DIARY
JO GRIMOND
The extension of Parkinson's Law is that business expands to suit any govern- ment organisation. Mrs Thatcher proposes new work for Nato. The appetite for conferences, committees, inquiries and quangos is insatiable so it must be supplied with nourishment. Committee-sitting is now a basic human right. As we know, new buildings for universities, hotels and, for all I know, prisons are not judged by their suitability for their ostensible purpose but whether they will make good conference centres. We need a new political vocabul- ary. The present Government might be more accurately described as 'fascist' rather than Conservative. But 'fascist' is now only a term of abuse. Bureaucratic- monopoly-capitalism might be better but is a mouthful. It is assumed that Thatcherism means less state intervention and more personal responsibility, but never has there been so much legislation and so much `nannying' as under Mrs Thatcher. As to the social services, socialists and Tories assume that they must be carried on as though between bosses and clients. There is no political language to describe those who believe that the cat's cradle of ser- vices, allowances etc should give way to a system of supplying more 'clients' with more money of their own with which to make their own choices. Thatcherites are little or no keener than socialists on a free market.
Has the Nature Conservancy Council got a chaplain or spiritual adviser? I returned home one day to find eight rooks' nests and a party of about 20 new tenants, cawing with pleasure and scattering sticks and droppings. I like the sound and sight of rooks and might have tolerated the mess. But the farmer who owns the land sur- rounding my midget plantation turned out to be implacably anti-rook. No murmuring about how many leather-jackets they eat would move him. I then remembered that they eat potatoes. As my garden is a playground for rabbits, potatoes are the only things I can grow without erecting elaborate and futile defences. I could of course have 'set aside' my garden and added its quarter of an acre to the much prized wilderness (for which act of sacrifice I could no doubt have claimed a grant) but as a neighbourly act, with the help of two rook-scarers usually employed by the local authority, my wife sent the rooks packing. Now this gave pleasure not only to the farmer but to the pair of hoodie crows which are regular nesters in my garden (and whose nest I regularly destroy) who had greeted the rooks with dismay. Dis- tress was caused to a score of rooks (who, however, went off to nest elsewhere), pleasure to two crows, two farmers and perhaps their family. Where did the moral balance lie? This dilemma must, or at least should, constantly exercise the conscience of conservationists.
The Lords' rejection of the War Crimes Bill raises no constitutional difficulty. The relationship of the two Houses is regulated by statute. But what does raise a constitu- tional matter is the interlocking of the Government and big business, illustrated by the instant appointment on their retire- ment of ministers to the boards of such businesses. There is, or was, a convention that civil servants on retirement should undergo a period of quarantine. The same might well apply to ministers. The Govern- ment should stand at arm's length from particular vested interests and represent the general public good. Government dis- penses enormous patronage, contracts and subsidies. This makes it already too inti- mate with some businesses and people. We were warned by Eisenhower of the dangers of the alliance between the Pentagon and big business. We have seen government grow less and less like a watchdog for the ordinary citizen or for the-country as a whole and become more and more like an interest on its own. To protect the citizen we now have ombudsmen and suchlike to ward off the attention of those who ostens- ibly are his guardians and servants. There is a convention that judges on retirement do not go off to the City. Some eyebrows were raised, unfairly I thought, when Mr Justice Fisher did so. It may be good to have some prominent businessmen in Par- We just don't want to play as a team any more.' liament, though except in war I am doubt- ful about their usefulness in Cabinet. It has been accepted for a long time that some ministers who have a real expertise should be allowed to use it on retirement — long ago Mr McKenna became chairman of the Midland Bank after being Chancellor of the Exchequer. No one would suggest that ministers who are beaten at the polls cannot take a new job. But that every minister, almost on the day he retires, should pick up four or five directorships must reinforce the view that government is tied up with business and for some people is merely a step in their career. Ministers should at least not go off to the businesses they have recently privatised. Mr David Winnick's Former Ministers (Interests) Bill deserves support.
Ihave some sympathy for the Govern- ment over its refusal to build a new rail link to the Channel. Twenty minutes off the journey seems poor value for £3 billion and the ruin of a strip of Kent. The trouble of course is that the £3 billion will disappear like the economies people expect from giving up smoking — they vanish as surely as the smoke. We shall not find that improved general rail services nor reduc- tions in taxation, nor, above all, reductions in prices result. After the poll tax what the Government is most culpable for is the rise in prices. The top people don't mind because they have insulated themselves from it by perks and increases in salaries and pensions. But the voters do. Some remember that the Government said that it would stand or fall by its record on inflation. Many more voters notice that the charges of the privatised public services have gone up (though there is little or no improvement in the services themselves), the dividends have gone up, the expendi- ture on advertising has gone up, but what has gone up most of all are the salaries of the chairmen and directors. The consumer is bombarded with the wonders of new technology, his or her ever-rising bills are larded with hand-outs, but apparently making services cheaper for the ordinary subscriber is not an aim of the management. So far from this being a consumer society, the demands of the unorganised individual consumer are ignored. And he or she takes it far too meekly. Pontius Pilate had nothing on the modern citizen when it comes to standing aside. Did you notice that a girl was abducted from a District Line train, forced out of. the carriage and the station in mid-afternoon, and raped? She apparently never screamed and the passengers did nothing, no doubt hiding their faces in their newspapers. What this country needs are more protesters not less, but peaceful and aimed at the right targets.
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