A Spectator's Notebook

E:1 Trouble, trouble, trouble: that is what Mr Cecil King has created with the second volume of his Diary, that and nothing else. Lady Macleod has complained that a passage a. bout her late husband is both offensive and inaccurate, and has called for a public Withdrawal and apology. It has not been forthcoming, although Mr King is believed to have written to her privately. Now Mr Graham Sutherland accuses Mr King of serious Misrepresentation. Others are no less affronted by references to themselves. It is a bad business — though commercially a good business, one sUpposes. Meanwhile the book (published by Jonathan , ape) is again in the shops, somewhat "doctored after sudden removal and amendment on legal grounds. Anyone sufficiently conous can compare the two texts, page by Page, and discover at least something — just a — of what the trouble was about. That Particular trouble may be over: Mr King's more friends troubles are not. Who among his in. ends and acquaintances will wish to confide in him in the future? He has published two

volumes of diaries. We are unlikely to see a third.

Public discussion of race relations and !in-migration is at last being distinguished by a little more candour and intelligence than we have been used to in recent years. For that welcome development the Opposition, under Mrs Thatcher's direction, is entitled to some credit, As Mr Ian Gilmour, the shadow minister for Home Office affairs, was saying the other 'light: "I do not see any hope of success or ttrvival unless politicians talk honestly and 'rankly to the electorate and to one another," Speaking at Leeds University, he went on to Make these observations — sensible observations, but seldom expressed: „ "If numbers are relevant, then so too is the tact that by definition the immigrants are in some respects different — in language, culture, social customs, background and so on — from the host community. And I see no point in PlissY-footing around the fact that one of the !Nor differences to which the host community oas reacted is that of colour.

. Of course, I accept that large white

iMmigrant groups, like the Jewish Community in the East End in the 1930s, have been the locus of prejudice and social unrest. And ecluallY, it is probably true that colour has been seen not as an absolute difference but as a relatively greater difference; in other words a Minority group which is slightly different from the majority becomes more acceptable when another group which appears to be a little more different arrives on the scene. But, however, regrettable, it is an observable fact that colour contributes significantly to the problems caused by immigration. There is a wealth of evidence that where groups of white immiganr.. ts and coloured immigrants have settled in .the same community, the white groups have mund both social acceptance and social mobility easier to achieve than the coloured.

"It is against this background that successive British Governments have attempted with varying degrees of candour and acceptance to evolve and implement their policies on immigration and community relations. They have believed that, since the number of the immigrants entering Britain and their differences from the host community impose strains, any satisfactory policy must be based in part on controlling and limiting immigration.

"There are two other points about public disquiet and controls which need to be made. First, illegal immigration undermines confidence and is grossly unfair to those who came here legally. It must be rigorously stamped out, and I welcome the increasingly effective co-ordinated efforts of our police forces in doing so. "Second, I remain unconvinced that the Home Office statistics on immigration are as reliable as they should be, or that they are presented to the public with the degree of clarity that is desirable. If the Home Office are concerned that many members of the public view their figures and assurances with scepticism then they have only themselves to blame."

Mr Gilmour is right. The Home Office is widely suspect on these and other grounds. It is a dangerously complacent, slack, secretive and slow department. If Mr Roy Jenkins is wise — or even half as wise as his admirers maintain — he will set about producing more accurate information.

fl As inflation eats away at nearly every household in the country, more and more people are saying that they will not be sending 'Christmas cards this year because of the cost of postage. Not all, of course, will stick to their decision — but many will. It is a melancholy reflection. The only welcome aspect is that there will be fewer of those impersonal cards from business houses of one sort and another.

fl The Spectator was taken to task last week by a reader for misquoting (as he alleged) "Of all the ills that human hearts endure/How small the part that laws may cause or cure". He believes the lines to be different. But it is our critic who is most probably at fault. His implication of co-authorship between Oliver Goldsmith and Samuel Johnson (the lines are from a poem, 'The Traveller', signed by Goldsmith) is offensive to the great Doctor, for the poem's only merit is contained in those lines, which were wholly by Johnson. A, comparison between the Oxford and Yale editions of Johnson's poems suggests how the poem was composed. Goldsmith sought and received Johnson's help. Later, Boswell asked Johnson what the help had amounted to. Johnson gave Boswell nine lines which he, as Boswell records, "marked with a pencil".

The kindly Johnson helped Goldsmith with other poems, notably 'The Deserted Village' and 'The Good-natur'd Man'. He also wrote quite a good Greek epigraph for him. There is, admittedly, a degree of doubt about the text now in dispute, but we are persuaded that ours is the only version consonant with Johnson's metrical practice. He would never have put an Alexandrine in the place: as Mayor, English Metre, and Hagstrum, Samuel Johnson's Literary Criticism suggest.

fl Mr Ben Whitaker, the former and rather distinctive — Etonian — Labour MP, who has been known to write speeches for Mr Wilson from a room at 10 Downing Street, is the new chairman of DLAS, the Defence of Literature and the Arts Society. As such, he will be presiding over the Society's annual meeting on December 9, when Mr Harold Evans, editor of the Sunday Times, is to speak about censorship: censorship now, in Britain, not in Uganda or some other ill-ordered place.

Perhaps Mr Whitaker should have a word with Mr Evans beforehand, by way of explaining the Prime Minister's attitude to the Crossman diaries, which the Cabinet Office tried — unavailingly — to suppress while Mr Evans continued to publish extracts in the Sunday Times. The book itself will be out in a week or two (and reviewed in these pages by Lord Hailsham). So much for Sir John Hunt, Cabinet Secretary and would-be censor.

fl Recalling that the collaboration of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice — which was to lead to the international triumph of Jesus Christ Superstar — began in their student days, I think it worth recording the success in Oxford lately of another rock musical called Orphea, which I saw and greatly enjoyed at the Newman Rooms of the University Catholic Chaplaincy last week. The piece is the brainchild of undergraduate James Chatto, who has been working on it in collaboration with the composer, Jo Ken-, ever since he went up to New College to read English a year ago. The story is based, not too respectfully, on the Orpheus legend, and among other amendments the hero has undergone a sex change — a happy inspiration, if only because it resulted in the part being taken, and stunningly well, by the beguiling Jillianne Foot, up from London for the occasion. Orphea seems to have finished its Oxford run for the moment, but it may be we have not heard the last of it.

When religious broadcasting began, Church leaders — some of them — expressed alarm at the prospect of a synthetic 'BBC religion'. This has indeed arrived, but in a way which no one could have envisaged. Its character can be illustrated by examples from the early morning 'uplift' programmes on Radio 4, as the Home Service is now called. Recently one speaker concluded by beseeching us to 'pray for responsible homosexuals' (if at all, why not the irresponsible as well?); and last week another speaker advised his fellow Christians to 'stop all thisJesus, Jesus, Jesus stuff, which I must say is counter-productive'.

Worst of all is the Sunday morning 'magazine' programme called Sunday. Not long ago, in three consecutive items, a young clergyman talked about his new book of sexual guidance And So To Bed (for which he had evidently had difficulty in finding a publisher), which was addressed to young people engaged to be married, or as he put it, 'in a commitment situation'; a more senior divine attacked smoking as a sin against God and one's fellow man; and finally there was a feature on Westminster Abbey (I am not making this up, as 'Peter Simple' might say), 'the latest in our series "Great Tourist Shrines".'

The BBC would surely do better to stick to straighforward broadcasting of religious services instead of resorting to this sort of offensive fatuity.