POLITICS
A juicy bit of scandalum magnatum, as they say in the tabloids
SIMON HEFFER
In recent months The Spectator has pub- lished pieces about morality written by Cabinet ministers. Other newspapers, how- ever, have taken instead to writing about the morality of Cabinet ministers. The lat- est victim is Mr Mellor, the so-called Minis- ter for Fun, whose occasional articles on music we are proud to publish. He was picked on a week or so after Mr Major was reported as having decided that press self- regulation had failed. The press, particular- ly the tabloids, feared the Government would stop it using the private misjudg- ments of public figures to boost sales.
Some newspapers are now getting their retaliation in first. They are seeking to prove that the real reason ministers want laws on privacy is not to protect the wives of vicars and scoutmasters, but because they lead such disgusting private lives themselves. Certainly, most lobby corre- spondents can name five or six cabinet min- isters whom they suspect are not models of marital fidelity; it seems adultery and forni- cation among the holders of high office is almost as common as it is among journal- ists. Hypocrisy is thick on all sides. Mr Kelvin Mackenzie. the editor of the Sun, says a cabinet minister offered him a dossier of dirt (fabricated, as it turned out) on Mr Paddy Ashdown. If it is proved that the same Government calling for laws on privacy has been enticing a newspaper to breach it, the ramifications would be spec- tacular, not to say entertaining.
There is a campaign to intimidate the Prime Minister out of his reported desire to control the press; and it is sad Mr Mellor should have been a victim of it. He has not hitherto been an advocate of a privacy law. However, he may change his mind. The newspaper that turned him over last Sun- day threatens more 'revelations' next. One hopes this will consolidate the public sym- pathy for Mr Mellor and, more to the point, his family. There is no doubt those who want a privacy law have been greatly helped by the treatment of the Mellor story in some of the newspapers, not least by the revolting intrusion by the Daily Mirror into alleged problems with Mrs Mellor's health. Presumably, in the callous tradition of its last proprietor, the newspaper felt this poor and blameless woman had not suffered enough.
Mr Major's desire to protect Mr Mellor is admirable. Mr Mellor is not the most popular of men with his colleagues, not least because of his superior ability. Most politicians have a pack mentality, and those who make a habit of hunting outside the pack are seldom admired. A cabinet with more than its fair share of unimaginative bores cannot afford to lose Mr Mellor. However, one will not know Mr Major's rescue mission has worked until the muck- raking has finished. It has helped all con- cerned that Parliament is not sitting. Had Mr Major faced questions on Tuesday, not just about Mr Mellor but also about the attempt by a cabinet colleague to pulverise Mr Ashdown, he would have squirmed.
Mr Major seems to have altered what prime ministers have regarded as accepted standards. The Ashdown adultery set the precedent: Mr Major made it clear then that a politician's sexual transgressions did not necessarily affect his public role. This may be a metropolitan misjudgment of how such matters are seen in the Tory heart- lands. But a Cecil Parkinson, exposed today, would probably be safe. One sus- pects now that only if adultery develops into philandering would it be felt to demand a resignation.
Such a view brings us closer to the conti- nental morality. President Mitterrand is reputed to have told Lady Thatcher that he could not understand why Cecil Parkinson had had to resign for doing what in France was regarded as a social qualification for office. (Lady Thatcher, the legend contin- ues, was not amused. She and Mitterrand then went off alone for a stroll in the Bois de Boulogne, from which the President returned clutching a bloodstained handker- chief to his hand. 'She's gone too far this time' was the alleged reaction of her pri- vate secretary, Sir Charles Powell.) Had Mr Major accepted Mr Mellor's resignation last Saturday, he would not just have lost a very competent minister; he would have been seen to be defeated by the press.
By signalling that the era of Kitty O'Shea and Parnell is over, and that adultery is no longer a political problem, Mr Major must hope the press will stop writing about such things. He would be wrong. Such revela- tions will continue until he signals that press self-regulation will continue. It is hard to believe that more digging, trailing and bugging are not being conducted at this very moment.
Traditionally, the Tory whips have kept the Prime Minister informed of likely embarrassments; but it looks as though Mr Ryder, the Chief Whip, has been too busy persecuting Tory dissidents to keep abreast of genuinely damaging matters such as vari- ous ministers bonking in Last Chance Bor- dello. 'I always used to tell them,' one ex- Whip reflected the other day, 'that if they have to f— other women they should only f— married ones. All you do if you f— a bimbo is give her a meal ticket. You should only ever f— women who have a lot to lose if they tell on you.'
Whether or not there is legislation would seem to depend on Sir David Calcutt, the Master of Magdalene, who was recently asked by Mr Mellor to judge whether self- regulation has been a success. Unless Sir David has a mental aberration of frighten- ing proportions, it is hard to see how he could conclude anything but that it has not. An attempt to bring in a privacy law would then be likely. Whether it would succeed is, however, another matter. The Government would need to convince Parliament and the people that such a law was to protect inno- cent wives and children, and not designed to give politicans carte blanche ti) behave lubriciously. Lawyers, especially in the Lords, would argue interminably about what was or was not a public interest defence. There would be a danger of fur- ther revelations being brought out in the debates, and lots of poor jokes being told at the expense of certain unfortunates. There is also the more serious danger of it starting to look as though Mr Major wants to pun- ish the press at any price, and not just for their invasions of privacy. The most important question for him in the days ahead, though, is whether Mr Mel- lor should be left in charge of media regu- lation. It might be better if he were not. This is not because he would try to get revenge; he is a bigger, and cleverer, man than that. It is because it would not be fair to him and his family to keep having this business dragged up as the debate contin- ues. Perhaps he should do a straight swop with another minister of patently blameless private conduct, someone on whom the press cannot even find evidence of a schoolboy grope behind the bike-shedg. Let Mr Mellor use his pugnacity and forensic skills to secure the long overdue end of the Common Agricultural Policy. Saint John Gummer, your hour has come.
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