DIARY
ALAN WATKINS Mr John Major's present unhappy position reminds me of Sir (as he then wasn't) Edward Heath's when he was in oppos,ition from 1965 to 1970. He too was resentful, defensive, quick to take offence: all qualities he has retained to this day, for people do not change much after the age of 17. Every year at this time the headlines would say: 'Crucial conference for Ted. He must rouse the faithful or forfeit leader- ship.' Or: 'Ted on rack. He must make speech of his life or face sack.' Sir Edward would then give yet another underwhelm- ing performance of greater or lesser tedi- um. But he would duly receive a standing ovation (for this nonsense started with him, not with Lady Thatcher). The Conservative papers would duly say: 'Triumph for Ted.' Phoenix-from-the-ashes became an unchanging part of the political year. But times have changed. The most important change occurred in 1975 when, under Lord Home's reforms, or Alec's Revenge, the leader became subject to annual election. The other change is more recent. The Con- servative papers are no longer prepared to bolster the Conservative leader, unless they happen to be the Express papers. It must be a new experience for Sir Nicholas and Lady Lloyd, respectively the editors of the Daily and the Sunday, to be on the losing side — or to risk dying in the last ditch.
0 ne of the accompaniments of advanc- ing years, I find, is that you can never be entirely sure that things actually happened. Did I dream it, imagine it in the bath, read it in the papers, or what? I can swear that, almost a year ago, in November, during a television broadcast of a Remembrance Day event, the commentator casually men- tioned that a medal had just been struck for those who did their national service. No one has mentioned this to me before or since. Mr Malcolm Rifkind has not been in touch. There has been no word from the Chief of Air Staff, if such a person any longer exists. But if there are any medals going, I do not see why I should not have one. I should like a proper, official medal, not the private enterprise version from a Haslemere firm which I recently saw adver- tised in a magazine: 'The medal is struck in full size and miniature versions. The full- size medal is only available to those who performed National Service (military or civilian) between January 1939 and Decem- ber 1960, or their next of kin.' This is not at all the same thing. Moreover, I fail to see how someone who is not entitled to a full- size medal can nevertheless purchase the miniature variety. But, then, I do not understand why anyone should be able to buy a medal at all. When my son announced that he was returning from his job in Istanbul by car, while his family were travelling by air, I sur- prised him by suggesting that I should come too. He correctly associates me more with solid bourgeois comfort than with adventure. But I made the trip as navigator, failing only to connect quickly with the French motorway system after emerging from the Frejus tunnel under the Alps. The whole journey took us three and a half days — from Istanbul, down the Aegean coast, across Greece (very hilly, Greece), across the Adriatic to Bari, and up through Italy and France. On the Saturday we had a late breakfast in Turin and were in Islington by three on Sunday morning. My other holi- day boast is that, on a more leisurely expe- dition to France, I dined chez Pic at Valence and, on leaving the restaurant, was graciously presented with a bottle of Rhone wine by M. Pic himself. Why? Was he con- fusing me with Mr Bernard Levin? Unlike- ly. But I remain flattered.
For my return, my daughter had bought some sausages of the kind I like, correctly reasoning that I would not have had any in France. Preparing to cook them, I noticed some slivers of thin glass on the skins. I have now returned them untasted to the store where they were bought. Oddly enough, she herself had found bits of simi- lar glass actually inside some sausages of the same general type (coarse-grained, moderately expensive) which I had bought from a different store some months previ- ously. What is going on? I refrain from naming the stores because I cannot face endless arguments with the lawyers. Nor have I any ambition to be the Edwina Cur-
rie of the sausage industry. The Govern- ment would probably end up by offering it large sums of our money.
This Sunday my political column will be appearing in the Independent on Sunday rather than in the Observer. As my decision to move coincided with the beginning of the holidays, I was unable to say a proper goodbye in my last column. Accordingly I should like to do so here, and to thank not only my journalist colleagues on the paper over the past 17 years but the secretaries, the telephonists, the librarians and, not least — in fact most important of all — the accounts staff, all of whom helped to make my time there a happy one. If I mention anyone by name, it must be Donald Trelford. A few months ago a friend and I entertained Dr Conor Cruise O'Brien to lunch. He predicted that history would judge Trelford more generously than he is judged today, saying that, in difficult condi- tions, he had done more than anyone else could to preserve the independence and integrity of the paper. This was a remark- able, even surprising tribute, which I am sure Dr O'Brien will not mind my making public.
In these circumstances it is conventional to thank the readers, adding that they are the most important people of all. I wish I could. Happily or alas, I cannot tell a lie. With a few exceptions, I was impressed by their ignorance of politics, their prejudice, their inability to follow the simplest argu- ment, their marked ability to get hold of the wrong end of any available stick, their literal-mindedness and their assumption that anything I wrote was calculated to serve the cause of one party or the other. You may say that people who write to newspapers are by definition odd. Well, perhaps, a bit. And yet, for the past seven years I have also been writing a rugby col- umn for the daily Independent. The letters I receive are rational, courteous and well- informed. Those who disagree with my views or dispute my conclusions explain why. This may be because I seem to have acquired a small following among retired Welsh schoolmasters. It is certainly not because Independent readers are different from or superior to Observer readers. Indeed, the Observer's 'readership profile' is closer to the Independent's than to the Guardian's. The answer, I am afraid — borne out similarly by the letters I received from my drink column in the Observer Mag- azine — is that people who write letters about politics are a funny lot. No doubt people who write columns about politics are as well.
Previous page
