DIARY JOHN MORTIMER
In a dull political landscape it is an odd fact that it's hunting that has provided a welcome touch of drama. The pro-hunting march at Bournemouth contained thou- sands of the workers and their families Who will lose their jobs if the sport is banned. The Countryside Alliance survived a clumsy government attempt to smear it With the suggestion that it has been infil- trated by the British National Party. In fact the Alliance, headed by a long-time Labour supporter, has warned the police of any action by the BNP. I hope it will also survive attacks by those who have trashed the City banks. The case against hunting has been conceded by the announcement that it will never apply to shooting or fish- ing. The anti-hunting motive can no longer be based on alleged cruelty to animals. The lengthy playing of a fish with a hook in its mouth is far more unkind than the instant death of a fox jumped on by a lead dog, and the breeding of thousands of birds for massacre is far less defensible than the destruction of a rural killer. 'Cruelty' seems now to be decided by the number of voters who enjoy the sport, and far crueller procedures such as halal butchery are, it seems, also beyond the reach of any intended law. The purpose of the proposed ban is to calm restless backbenchers and, presumably, to justify more than £1 million provided for the Labour party by the Inter- national Fellowship for Animal Welfare. Happily, the latest opinion polls show that, although the majority of voters don't care for hunting, they don't think people should be thrown into prison for doing it. Mean- while, the religious worship of animals has reached new levels of fantasy. A man in some Nordic country, found guilty of spanking his wife with a live eel, was heavi- ly fined for cruelty to the eel.
The hunting debate does mark the limit of a government's right to interfere with the way of life, the moral values and the pleasures of reasonable and respectable cit- izens. It's the government's business to make trains, schools and hospitals work. It's no part of its function to teach us morality or preach to schoolchildren on the virtues of married life. In any event such lessons should be accompanied with the warning that murder, like Christmas, large- ly goes on in the family circle, and domestic bullying, tyranny and abuse often go with the possession of a marriage certificate. The syllabus should include a compulsory reading of Macbeth, the plays of Strindberg and the Agamemnon of Aeschylus. It's also insufficiently realised that lessons about morality, political behaviour or private habits in school inevitably produce oppd- site results. As a public schoolboy before the last war, I was regularly taught to hon- our the British Empire, vote Conservative and be grateful for my privileged educa- tion. As a result I became a one-boy com- munist cell at Harrow and only turned to Spanish-style anarchism when the Commu- nist party, at the time of the Hitler—Stalin pact, wanted me to throw down production on my factory floor. Years of blasting chil- dren with dire warnings about the terrors of smoking have only caused more lighting up outside the playground. Education, educa- tion, education should mean equipping children to lead fuller, richer and more enjoyable lives. Not three varieties of preaching.
MiBen k
The dangers of teaching arc not only that its recipients may do the exact opposite of what their teacher tells them. Those anx- ious to learn may take advice and example far too literally. I had a letter this week from a gentleman who says that when on trial for drunken and disorderly conduct he defended himself along the lines of a Rumpole story and was immediately con- victed by the magistrates. On appeal he quoted one of Rumpole's speeches about the presumption of innocence being the golden thread that runs through British jus- tice, and was committed for contempt of court. He asked if I would return to the Bar to conduct his further appeal, but I'm glad to say my courtroom days are over. I'm sorry that Rumpole has had such unfortu- nate repercussions, but I remain inordinate- ly proud of his appearance in the 0.J. Simp- son trial. To my delight one of the defend- ing counsels stood up and said to Judge Ito, 'Your Honour, as Mr Rumpole would say, I think we're getting a case of premature adjudication.' It is, I think, a memorable phrase of Rumpole's, but I wouldn't advise anyone appearing in person in a magis- trate's court to make the slightest use of it.
The renewed attempt to convict PG. Wodehouse, to many of us the greatest prose writer of the century, of being a traitor, quisling and close associate of Lord Haw-Haw, was admirably dealt with by Boris Johnson in last week's Spectator. Clearly Wodehouse made some flippant, and probably ill-advised, broadcast about his arrest and incarceration by the Ger- mans during the war. When he was released from prison at the age of 60 he had to pay his hotel bills in Paris and Berlin. This he did by collecting European royalties, and the payment of these was funnelled through the German govern- ment. 'The charges against Wodehouse are so feeble, so deformed by spite,' as Boris said, 'that they are worth repeating only for the light they cast ... on his enemies.' After the war Wodehouse was savagely attacked by Bill Connor writing as 'Cassan- dra' in the Daily Minor. Edward Cazalet, now a judge, has a great Wodehouse archive because the writer was his grand- mother's second husband. Among these papers I found a wonderful set of letters. From them it appeared that after the attacks were over Wodehouse wrote to Bill Connor, and they became firm friends and often met for lunch. Wodehouse also wrote every morning, before he settled down to work, a long and loving letter to his wife. So he was not only a genius and no traitor, but a singularly nice man.
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