Notebook
Explaining his decision to invite the two Sinn Fein leaders to visit him in Lon- don, Mr Ken Livingstone of the Greater London Council declared on Monday: 'We do not know enough about the views of Sinn Fein and its policy.' Unbelievable though it may seem, he appears to have been telling the truth. Whether it is due to ignorance (for he has never visited Ulster) or to deliberate blindness, Mr Livingstone has formed a picture in his mind of the IRA and its political wing which bears not the slightest resemblance to reality. Last Oc- tober, for example, his response to a bomb outrage at Chelsea barracks was to say that the IRA terrorists 'are not criminals or lunatics running about — that is to misunderstand them. As long as we are in Ireland, people will be letting off bombs in London. I can see that we are a colonial power holding down a colony.' In other words, whatever crimes the IRA commit, it is not their fault, but ours, for we are the colonial oppressors. His faith in the IRA re- mained unshaken by the appalling bomb at- tack on Monday in Ballykelly which caused the deaths of 16 people, including four young women. He saw in it no reason to withdraw his invitation to Mr Gerry Adams and Mr Danny Morrison, for he believed that the attack might have been carried out `to discredit Sinn Fein'. He was sure, he said, that Mr Adams 'would not condone last night's killings. I would imagine he feels the same sense of shock people here feel. I find it incredible that the people of Sinn Fein would welcome or support this sort of thing.' To Mr Livingstone it is understandable that the IRA should ex- plode bombs in London, but incredible that they should support a similar outrage in Ulster — a strange position for the leader of the GLC. In fact, of course, the IRA and Sinn Fein (which are in reality in- distinguishable) have not only condoned but carried out endless acts of shameful violence on both sides of the Irish Sea. If Mr Livingstone wants to know their views, Mr Adams summarised them well when he said he was coming to London 'to discuss ways of bringing about a British withdrawal from Ulster and the reunification of Ireland.' If he wants to know more about their policy, then he need only consult the victims of terrorist violence. But it appears that nothing short of a bomb under his own chair in County Hall will be capable of making him understand anything. Perhaps Mr Adams and Mr Morrison will bring one with them.
rILC telephonists have been kept busy answering angry calls, many of them alleging that Mr Livingstone's invitation was a cynical attempt to curry favour with Irish voters in London. Such an accusation is deeply insulting to Irish Londoners. There is no reason to believe that more than a tiny minority of them feel any sympathy for the IRA, and even these are unlikely to condone bomb attacks which place their own lives at risk with everyone else's. Meanwhile, Conservative MPs have been insulting more deeply still the people of Ulster by demanding that the Government should ban Mr Adams and Mr Morrison from visiting England. These two men are citizens not of a colony, but of the United Kingdom. If they are free to do as they please in one part of the country, they should be free to do so in all of it. If they are unfit to be free men in London, they are unfit to be free men in Ulster. For this reason, their visit should not be stopped.
Why does a local government body like the GLC concern itself with issues which are outside its competence and over which it can have no influence whatsoever? Mr Livingstone is obviously conscious that he is open to criticism on this score. The Ulster conflict, he said, 'affects Londoners every bit as much as the war in Vietnam af- fected the people of New York.' Rather more, I would say. But so do an awful lot of things that happen in other places. That is why we employ a national government to deal with them. The GLC's unnatural in- terest in so many matters which are none of its busines is a symptom, I think, of its im- potence. It has nothing useful to do. Mr Livingstone is not kept busy enough. Even in the field of public transport, an area over which the Council does have a certain amount of control, he found that his powers were much more restricted than he thought. The obvious answer is to abolish the GLC.
Norwegians have just completed weeks without a drink. A strike el' workers in the liquor industry was 10 P cent effective. No drinks were available the country at all, for the industry is a ,n5tat monopoly. Now the workers have defeated and, from next week, drink begin to become available again in sh. and bars. The effects of the strike have far-reaching. Home production of alcobv't has increased dramatically, with probable result that the Government7 suffer a long-term decline in revenue. ft more interestingly, the number of ma .5 in Norway has also declined during the three months — in some places by as 111:1, as 20 per cent. In Sweden, meatny,'Ll'i; a new form of allergy has uvcie identified. A man in the south ofis country finds he is allergic to women. is"be is not because he dislikes women — on' contrary — but because he worked td factory making chipboard and devel°F;d an intolerable allergy to the chemicalsusre there. These chemicals, it turns out, a used in almost all cosmetics, so the P°°of man is unable to endure the comPari,Y hp any woman wearing make-up. As Sir Id. Junor might put it, it's a funny old W°r finals of the Just Juice British CharriPcli on
invitations la
A mong the many exciting PI.have received this week is one fe°111the public relations firm: 'On behalf of ,,d Women's Squash Rackets Association a':.. our client Adam Foods, I have pleasure.u1sut inviting you to attend the finals of theliatti Juice British Championships.' Now sure lux sure there are hundreds of peoPie the would leap at the chance of attending.co ships. But they are unlikely to be fourit,"ich, the staff of the Spectator, a paper for all its qualities, is not noted for ,115 terest in Women's Squash. Public relatlu ...a companies are extraordinary. They reke-of aunpnoonuFnlceeemt Sentrtesetaenvderyindvaityataiosnnr tshtoerrnfsestt majority of which are of no possible inre;ess to anybody — of no interest, that is, Ill! 3 one happens to be in the mood for writin: paragraph abusing public relations firrn In Cambridge last Saturday a POP women e women were marching through to, streets, shouting slogans against P°1:.n.ii graphy. They were not a pretty sight. h '0 women looked like them, the resort bY 0, many men to the fantasy world of P(3,11/ graphy would not be difficult to exPlaIrl:th read their pamphlet and rather agreed 'HI is their argument that pornographY degrading to women. The demonstratibors might have been swelled by large nuelithe of sympathetic men had it not been f°r;e0 firm instruction by the organisers: `W°1" only'.
ilor Alexander Chance
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