Notebook
The offices of The Times in the Gray's Inn Road have begun to acquire a distinctly spooky quality. The front door is guarded by old and weary-looking pickets who seem to have given up caring who goes in or out. When you emerge from the lift on the first floor, you are plunged into darkness. Someone calls through the Floom, beckoning you towards the light In the corridor. Only the more senior members of the staff appear to be about. Telephones ring unanswered in distant Offices . Capital Radio has told us, in what Was apparently supposed to be a serious news item, that many of the absent Times Journalists have been afflicted with mental problems, including anorexia nervosa. Perhaps it was mental stress of this sort Which induced them, while not working, to demand a 61 per cent pay rise. But at last, after many weeks during which no serious negotiations have taken place between the management and the unions, something may be about to happen. Lord Thomson is in town. Board meetings are being held. A new statement is to be expected. Will Lord Thomson side with the doves or the hawks? My guess is that he will not weaken, not at any rate to the degree of conceding to the NGA monopoly of the new technology. Having spent so many millions on sustaining the ghost of a newspaper, he can hardly give In now without looking a fool. More Probably, he will announce once again that he will not sell the paper. A new deadline will be set for concluding negotiations. More weeks will drag on. New Printing House Square will become more ghostly yet.
°Ile man who will not, I imagine, be Party to any major concessions to the ,r•l.GA is the Editor of The Times, Mr William Rees-Mogg. He made clear in an article Published by the Daily Telegraph three weeks ago that he views the future of Fleet Street with despair unless the savings made possible by the new technology are brought about. While more Prosperous newspapers than The Times inlay perhaps be forgiven for adopting a less austere attitude to the unions, one Would expect them to lend him at least some moral support. But pusillanimity at times knows no bounds. This is shown by a story Which lies behind the Daily Telegraph article mentioned above. The article was originally commissioned from Mr Rees-Mogg by the Observer, whose editor, M , Mr Donald Trelford, rang him suggesting a piece to mark The Times 's six-month absence from the newsstands. Mr Rees-Mog agreed to write the article, promising to telephone the Observer a few days later when he had completed it. When he telephoned, Mr Trelford had gone on holiday, and an embarrassed secretary had to inform him that a decision had been taken against publishing the article on the grounds that it would damage the Observer's relations with the NGA. This was before anybody had even seen the article. The reason for this fit of cowardice was that the acting night editor of The Times, Mr Arthur Gould, who is also the freelance night editor of the Observer, had been 'blacked' by the Observer's compositors for having been involved in the production of the abortive weekly edition of The Times (of which one issue only was printed in Frankfurt). The article was then offered to Mr William Deedes, the editor of the Daily Telegraph, who was happy to publish it.
Auberon Waugh's column is sadly missing from this week's Spectator because we considered its publication unwise in the light of a High Court slander and libel action brought against Sir James Goldsmith, the food manufacturer, by a journalist, Michael Gillard. The column dealt, most skillfully and interestingly, with the case, in which the jury's decision to side with Sir James has provoked almost universal astonishment, and Mr Gillard — who was accused of being a blackmailer — is considering an appeal. I do not know Mr Gillard, but apart from enjoying most respectable employment at Granada Television, he is a contributor to the magazine Private Eye, which Sir James, to use his own word, loathes. It seems that Sir James's testimony made a deep impression on the jury, and I will return to it later. Meanwhile, I would like to consider his relations, such as they are, with the Spectator. I have never met Sir James Goldsmith, but I have seen him from time to time and am sometimes on these occasions affected by feelings of sympathy towards him resulting from my long-standing friendship with his brother Teddy, the ecologist, whom in some ways he closely resembles. Such feelings even touched me, most irrationally, when I found myself facing him on a pavement outside the Law Courts last week after listening to part of the hearing of the Gillard action. I was, with two colleagues, on the point of entering a Rolls-Royce belonging to Sir James's friend John Aspinall, who had kindly agreed to give us a lift back to the Spectator's office in Doughty Street. Being in an amiable mood, with the comfortable prospect of a lift in a Rolls-Royce, I was mildly surprised when Sir James — albeit with a curious sort of smile on his face — started referring to me, or so I understood it, as a piece of filth. I misheard perhaps, but I am certain that I heard him correctly when he began warning the unfortunate Aspinall of the risks he would run by allowing us into his Rolls-Royce. We were infectious, said Sir James. Mr Aspinall would be sure to contract eczema. On hearing this, Mr Aspinall looked understandably relieved when we settled to go back to the office in a taxi.
You might like to know the reasons for this exuberant behaviour by Sir James. So would I. But I think clues to it may be found in the evidence he gave in court concerning Private Eye. According to Sir James, Private Eye comprises 'a hard core of rot' followed by 'a lot of trendies'. It is powerful, and, through the machinations of a small group of people 'masquerading as independent journalists', it has 'penetrated' the press as a whole. While there may be a great deal to criticise about Private Eye, Sir James manages to get almost everything wrong. Richard Ingrams and his colleagues are not masquerading as independent journalists. They are independent journalists — the most independent, by far, in the country. Does Sir James, who is starting his own weekly magazine in the autumn, believe that his own jourtalists will enjoy greater independence? And how does he imagine that Private Eye has 'penetrated' Fleet Street? It is the other way round. Journalists on other papers, who are frustrated by the restrictions imposed upon them, eagerly offer contributions to Private Eye. That Private Eye has influenced Fleet Street is beyond doubt, but that is quite another matter. It has set standards of investigative reporting, of robustness and of wit which other newspapers have felt obliged to emulate, however unsuccessfully. As for the 'trendies', there are no doubt some such people in the orbit of Private Eye. But I do not feel, for example, that Mrs Thatcher's reputation is compromised, or her independence placed in doubt, by the fact that she has twice in her time had lunch at Private Eye, any more, I hope, than by the fact that she has been accompanied to the opera at Glyndebourne by Mr Patrick Hutber, the future star columnist on Sir James's magazine. As for the Spectator, Sir James no doubt regards us as well and truly 'penetrated' (this being the only explanation I can think of for his behaviour outside the Law Courts). It is hardly a secret that Richard Ingrams, our reluctant television critic, is the editor of Private Eye or that Auberon Waugh has a column in both papers, or that others among our best writers may contribute to that journal. So what. The Spectator, I like to think, enjoys an enviable independence — as much of Private Eye as of anybody else. And, however foolish and malicious we may occasionally find Private Eye, we are bound to admire it. That Sir James, however much he may have suffered at its hands, can see nothing of value in it at all is one of the most worrying things about him.
Alexander Chancellor
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