DIARY
There is nothing new about retrospec- tive legislation in this country. Tax statutes have been known to say that such-and-such a sharp practice will not only be illegal from now on but was illegal last year too, because you jolly well realised you were up to no good. In the Burmah Oil case of 1965 the Labour government (following the plans laid by the previous Conservative administration) retrospectively reversed a House of Lords decision in the company's favour. This was to the effect that it was entitled to compensation for property which, on government orders, it had des- troyed during the war. Ten years later the next Labour government, following a con- ference decision, indemnified the Clay Cross councillors against various penalties incurred under Mr Edward Heath. The Minister responsible for pushing through the Bill, Anthony Crosland, was quite upset, and told me that he had tried to justify the measure to himself but without success. I suggested to him that there was a long tradition of clemency in English law, from the royal prerogative of mercy to various judicial pieces of letting-off, not to mention the discretion of the police. Cros- land was much taken with the word `clemency'. 'A most useful word, that,' he said. 'Why couldn't someone in the depart- ment have come up with it?' He was, as he knew, being sophistical. And yet, there is a difference between, on the one hand, letting someone off and, on the other, rendering someone liable to retrospective prosecution. This is what the Commons have done over the alleged 'war criminals' resident here, and I am sorry they did it.
This brings us back to the Aldington- Tolstoy libel case, which I find people are still talking about. I have offered £50 to the Count through a friend of his, though like Mr Auberon Waugh I hope that it goes to his family rather than to Lord Aldington. This seems to be my standard libel hand- out, what I donated to Private Eye. Every- one is now saying that the £1.5 million is the last straw (a pretty hefty straw) and that the law of libel must be reformed. I wonder. Lord Mackay's deliberations were hardly known about. Certainly they re- ceived less publicity than Mr David Cal- cutt's contemporaneous inquiry into priva- cy and the press. Nor did the Lord Chan- cellor, unlike Mr Calcutt, invite submis- sions from interested outside parties. In all the libel scandals of the past few years, nothing has surprised me more than the way in which the respectable papers have kept quiet. Perhaps I should not have been surprised. They see the law as just though savage and capricious punishment of their wicked cousins. They realise also that any reformed law of libel is bound to bring with
ALAN WATKINS
it legal aid for plaintiffs, which no news- paper manager is anxious to see. But, above all, they — certainly the respectable liberal papers — have been obsessed, one might almost say besotted, by official secrets, which they regard as the one serious threat to free speech in this coun- try. Yet in the world of real journalism or writing of any kind, the fear of libel is onerous and omnipresent. I should like damage to be proved. This is what the law of slander has always required (with cer- tain exceptions, such as the imputation of unchastity in a woman). The Faulks Com- mittee of 1975, in the course of making numerous useful suggestions, foolishly proposed the reverse: that slander should be subsumed under libel. Under my scheme, Lord Aldington would have found it difficult to collect a great deal of money. Though Mr Nigel Watts, and less certainly the Count, intended to injure him, it does not appear that they enjoyed much suc- cess. He would have been entitled to a smallish sum, not in excess of £10,000, for damage to his feelings; anything in excess would have had to be proved on a strict cash basis. I would place damages in the hands of the judge but retain the jury where, as at present, either party wanted it. Jurors should, however, be subject to a literacy test: one of them in the Archer case could not even read the oath.
In his notable memoir of Gareth Vaughan Bennett, Mr Geoffrey Wheat- croft omits to mention that his subject was of Welsh origin — though this would have appeared likely from both his Christian names. The Canon's roots enabled another Welshman, Canon James Owen, Vicar of Little St Mary's, Cambridge, immediately to spot his authorship of the famous Preface. The clue was the author's refer- ence to 'orating' bishops. No one but a Welshman, Canon Owen reasoned, would use 'orating' in this pejorative way: there- fore, he correctly concluded, the author must be Gary Bennett. Elementary, my dear Canon, Some articles in the Times which aroused a similar controversy — though without tragic consequences of any kind were those written by 'A Conservative'. They were really an attack on Harold Macmillan and an exaltation of R. A. Butler. The late Nicholas Tomalin secured one of his several scoops by putting them through a computer and coming up with the name of Enoch Powell. Though this may be retrospective boasting, I like to think that I had guessed Mr Powell's authorship from his distinctive style: just as I knew that it was Mr Wheatcroft who wrote the recent 'profile' of Mr John Osborne in the Sunday Telegraph on account of a phrase, 'the cheap press', which only he regularly employs. Others, however, were less percipient about the Times articles. A lobby correspondent heard the name of Oakeshott mentioned. Never having heard of the distinguished political philosopher of that name, he scanned the list of Conservative MPs and came up with Sir Hendrie Oakshott, who sat for Bebington and was one of the last of the baronets (created 1959). Sir Hendrie duly enjoyed a brief day of Fleet Street fame.
There are doubtless lots of things to be said against the Broadcasting Bill, but that it will destroy regional television seems to me to be one of the less convincing. As regional enterprises, these companies are something of a sham. Harlech Television was not only less Welsh than its predeces- sor, Television Wales and West: it was also worse television. The prospectus cobbled together by John Morgan with Richard Burton and Wynford Vaughan Thomas turned out to be bogus, though that may not have been entirely Morgan's fault. In the days when I was occasionally doing Granada's What the Papers Say (very badly), I would write the script in the company's Soho office on Tuesday and Wednesday, catch the train to Manchester (accompanied by various programme- makers) on Thursday, record the show and return to Euston on the same day, accom- panied by the same people together with several actors. This was classified as a Manchester-originated programme. It is local patriotism that is the last refuge of the scoundrel.
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