Notebook
T was asked this week to attend a debate 1 at the Institute of Contemporary Art on 'The Revival of the Political Journal'. I went along partly because the title sounded encouraging, with its talk of 'revival', and partly to keep an eye on Anthony Howard, the chairman of the debate, who in the past has taken a rather more negative view of the prospects of magazines like ours: he has pronounced us dead or dying — I can't remember which. The meeting was not unenjoyable, but I felt a little out of things. For a start, all the official speakers were representatives not of independent magazines but of journals produced by political parties — Crossbow, New Socialist, Marxism Today, and the Liberal Liberator (of which I had never heard). The editor of Marxism Today, the most acute of these panellists, was the first to point out the confusion that would arise from regarding magazines like this one or the New Statesman or the Economist as belonging to the same group as his. Second, the emphasis in the debate (inevitably, given that most 'political journals' are of the left) was on the need to obtain a wider airing for leftwing political ideas — it being quite rightly assumed that the national press is on the whole unsympathetic to left-wing opinion. The Spectator has many problems, but this is not one of them. Whatever reasons we may have for carrying on, and I think there are a few good ones, they are not to do with expanding the influence of the Left. When the representatives of left-wing 'political journals' discuss this question, they appear rather confused. Their papers are needed, so they seem to say, to meet a demand for left-wing ideas which is not catered for by the national press. But they hesitate to admit how small that demand is, blaming their small circulations, as we all like to do, on the distribution trade. One young man in the debate claimed to know several unmarried mothers who scrimped and saved to pay 50 pence for some political rag (cutting their cigarette consumption, perhaps, by ten a week?), but the truth is that the very idea of a 'political journal' is anathema to most people. During the debate, a certain Francis Wheen of the New Statesman decided, somewhat irrelevantly, I thought, to argue that the Spectator was too superficial to qualify as a proper political journal. I think we would best serve our own purposes by agreeing with him.
In some ways I think that the undoubted conservative bias of the national press is helping Mr Benn. He is able to claim convincingly that the whole press is against him. At the same time, he is given endless opportunities on television to air this grievance. Television viewers are quite ready to believe that he is given a raw deal in the press because it is sometimes true. This makes them also ready to believe that Mr Benn may be telling the truth when he says that, if only the policies he supports were properly publicised, they would be very widely approved. The fact that they have very little idea what those policies are can only be to his advantage.
Earlier this month General Haig, the American Secretary of State, accused the _Russians of using a mysterious new chemical weapon in Indochina and Afghanistan. It was reported to have killed between 15,000 and 30,000 people, most of them civilians. The chemical, known as T2, is said to be a powder which is dropped from the air and has been called 'Yellow Rain'. Its effects are frightful. According to one American expert, it causes you 'to burst inside and drown in your own blood'. But so far no one seems to know exactly what it is. At a State Department briefing last week, journalists were told that T2 was an unprecedented weapon because it was the first to have both biological and chemical characteristics. However, the Spectator has got a CIA tip which may explain everything. The symptoms described by the Meos in Laos and the tribesmen in Afghanistan — heavy twitching, bloodvomiting, coma and death — are the same as those experienced in the Middle Ages by victims of a disease caused by eating mouldy wheat. The mould appeared from time to time on grain that had been stored during the winter. With improvements in grain preservation methods, the disease died out — except, that is, in certain remote parts of the Soviet Union where, until about ten years ago, scientific papers were publishing articles about the mysterious properties of this deadly mould. Suddenly they stopped publishing such articles, and nothing more was heard about the problem. The implication is, of course, that the Russians discovered how to isolate the toxin in the mould and turn it into a weapon of war. The story, at least, is oven-fresh.
Towards the end of last year I announced rather priggishly that I had given up drinking. This resolve survived for just about three months, after which I was mildly corrupted by going on holiday to Italy where life without the occasional glass of wine seems incomplete. The habit continued on my return to England, though for most of the time in moderation. Even so, I have on occasion experienced a hangover and have regretted the days when it was possible to eliminate the ill effects instantly by visiting a chemist in Piccadilly who would concoct a powerful potion and present it to one in a glass. That pharmacy is now a souvenir shop, and the ready-bottled Pick-Me-Up' which can still be bought in the old-fashioned pharmacy in St James's Street does not seem to me to be nearly so effective. I was discussing this the other day with a friend who has sent me a recipe which was given by Evelyn Waugh in his book Wine in Peace and War, which was published by Saccone and Speed in 1946: 'Of "pick-me-ups" pure and simple,' he wrote, 'the finest is made in the following way: soak a lump of sugar in Angostura bitters and roll it in cayenne pepper. Place in the bottom of a large glass and add a tot of brandy; then fill up with well iced champagne. The bubbles as they rise to the surface each carry with them a grain of red pepper; as one drinks, thirst is simultaneously created and satisfied. It is the epicure's medicine par excellence.' I would try it, except that this week I again gave up drinking.
The winner of the 1981 George Orwell Memorial Prize was announced last weekend. The prize, worth £750, is given each year for articles on cultural, social or political issues, and I normally enter some articles from the Spectator in the hope that one of our underpaid contributors may one day benefit. Although articles from the Spectator never seem actually to win, they always get shortlisted, which is gratifying for the Spectator if perhaps rather frustrating for the journalists concerned. This year has been no exception. The winner was the admirable Samuel Brittan for an article in Encounter on Hayek. But two series of Spectator articles — by Peter Ackroyd on Scandinavia and by Tim Garton Ash on Poland — are among the four other entries commended by the judges. I think we should be quite pleased about that.
So the Conservative Party has won power in Norway. Its leaders were over in England before the summer hoping to find evidence of Thatcherite economic success which they could use as ammunition during the election campaign. They also hoped to be photographed with Mrs Thatcher, believing that this would bolster their domestic prestige. In neither of these objectives were they successful. They found the British economy floundering, and Mrs Thatcher — greatly to their disappointment — did not find the time to see them. However, they won the election. I don't know what this proves.
T find I am leaning to the right in the most 1 literal manner. A pair of shoes that I seem to have been wearing for several months (for who can afford new shoes nowadays?) have both been completely worn down on the right-hand side, remaining in perfectly good condition on the left. They make a rather startling sight, looking as if they have been worn by the leaning tower of Pisa. Yet, as far as I can tell, my posture, when I walk, is reasonably vertical. No one has yet given me a plausible explanation for this.
Alexander Chancellor
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