DIARY ALEXANDRA ARTLEY
0 n Sunday we arrived at the Con-
naught for dinner with Si and Victoria Newhouse. After the astonishing South- East hurricane, the trees of London still la) chaotically uprooted in the streets. In contrast, outside the Connaught the trees seemed to get special treatment. Two or three blasted specimens pointing dejected- ly in the direction of Farm Street were shielded in brightly painted yellow boxes. The Spectator now seems to be read in New York, where my diary of recent weeks has caused amusement (it is thought to be 'political). Like poor M. Jourdain in Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme who did not real- ise he had been speaking 'prose' all his life, this came as a tremendous shock. Galva- nised by Watergate, the American press seems to think the British press is rather supine and lacking in sharp chic comment. I greatly admire British journalists for the hard and important job they do in cutting through this Government's misleading PR flim-flam on almost every subject. Some quality newspapers still painstakingly pre- sent the facts, but elsewhere, there is far too much editorial deference to Margaret Thatcher and the faint air of writers who need to earn a living keeping their heads down. Ultimately 'heads down' will not sell newspapers. This is because the public still likes to read what is known as a 'ding- dong'. For example, the nice woman who helps me with the children has just ditched the cruder tabloids (called by me the 'Tebbitoids') and reads Today which seems quite colourful and independent. On my other hand at dinner, amusing chat in- volved Saatchi and Saatchi who now apparently represent Mario Cuomo, the Italianate liberal Catholic Governor of New York State. With his genuine interest in the needs of the family and the poor, he sounds like rather a nice man. It is part of Upper Eastside folklore that Saatchi never work for a loser. Perhaps we are seeing the emergence of a new professional type the Ad Man of Conscience.
Avery dismaying event this autumn will be the Government's refusal to control meat produced by 'ritual slaughter'. This means slaughtering animals by certain Jew- ish and Muslim methods in which animals are not made unconscious by the usual 'humane stunner' before their throats are cut. Some years ago, I met a government veterinary surgeon who inspected abattoirs where kosher-kill took place. His descrip- tion of the terror of fully conscious animals being whirled upside-down in a stainless steel drum to have their throats cut was so distressing that in a fit of contemptible cowardice, I refused to witness it. I should have gone to write a truthful eye-witness
account. The British meat trade is allowed to operate with too much secrecy. In addition, abattoirs specialising in ritual slaughter are often geographically on the fringes of the country. Hal-Al Meats (now renamed United Meat Packers) is owned by an Arab businessman called Sher Rafi- que, who registered the company in the Republic of Ireland. He has ten or so male relations and his aim is to leave each one an abattoir. His other aim is to build up an export trade of two million ritually slaught- ered lambs per year. Sher Rafique's abat- toirs include one at Gaerwen, Anglesey; Lockerbie, Dumfrieshire and a new one at Henllan, Denbighshire. Northern Ireland is another quiet spot where kosher-kill and hal-al slaughter are carried out not for domestic consumption but for export to Iran, Iraq and Egypt. What was once a dispensation granted to early Jewish im- migrants before 'humane stunning' became technologically possible, has now become a disgraceful export trade in animal suffer- ing. It is quite extraordinary that in reject- ing its own Farm Animal Welfare Council report, the Government has even refused to accept the recommended practice, long accepted in America, that animals should stand upright in a 'Cincinnati pen' to have their throats cut from underneath. Ex- traordinary too, is the refusal to insist that meat for sale in butchers' shops should be labelled to let the public know how it has been killed. Many tolerant people, with a concern for the humane and good hus- banding of natural resources, often have no desire whatever to eat meat slaughtered by inhumane methods. When it comes to meat, I too believe in 'choice'. The labell- ing of meat, as with all foods, is a purely consumer matter. It seems odd that the editor of Which? has conspicuously avoided any discussion of this matter in print.
'I picked it up from the Turks'
The peculiar term 'moral neutrality' has become rather an in-joke way of describing someone who is a perfect little rotter ('he is very ... morally neutral'). Surely people (as opposed to 'markets') never can be 'morally neutral'? To me, 'moral neutrality' sounds like plain vanilla ice-cream — in need of a dollop of some- thing. In any case, there are so many other exciting flavours you can buy. In national life, as in private life, they are 'morality', 'amorality' and 'immorality'.
After free-range eggs come free-range carrots. When shopping these days, I am impressed by the dramatic increase in 'organic' vegetables for sale. Often this produce carries a strange little symbol — a circle enclosing twining 'arms' which repre- sent the indissoluble connection between the soil, plants, animals and man. This is the Celtic 'trademark' of the Soil Associa- tion founded by Lady Eve Balfour in 1946. Lady Eve Balfour will be 90 next year. She is a pioneering 'Green Lady' who investi- gated organic growing methods at her experimental farm (the Haughley Experi- ment) near Stowmarket in Suffolk. Her book, The Living Soil and the Haughley Experiment is available from the Soil Asso- ciation, 86 Colston Street, Bristol BSI- 5BB (£4 plus 90p p&p). The fact that decent principles and good business instincts can go together can be seen in the Soil Associa- tion's own figures for the rise in organic farming. In 1985 fewer than 100 farmers 'going organic' applied for the SA symbol. Now, in late 1987, 500 organic farms have been registered. This seems like gentle Green progress.
0 ur younger child does not sleep. This morning I brought her downstairs at 4.45 a.m. and, warmly.dressed, she played quite happily, unaware of the autumnal dark and cold. As dawn came up, I rested my eyes on Monday's Independent. It demons- trated in figures how, after April 1988, a single mother with one normal child and one disabled child will have her sup- plementary benefit reduced from £118.45 per week to £81.15 per week. After that date, disabled old-age pensioners will also lose from £1 to £50 per week. To take from
pitiful disabled children and old people while the Prime Minister dines with Gerald Ronson! How shameful and ignoble. Un- like you, I no longer live in the beloved England I knew.
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