DIARY
NIGEL DEMPSTER There are few people in British racing with any sympathy for the Aga Khan who is now contemplating whether to petition the Law Lords for leave to appeal after losing his latest round in his three-year bruising battle with the Jockey Club. In June 1989 the filly Aliysa won £100,000 in the Epsom Oaks, but was subsequently disqualified because the three-year-old tested positive after the race for the banned respiratory stimulant, camphor. Since then, in pique, the Paris-based Aga has withdrawn the 90 racehorses trained for him in England and said he will not race here again unless the matter is concluded to his satisfaction. Through the courts he has been fighting for a judicial review, but a 1991 High Court ruling that Jockey Club decisions were not susceptible to judicial review and disputes could only be resolved through private law proceedings was upheld last week by three Appeal Court judges. The result for the Aga — who is already having problems with his Ciga de luxe hotel chain, which owes £425 million — is bleak. By not racing in England, he denies his horses the oppor- tunity to compete with the best in Europe — for instance, in Ireland this summer, one race for a meagre £3,000 prize had three expensively bred runners, all owned by the Aga. Spiritual head — or Imam — to 12 million (his estimate) Ismaili Muslims spread around the world, the Aga has long stressed his British background. He travels on a UK passport, his mother Joan is the daughter of the late Lord Churston and is now Viscountess Camrose, and his wife Sally is also British. Perhaps it would be advisable for the Aga now to show a little British sportsmanship and gracefully accept the Jockey Club ruling.
No one has ever accused the City Cor- poration of sportsmanship; least of all, I would imagine, the Reichmann brothers or Lord Palumbo, chairman of the Arts Coun- cil, art connoisseur and property developer. After spending an estimated £750,000 of taxpayers' money in two public enquiries vainly opposing Palumbo's plans to create a landmark on a 1.25-acre site opposite the Mansion House, the City Corporation is trying a new wheeze to thwart construction. It is claiming 'certain rights' to the subsoil of Bucklersbury, a street which bounds part of the site and would have to be closed to the public for demolition work to begin. This claim, which would thwart closure of the thoroughfare, is based on a charter of 1638 granted by Charles I and is designed to string out legal action — Palumbo's planning permission was granted in June 1989 and lasts for five years. The then Sec- retary of State, Nicholas Ridley, approved the plan for a design by James Stirling which necessitates the demolition of eight second-rate Victorian buildings. Mr Rid- ley's inspector concluded that the develop- ment 'might just be a masterpiece'. In the meantime, Stirling, widely regarded as one of the world's foremost architects, was knighted in June and, tragically, died a month later in medical circumstances which could become the matter of a legal dispute. No. 1 Poultry, to give the Palumbo devel- opment its working title, would be a lasting monument and memorial to Stirling as his only office building in this country. Thanks to the City Corporation's intransigence, there will have to be a series of legal actions next year which the many fans of Stirling hope will go against the Corpora- tion, allowing work to commence next autumn. In these tough times of recession, the go-ahead for a building of such quality — the cost is £64 million — would be a sig- nal for optimism and firmly demonstrate that the City is prepared to consolidate its position as the world's largest international financial centre. Precisely why the Corpora- tion continues to frustrate the rise of No. 1 Poultry is a mystery which, in my view, needs thorough investigation.
when I prepared to leave Sherborne with no thought of going on to university, the careers master suggested various possi- ble well-paid futures, the least interesting of which was chartered accountancy. The legal profession was not mentioned and, given the mail which greeted me this week on my return from a short sojourn in south- ern Africa, I fear the omission was a grave error. Later this month, for the first time in almost 30 years in Fleet Street, it seems (barring death) that I will have to appear in the High Court as the defendant in a libel action, accused of inventing a story by an Italian called Prince Mario Ruspoli. In the past these matters have been sorted out long before the climactic arrival at the court doors. The estimated three days in court will cost around £175,000 for a matter which many may feel to be trifling. In recent years, plaintiffs have secured extraordinary sums in libel awards for a paragraph, even a sentence, which few ever read in the first place and most of those would have forgotten, but, thanks to the oratory of highly paid QCs, the words are represented to juries as having been 'highly injurious', 'deeply offensive' etc. It is high time that the excellent Lord High Chancel- lor, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, turned his attentions to changing the antiquated libel laws. I am not thinking just of the defen- dants. I would also be in favour of allowing legal aid to those who have been maligned but have a good case and are unable to prosecute it. As a measure of the top earn- ings at the Bar, there was an estimate this month that the redoubtable George Car- man, QC, could earn £2 million defending Octav Botner, the founder of Nissan UK, who is alleged to have defrauded the Inland Revenue of more than £100 million.
In Africa, as here over the last few weeks, a main topic of conversation has been the -royal family and the extraordinary happen- ings of the past nine months, which began with the separation of the Duke and Duchess of York. For several years the royal family has eschewed proper advisers, preferring mouthpieces — i.e., a press office which is left to pick up the pieces after disasters occur, rather than fore- stalling them. Three Decembers ago, I was seated after dinner next to the Duchess of York, who was clearly worried (even then) about her bad press and wondered what might be done. When I ventured that it was bad public relations for her and the Duke to be moving into what had been described as a vulgar £5 million mansion at a time of rising mortgages and home repossessions when there were plenty of grace-and-favour residences available, she replied wide-eyed: `Don't the people want Andrew and me to be happy?' The events of 1992 have not surprised me in the slightest.
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