Another voice

The lost leader

Auberon Waugh

Montmaur I do not own a television set in my French retreat, and so missed the NBC interview between Peter Jay and three of America's toughest reporters on Meet the Press. Consequently, I must rely on the Daily Telegraph's airmail edition, and on comments by the Spectator's own immensely distinguished television critic.. Possibly this is the best way to follow television, thus avoiding dangerous cathode radiation which is now known to result in a suspension of all critical faculties, soon followed by the general paralysis of the insane.

Many are the times I have discussed Britain's imminent collapse with Jay. Now, as ambassador to America, he says, 'I have been proved wrong because of the extraordinary courage and determination of the British Government and in particular the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Denis Healey, supported by the Prime Minister'. Shortly before I left England, everyone was talking of a beautiful White Paper Which Mr Healey would produce to save us from our catastrophic state, with unemployment running at a million and a half, inflation nudging back tov;Pards seventeen Per cent. Alas, the extraordinary courage and determination of the British Government would not allow him to publish it.

Jay's predictions were apparently blown off course by the 'magnificent response' of the unions to the government campaign to beat inflation (Ingrams). As I left, there were wage demands of around fifty per cent 3n the table from miners and farmworkers, and others were arriving every day. More significantly, the Financial Times is simply unable to print because nobody can be bothered to turn up to do it. 'What we are doing in Britain is enormOusly exciting and important for everyone ni the world,' says Jay (Ingrams). Britain is ee again pioneering new ideas, new sol11.°.ons, new formulae, new forms of participation that may enable us to overcome those problems' (D. Tel.). I confess that when I left England, I could see no sign whatever of any new ideas, new solutions, new formulae. I was not altogether surprised that Jay had joined the brain drain with Dawn Upstairs (see the disturbing letter 'Tarts' tariff' in the Spectator, 6 August) for the milder tax climate of America, but why does he have to talk such piffle? I am sure Dawn could put him right.

Of course this sort of rubbish has been uttered by sycophants and placemen eve rice government was invented. Geral0

ufman, if he had been chosen for the job, would have uttered it with tears of sincerity rolling down his cheeks. The shock is to read them coming out of the mouth of a

contemporary and friend, someone one had regarded as an honest and intelligent inquirer after truth. More than that, Jay was someone I always looked up to as the leader of my generation at Oxford. Preceding generations had had the same feelings towards Alasdair Clayre, the sensitive folk-singer, and Francis Hope, the left-wing journalist, also very sensitive, sadly killed in an air accident three years ago. But I always thought Jay had more in him than either of those two. He was swifter than an eagle, he was stronger than a lion.

'0 Jonathan, thou wast slain in thine high places.

I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: Very pleasant hast thou been to me. . '

I suppose I had better tread a little carefully here. Last time I quoted David's lament for Jonathan (from 2 Samuel, ch. i) to describe the cordial relations existing. between a certain newspaper editor and a senior civil servant, the ignorant brute of a newspaper editor went blubbing to his solicitors saying I had accused him of homosexual practices. But Jay is surely well enough educated to know that there was no impropriety in the relationship between David and Jonathan, just as he knows there was never anything like that between the two of us. Such beauty as I perceived was entirely in his soul. So here goes:

'Thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.

How are the mighty fallen!'

Of course, one doesn't want to overdo it. I never knew Jay all that well, and many knew him better. be no Falstaff to his Prince Hal in Part Two. But he was definitely one of our gang: 'Shakespeare was of us, Milton Was for us Burns, Shelley were with us — they watch from their graves!'

Now that it is too late, of course, we can see clues which were missed at the time. While other lads of his age were running in the woods and exploring the fields and brooks, Jay would creep away to spend his afternoons in the electric cinema. Many of the films in those days were American ones, and this may explain his .otherwise inexplicable passion for the Americans. Of course he was always ambitious but so, with varying degrees of concentration, were many of us. I have never made a secret of the fact that I am open to offers for the Paris embassy. But Washington is an entirely different matter. Many of the Americans there are scarcely recognisable as human beings, drinking water at luncheon and bathing in the nude after dinner.

'Peter Jay is certainly very, very good,'

said tough American reporter Rowland Evans after the interview (D. Tel). 'He knows the medium. That's for sure.'

To know the medium is apparently to tell it preposterous lies about the 'enormously exciting and important' things being done by the British Government which, as we all know, is doing nothing at all.

'Just for a handful of silver he left us Just for a riband to stick in his coat.'

One of Jay's first actions on being appointed was to announce that the new post involved an enormous drop in salary.

So it did, no doubt, in gross cash receipts, but diplomats posted abroad pay no income tax on their salary and the submerged

. expenses of an ambassador in Washington, in addition to the official expenses allow

ance, means that he must have as high a living standard as any compatriot apart from our beloved Queen.

But of course one could forgive him if it was only the money or the grandeur of styld which tempted him to this degradation. One could even forgive him the riband to put in his coat — 1 do not know whether ambas sadors still score a plumed hat and tail coat with gold braid and buttons, but one could always improvise something of the sort, and I would be proud to know him in them. The real explanation for this appalling change from the witty, intelligent, recklessly articu late commentator to the grimacing puppet is that Jay is mesmerised by power. An ambassador has no power and very little influence, but the post brings him close to the greatest concentration of power in the free world, the White House, and he sees his gibbon's mask as a small price to pay for the proximity. Perhaps he will take it off when he comes back. Perhaps he will take it of in the company of the President of the United States, brilliantly identified by Peter Cook as a Martian, or perhaps he will cover it with further impedimenta of space-helmets, antennae etc. But I can't help feeling that the appointment was a bad one. If a sycophantic creep was required for the job, Callaghan should have sent Gerald Kaufman. If an actor was all he needed to say whatever lies the Downing Street or Fore ign Office press departments might produce, nobody could be better suited to rep rescnt the New England than Frank Spencer. The choice of lay was a sad blow to the few decent Englishmen left behind. 'We that had loved him so, followed him, honoured him Lived in his mild and magnificent eye Learned his great language, caught his clear accents Made him our pattern to live and to die.'

Again, I suppose one mustn't overdo it. But I have sat trustingly at Jay's feet as he

explained to me about the gold reserves, the

relationship between money supply and inflation. Never again. When he comes back to England, having left his gibbon's mask behind, when he comes back with a smirk and a suntan and a cheery wave I shall still be here, but there can never be glad confident morning again.