14 JANUARY 1995, Page 6

DIARY

RICHARD LITTLEJOHN The News of the World has revealed how Gerry Malone, the health minister, attend- ed a black-tie function featuring a 'live les- bian sex act'. I pass no judgment on whether or not this is a proper way for a member of the Government to behave. That is between Mr Malone and his con- stituency party which, at the time of writ- ing, appears to be taking a relaxed and mature attitude to the MP's raunchy night out. If Mr Malone was surprised by the entertainment on offer he could always, in true News of the World tradition, have made an excuse and left. That he chose to stay does not seem to disqualify him, in my mind, from sorting out the ambulance service, and sensibly there have been no serious calls for him to resign. What always makes me chuckle is the reaction of the women involved. One of the per- formers, Sexy Sammy Jessop, 24, said, when she found out the health minister was in the audience, she was 'shocked'. This from a woman who had spent the best part of the evening stark naked, rub- bing baby oil into other women's breasts and performing a variety of sex acts with whipped cream, champagne and mar- guerita cocktails. Sammy told the News of the World, 'I didn't expect to see a Tory politician at a party like this.' Sorry, Sammy, but a Tory politician is exactly the kind of person one expects to find at a party like this.

Speaking of the News of the World, that newspaper's senior columnist, Woodrow Wyatt, has attacked The Spectator for publishing Noreen Taylor's interview with Lord Charteris, in which he referred to the vulgarity of the Duchess of York and spoke candidly about other members of the royal family. He accuses The Spectator of spite and wishing to damage the monarchy — this from a man who accepts the shilling of a newspaper which regular- ly invades the privacy of the royal family — and attempts to smear Miss Taylor's impartiality by describing her as 'married to a prominent member of Republic, the anti-monarchist group', as if that has any- thing to do with the price of fish. If Woodrow is suggesting that all possible interests should be declared every time a journalist writes an article, then perhaps each week readers of the News of the World should be reminded that his slav- ishly pro-Tory ramblings are the work of a man ennobled — as Lord Wyatt of Weeford — by a Conservative govern- ment and that he continues to pick up in excess of £90,000 a year as head of the state-run Tote, despite being well past retirement age. It is time this old hyp- ocrite was put out to grass. After being cast into the wilderness by the Conservative leadership, Teresa Gor- man, the Euro-hostile MP for Billericay, is now threatened with being flung into jail by her local Labour council. She is accused of 34 breaches of planning regulations during the renovation of her 15th-century listed home in the village of Orsett, near Grays, Essex. Each carries a maximum penalty of a £20,000 fine and/or six months' imprison- ment. From the outside, to my .untrained eye, Chez Gorman appears to be one of the most attractive — one of the few attractive — buildings in Thurrock. Mrs Gorman and her husband have restored the former farmhouse to a reasonable approximation of its original state, with the odd inoffen- sive addition here and there. Unsightly Vic- torian brickwork additions have been removed and 19th-century sash windows replaced with Tudor reproductions. The council is demanding that the building be returned to the condition it was in before the Gormans bought it in 1992 — when, according to Mrs Gorman's only supporter on the planning committee, it was badly dilapidated and due for the torch. In other words, Thurrock Council would prefer it had either been demolished or left to rot rather than tastefully restored. In absolute terms, the house may be 'pseudo-mediae- val', 'bad pastiche' and, in part, 'pure inven- tion', as the conservation officer claims. But it is worth comparing it with the other monstrosities and aesthetic disasters litter- ing Thurrock with the full blessing of the authority. This is the council which brought you the hideous pseudo-American Lake- side shopping centre and adjoining indus- trial park. Thurrock also contains some of

`Abroad is hell.' the ugliest public housing outside of East Germany. The planning arbiters appear to have no problem with aluminium storm porches, stone-cladding, fake Edwardian carriage lamps and wagon wheels on a vari- ety of Thirties' semis and Sixties' Lego boxes. In the scheme of things, Chez Gor- man has improved the fabric of West Thur- rock immensely. Instead Thurrock's chief planning officer has the nerve to accuse Mrs Gorman of taking 'history replacement therapy'. There remains the question of whether, at a time when muggers, burglars and car thieves are being sentenced to a fortnight's windsurfing, someone should be facing a possible 17 years in prison and a £680,000 fine for tarting up a farmhouse. Mrs Gorman has promised to fight the council all the way. I wonder how much sympathy she will receive if she has the cheek to appeal to the European Court?

The loathsome Bernie Grant, Labour MP for Tottenham, is rallying to the defence of a West Indian colleague who whipped her two children with an electrical flex for eating sweets in church. The chil- dren — a boy aged 10 and a girl aged 13 have probably been scarred for life. Mr Grant says former deputy Luzette King should not have been sentenced to six months in jail. He implies that the judg- ment is racist because it is part of Caribbean culture to administer physical chastisement to unruly offspring. Too often `culture' is used to excuse breaches of British law. It is how some Muslims living in this country get away with the gruesome practice of female circumcision. Any Protestant who performed such painful rit- ual mutilation on a young girl would be prosecuted on a wave of revulsion and locked away for a very long time indeed. This cultural defence seems only to apply to immigrants. For instance, armed robbery is part of the culture of south-east London. `Paki-bashing' is part of the culture of the East End. Is Mr Grant suggesting that those responsible for these crimes should not be punished, either?

We tend to forget that arguments about 'culture' are largely confined to the cities. Outside the major conurbations, multiculturalism tends not to be an issue. There aren't many mosques in the country- side. Julian Critchley once claimed that in Essex, tribal homeland of Teresa Gorman, even the newsagents are white. A friend of mine recently bought a seaside home in Sussex and reminded me of Critchley's observation. 'We can do better than that,' he said. 'Down here, even the couple who run the Indian restaurant are white.'