DIARY
CHARLES MOORE It occurred to me last week that the Spectator should carry a little more reflec- tion on the journalistic, as well as the commercial and political implications of the revolution in Fleet Street. In particu- lar, I was interested in the effect of the changes on 'quality' journalism. It did not take me long to realise that the man for such a task was Peregrine Worsthorne. On Thursday night, I suggested the piece to him, and I noticed that he seemed particu- larly taken with the subject. He was grinning in a slightly furtive way, as if he very much wanted to write the article but w. ondered whether he ought to. He agreed, In the end, and the result appears on page rime. On Friday, it was announced that Peregrine Worsthorne had been made edi- tor of the Sunday Telegraph, so the article Which I had imagined as his romantic pipe dream is now a practical proposal. Since the Spectator was thoroughly fierce and curmudgeonly about Mr Conrad Black's takeover of the Telegraph group, it is Particularly nice to be able to acclaim the hvo new editorial appointments. Mr Wors- thorne has at last got his due, and Max Hastings, who has been made editor of the Dally Telegraph is an inspired choice Telegraph man at his most wild, vigorous and amusing. The news broke the day after a, very touching radio documentary about 'e Telegraph in the BBC's Pillars of Society series. On the programme, Adrian Berry, science correspondent of the paper and son of the outgoing proprietor, Lord Hartwell, was challenged by the suggestion that the Telegraph was a dinosaur. He Pointed out that dinosaurs had been an extraordinarily successful breed, lasting for 100 million years. But despite this fighting talk, one could not help noticing how elderly the Telegraph's senior figures sounded and, indeed, are. I reflected, for example, that William Deedes, the retiring ,. editor, has been a journalist since the year' , /.., Which my father was born — and Lord Hartwell is even older. Indeed, the sad, untold story behind the excellent new 'hen concerns Lord Hartwell. v 1en he was forced to cede control to Mr ; o lack, Lord Hartwell said that he would remain editor-in-chief and everything Would•go on much as before. Of course it Was impossible that this should be so. The Telegraph is in desperate straits and the ';elv management could hardly be expected se' continue to defer to the man who, for all cigis virtues, has presided over its precipitate decline. It followed that the new editors Were chosen without Lord Hartwell. He was presented with a fait accompli on the saute day as the public announcement. It is extraordinarily pathetic to think of the nlsilent so suddenly drained from this old, ent man who has lived for the Telegraph all his adult life. There he sits, in his dark, Panelled rooms on the fifth floor, with nothing left to do. The Telegraph's story would make a much more interesting drama than the Fleet Street yarns that are suddenly popping up all over television.
Bill Deedes's many years in Fleet Street have not dimmed his zest for new experience and his extraordinary ability to get on with almost anyone. Quite recently, however, he found himself in the Philip- pines, the guest of Mrs Marcos at a grand dinner. Everything went well — although guests were surprised to notice that the dinner was put on video — until Mr Deedes made an uncharacteristic mistake. 'Madam,' he told Mrs Marcos, 'they should make a musical of your life, just like Evita'. Mrs Marcos snapped: 'I was never a prostitute.' But Bill Deedes was right. Imelda would make a first-rate musical. Now that the Marcoses have lost power, they should be less snooty. Their only future is in show-biz.
Last week, in the Times, Donald Trel- ford wrote a short obituary of Christopher Dixon, a schoolmaster who died at the age of 48. Dixon was famous as an undergradu- ate for his brilliance and intellectual ener- gy, and in this later years he never lost these qualities, although he found great difficulties in directing them to his satisfac- tion. At one stage, he was a master at Eton, where he taught me English for a year or two. It would be very easy to paint him unfavourably. His historical novels, written under the pseudonym of Matthew Vaughan (the surname chosen because of his admiration for Vaughan, the Silurist), were luridly bad. He was remarkably pretentious, talking to boys for hours in a way which encouraged them to believe that they understood Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, J. H. Newman, John Cowper Powys and the other members of his pantheon. A Dixonian essay written in imitation of the master was a very poor thing indeed, and I think that the other masters thought him a bad influence. But there was something else. Dixon was inspiring. He was capable of persuading Etonians — many of whom are precociously worldly and studiedly un-'keen' — that ideas and, literature were exciting and that a life lived with them was rich. This was a remarkable achievement, and I am very grateful to him for it.
Mr Winston Churchill's bill to extend the Obscene Publications Act to television seems to have been badly put together. There are obviously huge, possibly insu- perable difficulties in framing such a law sensibly. But two of the positions taken by the bill's critics are wrong. The first is that there is no real problem about television sex and violence — the fact that people can say this shows how deep the problem is. The second is that anything which might constrain 'art' is automatically evil. What- ever art is, it is not something which should be absolved from all restraints. Scenes of bestial cruelty are not necessarily 'legiti- mate' just because they are by Howard Brenton or even William Shakespeare, any more than murders are justified because they are carried out for 'political' and not mercenary motives. The idea that in art, 'anything goes', is, when one thinks about it, thoroughly unartistic. It has done much to make art in this century solipsistic and tedious. It even affects the behaviour of artists who, since the Romantic movement, reinforced by Bloomsbury, have claimed the right to be beyond convention. Anyone who lives beyond convention cuts himself off from the means that people have developed for understanding one another. His art falters and he himself becomes thoroughly disagreeable.
The 92 Group is a group of Conservative backbenchers dedicated to upholding right-wing ideals. Recently, it has started to behave very oddly. It has complained that Mr Tristan Garel-Jones, a whip, has abused his position by spreading anti-right- wing poison. Even odder, it has demanded the Mr Nicholas Soames should not be- come a whip. It does Mr Soames amazing honour that he, elected in 1983, and not yet in the Government, should be pros- cribed in advance. It also makes the 92 Group look foolish and unpleasant. In fact, there is nothing wrong with Mr Garel- Jones except that he is a teetotaller (which, since he is a Welshman, is not his fault) and there is nothing wrong with Mr Soames except that he is not a teetotaller (which, since he is a Soames and a Churchill, is not his fault). What the two men share is a finely developed ability to tease pompous bores. That is why the 92 Group dislikes them.
Hot news. The Standard billboard at a corner of Shaftesbury Avenue still screams (or still screamed on Tuesday) — BRIT- TAN ON THE BRINK.
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