Notebook
As we go to press, I hear that the Pope has been shbt and that his condition is serious. I do not know who is responsible for this atrocious crime. Progressive Catholics have turned against the Pope, but few of them would wish him dead. He is, if only because he is a Pole, a thorn in the side of the Soviet Union and a threat to its east European empire, but not so great a threat that the Russians would actually seek to eliminatp him. No doubt his assailant will turn out to be the usual pathetic lunatic of the type that shot president Reagan. But whoever it is, he will have attempted more harm and have inflicted more unhappiness on more people than any previous assassins, successful or otherwise. John-Paul II is an exceptional Pope, whose concern for spiritual values has influenced Christians of all denominations. He is, I would say, almost irreplaceable.
Any stage musical created by Mr Andrew Lloyd Webber now seems to be automatically greeted with rapture both by audiences and the press. The rapture always has a whiff of nationalism about it, a typical example of which was Mr Michael Billington's comment in Tuesday's Guardian that Cats, now playing at the New London Theatre, demolishes the myth 'that the British can't get a musical together, that our dancers are below American standard'. I have never understood why the British should feel any more shame at their inability to create good musicals than at their failure to create good Italian operas or Japanese plays, the musical being a characteristically American form of entertainment. But the triumph of Cats may perhaps be a cause, if not for national shame, at least for some embarrassment. Watching it on Tuesday night, I suddenly thought I was beginning to understand what people mean when they waffle on about cultural decline. Huge sums of money and a wealth of professional talent, including that of Mr Trevor Nunn, the Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, had been brought to bear on the whimsical and pretentious idea of turning T.S. Eliot's poems about cats into a musical entertainment. The music was provided, of course, by Mr Lloyd Webber. 'Strange how potent cheap music is,' said Noel Coward. And cheap, I'm afraid, is the right word for Mr Lloyd Webber's music. It is cheap, essentially, because it is so pretentious. It seems to be trying to convey the impression that it is somehow a cut above the music of common or garden composers of popular songs, but in reality, Mr Lloyd Webber lacks the melodic originality of any really good American song composers, or even, for that matter, of the Beatles. It is supposed to be a test of a good musical whether you can remember any of the tunes when you leave the theatre; I found myself remembering tunes, but they were other people's tunes. The wetness and pious complacency of Mr Lloyd Webber's creation would be more tolerable if he seemed more innocent; but an aura of opportunism pervades the whole enterprise, not least in the manner of its promotion. But, you may say, Mr Lloyd Webber's work is admired even in New York. Surely the Americans know a good musical when they see one? To which the answer is that the American musical, having lost its innocence, is also dead, and has been for more than 20 years.
As far as I am concerned, the most deplorable example of cheque book journalism during the past few days has been perpetrated by The Times. It has seduced away Mr Henry Fairlie from the columns of the Spectator. I do not blame Mr Fairlie for preferring The Times cheques to the Spectator's postal orders, but I will miss his contributions to this paper. The Spectator, I suppose, is one of the few papers in the country which would be entitled to preach on the ethics of cheque book journalism, being protected by its own poverty from any temptation to err. But it is more fun simply to enjoy the hypocritical indignation of the popular newspapers, for which the cheque book is , and will undoubtedly remain , oneof the essential tools of their trade. They may all protest their innocence in the Ripper case, but the fact is that the editor of one popular paper was actually seen outside the house of Mrs Sutcliffe, the Ripper's wife, with a bottle of whisky in one hand and cheque book in the other. I doubt if this sort of thing can be stopped, not even by my friend Mr Patrick Neill QC, the chairman of the Press Council. Unfortunately, I failed to attend last week's luncheon of the Periodical Publishers' Association at which he presented the association's annual editorial awards (one of them to our occasional contributor, Gerda Cohen). But apparently he made a stirring speech, castigating the muck-rakers of Fleet Street and the hypocrisy of their editors and promising that the Press Council would spare no effort in probing abuse in the Ripper case and in the matter of the Royal telephone conversations. But his audience was a sea of astonished faces. `Do you think he means us?' asked the old editor of The Countryman. 'I wish he'd shut up and give out the prizes,' said a man from Catering Weekly. The representatives of Golf and the Fish Fryers Gazette nodded their agreement. There is more to the press than the News of the World.
Has anyone seen the Irish Independent? This is the only newspaper in the British isles which has actually published transcripts of the alleged tape recordings of the alleged conversations between Prince Charles and Lady Diana. But even these dubious transcripts are not enormously authentic. They are re-translations into Irish-English of the German translations of the Australian tapes transcribed by Mr Simon Regan. Buckingham Palace, I feel, has shown exaggerated concern about the whole thing. It has used every possible legal weapon to prevent publication of these weird transcripts while simultaneously declaring them to be false. These are two incompatible courses of action, each of which undermines the credibility of the other. Ever since it categorically denied the existence of any kind of romance between Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips, the Palace has laid itself open to criticism. Its Press Office once used to display an aristocratic indifference to the curiosity of the press, politely refusing to answer questions while treating vulgar speculations with the contempt they deserved. But, particularly since Prince Charles became involved with Lady Diana, it has shown an unattractive petulance, with the result that it has even enabled the Daily Mail to score points off the Queen.
Of all the silly documents that arrive in our office, one of the silliest in recent months must surely be one called The Future of Marriage, a report by a research subcommittee of The Society of Conservative Lawyers. The authors of the report are understandably concerned that the divorce rate in England and Wales is now higher than in any other country in Europe and that marital breakdowns are now costing the State well over £1,000 million a year in, supplementary benefits and so on. Blaming much of the trouble on the Divorce Reform Act of 1969, they say (in a wonderfully inappropriate phrase, given their complaint about the cost of keeping children in care) that 'the chickens are coming home to roost'. Their solution is for the State to 'act' to preserve more marriages, something which is quite obviously impossible and, in any case, an intolerable impertinence. If it is the cost of marital breakdowns which worries the authors most, then the clear solution is to discourage people from getting married at all, or, at the very least, to abolish supplementary benefits for oneparent families, which are responsible for most of the cost to the State. The most delightful bit of the report, however, is its first paragraph (which may also explain the slightly apologetic tone of the introduction by Mr Jenkin, the Secretary of State for Social Services). I quote: "The family is an enduring institution. It has been the foundation of virtually every free society known to history . ." These words are as true today as when they were spoken by Patrick Jenkin at the Conservative Party Conference on 12 October 1977: I am glad that there are a few enduring truths in this unstable world.
Alexander Chancellor
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