DIARY
A.N.
WILSON
One of the things which makes me hold back from offering myself as a candidate for the Sir James Goldsmith Referendum Party is the frequency with which the television shows ancient clips of the Rt Hon. Enoch Powell sounding off about the dangers of the Treaty of Rome. While normally as Eurosceptical as Teresa Gorman, I find that the presence of Mr Powell hovering in the background as the patron saint of Euro- phobes gives me pause. Mr Powell, after all, unlike Mrs Gorman, has been wrong about absolutely everything. He thinks that Shake- speare did not write the plays. He thinks that Jesus was not crucified but stoned to death. He thought that the inunigrations from the Commonwealth would lead to race riots and rivers of blood, which, in spite of his distasteful racialist speeches, they didn't. There is something so disconcerting about finding oneself in agreement with him over Europe that one feels half inclined to change sides and join the Europhiles.
Er those of us who find political thought difficult, — or not so much diffi- cult as boring — the personality of politi- cians counts for everything. Highbrows like Viscount Stansgate can plead with us to stick to the `ish-yoos', but we stubbornly make up our minds on political questions on the basis of whether we like the cut of someone's jib. The Euro-Question is alone in failing to yield to this approach. Enthusi- asts on both sides seem equally awful. You would think that Sir Teddy Taylor would make Eurofanatics of us all, but the Europhiles have mustered some pretty impressive troops of their own: Heath, whose fat red face on The Poisoned Chalice programmes shows no compunction what- ever at lying to the British people about the implications of joining the Common Mar- ket, or the leader of the Liberal Party, writ- ing to the Times on Tuesday, boasting that he had dreamed up the whole idea of British membership of the EEC over lunch in Paris in 1969 with Maurice Schumann and Christopher Soames. The Liberal lead- er in question, of course, is Jeremy Thorpe. It ieems pathetic that this largely discredit- ed figure, the O.J. Simpson of the political world, should have chosen to surface and attempt to get himself written into the his- tory books as a man who helped the Euro- pean Communities Bill through the Com- mons in 1972. It may be that in certain Europhile circles, this is how the Liberal leader is remembered. Others will think of Bang, bang! Woof, woof! The famous phrase 'Bunnies can and will go to France' now seems pregnant with Euro-meaning. Presumably the Bunnies went to France because of their passionate devotion to the Common Agricultural Policy. Another Liberal leader called Jeremy has been in the news this week, also boast- ing of his passionate dedication to the European cause. Mr Jeremy Ashdown has denounced the Prime Minister who, by his 'appalling vacillation', has 'enabled the xenophobes and sceptics' to take charge of his party. Be that as it may — as Donald Wolfit would say — it seems reassuring to know that the Liberal Party, unlike so many other parties, has been entirely consistent about this question. Mr Jeremy Pantsdown boasts of the Liberal Party, 'We have never gone political walkabout', while Mr Jeremy Thorpe, in his letter to the Times, crows, 'We have been uniquely consistent' in devotion to Europe. As Mr Ashdown shows, the Liberal Party has the same views in 1996 that it had in 1972, and — if not the same leader — a leader with the same Christian name, Jeremy. Only for some reason, Mr Jeremy Pantsoff is never known by his real name. Instead he chooses to be known by the sobriquet 'Paddy' and to be photographed as often as possible with his dog, Luke. I do not know what is wrong with the name Jeremy, but perhaps it has unfortunate associations for the Liberals? Run, rabbit, run, as we used to sing during the last German attempt to set up a European union.
People like me who manage to make a living as writers have very little to complain about. Our grumbles are of the order of the princess and the pea. Nevertheless, precise- ly because we can dictate, for the most part, 'It's a good investment with a spacious back- yard for breeding ostriches in.' how we spend our days, the few really bor- ing 'obligations' of a writer's life can some- times loom up like nightmares, destroying all happiness for weeks. I'm talking about all the silly things which publicity depart- ments at publishers now make their authors do. Dostoevsky never had to go on a chat show. Agatha Christie never gave an inter- view. Now you can't write a book without being made to feel guilty if you don't 'publi- cise' yourself. Sleepless nights can be spent asking why one said yes to an invitation — a book-signing, or a literary lunch, or the party of some lion-hunter. Even Dear Mary would have been hard put to it to find a better excuse than Salman Rushdie's for not turning up on these dire occasions. Merely to murmur the word 'security' down the telephone would give him the perfect excuse never to attend another internation- al writers' conference. He need never set foot in the Groucho again. Yet, strange man, he seems to spend all his time doing the very things which most writers would dearly love to avoid. At the end of the month he is scheduled to teach at a 'cre- ative writing workshop' in Hay-on-Wye at the literary festival. Can one imagine any- thing worse? Well, being shot, some would say. All I can say is that half an hour before any such event begins one would far rather be shot than do a book-signing in Water- stone's or a debate with Libby Purves.
Agood example of journalism at work occurred this week. Some years ago, the Dean of Westminster asked me to address a group of clergy who met at his deanery once a month for a sandwich lunch and a talk by a visiting speaker. After the statuto- ry three weeks' sleepless nights, I turned up and it was a perfectly pleasant occasion — about 20 of us. The lunch-club, since it used to congregate at St Paul's deanery, took the name of the Central Line — a harmless Anglican pun. I forget what I talked about. Perhaps it is necessary to say that there was no smutty talk among this (I should guess) mixture of married, celibate and 'gay' men. I must have mentioned it to one of my colleagues at the Evening Stan- dard at the time. The years pass. Runcie makes his gaffe on Tony Howard's radio programme admitting that he had ordained 'gays', and a journalist whom I know slight- ly leaves a message on the answering machine: 'Rory Knight Bruce has told me that you managed to get into a secret Anglican gay dining-club called the Circle Line. Please ring back at once since I have to write an article on the gay clergy for The Spectator.' I did not ring back, but I shall look forward to the article [it is on page 14 — Ed.]. No one can say The Spectator does not have its finger on the Anglican pulse.
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