Notebook

No relationship between solicitor and client could be stranger than that between Mr

Eric Levine and Mr • James Goldsmith. First, Mr Levine writes to the Times to defend in detail, a judge's decision to allow his client to start a criminal libel action against Private Eye. Then Mr Goldsmith returns the favour by asking the court for an injunction to restrain the same magazine and four journalists from publishing anything which casts doubt on 'the private or Professional honesty and integrity' of his solicitor. Why was it thought necessary to take either of these steps ? If you win your Case in court, would you expect your solicitor to

write to the Times to justify the

decision ? And would you feel that he was 8° sensitive to criticism that he must be pro„.tected by legal injunction ? The injunction as refused on first application, and a full hearing is due next week.

Over a month after Mr Goldsmith was given leave to begin proceedings for crimin

libel against Private Eye—and in the face many responsible misgivings about the wisdom of such a course—a summons has 11(3w been issued. The hearing will be at Bow ;tree+ , magistrates' court on 9 June. The hirMnons was served on the same day that Mr Samuel Silk in, the Attorney-General, „ -1,"nounced that the Director of Public e'rosecutions would not be taking over the oesPe' Ve agreed that the public interest the Ho require him to do so', he said in

us

t2e Hoe of Commons. However, it was wile. Public interest, according to Mr Justice eri hic len, wh required the institution of ninal Proceedings. Mr Goldsmith is also seeking an order to Prevent the publication of anything which aea,Y Prejudice potential jurors in his libel et-tons—criminal and civil—against Private 2!.. Here is another strange course of 'n(I11°n the Publication of such material is bvrmallY dealt with, if and after it occurs, 1,4-lwaY ctf contempt proceedings. While the Lts

tiply tiply and his connection with Mr evine becomes more intriguing, one won

at`Itsh‘vhat Mr Goldsmith expects to achieve against end of the day. In these latest moves ob inst Private Eye there are signs of an semi” which can only lose him respect. Willja.„, tion: vvhitelaw, the great Tory devolumoist, is Often thought of as an Englishand nt so. He is as Scottish as the SNPMernbilinre Scottish than some of its ers.

Alth

th ou gh his mother's home is in Nairn, house ultelaws used to live in a family shire..-„near Kirkintilloch in Dunbarton

hat •

Dredi,tab, is where he fought his first—and IY unsuccessful—election cam

paign, against the formidable old Clydesider David Kirkwood. Until 1947 he was a regular officer in the Scots Guards, with whom he served throughout the war. His wife Cecilia is also Scottish. She was brought up in the ducal Border territory at Melrose. What is more, Mr Whitelaw was Captain of the Royal and Ancient in

1969-70.

His Scottish credentials are thus substantial if not unassailable, in spite of an English education; and he could scarcely have an English constituency closer to Scotland than Penrith and the Border. Not that these qualifications will carry him very far in his tussles with the SNP.

One can imagine the excitement at the offices of the Guardian last week. For once, they had what seemed to be a scoop: A "20-yearold British youth" (fine source, that!) had told them about contacts he was having with a South African diplomat who allegedly wanted to buy a pornographic film purporting to involve a "prominent politician". "I have witnessed and monitored some of their meetings and discussions," wrote the Guardian's Peter Hillmore. According to his own account, he only monitored one telephone conversation and witnessed one discussion—that in which Hillmore himself took part at the South African Embassy. At no point did Mr Hillmore hear the diplomat ask for the film. On the contrary, the wretched Mr Russouw repeatedly denied to Mr Hillmore that he had any interest in purchasing the film. It was a denial which Mr Hillmore, in his role as agent provocateur, found totally unacceptable. It wasn't the story he had come to get: instead of some sinister South African spy, plotting to ruin a leading British politician, he had found a lonely little man with a mild but unfulfilled curiosity about pornography. But did the Guardian drop the story? No. They decided

to publish and be damned, and damned they are for their incompetence and dubious professional ethics.

Michael Wolff, who died so suddenly and tragically last week at the age of forty-five, was known principally as Mr Heath's main speech writer and one of his closest advisers. At one time little seemed to be beyond him. Designated Special Adviser to the Government after the 1970 general election, he remained secure in the affection and esteem of the Prime Minister. Mr Heath's defeat in February 1974 was a severe blow; his own fall from influence a year later not less so. But politics was not Michael Wolff's whole life. He wrote a number of books on history and penology, and was a knowledgeable and urbane reviewer. Portly, fond of his food and drink, he never lost his air of sleepy amiability, whether things were going well or ill for him. He will be missed, not only by his friends, but by those who were often his opponents.

The question is being asked, why— -if he could be persuaded to stand—should Mr Thorpe not be a candidate for election as Liberal leader under the new and supposedly more democratic procedure that is now being concocted. The rank-and-file would then have a chance to give their verdict on the 'Thorpe affair', and it is possible, not to say probable, that he would be re-elected. But the Liberal establishment which did so much to force him out is guarding against the danger of his return. Nominations for the leadet ship are to be controlled by the Liberal MPs. In that case Liberals in the country may well ask if there is any point in subjecting the party to the difficult and potentially chaotic process of voting in the constituencies. If all that the new democracy is to mean is a choice between candidates oligarchically selected, then what price the new democracy?

Mr Auberon Waugh, who possesses—so he tells us—`one of the finest biographical reference libraries in West Somerset', has been unable to identify Thomas Hepburn, subject of what is probably the most hideous postage stamp ever issued. Scholarly research in one of the finest biographical reference libraries in South Bloomsbury has enabled us to place this hitherto obscure social reformer. He was an early trade unionist—who led the Northumberland and Durham Colliers' Union in a successful strike in 1830.

Of all the odd manifestations of the spirit of forgiveness between English and Americans which is being promoted this Bicentennial year none is quite as strange as 'The British Bicentennial Heritage Mission'. This consists of eight Englishmen of the superior classes—two dukes, a marquess, an earl, a baron and a mere baronet, led by Lord Montagu of Beaulieu—driving around the United States in loaned Jaguars. Quite what they are meant to represent is not clear, but they are all, it seems, enjoying themselves.