Notebook
The nineteenth edition of Erskine May, the authority on parliamentary practice,
contains on page 98 a ruling under the
heading 'Effect of the Privilege on Admissibility of Members as Bail'. It reads: 'As a consequence of the immunity
of a member of Parliament, it has been held that he cannot be admitted as bail; for not being liable to attachment, by
reason of his privilege, he cannot be effectually proceeded against, in the event of the recognizances being forfeited.' This seems to be relevant to the case of Mr Jeremy Thorpe. Lord Ave121.1rY, the Liberal peer, has stood bail for HMI to the tune of £5,000, thus enabling inni to lead a relatively normal life as he awaits the hearing Of charges of conspiracy to murder Norman Scott. Indeed, the Police have been unusually indulgent, having returned Mr Thorpe's passport to him so that he could go to Geneva and ,stay with the British Ambassador to the United Nations. But what if Mr Thorpe Were to jump bail? This, admittedly, is extremely unlikely, but it appears from rskine May that Lord Avebury would !int risk prosecution if, equally improbably, he were to refuse to pay up. As a Member of the House of Lords, Lord 1vebury would seem to enjoy the Immunity referred to above.
Thhe rePorts, if true, that BP and Shell have persistently ignored the sanctions „P°IlcY of successive governments against Rhodesia serve only to underline what were always been apparent — that sanctions were a stupid policy which could not Iv,,„ork. One must assume that British oil .zntpanies would not have sent oil to 4:llociesia (assuming, of course, that they did) if they had not been convinced that oil would have got there anyway from Other sources. The news, however, may be, the last piece of comfort and ilaint,llsement for the dying white regime in 4:1°,desin, for things there look increas-I'Y depressing, The British Gov71Mient's failure to back the internal setement at an early stage has probably contributed to the present hopeless Situ It has been put to me by a wise ,,and experienced observer of the 111010desian scene that the one ;cmaining °Pe for peaceful solution would be for the B. ritish Government to give a substantial bribe to Mr Joshua Nkomo, who f.undamentally a man of moderate 41s stlncts. But the Foreign Office is prew11,111a.blY too priggish for this, just as it t ln the First World War when it failed 0 bribe the Turks to stay out. Two weeks ago in the Spectator I said that what we needed was a cheerful Pope. We have certainly got one. Pope John-Paul (an unhappy choice of name) appears to be perpetually wreathed in smiles. Whether he will make a good Pope is another matter. Albino Luciani was an extraordinary choice, for he has hitherto enjoyed a reputation — insofar as he has enjoyed any reputation at all — as something of a bumbling old buffoon. That the Cardinals should have elected him so quickly is even more astonishing. The explanation given by one participant in the Conclave — that he was God's choice — seems to imply that mere men, left to their own devices, might not have chosen him. Cardinal Hume, for one, cannot have expected such a quick decision, for he took with him into the Conclave two books — Middlemarch and an historical novel about an Italian warrior-cardinal, Ruffo in Calabria, by The Times's Rome correspondent, Peter Nichols, who writes about the new Pope on page 7 of this issue. So little is known about Luciani that the journalists in Rome have had much difficulty in describing him. His only published work is a collection of articles written for an obscure Catholic newspaper which took the form of open letters to celebrated historical figures. As a sample, I obtained a copy of his letter to Charles Dickens, whose home was only a few doors down from the Spectator in Doughty Street (now the Dickens museum). It makes embarrassing reading. It begins: 'Dear Dickens. I am a bishop who has undertaken the strange task of writing every month for the Messagero di Sant'Antonio a letter to some illustrious personage. Short of time before Christmas, I couldn't think who to choose. Then I saw in a newspaper an advertisement for your famous Christmas books. I said to myself at once "I read them as a boy and I immensely enjoyed them because they were all pervaded with a sense of love for the poor and of social regeneration, warm with imagination and humanity. I will write to him." So here I am to disturb you!' The letter contains nothing original and is devoted in large part to an account of the plot of the Christmas Carol. The new Pope commends, however, to Dickens the changes that have taken place in society since the book was written. 'In your England and in industrialised Europe, the workers have much improved their position. Their only strength was their numbers. They have exploited it.' Luciani's principal recipe for dealing with the modern problems of the world is 'solidarity'. 'We are one ship full of peoples who have grown closer in space and in habits, but on a very rough sea. If we want to avoid serious failures, the rule is this: all for one and one for all. We should insist on that which unites and dismiss that which divides'.
The article about the waltz in my nineteenth century edition of Grove's Dictionary of Music concludes as follows: The Viennese tradition of introducing rallentandos and accelerandos . into waltzes, charming though it is to a musician, has never been caught by an English conductor of dance music, and probably would be found impracticable in England, where dancers may be seen exhibiting their lack of the sense of time and rhythm by waltzing to the music of a polka.' Lack of a sense of time and rhythm was only one of the characteristics of the promenaders at the 'Viennese night' in the Royal Albert Hall which was shown on television last weekend. Monstrous vulgarity was another. Clu,tching teddy bears and replicas of Rod Hull's emu, these hideout young people swayed about, jumped up and down, screamed and giggled and generally behaved in a manner so strikingly in conflict with the mood of the music as to take one's breath away. Why does anybody pretend that these antics
are a sign. of healthy audience participation? Even the conductor, Walter Susskind, who 'clearly loves Viennese
music and produced a lot of excellent rallentandos and accelerandos, pretended to enjoy it all. Perhaps he was just
frightened of the mob. This, shaming spectacle was introduced for television, appropriately, by Esther Rantzen, who contributed her own inimitable brand of vulgarity. After the Thunder and Light ning Waltz, I thought I heard her say: 'Judging by the thunderous applause, Walter Susskind is the best lightning conductor there is'. Poor Mr Susskind.
Alexander Chancellor
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