DIARY ALAN WATKINS
It was that old newspaperman Lord Cudlipp who first pointed out to me that Mrs Margaret Thatcher had not actually said what the Sunday Correspondent claimed she had said: that she would retire shortly after the next election. What she said was that she would retire during the Parliament following that election. This seemed to me no more than a commonsen- sical statement of the obvious which would bring comfort to many breasts, not least that of Mr Denis Thatcher, 82 in 1997. It was, however, seized on by the Prime Minister's enemies in the Conservative Party as a terrible blunder. It was this, more than interest rates, opinion polls or Mr Nigel Lawson, which created the atmosphere for a contested election. In these circumstances it would have been both prudent and legitimate for her to correct the paper's headline, making clear that of course she had no intention of retiring immediately after the election. Instead she made matters worse through a mixture of hyperbole and contradiction. Her unfortunate reference in America to 'popular acclaim' was reminiscent of the worse sort of Roman emperor. With Mr David Dimbleby on Monday she said she would depart only if her party or her country turned her out. This was to commit herself in advance to a sad end. Is there no longer any room for honourable retire- ment?
The New Zealand rugby team have not enjoyed a specially good press during their recent tour of our two most backward rugby nations, Ireland and Wales. This was brought about partly because of their reluctance to talk to reporters, partly because of various incidents (as they are euphemistically termed) off the field, part- ly because of the questionable legality of some of their ploys but mainly, I fear, because of their success. They also had a reputation for surliness. Accordingly it was a pleasure to listen to their captain, Mr Wayne Shelford, at the press conference following last Saturday's Barbarians match at Twickenham. He was humorous, polished, fluent and assured. What he had to say about the state of rugby in these islands was neither arrogant nor patronis- ing but helpful and, above all, true: in essence, that we needlessly surrendered possession of the ball by ill-directed kick- ing. It seems that the New Zealanders are not only better than we are at playing the game but at talking about it as well.
A correspondent in this paper last week was lamenting the use of 'shot himself in the foot' to mean 'foolishly inflicted an injury on himself' instead of 'deliberately inflicted an injury to avoid the risk of a greater'. He was correct. I have misused the phrase myself, where 'scored an own goal' would have served my mean- ing better. In South Wales they say: 'He pissed on his chips.' The shot foot metaphor derives, as we know, from the trenches in the first world war, though clearly the practice itself is older. A few days ago I was reading of Dorset labourers who would strap pennies to their knees to lame themselves, so avoiding service in the Napoleonic Wars. I do not quite see how a penny would achieve this object, but there it is. Common phrases often acquire a meaning different from that of the original, sometimes directly opposite to it. An example of the last is: 'The weak go to the wall.' This is now used to mean that the weak are the first to suffer, as if they had originally been sent to the wall to be shot or otherwise maltreated. Not so. Quite late, until well into the 17th century, churches had no seats. The lame, the blind, the aged — in other words the weak, or what Elizabethan statutes called the impo- tent — were, out of kindness, allowed to lean against the church wall.
Mr Denis Healey has got into the habit of demanding corrections all over the place. A few weeks ago he asked the Sunday Telegraph to 'set the record straight' about his attitude to the Commun- ist regimes of Eastern Europe just after the war. The paper produced its evidence and stood firm and the jovial old bully duly collapsed. Last Saturday he was at it again. This time it was the Independent. He denied ever having promised to 'squeeze the rich until the pips squeak,' though he 'may have quoted Tony Crosland as saying that he would squeeze property speculators until the pips squeak.' I well remember the speech in question, at the Blackpool con- ference of 1973, because in it Mr Healey promised, to loud applause, to attack the self-employed. I looked it up again. There is no mention of pips but it does contain, amid much levelling talk: 'I warn you, there are going to be howls of anguish from the 80,000 rich people who are rich enough to pay over 75 per cent on the last slice of their income.' So in what Mr Healey calls 'newspaper folklore' the pips speech can become the howls of anguish speech. I hope he is satisfied. I trust also that in correcting one error he has not created another: that it was Crosland who coined the phrase. It was, of course, Sir Eric Geddes at the Guildhall, Cambridge, in 1918. The words were picked up by J. M. Keynes's alert and adoring mother, who transmitted them to him for use in The Economic Consequences of the Peace. Altogether, if a book of mine had been as favourably, even indulgently, received as Mr Healey's memoirs, I should be inclined to smile gently on my publisher, my reviewers and my bank manager — and to observe a period of silence.
It is, I suppose, a consequence of middle age that the Spectator/Highland Park Par- liamentarian of the Year luncheon, which provides much simple pleasure, should seem to come round with increasing fre- quency. In this it resembles the Spectator summer party, the Queen's Speech and the Eurovision Song Contest. I have been on the panel of judges since the award started, together with Mr Colin Welch and the editor of The Spectator, and like to think that we take our duties seriously but not solemnly. We made a mistake, however, in last week's citations when we said, naming Mr Eric Helfer Backbencher of the Year: 'In past years, he has loudly demanded to know why he has not been given an award.' Mr Heifer has reproached me for this. What he has traditionally yelled is: 'Why on earth are you giving an award to him?' Not that there is anything in it for the winners. On the contrary, all the holders of the principal award have suffered misfor- tunes of one kind or another: Mr John Biffen, sacked; Mr Nigel Lawson, res- igned; Dr David Owen, mislaid his party; Mr Edward Heath, still without a party; and, most distressing of all, Mr John Smith, heart attack. There is clearly a Curse of Highland Park. Had I been Mr Smith, I might have hesitated before accepting the malt whisky chalice for the second time round.
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