ANOTHER VOICE

Can the European Union save us from Murdoch?

AUBERON WAUGH

The front page of this week's News of the World 'Britain's most popular newspa- per', was devoted to its 'World Exclusive', about the former minister David Mellor, already forced from office by previous reve- lations: 'Mellor admits secret affair after News of the World catches him sneaking in to flat for sex with Countess'.

Top Tory David announced yesterday that he is to divorce his wife — hours after learning that the News of the World had nailed his sec- ond secret affair. The ex-Heritage Secretary . . . was forced to come clean and admit his shame after the News of the World confronted him at 12.30 a.m. yesterday. Reporters who conducted a lengthy investigation — had discovered he was having a passionate affair with a blonde viscountess.

Mellor, 45, has frequently sneaked in to stay overnight at society beauty Lady Penelope Cobham's London flat. While they have romped together in bed, wife, Judith, 45, has remained at their house with the Mellors' school-age sons. And Penelope's 51-year-old husband, Viscount John Cobham, has been looking after their stately home 150 miles away...

Asked by a reporter if he thought he had treated his wife badly, Mr Mellor retorted angrily: 'I think you are a pompous prat.'

The 'full sensational story' was promised on pages 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7, which prompted at least one reader to turn immediately to page 6, to see how on earth they were going to avoid the subject there. It turned out to be devoted to editorial comment on the same subject: 'Dishonour of a sleazy sex cheat . . . And it was not until he was well and truly caught out by the News of the World, performing the useful function so often the target of his acid criticism, that he put up his hands and confessed.'

Page 6 also featured Woodrow Wyatt, the Voice of Reason, waxing indignant at the discovery that President Mitterrand has a 20-year-old illegitimate daughter, and promising that Labour has its skeletons, too: 'I admire Tony Benn's integrity. But he's holding up the cleansing process,' wrote Earl Woodrow mysteriously, perhaps in reference to the footnote on page 2: 'Do you know a political scandal? Call 071 782 4443, any day, 10-6 p.m.'

So the dedicated seeker-after-truth has to stagger through to page 18 for the next News of the World Exclusive: `Benn's Sexy Tricks Rang My Bell In Bed'. Former soft-porn model Melissa Ewart is variously described as 'busty' and 'leggy', but her revelations about romps with her former lover are given less prominence than those of Mellor with Lady Cobham. Benn 'loved licking cream and honey off my body', she reveals.

He didn't perform very well in the normal way. He wasn't particularly well-endowed. And he often found it difficult to do straightforward things. Luckily, he made up for his lack of interest in straight sex in other ways . . . his overall performance was so good it was like he took my whole body over.

Unfortunately, Benn had another girl- friend, Sharon, who already had a son, Dominic, by him, and when Sharon became pregnant again six months into the affair, leggy Melissa decided to give up.

Now Melissa has decided to speak out after Benn spent f100,000 to buy .up every copy of a new book that detailed his sexual con- quests. 'I'll always regret we didn't end up together,' she said.

Speaking out involved taking a female News of the World reporter round to Benn's home for what promised to be an orgy, but it is noticeable that the whole account of this episode, which covers only two pages, against Mellor's seven, is written without any element of disapproval or reproach. This may be because the under-endowed Beim in the story is not leggy, 69-year-old Tony Benn, the Labour elder statesman, whose integrity is said by Viscount Woodrow of Weeford to be holding up the cleansing process. He is someone called Nigel Benn, a Negro boxer. The account of their love affair ends with another request: Has a sports hero scored in your bed? We'd love to hear about it. Phone us today, or any day, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., on the number below. And don't worry about the cost, we'll call you right back 071 782 1001.

A Negro boxer's affair with a former soft porn model belongs to the world of bonk- ing, or public entertainment. Never mind that Nigel Benn was apparently prepared to spend a large sum of money in order to keep details of his private life private. Never mind that one must reasonably expect damage and suffering to his illegiti- mate children in the cause of entertaining News of the World readers. If bonking is seen as a jolly activity of which we all approve, the argument that it is Benn's fault cannot really be sustained.

But the News of the World has no idea whether or not it approves of banking or whether it is an activity to be exposed whenever it occurs. The hacks who queue up for the Murdoch shilling would be equally happy to denounce ordinary marital sex between husband and wife, if Murdoch gave them the green light. Somebody explained to me once that Murdoch himself had had an unhappy marital experience, after which the iron entered his soul. He now sees himself as an Avenger with a mis- sion to make adulterers suffer. If so, it is quite a useful mission for a man who also wishes to sell newspapers.

The scandal is that Murdoch sets the tone for all the British press. Not only the News of the World and Sunday Times but the Sunday Telegraph and Observer carried the non-story about Mellor and Lady Cob- ham on their front pages. Under Mur- doch's guidance, we are becoming a nation of sexual voyeurs and sadists. We are also the laughing stock of Europe. An article in the Sunday Times by someone called Tony Allen-Mills even expressed outrage that the French press had never bothered to draw attention to President Mitterrand's illegiti- mate daughter of 20, with brutal pleasure that this reticence has now been breached.

At the time of Wapping, I called upon the Government to make Murdoch a duke. More recently, as president of Vespa (the Venerable Society for the Protection of Adulterers), I called for a five-line act of attainder requiring him to sell all his assets in this country, pay all his creditors, and never set foot here again. After recent developments, I played with the idea of applying for royal patronage of Vespa and, turning it into a properly constituted pres- sure group, but I am afraid our rulers are too wet, and while Murdoch owns five of our national newspapers and controls vast areas of the television scene, there is no prospect of getting even an impeachment off the ground. We must look to the Euro- pean parliament to save our national sanity.