A Spectator's Notebook

Newspaper stories about threats to Jeremy Thorpe's leadership of the Liberal Party are not entirely wrong. But according to informed Liberals, they are a couple of years premature. Of course, Mr Thorpe will hear many complaints at this week's party conference in Scarborough — some of them justified and some of them not. Many will come from party workers who can never understand why their ideas are not immediately adopted. But more seriously, there will be partly justified attacks on his lack of leadership and wholly justified attacks on the appalling state of party headquarters. However, those who see themselves as potential successors to Mr Thorpe will not be so naive as to exaggerate the importance of these criticisms. John Pardoe, David Steel and Emlyn Hooson know perfectly well that Liberals always do badly under a Labour Government (however disastrous), and that the time to make a bid for the leadership will come after the next election. Whatever happens then, it will no doubt be regarded as a disaster by the simpler party workers (such as William Rees Mogg) if it does not result in Jeremy being carried in triumph to Downing Street. This week, the action consists merely of jockeying for the position of chief challenger when the time comes. The odds at the moment are slightly on John Pardoe, who was the success story of the October election as a forceful exponent of the need for a statutory incomes policy. David Steel, on the other hand, is considered by diligent watchers of form not to have trained on. The only certain thing is that the job calls for a stayer rather than a sprinter.

Wine war

Now that France and Italy are at war on the subject of wine, many people in Britain may feel they should take sides. But if anyone decides they want to boycott Italian wine, they may find it more difficult than they think. When I was in the Languedoc earlier this year, investigating the grievances of the French winegrowers, I was told by a leading French importer of Italian wine that a lot of the stuff goes to cellars in the north of France, where it is bottled in French bottles and sometimes finds its way into the export market as French "vin ordinaire." There are various reasons why the peasants of Languedoc get so angry. One is the fact that while their own cellars are overflowing with unsold wine, almost all the Italian wine coming into France arrives first on their own doorstep in the Mediterranean port of Sete. So they experience the frustration of watching huge wine tankers, covered with Italian labels, trundling past their own vineyards. Another more fundamental reason for their fury is a fact which they cannot publicly admit. This is the offence to their pride contained in the secret knowledge that the wine they produce is among the nastiest in France, and on the whole considerably nastier than the imported Italian wine, which is both stronger and cheaper and ideally suited to the needs of the thirsty French industrial worker.

Unfair

The Franco-Italian wine war is relevant to us, because we, like the French, are currently howling about "unfair" foreign competition. But what is "unfair"? The Italians, as we know, are not above any form of deviousness to increase their export trade, and they have even been known to make wine out of banana skins. But the main charge against them at the moment is that the Lira has become so devalued in relation to the French Franc that their wine has become unreasonably cheap. But the Italians hardly wanted their currency to decline so sharply, and no doubt they consider that "unfair." Furthermore, their overall trade in food and drink is overwhelmingly in France's favour. In Britain, there may be a case for introducing some selective import controls, if we can get away with it. But basically, we should make up our minds whether we believe in free trade or not.

Concordat

I was pleased that the Archbishop of Canterbury enjoyed his Concorde test flight but was slightly puzzled as to what he was doing on it. The Royal Family's prestige has already been enlisted for this pretty but expensive and controversial machine, the function of whose continued production has been largely to buttress Mr Wedgwood Benn's majority in Bristol South East. Dr Coggan might be thought to be interpreting his pastoral duties fairly broadly in pronouncing his archiepiscopal blessing.

Art event

Notes on contemporary culture: an Evening Standard reviewer writes, "Alice Cooper, once the enfant terrible of rock music has now become a creature effectively tamed. In his [sic] current $400,000 show . . . the mutilated dolls, the boa constrictor, the guillotine and hanging scenes have been replaced by a gentle, spooky kind of horror. . . . Last night he was joined by dancers dressed alternatively as skeletons and spiders."

I think that I should prefer, if I can make it, a "presentation of a work of art" in Amsterdam on Friday to which we have been invited. In his invitation the artist, Niels Keus, says: "One of the aspects of this work is that nobody knows beforehand what form it is going to take. All I can tell you about it is this: 'There will be one presentation only.

'The number of items to be exhibited amounts to 1,250,000.

The most important tool used in the exhibition weighs 4 tons."

Black marks

It is nice to know, however, that some traditional methods of painting still survive. A French correspondent informs me that in the Place du Tertre in Montmarte, there is a delightful little man in a broad-brimmed hat and a goatee beard to be found every day during the tourist season putting the final touch of colour to a townscape showing a house on the other side of the square. Foreigners stand agog, admiring his sensitivity and perfectionism, and hasten to outbid each other in their desire to acquire the painting. So 'keen is this painter to ensure consistency of quality, that every time one painting is sold, another identical one is produced from a factory around the corner, and the same final brushstroke is inflicted upon a tiny cloud in the sky. It is a bit late in the season to warn gullible English travellers of the risks they run when they venture across the Channel, but certainly the main place to avoid is Naples. The Neapolitans, who are so often unjustly accused of laziness, will go to almost unbelievable trouble to swindle you.

• I myself once bought a carton of two hundred Marlboro cigarettes on what I innocently believed to be the Black Market. The carton was perfectly wrapped in sellophane, and so were the ten packets inside, all complete with the little strip of gold foil which had to be ripped off to open them. But inside each packet were wads of cardboard. Nothing less than a factory could have produced them.

How to succeed

Australia, especially under Mr Whitlam's regime, is no keener than most modern states to maintain its direct imperial responsibilities. That is the reason why Papua New Guinea has just been granted its independence, rather than any widespread demand from the Papuans, most of whom are neolithic tribesmen speaking, by one estimate, more than 750 languages. One can only wish Mr Michael Somare, the new prime minister, the best of luck in his stated intention to institute a "Westminster-style parliamentary democracy." In fact, an assembly has been operating for some time before technical independence. One thing its members are noted for, I am reliably informed, is that conviviality (they can scarcely have learnt that from Westminster?) and a long-running controversy, earning Mr Somare violent resentment, has been his refusal to open a bar in the Assembly, so that members are obliged to make tiring journeys outside the building for refreshment.

The fame drain

Top rate income tax levels are in the news again. Some people may have mixed feelings at the news that the Bay City Rollers pop group are being driven into exile, following the Rolling Stones, the Slade and Ringo Starr — all cited by Sir Geoffrey Howe in his complaint about the "fame drain." Still, Sir Geoffrey made a cogent argument for fixing the tax ceiling at 50 per cent, which would be even more cogent if he could demonstrate exactly how much more would accrue to the Revenue if such a reduction induced the return of tax exiles. There has also been some touting of the Irish scheme, under which "creative artists," including Len Deighton and Frederick Forsyth, live tax-free in Erin's isle. There has never seemed to me any justice at all in this arrangement, which was, I believe, suggested to Charles Haughey — then the Irish finance minister — by the Spectator's old friend Constantine FitzGibbon. 'Artists,' • great or merely successful, are not absolved by their artistry from their civic duties and, enlightened as the Irish arrangement ostensibly sounds, I do not seen why even a Mozart or George Eliot should have their public services paid for by non-creative labourers, clerks and farmers.