Frank Johnson's campaign trail

Fighting on the beach for the sake of TV

Mrs Thatcher took her campaign down to Dover beach yesterday.

It will be recalled that, in his poem called by the very name, “Dover Beach” , Matthew Arnold heard “the melancholy, long withdrawing roar” . It was a metaphor for the decline of religion. Did Mrs Thatcher hear it amid the excitement occasioned by her arrival yesterday? If so it was a metaphor for the rival television camera crews kicking each other in the private parts or disembowelling one another with their vicious-looking sound equipment.

In the eyes of the politicians and their aides, these brutes are the most hated and most indispensable people in any modern campaign, even more so than the other parties. They form a heaving, cursing, Dantésque circle around the politician as he or she emerges from the vehicle that has deposited him or her in the marginal constituency in question.

Marginal old ladies are thrust further to the margin. The terrifying entity made up of the cameramen and their hideous equipment begins to move slowly down the street with the politician inside it and smiling maniacally at the voters glimpsed outside.

Those crews which have missed a good shot of the Prime Minister cuddling a lobster, swinging from a chandelier, or whatever, plead with her public relation staff for her to do it again.

But this is not always possible. Whereupon, the television men wail and gnash their teeth as is the eternal fate of the accursed. Harsh words are spoken between them and the prime ministerial entourage.

Later, in the relative calm of the pub or Conservative club in which we are all being victualled, the harsh words are forgotten. Diplomatically, the prime ministerial functionaries, knowing the dreadful importance of home television, diplomatically blame the bad behaviour on the foreign crews.

It is generally agreed that it was all the fault of, say, any Scandinavians who might have been around, even though we all know they are gentler and less overwhelmingly manned than their British colleagues, and speak better English.

Either that, or agreed blame for all the pushing and shoving is directed at the Japanese, whose equipment and cameramen are half the size of the British. Honour is saved all round. All this adds to the general hilarity of being on the campaign trail.

On Dover beach, Mrs Thatcher glared defiance across at Socialist-occupied France. But earlier she took to the Walmer lifeboat, thus showing her first sign of doubt as to the result on June 9.

The lifeboat, we were informed, had saved more than 100 lives. It was now about to save a redrawn, marginal seat. Mrs Thatcher, having put on an orange nautical jacket, climbed up some steps and got into the vessel.

She laughed all the time. For the Thatcher campaign, apart from being immensely well-organized and so far triumphant, has about it a surprisingly joyous quality.

The vessel was poised on the slipway, and presumably capable of causing an international incident by being launched, armed with a monetarist Prime Minister, in the direction of French socialism. Mercifully, the vessel remained on the beach throughout her visit.

It was instructive to see the sort of people Mrs Thatcher would choose to share a lifeboat with her. Besides two lifeboatman, Mr Michael Spicer, the vice-chairman of the Conservative Party, had won a place which may have been a bad sign for Mr Cecil Parkinson, the chairman, who was back in London.

Then there was Mr Peter Rees, who is the plumply benign, very un-nautical-looking Minister for Trade. He secured a place in the boat for humanitarian reasons, being the candidate in the marginal seat. Then of course there was Mr Denis Thatcher.

For once, he did not want anyone to push the boat out. He engaged the lifeboatmen in vigorous conversation. One of them pointed to the horizon, Mr Thatcher looked rapt. The effect was reminiscent of The Boyhood of Denis.

Finally their was the daughter, Miss Carol Thatcher, so that the line could be continued. The Prime Minister stood in profile at the prow like a magnificent carving in a naval museum. Then, in response to the imploring cries of the cameramen behind she moved to the other end of the boat to adopt for their benefit the stern approach.