Trollope, Not Tide
BETTER EDUCATION, NEW INDUSTRIES.
BETTER TRANSPORT. That promise, in five columns of type across newspaper pages, was made last week by the Conservative Party, launching its first advertising campaign since its You-Never-Had-It-So-Good series in 1959. The Tories' new theme: "Britain is modernizing NOW--and only the Conservatives have got what it takes to see the job through."
Though the government has yet to set a date for the election, the costly manifesto suggested that Prime Minister Macmillan intends to go to the people sooner rather than later--perhaps in the fall. Next day the Opposition burst into print with its own long-planned ad campaign featuring a new symbol, a well-knuckled Thumbs Up--the toiler's equivalent of the Tory V-for-Victory gesture--and the slogan: LET'S GO WITH LABOR. The Laborites devoted half of their first bold spread to a picture of Party Leader Harold Wilson--for once without a pipe--and used the rest of the space to explain the "changes the new Labor government intends to make." They ranged from a shake-up in industry ("too many directors sitting in board rooms because of their family background") to an expanded scientific program to "prevent our best brains from taking jobs abroad."
If there was nothing startlingly new in Labor's promises--or, for that matter, in the Tories' copy--many Britons were astonished that the socialists had taken any advertising at all. After the 1959 election campaign, Laborites thundered that the Tories' ad agency had used "Madison Avenue methods" to "sell Macmillan like a detergent."
When he projects his own image, Harold Macmillan sounds more like Trollope than Tide. In an interview with Publisher Jocelyn Stevens in last week's issue of Queen magazine, the Prime Minister indulged in some mellow ruminations that could never have been cued by an adman:
On Power. I never had any feeling about becoming Prime Minister. I took things as they came and still do. Power is like a Dead Sea fruit. When you achieve it, there's nothing there. The art of government is mixing the thinkers and doers.
On Himself. Yes I am sensitive to criticism. One has to be. There are moments when I loathe everybody, and then I retire and read Gibbon for a few hours . . .
I am a Highlander. That's why I'm so pale. It's true I get a bit tired, but I soon pop up again.
On His Wardrobe. My clothes Edwardian? I thought that cardigans were rather smart at the moment. I always wear the same suit. When it wears out, I tell my tailors to send me another around.
On Likes & Dislikes. What do I dislike?
Questions in the House of Commons; I can't bear them. What else? Things that have no purpose--formalities--like the function I'm going to this evening. What I really like to do is go