Another voice

Dolphins

Auberon Waugh

rr aken by a friend to the dress rehearsal

of Peter Hall's magnificent Coriolanus at the Olivier theatre last week, I have since spent my time urging as many people as possible to go and see it, even buying tickets for them. It was not a play I had thought about much since studying it for 'A' level nearly 30 years ago, when it seemed tremendously boring. One could not sympathise with the hero, or find his mother anything but disgusting, his wife irritating, his best friend a fool. Although it contained some fine polemic against the working classes, such people did not threaten one's life or comforts in those days as they do now; in fact, to the extent that they infringed at all, they appeared as friends and supports in life's struggle. It was inappropriate to describe them as a 'common cry of curs' — and also rather rude when, in many cases, they had not enjoyed one's own advantages.

Although I passed the examination, and have the certificate to prove it, I never understood the play until seeing Ian McKellen's memorable performance last week. The play's message is very simple, and even more relevant to modern demo- cratic society than it was to Tudor Eng- land: that politics is not a suitable occupa- tion for a gentleman. If that message could be generally accepted by all intelligent people in the country it would have a profoundly beneficial effect not so much in discouraging gentlemen from dabbling in politics, since very few are tempted to do so nowadays, but in giving the rest of us a more accurate perspective of politics and politicians.

In fairness to the great British public, it has never shown a tendency to put any exaggerated trust in politicians. But until it accepts that the urge to power is a perso- nality disorder in its own right, like the urge to sexual congress with children or the taste for rubber underwear, there will always be a danger of circumstances arising which persuade ordinary people to start listening to politicians and would-be politi- cians, and taking them seriously. It hap- pened in Russia, of course, and in Ger- many, and may even now be happening in Central America for all I know or care. The important thing is to prevent its happening in England.

Where Peter Hall's Coriolanus is con- cerned, the contemporary relevance is emphasised by an extraordinary physical resemblance between Ian McKellen and Lord Lambton, Mr Heath's former Under- Secretary for the Royal Air Force. The actor even wears dark glasses at the begin- ning of the play. Of course the parallel is

misleading. Lord Lambton was anything but a Coriolanus figure. At a time when most intelligent people had decided that the only acceptable or honourable motive for going into politics was the remote chance of becoming an earl at the end of the day — not just for our own honour and glory, but for that of our children and children's children — Lord Lambton started on the slippery slope as the elder surviving son of an earl, a dead cert for the earldom if he played his cards right and stayed alive. Then he threw it all away to further his ludicrous political career. If he had been asked to flaunt his scars in the market place, he would have shown the brutes his appendix scar as quick as a flash. For those of us who have the misfortune not to be born earls, or with any prospects of an earldom, his behaviour is hard to under- stand or forgive.

Few people would criticise Mrs Thatch- er's Government on the grounds that it has too many gentlemen in it, let alone toffs. The extent to which genuine toffs have disappeared from public awareness may be judged by the way that some newspapers even discuss the second Lord Gowrie, Mrs Thatcher's swarthy 'art' expert, as if he were one. Politics, as I never tire of saying, is for social and emotional misfits, hand- icapped folk, those with a grudge. The purpose of politics is to help them over- come these feelings of inferiority and compensate for their personal inade- quacies in the pursuit of power.

Power, I imagine, is all that democratic politicians have ever been interested in. Those who do not suffer from this urge may have difficulty in understanding it: they may even be reluctant to believe in its existence. Among the lower classes it is generally supposed that politicians are in it for the money, but I believe that they are wrong, and we should all study this phe- nomenon of the power urge. It seems to cause far more unhappiness than happi- ness.

The yells and animal noises which the nation listens to on the radio programme Today in Parliament have nothing to do with disagreements about the way the country should be run, or how much fuel should be given to old age pensioners at Christmas time. They are cries of pain and anger, mingled with hatred and envy, at the spectacle of another group exercising the 'power' which the first group covets; alternatively, they are cries of alarm and anger as the group in 'power' sees its territory threatened. Old age pensioners are mad if they think anyone actually cares about their wretched coal.

Until one understands this one will never understand the confrontational nature of democratic politics. Unless I am wrong, Messrs Hattersley and Kaufman would be just as happy to charge old age pensioners double price for their coal as Mrs Thatcher would be to pour the stuff down their throats in unlimited quantities absolutely free. The only thing that any of them is really interested in is the chance to make decisions and see them put into effect — to press a button and watch us all jump.

That is really intended to be my last word on the Keith Joseph affair. But what is pathetic is the way the non-politicians amongst us — journalistic commentators, honest and intelligent members of the public — continue to discuss these absurd little diversions on their merits, as if the issues (as Tony Benn insists on calling them) rather than the personalities at stake were what mattered.

Nobody, it is true, was much impressed by Sir Keith's insistance on the desperate need of scientific departments for more machinery, but many spoke and wrote as if his doomed little exercise in power mania was a genuine attempt at cost-cutting, suggesting it was inconsistent of higher tax- payers to demand tax reductions and at the same time object to paying for university tuition. Peregrine Worsthorne, whose scurvy treatment by Mrs Thatcher seems to be turning him into a ferocious champion of the Labour movement, is no longer troubled by university bills. Ferdinand Mount, who is not yet troubled by them, even went so far as to suggest in the Daily Telegraph that there might be a case for tuition fees as they somehow increase the independence of the universities.

Both Mr Mount and I went to Christ Church, Oxford. I do not understand how anyone who has watched that institution put up not one but two new quads nt unbelievable hideousness since we left can possibly wish to give more power to the dons — and we must not suppose that faneY words like 'independence' mean anything except releasing another wave of power maniacs on the scene.

No wonder politicians want us to discuss the issues rather than the personalities involved. Next year I will have two chit' dren at university, the year after, three. Mr Mount's first child has yet to go. Let us see how strongly he feels about the advantage, of university independence in a few year time. Charles Moore wrote in last week's Spectator about 'the anger of Mr Waugh's class', as if it were a completely different class from his own. The truth is that he has rather longer to wait. The only importantconflict in politics is between the politicians

who want to sit on top of us and those who find the weight too heavy. Of course it is quite fun seeing other people be'ag squashed but it is time to tell thes Dauphins that their jest will savour but or shallow wit when they, in turn, find their!' selves squashed by it.