Day of shame
Taki
Gstaad When Tony Blair went to lunch at Cetinale, Tony Lambton's grand Tuscan villa, this summer, at least five good friends of mine were present. The subject of the ban on hunting obviously came up. Blair was honest about it. 'I don't care that much one way or another, it's the party that does . . ' The two Tonys got along very well, and the Tony without the handle charmed everyone, including some diehard Tories, The Cetinale swimmingpool is a long, narrow affair. and Blair took full advantage, did a few laps and then discussed life in general with the Lambton guests. No one among them had at that point been beaten senseless by the fuzz, and all the ugliness of last week seems far away from Tony refreshing himself among the sheltering palms of Lord Lambton's domain.
A month later in London things ain't what they used to be. People who would never dream of breaking the law had their heads broken by cops, who looked to me eager to hurt everyone, including women and oldies. Why the sudden zeal? It's as if the cops, who have been cooped up in their stations all these years playing computer games while the muggers have taken over the towns, have suddenly found an enemy whom the race board will not complain about. White, mostly middle-class folk from the country. One pro-hunting newspaper called it a day of shame for our democratic traditions when those young men broke into the Commons. Well, with the exception of a certain Guido (Guy) Fawkes, the protesters who broke into the chamber are the only ones who have ever entered Parliament with honest intentions. They meant to draw attention to an injustice against a minority, and they did just that. Which is a hell of a lot more than the rest of those smug and arrogant members are known to do.
But why were the cops so eager to bash
the heads of law-abiding people? The fuzz ain't dumb. They know who causes trouble, and it's not the pro-hunting group. I suppose cops, like the rest of us, have changed. The white middle class is seen as a danger to the present mindset of multiculturalism and ethnic diversity. Being a friend of Otis Ferry's parents, I couldn't have been more proud if my own boy had done it. After all, John-Taki is an artist, and one day his art — not being pornographic — might be outlawed as too cosmopolitan and not representative of the common yob. Who were the hooligans, anyway? The Ferry bunch or a slob like Tony Banks and his oiky lot?
I knew that the destruction of our liberties was on its way the moment the Wall came down. I remember it as if it were yesterday. I went by cab to Paul Johnson's house in West London and gave him a copy of the manifesto which had just emerged from an American university. It was a call to silence all white, European voices which didn't comply with political correctness, back then still a term of amusement. Fifteen years later, we have managed to allow our liberties to be destroyed by our very own pusillanimity. Even here, in the bastion of free speech that is the Speccie, there are things I am not allowed to write, which is how Stalinism begins. I do not hunt or shoot, but the ban is as illegitimate as it gets. Which is why fishing and shooting and polo and boxing and booze and smoking and all sorts of other pleasures will definitely be next. Perhaps not in our lifetime, but they are next, and remember who told you so first. (1 shall be practising karate — also on the endangered list — in that dojo you-know-where.)
At a dinner in honour of Lady Thatcher, given by Robin Birley and his mother Annabel Goldsmith, some of us had the opportunity to bring up immigration and how Labour is lying its head off about the millions who have settled here illegally and the way they're still pouring in. Lady T. did not voice an opinion because she is strict about criticising the government at chic dinner parties. If only those who were so against her did the same when they were out of power. I told her that if I were poor
I would be BNP, and she did not like it at all. Veritas odium parit. Now I read that if one is a member of the BNP one cannot hold a Civil Service job, which smacks, after all, of what the Germans decreed about the Jews back in the Thirties. Slowly but surely we'll get there.
After the dinner for Lady T. at George, I walked a few steps down to Harry's Bar, where the beautiful Emily Oppenheimer Turner — how I suffer whenever I see that girl — was throwing a bash for her favourite charity, Facing the World. I also ran into Jemima Khan, my pin-up, and reminded her that on 1 December we have a date at the High Table at Trinity College, Oxford, thanks to the president, Michael Beloff. If, of course, civilised dining is not outlawed by then by metropolitan types who prefer to eat vegetarian. The divine Jemima said yes, so eat your heart out, Hugh Grant.
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