the morning of June 19th.—the day after grinning Ted and his motley crew had made their election coup-I was outside the Stock Exchange at 9.00 a.m. The surrounding streets, which normally do not hot up until well passed 10 a.m. were choc-a-bloc with hysterical pin-stripe suits, beserk bowler hats and, despite the early morning sun, jubilant brolleys every where being flourished at arms length. The whole place was ten times more beserk than when there is a change in the bank-rate, and that's saying something.
Unfortunately, the visitors gallery in the temporary Stock Exchange building was brimming over with eager investors so it was impossible to actually see what went on inside when trading began at ten o'clock, but just hanging around outside, listening to the conversations of the huddled groups of ecstatic jobbers and ebullient brokers, it was not difficult to get the general impression. share market value.
A particular feature of the Markets was the leap in shares of Hotel and service industries (from Trust Houses to Rank Organisation) spectacular advances in oils, and huge leaps in the property sector, which reactions were probably not unrelated to the Conservative's attitude to Selective Employment Tax, their as regards Rhodesia, and widespread belief that Capital Gains Tax, the bug-bear of property developers, will be subject to revision.
One thing is certain: the City had not been expecting a Tory win. In the days before the election, the Index had dwindled downwards, further depressed b the withdrawal of really ng money to the sidelines, until the result was known. The Evening Standard Poll, election day, brought things flickering to life, but the bears were out during the week before the election, selling for all they were worth Stock which they had not back after a Labour victory at a very hoping that they could buy much reduced price.
They were probably the only in the City who got their fingers badly burned by the result.
Of course, this feverish trading was a case of over-reaction, and the very next day the F.T. Index slipped back again -it will probably level out at around 340 for the time being because even the City cannot expect a Tory Government to wave the magic wand, and everything right in Wall Street of whose markets the English Stock Exchange IS usually little more than a mirror.
Why does the City jump for joy at the thought of Tory government? The broad answer is simple. It knows that in "Heath's team," it has a body of men and women whose aims and ambitions are not incompatible with its own. If there is any real difference between the Labour and Conservative Government, it is in their a ison was financial Capital, and was notoriously relectant to admit his debt to the City, not only playing down the contributions of "Invisibles" to the export figues, but, on at least two occasions, castigating the bankers, openly and publicly for their refusal to (A Paisley Election Meeting, Ballycastle, North Antrim.) "Let us begin this election service with a song. 'Oh God, our help in ages past.. thus Paisley, booming, started his election speech. His arrival had been preceded by that of two drummers with huge Lambeg drums, one of them with a gaudy portrait of the Doctor himself, and the motto "Our Defender," inscribed on the front. The drummers began a slow, thundering beat which resounded through the whole town and drew the population to the green on the sea-front where the meeting was to be held. After a while a convoy of about 50 supporters arrived, led by a battered van with accordion band, driven Paisley's pale and docile batman, his brother-in-law, the Rev. Begs DRUMS AND FLAGS Finally, after this careful buildup, Paisley himself arrived in a saloon car, gaping frog-like out of the front window, and proceeded to organise his followers for a march round the town. Paisley stands out in a crowd partly because he is a bit taller than the average, but also because his clothes and hair have that distinctive level of minimal neatness that accompanies a certain degree of celebrity. The procession was led by three Lambeg drummers, and three flags-the Ulster flag with the Red Hand emblem, a plain Union Jack, and another one with "No Surrender" written across it. Next came Paisley himself, with bent shoulders, followed by his aides and an old woman holding a tape-recorder to catch his every word. Behind this vanguard flowed about 500 people, and two bands: an accordion band, and the "Young Conquerors: Shankhill Road Flute Band." There was no co-ordination between these different musical outfits, and the main purpose seemed to be to attract the population by a confused cacophony, and to generate enthusiasm for the coming meeting. The march wound its way round the residential streets, down the shopping centre, and, the bands fell silent as they marched past the war memorial, back to the green for the speech of the evening.
The bands were made up of youngsters, and many of them had a slightly weird Bosch-like appearance, particularly as the procession wore on and they got tired and slightly high on their sounds. The Lambeg drummers were older and were a confused team taking it in turns to beat the drum, or wipe the drummers brow. Paisley himself wore an air of deceptive, paternal mildness, often looking like a man with an artificially solemn mask. As many of the locals WeTt sitting in their first-floor windows overlooking the streets, he would occasionally give them a stilted wave or a paralytic smile, which opened up the lower half of his mouth in a bullock-like yawn. When he was about to start his meeting, and the crowd got in the way of his loud-speaker van he moved them aside with a great show of pseudo-pastoral gentleness. His show of reassurance and gentleness is one side of his appeal to a Protestant working class who feel they have been sold out by the Unionist leaders.
AN HONEST DEALER IN PROTESTANT UNITY He began his speech, after the song and the prayer, by announcing that he was a truthful man, and that contrary to the official Unionist denials, there had been an electoral deal between himself and the Unionist Party in three constituencies where a split Protestant vote would have let Catholic in. He challenged Chichester-Clark to ask him, Paisley, to name the Unionist officials who had negotiated the agreement. He then went on to attack his Unionist opponent Henry Clarke. Henry Clarke had spoken in