The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 10

Tuesday Jdne 27; 1978 A matter of blame and desperation only in February) that as'a'i)usy writer and journalist he could no longer give; NAFF the necessary He presently occik pies a lavish weekly slot In the Daily. TeleV graph. And Guriet is goingjtop: reasons remain mysterious. Her must have his reasons," the chairman of the NAFF, council commented helpfully. No doubt NAFF will survive.

Whether. it'' will survive in anything like the put it repeatedly in the headlines a year ago is, however, another matter. In the consti--. tuencies, clearly, life goes ion. North-west London bfanch'heM a jumble sale Oh June 10 which raised 108.25, and is urgently seeking further, surplus jumble.

This. very night at Benifileet there is a meeting which is due to be addressed by Mr John Biggs-Davison, MP. The next issue of the Association's newspaper. Free Nation, is, to contain an article by' Professor Milton Friedman on California's. Proposition .13.

But the liberal end of the. Conservative Party is noticeably less twitchy about NAFF than it was a year ago. It is a familiar story. Back in the sixties there was a People's League for the Defence of Freedom which ran a Free Press Society (publishing, though not for long, a daily, paper dedicated to the avoidance of the sala cious and trivial) which set up postal services when the state's were out of order andT which took people to work in freedom buses" when the ordinary buses were on strike. It flourished briefly, made its crop of headlines, and then withered away the victim as much, as anything of those leadership wrangles which so often affect fringe politics, both.oiv the Left and the Right (and which, if we are' to believe one chatty Malmesbury member, have now riven the National Association too) Lord de l'lsle continues as chairman and Mr' Brian Crozier, Mr Russell Lewis (the author of a truly dreadful biography of Mr Thatcher) and Mr Norris McWhirter continue to form the Editorial Board.

But do they matter very much It begins to look, a year after that epic re-creation of Entebbe in Wil-. lesden, as though perhaps 'they don't. 1, much to lose." But longer they deJay' Jn convening the 'rHUvd table the less chance they iwill have 'lu their moderate policies to the.yote of the Norman and the Colossus If Mrs Thatcher seriously wants to lead a party of the combative Right, she should, as some in that area of the. Party are urging; replace her present Shadow Secretary for Education, Mr Norman St John Stevas, with Dr Rhodes Boyson. The popuilist doctor, of course, denies any suggestion that he is extremist.

But then it is as important for radicals in jhe Conservative Party to pretend to be in the centre as it is for conservatives in the Labour Party Peter Shore for example to pretend to be radical. Hence Dr Boyson's choice of title for his latest book Centre Forward." Yet forty years after Balfour tried to raise the school leading age to 15 and 30 years after Butler wanted to put it up to 16, Dr Boyson seeks to return it to 14. In. the last two years, however, it has probably not hurt the Conservative Party to have one education spokesman, the good doctor, pandering to popular prejudices about comprehensive schools, selection and student grants and another, more senior spokesman. Mr Stevas, reassuring the educational lobby that the ideas of the Colossus will never be made Tory policy.

But clearly the nearer a party gets to an election, the less able it is to speak with two voices. There have been recent signs that Dr Boyson was reining himself in. In the controversy over Kent's decision to experiment with education vouchers, for example, he spoke with less enthusiasm than might have been expected. Would Mrs Thatcher be right to make the switch Not if she is interested in her Party and her chances of winning the next election. Let her remember some of 1M tfatijtions that Dr.

Boyson, as an editor 0'Bcapers, has-put forward: no" more nursery. vschools successful as well as teachers in primary 'closure of universities' where free speech (feyr policies could have done more to increase the power of the Far Left). Let her also remember her own days at the DES wheti she raised the school, leaving age to 16. If she. remains imconvihced about these argument? let her think of her own Party.

Only this week in NUT's journal, The Teacher, the new Conservative chairman of the main edu- 1 cation committee for local, authorities can be found about being shut out of his party's policy-making machinery. He is not alone. To make Dr Boyson a Shadow Minister in such a structure is court a public revolt: Finally, let the Conservative Leader look at the last local election returns. -In jio areas were Dr Boyson's ideas about comprehensive education 'pushed more ardently by Conservatives than in Tameside arid Kirklees. The two areas where Conservatives returned the poorest result in the last local elections were (no surprise, surprise) Tameside -and Kirklees.

1 Fighting over Freedom A year ago the National Association for Freedom appeared to be at the height of its powers. Through its co-director, John Gour-iet, it was deeply involved with the successful anti-union action at Grunwick. Last July, a NAFF-inspired operation succeeded in smuggling out the entire backlog of processed film from the beleaguered factory. Giving the first news of this escapade, its other co-director, Robert Moss, said one NAFF activist had described it as the best thing of its kind since Entebbe. But where are they now Mr Moss left last October (though the news seeped out happen simply by recognition from Whitehall.

We have fakei the chawtaible view, for which we are occasionally berated, that the terms of' settiement reasdniable, given the size of the white interest in Rhodesia's economy and the vital place that economy could enjoy in central Africa once the settlement had been shown to stick. But it is clear that' the settlement does not enjoy public confidence. Both the Bishop, and the Rev. Sithole have promised to call off the guerrilla war and have-failed to-do so. Without doubt the failure of their efforts can be partly ascribed to intimidation, which is horrible and rife.

But intimidation, never works against the better judgment of an entire people, and those who do the intimidating, when that is found necessary, the sons and daughters of the village who have joined the Patriotic Front in their thousands. For the most part they do not need to intimidate because they are the natural leaders. Hence however misguided the continued liberation movement may seem in Britain it has roots deep in every tribal trust land. For the British Government to imagine it could pit itself against such a nationalist force would be to forget all previous colonial experience-Thus, it is the credibility of Mr Smith's intentions that is at stake, not, the judgment of Dr Owen. Given that Mr Smith has promised an African government by the end of the year, and that this promise will be put to the test inthe next few months, the suspicions may be thought irrational.

But they are genuinely held, and the series of non-events that has so far flowed from the March 3 agreement has been taken to confirm them. The last tune the Patriotic Front could be eliminated from the argument was years ago, before it was formed. That was the time to encourage moderate clergymen, but the only encouragement then offered by the present-day Rhodesia lobby was to Mr Smith in his short-sighted obduracy. Now the task is not to convince Mr Smith of the need to negotiate with the Patriotic Front, but to convince the Bishop and the reverend. They may have It is right to express more than ordinary revulsion when twelve victims of a particularly savage massacre are missionaries and their families, there for the good of the people.

It is right also to recall that six weeks ago 50 Ehodesian villagers by the official tally (94 by others) were inexplicably killed by the security forces in pursuit of one or more guerrillas and that no demands were made, as they were made from Conservative benches in the. Commons yesterday, for a commission of inquiry into the tragedy. This is not to suggest selectivity of protest it is to suggest that Conservative benches, and newspapers, are more aware of British limitations at. some times than at others. To imply, as did Mr John Davies and some who followed him, that the present death rate of 20 a day is in some way connected with the British Government's unwillingness to embrace the internal settlement betrays a misunderstanding of what the fighting is about.

The interim government now in office, though not in power, has been short-changed by the predominantly white administration. For Britain to accept the settlement, without further proof, as satisfactory to the people as a whole would not speed up the transfer of power. By all the precedents the process would be retarded. Bishop Muzorewa thought he was being given an opportunity to show that he could achieve by peaceful methods all that the Patriotic Front was trying to achieve by war. Perhaps, given time, he may still do so if the whites put their hearts as well as their words into the settlement But that has not happened yet and it could not be made to Her Majesty's secret service It is ten years since the Fulton Report on the Civil Service.

Few reforms have been effective and open government is still a topic for parliamentary debate. RICHARD NORTON-TAYLOR reports. vant's still rely on the -tradj--tional convention that they' are merely responsible to ministers, even though the Fulton report pointed out in June 1968 that the assumption that ministers control civil servants and that they have full detailed knowledge of all the activities of Ms or her department is no longer tenable." "The Whitehall system," Mr John Garrett, an adviser to the Fulton team and now Labour. MP for Norwich South, told Lord Peart, Lord. Privy Seal and minister re." sponsible for the Civil Service, at an expenditure committee hearing in perpetuates a mandarin class turning Oxbridge historians into crowi princes." The Northcliffe-Trevelyan Civil Service reforms, which' led to the principle of.

appointment on merit, rather than as a result of nepotism were published in 1854, but finally implemented only in 1909. Most observers say it. will take a generation before the latest proposals for reform are accepted. But, above, all, the reforms rely oncon. timial pressure from politicians, i "WE THINK that the administrative process is surrounded by too much secrecy.

The public interest would be better served if there were a greater amount of openness. The increasingly wide range of problems handled by government, and their far-reaching effects upon the community as a whole, demand the widest possible consultation. Such consultation is not only necessary in itself but will also improve the quality of the ultimate decisions and 1 increase the general understanding of their purpose." That is a quote from the Fulton Report on how to reform the Civil Service, published exactly 10 years ago and enthusiastically welcomed ihen by the Prime Minister. Harold Wilson, and by the Tory opposition led by Edward Heath. The Fulton Report suggested that the Government should set up an Inquiry to make recommendations "for getting rid of unnecessary secrecy in this country." The Official Secrets Act.

it said, should be included in the review. It also called for a Civil Service of professionals of specialists getting away from the domination by Oxbridge and cent of those during the first period, and 56 per cent between 1975 and 1977. The committee, like Fulton many years before, criticised the undue emphasis on interviews rather than on written examinations and noted, like Fulton, that the majority of the Final Selection Board was composed of civil servants rather than outsiders. Fulton called for a more open, unified grading structure in Whitehall unified grading has been introduced, but only for the top one thousand posts in the 750,000 strong Civil Service, covering the three most senior ranks of under-secretary and above. The technicians can now move more easily into the, senior specialist (scientific or engineering) grades the number of specialists getting top jobs has risen to only 41 per cent in 1978, from 38 per cent in 1970.

Fulton also callc-1 for a substantial increase in the number of accountants in the Civil Service but the number has risen from 309 in 1968 to just 367 ten years later. Fulton also urged a greater degree of movement in and out cf Whitehall so that civil servants could gain more ex public school educated arts graduates the philosophy of the amateur was a cult, it added, which was obsolete at all levels and in all parts of the Service." One or two initiatives were taken, but little has changed and most attempts to reform the Whitehall machine were nipped in the bud. Wilson lost interest as early as 1969 when his political adviser most interested in the issues, Michael Hall, suddenly died. The Tories were returned to office in 1970 and Sir William Armstrong (now Lord Armstrong chairman of Midland Bank) as head of the Civil Service blocked most of the proposals put up by the Fulton team. Many of the recommendations put forward by the Commons Expenditure Committee last year were repeats of what Fulfon had suggested.

The Government's reply to those, published in a white paper reflecting Mr Callaghan's conservatism on such matters, last March sidestepped so many of the issues raised that the committee, in a highly unusual initiative, is about to publish a counter-blast. And of course, proposals for minimal reform of the Official Secrets called for a more higlu powered training establish' ment for selected high Fulton called for more late entrants into. Whitehall but in 1976 there were just 15 coming into the top grades. Civil Service unions strongly resist this just as they have resisted greater mobility in Whitehall for fear of losing members to another union representing different grades. The effect of Fulton has not been altogether lost in the system.

There is more open cDmpetition between young graduate entrants and long serving middle grade officials. Whether of not it has been acted upon, the concept of efficient -management does hover around Whitehall com-, dors. Well-defined management objectives have been applied, though only to junior ranks and well down the system such as local Department of Health and Social Security offices. Put the sum of, the evidence points to an overwhelming resistance to change among the higher ranks in Whitehall and the failure of Westminster to pursue the problems over the past decade. Senior civil ser Why a Kent group LETTERS TO THE EDITOR The old bear the brunt of the cuts opposes a motorway unit plan i i t.

Civil Service patronage. The Fulton Report wanted an end to the dominance of the Treasury in Whitehall. As a result, the Civil Service Department was set up to take over responsibility for management and personnel issues. Yet it has turned out -to be a weak institution. Whenever it undertakes a management review of Whitehall departments, the individual in charge of the review is the permanent secretary of trie very department that is being inspected.

Treasury mandarins, too, persistently argue that it is impossible to set up identifiable accountable units in Whitehall because of the complex interrelationships between different departments. The Commons expenditure committee noted last year that the bias in recruitment continued to favour not only arts graduates from Oxbridge, but also individuals educated at public schools. Between 1966 and 1968 Oxbridge graduates accounted for 62 per cent of new recruits to the top, administrative, grades of the Civil Service between 1975 and 1977 the proportion was 63 per cent. Arts graduates accounted for 59 per The Home Help service is probably the most crucial and valuable domiciliary service provided by local authorities, yet-in. 1976.

white the number of old people helped by home helps nationally was 37,800 greater than 12 months previously, the number of home helps as a whole-time equivalent was 353 fewer. If fewer home helps are serving more client's the obvious conclusion to draw is that the service to the individual client must suffer and our contact with pensioners confirms this. Task Force wholeheartedly and actively supports the move towards community care and community responsibility for the ever-increasing elderly population and we also support movements towards greater self-help and self-determination for the elderly, who have suffered too much in the past from being forced Book stand Sir, Contrary to the Guardian Diary story (' Book ends," June 23), there is no dissent among National Book League members, though we have received one letter opposing Mr Hornby's appointment from an author who I understand has previously criticised aspects of W. H. Smith's stockholding policy.

Mr Hornby was unanimously elected as Chairman in April 1978 after two years as Deputy Chairman. The post of ehaiiiman is an honorary one and it. is the National Book League which has been "lucky" in having had as chairman over the years a number of distinguished publishers, booksellers and authors prepared to work very hard for the company entirely without payment. Yours faithfully, Stanley Jackson. Deputy Director National Book League, 7 AJuemarlo Street, London 1.

Education Guardian letters, page 13 perience of industry and other walks of life, and vice versa. The career structure, money, and commercial confidentiality have proved major obstacles. In 1968, twelve civil servants were seconded to industry in 1975 the number totalled 25. So far one single Whitehall civil servant has been seconded to the trade unions, and he lasted just two weeks. Fulton said there was too little contact between the Civil Service and the rest of the community.

His report also said that Whitehall managers should look at the job first," then select a candidate for it. But seniority, on the basis of age and length of service, remains still the overwhelming criterion for top posts and senior officials stay in their posts on average no more than 2J years. The Civil Service College was set up as a result of but both MPs and civil servants agree that it has proved to be little more than a minor university." Its courses are widely criticised, even in Whitehall, as being too vague and too haphazard, and the Commons Expenditure Committee has now Gladstone: a man of stern resolve Sir, Your distinguished reviewer of Volumes iV and VI of Gladstone's diaries, Dr John Vincent (June 22), comes very close in his last paragraph to charging Gladstone with hypocrisy. It was an accusation frequently made about both his public and private life during his long political career. Mrs Gladstone, in common with many other politicians' wives, such as Mr David Lloyd George, found London society irksome and preferred to live in the country.

Ambitious men who work long hours at the Treasury and attend parliamentary debates until the early hours of the morning do not make perfect husbands. Mrs Gladstone was often in ill-health, absent from her husband, and mid-Victorian convention discouraged sexual intercourse between man and wife during the months of pregnancy. 'So here we have a man of phenomenal physical energy, devoted to his wife, working long hours, and striving to conduct his life according to the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount. Fifty years later, a less inflexible Lloyd George solved his problems by taking mistresses. He was called the Boat." Gladstone repressed his sexual desires, and was called Old Gla-deye." I believe that in his review of the diaries, Dr Vincent, from' whose books I have derived much insight into mid-Victorian politics, is guilty of a lack of compassion towards the greatest man who has ever become a British Prime Minister.

Yours sincerely, Alan E. Williams. 13 Alty's Lane. Ormskirk, Lancashire, Footnote Sir, Following your headline "Foot hits back (June 22), can we expect to read, on the said gentleman's appointment as Secretary of State for Defence, "Foot heads arms body Yours faithfully, David C. Allan.

Dalkeith Road, Edinburgh. Act have only recently been drafted and are due to be published at the tail end of the current parliamentary session. The Commons Procedure Committee, too, is expected shortly to come up with proposals, notably the strengthening of specialist investigative parliamentary bodies, to make Whitehall more accountable, as Fulton had urged. Significantly, Enoch Powell, a parliamentary traditionalist, is now known to have come round in support of this. The Fulton Report which many politicians regarded then and still do regard as epoeh-making noted that the most senior of the Commons specialist bodies, the Public Accounts Committee, should not escape criticism for inducing a play-safe and negative attitude among civil servants.

The embarrassment with which the committee recently ticked off Sir Robert Cox, Cfhief executive of the Government's Property Services Agency, for giving it inaccurate information, is a case in point. The post of Comptroller and Auditor General, on which the PAC relies for help, remains under- are closed down in order to decrease overall staffing levels and centralise resources. But cuts in staffing go hand in hand with lower standards of care, and centralisation operates particularly unfairly against the elderly, who as a group are among the most frequent hospital users Social service spending has also been badly hit by the cuts. Although on paper, budgets may be higher than last year's, in reality the increase is swallowed up by inflation, and by the spiralling costs of residential care to which councils are already committed. Estimates by the Society of County Treasurers shows that while net expenditure on local authority residential care for the elderly in one London borough rose by about 30 per cent in 1976-77.

the number of elderly persons in that type of care actually fell by about 1 1 per cent. Party. Who is Graeham Blainey kidding The Christian League of Southern Africa is 1he usual dreary mixture of out-dated theology plus fascist politics. It is the champion cf white Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa. Politics is very much its focus.

Yours sincerely, (Rev.) David Mason (Prospective parliamentary Labour candidate for Reading North). London W4. sex barriers ments and conditions set down and if these are not fulfilled then the award will not be valid. In most facets of life there is usually a portion of any activity which we do not like but having tackled it we are seldom the worse for doing so. and very often we are the better.

I wish her well. (Mrs) Edith MUIward, (Member, National Advisory Committee for the Duke of Edinburgh's Award). Pendlebury Hall, Stockport, Cheshire, Sir, Task Force is a voluntary organisation working with old age pensioners in 12 London boroughs. We are becoming increasingly disturbed by the far reaching and continuing cuts in spending on welfare services and in particular, through our everyday work, we are extremely aware of the effects of these cuts on the elderly, who seem to have suffered more than any other section of the public from cuts in the National Health Service. According to Department of Health statistics between I960 and 1974.

32,000 hospital beds were lo'-t and 121 hospitals closed. The cuts inevitably hit hardest in what are, from the medical profession's point of view, the less popular fields, such as geriatrics. Cuts are very often made under the guise of rationalisation small local hospitals Sir. You were kind enough to carry reports of the fight to save Samuel Palmer's Shoreham Valley from destruction by the M25 link proposed between Swaniey and Sevenoaks. We oppose it out of the deep conviction that, it will: ruin an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty enjoyed every year by thousands of Londoners for the same gentle and intimate charm it possessed for Palmer and his friends; destroy over 200 acres of good farmland and forest of unspoilt rural character only 20 miles from London; and at the end of the day be unnecessary, because an alternative the M20M26 will be completed about the same time as the M25 link is proposed to start.

We are now going into a new crucial stage; a public inquiry is 'expected to be announced soon. The cost of Arms the manual Sir, There is simple solution to concern about the of army manuals surely a the current public sale containing the manu- and booby- invoke the information about facture of bombs traps. Rather than laws of copyright or incite- Gold shoulder for consultants? Sir, You report (June 23) that 70 per cent of hospital consultants and senior registrars voted on the proposed consultant contracts. But 70 per cent of what As an NHS consultant in a postgraduate teaching hospital I received no ballot paper, nor did at least one of my senior registrar colleagues." If this could happen in a small but important hospital in London one is tempted 1o ask about the origins of the electoral roll and how many other omissions there were, not just in my own hospital but throughout the country. Had true lists of consultants and senior registrars based on data from the chief administrator of each hospital been used, one would like to hope that such a situation would not have arisen.

I am now told that various colleagues were asked by the organisers of the ballot whether they knew of others who had not received voting slips, and that the voting deadline was delayed because of this. Such an approach hardly seems appropriate to a measure which threatens to compromise one of the important bases of the National Health Service, and I would contend that on this point alone the results are of little meaning or value. Yours faithfully. Dafydd Stephens. 9 Bramfield Road.

Datchworth Green, Herts. Focal point for a Christian league so strongly ft making a case at this inquiry will be extremely heavy. More than 2.000 has been raised by the local group of which-we are sponsors. A great deal more will be needed and we hope that much support will come from people outside the valley who are lovers of-Samuel Palmer's vork or the valley which inspired it. on.

both. We believe that i. is important that a full examination should be made of the alternatives to the official case; and we very much hopa that those who share our con- cern for the environment will turn their sympathy into financial support. Lord David Cecil, Milner Gray, Geoffrey Grigson, Rowland Hilder, Raymond Lister, Spike Milligan Leslie Virgo Darenth and North Downs" Action Group, Pettis Wood, Kent, problem ment to crime, what abeut the- Obscene Publications which makes illegal any mat- erial tending to deprave or corrupt those into whosev hands it is likely to fall Arthur Freeman, London 1. arnica, the big long-stemmed composite which the Danes call the Golden Flower.

song thrush was singing, the'' only one that we have as yet-' come across, for, like the robin, it is a bird of lonely wooded places and seldonr comes into gardens. The tiny while church stands upon a. kno'H overlooking the lake in, a churchyard more fully maintained than any that we have seen even in this, tidy country. The grave-plots, are bordered by 2ft high conr ifer hedges so carefully, clipped that they look little green walls, and every gravel or sandy path is raked' into patterns so that one felt that one's very footsteps were an intrusion. Weeds cf 'any kind, of course, do not exist' there.

L. r. SAMUELS into the role of passive recipients of services. A great deal of the work we are cur-rently involved in is towards these ends. However, the work which can be done is limited by the resources available.

And these are-less and less forthcoming. Rather than expanding to meet increased demand, munity care (which is, incidentally, an extremely cost effective means of caring for people) is being cut. In the case of Task Foirce, shortfalls in local authority grants, on whi we depend, have already begun to cause cuts and redundancies in soma areas, and threaten to cause even more. The losers every time are the pensioners, which means all of us, sooner or later. Valerie Coleman.

Executive Director. Task Force, London 10. Out of court Sir, C. J. Jordan (Letters, June 24) subscribes to the an eye for an, eye school of thought in dealing with terrorism.

So to keep the free world free from terror, it is all right to terrorise terrorists It is laudable, of couse, for a German snatch squad to rush to a Bulgarian seaside resort and kidnap suspected terrorists in a foreign country. So much simpler than resorting to the courts, a lengthy and laborious approach compared with the dashing exploits of the new, professionals." May we soon expect similar exciting goings on with Scotland Yard's officers descending on the escaped train robber on Copacabana beach while Brazilian police turn a blind eye There' used to be a ritual outcry rightly so, too whenever seemingly reluctant Russians were taken by consular officers to Heathrow airport. Times have changed, Yours faithfully, W. P. Jaspcrt, 93a Belsize Lane, London NW 3.

A COUNTRY DIARY How an award scheme broke down the Sir. Can Graeham Blainey (Letters, June 22) give us the names of the prominent members of the Christian League of Southern Africa who are completely opposed to the South African Government's policies While he is about it, dare 1 suggest that if any Labour Party supporters joined his march on November 26, I doubt if they were paid-up members of the Labour Party and I bet that they were not prominent in the Labour since young men and young women, over 16 years, were free to choose from either section for the Gold Award. Two years the same option wa.s given on an experimental basis to boys and girls at bronze and silver. Even if the above did not apply, there are 42 interests programmes under the heading of "Sports and Games" which have always been open to both sexes My other observations for Fiona's consideration are that if she is working for any award there will be require NORTH JUTLAND The long shallow lake, indented on all sides by little bays where birds can shelter, is bordered on one side by low heather-clad hills sloping down to thickets of sweetgale and on the other by conifer woods which come, in places, right down to the water. A pair of red-necked grebes, spectacularly lovely birds with their white cheeks and black ear-tufts, were swimming there, never far apart from each other.

Dragonflics were everywhere, from brilliant blue damsel-flies and their sober brown mates to flat-bodied libellulae and huge long-winged brachytrons. Through the binoculars we could see the latter cruising in scores round the swimming grebes. Under the trees, may-lilies, and the delicately flowered trientale were in bloom with Sir, Fiona Radford (Letters. June 19) has unfortunately not been given up to date information about the conditions and requirements of the Duke of Edinburgh's Award scheme. The to which she refers are Physical Activity and Design for Living, from.

either of which participants must choose a programme (syllabus). Unitil two years ago a bronze level (14 years a.nd over) and silver level (15 ears and over) Physical was confined to boys, and Deign for Living confined to Uii'ls. It is nearly ten years.