Television
I don't give a damn
James Delmgpole
Every five years or so, Ian Hislop decides he needs a token weirdo at one of his Private Eye lunches and invites me along for a round of steak, chips and heavyweight political gossip. It's terribly exciting and flattering, of course, because everyone there is always much more famous than me. The main problem is that no one ever wants to talk about vital issues like the new Radiohead album or how annoying they find Rachel from This Life, so I tend to end up feeling a bit out of my depth.
This time round, the big topic was the Jonathan Aitken affair. Unfortunately, I hadn't been following the story too closely because I find the subject of sleaze incredi- bly boring. I mean, if MPs want to grope 18-year-old barmaids or frequent gay brothels or receive Parisian freebies and large bundles of cash for asking silly parlia- mentary questions to which the answer's still 'No', then good luck to them. So long as it doesn't affect important issues like health, defence, education or my tax bills, I really couldn't give a damn.
I feel much the same way about Aitken. Why on earth should we get worked up about the procurement of prostitutes for Saudis if it resulted in a whopping great defence contract which created jobs and made us all that little bit richer? Give the man a medal, say I. The Frogs would have done exactly the same. 'That's very inter- esting, James,' said Ian when I'd told him like it was. 'I expect we'll be hearing about it in your next column ... '
But though I have some sympathy for Aitken — by all accounts a decent cove, apart from the fact that he lies a lot — I do think he was well out of order in trying to sue the Guardian for having printed the truth. That's just taking the mickey. That's the sort of low-down behaviour you'd expect from a Robert Maxwell. Or a Lord Boothby.
Yes, I finally got round to this week's television. It was Boothby, we were remind- ed by Lords Of The Underground (Channel 4, Monday), who started the sue-even- though-you're-guilty-as-sin ball rolling when, in 1964, he won £40,000 in an out-of- court settlement after the Sunday Mirror had had the temerity to suggest that he was big mates with Ronnie Kray.
And so he was. But because of the sort of high-level cover-up you normally encounter only on the X-Files, the Mirror couldn't prove its case. Not only did Booth- by land the equivalent of half a million pounds, but the police investigation into the Kray brothers' activities was so badly damaged that, for the next three years, Ron and Reg could pursue their reign of terror with impunity.
I doubt any of this was news to Spectator readers many of whom, if not actually bug- gered by 'the nation's uncle', would assuredly have been regulars at his Sixties drinks parties. But for those who weren't, Lords Of The Underground would have proved quite an eye-opener. Even if you put all the last government's collective naughtiness together to make one uber- scandal, it still wouldn't have come close to matching Boothby's dubious achievements.
Imagine, for example, if Alan Clark had enjoyed a long affair with Norma Major, while secretly sharing rent boys with Ken- neth Noye. And then Tony Blair had gone and covered it all up, after learning that, ooh, I don't know, say John Prescott had been enjoying similar relations with male prostitutes provided by Asil Nadir. Not, of course, that I'm suggesting any of this actu- ally happened. That would be costly. I'm just trying to convey how titillating the Boothby story must have been for those-in- the-know back in the early Sixties.
As Boothby admitted on a 1964 edition of This Is Your Life, 'If the true story of my life ever came out, I would be paid £500,000 but I'd have to spend the rest of my life on Tahiti.' Quite. Besides sleeping with Dorothy Macmillan, he was provided with boys by Ronnie Kray. And if the boys objected, Ronnie could be very persuasive: `You will go home with Lord Boothby. You will do exactly what Lord Boothby wants. Or I will hurt you.'
Being a naturalised East Ender myself, I used to hold a fairly sentimental view about the Krays. 'They looked after their own, you could leave your front door unlocked, etc. etc.' Not after Lords Of the Under- ground, though. We were told, for example, how some bright spark had once quipped to Ron, 'You should go to the country. Lose some weight.' And received 70 stitch- es for his troubles.
But, then, hardly anyone emerged well from the programme. Tom Driberg, whom I'd always thought a fairly engaging cove, turned out to have encouraged his cat-bur- glar boyfriend to rob the homes of his wealthy friends and had then pocketed some of the proceeds. And it was Driberg's involvement with the Krays, of course, which led Harold Wilson to order the cover-up. Gosh, they just don't make scan- dals like they used to.
Aitken. You're a rank amateur.
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