DIARY CHARLES MOORE
The joy of an unwritten constitution is that one can not only invoke its principles, but invent them. This happens in all discussions of the House of Lords, never more so than in recent days. Government spokesman that it would be constitutional- ly impropert for the Lords to support Lord Chelwood and wreck the Government's poll tax. Opponents of the poll tax who, expecting government defeat, had spoken sentimentally about the patriotic independ- ence of the men of the Tory shires were dismayed when Lord Denham beat the backwoods and flushed out a large govern- ment majority. They immediately com- plained of the constitutional impropriety of getting these gentlemen to vote at all and spoke gravely about a threat tot he exist- ence of the Chamber. Surely both sides were wrong. The Lords were perfectly entitled to vote for Lord Chelwood's amendment and the Government was equally free to use all conventional methods to persuade them not to do so. The important point to cling to in all these arguments is that the Lords have consider- able freedom because no one, except a few ideologues and politicians, really resents them. Television coverage has confirmed the public view that the Lords are a much more trustworthy lot than the people's representatives. They appear, collectively, to be the only disinterested body in mod- ern public life. They command respect, while the Commons have to make do with power. This contrast, unintended of course, is good for the constitution.
When I was in America recently, people sometimes asked me about the House of Lords. They thought it extraor- dinary that people should be members of it just because their fathers were. But they were equally surprised to learn that lords received no salary and no tax advantages. The phrase that causes so much confusion about Britain is 'class system'. Whenever one tries to explain this country's social distinctions and structures of power one realises that a system is exactly what we have not got.
Ithought about anti-Americanism as I travelled 'from sea to shining sea'. I do not see why people should not criticise US foreign policy or want to protect their countries against Americanisation, but the great fault I detect in all anti-Americans is a failure of imagiantion. They do not begin to grasp the magnitude of America's achievement. If one says, for instance, that the poor of the whole earth want to escape to America, the anti-American says, 'Oh well, that's just because there's lots of money in America'. But why is there lots of money in America? Countries like Russia have comparable natural resources and space but little wealth. How has a country made up of the disadvantaged of the nations created opportunities for the people which the most sophisticated ancient civilisations have not been able to match? 'Oh but there is great poverty and crime in America'. Of course there is. America is a country which in the 1980s has taken nine million legal immigrants and perhaps as many illegal ones. Most of the illegal immigrants are destitute when they arrive. Some, of course, remain very poor, but so considerable is the success of the majority that the flow of would-be immig- rants grows all the time. Anti-Americans are generally people who do not believe something is a political achievement unless it results from a specific government act, such as the collectivisation of agriculture. So perhaps it is not surprising that they cannot grasp the political miracle wrought by a nation that deliberately eschews such acts. No need to admire the miracle uncritically, but surely anyone with im- agination should be able to see that this nation is as remarkable as any in history.
NVii, it play in Peoria?' is the famous question which American politi- cians are supposed to ask themselves about The Butch Broadcasting Corporation.' any of their projects. This is how USA Today, the only nationwide newspaper, chose to handle a recent exhibition: RODIN'S THE MAN: The Passion of Rodin . . . — opens Sunday at the Lakeview Museum of Arts and Sciences in Peoria, Ill. Included: The Kiss, The Thinker and —0000 scary! — The Gates of Hell.
After the Prime Minister's dignified address to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, there were few eccle- siastical voices of criticism. Did none of the ministers present notice her repudiation of the Calvinism on which their Church is based? Mrs Thatcher said that the 'fun- damental right to choose between good and evil' was one of the 'distinctive marks of Christianity'. She appeared to deny the doctrine of grace and to prefer works to faith. Article XVII of the Church of England says that 'Predestination to Life is the everlasting purpose of God' and that thinking of this 'is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly per- sons': none of that stuff about individual choice. How much more firmly is that believed north of the border. Was there not one successor of John Knox to jump up and denounce the Colonel-in-Chief of the Monstrous Regiment of Women?
While Mrs Thatcher was explaining her spiritual position to the ministers of the Kirk, Mr Gorbachev was speaking to the Washington Post:
Only Jesus Christ knew all the answers to all the questions and could feed 20,000 Jews with five loaves of bread. We do not possess such miraculous power.
Mr Enoch Powell has already pointed out what a close reading of the text this reveals. St Matthew says 'they that did eat were about five thousand men, beside women and children' so Mr Gorbachev has carefully allowed two children and one woman per man and made it 20,000 in all (though he seems to have left out the two fishes). Notice, also, another Gorbachev usage — 'Jews'. The 20,000 were Jews, of course, bUt I have never heard anyone else use the word in this context. The Soviet Union is notoriously impatient, to put it politely, with its Jews. When it tells 20,000 of them to make do with five loaves, they tend to complain. Does Mr Gorbachev admire Christ because, on that occasion at least, he was able to shut them up?
As promised, Wallace Arnold shares his apercus with us for the first time this week. He casts his pearls on page 47. Next week's Diarist is Rowlinson Carter.
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