DIARY
DOMINIC LAWSON The Spectator has been calling for so long for the British Government to cease its infatuation with Mikhail Gorbachev, and to recognise the greater moral and elective authority of Boris Yeltsin, that it seems almost unnecessary to say we told you so. But I have enjoyed reading over some of our leader columns of the past couple of years: 'Mr Major's visit to Moscow this week was marred by an act of political cowardice: his failure to meet Boris Yeltsin . . . . If the Prime Minister had frankly admitted that he was snubbing Mr Yeltsin in order to bolster Mr Gor- bachev one would accuse him only of misjudgment. Instead, a spokesman for Mr Major made a weaselly statement that there was just "no time" to fit a meeting with Mr Yeltsin into a "busy day." ' (March 1991). And, on an earlier visit to the Soviet Union, by Mr Major's predeces- sor: 'Mrs Thatcher's decision to cold- shoulder Mr Yeltsin is a mistake.' (June 1990). I don't think either Mr Major's or Mrs Thatcher's blind support for the last one hopes — of the Soviet Union's un- elected communist leaders can be ex- plained entirely by reason, not even by the murky analysis of realpolitik. The attach- ment was emotional and personal, and shows once again, if it needed to be shown, just how lethal a weapon charm is. In Mrs Thatcher's case there was perhaps the added fizz of flirtation between the sexes. But the letter sent by Mr Major to Mr Gorbachev last week after the coup was over was no less effusive: 'Above all, Norma and I were desperately anxious about your and Raisa's well-being. We send our love and the heartfelt good wishes of the British people, and we both look forward to seeing you very soon.' It is amazing that Mr Major, having met the Gorbachevs perhaps twice, should feel prepared to send his and Norma's 'love', and more amazing still that this letter should be handed out by 10 Downing Street to the press as some public declara- tion of that love.
The events of the past week have already been called 'the Second Russian Revolution', although I was always taught at school to regard the uprising of 1905 as the first Russian revolution, and the suc- cessful Bolshevik coup of 1917 as the second. But the tag is perhaps in another and alarming way accurate. A part of Boris Yeltsin's appeal was his attack on the privileges and perks of the communist rulers. That is fine, but I sense that the success of this campaign was in part similar to the success of the Bolsheviks' propagan- da 74 years ago, that it relied not on public interest in the merits or demerits of social- ism, but simply on a popular idea that if the privileges of the few are cancelled, then the welfare of the many will be enhanced. If Boris Yeltsin is successful in reforming the Russian economy it will only be because the Russian people learn to accept the consequences of the market economy, one of which is that some people will not be able to afford the meat they want to eat, and others will be able to afford more meat than they could ever eat. But having rejected the privileges of the communist elites, are the Russian people ready to accept the privileges of capitalist elites? Western investment depends upon it, but I wouldn't put my money on it.
There are times when even I am shocked by the privileges of capital. On Monday the Daily Telegraph reported a shocking case from the Brighton County Court, in which freeholders who took possession of a flat — said to be worth £52,000 — because the windows had not been cleaned for four months, won a legal battle to keep the property. Even Judge Birks, in upholding the legal argument of the freeholders, described the consequ- ences of his judgment as 'an appalling miscarriage of justice', by which I imagine he meant natural justice. The flat was empty, having been left to Mr Jack Joseph, a 64-year-old pensioner, by his late mother, Lilian Joseph. But before Mr Joseph could sell the empty property, which had 76 years of the lease to run, the landlords — a firm called Betterkey repossessed it, saying the lease had been forfeited because of an oversight in paying £66 of service charges and the failure to clean the windows. Under the law, apparently, Mr Joseph has no redress against the forfeiture action even though Canute invents the photo-opportunity. he had no knowledge of the action, as it had been delivered to the empty flat, If the Soviet Union's discredited communists wish to continue their fight to prevent capitalism from gaining the support of the Russian people they will have only to spread the rumour that British-style prop- erty laws are the inescapable consequences of a market economy. I am beginning to understand why my American friends who buy properties in this country never ever consider anything but freeholds.
The Times ran a leader a few days ago questioning whether the Soviet domination of world chess would survive the collapse of the communist system. Of course the idea of a specifically Russian hegemony of chess was always a nonsense, although widely believed in the West. In the Buenos Aires Chess Olympiad of 1939 teams from Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia took part, and did brilliantly. The top player of the Latvian team, Petrov, performed second only to Capablanca. But Petrov never played chess in public again: be was liquidated by the KGB during the Soviet annexation of Latvia. This week the top three places in the Lloyds Bank Grandmas- ter tournament in London went to three Latvians, not 'three Russians'. For that matter, the present world chess champion, Kasparov, , is an Armenian, as was Tigran Petrosian, the Soviet world chess cham- pion from 1963 to 1969. But both have repeatedly been called 'Russian' in the Western press. Indeed if one follows the practice of the Soviet authorities who regard their Jewish citizens as having Jew- ish nationality, and stamp their internal passports accordingly, then one would discover that in fact there have been very few Russian world chess champions. So perhaps the answer to the hoary old question, Why are the Russians so good at chess? should be, They aren't particularly.
0 ur deputy editor, Simon Heifer, has returned after some weeks immobilised in Essex with a broken leg. On his first day back, still in plaster, Simon found that his train, the 8.48 from Chelmsford to Liver- pool Street had been cut, with British Rail's usual arbitrariness, from eight car- riages to four. Unable to get a seat, he stood, in obvious and intense discomfort. All the City men in suits remained seated, burying their faces in their newspapers, so pretending to ignore the cripple. Finally a young man with a stud in his nose and a T-shirt with the message 'Fuck You' stood up and offered his seat. Which only goes to show that, whatever tailors say, you can't tell a gentleman from his appearance.
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