Spectator's Notebook

There were, of course, bound to be readers who would find The Spectator's front-page comment last week, ' Hypocrisy over Israel irreconcilable with the comment on the previous week's front page, ' Blacklist these states '. Partisanship is, in its inherent nature, blind to any but the partisan view. There was, in fact, no inconsistency, and it should hardly be necessary to observe that explanation is not excuse, or that understanding is not condonation.

It might be plausibly argued that the action of a state air force intercepting a passenger plane in a search for hostile.terrorists and offering no threat to the lives of the innocent, is in somewhat different case from the action of murderers and hostage-hunters; is in fact excusable.

This is not, however, what The Spectator has argued. Israeli interception of civil aircraft is not defended; neither the undesirability nor the illegality of that action was disputed; it was merely explained in terms of a situation — already noted as deplorable — in which no western power has done anything more useful than wringing its hands in dismay over hijacking. Last week's article anticipated the condemnation of Israel in the United Nations, a condemnation which The Spectator regards, and will continue to regard, as hypocritical — unless and until the governments of the UN's member-states devise and enforce an international law with some prospect of deterring all hijackers, regardless of their motives.

Seeing is disbelieving

A primary requirement in the successful politician (only the irredeemably cynical would say the only requirement) is the ability to lie plausibly. President Nixon, it would seem, lacks it.

His latest appearance on American television over the Watergate affair and its unelevating aftermath was an improvement on his previous performance (it could hardly, let it be admitted, have been worse). He put up a reasonable defence of his refusal to hand over those controversial tapes, and he skated cunningly, and without seeming too blatantly evasive, around all the difficult questions regarding his knowledge of Watergate and his involvement in the cover-up. But none of it worked. A subsequent Gallup poll revealed that 50 per cent of the American voters not only felt he should surrender the tapes, but furthermore did not believe him. The ' experts ' in Washington are virtually unanimous in believing that the President will neither resign nor be. impeached; but given the trend of disenchanted public opinion about his conduct of the nation's affairs, it is to be doubted whether they can much longer hold to that politically rather than morally calculated (or miscalculated) view.

Emotion not reason

Not every contributor of these opinionated jottings shares the implacable anti-abortion views regularly expressed by 'Cato' — who has, of course, every right to that point of view and who scored an excellent debating point the other week in relating the cases of the thalidomide children to the abortion con troversy. ' Cato ' looked forward triumphantly to the establishment in law of the right of a person to sue for damages in respect of an offence committed against him before he was born and thus, in the eyes of most people holding pro-abortion views, presumably not person at all. This is an extravagantly complex issue, involving theological, moral, biological and metaphysical theories and doubtless many others as well, and there is a variety of shades of opinion on the matter of the precise moment when a person is a person, varying at least between the moment of conception and the moment of birth. Nevertheless, 'Cato 'argued a powerful case in logic.

It is to be doubted, however, whether the opinion of anyone on the question of abortion is likely to be swayed one way or the other by the power of logic; although, of course, both sides might well claim to be arguing from such a position. Those in favour of abortion in specific cases would unquestionably feel, for instance, in weighing the non-life of an unborn child, whether the foetus is or is not a ' person,' against the plight of the unwed mother in the less sophisticated communities where this is still a matter of guilt and shame, and also against the psychological plight of the adopted child, growing up and grown-up in the knowledge or suspicion of having been unwanted by either parent, that they are also being logical.

But proponents of both points of view, whether admitting it or not, are much likelier to have reached their positions on emotional grounds, seeking logical support after rather than before making up their minds — they have, perhaps, come in close personal contact with, or have direct knowledge of, some specific case in which a woman is agonisingly impaled by the dilemma of whether or not to undergo an induced abortion. Such personal situations do not make either law or logic; they do not respond to the tests of ordinary rationality, being essentially emotional. As with falling in love, this is a matter in which,

as Pascal had coeur a ses raisons (Wet" ruison ne connet pas..

The impotent critics

The power of theatre reviewers is often ck plored — mostly, it is true, by those who ha'.

suffered at their hands — but taken as' whole they do, it should be conceded, perfor a valuable commercial service (quite from the artistic one on which they Pn"i themselves, often so amusingly) in saviil! prospective customers the cost of tickets I:1 productions which, on the balance of critic° opinion, they are unlikely to find rewarding',1 We hear a great deal less of the impoter of the reviewers in respect of one particti'1!! type of show, the fortunes of which (111",' ' fortunes ' is not used lightly) they won" seem powerless to influence. The worst 11.1 views any theatrical entertainment has ft: ceived in London in recent years were Pri bably those bestowed on a farce called P).: jama Tops, presented by Mr Paul Raymnn'; and featuring a certain amount of naRe' bathing; it has been running close on foe! years. Hardly anyone will remember favourable critical word being written aboty Oh! Calcutta!, a feeble collection of revu! sketches in which the cast take off their al thes; it has recently entered its fourth yea„. Last week, a show called Decameron opened at the Roundhouse at Chalk Fatro following a great deal of advance publicll! about its ' erotic ' content, and it was fortY nate enough to have one young woman leavf the cast because she was unable to bring he_41' self to do in public what she was being askm to do (though it is hard to think what tlV could possibly have been that she was 11°i previously aware of). The show got the 50' of press response that would ordinarily sure an empty house by the second night; 10'; it was, so the word is, packed.

This is evidently an area in which the clr cionados (striving to fill a gap in lives thlt! must surely be full of gaps) cannot brink themselves to believe that the reviewers nn trying to save them money, not to mention a, couple of hours of sheer mind-numbing bore' dom. "Those critics," they must say to the'' selves, "are not qualified to judge for us, rounded as they must be all the time by a" that kind of thing. No wonder they're se bored and blase." It is an entertaining , thought, but, alas, an incredibly bizarre one

School's out

Sometimes there is a phrase, a name or eve just a word that typifies, pin-points or other wise identifies a place almost exactly. oftea though, it can be oblique and surprising may be illustrated by an otherwise routine and unremarkable experience of an acquaall' ance who, having nothing of consequence te,. .do one sunny afternoon towards the end OI the last school term, agreed to deputise for $ friend's nanny, who was suddenly indispoSe and unable to collect a young child from nearby primary school. Naturally he found himself among a great many mothers, nannies and au pairs on the same mission, and, on the emergence of the little ones, the cries of the assembled collect' ors went up to attract the attention of the, appropriate children. " Sa-man-tha! " crieo, one, "Here, Samantha." "Nigel!" calleo., another: and " Deidre!" and "Kevin! , and " Fiona! " and so on — even a 10 Michaels and Susans, but no Georges °'1 Marys. One high-pitched callbsuddenly, hoyd-1 ever, rang out above all the rest: "Che! Ch Here, darling! " And it was then that he knew he would have guessed, even if he had not known he* fore, that he was in Hampstead, and that Peter Simple's darkest imaginings about the place were probably all true.