DIARY
CHARLES MOORE Why is there a three-mile air exclu- sion zone at Brighton? Why are there defences and patrols against a sea-borne landing? Nowhere else that ministers col- lectively visit is protected in this extrava- gant way. The argument, presumably, is that 'we are taking no chances', but it is a silly argument. Searching people and monitoring entry to the conference is obviously essential, but the air-and-sea stuff is partly overcompensation for the fatal laxness at Brighton four years ago, partly a characteristically lavish display by the modern police. It is a good thing that the police are equipped for the job: it is a bad thing if they get the urge, like armies in the world's less tolerant countries, to show off their hardware. They should not be allowed to make the party conference into a modern review of the fleet at Spithead. The massed might at Brighton (as opposed to very detailed and careful security) is an unnecessary compliment to the IRA, giv- ing one the uneasy feeling that its ancient fantasy is true and that it really is a threat to the entire British state. The really hard but true thing to say is that politicians ought to take some risk of being killed. I do not mean that they should be reckless, but that their protection must come second to their duty to the public. Once they are hidden and hemmed in, their ability to lead is terribly diminished. This is something that most politicians, certainly Mrs Thatch- er, understand. They are seldom physical cowards; but it seems to me that the trauma of 1984 has given too much power to those who guard them, and taken too much away from the rest of us.
As our profile on page 25 points out, David Hart gets 'access' to Mrs Thatcher despite opposition from civil servants and the like and despite his obviously extraor- dinary character. Who else, at one time or another, has had this access without hold- ing any official position? One thinks of Tim Bell, Jeffrey Archer, Alfred Sherman, Woodrow Wyatt. They, and others like them, make an amazing collection. Even Churchill and Harold Wilson did not keep such eccentric company. Some of them are unspeakable, like Mr Archer, others are delightful, like Lord Wyatt, but their com- mon characteristic is the brashness of the outsider. They all go over the top, in their opinions, in their view of themselves, in their energy. Mrs Thatcher, I think, has a particular type of hero. She likes to say, 'If a man has a great idea I do not want to stand in his way,' and so she responds to those who come bouncing in with great ideas. The drawback is that this makes her prey to charlatans. The advantage is that Mrs Thatcher never loses the zest for action. People always say that they like honesty in politics, but it seems to me that when they meet it they dislike it intensely. The only really honest Tory politicians of our time are Keith Joseph and Nicholas Rid- ley, and both are bywords for unpopular- ity. Neither man is capable of the soft answer that tumeth away wrath or of saying something which they do not think. Lord Joseph's form of honesty is an ago- nised frankness about how difficult every- thing is and a refusal to claim credit for himself for any success. Despite being totally polite and totally honourable, he always excited anger and uneasiness. Mr Ridley's honesty is less self-critical and less courteous, but equally real. He scorns to conceal his true opinions and is fearless in expressing them. He gets no credit for this: people simply describe him as arrogant.
At dinner this week, I met Mr Mal- colm Turnbull, the young lawyer of Spy- catcher fame, whom I first saw four years ago when he walked into my office and announced that his then master, Mr Kerry Packer, was about to buy The Spectator. (He didn't.) Mr Turnbull is very engaging because he has the Australian habit of total frankness, and if he thinks he is good at something he says so. He expressed him- self so vigorously at dinner that he broke the valuable chair on which he was sitting. In particular, Mr Turnbull rallied the Labour Party, one of whose leading lights was present. 'You're a bunch of losers,' he said, 'and you don't even care.' He was right there, but wrong in his particular example. Mr Turnbull thought that Labour should have made much more of the Wright affair, trying to show that Mrs Thatcher had lied to the House of Com- mons. In fact, however, the Spycatcher affair did nothing but harm to Labour
because it became known that Mr Kinnock had spoken to Mr Turnbull and so the Leader of the Opposition appeared to be conspiring with foreigners and turncoat spies. Mr Turnbull seemed genuinely shocked that the British secret services were so cynical and even regarded so cynically in Britain. It is shocking, but I am certain that Labour could not have made political capital out of the case. By thinking so, Mr Turnbull is making as big a mistake about this country as Sir Robert Arm- strong made about Australia when he thought the Sydney court would be amused by his admission that he was sometimes `economical with the truth'.
Watching John Freeman's Face to Face with Tony Hancock on Sunday, I was struck by how good the programme was in every way. It is good to start with drawings of the subject (though I do not hugely admire Topolski), good to spend the entire interview with the camera on the subject and never on the face of the interviewer, good to ask questions in the quick-fire, tense fashion that John Freeman used, good to ask difficult personal questions without verging on the psychiatric. Inter- views today give much too much promin- ence to the interviewer, cultivating his personality, filming him laughing, letting him be much too quirky and leisurely, even allowing them, particularly, for some reason, if they come from the north, to launch into their own autobiography. If it is true that the 1980s are a more austere, less flamboyant age, surely the time is ripe for a new Face to Face, unashamedly using the same name and the same formula.
When I was in South Africa earlier this year, I visited Groote Schuur, the lovely house designed for Cecil Rhodes by Sir Herbert Baker. The house is given to the nation's most honoured guests when they visit, and when I was shown round, the honoured guest who had just been staying there was Franz Josef Strauss. The most striking thing inside Groote Schuur is Rhodes's bath. It is a vast slab of dark granite with the shape of the tub scooped out of it. It was funny to imagine the naked Mr Strauss. lying dreaming of a greater Germany in the place where once Rhodes I lay and dreamt of ruling Africa.
Last week, I promised Jennifer Pater- son this week. I apologise for breaking the promise. I should like to promise her for next week, but promises are obviously too risky, so I shall merely say that I hope very much that her Diary will appear in the coming issue.
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