DIARY
GEOFFREY WHEATCROFT 0 ne of the reasons why Mrs Thatcher has resuscitated the War Crimes Bill (don't worry, I am not going to go over the arguments for and against the Bill itself, which have left my nerves as frayed as anyone's) is the heavy majority by which the Bill received its Second Reading in the Commons before the Lords threw it out. It is true that in the Commons the Ayes had it by something like four to one. But that was only a majority of votes as cast. A good 300 out of 650 MPs decided that it would be as well not to vote in the debate at all. In other words scarcely more than four out of ten of our elected legislators actually voted in favour. As it happens, on the day before the Lords debate there was a referendum on shooting in Italy. For a variety of reasons, almost everyone from Greens to Communists to land-owners (who as the law stands have no control over who may shoot on their land) was in favour of the proposed changes to strengthen the laws controlling shooting. The every-man-to- shoot-a-songbird lobby knew they were bound to lose a straight vote. But they saw a chance. Under Italian law, 50 per cent of the electorate had to vote in order for the referendum to be valid. Millions of enthu- siastic (rather than accomplished) shots were thus advised to abstain. Combined with those who couldn't be bothered to vote anyway, their non-votes did the trick. Though the amendments received nine out of ten votes cast, they failed because the poll did not quite reach 50 per cent. Perhaps we should adopt this principle, first in the House of Commons, where nothing would ever pass except by a majority of all MPs, then in national elections where non-MPs would be elected to represent non-voters and would be assumed to cast a No vote in the lobbies against all measures. This would at least hold back the flow of legislative lava and the volcanic erruption of yet more `things to be law' which Mrs Thatcher threatened last week.
We lack an adequate vocabulary to distinguish among the press. 'Quality' and `popular' (or 'tabloid') miss the point. There is now a real press, and the others. The Calcutt Report, and almost everyone who has commented upon it, illustrated the decline in journalistic standards by the way a person from the Sunday Sport forced his way into the hospital room of a gravely ill actor to secure what was called a 'great old-fashioned scoop'. But the Sunday Sport isn't a newspaper at all, it is a comic and those who work for it aren't journal- ists. The real press — which by no means only includes the toffs' broadsheets — has been placed in a hopelessly false position by allowing itself to be in any way identi-
fled with the comics. In fact there is now a difference of kind rather than degree: real press and comics have no generic resembl- ance, and share no common interests except the price of newsprint. The editors of the real press wrong-footed themselves last year by subscribing, along with the comics, to an undertaking to behave better in future, when the real press had nothing to apologise for. It is as though the members of Brooks's and the Beefsteak had apologised for the behaviour of the West Ham Inter-City Firm, and solemnly promised not to smash the place up in future.
Now Barabbas was a publisher, or so authors have always thought. Publishers see it differently. Mr Matthew Evans, the chairman of Faber & Faber, was grumbling the other day about the level of advances recently paid. His have not been the only eyebrows raised, but perhaps our astonish- ment is overdone. Although some of these much talked-about advances are plainly dotty, not all of them are. For one thing an advance doesn't need to be strictly earned as royalties to make financial sense — and in any case the £850,000 paid for The Satanic Verses must have been easily earned, even if the book has landed its publishers with certain additional over- heads. Another example cited of mon- strous advances is the £90,000 paid to Mr Martin Amis for London Fields. But is that so absurd? Mr Amis (good that we can now call him that without confusion) enters ripe middle age as perhaps the outstanding novelist of the generation. He publishes a book every two or three years; ninety thou
is a couple of years' income for a profes- sional man — a few months' income for a successful banker or barrister — and seems to me a by no means excessive reward for the novelist's labours. Historically speak- ing it is peanuts. George Eliot was paid £10,000 for one of her novels. Translating money from one age to another in what are called real terms is tricky because there are several possible ratios. Measured against an industrial labourer's wage in the 1860s and now, that £10,000 is well into the millions in today's money, but even at the most conservative rate of conversion it is the best part of half a million. And she didn't even write bonk scenes. No, Mr Amis should be talking firmly to his agent.
In this Diary recently Mr Anthony Ho- ward complained about the disappearing soda siphon, a sinister development, and a sad reflection on the Thatcherite free market which is supposed to mean consum- er choice. Not only do we need the soda siphon back, we need what is as yet unborn, the tonic siphon. As it is, you buy tiny bottles of tonic water which, volume for price, are a patent swindle. So you buy instead tempting litre-bottles of tonic in the supermarket. These are a different kind of rip-off. However tightly the top is screwed they go flat as soon as they are opened, and unless he is giving a party even the most dedicated g & t drinker doesn't get through a litre of tonic in a day or two. At an impressionable age I was told that Mr Colman made his profits from the mustard I left on my plate. However that may have been, Mr Schweppes certainly makes his profits from the tonic I throw away.
Resentment and chippiness take diffe- rent forms depending on one's circum- stances and position. As a freelance who works at home, my biggest chip or grudge concerns people who work in offices. 'I'm sorry, he can't come to the phone at the moment.' Well tell him it's me and it's urgent.' I'm afraid he's tied up at the moment but he's sitting on it.' How very uncomfortable.' She's in a meeting.' Any idea how long?' Oh for Christ's sake . . . .' Of course, some of these people may just not want to talk to me, damn them, but the worst of it is that many men and women do actually spend their days going from one meeting to another, wast- ing their own time and everyone else's as all the most tiresome and opinionated people in the office orate. Where is the London editor brave enough to follow the example of Hubert Beuve-Mery, the founder of the Monde? He established the principle that all editorial meetings should be held standing up.
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