ANOTHER VOICE

A lovely choice for President of the National Organisation of Madwomen

AUBERON WAUGH

Ihave been brooding about last week's Socialist Conference in Chesterfield, where Ken Livingstone described the cur- rent stock market recession as `the most important political event since the second world war' and Arthur Scargill thought it might enable him to introduce a system of regional parliaments, with retirement on full pay at 50, pensioners to receive the average weekly wage, sweeping import controls, withdrawal from the EEC, aboli- tion of private health and education and a ban on council house sales.

All good rousing stuff, but it does not quite explain Tony Benn's motives is call- ing the conference in the first place. There are those who see him as a sinister and dangerous man, there are those who see him as a more or less harmless exhibitionist whose teeth have been drawn. Many see him as a good old English eccentric, in the family tradition which boasts an uncle who beat his father to death with a chamber pot. But in the odious tradition which seeks to find a logic in all things, I see him more and more as an agent provocateur. He is, after all, a very rich man, and his wife is even richer. At times such as these we all wonder about ways of protecting our pathetic little bundles of household gods and krugerrands or whatever. Benn, it seems to me, has thought long and hard about the matter before deciding that the only way he can be certain of keeping his wealth intact, and that of his dear wife, is to ensure that there will never again be a Labour Government. The best way to do so is either to burden it with a huge number of loony and unpopular policies or, if he is prevented from doing that, split it. If I am right, he would now appear to be engaged in Plan B.

One might suppose that it would need a fairly eccentric person to set about protect- ing his wealth in this way, but nobody has ever doubted that Benn is brimful of Boy Scout qualities, and it all seems in keeping with a particular form of English eccentric- ity. One should wish him well. When his bluff is finally called, I hope Mrs Thatcher will give him his viscountcy back.

But my reason for brooding thus was different. I was wondering whether he would be a suitable person to ask to be Honorary President of Nomad — the National Organisation of Madwomen whose formation I proposed last week. Since then, the idea seems to have taken off. Already, I am being pestered for Nomad lapel badges, Nomad lesbian self- defence mats, etc. But I do not think, on reflection, that Benn is the right person to be Honorary President. He lacks any sign of the one qualification which I character- ised as being essential to membership the Madwoman's Injury Syndrome or Maisy. He would not carry conviction as President. 'Show us your Maisy,' the mad- women would shriek, and he would have nothing to show.

In any case, there is an altogether better candidate for the job. When last I wrote about Julie Burchill it was with some dismay, having found her in the ghastly neon-lit formica-topped back pages of the Sunday Times spattered in Daddy's Own brown sauce where once people like ourselves would sit in leather-style armchairs over a glass of vintage-character port. Now she has moved to the Mail on Sunday I read her with pleasure. It would be insulting to call her the Voice of Youth, since I am told she is a mature woman, probably a grandmother, and in any case Youth seems to have rather lost its voice nowadays. But she certainly represents one or two of the refrains to be identified in the great symphony of Modern Britain.

On Sunday she tackled the stock market crash with what turned out to be her version of the great Heatho-Walkerian Hymn to One Nation: The nosedive to one nation by Julie Burchill:

What fun to see the great god capitalism having yet another of its tired and emotional dizzy spells!

I know we're not meant to see anything emblematic in the events of the past two weeks, but really!

I am so fed up with every little queue at some Eastern European bakers being seen as a sign that Communism doesn't work.

And at least queues indicate a population with money to spend.

In some depressed Northern towns, you'll never see queues because you'll never see the colour of money.

Before the launch of Nomad, one might have seen this little exercise in pilgering as proof of no more than that women can do it too. The Master would be proud of his pupil. Perhaps there was even room for a little uneasiness. Would Pilgermeister him- self have hoped to get away with the wonderfully unspecific 'some depressed Northern towns' where, apparently, the normal rules of unemployment benefit, supplementary benefit, family income sup- plement, specific shoe-wear allowance, dis- cretionary mobility allowance, etc do not apply? And as for reducing the Iron Curtain's chronic, crippling shortage of everything except tinned mackerel and wooden dolls to a 'little queue at some Eastern European bakers'! Pilger might have got away with that on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, but even the BBC would have hiccuped a little, unless it was very late at night.

It is when one examines the ease with which Burchill gets away with such state- ments, as a woman, if not as a Voissa Youf, that one sees her as the ideal President of Nomad. No need for her to show us her Maisy. I have no doubt she possesses one, but no wish to see it. What remains to be seen is whether or not she is an obvious candidate for President of the New Britain.

The trouble with any idea of such a charismatic leader to rescue us from our doubts and uncertainties is that however much we like to pretend that there is One Britain somewhere out there, the truth is that we are many nations, for the most part as mutually antagonistic as we are ignorant of each other. I myself was appalled to learn about the family of Mr Tom McDo- nagh, 34, — his wife, Elaine, 31, sons Jake and Christopher, 14 and 10, daughter Katy 5. Tom was a cobbler in Keighley, West Yorkshire, but lost his job. Until winning £1,010,172.40 on the football pools two weeks ago, Tom and Elaine had lived on £90 a week dole for four years. Now we learn they had been reduced to driving a 'W' registration motorccar.

A week later we learn that another New Briton, 23-year-old Anil Gupta, a trainee accountant earning £6,400, has lost over £1 million in traded options, and is being sued by National Westminster Bank who lent him the money. Anil's loss would appear to be Tom's gain, although the connection between the two is not obvious. But which is the true representative of New Britain? At which should we set our cap if we wish to be President? Tom McDonagh may seem the more attractive proposition now, but a month ago everybody's money would have been on Anil Gupta, along with Natalie Banus, Georgie de War and the chorus of Star Stunnas. My money is still on Gupta and the Star Stunnas. McDonagh can keep his millions. Let him queue.