Another voice
Hang them all
Auberon Waugh
Athe year 1983 drew to its close in the House of Commons a new Conser- vative member called Mr Philip (sic) Oppenheim demanded a ban on the impor- tation of pate de foie gras because of the 'extreme cruelty' involved in its production. Mrs Peggy Fenner, Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture, replied to this demand, saying that a group of experts had carried out an inquiry in France in 1974 and saw no evidence of suffering or cruelty. 'I know of no new evidence to doubt these findings.'
In my own experience of having sum- mered for the last 20 years in one of France's main goose-stuffing regions, the evidence points all the other way. As I have reported on several ocCasions (and as Oppenheim would know if he read the Spectator) it is one of the most heartwarm- ing sights of the Lauragais to see geese honking excitedly as they queue up to have maize corn rammed down their throats. They absolutely love it. Anyone who has the slightest feeling for geese, as Mr Phillip (sic) Oppenheim claims to have, should be delighted by the whole business.
But the incident raises several questions. The first concerns the identity of this ig- norant creep Oppenheim. The Times Guide to the House of Commons provides a mug shot as of some particularly vicious teenage rapist exposed by the News of the World. It appears that this 26-year-old lout, the son of Mrs Sally Oppenheim, MP for Gloucester and one-time Minister for Con- sumer Affairs, was elected for Amber Valley in June. He is described as 'joint founder of business consumer magazine covering high technology products'.
A subsidiary question might be: where, who or what is Amber Valley, which the young twerp Oppenheim claims to represent? It does not appear in the Ord- nance Survey Atlas of Great Britain, and one can only suppose it is one of those new areas invented by the indefatigable Peter Walker. In all probability it is entirely given over to the production of his Lymeswold cheese. Perhaps the mewling infant Oppen- heim sees foie gras as a rival to this revolting substance, and thinks he is being a good constituency MP by trying to prevent everyone in Britain from eating foie gras. I neither know nor care. The important thing to bear in mind is that this self-important little runt is no sooner elected to Parliament as a Conservative than he starts throwing his weight around on a subject about which he plainly knows nothing, and trying to pre- vent the 56 million-odd people in this coun- try from enjoying one of the greatest culinary experiences which human ingenui- ty has yet contrived.
One would not bother to draw attention to this repulsive figure — I hope the voters of Amber Valley, wherever it may be, realise their mistake before the next general election — if he did not seem typical of the prevailing spirit in the Conservative Party. They are attracted to politics by the simple desire to throw their weight around, and stop us from doing things which we want to do and which we have always done without harming anybody. The last weeks of this session saw a 'revolt' by Conservative MPs who were objecting — objecting — to the Government's implausible and doomed at- tempts to keep down rate increases. Mrs Thatcher has long since abandoned any pretence of reducing central government ex- penditure on the obvious grounds that any reduction of the government presence reduced her Government's exercise of power. She kept up a pretence of reducing local government expenditure in the belief that nobody at Westminster would mind, but she reckoned without the presence of all those fat Tory MPs who have been lining their greasy pockets out of the rates for years...
Mrs Lynda Chalker, the Minister for Transport, is quite a different case. This 41-year-old divorcée gives as her recreations in Who's Who: 'music, the disabled, cook- ing, theatre, driving'. I am the last person to grudge her any of these pleasures. Although fairly limited in my appreciation of music, and never having discovered much fun, myself, among the disabled, I can quite accept that it takes all sorts. If she enjoys pushing wheelchair cases around the National Theatre to the strains of Schoenberg's Erwartung and driving them home afterwards for a meal of choucroute Alsacienne that is perfectly okay by me. But this fun-loving lady obviously has another, quite different recreation which for some reason she neglects to list in Who's Who. One can guess at it only from her public ut- terances. In support of the 'If you drink don't drive' campaign launched by a hand- ful of bossy hooligans in the Department of Transport, she stood up and solemnly an- nounced that even one drink over the Christmas season could involve drivers in arrest, prosecution and imprisonment.
I have written elsewhere, and at some length, on this Ministry of Transport cam- paign, which has been supported by a number of Chief Constables, several publicity-seeking magistrates and even, to my eternal shame, by one or two news- papers. But perhaps I had better re- capitulate the essential facts. A glance at
the Government Statistical Services Social Trends (HMSO £19.95) reveals that despite an enormous and unprecedented increase in road traffic road deaths have decreased steadily — by a factor of nearly 25 per cent since 1971 — and other casualties, which had decreased in absolute terms for the past three years, continue to decline in relation to road use. The most sanguine guess by the Department of Transport for the number of casualties involving at least one party over the permitted limit is 30,000 annually, but this includes pedestrians and represents less than nine per cent of all road casualties, which stand at 354,000 annually. One can see that on the Ministry's own figures drink is not a major factor in road accidents. By baldly stating the contrary, they are simply lying. The extremely low limit was designed to catch those already driving erratically, but now the police use it as a means of terrorising the entire popula- tion, while the demented cow Chalker has ordained that the country's 16 million car drivers must change the habits of a lifetime and either drink no alcohol or stay at home without visiting friends and neighbours throughout the Christmas season.
Under this Conservative government, which has also increased taxation on spirits by 45.5 per cent and on fortified wines by 76.9 per cent, the police have quite simply been encouraged to run amok with their breathalysers. Two out of three tests are
now negative — only one in but
was negative throughout the Seventies — prosecutions have soared by 85 per cent since June.
But perhaps the worst example of the sort of people we have elected to govern us is given by the case of Calke. Abbey, near Burton-on-Trent. Six months ago none of us had heard of this miraculous Palladian palace. It had been inhabited for the last 250 years by an admirably dim county fami- ly called Harpur-Crewe, who collected matchboxes, beads and mineral specimens, harming nobody. An estate of some 14,000 acres supported the house. Now the Government, demanding £9 million in capital transfer tax from the present owner, Mr Henry Harpur-Crewe, with interest of £1,200 a day, have added insult to injury by refusing to accept the land in place of cash.
Mrs Thatcher has done nothing whatever to deserve the house, and Mr Harpur- Crewe has done nothing whatever to deserve its confiscation. This monstrous tax, which Mrs Thatcher promised to abolish when it was first introduced, is doing more to attack private ownership and destroy the fabric of our society than anY number of Trotskyists. But it would be a waste of time to abuse the Minister con- cerned, who is called `Mr Patrick Jenkin'. The simple truth is we have elected a nest of vipers. In June, Mrs Thatcher promised to reduce public expenditure. She has increas- ed it. The time has come for the nation to rise up and hang all its politicians, left, right and centre, as a terrible warning to those who will come after.
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