ANOTHER VOICE

How much should the public pay to know who's bonking whom?

AU BERON WAUG H

Trawling the Sunday newspapers for a ,ubject to write about, through the familiar routine of Walden, Crosland, Ascherson, Watkins (where's Watkins?), Ingrams . . . I decided that quite plainly nothing had happened last week, and it was time to try the tabloids, as the dirty, lower-class news- papers are called, for another bash at 'What on earth is happening to Britain?' It is true that when one compares the stuff being shoved at the working classes nowa- days to the tabloid presentation of even ten years ago, there is good enough reason to suppose that working-class Brits have de- teriorated into sex-crazed, royalty- obsessed, endlessly gullible half-wits who are eaten up with jealous hatred of those more fortunate than themselves. But something in Ingrams's column stuck in my memory throughout the journey into the bottom reaches of Thatcher's Inferno.

In the main front-page news story of Captain Robert Maxwell's Sunday Mirror, we were informed that the Queen has told Fergie she must carry out more public engagements 'and earn the £86,476 she receives a year':

The fun-loving Duchess of York, whose workload is lagging far behind other Royals, has been ordered to drop her frivolous image. The Queen is said to be 'deeply aware' of the public anger over the Royals' absence from Lockerbie and she wants more work and less play from the younger mem- bers.

This was given as news, not speculation or gossip, on the front page. On page three we learned exclusively of 'Madonna and girlfriend in bedroom drama', being in- formed that it was the pop star's lesbian affection for another pop star which finally destroyed her marriage.

On pages four and five we were told 'What Britain was Thinking Yesterday'. Apparently, what we were all thinking on Saturday 7 January was this: 'If protocol says that the Royal Family should mourn Hirohito but not take part in a service of remembrance for ordinary people at Lock- erbie, there is something wrong with royal protocol.'

One can only speak for oneself, of course, but in the limited circles in which I move nobody whatever seemed to be thinking on this subject. Page five also gave us an exclusive story:

A close friendship between one of Prince Charles's secretaries and Princess Diana's private detective is the talk of the Palace. Sarah West, 21, has struck up a discreet relationship with balding Detective Sergeant Alan Peters, a man twice her age. 'They are incredibly close,' said a royal insider.

So much for Captain Maxwell's Sunday Mirror. All those stories can be identified as drivel, slush, or obvious invention, as one chooses, but none of them, with the possible exception of the Madonna/lesbian story, is calculated to draw blood.

In Captain Maxwell's the People the main (and only) front-page news story, also exclusive, was that Madonna had been found bound and gagged after nine hours on New Year's Day:

Sexy pop star Madonna spent New .Year's Eve trussed up like a turkey, after being cruelly battered by her bully-boy husband Sean Penn. The terrified singer was beaten, gagged, strapped to an armchair with flex and left for nine hours. She is said to have been 'frothing at the mouth' when horrified staff freed her at 1 a.m. on New Year's Day.

Elsewhere, in Captain's Maxwell's Peo- ple, we learn of 'Drugs Party Shame at Terry-Thomas Sun Villa'. The comedian, now 77 and dying from Parkinson's disease in a charity flat in London, did not actually attend the alleged drug party at his earlier home in Ibiza. Then, on page eight, we learn of the 'Tearaway Night Out of Guzzler Gazza' — a football player called Paul Gascoigne was drunk in a provincial hotel. Finally, a royal insight on page 13: 'NO GAWPERS, RULES FERGIE: Fergie has banned sight-seers at her new superhome — before it has even been built! A sign warning "No Coaches" has gone up before a single brick has been laid at the site of her Dallas-style dream house.'

These stories, with the exception of the Fergie absurdity, seem to be getting closer to the nub of a demented nation. But it is only when one turns to Murdoch's stinking News of the World that one comes face to face with the real depravity which passes for fun in post-Shirley Williams Britain.

The main story in Sunday's News of the World will be incomprehensible to many.

'TV PATTI SEDUCED MY BLACK STALLION.

Our life's in ruins rages wife. . . Sex mad star bedded my man seven times! She could never get enough of his body.' This describes how a television interviewer cal- led Patti Coldwell allegedly went to bed with her negro chauffeur. Similar, equally incomprehensible stories describe how 'Boxer KOs TV Lionel's Girl for a Pop Beauty', and 'Broke Benny's Going on the Dole' — all concerning the vicissitudes of television heroes, thank God. Concern for the public good in this disgusting newspaper is represented by a lurid claim that a brand of condom called Jiffy is unreliable. Its advertising jingles are gloatingly quoted:

Play it safe, play it cool.

Wear a Jiffy on your tool,

and:

If she's game and wants your plonker Wear a Jiffy so you can bonk her.

The condom's unreliability was especially reprehensible, we learned, because these jingles to appeal to teenagers.

But the most disturbing item of all concerned the sad story of Lord Barber's entanglement with a divorced woman to whom he foolishly became engaged. She has now sold the story of how she ensnared this widowed, 68-year-old former Chancel- lor of the Exchequer, screwed £10,000 out of him as a pay-off, and now proposes to reveal everything which passed between them in bed and out of it.

Is there no pity left in the world for 68-year-old widowers? Must these mercen- ary 32-year-old women be allowed to expose them to the public gaze, after having screwed as much money out of them as they can? The super-puritan Ing- rams seems to think so. Any legislation which protects privacy is supported only by those who have something to hide, he argues. Goodness knows, I have enough to hide, but haven't we all? There is nothing disgraceful in Barber's behaviour. It is just pitiable and slightly absurd. He did not treat this repulsive woman at all badly. He presented her to the Queen and Prince Philip, to William Whitelaw and Edward Heath, proposed marriage to her, bought her (under protest) a £2,500 engagement ring . . . and then, at last, returned to his elderly senses.

Ingrams, whatever he may feel about the things the gutter press gets up to, is even more opposed to the idea of privacy legislation. For years I agreed with him, reckoning that on balance the common- sense and fair-mindedness of the British public would ensure that maltreatment of such sad cases as Lord Barber and Terry- Thomas would rebound on their persecu- tors. I no longer have this degree of confidence and feel that Ingrams is wrong. If the reading public has these tastes, it should have to pay much more expensively for them, just as Lord Barber had to pay for the foul Mrs Janie Ash.