DIARY
Over a hundred years have passed since F.W. Maitland said we were becom- ing a 'much-governed nation'. Since then the process has accelerated. Few claims are more dishonest than those of post-1979 governments to have halted it — unless they are the claims of the Europhobes that the trouble comes from Brussels. On the contrary: our civil servants love making silly rules. The EC simply provides them with additional opportunities. The French, being more sensible treat Brussels directives with what George Brown once called a complete ignoral. They carry on as they usually do. As for the Tory boast about cutting down government, hardly a month goes by with- out the setting up of some board or other empowered to tell us what we may and may not do. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority is an example. I can- not see any good reason why, if a woman chooses to have a baby by her dead hus- band — or come to that by anyone else, alive or dead — the State has any business interfering. It is what I should call a private matter; few matters, indeed, more private. I am glad to see that in the case of Mrs Diane Blood the Court of Appeal reluc- tantly agrees with me and has given this Hindeyan body a punch on the nose.
Ministers possess even more arbitrary Powers over exports. These derive from a 1939 Act which has not been amended or repealed and was the basis of the Govern- ment's mendacious policy over arms to Iraq. Lord Justice Scott recommended that there should be some tidying-up but, of course, there has not been. The same statute lies behind the power (now exer- cised, God help us, by Mrs Virginia Bot- tomley) to prohibit the export of works of art. If a painting can lawfully be destroyed by its owner, as Lady Churchill destroyed Graham Sutherland's portrait of the old war criminal, I see no reason why its export should be treated any more stringently. But it is. As a consequence the Reviewing Com- mittee on the Export of Works of Art — a typically English device — was set up to advise the minister. What often happens as a result of its deliberations is that a humili- ating public appeal is launched on the lines of 'Save Norman St John-Stevas for the nation . . . priceless national treasure'. Some 'anonymous donor' then comes up with the cash and Lord St John is safe.
The Italians, we have learnt recently, operate a more ferocious policy. According to Peter Watson's programme on Channel 4, it is virtually impossible for a work of art of any merit to leave the country legally. Brian Sewell wrote in the Evening Standard ALAN WATKINS that the painting which was the principal subject of the programme was poor stuff and would readily have been granted the requisite licence. I am in no position to say. I do wonder, however, how the Italian poli- cy comes within the single market regula- tions of the EC. But then the Italians, like the French, simply ignore rules when it suits them. To this extent I sympathise with Sotheby's. I have no sympathy whatever with the efforts of the company's transat- lantic boss, Mrs Diana Brooks, to blacken Mr Watson's name. I have known him for almost 20 years. He is a wholly reputable reporter who once had a trial — may even have played — for Bristol Rovers. His fre- quent impersonations of a wealthy collec- tor, a Bond Street dealer or what have you would not fool me for an instant. 'Come out from under that cloak, Peter,' I would say. 'I know you.'
Friends tell me I am foolishly resistant to modern technology. In having as little to do with it as I can, they say, I make life more difficult for myself than it need be. I am not so sure. Shortly before Christmas I acquired a fax machine. An engineer came to install it. There in a corner of my bed- room it sullenly sat, looking formidable enough to sink HMS Britannia if I con- trived to press the right combination of but- tons. Usefully it was a copying machine as well. So before my January holiday I took copies, about 60 sheets, of work I intended to get through in France. The machine then gave out. An electronic message instructed: `Check Ink Film.' I had thought that if you `Oh God! It's Homo electus.' bought a fax you bought a fax and that it would carry on working indefinitely. Not so, apparently. Like a camera, it has — or mine has — to be fed with film. On my return the same engineer came to insert a new one. After I had used it twice it gave out again. The same message appeared on the tiny screen. I alerted the company, which sent along another engineer, a differ- ent one this time. He fiddled a bit before announcing triumphantly: 'Someone has put this film in the wrong way round.' `Actually,' I replied, 'it was one of your col- leagues.' With a merry laugh he went on his way. How do these people expect me to be able to insert a new film, as I gather they do, when they cannot manage it them- selves?
Everything that is most lamentable in our culture comes over from the United States. The modern practice is to disinter some esteemed figure from the recent past and to convict him (it is always him) of sex- ism, racism or snobbery. The latest victim is J.M. Keynes. I never knew Keynes, which would have been difficult because he died when I was 13, though I did know G.E. Moore. I certainly knew Nicholas Daven- port, City editor of The Spectator for 25 years, true originator of the 'stakeholder society' and friend of Keynes. I once asked him what Keynes was like. 'Tremendous snob,' Nicholas replied succinctly, in the same tone of voice as he would have said `Useful leg-break bowler'.
Unaccountably, I managed last week to muddle the date when Sir Henry Camp- bell-Bannerman succeeded A.J. Balfour as prime minister, 5 December 1905, with that of the subsequent general election, 12 Jan- uary-7 February 1906. Apologies all round. I am prostrate with contrition. From this position I do not, however, view the BBC's series on the aristocracy with any greater charity. In the second instalment last week we were told that Lord Londonderry ceased being a minister 'when Ramsay MacDon- ald's government fell'. But MacDonald's government never fell. What happened was that he surrendered office to Stanley Bald- win in 1935 (though on the King's insistence he remained Lord President until 1937). Londonderry went with him. The national — in reality a Conservative — government persisted in theory until May 1940, when Neville Chamberlain was succeeded by Win- ston Churchill and his coalition. Oddly enough, the programme has conducted sev- eral interviews with someone who knows more about this than I do: John Grigg. Per- haps he ought to have been asked to cast an eye over the script as well.
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