DIARY
CHARLES MOORE Athe end of last week, I went shooting (pheasants) in Northern Ireland. To take a legally held shotgun into the province, you have to fill in a form many weeks beforehand, send it off to the Royal Ulster Constabulary and carry with you the special certificate which they return to you, in addition to your shotgun licence. As is usually the case with People who deal frequently with guns, the RUC were sensible and efficient about the matter. But at Gatwick, both leaving and returning, the confusion and delay were absurd. I thought of saying, 'I am a member of a terrorist group on ceasefire, let me through,' but I feared being recognised as a member of the 'forces of conservatism' and detained in connection with the assassina- tion of Martin Luther King.
After a glorious day in Co. Antrim, we travelled west of the Bann to Omagh and beyond. Here it is possible to see the work of those who claim that they want to 'take the gun out of Irish politics' and I was lucky enough to be guided by people who daily risk their lives trying to protect the innocent against them. It was a curious sensation, while waiting at the traffic lights just beside the epicentre of the Omagh bombing to look across into a cafe and see sitting there a fat terrorist who has recently been released under the Good Friday Agreement. One Interesting fact about the bombing is that the authorities were given intelligence of a Possible attack well before it happened. These warnings were ignored. Another is that the bombing could not have taken place without the knowledge and background co- operation of the Provisional IRA. Mid- Tyrone PIRA permitted the 'Real' IRA to plant the bomb. Real IRA could not exist without Provisional tolerance, and the Provi- sionals suffer in no way from its work. When we at the Daily Telegraph interviewed Tony Blair in No. 10 Downing Street last week, he told us that Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness needed help against the 'forces of conservatism' in the IRA: the Real IRA gives Adams and McGuinness more lever- age with the gullible.
The countryside in that part of North- ern Ireland is extraordinary. The land is Poor and most of the farming remains low- grade and backward. But out of the bog rise amazing new houses, as ugly as they are luxurious. Most of these are owned by people who draw the dole. They make their serious money, via the IRA, through drugs, the smuggling of diesel oil and various Other forms of racketeering. They bring in large shipments of weapons from the Republic and bury them in the remote hills. In the banks of the narrow streams they
plant small bombs to test their explosives for the next time the violence gets real. Most experts expect some big attacks on security services near the border and, on the mainland, against commercial targets where trade with Europe is important. These are predicted by Christmas.
• In one village, where there are only two Protestant families, a relatively modest bun- galow was pointed out to me, One day a few years back, the young man who was building it, a member of one of these families, was on the roof, watched by his fiancée. His neighbours in the IRA drove up, held her by her hair and forced her to watch as they shot him 'with as many holes as a teabag'. These 'soldiers" day will come, faster than they could have dreamed. Meanwhile, Chris Patten wants all RUC officers to have their names displayed on their uniforms. Why not insist on their home addresses as well?
Ihad intended to ask Mr Blair a question about his speeches, but my courage failed me. Why, I wanted to ask, does he use so many sentences without a main verb? In his 'forces of conservatism' speech at Bournemouth, he used this device 128 times. I suspect that he does so because a main verb involves a clear commitment, and makes ambiguity difficult. Take the verb out and you break the back of meaning.
While royal and distinguished guests were enduring the return match at the Chi- nese embassy for Jiang Zemin's state 'visit, I was having fun at the Alamein dinner. This is an annual affair given by the Royal Artillery at the Woolwich Barracks. It is utterly splendiferous, with all the gradations of full uniform of which I am ignorant, and regimental silver climbing heavenwards and snuff handed round in a helmet. The table- cloths are twisted taut and then dramatically pulled off by waiters in powdered wigs. Then we drink 'The Queen — our captain gunner' and 'The guns at Alamein'. On display is a
Charles Moore is the editor of the Daily Telegraph. fine Coptic monstrance looted from Abyssinia. The late Emperor Haile Selassie, dining at Woolwich, was offered it back, but refused, on condition that the monstrance, being a sacred object, should not sit on the table, but in a place by itself looking down on the feast. This was duly done. God, how I love the forces of conservatism.
In that speech at Bournemouth, Mr Blair said that he was opposed by the `establishment' who were holding Britain back. Who on earth are these people? Surely not the hereditary peers who voted tamely for their own demise on Tuesday night. In fact, Mr Blair has control of about three quarters of what used to be called 'the Upper Ten Thousand'. I had a small illustration of whose foot the boot is on when I joined my local hunt for the march on the Labour party conference. After we had marched, I caught the train to London. On the platform, I fell into conversation with three marchers, two from Hampshire, one from London, all working class and none of them, I got the impression, earning much more than £10,000 a year. Also on the platform was Lord Hattersley. 'Oh, there's Roy Hatters- ley,' said one of the men. 'Let's go and ask his opinion about hunting.' Because 1 know him slightly, I introduced them to him. He turned on me and said, 'This is an intrusion on me. Don't you spring this on me with your terrible Old Etonian man- ners.' I pointed out that we were in a pub- lic place and that he, as a legislator, would end up voting to abolish these men's way of life, so perhaps he should talk to them. The men politely explained that I had not put them up to it — they had wanted Lord Hattersley's view themselves. Lord Hatter- sley spoke of not needing lectures on rural life, on the wickedness of a love of killing, bear baiting, public executions and so on. Then he waddled off to the first-class car- riage. Who is the establishment — the likes of Hatters, or the three poor, insult- ed men in steerage?
At their best, tabloids tell you what you need to know more quickly and clearly than anyone. So it is with Hold Ye Front Page!, a history of the last 2,000 years just published by the Sun. It treats the great events of his- tory in Sun front pages — `A STAR IS BORN; • Messiah claim as virgin has baby in stable'; 'THE JOY OF six; King Henry to wed AGAIN' — and makes them stick in the mind. If it didn't put money in Rupert Murdoch's pocket, I would urge every parent to buy it.
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