DIARY
DOMINIC LAWSON Ivery much regretted that my interview with Mr Nicholas Ridley a year ago angered the communitaire Government Whips Office so much that they engineered Mr Ridley's removal. But subsequent events make me think that he was not so unlucky after all. Had he remained in the Cabinet he would have lasted no longer than Mrs Thatcher, since it is certain that Mr Major would have found the same use for him as he did for Mr Cecil Parkinson, namely none at all. But the dramatic and individualistic circumstances of Mr Rid- ley's exit have at least guaranteed him a constant stream of revenue from newspap- er articles, particularly useful for a man who once complained that he was the poorest member of Mrs Thatcher's Cabinet. Now I see that the Sunday Times is this weekend to begin serialising Mr Ridley's forthcoming book My Style of Government: The Thatcher Years. And in our business, which Mr Ridley has now joined, nothing pays better than a Sunday Times serialisation. But I must correct Mr Ridley on one or two points I understand he makes in his book. He says that his remarks about the Germans came in a conversation at the end of our tape- recorded interview. This is untrue: they came about two thirds of the way through the interview and we moved on to other topics afterwards. This is clear from my transcript of the interview, a full copy of which, incidentally, was sent to Mr Rid- ley's office, at their request, the day the interview was published. Mr Ridley also claims in his book that he found my interview with Mr Michael Heseltine, pub- lished in The Spectator earlier in the same year, 'very offensive'. That is odd, because I distinctly remember Mr Ridley telling me at the time that he had found the piece on Mr Heseltine very amusing. Only Mr Ridley referred to his former Cabinet colleague as 'Mr HesYeltsin' — which I thought was also very amusing.
0 ne of the Sunday Times's earlier coups — and one it did not have to pay for — was its breaking of the story of how the clearing banks were refusing to pass on interest-rate cuts to many of its small- business customers. Last week it followed up its success by sending Valerie Grove to interview Lord Alexander, the Chairman of National Westminster Bank. Now Lord Alexander is a very clever man, but he said something so stupid to Mrs Grove that I am still reeling. Asked why some of his bank's lending margins were so high, the eminent QC replied, 'Sometimes a custom- er is offered a loan at the highest interest rate because he is the highest risk and ought to be discouraged.' Now if I was a banker, and I wanted to discourage some unreliable person from borrowing from nie, this is what I would say: 'No.' I believe that with some banks this alternative method is quite popular and effective. If the customer is, in Lord Alexander's words, 'highest risk', then he presumably has the lowest chance of being able to meet Nat West's most usurious rates. This re- minds me of the methods of Mr Michael Milken, the American inventor of the junk bond. Milken's theory was that it was just dandy to lend to very high risk companies at punitive rates, because, although about two in ten would go bankrupt, the extor- tionate interest paid by the other eight would more than cover losses on the corporate corpses. Lord Alexander should have a word with Mr Milken, if he can find the telephone number of the appropriate penitentiary.
It is remarkable how events seem to conspire against the European federalists, just as they seem on the verge of triumph. It is only necessary to recall how the Gulf war intervened just as the men in Brussels had started to push for a common Euro- pean defence policy. The behaviour of Germany, and most particularly Belgium, during the war against Saddam Hussein soon showed what a common European defence policy would be like: all dressed up but nowhere to go. Now, as Brussels attempts to get us to endorse federalism in principle, comes the break-up of the feder- al system in Yugoslavia. And what is one of the first things the new Slovenian government has called for? Why, its own currency. Speaking of which, I must rescue from oblivion a part of Mr Edward Heath's speech in the Commons debate last week on the European Community. I quote from Hansard: 'Some of my constituents ask me about the royal family and the Queen's head. There are eight royal families in the Community and it should be perfectly possible to make arrangements for a single currency and coinage on which all eight royal families could be represented.' When I had stopped laughing I became struck by the amibiguity of this proposal. Did Mr Heath mean that there should be one currency with notes big enough to incorpo- rate a full family picture of the royal heads of Europe, or would it be the same currency but with a different head on it, depending on which kingdom one hap- pened to be spending the note in? Then I realised that the two possibilities amount to the same thing, which exposes the cynicism of Mr Heath's concession to nationalism.
Ihave been greatly impressed by the skilful way in which Crown Prince Alexan- der of Yugoslavia, who lives in Britain, has handled the dispute in his own country. In particular his prominence in the media with appearances on the Today program- me, not to mention Good Morning Amer- ica, has been striking. Now I know that the advisers of kings and princes are normally named only if they are to be criticised, but on this occasion I think some credit should be given: step forward Sir Tim Bell, special adviser to the Crown Prince for the past ten months. Sir Tim, of course, owes his knighthood to Mrs, or rather Lady, Thatcher, to whom he still tenders much good advice. What further honour can Sir Tim expect if he suceeds in re-establishing the Karadjordjevic dynasty on the throne of what is left of Yugoslavia?
ne of our readers has sent me copies 0 of two letters addressed to her mother, a Mrs M. Howell of Leatherhead, both from firms of headhunters offering her lucrative jobs with a big American company. One says: 'We would like to discuss the possibil- ity of offering you a position within our organisation that could easily remunerate you to a considerably higher level than you currently enjoy.' The other adds: 'You have been recommended to us as someone who might be interested in a business opportunity.' Our reader commented to me as follows: 'My mother, who received these letters on the same day, has not worked outside the house since she was 21, has double cataracts, a hearing aid, and does not remember that I visited her in her home last week for her 96th birthday.'
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