SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK

GEORGE HUTCHINSON

Any reduction in the size of the overblown Foreign Service is to be welcomed—but there is always a right way of doing things. The thirty-odd senior members who are now to be dismissed at a year's notice, all in their early fifties, will receive no compensation for loss of office. For some, who could have been reasonably sure of further promotion before normal retirement at sixty, there will be an additional loss: their pensions may be as much as £700 a year below expectation. This is shabby treatment. Of course it's the sort of thing that happens from time to time in the business world, but that is no justification. Obligations are obligations. One expects Her Majesty's Government to uphold them and to set a standard. The unlucky thirty should be compensated.

Metropolitan Mafia

Though nothing has yet been proved, I don't myself doubt that the Mafia had plans for Anguilla. The Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago ought to be a good judge—and he isn't deriding the suggestion. If, as Dr Wil- liams believes, they are to be found 'everywhere else in the Caribbean,' why not in Anguilla as well, potentially a perfect setting for some of their operations? It would in fact be astonish- ing if Anguilla hadn't attracted them. But then in England most people are still quite innocent about the reality of the Mafia— right here in our own country at that. Though more is now coming out in the newspapers, bit by bit, the labyrinthine nature of their organisa- tion, nicely buttressed by our libel laws, makes it very difficult to do the sort of exposure that might destroy them. Thus the ordinary law- abiding citizen, knowing so little about them, tends to shrug off the Mafia as an alien, almost illusory, extravagance, a melodramatic inven- tion. It can't happen here, he seems to be saying, smiling comfortably to himself at the very notion. It can, it has, and it's continuing.

A distinguished and worldly-wise solicitor was telling me the other day that in a recent property transaction in London, when he was acting for established clients, he was shocked to discover the Mafia 'on the other side.' They were not alone, however; they were collaborat- irrg with others; and the transaction itself was completely legitimate. But this was something on the surface of events: the Mafia were simply buying their way into yet another respectable British business, which will be used, no doubt, as a clearing house or front. This is an essential part of their technique. Under- neath lies an appalling system of casino crime, of drug-running, extortion and violence. The police are alive to it all if the public aren't; and they have their hands full.

Jail break

I'm very pleased—rather proud, really—to see that the GLC, in their new development plan, are urging the Government to do away with at least some of the London jails. As the author of this sensible proposal, which I first promul- gated (if that is the word) in these columns some three and a half years ago, I naturally welcome Mr Desmond Plummer and his col- leagues to my side. Mr Roy Jenkins, when he

was at the Home Office, became interested; and so, I believe, is the Lord Chancellor, Lord Gardiner. The object, of course, is to free valu- able land for housing by transferring the jails to less congested areas. Think of Pentonville, for example. As the GLC say, 'the removal of Pentonville Prison would make possible the re- generation of the whole district.'

Unfair to Lowndes Square

I don't like to kick the Pakistanis when they're down, but their High Commissioner could do something for his country's reputation—at no expense—if he would have the front of his offices cleaned up. As it is, with their sacks of waste paper by the door, their neglected little garden at the side, and the prevailing air of seediness, the Pakistanis are in danger of be- coming the bad neighbours of Lowndes Square.

Right hand, left hand

We can all sympathise with Yorkshire Tele- vision in the misfortune which has robbed them of a great chunk of both audience and advertis- ing revenue. It is no light blow, and the com- pany certainly can't be blamed for the collapse and failure in rough weather of the all- important transmitter at Emley Moor, which is an ITA responsibility. But what are we to make of a management who neglect the simple commercial precaution of insuring against loss of transmission? Other Tv contractors have covered themselves for a premium of a few hundred pounds a year—but not those hard- headed Yorkshiremen. It is all the more extra- ordinary that this should have happened under the chairmanship of Sir Richard Graham— who for years has also been chairman of not one but two insurance companies.

SOS

Manston, in East Kent, lying between the two coasts and near the North Foreland, is a long way from El Adem, which is in Libya. A helicopter detachment of the RAF, hitherto stationed at Manston and providing a superb rescue service, is now bound for El Adem. The Ministry of Defence are not intending to re- place it. After next week, those in peril on the local seas (or cut off at the foot of un- scalable cliffs with the tide rising round them) will have to look to the lifeboat service or to helicopters that may be able to reach them in time, however improbably, from distant bases in East Anglia and Sussex. It is a reckless de- cision—the more so because the coastguard service has already been reduced. I know something about the demands made on the Manston detachment all along the Channel coast, where I spend much of the summer, and unless the ministry have a change of heart many lives are going to be lost.

Land Commission

As my friend Mr Norman Collins was saying the other evening, surveying the Caribbean scene, 'Now that the Royal Engineers have gone in the Government will soon be charging Anguilla a betterment levy.'