DIARY
PEREGRINE WORSTHORNE Ithought the pre-war Establishment came amazingly well out of Channel 4's tawdry even by their standards — programmes enti- tled The Traitor King. Having discovered that King Edward VIII was a pro-German Nazi sympathiser, the Establishment, secret- ly and ruthlessly, conspired to force him to abdicate in the national interest, using his determination to marry Mrs Simpson as a heaven-, or rather hell-sent excuse. It was a brilliantly successful piece of statecraft. Hurrah for the pre-war Establishment. That, at any rate, was this viewer's conclu- sion. So far as the Establishment is con- cerned there is, I suspect, some truth in the Channel 4 version of events. For all their appeasing tendencies, the 1930s' Establish- ment did decide that King Edward VIII was a constitutional menace who had to be got rid of, not because he was a traitor — for that allegation there is not a shred of evi- dence — but because he was indiscreet, meddlesome, irresponsible and untrustwor- thy. Their judgment in these respects was spot-on and the Machiavellian skill with which they went about the tricky business of Chasing him off the throne deserves far more credit than it nowadays customarily receives. To have had Edward VIII on the throne during the second world war would have been a national liability and it speaks well of the Establishment's public spirited- ness that, even while they were doing their best to avert war, they had the foresight to see this. Needless to say, it was not Channel 4's intention to praise the pre-war Establish- ment. Perish the thought. No self-respecting television company could possibly survive the disgrace of putting anything on the air which actually praised any aspect of the old Britain, least of all the Establishment. But in this instance, mirabile dictu, they could not succeed in their determination to portray the King in the worst possible light without Putting the Establishment, which got rid of him, in the best possible light. In short Channel 4 was hoist with its own petard.
Unfortunately no such Establishment network, based on mutual trust, shared background and values, any longer exists to solve today's royal crises. Neither does the instinct of statecraft ingrained by centuries of practice and experience or the habit of authority. The great and the good exist as individuals but no common thread binds them together so that at moments of crisis they can act decisively in the public interest. The politicians act as politicians, the bishops as ecclesiastics, the Oxbridge wardens as academics, the courtiers as courtiers and above all the editors as journalists. But all of these disparate sources of expertise fail to add up to the collective wisdom of a ruling class. The recent behaviour of the BBC is marvellously revealing in this respect, as is the approving reaction of most of the press to it. The idea that the Director General of the BBC, charged with the nation's public service broadcasting, should, in the interest of the monarchy, have turned down a great scoop seems almost totally outside the con- temporary philosophy. As far as I could see, only the Daily Telegraph took John Birt seri- ously to task, it being assumed by the rest of the media that mischief-making and scan- dal-mongering are under all circumstances their only proper rules. Thank heavens for Charles Moore, the new Daily Telegraph edi- tor. But one young fogey does not an Estab- lishment make.
All the present lot can do, alas, is keep Mr Mohamed Al Fayed's fingers out of the media pie. As it happens, unlike most of today's newspaper owners, Mr Al Fayed is an ardent monarchist, patron of the Royal Windsor Horse Show, restorer of the Duke of Windsor's house in Paris and ardent Anglophile. Even holders of the Victoria Cross are greatly in his debt. Nobody I can think of with enough money to run a good newspaper could be more relied upon to give the royal family a fair press.
Losing a dog nowadays can be almost as expensive a business as parking a car on a double yellow line; and almost as vexatious. Until now the finder — assuming the dog has a name-tag on its collar — has simply got in touch with the loser, who then collects the dog. But no longer; not at any rate if the finder is the local dog-catcher, a new breed of civil servant. We tasted both the old arrangement and the new system last week when our two dachshunds went missing simultaneously. In the case of the first, Vio- let, a kind stranger rang to say she had found her, and would happily look after her until my wife arrived to pick her up. No problem and, of course, no charge, just grat- itude and a gift. In the case of Florence, however, it was a different story. She fell into the hands of the local dog-catcher, employed by the council, who claimed to have the power to levy a charge of £43 — in effect a fine — before agreeing to release the loved one. No, the charge was not for days of food and lodging since the dog was collected almost as soon as lost. It was quite simply punitive: to teach us in future to take better care of our dogs. What happens if the loser cannot afford to pay? He or she, it seems, forfeits the dog. Under what law or by-law the dog-catchers operate I am not sure. I think it has something to do with the new Dangerous Dogs Act but how this piece of legislation applies to toothless old Flo- rence I am at a loss to understand. Instead of feeling grateful to the dog-catcher, whose pound was at least 20 miles away from where the dog was found, we felt almost hostile — exactly as one does about the offi- cial dishing out of parking tickets. What used to be a personal affair between dog loser and finder has become a bureaucratic exchange involving much red tape, hassle and expense. Dogs used to be man's best friend. Sad to say, in the eyes of the state, they have now become just another problem.
Rural courtesy and kindness can some- times be more of a hindrance than a help. Because the friends we stayed with in Nor- folk last weekend don't have a fax machine, I arranged on Friday afternoon for the proof of my Sunday Telegraph column to be faxed to the newsagent in the nearest town. Telephoned by the newsagent to say that the fax had arrived at about 4 p.m. on Fri- day, I said I would drive in to collect it either later that afternoon or early on Satur- day morning. In the event I went in on Sat- urday morning, only to be told by the newsagent that he had passed the fax on to the cheese shop next door, in case I arrived after he was closed and while the cheese shop was still open. The cheese shop next door had a long queue, in which I waited patiently, only to be told by the owner, on reaching the counter, that he in turn had passed the fax onto the wine merchant down the street which, of all the shops in town, remained open latest. After waiting my turn there too, the wine merchant said that he did indeed have the fax but because it had not been collected by closing time the previ- ous evening he had thought it best to take it home for safe-keeping overnight. As soon as he had a moment free, he would pop out to collect it which, after about 15 minutes, he very kindly did. From the kindest of motives the newsagent had sparked off a chain reac- tion of other equally misplaced kindnesses which, between them, had managed to waste a whole morning. In other circum- stances I might have shown exasperation. But not in these where I was obviously in duty bound to say one thank you after another.
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