DIARY
CHARLES MOORE In his reaction to the Budget, Mr Kin- nock displayed a real hatred for the rich (of whom, in the tax definition, he is one). What is the reason for this feeling? It derives in part from a simple misunder- standing about what wealth is. Mr Kinnock seems to think that wealth is finite. If he is right, he is also right that the division of that finite entity is a moral issue. If the cake has a fixed size, the bits given to each person are all that matters. Those with the big bites leave less for the rest, and are therefore selfish. But he is wrong. Mr Kinnock's substantial salary does not deprive anyone of anything {except that, in his case, it eats into public funds which might otherwise go on the health service). Mr Kinnock believes, or affects to believe, that because they will pay tax at lower rates, the rich will take lots of money from the poor. There seem to be no statistical evidence for this. The amount of money raised from the rich is much more closely related to their willingness to pay tax, rather than avoid it, and to how much wealth they are generating. This willing- ness and this wealth generation are obviously encouraged by lower and more level rates. Some of Mr Kinnock's allies might accept this argument and still argue that the rich 'ought' to pay more, regard- less of revenue and economic consequ- ences, because it is a good moral discipline for them. I wonder if this is accurate psychology. It seems to me that the era of very high tax rates has also been the era of greater dishonesty and selfishness among the rich. The rich in the 1980s are less truthful, less patriotic, less generous than were their predecessors before 1914. For a long time they have believed that govern- ments wanted to sequestrate their proper- ty, undermine their independence and frustrate their ambitions for their children. In response, they have turned in on them- selves and done much less good for society. I do not expect a sudden wave of altruism because of Mr Lawson's work this week, but I think the trend is bound to be good. Fearing less, the rich will be less hostile to their neighbours and to the institutions of organised society. This should make them less hated in return. Let them eat cake. It will put them in a better temper.
Surely no one really believes that the SAS had any intention of letting the IRA bombing team come out of Gibraltar alive. There was ample opportunity to arrest or intercept the team and it was not taken. It may be true that the terrorists reached for pockets that might have contained guns, but it is hard to imagine any reaction to a challenge in that split second which would have prevented the SAS from firing. Everyone should be pleased, of course, that three terrorists are dead, but I would still argue that the shooting reflects badly on British policy. The shooting happened because policy is too liberal. Human rights arguments and international pressure pre- vent the use of very strong security powers in Northern Ireland. And since the security forces have to operate without such powers against implacable enemies, they act illicit- ly to get results. Killing becomes a danger- ously effective method, resorted to more quickly than need be the case. The security forces know who most of the terrorists are and often where they, are. If internment could be introduced, preferably on both sides of the Irish border, there would be less call for the horrible histrionics of Gibraltar. Internment is not ideal, but it would be better than the current policy interment.
t last there is disquiet about the Government's growing tendency to run expensive and bossy advertising campaigns about everything. The one to inform peo- ple about their rights under the new social security rules is more meritorious than most, but surely does not justify, as the Sunday Telegraph reported, the spending of '£1,935 million'. I wonder how many people pointed out to the Telegraph that it had got the figure wrong by a factor of a thousand. (At least, I assume that is the extent of the error.) Almost no one notices really big figures at all. During the 1983 election, a friend of mine was helping Mrs Thatcher in her campaign. He attended the tense meetings before the morning press conferences when Mrs Thatcher would demand impossible last-minute detail ab- out how many mopeds there were in Scunthorpe and like matters. One morning he furnished an answer to one of these inquiries and the Prime Minister went off to face the mob. My friend suddenly realised that the figure he had given her exaggerated a hundredfold. He rushed downstairs to correct his leader, but ar- rived just in time to hear her deliver his mistake to the world's press. Not one journalist noticed anything amiss, nor did Mrs Thatcher. The circulation of The Spectator, by the way, has just been audited for the second half of last year. It stood at 3,510,000.
Jealous rivals and admiring readers try to work out what it is about the Indepen- dent. How has it so quickly acquired an enviable reputation for quality? How is it so successfully un-naff? Many explanations are advanced. The elegance of the foreign reporting, the excellence of the photogra- phy, the classic simplicity of the appear- ance, the first-rate cartoons all contribute. But I think that the real explanation is simpler. The Independent is the only news- paper to ignore the royal family. In recent years, royalty has been forced 'down- market'. A magazine with the Princess of Wales, let alone the Duchess of York, on the cover, sends off the signal, `We are a vulgar magazine,' almost as clearly as if it featured Joan Collins. Boredom with the entire family, particularly with its younger members, is becoming a fierce, active emotion, almost amounting to disgust. An educated readership has had enough. At last, a paper through which one can safely browse without the smallest risk of a royal personage grinning at one! This is a major cultural achievement. I fear, however, that the Independent is becoming doctrinaire on the point. The story about the Queen Mother's distress at a hospital ward closure last week was surely for the front page (though certainly not the lead, as the BBC made it): the Independent managed only a few paragraphs on page two. And the avalanche involving the Prince of Wales really was a story. The future king was very nearly killed. Yet the Independent did not lead with it and disdained to carry the moving photographs of the royal party returning to England. I hope the paper is not secretly puritanical and republican. A refusal to publicise royalty should be a matter of taste, not of principle.
The Queen Mother story was a. good example of the great British quality of humbug. Her Majesty felt 'much distress' because there was not enough money to look after five old people in Merthyr Tydfil. How much it costs to look after one old lady in Clarence House was a question that not even the Independent asked.
ur contributor, Stan Gebler Davies, has recently emerged from hospital apparently recovered from lung cancer which, he was earlier told, was fatal. So, when I feared we should have to publish his obituary, I am delighted that we shall instead publish his Diary, starting next week.
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