DIARY
PEREGRINE WORSTHORNE It is David Selbourne, it seems to me, who has behaved badly, not Ruskin Col- lege. Ruskin College is funded by the trade union movement and its students are trade union activists. The whole ethos of the place is steeped in trade union mythology. When David Selbourne first went to teach there, he, too, loved the unions and shared their mythology. Later he became disillu- sioned and started to give lectures and write articles which were critical of trade unionism, and finally broke the rule about trade unionists not working for the Mur- doch press. Now what Selbourne ought to have done, I think, is to resign, on the ground that his opinions no longer made him a suitable teacher for Ruskin. If a beak at Eton suddenly developed strong views about the iniquity of private education, and began agitating for the abolition of such schools, surely it would be reasonable to expect him to look for another job. Likewise, if a teacher at Downside lost his faith, should he not also be expected to move on? This is not so much a question of academic freedom as of common sense.
Mrs Thatcher came to lunch with us at the Telegraph recently. As always, she was full of zest for argument. But the guard never came down for an instant. We learnt nothing of her private thoughts or feelings about the great issues of the day. It was explained to me later by one of her aides that she no longer felt able to speak freely and frankly, since leakers could nowadays be found even among the friendliest com- pany. Gone, he said, were the days when prime ministers — he could have added Princes, for that matter — could ever take anybody on trust. Even so Mrs Thatcher did let one titbit out: that she has been reading a novel by Saki, called When William Came, which tells the story of what happens in Britain after a German inva- sion, the William of the title being, of course, Kaiser Bill himself. One rather gathered that Saki had provided Mrs Thatcher with useful ammunition to be fired at Mr Kinnock over the defence issue. Leaking again, Worsthorne.
Ithought Ali Forbes went quite over- board about Frank Giles in his Spectator review of Sundry Times and I really don't see the point of writing such malicious — not to say malevolent — stuff, except about people who are nasty, which Frank, a thoroughly decent and honourable man, ES not. He certainly deserves to be teased, even discomfited, a bit; but not savaged, since there is no harm in him. His trouble was that he did not really approve of Journalists, except those who were on good terms with the great and the good, as he was himself — Henry Kissinger, Peter Carrington, those kind of people. Not for Frank the Grub Street journalist. When I said this to Kitty, his wife, recently, she said that the same kind of criticism could be made about me, and when I denied this, claiming to be a 'low' journalist, she got quite heated. In my view all successful newsgathering involves doing dirt on some- body, letting somebody down, which is why serious journalists should not expect to be well received in polite society. It was Frank's refusal to accept this that made him a slight figure of fun. He was also a bit left-wing, voted Labour. Lots of journalists do that, of course. But then they, unlike Frank, don't marry an earl's daughter and move in those circles. Hereditary aristoc- rats can be forgiven for turning against their class, since they never asked to belong to it in the first place. But Frank, so to speak, volunteered, and his egalitarian- ism really did stick in the throat, rather in the same way as did the articles denounc- ing the English class system of Anthony Lewis (famous London correspondent of the New York Times), many of which were composed in the library of Chatsworth. But all these are very small faults, wholly insufficient to justify Ali's bucketful of bile which fell, too, on Kitty's wholly undeserv- ing head. As a Cambridge undergraduate during the war, I once asked Kitty, who was at school in nearby Longstowe, to dinner in my rooms. Her headmistress, the famous Mrs Fyfe, said she would have to come chaperoned. I replied that since we That was no actress that was my wife!' already had Father Gilbey, the Catholic chaplain, among the other guests, a chaperone would be like bringing coals to Newcastle. Mrs Fyfe refused to give way and the chaperone came and was the life and soul of the party. As it happens, Frank's memoir, which Ali did so little justice to, is quite excellent, particularly the chapter describing how he was sacked by Murdoch. Nothing in Frank's journalis- tic career became him so well as his brilliantly humorous account of how it came to a sticky end.
Iam told that there has been an alarming increase in the number of squinting chil- dren and that this is due to the fact that more and more mothers suckle their babies while watching television. Attracted by the flickering light behind them, the babies swivel their eyes round in that direction, with this dire result. Money used to be the root of all evil, nowadays it is television.
The poor Americans can get nothing right. Having been castigated for years for stationing cruise and Pershings on Euro- pean soil, they are now in equal hot water for having offered Mr Gorbachev at Reyk- javik to take the damned things away. The same kind of losing both ways applies just as much to the dollar. If it goes up Europeans shout blue murder. But they do the same if it comes down. No wonder the Americans are beginning to find us a bit infantile.
0 n the whole pedestrians treat each other with reasonable civility most of the time. There is not much crowding and hustling and pushing. Certainly the old and elderly do not get shoved off the pavement or elbowed out of the way by young people in a hurry. When it comes to driving on the highway, however, things are very differ- ent; horribly different, for the old or elderly get absolutely no extra considera- tion at all. As an elderly driver myself, who is all too conscious of driving a little less resolutely than of old, hesitating a few seconds longer etc, I am shocked and outraged by the rude impatience of young drivers behind me. Illogically, of course, because they have no way of knowing that I am over 60. But that is my point. There ought to be some way of identifying drivers who need a bit of extra toleration — special number plates, perhaps, or some other distinguishing mark. Pedestrians treat each other differently according to age and it is about time some system was devised to make it possible for drivers to do the same.
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