Notebook
Idon't think I have ever praised Dr Runcie for anything, but I do so now. In his ser- !non in St. Paul's Cathedral on Monday he Showed a far clearer understanding of the country's feelings about the Falklands war than any of his hysterical critics on the right wing of the Tory Party. The service, as Jo Grimond warned in the Spectator the other Week, should never have taken place at all. One reason why it was bound to be un- satisfactory was that, whatever form it took, large numbers of people were certain to feel unhappy about it. But the trium- Phalism which Mr Julian Amery, Sir John Biggs-Davison and others — including, ap- Parently, Mrs Thatcher — so desired and so sorely missed would, if it had been present, have caused much the greatest distress and embarrassment. The Archbishop of Canter- bury, perhaps influenced by the 'avalanche' of letters he had received before the service, decided that he could not claim divine ap- proval for the South Atlantic campaign. And he did not fudge the issue. 'War,' he declared, 'is a sign of human failure, and everything we say and do in this service Must be in that context'. One may sym- Pathise with Mrs Thatcher. She has been through the most exhilarating experience of her life. She wants us all to feel as wonder- ful as she does. She feels that, with such happiness inside her, she is capable of anything, and that if only she could make us all feel as she does, we would all be capable of anything. Instead, the country oks fondly and approvingly at this gutsy little woman, but obstinately refuses to be carried away. When Mrs Thatcher talks about the country's 'new mood, she is talk- ing more than anything about her 'own flood'. It is a mood so intoxicating that she Is terrified of losing it, and she lashes out fiercely whenever anything seems to threaten it. Perhaps we ought, in our own interests, to do everything we can to keep her buoyed up, for if ever she succumbs to Post-Falklands depression, the outlook will he bleak. But it is difficult. We know that the Falklands conflict was a result in large Dart of British government incompetence, that three ministers had to resign because of it, that the campaign — though brilliantly Conducted and concluded — was risky and basically unnecessary, and that the Falkland islanders are now not feeling near- ly as liberated as Mrs Thatcher thinks they °Light to feel but are still grumbling about ,heing neglected and wondering whether to leave. So the best we can do is to glory in our good fortune in having got out of a nas- ty fix so relatively unscathed, thanks to luck and leadership and military skill. If only this were good enough for the Prime
Minister, all would be well. But it is not. She wants us to celebrate her victory as a triumph of good over evil, as evidence of restored national greatness. She wants us to recognise that, because it has changed her, it has changed everything. So, as the war itself dwindles into the past, she goes on hammering out the message, and throwing parties for herself because we won't throw them for her. The trouble with this perfor- mance is that it offends against the truth and therefore undermines the 'new mood'. Mrs Thatcher is, of course, not to be blam- ed for the show business spectacular on television the other week which — after a series of First World War recruiting songs sung by supposedly pretty girls in military uniform — ended with Vera Lynn singing 'Wider still and wider, May thy bounds be set' (as if the Falklands were not, at least as far as England is concerned, at the very boundary of the earth). This extravaganza was comparable to the St Paul's service in its inappropriateness. As a display of patriotic nostalgia, it was successful enough; as a tribute to the task force, it was completely mad. The service in St Paul's, however, turned out better. As I have already said, it shouldn't have taken place. But, because of Dr Runcie, it was much more satisfactory than it might have been. Those who lost husbands or sons in the war may have felt comforted, and this to some extent justified it. Those Conservatives who attacked the Archbishop for his sermon have undermined even that justification.
The scandal concerning Commander Trestrail led to dark whisperings in cor- ridors that the members of the Buckingham Palace household are practically all homosexuals. I have no idea whether this is true or not. I only know that if it were true, it would be neither surprising nor shocking. On the contrary, I suspect that homosex- uals make particularly good and loyal domestic servants — not to say bodyguards. This is quite obvious, really. Without enduring ties or responsibilities, they are in a better position to devote
themselves wholeheartedly to service. They tend to be tidier and better organised than other sorts of men. And, as far as Buck- ingham Palace is concerned, homosexuals are less likely to be bored by their work. They can find compensations in the glamour of the place. Commander Trestrail has been made to suffer unduly because of the association in people's minds between homosexuality and treachery. But Com- mander Trestrail was not a spy or a diplomat; he was a mere bodyguard. Nobody has suggested that he was either in- competent or disloyal. If he was ashamed of his homosexual relationship with a pro- stitute, he may have been open to blackmail; but even if he was (and there are grounds for thinking that he wasn't, given that at one stage somebody did try and fail to blackmail him), it is hard to see how this could have endangered the Queen's safety. One of the few things we know about Com- mander Trestrail is that he was one of the rare policemen in the Palace who bore no responsibility whatsoever for the intrusion into the Queen's bedroom. Once his secret was out, he had no choice but to resign. The Palace cannot tolerate public scandals. But it would, I am sure, be a great mistake if our panicky politicians now felt it was necessary to purge the Palace of all employees showing signs of sexual ir- regularity. It would not only be a futile ex- ercise; it would be hard on both the Palace servants and the Queen.
It is sad that seat belts are now to be made compulsory. We have constantly urged in this paper that the measure, sensible and compassionate though it may sound, is an unnecessary attack on individual freedom. The argument that a person is risking more than his own safety if he doesn't wear a seat belt, that he risks imposing an expensive burden on the National Health Service, is not a very convincing one. If that argument were paramount, then people should be for- bidden to smoke or drink or climb moun- tains or go down potholes or do anything at all that involves risk. It is of course sensible to try to protect oneself from injury. But it is important to the credibility of this Government that it shows in small ways that it really stands for freedom. If she could convince us of this, Mrs Thatcher's tendency to bossiness would seem much more acceptable.
T hope that Auberon Waugh's article on 1 the next page will comprise the last reference in this paper to John Pilger and the Thai 'slave-girl' affair. I don't promise that it will. I just hope so. I hope that Mr Pilger will withdraw his libel writ and that his backers, the Daily Mirror, will pay our costs. I hope he will accept that we have never accused him of fabrication, but that we have shown he was the unfortunate vic- tim of a hoax. If he does that, we may even agree to publish his reply.
Alexander Chancellor
Previous page
