Notebook
T don't know exactly what the Men's 1 International Professional Tennis Coun- cil is, but it staggered Fleet Street this week by threatening to fine Jimmy Connors 1,000 dollars for refusing to talk to jour- nalists after his Wimbledon defeat. John Stewart Collis, writing on another page, describes this as the worst outrage perpetrated at Wimbledon during all his years as an observer of the tournament. Journalists, however, may feel, that the Council deserves some kind of press award. Journalists are not popular. They are con- stantly suffering rebuffs and humiliations in their efforts to fill the columns of their newspapers. People are always refusing to talk to them. Now, in defiance of the general trend towards greater curbs on the press, one professional body has decreed that refusal to talk to journalists is a punishable offence. If this principle were to be applied more widely — throughout the Civil Service, for example — it could be of great service to the cause of freedom of in- formation. A next stage could be to impose fines on people who do not tell journalists the truth.
Inot all cases would such measures be necessary. There are some people who are only too eager to talk to the press. One such is the youngest Tory Member of Parliament, Mr Phillip Oppenheim. A former Oxford rowdy and son of Mrs Sally Oppenheim, ex-minister for consumer af- fairs, young Phillip — the new MP for Amber Valley — did not even wait for the State Opening of Parliament before using his free supplies of House of Commons writing paper to introduce himself to Fleet Street. In a circular letter to political jour- nalists, he listed five telephone numbers at which he could be found, promising yet another number as soon as the House of Commons had allocated him one. 'Please feel free to contact me at any time,' con- cluded this bumptious 27-year-old. Attach- ed was a short biography emphasising his Interest in business technology and his jour- nalistic achievements in this area. 'Photograph available on request,' it con- cluded hopefully. Unspeakable though Mr Oppenheim sounds, I think we should keep an eye on him not because he is likely to get anywhere in politics, but because he seems to have at least some of the necessary qualifications for the editorship of the Sunday Times.
At the Observer, the Godwin Matatu storm continues to rage unabated. As I reported two weeks ago, Godwin Matatu is a Zimbabwean journalist engaged as a rov- ing Africa correspondent by the editor, Mr Donald Trelford, on the suggestion of the proprietor, Mr 'Tiny' Rowland. The Observer's journalists rose in protest at this example of proprietorial interference, threatening to 'black' Mr Matatu's copy. Mr Trelford responded with a letter ex- pressing his surprise that journalists on a liberal paper like the Observer should wish to prevent an experienced African reporter like Matatu from writing about his own continent. In other words, 'Why not give a kaffir a chance?'. This predictably raised the temperature even higher. So far Mr Matatu has filed three stories from Africa, none of which have got published. The most recent one — predicting that Mr Joshua Nkomo was about to return to Zim- babwe — was checked out by the Observer's Foreign Desk and found, in their view, to be wrong. In the meantime, Mr Matatu, enjoying the combined patronage of Mr Rowland and a Zimbab- wean government minister, remains an ac- credited -Observer journalist living comfor- tably in Harare. Mr Trelford is to visit him there shortly. After that, we will see what happens.
So the Government has decided to go ahead and spend £215 million on a new airport in the Falkland Islands. No single measure is more likely than this one to spell the end of Britain's long occupation of the Falklands. As Jo Grimond has pointed out, people will only continue to live in disagreeable places if there is no opportuni- ty for them to escape. When the railway was brought to the Highlands of Scotland, with the intention of encouraging immigra- tion and investment into the region, all that happened was that the Highlanders got on it and journeyed south. The same is almost bound to happen in the Falklands. Hitherto the Falklanders have had few opportunities for travel. In the future jumbo-jets will be able to carry them to far-away places in the sun. How many of them will then choose to remain at home? This is the best news the Argentinians have had for a long time. Talking of the Argentinians, I was reading on Wednesday an article in the Sun newspaper by Professor John Vincent of Bristol University, defending the British Government's record on the Belgrano af- fair. I followed Professor Vincent with in- terest until I read this sentence: 'Behind the Belgrano myth lies a sophisticated Argen- tine propaganda. machine which is only too happy to feed the gullible with facts and rumours.' Since when has Argentina had a 'sophisticated propaganda machine'? It is a classic defence of the unsophisticated pro- pagandist to accuse his opponent of being a sophisticated one. But not even Sun readers are likely to believe Professor Vincent on this, particularly if what the Argentinians do is `to feed the gullible with facts'.
A s a record of imcompetence, detailed with some frankness, Mr Ronald Gregory's memoirs of the Yorkshire Ripper case in the Mail-on-Sunday are really quite interesting. So far at least, the former Chief Constable of West Yorkshire has not revealed any secret, and there is is no reason to think that he is about to do so. Under these circumstances, I wonder why the Home Secretary felt obliged to make any com- ment. Mr Gregory, of course, is talking humbug when he claims that he is satisfying the public's 'right to know'. There is ob- viously no estimable reason why he sold his story to the Mail; he did so only because he was offered a large sum of money. This was low and greedy of him. But he is not the first person to have made money out of an inglorious association with notoriety. This is something people do every day, without public complaint. And the families of the Ripper's victims are not the best judges of what should be published on the subject. It is natural that they should not want to see anyone profiting from their suffering, but that is not sufficient reason why nothing should be printed. If it were, no horror story would ever be reported. Mr Gregory is within his rights, as is the Mail-on-Sunday. But their behaviour is unsympathetic all the same.
It is not often that a Communist country admits that it is not a socialist paradise. China, however, has recognised that at least some of its citizens have slipped through the net of universal welfare and education. These are the Yeti, or apemen, who still have a long way to go on the path of progress. The most formidable members of this race are the women, who, according to the Chinese magazine Fossil, are huge, hairy, big- breasted and in the habit of raping innocent little Chinese men. Despite their ugliness and disgusting practices, they are, accor- ding to Fossil, unquestionably human. So there can be no excuses.
Alexander Chancellor
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