SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
J. W. M. THOMPSON
Lord Mancroft once tried to introduce a 'right of privacy' law rather like that which Mr Brian Walden is putting to the Commons this week, but he says he now thinks the subject is not really suitable for a Private Member's Bill. I don't doubt that he is right. The introduction of an entirely new kind of restriction on the freedom of information is not something that governments ought to leave to backbenchers to manage. For one thing, it ought not to be undertaken without a thorough study by a royal commission or some similarly weighty body. For another, it appears that the Government is in fact pledged to provide some legislation on the matter, through having subscribed to the European Convention of Human Rights. Whether the commitment was fully appreci- ated when entered into is another question; the fact is that the commitment was made and will presumably have to be honoured. Tricky as the problem is, the solution ought to come from the Government.
Mr Walden's Bill, in its original form at least, would put new curbs on newspaper inquiries. This is not its real object, which is the decent one of protecting people from unwholesome invasion by electronic spying devices, but the fact illustrates the difficulty of framing a law on this subject. It is all too easy to diminish one area of freedom while ostensibly preserving another. I think Mr Walden's motives are admirable but I also think that redefining what would be our constitutional rights, if only we had a constitution, is a proper task for govern- ments and ought not to be left to well- meaning private Members.
In the public eye
This whole question of privacy and the newspapers is full of complexities which are not always apparent when particular painful cases come up. One point which R. A. Cline made in the SPECTATOR of 10 January concerned the unfairness which goes with court reporting. The amount of publicity given to a court case often depends on irrelevant matters, such as the fact that a person involved is related to someone in the public eye. This is thoroughly unfair, of course; but any attempt by authority to place further restrictions on the reporting of court cases would, I should have thought, have carried worse risks for the community at large even than the present uncertainty about publicity. There happen to have been two cases in recent weeks in which the daughters of prominent politicians have found themselves in court. In one the daughter of an TAI. was accused of shoplifting and later acquitted. In the second, an MP'S daughter is accused of drug offences and is at present on re- mand. I wonder how many people have noticed the self-denying ordinance which the Times has taken to observing in these cases? On neither occasion has this paper men- tioned the accused person's relationship with a public man, although every other news- paper (I think) supplied this information, as indeed did the BBC. Let us concede that the omission indicates a respect for privacy; does it in fact achieve its purpose? The actual prosecutions were reported by the Times; and the mere fact that such relatively minor proceedings were given space was a clear signal to the reader of the existence of some special news value. Furthermore, the surnames in such cases are often enough to convey the unstated facts or at least to encourage readers to guess at them. Even if newspapers and television had followed the Times's example, the fact would have become known just the same. Only a total prohibition on reporting what happens in the courts of law would com- pletely protect families from the extra distress occasioned by publicity in such affairs; and that is or ought to be unthink- able.
Ancient and modern
Of all the signs that the Christian Churches are suffering a crisis of self-confidence, the present itch to rewrite or tinker with the language of religious observance is surely the plainest. As an outsider I was, perhaps impertinently, amazed when the Roman Catholics threw away their ancient Latin liturgy in favour of numerous different 'vernacular' versions; and I find it not at all surprising that the change from an endur- ing and international form to an undis- tinguished rendering in 'modern English' or modern anything else is still producing many misgivings.
One Catholic who views with disfavour the new language of the Mass was quoted the other day as speaking with envy of the historical accident which had given Angli- cans their own superb English services. But, of course, many Anglicans are busily intent upon getting rid of the splendours of the Book of Common Prayer in the interest of 'modernisation'. Hence the 'proliferation of pamphlets' which, as the Archbishop of Canterbury has indicated, is on the way to replacing the prayer book in the c of E.
The Convocation of Canterbury has now taken a further step away from the tradi- tional forms. And one clergyman told Con- vocation that 'in this day and age' (a phrase which almost infallibly indicates that some trendy nonsense is to follow) 'what we want are services in contemporary English . . Why all this harking back to a society so long gone past?' Leaving aside the point that a Church whose founder lived on earth nearly 2.000 years ago ought not to sniff at a bit of harking back, the prayer book language happens to possess extraordinary beauty and power which have survived three centuries of turbulent change, whereas what is meant by 'contemporary' English is likely to be vastly inferior in these respects and will also almost certainly become stale and dated in a brief time. What, after all, is 'contemporary' English? The language of the popular press, the TV commercial, Port- noy's Complaint, a govomment White Paper, or what? Perhaps Whitehall provides the model: 'Our Male Parent or Guardian, whose permanent place of residence is in that area officially designated as Heaven ...'
Tranche de vie
'Two days ago at a highbrow party I met a distinguished musician whose black mistress had been murdered in her apartment two days before. None of his friends had noticed the news.' (A Cambridge scholar, writing from New York this week.)
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