Notes from the Top

The slings and arrows of Britain's Angry Young Men are oft directed at the Establishment, a currently fashionable name for that power elite of England's Top People who went to school and church together and now read the Times, rather offhandedly run the country, and--most important--mysteriously "keep in touch." Tongue in cheek, London's Queen Magazine last week published its own Establishment Chronicle, on the ground that things had changed since the simple old days of the Old Boy Network, whose members were quiet, not flashy, unruffled, unobtrusively powerful, never admitted mistakes, never resigned.

In chatty, alumni-bulletin fashion, the Establishment Chronicle noted: "We have lost touch with the following old boys: A. Eden, G. Burgess, D. Maclean, O. Mosley," and offered condolences to Number 96453. "Betjeman, J. Our great friend, this poet has aspired to write esoteric verse. Unfortunately his work has now received general acclaim . . ." Current members in good standing include Lord Mountbatten, Evelyn Waugh. Sir Gladwyn Jebb, T. S. Eliot, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and Colonial Secretary Alan Lennox-Boyd, but not Labor Party Leader Hugh Gaitskell (though he is an Oxford man); Press Lords Kemsley and Astor, but not Beaverbrook (no college). In its correspondence columns the Establishment Chronicle approvingly published the letter of an M.P. aspiring to membership in the Establishment: "Sir, I am the brother of a Lord, I have married an Honourable ... I shoot and fish well. I have a booming voice and am very tall. I was a very good soldier. I am pro-hanging. I hate Nasser. I love the Prime Minister."

But the bulk of the Chronicle was given over to the governing board's revised rules, since the editors had detected "a certain degree of confusion" among members over Establishment standards, i.e., Sir David "Eccles wearing those fearful shiny shoes, Churchill Minor [Randolph] going on too much." Among the Establishment rules

P:No one must be allowed to achieve a position of real importance unless he is a member.

P:There is nothing which cannot be fixed over three large whiskies, a chukker of polo or a rubber of bridge.

P:Power may be discreetly misused for the following purposes:

a) to cover up mistakes

b) to provide for one's family

c) to preserve law and order

d) to keep Selwyn Lloyd in office.

P:Members must on no account lead scandalous lives until they are in such a position that the newspapers dare not reveal the facts.

P:Churchill Major is not a member, but must be treated as if he were.

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