SHARED OPINION
Paging Mr Widmerpool (or Ms — or indeed Lady)
FRANK JOHNSON
Whatever the other critiques which Channel 4's version of A Dance to the Music of Time arouses, everyone seems to agree about one aspect of it. Mr Simon Russell Beak's Widmerpool is acting of genius. So much so that we are at the moment living under a Widmerpool Terror,
Somehow I just know that, on any given evening, someone somewhere is pronounc- ing over the canapes and headachy white wine at a book launch, or over the opening course of char-grilled vegetables from Torn Conran's deli at dinner in Notting Hill: `That Johnson, he's an utter Widmerpool,' `Paul, you mean?'
`Er, him too.'
I know this, not because of what is called `paranoia', but because I am doing the same myself. Ever since marvelling at Mr Russell Beale's performance, I have been Widmerpooling all over London. 'You're a complete Widmerpool,' I observed the other evening to Mr Andrew Roberts, his- torian, columnist of the Sunday Times and contributor to this magazine. He at first thought he should agree. Widmerpools are regarded as so frightful that it is thought, during this present Widmerpool Terror, to be a sign of insecurity not to admit that one is one, when accused. In that respect, Wid- merpoolism is different from McCarthyism.
Mr Roberts then thought about it a little more, and changed his mind. If he were a Widmerpool, he would at present be for New Labour. I agreed that he has no record of ingratiating himself with the new, at the moment pervasive regime under which we live. Widmerpools go with whoev- er is winning. Mr Roberts says he will fight this regime to the end, whenever and what- ever that may be. Mr Roberts, then, is no Widmerpool.
At work the following day, the thought occurred: who, then, are the Widmerpools of our time? Widmerpool, it will be remembered, is unattractive but vain, opin- ionated rather than knowledgable, pomp- ous, does not notice when he makes a bad impression, is deferential to wealth and power, snobbish and has an unerring ability to get on the side of whichever politicians have won. In Mr Powell's novel sequence, Widmerpool begins in the City as a practi- cal man of affairs who thinks there is a lot to be said for getting on better with the Nazis, and suggests that Goering be invited over. He ends as a 1960s Labour minister.
As practical men of affairs often do, he gives the impression of knowing what is going on in the world, but is careful not to offer an opinion about it until he knows what is the safe thing to say. His idea of opening conversation at dinner is to observe, during prewar Chinese troubles, something like — I quote from memory see that the Emperor has accepted the legitimacy of Sun Yat-sen'. Nowadays it would be something like: `I see that Jospin has made it clear to Weigel that he has every intention of meeting the convergence criteria.'
We therefore decided in this office to look for a suitable writer for a piece for The Spectator on who are the Widmerpools of our time. There would, we assumed, be no difficulty in finding writers prepared to write it; the difficulty, on these occasions, lies in finding a writer whom we would want to write it. But Mr Noel Malcolm excused himself on the grounds that he did not know any suspected Widmerpools well enough to insult them. A star of the Mur- doch press said he would rather not do it because he was too much of a Widmerpool himself. Mr Simon Sebag Montefiore also claimed that he too was rather Widmer- poolish. He went one stage further: 'We're all Widmerpools,' he said. (To say in which order we asked the writers would be, to use a Widmerpoolism, invidious.) There, for the time being, we have left it. I am not sure that Mr Sebag Montefiore is a Widmerpool. He lacks the necessary obeisance to authority. This constitutes the essence of Widmerpoolism. In making Widmerpool fat and unattractive to women, Mr Powell rather stacks the cards against him, Common observation suggests that it is possible to be both a Widmerpool and someone whom the opposite sex would consider good-looking.
Doubtless plenty of real Widmerpools would have been prepared to write the piece. But a piece about Widmerpools, written by one, would be useless. They can- not spot one another.
I was reduced to speculating myself as to who our contemporary Widmerpools are. They would all be New Labour, of course. Some would have been former Thatcher- ites. Not Thatcherites in the Seventies when Mrs Thatcher was in opposition. Not even Thatcherites in the early Eighties, when it looked as if her recession might result in some kind of Labour-SDP coali- tion. Then the Widmerpools were either Tory Wets lamenting the loss of 'One Nation Conservatism' or they had joined the SDP. No, the Thatcherite Widmerpools would have identified themselves after her success in the Falklands, which war theY would naturally have opposed as foolhardY and doomed. ('Hasn't that woman learned the lessons of Suez?') After the 1983 gener- al election, the Widmerpools would have been the most ferocious of Thatcherites. But they would have gone off her by 1990 as a result of the unpopularity of the poll tax which Widmerpools would at first have regarded as the only answer to our absurd rating system. Mr Heseltine was the Wid' merpoolian candidate in 1990. The victort. ous Mr Major would have been regarded 3S `just not up to it' until he won the 1992 election CI thought the soapbox was a rnah- vellous touch'), after which he was just not up to it again from the day we were forced out of the ERM until 1 May 1997, though there would have been much doubt as to whether Mr Blair would win in the end. CFact is, people just lie to the pollsters about being willing to pay higher taxes. They'll vote with their pocket-books in the end.') The only New Labour Widmerpools who were never Thatcherites are those who were once Old Labour. My Labour friends say that the Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine, is a Widmerpool to watch. He has the req- uisite orotundity in figure and speech. TheY also advise me that Professor Anthony Gid- dens, sociologist, is Widmerpool material• Apparently, he is advancing through the advisory committees. But it would be sexist, in this day and age, to confine our Widmer' pools to women. Thus Baroness Black- stone, Minister of State for Education, and Ms Helena Kennedy, QC for the right caus- es, are said to have awesome command of the Widmerpoolian patter. I would wel- come further entrants from readers, espe- cially from my fellow Widmcrpools.
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