ANOTHER VOICE
God in His mercy lend her grace
AUBERON WAUGH
Perhaps it is because for the first time since I became a journalist nearly 35 years ago I found myself wholeheartedly on the side of the plaintiff in a libel action; per- haps it is the result of Celia Brayfield's powerful article in last week's Spectator on the subject of Michael Jackson as victim of mass envy (`The flip side of fame'); perhaps It is because although I. am not nearly as famous as Gillian Taylforth, let alone Michael Jackson, I have quite a lot to hide
• . . suddenly I begin to feel worried about the idea of being rich and famous. A televi- sion programme I switched on recently showed a black lady with a Midlands accent whining about how freedom applied only to those with money. Her point, if I under- stood her right, was that the Government should give her more money to make her feel freer — an absurd suggestion — but I could see how absolutely essential it is that we should all believe that money brings greater freedom, greater happiness. Other- wise, the whole system collapses, life has no Purpose and nobody does any work.
But if, as Celia Brayfield argued, to be rich and famous is to invite the hatred and revenge of those who elevated you in the first place, we might really be better off like so many Jolliffes, selling insurance policies from door to door. The question which emerges is this: should the rich and famous be protected from the envy and spite of everyone else by, for instance, a ban on Public discussion of their sex lives, their family relationships, their hobbies, pets, friends, home activities, tax returns, private commercial ventures, presents from busi- ness acquaintances, or should they be happy to be ridiculed, exposed in all their base animal functions and vilified as a ges- ture towards social equality? The Taylforth libel action marked an unsuccessful attempt to take revenge for what was seen as a howling injustice. The question for the jury to decide was whether the policeman had genuinely seen Miss Taylforth giving her companion, Mr Knights, a blow job on the front seat of a Range Rover in a lay-by on the A6, or whether he merely saw Mr Knights zip up his flies and reached his own dirty conclu-
sions.
In cross-examination, Mr Carman put it to Mr Knights that he had been advised by a solicitor that if he signed the formal police caution admitting the offence there would be no further charge and no publici- ty. Mr Knights preferred to maintain he was too drunk to know what he was signing, but it seems to me that Mr Carman rather shot himself in the foot in asking that ques- tion. If such inducements were offered, any of us might have signed the caution, espe- cially if we had been caught by a policeman doing up our fly-buttons. It invalidates the admission of guilt.
However, Mr Justice Drake did not choose to draw attention to this in his sum- ming-up, inviting the jury instead to consid- er that if Mr Knights was not as drunk as he said, he was a liar. Three days later the story of the blow job in the lay-by was trum- peted as a front-page exclusive in the Sun, being the most important item in the world's news for Saturday 20 June 1992.
Is there any prospect, I wonder, of the rich and famous, the powerful and success- ful getting their revenge? Libel has been shown as too risky in the new climate. But I thought I saw the beginnings of a backlash in an article which appeared in the Times last Tuesday, under the byline of Walter Ellis. It appeared to deal with the whole subject of the roman a clef, particularly tak- ing to task an acclaimed popular novelist who is rumoured to have included charac- ters who might be identified as her friends in a novel to be published later this month.
`Susan Crosland has almost certainly embarrassed her friends,' pronounced Ellis in the knowing style one associates with the Sunday Times. 'She has also claimed she didn't realise she was doing it. With a friend like this, who needs enemies?'
Perhaps I should explain that Susan Crosland is an old and highly respected friend of mine. Two days earlier Kenneth Rose had cunningly revealed in the Sunday Telegraph that her latest novel, The Mag- nates, out from Orion next week, deals in part with a British ambassador in Washing- ton whose wife has an affair with a journal- ist; also that Peter and Margaret Jay are friends of hers. Rose's story on the Sunday was picked up by Sally Weale in Monday's Guardian with an amusing, well researched piece. Then came Ellis with his solemn, lumbering gait: 'When real people walk into the pages of fiction, it is almost bound to cause a stir.'
After eight years as editor of the Literary Review I feel I have developed an ability to distinguish reviewers who have actually read the book from those who are bluffing. I would be surprised if Ellis had read much more than the two press-cuttings. Crosland's book is 325 pages long, a baroque, delightfully witty and sensual adventure story of love in high places which, although impossible to put down, takes a full day to read. The British ambas- sador, James Wharton, is an outstandingly honourable and admirable man. Despite this, and although I have known both the Jays, off and on since Oxford, 35 years ago, I can see no obvious resemblance. Whar- ton's American wife, Jancie, is an attractive sporting woman with 'pretty, plump breasts', and amiable too, apart from her erotic obsession with the unscrupulous newshound Simon Fleet, one of the villains in the book. Fleet, I suspect, is modelled not on the ghastly American journalist whose name escapes me so much, perhaps, as on me.
At this point I must declare that I am not and never have been the lover of Lady Jay. It would make me very proud and happy even to have it thought that I might have been, but, alas, not. The whole idea of it is a bit of harmless fun. If Sun readers have a grosser and crueller idea of fun than our own, I do not see why we should begrudge it them. Those who seek their admiration must accept their revenge at the end of the day, but I still think Gillian Taylforth had a rough ride. I have never seen her on televi- sion, but, like the Lady of Shalott, she has a lovely face.
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