Another voice

Trying to be fair

Auberon Waugh My reflections on the most suitable Englishman to lead his country out of its present decline were interrupted last week by a telephone call from a firm of solicitors : someone called Mr James Goldsmith (as he then was) proposed to seek a High Court injunction restraining me from any adverse comment about himself or his solicitor and friend, a gentleman called Mr Eric Levine, while they proceeded with a writ for criminal libel against Private Eye.

For some time I puzzled over why I should be singled out from the whole field of British journalists as the one lost likely to inspire prejudice against Goldsmith and Levine There are already perfectly adequate laws against such behaviour, and the laws of libel are more than adequate to deal with any defamatory falsehoods might have in mind.

I am not and never have been an employee of Private Eve--it is just one of five newspapers and magazines to which I contribute regular signed articles, and it provides much less than a fifth of my earned income from writing. I do not think I have ever met Goldsmith or written about him, and I am reasonably certain I have never met or written about Levine Neither suggests that

I have ever libelled him.

Yet now I must hire lawyers and sit down to compose an affidavit, or possibly drag myself to London from West Somerset, losing two days' work in the process, to explain why I should be allowed to pass adverse comment on these two people if I choose. It is one of the scandals of our society that only the very rich or the penniless can afford to go tc. law, unless they are prepared to stake their entire fortune on what may prove no better chance than the toss of a coin.

But I bear Goldsmith no malice on that score. If I were as rich as he. I would probably be seeking injunctions all over the place, against people I had never met and who had never heard of me, forbidding them from passing adverse comments or annoying me in any way. Although I have no intention of divorcing my poor wife--and it would be a scurvy trick to play on her after so many years of faithful service, etc—I often think it might be fun to institute proceedings from time to time, citing Sir Bill' Ryland, Mr Cyril Plant, the Right Honourable Lionel Murray or anybody else who hap pened to annoy me at the time. Then my wretched victim would have to go to all the trouble of composing affidavits to say that he had never had the pleasure of meeting the lady. But such diversions are restricted to

the very rich, and I can't honestly suppose it would be more enjoyable than eating.pdte de foie gras to the sound of trumpets.

There is a strong temptation not to defend the case at all and let the little fellow have his injunction, if that is what he wants. After all, I have spent the last fifteen years as a journalist without once feeling the urge to make adverse comments on Goldsmith or his fat friend, and it should not be too difficult to restrain myself for a little longer. But in the few weeks remaining before the plea for an injunction is heard, I find a strange fretfulness come over me. Hold a cat by the tail, and however happy it may have been standing on that spot before, it will be prepared to pull its tail out by the roots in its anxiety to go somewhere else immediately. Obviously, I must use these weeks of freedom to pass as many adverse comments as I can think of, so long as they are (1) not libellous and (2) unlikely to influence a jury. It is not easy, because I have never met the fellow, as I say, and know practically nothing about him. But I have seen his photograph in the newspapers, and the first thing that needs to he said is that he has a disgustingly ugly face.

Looking at that dreadful face, I can't imagine, personally, what a nice, wellbrought-up English girl like Annabel Birley sees there, but it is one of the tragedies of my life that the nicest, cleverest and most attractive women see qualities in other men which I can't see at all. You can't judge a girl by the men she chooses. Perhaps these men are exceptionally good in bed—not a quality to endear them to their own sex, whether it derives from greater agility, staying power, passion, tenderness or simply the possession

Spectator 5 June 1976

of a larger organ.

There are those who say that the size doesn't count, and in any case I am not sure that it would be proper to speculate on the size of Goldsmith's organ at the present time. Under normal circumstances, it would be safe to assume he has one and even (ne the principle that a cat may look at a king) to speculate about its size, but as soon as a man starts issuing writs for libel he immediately assumes many of the properties of an angel: his body is no longer the weak, farting, nose-picking thing we all recognise as a human body, but emerges in its glorified or resurrected state without spot or blemish. Such speculations might even be he likely to influence a jury in criminal. Pr°ceedings (the women jurors taking one point of view, perhaps, the men another) and that is something I understandably wish to avoid at all costs. So perhaps I had better confine my adverse comment to the proposition that Sir James Goldsmith has a repulsivelY oglY face. So, as it happens, has Mr Eric Levirle,' but these are only expressions of a persona' opinion which a jury will be able to judge for themselves, if they think it relevant. I often wonder how anybody can suPP°se,, a jury to be unprejudiced. I certainly wolou not be. There are at least three prejudices widely held throughout Britain. These are:

(1) All journalists are liars.

(2) All businessmen are crooks.'

(3) All lawyers are rogues.

Before we laugh at the absurdity of the propositions' when stated so baldly, I havet to admit that I generally subscribe to at leas two of them. Obviously, I am unfit for jurY service of any sort, but how many others are any fitter, and what reason is there to supP°se that judges are any better in this respect 001 jurymen ? Then there are the strange undercurren' ts of anti-anti-semitism and plain, old-fashion ed anti-semitism which have been runningt through the great Wilson Honours Li% Debate, well described in Lady Falkencler amazing letter to the Times On MonclaYt Without Mr Bernard Levin's assurance Oa. we are all laughing, not sniggering, at the li I would like to know what to think. Can W hope that judge and jury alike will be free from these complicated emotions ? The more one studies the matter, the harder it becomes to know what is acceptaille.'s In his shabby little piece in last Wee!' „ Spectator, Mr Christopher Booker, who friend of Bennie Gray, hazarded the °Pale, ion that it would be 'curiously approPria4 if Private Eye lost the case, describing h'st magazine as a strong candidate for the,11,°,. unpleasant thing in British journalism 'm Iles were to say anything similar of Sir dawri Goldsmith I should undoubtedly be thr° us into prison, with or without a previeire injunction restraining me. I wonder 'she the difference lies. tier

In any case, I am sure there are nas things in the City of London than smith or Mr Eric Levine. My onlY ment is that they both have per disgusting faces.