DIARY
ALLAN MASSIE othing worries us more than the Prospect of becoming a branch-line eco- nomy, though it would seem that despite Peter Walker's boasts the dangers of this happening to the Welsh are somewhat greater. However our fears have received reinforcement from a recent survey under- taken by the Applied Business Research Group at Heriot-Watt University and pub- lished by the accountancy and manage- ment consultancy firm Peat Marwick McLintock. According to this, 70 per cent of the manufacturing sector of the Scottish economy is now owned by companies with headquarters outside Scotland; the Scot- tish branch being, as Alan Malcolm, a partner in Peat Marwick, put it, 'often starved of the vital elements of marketing, research and development'. Not surpri- singly, both The Glasgow Herald and The Scotsman published leaders bewailing this state of affairs. Actually both newspapers fall into the category they condemn, since the Herald is owned by Lonrho and The Scotsman by Thomson International. Perhaps the editors, Arnold Kemp and Magnus Linklater, don't consider journal- ism part of the manufacturing sector, though they make a physical product and try to manufacture opinion. In fact only one of our daily newspapers, the Dundee Courier & Advertiser is owned by a Scot- tish company, D. C. Thomson. It is also, ironically, the only paper that might still be described as Conservative in its political line.
eviews of Richard Cockett's book,
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Twilight of Truth, make it clear that the Chamberlain Government went further than one had realised in the manipulation of public opinion. In particular the London Press displayed a subservience which stands in contrast to the independence of mind shown by newspapers based in Scot- land and the English provinces: The Glas- gow Herald and The Yorkshire Post, though both then Conservative papers, were distinguished by their determination to publish the truth about the Nazi regime. Britain is unique in the degree of concen- tration of the national Press in the capital City, and the worse for it. The decision of The Manchester Guardian to abandon its provincial status in the Sixties was only the most feeble and deplorable example of the malign attraction of London. No doubt it was in part the result of the declining economic importance of Manchester, but it was also a cause of that continuing decline. I wish Paul Johnson in his Spectator col- umn would pay a bit more attention to newspapers published outside London. • Their revival would be the best evidence that the lunatic drag to the south-east was being reversed. Viewed from the Yarrow Valley, Lon- don certainly looks rather mad, though one has to admire the fortitude it must take to live there. I still enjoy visiting the capital for a day or two, but I realised it was seizing up a couple of years ago when I left a bus at the top of Kensington High Street, and outpaced it on foot to Piccadilly. Then, last summer, travelling from Doughty Street with Charles Moore, I had to leave the taxi in order not to be late for an appointment at Broadcasting House. A commonplace experience for Londoners no doubt; certainly Charles did not seem surprised. In contrast a few weeks ago Malcolm Rifkind told me that he hoped his colleague at the Ministry of Transport would never find himself on the Edinburgh-Stirling motorway at nine o'clock on a Monday morning; if he did, there might be no more money for roads in Scotland. Actually I should think that, in view of his recent experiences, Paul Chan- non would find the wide-open spaces rather comforting.
An elderly gentleman told me the other day that if Jim Sillars became Prime Minister of Scotland he would himself move south of the Border. Certainly Sillars arouses a deal of distrust outside the SNP; one prominent Labour devolutionist, who had better be nameless, spoke of him to me in language which would involve us, and The Spectator, in a libel action if I repeated it. But the interesting question is whether the English may tire of the Union before we make up our minds. During the last devolution circus the late Archie Birt (another Labour man) used to deave Home Rulers with his question, 'What happens when England says "no"?' A more pertinent one now might be: 'What happens if England says "yes"?' Admitted- ly Mrs Thatcher remains committed to the Union: she has not become Prime Minister to preside over the disintegration of the United Kingdom. Yet the preservation of the Union may demand deeds. For a start I would suggest that she sets in motion a plan to move the capital to York. The benefits of such a move would be great; it should have been done 200 years ago. Perhaps she should announce a competi- tion for a Parliament building there, the move to be completed early in her seventh term, in time for the tercentenary of the Union in 2007.
In his review of Norman Sherry's biogra- phy of Graham Greene in The Times Bryan Appleyard remarks: 'The real sin was realism, the faded bland belief that language was a window on the world rather than the world itself. . . .' This seems to me heretical itself; language in a novel can never be an end. A novel is made of words, but these words relate to objects and emotions, observed, if you like, through the window. The novelist's problem is always to achieve a balance between what goes on in his head and what he sees out there. There is no such thing as the abstract novel; Anthony Burgess is fond of recount- ing the story of Finnegans Wake, which I remember hearing him do with characteris- tic bravura at the writers' conference at the last Edinburgh Festival.
Allan Massie is a columnist for the Sunday Times, Scotland. His new novel, A Question of Loyalties, will be published by Hutchinson this summer.
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