Diary
Iregard myself as something of an expert Annie's Bar, at which only MPs, Lords who are former MPs, and lobby journalists can drink. He secured access to the Terrace 10 these journalists. He also, in some `rationalisation' of the cellars, steamed the labels off bottles of vintage claret and of- fered the contents at half a crown (as it was In those days) a glass. He was a benefactor Of the writing trade. Unhappily — or it may turn out happily — the printing trade does not look on him with so much favour. Several of my friends in Fleet Street have suggested that Mr Trelford went out to Africa determined to fix on an issue between him and Mr Rowland in which the erditor would clearly be seen to be in the glu. I can report that this was not so, and M the e story just happened, as stories will.
Easter is the favourite time for con- . ,ferences and smaller gatherings along the lines, seminars, weekend schools and s'ue like. I am sometimes asked to attend thuFb groups and always refuse. For one ,,,in g5 You are effectively imprisoned with .c.Ple you do not know and may not much rare for. For another thing, you — at any t!,t,e. I — feel under surveillance. Are you 711(14 too iiiplakIng a much? Or not enough, 'not contribution'? It is like being sa,!1( on a course in the RAF. Some of these rcuools are in session virtually the yeal. ound, not just at Easter. One of them is kie Civil Service College at Sunningdale. 1 11,.ave never been there, though some of mY i!lends have as visiting speakers. I have ciptisturbing reports about goings-on at the 0:ce. The college (in, for example, a course A,..„In.terviewing techniques) has taken to s...ier.ie an methods reminiscent of 'Est' and
humiliated, e. The subjects — or objects — are Alai_ nuliated, abused, invited to tell all,
deprived of their confidence in order that it praiY. be rebuilt, or so it is hoped. Not sur- ssingIY, in view of this rough treatment, "'era] civil servants have gone funny in the on newspaper crises. I calculate that, in 25 Years of journalism, I have been through a change of either proprietor or editor once every three and a half years. The editorial changes were, at the Spectator, Macleod to Lawson and, at the New Statesman, Johnson to Crossman and Crossman to Howard. The proprietorial changes were, at the Spectator, Gilmour to Creighton and, at the Observer, Astor to Anderson and Anderson to Rowland. So far, I have sur- vived all. So, more interestingly, has Mr Donald Trelford. My method is, however, unavailable to him: it is to give proprietors a wide berth and to deal directly with editors. I have never met Mr Tiny Rowland. Mr Robert Maxwell I met occasionally when he was an MP in 1964-70. He was an excellent chairman of the Catering and Ser- vices. Committees. He re-established head. Doctors have subsequently been con- sulted, spouses deserted, pills taken. Mrs Margaret Thatcher now officially proclaims herself not only Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury but Minister for the Civil Service as well. Does she know what is going on at Sunningdale? And if she does, what does she propose to do about it?
What, the lady is supposed to have asked, were they going to do with the Holy Grail once they found it? I asked myself a similar question about the lunatics inside the Libyan Embassy. What were the police going to do with them when and if they came out? Oppenheim's International Law says that `if a crime is committed in- side the house of an envoy by an individual who does not enjoy personally the privilege of extraterritoriality, the criminal must be surrendered to the local Government.' There is more stately prose along the same lines, based largely on 19th-century precedents. It is not of much practical help today. The Libyans clearly had no intention of sur- rendering anybody. The authorities must have hoped, first, that WPC Fletcher's murderer did not enjoy diplomatic status and, secondly, that he would either have confessed or been incriminated by his fellows. Some hopes! But otherwise the civil power's actions made no sense. Another choice was to say that embassies used as machine gun posts ceased to be em- bassies in international law and could ac- cordingly be stormed — that Oppenheim, so to speak, had not thought of this one. And the other choice was to send the Libyans packing. The Government did this after much delay, when it could have done it at once. In fact Dr David Owen firmly recommended this course within hours of the murder. Though the popular prints,
aided by television, have tried to turn this disgraceful episode into a heroic event, no politician, at least, emerges from it with credit. The exception is Dr Owen.
We most of us like to spot changes in language and usage. We usually spot them only to deplore. I am no exception. This year's superfluous word is 'punter'. It is not only superfluous but running amok. To me, a punter is a small gambler without much knowledge of what he is about. A few years ago a stripper, in an interview, refer- red to her Soho audience as punters. Now my journalistic colleagues talk about their readers as punters, as in: 'The punters will (or alternatively won't) go for a series like that.' A few weeks ago a friend who was selling his flat told me he thought he had a punter, meaning a possible buyer. Last week in this paper Mr Auberon Waugh, whom I have always regarded as a custo- dian of the language, called wine buyers punters. I do not want to talk of newspaper subscribers, prospective purchasers or, worst of all, wine lovers. But 'punter' sug- gests patronage or sharp practice in the speaker, ignorance or folly in the punter. I am not, I may say, wholly borne out by the Shorter Oxford. A punter originally played against the bank at faro. By transference, he became a small professional (not amateur) backer of horses or a Stock Ex- change gambler. Professional gamblers are no longer punters. Usage has changed. But is there any need to expand it further?
T have not read Mr A. N. Wilson's bio- graphy of Hilaire Belloc, but I will, I will. In the meantime I have been reading the reviews. Mr Christopher Booker in the Sun- day Telegraph is laudatory about the Life but takes the line Who now reads Belloc?, for all the world as if he were as remote and obscure as, say, William of Occam. This is becoming a fairly common reviewing device. In the past few months I have seen Who now reads? asked of Hazlitt, Cobbett, Ruskin and Carlyle. One answer is: I do. In the last year or so I have not only dipped into all these authors. Of Belloc's works, I have read The Emerald, reread Mr Clutter- buck's Election and The Green Overcoat, and read several of his essays for the first time. I find Chesterton more engaging and accomplished a writer, but this by the way. What kinds of authors do these reviewers think people like me read — or ought to read? Professor John Carey in the Sunday Times is more specific in his complaints. He claims that the Belloc novels' preoccuption with the political trivia of his day makes them impenetrable to modern readers.' Well, they are not at all impenetrable to me, and I am no expert on the period. No Roy Jenkins or Stephen Koss I. Professor Carey, a lively enough reviewer, should pull himself together and be prepared to make a bit of an effort. He is, after all, supposed to be in the business of instructing the young.
Alan Watkins
Previous page
