AND ANOTHER THING
A world where crime pays, virtue is punished and the wicked flourish
PAUL JOHNSON
The latest ploy used by Jehovah's Wit- nesses to get you into edifying conversation on your doorstep is to say, 'We've called to see if you're worried by the spate of bur- glaries.' I stand no nonsense from these people, needless to say, my usual riposte being, 'We're papists here, quite enough religion already, thank you, and there are at least six Bibles in the house' (slam door). However, I am worried by the spate of bur- glaries. Who isn't, except presumably the burglar classes, who seem to include multi- tudes of teenagers these days? The police say that even if you are in your house, in broad daylight, you are not safe from these pests, unless you double-lock your front door. Teenagers, black, white, Asian — it makes no difference — simply cut a section of plastic from a bottle of mineral water and, lo! a single lock, however sophisticat- ed, is powerless to keep them out.
My wife and a friend were sitting in our London garden, three Sundays ago, about eight in the evening, with two grandchil- dren asleep upstairs, when one of these opportunists got in and whipped my portable computer from my study, then nipped upstairs and stole such of my wife's jewels as were not hidden away. They were welcome to my Tandy, obsolete and the property of Lord Rothermere anyway, but Marigold's little baubles were dear to her. Anyway, the idea of these footpads, many of them with expensive drug habits, creep- ing about one's home is disagreeable.
In 1883 the Russian historian Nicholas Karamzin, asked to characterise his coun- try, pondered for a minute, then said, `What goes on in Russia? Thieving.' That remains the chief Russian activity today, of course, the only difference being that it has spread to the rest of the world. Anything not nailed down, chained to the railings or Ingeniously hidden is pinched. All classes steal, often things of little value they do not need. Last year the Ritz lost 300 tea-strain- ers, 3,000 facecloths, 6,000 ashtrays and 5,000 pairs of slippers, all stolen by their Ritzy guests. When did you last steal from a hotel?
The clergy no longer preach against theft, which they tend to treat as a form of legitimate income-redistribution. When teenage gangs used stolen cars to embark on a series of ram-raids on shops in the Newcastle area last year, the Archbishop of Canterbury blamed it all on the govern- ment. If thieves rob churches, as they increasingly do, given the chance, the authorities simply shut the churches, one way of 'solving' the problem. Powerful, influential men, like Max Hastings and Simon Jenkins, swap stories, as readers of the Letters pages of The Spectator will have noted, about how many of their car radios have been pinched. Roy Jenkins, a former Home Secretary, dwells rather irritably on this point in his memoirs, but without reproaching himself for failing to deal more severely with thieves when he had the chance. The truth is our society is geared to encourage stealing. The insurance compa- nies simply pay up. The police don't bother much, and when they do judges and JPs, with the strong encouragement of the Home Office, conspire to keep convicted thieves out of prison.
As a result, it pays to be a professional thief, and to adopt more and more daring tactics. Not long ago, about 3.30 in the afternoon, while I was working in my study, I heard a noise and went into the drawing- room. A burglar, dressed in a black cat-suit — a jewel-thief no doubt — was calmly unscrewing the bars from one of the win- dows. Instead of creeping back into my study and dialling 999, I stood watching this ingenious craftsman at work, until he spot- ted me. He then dropped like a stone on to a garden table, shattering it. By the time I got down myself, he was vanishing over the hedge. I have since asked myself what I 'Do you have anything that isn't scrambled?' would have done had I reached him in time. Burglars, when apprehended, once 'went quietly'. Now they resist and even attack, knowing that if the householder uses force it is he, not they, who will be charged with an offence. As a recent judi- cial summing-up and verdict indicated, even a habitual thief who murders a victim who hits back can successfully plead self- defence.
The widespread impression that the law is pro-crime is reinforced by our own guilt feelings, the product of decades of political and religious brainwashing on behalf of the have-nots. An affluent friend of mine recently left his home to cross the road and buy a newspaper, foolishly leaving his front door ajar. He returned a minute or so later, sank into an armchair and opened his paper. He thought he heard a noise upstairs, and went to investigate. On the landing he ran into a young man, who asked him, 'Is this the way to the post- office, man?' My friend made sure his visi- tor had nothing in his pockets, showed him the door, and resumed his reading. After a few minutes, he became aware that there was another intruder in the house, and again investigated, this time going into each of the bedrooms in turn. In one he saw a foot sticking out from under the bed, and pulled on it. Another young man eventually emerged. 'I suppose you are looking for the post office too?' he asked crossly. 'No, man, I want the estate agents.' This fellow too was extruded. 'Well,' said I, 'why didn't you have them arrested and charged?' My friend, who is still — just — a member of the Labour Party, explained that this was not possible. 'They were both blacks, you see. If they had been white I might have thought twice about letting them go.'
My friend is not alone in operating dou- ble standards based on obsolete guilt feel- ings. Last week, Jacques Delors remitted fines worth £3.7 billion for cheating over milk-powder, Gorgonzola and Provolone. The reason was that the offenders, who must have operated on a colossal scale, were Italians, Greeks and Spaniards, and thus could not be expected to behave any better. The implication was that British, Danes, Germans and Dutch would not be so favoured. We live in a world, in short, in which honesty goes unrewarded, crime is unpunished and the wicked get away with it. Who would be a just man — or a virtu- ous woman?
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