DIARY ANTHONY HOWARD
The Calcutt Committee on the law and the media has apparently got its report almost ready. Given that it was appointed only last summer, it has worked with commendable speed. It could be, though, that a little more dilatoriness on its part would have come as a relief to the Home Office — which can hardly welcome having another hot potato thrust into its lap at this stage of Parliament. If Calcutt comes up with clear-cut recommendations — say, a statutory right to privacy — it is bound to pose severe problems for the Govern- ment's Broadcasting Bill. The two Home Office Ministers who originally established the Committee — Douglas Hurd and Timothy Renton — have now both moved on to higher things. It will be left to their successors — David Waddington and David Mellor — to try to stitch whatever proposals Calcutt makes into the already complex fabric of the Government's broad- casting legislation. Or will it? Timothy Renton, who first offered up the promise of such a committee last spring, is now the Conservative Chief Whip. I would expect him today to take a slightly more cautious view than he did then. It may sound cynical, but it would astonish me to see a beleaguered Government rushing in to pick a fight with Rupert Murdoch — or any other media mogul — this side of a general election.
By chance, I spent part of last weekend debating the issue of the right to privacy on one of those 'hypothetical' discussions that occasionally surface on our television screens. In terms of make-believe, it was a much more elaborate exercise than I had anticipated. For three solid hours — merci- fully for BBC 2 viewers eventually to be reduced to one — 16 people sitting around a horse-shoe table were required to pre- tend that they were citizens of a kingdom called 'Grand Metrovia'. If the land we lived in sounded derivative, so did the leading characters who inhabited it — Prince Adam, Princess Eve, a TV star called Sir Dan Faxman, an MP named Peter Platitude, even an old boyfriend of the Princess's known as Kevin Thorough- bred. It says a good deal for the magnetism of the moderator — a professor of the Harvard Law School — that only occa- sionally was the power of his hypnotic spell broken. But I still staggered out of the studio echoing the words of a serious- minded friend of mine on first going to the ballet: 'Well, it was certainly quite fun but is it really for grown-ups?'
I f there is a worse job than being Archbishop of Canterbury, it must be that of being his press secretary. Eve Keatley has done the job for over six years and more than earned the party that Dr Runcie gave to mark her retirement last week. It was very much a family occasion — it was typical of Eve that she should have re- jected the more formal surroundings of the Lambeth Palace Guard-Room and insisted that we all assembled in the Runcies' drawing-room instead. The opposite of Bernard Ingham across the river at No. 10, she has always, in my experience, proved unfailingly helpful while at the same time successfully deflecting all but the most malevolent criticisms of the C of E's pre- sent leader. I do not envy Robert Runcie in having to soldier on — if only for the next ten months — without her. There was a general valedictory air to the whole gather- ing last Wednesday — I even came away with a dark-horse tip for the Canterbury steeplechase. The general view was that it would have to be an Evangelical — and, since he is the only scholar among them, that could well mean George Carey of Bath and Wells.
Whenever I try to telephone anyone at work nowadays, the answer is invariably the same. The person concerned is either 'in conference' or 'at a meeting'. It may, of course, be my fault, since I usually start off by modestly inquiring whether the indi- vidual I wish to speak to 'is available' which, I suppose, may indicate to any
`I can't decide whether to be next leader of the Conservative Party or the Archbishop of Canterbury.' vigilant PA or protective secretary that I am diminishing the importance or sheer work-load of their boss. But it is certainly not my intention to imply that their chief- tain is sitting there gazing out into the middle distance, wondering what to do next. It is just that life on the whole would be simpler if we could have our conversa- tion straight away rather than having to go through the whole palaver of calling back and forth — frequently missing each other two or three times before we finally con- nect. Of course, the alternative would be simply to accept that what I am told is always true. But I am very loath to do that. So far as I can see, it would mean that no actual work is getting done in this country at all, and that the whole of business, commercial, industrial or even journalistic life is just one perpetual, vast seminar.
At the bottom of the street in which I live two bus services have traditionally run to distant points in South London. Until a few months ago, one could always board either of them and be guaranteed to get' at least as far as Westminster. No longer. Two out of three of the buses that come along now terminate at Oxford Circus or Trafalgar Square. The turn-around point of their routes is plainly a matter for London Buses (as this department of the old London Transport now likes to be called). What, however, is not their right is unilaterally to vary the terms of trade on which they deal with their passengers. Why should a journey from Holland Park to the House of Commons — because of the necessity of changing buses — cost £1.70 instead of £1? Has no one in the board- room of. London Buses ever heard of the simple concept of a 'transfer ticket'?
Last weekend I had meant to weed out my Sunday newspapers. I am finding the decision increasingly difficult. The Sunday Correspondent I have to take because of its magazine (now easily the best of the lot), the Sunday Times (if only for Robert Harris and the Book Section), the Obser- ver (for old times' sake), the Sunday Telegraph (for its political scoops) and the Independent on Sunday (for its Review Section and again, in particular, for its books pages). 'More', Kingsley Amis once famously forecast, 'will mean worse.' I am not sure that is true — but a growing variety of outlets has certainly not minis- tered to the convenience of the consumer: Oh, for those bored Look Back in Anger days of long ago when the 'posh' Sunday newspaper reader could take either the Observer or the Sunday Times (or both) and still feel assured that little of consequ- ence had passed him by.
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