SHARED OPINION
Duke shoots cowboy, hits Indian
FRANK JOHNSON
For once, a Buckingham Palace spokesman's explanation was plausible. According to the Times, 'A senior royal source later suggested that he [the Duke of Edinburgh] may have mixed up cowboys and Indians in the search for a phrase for shoddy workers.'
That is plausible because, as well as by the rest of us, it can be believed by the high-minded who disapprove of the Duke's illiberalism. According to them, he indulges in 'racial stereotypes'. But even the most remorseless stereotypist does not accuse Indians of being shoddy workmen. Quite the opposite. Indians are supposed to be too assiduous, the better to 'take our jobs'.
The Duke, then, meant to say: 'It [the fuse-box in question] looks as if it was put in by a cowboy,' Important people often disregard nuances. A venerable editor of mine once said of a colleague: 'He's a bit of a ballerina.' He meant 'a bit of a primadon- na'. He just did not bother to differentiate between ballet and opera. But the Duke was also let down by his erroneous belief that he is a master of the People's idiom. You do not hear the People complain to one another: `Our central heating was fixed by a right Indian. Packed up again as soon as he left.' Or: `You've got to watch out for those Indian double-glazing contractors.'
Dukes, however, have been causing offence to community relations for a long time We were a multiracial society in the Middle Ages. A few years after the Norman Conquest some duke, touring a castle, probably caused offence by musing: 'That wonky turret looks as if it was put in by a Saxon.' The Saxon Citizens' Association would have issued a statement protesting that the duke's insensitive remarks had offended the entire Saxon community. He would have been denounced in Saxon newspapers such as Woad and Harold's Eye. The Palace would have had to ensure that the next Honours' List was stuffed with Saxon businesspersons, and role models.
The Duke of Edinburgh, as a result of this incident, should also understand at last that nowadays it is only safe to make racial Jokes about people who are rich, Western and white. No one would have been offend- ed had he said that the fuse-box looked as if it had been put in by a German, To be on the safe side, and suitably self-deprecatory, he would have been wise also to have added: 'I mean, a German with royal Greek connections.' Let us hope, though, that the Duke has now learnt the difference in ver- nacular discourse between cowboys and Indians. Let us hope, too, that he does not use this new knowledge to joke about shod- dy cowboy workmanship while touring, say, Montana or Wyoming.
These have been anxious days for us Augustans: we who deny that August is a month in which nothing much happens. Every year, at the beginning of August, I write the same column in the Daily Tele- graph. Readers all too familiar with it should ignore the following paragraph.
The annual column argues that, far from being the uneventful month of myth, August is the most eventful of our century. The first world war broke out in August. The events which precipitated the second world war — the Nazi-Soviet pact, Ger- many's demands- on Poland — were in August. Britain's biggest financial crisis of the century — the one leading to the for- mation of our only peacetime coalition gov- ernment this century — happened in August (1934 Nixon resigned the presi- dency in August (25 years ago this week). There was a crisis — to do with sex — in Mr Clinton's presidency last August (more so than in most months that is). Shortage of space prohibits mention of the century's many other August excitements.
I can therefore claim to be leader of the August party. But this August of 1999 is almost half spent. It looked this week as if there would be no tumult. True, I ceased to be editor of this magazine. But I have had difficulty in convincing the world that the event has about it the requisite epic dimen- sion to strengthen still further the Augustan thesis. I must be content to await history's verdict. The trouble there, though, is that my successor has the same surname. Histo- ry might therefore not trouble to make much of a distinction. Like Japanese tourists to us, all journalist Johnsons proba- bly look alike to history. History might be expected to spot the difference had I been succeeded by Ulrika Jonsson. Perhaps her time will come.
But an event is needed to justify my August party leadership. Not that it is time yet to talk of a leadership crisis. Since there are two weeks to go of the month, there is no talk of a leadership challenge. Like Mr Hague, I am sustained by the lack of an alternative. In any case, August 1999 without events would lead not to a new August party leader, but to power passing to the Septemberists, who already can claim the British declaration of war in 1939 (3 September) or to the Junoesques, who can offer this century's most influen- tial incident, the assassination of the Arch- duke Franz Ferdinand (Sarajevo, 28 June 1914). The July Party can field the fall of the Bastille (1789), but it is also burdened with the revolution which enthroned Louis Philippe (1830). That event is at a disad- vantage in terms of excitement, since the July monarchy was the regime whose over- throw in 1848 Guizot ascribed to France being 'bored'. I have nothing to fear, then, from the Juilletistes. In any case, my August theory applies only to the 20th cen- tury. There the Juilletistes can offer the 1944 bomb plot against Hitler, but that failed, It is no match for Franz Ferdinand's assassination.
But Autumn 1999's absence of a crisis looked like the crisis of the August party. Then, one morning this week, Asda announced price-cuts on 4,000 items by the end of the year. This could mean only one thing: a war with Tesco. So, Safeway could not stand idly by. She announced a 'whop- ping' 20 per cent cut on thousands of prod- ucts. At the time of writing, the other Great Powers — such as Sainshurys and Marks & Spencer — watched warily. Asda is now owned by the American superpower, Wal- Mart. So the opening hostilities were accompanied by nationalist rhetoric from the British. Tesco's spokesman, Mr David Sawday, having insisted that Tesco had been the first to cut prices, inflamed the British people by claiming: 'The Yanks have got a reputation for turning up for wars late and then claiming they have won them, only for all the theatrics of Hollywood to be used to obscure the real truth.' Nonetheless, as the struggle begins, it is hard for a Briton not to be gripped by patriotism. It is my hope to become the Rupert Brooke or Wilfred Owen of the price war. Asda is said to have cut a 24-pack of Weetabix by 8p to £1.09, and a tin of Heinz baked beans by 2p to 33p. In the face of such atrocities, all Chris- tendom stands appalled. What sort of peo- ple do they think we are? I shall not allow myself to be tempted. Serenely, I await Tesco's special offers.
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