UnWaughlike
Sir: As an unwilling addict of the Establishment press (The Times and Private Eye) but a free and admiring subscriber to the Spectator I thought that one of the few things I could forecast with reasonable accuracy was what Mr Auberon Waugh would write about the departure of Mr William Rees-Mogg from The Times. With astonishment I see that Mr Waugh (28 February), who usually behaves as if it is the duty of every public personage to stand up and be knouted, has succumbed to a bout of affectionate adulation.
For instance, he speaks of the editor's 'high intelligence', whereas Mr Rees-Mogg himself, in a recent inverview with Media World (June 1980), makes it quite clear that he regards himself as having a second-class brain and mind. It is not obvious why Mr Waugh disagrees with this humble selfassessment.
Your columnist speaks as if the only job for the editor of The Times is the contributions written by himself for the paper. Whereas I understand that Mr Rees-Mogg has been intimately involved at an executive level in the whole running of the paper and therefore must take some responsibility for the organisational and commercial fiasco which Mr Waugh so much dislikes.
Edited by a confessing Roman Catholic, The Times has, when speaking on marriage and the family, reflected exactly the strengths, weaknesses and provincialism of the Church of England. Herein, I think, lies one clue to the contrast between the usually high standard of the editor's own output of undulating piety and his indifferent performance in matters of commerce, organisation and editorial direction. For Mr Rees-Mogg, a Roman Catholic by faith, is mentally and socially almost entirely in the High Anglican mould. He has not only had the problems of being a religious believer and editing a famous paper in a secularised age, but within the religious world is uncomfortably straddled between two fairly distinct traditions.
Mike St Aubyn 55 Evesham Road,
London N11
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