DIARY
0 ur leading article this week draws some parallels between the the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the disintegration of Robert Maxwell's empire. Another one suggests itself, which is the behaviour of the lackeys under both tyran- nies before and after the collapse. Just as Ceausescu's former functionaries managed to keep hold of power by attacking the man they once defended, so in the Mirror Group, men such as the Maxwell hagio- grapher, Joe Haines, turncoats now vilify- ing their former hero, are busy forming part of a team to buy out and run the Mirror, rather than let it go to those who would never have soiled their hands with Maxwell's money. I see Richard Stott, the Editor of the Mirror, as the Ion Iliescu of British journalism, and his buy-out team the equivalent of the National Salvation Front, which under Iliescu so cleverly retained power for Ceausescu's cronies in Rumania. As in Eastern Europe, the genuine dissidents who fled Maxwell's Mirror, such as Geoffrey Goodman and Keith Waterhouse, will never be rewarded for their virtue and good judgment.
But which man within Maxwell's for- mer empire is the closest equivalent to the old hardliner who, almost endearingly, cannot bring himself entirely to damn the old regime? I nominate the former actor, Sir Peter Ustinov, who was brought in by Mr Maxwell to write a weekly column for the European. Ustinov, it seemed to me, always had a soft spot for the old Soviet empire, and here he is, in his final column for the European last Saturday, making the best job of painting Maxwell as a victim of society: 'Any dream of [Maxwell] comes under immediate fire owing to the fickle- ness of public opinion and the self- righteous attitude of the very society that allowed such a situation to develop.' But Sir Peter allows that 'the global consensus is that Robert Maxwell was a crook. Certainly the idea of borrowing money from a pension fund to juggle the statistics is not the best weapon in the hands of a conceivable defence.' In the end, this clown blames it all on our first-past-the- post parliamentary system, and suggests that, somehow, under a system of prop- ortional representation, none of 'these unpleasant matters' would have occurred: `It is this form of democracy, with its unspoken hierarchy and unwritten con- stitution, which gave Captain Bob ample opportunity to exercise his talents and implicate the establishment and humble citizens in its consequences.' I recall that in some of his all too frequent television appearances Peter liked to mock the poli- tical acuity and intelligence of his fellow retired thespian, Mr Ronald Reagan. In DOMINIC LAWSON such matters Sir Peter is not fit to be Mr Reagan's dresser.
Even Peter Ustinov does not plumb the depths, however. They are inhabited by a firm called Tolley Conferences, a subsidiary of Tolley Publishing. A reader has sent me a letter he received from these people advertising a conference on corpo- rate disaster. Dated 'December 1991', it begins:
Dear Tolley Customer. Company Night- mares Conference London 5 March 1992. The death of a chairman, consumer terror- ism, major fraud, hostile takeovers, indust- rial action, a major computer crash and any other corporate disaster must be your worst nightmare. As Lucozade pick up the pieces and try to restore faith and trust in a product that at one time epitomised health and vitality, the Maxwell group are still recoiling from the tragic loss of their major driving force and one of the most revered men in the history of commerce . . .
What could lie behind this interesting assessment? At first I thought I saw a clue in the small print at the bottom of the `It's all we've got left on the shelf, sir.' letter: 'Tolley Publishing is a member of the United Newspapers Group'. United, of course, is chaired by Lord Stevens, who was a close personal friend and sometime business associate of Robert Maxwell. But then I decided that Lord Stevens could only be further embarrassed by these sycophantic ravings on the part of his employees.
Ican't believe I am alone in finding it hard to stomach the tone of Mr Salman Rushdie's address last week to students of Columbia University, New York. Twice Mr Rushdie compared his plight to that of the former Western hostages in the Leba- non, e.g., 'My companions, the Western hostages and the jailed businessmen, have by good fortune and the efforts of others managed to descend safely to earth . . . And now I'm alone in the balloon.' Mr Rushdie's predicament is indeed an appall- ing one, for which he deserves our sym- pathy, but he has so much sympathy for himself. And, unlike his 'companions', he has not been manacled in a cell for years in solitary confinement, he has not been beaten, he has not been tortured and he has not been cut off from the company of all those he loves and those that love him. Above all, he has not been forced to share a room with Mr Terry Waite.
Iread in the Peterborough column of the Daily Telegraph that last week I appeared in a restaurant dressed up as 'a hen', and then proceeded to 'strip off in front of a large table of glamorous women'. The author of this actionable piece goes on to wonder if this alleged behaviour is suited to `maintaining the high, serious standards we have come to expect from editors of The Spectator'. It is, of course, totally untrue that I was dressed as a hen. I was dressed as a chicken, bursting out of its shell. True, I hastily stripped off my bright yellow carapace, but only to reveal myself as a sophisticated, fully dressed human being, ready to eat rather than constitute dinner. Peterborough says the occasion was a hen party for Rosa Monckton, and describes me as 'Miss Monckton's fiancée'. This presumably is an example of the high, serious standards of literacy that we have come to expect from the editor of the Peterborough column, Mr Quentin Letts. My dear Quentin, I am Miss Monckton's fiancé. Miss Monckton is my fiancée, and you should take a course in chicken-sexing.
To all our readers I wish a Happy Christmas, and especially to Theodora J. M. van Lottum of Guatemala, my most regular correspondent.
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