Notebook
Ai eminently unsuitable candidate once proposed by my grandfather for membership of the Athenaeum Club was duly blackballed. When he asked sadly if there had been many blackballs, my grand- father replied: `Have you ever seen caviare?' It seems that a similar fate awaited our Low Life correspondent Mr Jeffrey Bernard at the Turf Club, for which he had been proposed by the Marquess of Hartington and the eminent trainer Peter Walwyn. But he withdrew gracefully rather than embarrass his sponsors. I cannot im- agine why a club which can accommodate our Greek High Life correspondent Taki Theodoracopulos cannot accommodate Mr Bernard. It only confirms me in my long- standing suspicion that the Turf Club has a lot of common, jumped-up members whose wealth has given them ideas of self- importance. There are doubtless other clubs that Mr Bernard could join. The Reform Club, for example, appears so desperate that it is ready to admit practically anybody. And Mr A. N. Wilson revealed in the Times this week that Jimmy Savile, the television personality, had been proposed for membership of the Athenaeum by Car- dinal Hume and that 'no-one had blackball- ed him'. Perhaps Mr Bernard could also get in there. But I would urge him to make do with more civilised establishments like the Coach and Horses in Greek Street and the Spectator's pub, the Duke of York.
Mr Tony Benn continues to suffer from strange paranoid delusions. During a public debate in London this week on the motion 'Only private ownership can ensure the freedom of the world's press', he said: `I would like to see my own views in the British press, but I can't.' This from a man who has a weekly column of his own in the Guardian, in which this week he was pro- posing some sort of new 'Commonwealth' embracing the countries of both western and eastern Europe. But apart from Mr Benn's own column, it is clearly untrue that the views he espouses are never mentioned in the press. His views are, indeed, much more familiar to newspaper readers than are the views of most other politicians. What he means, in fact, is not that his views are not publicised but that they do not on the whole enjoy much editorial support. He said, for example, that all British newspapers were pro-nuclear and in favour of European federation, which apart from being highly debatable (how many papers, for example, favour European `federa- tion'?) is quite different from saying that readers do not have access to the arguments against nuclear weapons and the EEC, for of course they do. Also on Mr Benn's side
in the debate, which was organised by the BBC and is to be broadcast this weekend on the World Service, was an Egyptian called Mr Hamdy Kandil, who had the nerve to say that the British public were not properly informed (how about the Egyptians?). Mr Kandil also said it was Britain which had taught Third World countries about censor- ship, but that they were now escaping from the colonial yoke and resisting the 'che- quebook press'. Mr Kandil is a member of the sinister 'division of the free flow of in- formation and communications policies' of Unesco, from which the United States has quite rightly withdrawn (see page 3). What is depressing is that he and Mr Benn won the debate with 53 per cent of the vote.
Reuters trustees get tough' said a headline in the Sunday Times. This is perhaps overstating the position, though I hope not. Readers of this column will know by now that the board of Reuters, represent- ing the newspapers of Britain, Australia and New Zealand who for 37 years have owned it as a cooperative non-profitmaking venture, have agreed to float it as a public company. They have been advised that the Agreement of Trust which forbids them to do such a thing without the approval of the Lord Chief Justice of England is not legally binding. They therefore believe they are en- titled to sell shares in Reuters worth several hundreds of millions of pounds without consulting the Lord Chief Justice or anybody else. They have, however, agreed to submit their flotation plans to the Trustees of Reuters, but only for comment. They deny the right of the Trustees to veto their proposals. But the Trustees have said, through their Australian chairman, Mr Angus McLachlan, that they will not `rubber-stamp' the plan and will take in- dependent legal advice. If the Trust is wor- thless, then presumably so are the Trustees, and they may well be tempted to go along with whatever plan the Board proposes in order not to advertise their powerlessness to the world. But if they are, as they claim, taking the whole thing seriously, then I would urge them not to accept too un- critically the assurances of Reuters' future independence and integrity under its pro- posed new ownership arrangements. These are some of the basic questions which we have explored in the Spectator before. If the owners can profit from their shareholdings, may they not become pro- gressively less interested in the unprofitable side of the company, namely its news ser- vice? How will it be possible to ensure, even if the existing shareholders retain voting control, that this control will be divided among them in the same proportions as before, that certain newspaper groups may not gradually acquire more shares than others? What will be the effect on Reuters' international reputation if political interest groups — say, Arab or Israeli interests acquire large blocks of shares in the com- pany, even without having control? What will happen to the news agency if, in the future, the company ceases to be profitable, if the electronic financial services on which its present wealth is based meet stronger competition? Who will protect the news agency then? There are many other ques- tions, but these are enough for the Trustees to chew on.
What is the difference between the Church of England's new 'booklet of candid and comprehensive guidelines for couples about to marry,' as the accompany- ing press handout calls it, and the sort of advice that is doled out by marriage guidance counsellors and other secular ex- perts in these matters? Foreword to Mar- riage by Canon Hugh Melinsky appears to contain practically no clear moral direc- tives. It does say that 'marriage has to be exclusive', by implication condemning adultery, but it does not condemn 'full and free experimentation' in sex before mar- riage, nor does it condemn abortion, and it postively welcomes artificial contraception. The difficult questions are not answered; they are proposed as subjects 'for discus- sion', e.g. 'For discussion: What cir- cumstances, if any, would in your opinion justify an abortion?' The reader is con- stantly advised to go off and seek advice elsewhere — from lay counsellors, doctors, even solicitors. Canon Melinsky was quoted in the Daily Telegraph as saying: 'In the old days we would have made a moral pro- nouncement. But I try to avoid words which make the Church look authori-. tarian.' For discussion: Is there any point in the Church of England any more?
Alexander Chancellor
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