DIARY
SIMON HOGGART There was, I'm told, a torpid, glum mood at the new Labour Party media cen- tre after last week's local election results. Staff had to be persuaded to open the wait- ing champagne. The reason is that the spin doctors have become so central to our political life that they now spin each other. Conservatives had insinuated the notion that they might lose more than 800 seats, so when they lost fewer than 600 and the Labour vote fell by two per cent on last year, an absurd 'victory' was contrived. Similarly, the Tories are filled with awe and resentment against Labour's own gyratory physicians: Alastair Campbell and Peter Mandelson are thought to have unfair, per- haps necromantic skills, county profession- als in a village cricket team. I suppose it's not surprising that spin doctors should be obsessed by other spin doctors, but their attitude is skewing our political debate. One consolation is that it won't work after a general election — or will it? 'You claim, Mr Humphreys, that a Labour majority of 87 is a poor result for us. But what do you mean by poor? In the circumstances, it is extremely creditable. Compared to the 1996 local election results, it shows that the tide is now truly turning our way. . . . '
Speaking of Peter Mandelson, I have now read for the 50th time the old canard that, while eating in a Hartlepool chip shop, he pointed to the mushy peas and asked for the guacamole. This never hap- pened, and as far as I know was made up by Neil Kinnock in an affectionate tribute to his aide's metropolitan ways. (Mr Kinnock also invented the more wounding: 'My father was a carpenter, too', ascribed to the very left-wing but equally devout Eric Hef- fer.) Another probably apocryphal story concerned the Labour MP Eddie Wain- wright who, given a pot of caviar in the Soviet Union, complained later: 'That bramble jam they gave us tastes of fish.' You can learn a lot about politicians from their food. They tend to be like pets, and have staple diets. Tony Benn could live off stale cheese sandwiches and tea. I recall lunch with Keith Joseph when he would eat nothing but some 'cake'. What kind of cake? we asked. 'British Railways cake,' he explained. He meant the fruit slab they used to sell on trains. Others take a differ- ent view. There is a Conservative MP, once a Cabinet minister, who was notorious for asking to go to the finest restaurants where, between courses, he would epitomise dis- cretion. (`The Prime Minister's name? Oh dear, you won't draw me on that! Now I'm told the pâté de foie gras here is excellent.') I once foolishly asked his secretary for his preferences and she replied airily, 'Oh, it's up to you. He likes Nico at Ninety, La Tante Claire, Marco-Pierre White, any- where really.' By contrast, the wonderful John Biffen enjoys a curry. To me, the most extraordinary single fact about the late Richard Crossman is that he famously lost secret Cabinet papers while dining alone in Prunier's. And I once sat in admiring aston- ishment at Locket's in Westminster, while a few tables away Reggie Maudling worked through a two-hour lunch, starting with a G&T, continuing with four courses, washed down by a bottle of claret and followed by a large cognac — entirely on his own.
They say that the most painful thing about sex as you grow older is not losing the ability but missing the desire. I already feel that way about football. I used to love it as a boy, and occasionally try to re-ignite the dull embers of my interest, like a dirty old man leering at 'Page Three' girls. Two years ago, I doggedly watched the World Cup final — a 0-0 thriller, if you recall. Last month, I settled down in front of Eng- land v. Croatia, with its spellbinding 0-0 result. I sit despairingly in pubs and listen to intelligent people say things like, `Frankly, Glen Hoddle is going to have to rethink the entire England footballing phi- losophy', and groan miserably as otherwise nice, sane colleagues actually discuss Fan- tasy Football, which is terminal sadness in a tailored anorak. I feel the old flicker while watching my seven-year-old son play in the park on a Saturday morning and hear myself yelling stuff like, 'Man on!' and, 'For From here you used to be able to see six Tory councils.' God's sake, pass it!', but then being a par- ent is like launching a paper boat onto the sea, and my motives are 99 per cent protec- tive (I don't want him to suffer for being useless, like me) and only one per cent sporting. I suppose my real objection to soccer is that it is such an inefficient way of propelling the ball towards the players' objective. Why are they only allowed to use feet and heads? Isn't this stupidly artificial? Wouldn't tennis be pointless if you didn't have rackets? Imagine cricket if there were no bats but you had to kick, or blindfold darts. Watching grown men hobbled by the rules, trying to move the ball to the far end, is generally boring and often embarrassing. It's like the paraplegic Olympics: you admire the bravery and effort of the contes- tants but don't confuse it with the real thing. Or it resembles another skill pos- sessed by my son. He can put his recorder up his nose and play Annie's Song, note perfect. Naturally, this is a source of joy and pride to his parents, but we don't expect him to make a living at it. Like soc- cer, it's simply the wrong way to go about the task in hand.
It's sad that the BBC now has to censor Neighbours because the characters keep climbing into bed with each other. In that show the worst crises used to be on the lines of: 'You better siddown, girl, I got some bad news. The toaster's broke.' Girls of ten and 11 watch it all the time, and develop knowingness about sex and amato- ry relationships without experience of either, and though boys do not exist at all on their mental radar except as background nuisance, like aircraft noise. I've written before about one's yearning for them to keep their innocence a little while longer. Last weekend, for our daughter's tenth birthday, we engaged a friend who does a puppet party. She erected a theatre in the living-room, they designed and made their own puppets under her direction, and at the end put on a show for the parents. The puppets were magical: sea monsters, flam- ingoes, Humpty Dumpty and a fierce lion, though there was one darker performance, `Revenge on Michael Jackson', in which he fell painfully and inexplicably off a camel. It was idyllic, but it won't be for much longer — apparently they soon start asking to bring boys.
The Sunday Telegraph has a new spoof stars column called 'Psychic Psmith'. It's funny (Aries . . . it's likely that a BT engi- neer will offer you sex this week: refuse') and a very welcome response to the tidal wave of astrological nonsense which even serious papers include these days.
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