Another voice
Mr Wu is 60
Auberon Waugh
Londoners were deprived of the Daily Telegraph on three days of last week, as the result of an industrial dispute about the movement of some machinery. In West Somerset, for some reason, we saw the newspaper only on Monday and Tuesday. The other four days had me earnestly reading the Times, a newspaper which ar- rives with the regularity of clockwork these days but is seldom opened.
Why do we go on taking it? Soon, if reports of its gigantic losses this year are confirmed, we may be spared the embar- rassment of having to explain, although I have a sick feeling that some organisation like the Arts Council will step in and save it for the nation yet again. One reason may be snobbery or class deference. Is not the pre- sent editor a first cousin once removed of the Princess of Wales? Perhaps this ex- plains why it now shows the Royal arms not only on the masthead and above the Court Circular, but, also above the almost unreadable Times Diary facing the leader page, and even to advertise the completely unreadable Saturday Leisure Supplement on page one. It now uses the Royal arms as a sort of trade mark, as if the newspaper held a Royal warrant. I am almost sure it doesn't, and suspect that Clause 68 of the Trade Marks Act 1905 has some pretty austere things to say about tradesmen who use the Royal arms in this way without authority. Whether Douglas-Home risks being beheaded or just a stiff prison sentence, it certainly will not be the first time that someone has allowed a Royal con- nection to go to his head.
The boredom of the new Times is, I suspect, deliberate, as if there was some moral or historical obligation to be boring in response to the pressures of the age. My real complaint, having thought about the matter, is not so much that it is boring, but that it fails to carry conviction in its efforts to be boring. It is like some raw adolescent who has once met a captain in the Pay Corps and is trying to pass himself off as a retired Indian Army colonel from Poona.
The classic example of boredom overkill in Saturday's newspaper was the Parliamentary report. Spread across three columns on page four we read the memorable headline: 'Revised welfare codes for pigs and cattle.' Thirty-nine col- Limn inches devoted to a Commons debate on the report of the Select Committee on Animal Welfare in Poultry, Pig and Veal Calf Production were decorated by a studio photograph of the Conservative Member for Plymouth Drake, Miss Janet Fooks, who had contributed the thought that very small cages for battery-reared calves were objectionable; but she was prepared to ac- cept a little longer than five years for phas- ing them out. The main news story, on a day when most papers led on the Helen Smith in- quest, was Mr Lawson's failure to sell his British Oil shares to the public. That, I sup- pose, is fair enough. But the second news story was headed: 'China replaces defence and foreign ministers', splashed across two columns at the top of the front page. Forty- one column inches of news-space and 22 column inches of editorial opinion were then devoted to saying that not too much importance should be attached to this development, by which Mr Geng Biao was replaced by Mr Zhang Aiping, and Mr Wu Xiuquan replaced Mr Huang Hua.
The first leader — on French Exocets to Argentina — was reasonably concise and intelligent, but the second one, on Sino- Soviet relations, seemed such obvious waf- fle as to raise the question whether it was satirically intended. And this, it seems to me, is the crux. Let us examine the news item more closely.
I do not suppose that more than a hun- dredth of one per cent of the Times's readerhip had the faintest idea who was the Chinese defence minister (answer — Mr Geng Biao) before learning that they should not be too alarmed at his replacement by Mr Zhang Aiping. But the whole act depends on maintaining the pretence that Times readers knew and cared who the Chinese defence minister was. Immediately afterwards we learned that Mr Zhang Wen- jin will soon be appointed ambassador to America. The story continues: 'Mr Huang's successor has a long history of service in the Communist Youth League . .. His appointment is seen as reflecting his close relations with Mr Hu Yaobang, the new Secretary General of the Communist Party ... Mr Wu is 60. Mr Zhang, aged 72, is a veteran revolutionary ...'
Anybody who has got this far will sup- pose that Mr Zhang, aged 72, is Mr Zhang Wenjin, the projected ambassador last referred to. In fact, it refers to the first Mr Zhang Aiping, who has dropped out of the story 40 lines back. But who the hell is Mr Wu? Is this perhaps a misprint for Mr Hu, the new Secretary General of the Com- munist Party, who might easily be 60? No, if you read 45 lines back, past five other Chinese names, you will find it refers to Mr Huang's successor, Mr Wu Xiuquan.
My reason for drawing attention to this confusion of the two Zhangs and muddling of Mr Wu (who is 60) with Mr Hu (age un-
The Spectator 27 November /94 disclosed) is to suggest that nobody at te Times really supposed the story would . read. They are just going through the ta0 tions of producing a serious newspaper, journal of record. Their concentration ! not on what they are saying, but on the fad that they are saying it. As I suggest, theYare simply acting a part. There is no satirical tention but a boredom with the part which expresses itself in the tendency of bad a ting to slip into parody and burlesque. at So much for the news side. Let us louk; the features, obviously intended as leavening. The main feature article 0', what might, I suppose, be called a `thinp piece' by Nicholas Fairbairn, the fur,illeaie Solicitor-General for Scotland who used list 'making love' among his recreationsh'e Who's Who. His article, called `What °„1 public need not know', complains aol'e press interest in the private lives of Puhi people, and also about the 'tone of 01°I.ce disapproval' in press comment on Prir14 Andrew's adventures with Koo Stark (I ' not notice any moral disapproval). He Pr01 ceeds: `There is much to be said for the law ht; ing changed, so that no comment may made on the private life of anyone with° his or her consent, unless it emerges from criminal proceedings.'Y Yes, well, that is a fine, pompous blood, fool's opinion and there is no earthlY Tir; son why.it should not be freely expressed r, a fine, pompous bloody fool's newsPalls, No doubt it struck a chord in many bre,85„. Mr Fairbairn continues in the same vein' `It is time that press hounding of those public life ceased. Scandal may be Poi py,butitadds nothing to the integritY copy, institutions.' As a penultimate sentence, that is grin, But then he has to destroy his whole arg ment with his last, parting shot:. s] `I do not think they [the institutto re were any worse, indeed I think they vleoi. probably much better, when those wh°10 ed us were known and seen to have he 4",,,, ` lovers.' Which with many mistresses ' Which is precisely what press hound achieves. Mr Fairbairn here reveals hiuls; as healthy sexual liaiser, quite hapPY 1°.o. known as such provided comment is proving. He is an ordinary bore actingtTie part of a pompous bore. And that is trouble with the Times. miler There is no space to enlarge on tw° "'rig horrors in Saturday's newspaper--„Aia `guided tour of the best of modern hlu'ose in the City of London' or the full-firis shopping guide to Hong Kong. MY 1)01"f a that if this silly, boring, bogus travestY Poro, newspaper survives, and an intelligent' oo fessional one like the Daily Telegraph 0 to the wall, it can only be a sign thal. country is doomed. Poseurs and twerps re have triumphed not only in politics, woes they have always been strong, but als° of the presentation and interpretation 00 political events — and that is much
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