ANOTHER VOICE
The Prime Minister, the Pornographer and the Prostitute: why Thatcher must go
AUBERON WAUGH
Last week Paul Johnson quoted the Sun's valediction to Nigel Lawson with some approval: 'HATED by homeowners, HATED by big business, HATED by the little guy (at last he's done something right) GOODBYE AND GOOD RIDD- ANCE.'
Johnson commented: 'You may not agree, but this was tabloid thumping in the best Bartholomew-Cudlipp tradition.' On the same day that Johnson's piece appear- ed in The Spectator a leader appeared in the Scottish editions of the Sun which did not quite carry the same Bartholomew- Cudlipp hallmark. It took the form of a point by point rebuttal of Lawson's state- ment in the Commons, headed: 'Where's that iceberg hiding then, Lawson?'
First, it made the familiar point that the Walters article was written long before Sit Alan's return to Downing Street. Next, on EMS membership, it argued: 'But the Prime Minister had agreed to join, when the other members started to abide by the rules.' Third, it dealt with Lawson's com- plaint about Thatcher's refusal to privatise the Bank of England: 'This could well be a good move. However, Mr Lawson prop- osed it a year ago, and has not mentioned it since.'
Nothing very tabloid-thumping there. In fact, it looks almost as though it had been dictated word for word, from Downing Street, possibly by Mr Bernard Ingham, the chief press officer. One does not need to puzzle over the identity of the person instructing Ingham. The leader continues:
When the economic problems began, he insisted on using only one weapon — high interest rates. Despite her doubts, Mrs Thatcher went along with him. She would have been entitled to intervene as First Lord of the Treasury. She did not do so. Again and again, she gave Mr Lawson her full support. We do not recall similar demonstrations from Mr Lawson of his loyalty to Mrs Thatcher.
If that passage was not written by Mrs Thatcher herself, it was written by some- one who knows exactly how loyal she is to her subordinates since it is the Sun, more even than the Times or the Sunday Times which acts as the vehicle for her stabs in the back, of which last Monday's attack on Sir Geoffrey Howe — 'no one could possibly cast this bumbling, stupefyingly boring man as a national leader' — is another
example.
Thursday's leader, which I have quoted, may have appeared in the English editions, too, although, if so, I did not notice it there. I was studying the Scottish edition because on that day it decided to resume the vendetta against Professor Ross Har- per, former president of the Scottish Con- servatives, who resigned on 9 September three days after being 'exposed' by the Sun in its Scottish editions: 'Spanking shame of Top Tory: vice girl beat him with his old slipper.' A hideous Scottish prostitute cal- led Ferguson was claiming to have had Harper as one of her clients. Although there was nothing illegal in anything she claimed to have done with him, and nothing even very improper, so far as I could make out, the Sun decided to spread it all over its Scottish editions on 6 Septem- ber, and revive it on 2 November, repro- ducing a curious letter sent by Harper to a firm of Edinburgh solicitors: Dear Sir, I undertake not to make any claim of any kind or raise any action of any kind against Miss Janette Ferguson of 14a Stoneybank Gardens, Musselborough. This letter should be treated as a complete indem- nity and is binding on me. Yours faithfully, J Ross Harper.
It may seem odd that the solicitors con- cerned should have chosen to release this letter to the Sun. What is even odder about it is that it gives no indication of any quid pro quo. We can only guess what induce- ments or legal menaces persuaded Harper to sign this self-denying ordinance. What- ever they were, and whatever the truth be- hind Thursday's headlines: 'We had 3-in-bed romp: vice girl took turns to spank Har- per', we must accept that this is the world of Rupert Murdoch, the man on whose support Mrs Thatcher now largely relies.
It is not this unholy alliance between Prime Minister and pornographer which chiefly persuades me to disagree with last week's leading article in The Spectator, headed 'Go she mustn't', although I regard their association with grave misgivings. Nor am I influenced by the fact that in ten years as Prime Minister she has never asked me to luncheon, and obviously isn't going to do so now, although one should not underesti- mate the weight of such considerations. The reason she must go is not even that her sycophants and her whole administration stink. It is that she is going to lose the
next general election. This is not a self- fulfilling argument. It is a plain statement of fact. Geoffrey Howe, as leader, will have an uphill task. Poll tax alone alone is worth three million votes to Labour among people who have never bothered to vote before. Obviously the tax is right and just, but poli- tics is not about justice. I dare say the That- cher stand on EMS is right, although I doubt it, and am nauseated by her repudiation of open frontiers on the grounds of drug and terrorist control. But voting intentions are not determined by political issues of that sort. They are determined firstly by self- interest and then by personalities.
The confusion shown in last week's leader 'Go she mustn't' is mirrored throughout the whole Conservative party. Can nobody see that the fact she has won three general elections already makes it less likely, not more so, that she will win a fourth? Nobody cares what Howe stands for. He is not KinnocklHattersley and he is not Thatcher. Natural timidity may be compounded by the barrage of propaganda coming out of Downing Street and out of the Murdoch machine, but simple truths should be simply apparent: Thatcher can- not last for ever, she will never admit this, and she must be forcibly removed. If her colleagues continue to behave like the cat in the adage, letting 'I dare not' wait upon `I would', she will be left sitting on dead cats. If the nation continues to keep a-hold of nurse for fear of finding something worse, it will be left holding a corpse. What of Murdoch? He does not care whether the Conservatives win the next general elec- tion or not. He has described himself as a Thatcherite rather than a Conservative. It would of course help if Mrs Thatcher could remain in Downing Street long enough for him to consolidate his various monopoly posi- tions. Then he will announce that he has always been a Hattersleyite rather than a socialist. In my own lifetime many for- eigners believed that the Times spoke with the true voice of government. Nowadays, it is the Sun. This is indeed one of the most disgusting features of Thatcher's last years. I hope that Sir Geoffrey Howe's first action on coming to power will be to send this prurient (which means dirty, itchy- bottomed) American/Australian with all his satellite dishes back to the United States, or Australia or to any country which will have him.
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