DIARY CHARLES MOORE
It is hard to see that Mr Neil Kinnock has done anything wrong in ringing up Mr Peter Wright's lawyer, Mr Malcolm Turn- bull, to find out what is happening in the Sydney spy case, unless, as everyone de- nies, he was trying to get hold of confiden- tial information. As one who has to ring Australia quite often, I admire Mr Kin- nock's determination — they have an annoying habit of being asleep when we are awake. One merely wonders whether it is dignified for the Leader of the Opposi- tion to get quite so excited about such a thing and why he did not ring the Govern- ment's lawyers to hear the latest from them as well. Perhaps Mr Kinnock feels that he can get the inside dope because he has so many Australians working for him or advising him. Perhaps he simply enjoys talking to Mr Turnbull, whose masterly When did you stop beating your wife?' style of questioning is causing Sir Robert Armstrong so much trouble. Mr Turnbull is certainly a remarkable man. I have only met him once. A little more than two years ago, I found him sitting on the sofa in my office with a large briefcase. He told me that Mr Kerry Packer, for whom he work- ed, was going to buy the Spectator. The deal would be through in two days, he said. With a heavy heart, I asked why Mr Packer wanted to buy the Spectator. 'Well,' said Mr Turnbull, 'Kerry's not only motivated by greed.' He paused, as if worried that he had done his boss an injustice. 'Not all the time, anyway.' Fortunately, a great scandal involving Mr Packer blew up in the next few days, and I was spared the opportunity of finding out what motivates him. But I am sorry to have missed a better acquaint- ance with Mr Turnbull.
After broadcasting on Radio Four about the Church of England, I received a remarkable letter. It was from a Mr D.A.J. Simpson, and it said: • . . I wonder if you may be interested in what I have to say from my unusual posture in the wheel-chair to which I have been confined ever since I had polio in 1954.
Until last year I was a member, and often an active member, of the Church of England, but last November I left it. The main, though not the only, reason for my defection is this: I am not committed to social justice; I am not working for social justice; and I do not intend to work for social justice. And, in those circumstances, it has been made clear to me that there can be no place for me in the Church of England . . . .
He goes on:
You see, I have read The Brothers Karamaz- ov by Dostoievsky, especially the chapter about the Grand Inquisitor. And when I look at the world south and east of Dover, my heretic soul is stubbornly unconvinced that
social justice is the one sure road to the Kingdom of Heaven. Dialogue with my fellow Christians bears no fruit because they cannot understand either the distinction which I seek to draw between social justice and social welfare or the critical question: 'Under a regime of social justice, who will be our social judge?'.
In a subsequent letter, Mr Simpson writes: I find the Book of Job perceptive and illuminating (though long-winded). I think the author would have understood how I feel.
You'll notice that blind Bartimaeus cries for mercy, not justice. Very interesting to me, is St Luke iv, 18. Who are these 'captives'? Are they innocent victims of some oppressor whom Jesus will free as an act of 'justice'? Or are they sinners, the sick and the cripples, imprisoned by their own sin or disease, whom he will free as an act of mercy?
I am sure that Mr Simpson is wrong to leave the Church, but I am equally sure that there is something wrong with a Church whose leaders make such a man want to leave.
Nowadays any historical drama is meticulous about costumes. Producers go
to infinite trouble to make sure that people are wearing authentic suits, driving appropriate cars and sitting among period furniture. This is particularly true of dra- mas involving recent history where people will remember the time depicted and notice mistakes. How odd, then, that producers never cast their eye over nature itself. There have been several examples of
this in Paradise Postponed. There was a scene, for instance, set in the 1950s, with a field of oilseed rape in the background impossible, I believe. There was a scene with wistaria in full bloom on a pub wall and snow on the ground, another in which people moved from a garden party into a 'It's mostly left-overs.' churchyard in which all the trees were bare, a third in which a hunt took place with all the trees in leaf. Such implausibili- ties are really much worse than being right about whether anyone was wearing winkle- pickers in 1961.
As the date for the British Gas sale passes (and, by the way, my central heating is still not properly mended, having been off colour for two months), one hears more and more about privatisation's suc- cess as an export. A friend of mine who has helped to sell off the National Commercial Bank of Jamaica (also happening this week) says that even the 'Tell Sid' cam- paign has attracted the attention of the world. The Jamaicans are toying with adapting the campaign for their next effort: 'Tell Ezekiel' is the favoured slogan. With privatisations being considered in Brazil, Turkey, Bangladesh and even China, there is the chance of endless permutations. I foresee difficulties for those countries where names represent cultural or religious divisions. In India, for instance, 'Tell Sanjay' or 'Tell Mohammed'? In South Africa, 'Tell Hendrik' or 'Tell Nelson'?
The Independent has already made a name for itself by carrying much more interesting news photographs than its riv- als. It has kept up this standard well. But there are two problems. One is that 'good' photographs in newspapers are traditional- ly signalled by being very large (a Harold Evans habit), and therefore when they are not good they look absurd. Tuesday's Independent had a vast front-page photo- graph of Mr Ernest Saunders of Guinness. It was just a picture of a man in a suit. It told one nothing. The other problem is the search for thrills which the demand for striking pictures provokes. The Indepen- dent has taken to publishing particularly gruesome photographs of scenes of vio- lence. On 18 November, it carried a vile shot of the body of M. Georges Besse, the assassinated Renault businessman, bleed- ing on the ground. On Monday, it printed a creepily arty picture of militiamen execut- ing someone in Beirut. This may not be meant to be pornographic, but that is its effect.
We have had an impressively large entry for the Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize (204, to be precise). Since each entry is about 4,000 words long, judging is quite a business, and I am afraid that we shall not have a result before the New Year. Next week's Diarist will be Peter Levi.
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