ANOTHER VOICE
A call to the youth of England now abed
AUBERON WAUGH
It is true that I no longer read the left-wing press as closely as I used to do, finding it has mercifully little relevance to what is happening in Britain nowadays, but so far I have seen only one single squeak of protest in any newspaper at what is being done by this government to a man who undoubtedly has claims to being the greatest Englishman alive today, and one of the greatest this century has produced.
Even with the increasing tendency to blame 'the Thatcher government' and Mrs Thatcher personally for any gross abuse of powers by police, customs officials or lollipop women on the public payroll, I do not suppose that Mrs Thatcher personally is responsible, except by default, for the hounding of Lester Piggott by Excise men. It is true that Mr Piggott, with nearly 5,000 wins to his credit as a jockey, is as much at the top of his profession as Mrs Thatcher is at the top of hers, and that in the opinion of most sane people his is a more honour- able and useful profession. There might, I suppose, be an element of jealousy in her refusal to intervene. If so, Denis must simply beat her and lock her in the cupboard until she comes to her senses.
But I imagine that his harassment can more properly be explained by the envy or spite of some low-paid official somewhere in the Customs and Excise department's investigative branch. The same suspicion of envy is traceable in press reports of the incident: 'Millionaire racing star Lester Piggott is facing a gun charge following raids on his home. Handguns were found . . . when Customs and Excise officers went there on a tax investigation,' wrote the Daily Mail's chief crime reporter. The point about Mr Piggott is not that he is a millionaire, as anyone who is successful and reasonably thrifty can become in the debased currency of our times without too much difficulty. The point about him is that he is one of the few great men this country has produced in modern times or seems likely to produce in the foreseeable future, unless you count Jocky Wilson, the darts thrower, or Steve 'Interesting' Davis, the snooker player.
`Millionaire former jockey Lester Pig- gott was fined £1,000 yesterday after admitting he kept a loaded revolver at his home,' wrote the Today reporter. 'The gun . . . was one of three found during a search of his luxury house in Newmarket by Customs and Excise men.' I have heard various reports of the Piggott residence. None confirms the view that it is what you or I would want. But nobody has raised the question of what right these VAT inspectors have to go snooping in the drawers and cupboards of a private citizen.
Mr Piggott claimed, through his solici- tor, that he did not know you needed a firearms licence to own a handgun, which is as it may be. The offence was a technical one. There was no suggestion that he was keeping it for criminal purposes, and no suggestion that he would not have been granted a licence if he had applied for one. There was a time when practically every country house of reasonable size had an illegal pistol tucked away in it somewhere, usually liberated from state ownership in one world war or another, and often kept in the acting cupboard. Perhaps they still do, and who can blame them while there are people like Roy Hattersley or Mr David 'Dave' Mellor roaming around at liberty? Mr Piggott's collection of 400 rounds of ammunition may seem more than necessary, but I learned in the army how atrociously inaccurate these handguns are. I certainly could not guarantee to hit a Hattersley in 20 shots at 15 yards, and no one would wish to get any closer.
None of which has much bearing on the main question, of what business it was of VAT inspectors, poking in Mr Piggott's drawers and cupboards as our contempti- ble politicians allow them to do, to confis- cate these weapons and report Mr Piggott to the police. Firearms certificates are not administered by the Customs but by the police. The money does not go to the Excise but to Inland Revenue. Customs officers are allowed to enter any premises they choose without a warrant; with a warrant they can take the place apart and search anybody present. If Inland Revenue officers wish to conduct a raid of this sort, they require not so much a magistrate's warrant as a court order, which may be opposed.
For years I have been warning of the excessive powers enjoyed by VAT inspec- tors, but even I never dreamed they could use these powers to go on a sort of fishing expedition through people's private homes to find anything which might be against any of the 75 billion oppressive laws which hamstring our lives. What if they had found a video nasty, a questionable maga- zine, a few grains of marijuana, some medicines which had been left within the reach of children, illegally stuffed birds or blown birds' eggs, or a lavatory installed without proper ventilation?
The case is more scandalous in its implications even than the previous scan- dals which made the headlines: when police of the Drugs Squad broke into the house of Lady Diana Cooper, an ambassa- dor's widow in her eighties, and rampaged through it as she lay terrified and alone in bed; or when Customs officers burst into Alexander Chancellor's home, broke his staircase and dragged his 16-year-old daughter naked from bed. At least, on that occasion, they were using only the powers which self-important hysterics like Mr David 'Dave' Mellor have demanded in his `war against drugs', and which a cretinous press and cowed population have allowed him. Perhaps the Drugs Squad were taking a belated and cruelly inappropriate re- venge on Lady Diana for her husband's treatment of P. G. Wodehouse 40 years earlier, although it is hard to think what they .had against Alexander or his pretty daughter.
But the persecution of Mr Lester Piggott opens entirely new horizons for the harass- ment of private citizens. We are told that he was to have been given a knighthood in the birthday honours, but this was cancel- led when it became known that he was under investigation for possible VAT irre- gularities. In an honours system which relies on winks and nods, and confidential background briefings, this sort of thing is only to be expected, although it illustrates once again the hidden powers of some anonymous official in Customs and Excise, whose anonymity might easily hide person- al spite, or envy, or some vindictive politic- al creed.
The main horror is that Customs officers can now invade any home and go on a fishing expedition through anybody's drawers. Ivory hairbrushes are now said to be illegal, after some fatuous, busybodying legislation or other, so are tortoiseshell combs. A dead bat might lead to a £1,000 fine. God help all those old spinsters with babies' skeletons in their bottom drawer. And the only protest came from William Deedes in the Daily Telegraph, and he is 73 years old. What has happened, I wonder, to our radical young, God rot the lot of them?
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