would have been a different story if the roles were reversed.
An Illustration
The controversy over TSR-2 provides an illustration of how developments at home are treated. The Aviation Minister made the fantastic statement that the Australian Government did not buy this aircraft because it was afraid that the Labour party with its anti-independent nuclear deterrent policy might be returned to power. It is commonsense that since Australia does not and will not possess nuclear weapons in the foreseeable future, it cannot possibly be interested in a nuclear delivery vehicle. What Australia needs is a replacement for the Canberra which is on its way out. Only the Economist made these points. Not one paper took exception to the Minister’s statement.
Personally I find it difficult to see how papers with open sympathy for a particular political party can be impartial in the judgment of major issues. If the Conservative press was critical of Mr Macmillan last summer it was because he was believed to have become a liability to the Conservative party. The loss of status of the editor and consequently of all commentators is inevitable in papers committed to the support of a political party. The case of The Spectator is the logical result. It has attracted attention because the manner has been flagrant and the journal has enjoyed a measure of reputation for independence.
The Times of India, 9 November 1963