Notebook
lit was only a few months ago that we were having lunch in Doughty Street to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Nicholas DavenPort's City Column. To have survived 25 Years on the Spectator was in itself an impressive thing, when one considers that the paper had had nine editors during that' Period. But each editor was at least wise enough to recognise that Nicholas was irreplaceable. Quite apart from anything else, his prose had a freshness and elegance Which was unique among financial journalists. Last Friday he was asking for more space than usual in this week's issue. We will never know why, because on Saturday he died suddenly at his home near Oxford. Our deepest sympathy goes out to his wife and family. There had for a long time been speculation about Nicholas's age, because he obstinately refused to reveal it. It was known 9uly that he could not be under 80. This in itself was remarkable, for he looked like a man in his sixties and behaved like one a great deal younger than that. His youthfulness, his curiosity and his enthusiasm never deserted him.These are the last words he Wrote for the Spectator in our post-election issue: 'Sir Geoffrey had better forget monetarism and rely on getting a better response from labour on productivity through lower taxes and — more important than lower taxes — through participation in profits. Mrs Thatcher must start wooing labour on these lines. Thank heaven, the Tories have a woman prime minister who feels, who has a heart, who knows about wooing, who is idealistic and optimistic enough to think that she can stop the conomic decline in Britain. No male could.' An appreciation of Nicholas Davenport by Christopher Fildes of the Daily Mail, who was for a while business editor of the Spectator, appears in Nicholas's usual space on page 20.
If millions of people fail to vote in the uropean elections, who can blame them? If it Is desirable in theory that the Common Market institutions should be brought under democratic control (and the elections will in any case make little advance in this direction), these institutions have been so unresyonsive so far to popular aspirations that it is hard to see why the parliament should suddenly now command much enthusiasm. The British people were never given any clear idea about what to expect from membership of the Common Market, and those things which they might have expected have failed to come about. The Treaty of Rome aimed to promote 'throughout the Corn munity a harmonious development of economic activities, a continuous and balanced expansion, an increased stability, an accelerated raising of the standard of living and closer relations between its member states.' Since Britain joined, the trend, from our point of view at least, has seemed to be in almost exactly the opposite direction from all these objectives. Taking simply the aim of closer relations between member states, there may be closer relations between those politicians and civil servants who hold cosy and agreeable meetings in chateaux, villas and schlosses, but as far as the British people are concerned, membership has only increased their aggravation with their neighbours. The politicians realise this and have responded by promising, in Labour's case, to 'act as representatives of the dissatisfaction' and, in Mrs Thatcher's, to 'be resolute in defending' British interests (as Shirley Williams pointed out in the Guardian). Given that successive British governments have believed, rightly, that membership of the EEC is basically in the country's interests, it is astounding that they have not even tried to make it appear at all attractive or exciting, if only in small ways. There were days, long before the EEC, when you could travel in Europe without a passport. Now you cannot. There were times when you could afford to travel in Europe. It is now iniquitiously expensive. You still cannot even buy property in Europe without paying an enormous dollar premium. And is wine any cheaper? As it is today, the EEC seems deeply unlovable, and this must be blamed principally on a failure of leadership (not least, Mr Heath's). As most of our Eurocandidates look unlovable as well, there is little reason why they should have anyone's vote. Agreeable though it may be to foretell disaster, it is a hazardous and often frustrating habit. For good, clean, full-blooded disasters are often elusive. I would not be surprised, for example, if we were suddenly to be told that there is no world shortage of oil, that, actually, there is too much of the stuff; or that the population of the world has entered a dangerous decline. These reflections are prompted by the astounding news that Venice is rising from the sea. Not just not sinking, but rising. I have long suspected that Venice was never in quite as bad a shape as was made out. At any rate, the city continued to look, delightful. But one could not fail to be alarmed by the millions of words written by experts, journalists and others predicting its almost certain disappearance. Almost certain because, whereas the city supposedly could have been preserved by measures of enormous scientific complexity and cost, there seemed not the slightest chance of the appropriate measures being agreed or the money being raised. Or if the money were raised, there seemed little hope of keeping much of it out of the pockets of Italian politicians. So Venice had to solve its own problem and stop sinking. This must have embarrassed a lot of people. The next thing we will hear, I expect, is that the leaning tower of Pisa is slowly returning to the vertical.
Who said the following? 'It is an indication of the triumph of the human spirit over adverse material surroundings to notice Irish words, phrases and songs being shouted from cell to cell and then written on each cell wall with the remnants of toothpaste tubes'. It was, of course, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh, Tomas O'Fiaich (as his compatriots like to spell him), following his visit to Longkesh prison in July last year. This native of Crossmaglen, the capital of the 'People's Republic of South Armagh', is now to become a Cardinal. Could this not be Pope John Paul's first mistake? Even if it might be seen as offensive to the Irish people to withhold the Red Hat from their Primate, there was no need for the Pope to give it to him at the first possible opportunity. There are precedents for delay. As it is, the elevation of Tomas will give unnecessary pleasure to the IRA and their friends, and will probably not even delight the Irish government, for Mr Lynch is known to have regarded the Archbishop's comments on Longkesh as a disaster. He may be a jolly old soul who once sang a song called 'The Ould Orange Flute' on the radio. But the future Cardinal has never retracted his statements about the prison. He has not even admitted, for example, that the 'conditions as bad as people living in the sewer pipes of the slums of Calcutta' were brought about by the inmates themselves. And since the announcement that he is to become a Prince of the Church, he has reiterated his demands for a British withdrawal from Ulster. We have yet to hear the Pope's views.
Alexander Chancellor
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