At the hustings
Auberon Waugh
Not far from Barnstaple, North Devon I was nearly stopped in my tracks by Alexander Chancellor's stinging rebuke to the Daily Telegraph in last week's Notebook. Readers will recall how he listed those Telegraph leader writers who were also in the pay of the Conservative Party and concluded: 'All three are excellent journalists, and the Telegraph is fortunate to have the benefit of their services. But might not many Telegraph readers reasonably expect the paper's leading articles to be written, especially now, by outside observers of the Political battle, and not by participants in it?'
Yet here was the Spectator's own former Political correspondent and present Other Voice participating like mad. Mr Chancellor, I should explain, is also Editor of the Spectator, although this might not always be obvious. It is a terrible thing for a columnist to disagree with his Editor, but I can't agree that journalists should leave politics to people like the frightful Conservative candidate in. Devonport, Mr Kenneth 'Ken' Hughes, with his morbid interest in the blind and the disabled. On other occasions, it is true, I have argued the opposite but this is general election time, and if not even journalists can pretend to take an active interest in which Side wins these dismal tournaments, then nobody else can be expected to do so. One might have hoped that the Spectator Would close its ranks at general election time, if only to agree on the support of a Single candidate, but one has seldom seen it in such disarray. Last week an entire page was taken up with apologising for some opinions put forward by its record-beating television critic, Mr Richard Ingrams, about Ronald Harwood's recent play of 'Gil ert Pinfold' and television programme on Evelyn Waugh. Unlike Mr Ingrams, I enjoyed both these productions, and I can't remember with any certainty what motives were attributed to Mr Harwood, but while I claim no knowledge of what his motives were, I should not be surprised if they were base. Nearly all human motives are base, akn. d Mr Harwood would be exceptional if !!is were not. If he was not seeking wealth or !arne or social advancement he may easily he been hoping to make himself sexually attractive to women in some obscure way. Ingrams, among his many other a.,ctivities, is my campaign manager iTr the Dog Lovers' Party in North pevon, and would not want me to 1°se any opportunity to spread the message and bring hope to the suffering people and ndangered doggies in that region. Yet even nere there seems to be a sad lack of unanimity among Spectator staff-writers. Wheat croft is known to be a dog-hater. He has been reported to the British Board of Dog-Fanciers, who are observing him closely. What really cuts is that Mr Ferdinand Mount, in his immensely distinguished and masterly tour d'horizon of the election scene: What do the voters want? — cast doubt on my central claim, that it is a waste of time to vote for any of the other parties. He chooses the Conservative Party as being worthy of support, basing his choice on the claim that the average British worker is willing, even anxious, to stand on his own two feet.
Much of Mr Mount's argument is specious. He remarks on the tendency of moderate commentators (like myself) to complain of the proletarian cultural invasion in terms of the smells and noises made by a prosperous working class, saying that this complaint is directed towards 'the appalling greed and energy of the British lower orders, not their sloth'. On the contrary, I would maintain that it takes very little energy on their part to make the most frightful smells and noises — from fried food to car engines, portable wirelesses etc. The depravity of the working-class culture is almost entirely a product of its sloth — fed, in this instance, by North Sea oil.
Be that as it may, if Mr Mount is right, and there is something to be gained by voting Conservative, then there is no earthly point in voting for the Do Lovers' Party. My fear is that the only thing to be gained from a Tory victory is a temporary respite in genocidal rates of income tax, and this benefit will be overtaken by galloping inflation as soon as the Tories lose their nerve over their other policies and compensate with hysterical increases in public borrowing.
Even when I have disposed of the three main parties I still have to convince voters that the Dog Lovers are preferable to other parties on what the Daily Telegraph impolitely calls the 'cranky fringe'. The signs are that the election in North Devon will be one of the dirtiest in living memory. Already it is being said that I am conducting the campaign from my property in southern France. This is not true. Although I may not yet have found time to visit the constituency, I am well situated in West Somerset, scarcely thirty miles away. For my own part, I disdain such whispering methods, and will deal with my other opponents briefly. The Wessex Regionalist Candidate is Miss Henrietta Rous. Although she is unmarried, I suspect that she is not a virgin. The English National Party candidate, Dr Hansford-Miller, is said to wear a smock. Ecology is a disgusting word which should be spelled oecology, its use confined to scientists who know what it means. Commander Soaks seems quite a reasonable person, but I am not sure whether he is sound on dogs. There are very few black people in Barnstaple, so the National Front candidate is wasting his time.When a drowned monkey was washed ashore at Bideford during the Napoleonic War, the locals patriotically hanged it, after deciding it was a Frenchman.
By the same token, I judge there is no electoral mileage to be made by changing the name of my party to Dog Lovers' Party of Great Britain (Anti-Jewish), although I confess to unscrupulous political accommodations when asked by Gay News about my attitude towards Gay Dogs. I found myself waffling compassionately about the problems of homosexuality among dogs while secretly, if the truth be known, I feel they ought to be whipped. Let us thank heavens my political involvement is likely to be brief. Here is my Adoption Meeting Address, composed and delivered in a bathroom at Combe Florey on 23 April 1979:
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