ANOTHER VOICE
On Reading Drabble's Case for Equality in a health farm
AUBERON WAUGH
0 Champney's Health Resort, Tring n this visit to my favourite health farm, where the efficiency, politeness and attention to detail of the 200 English staff surely point the way to at least one future role for Britain, I brought as my reading a pamphlet by Margaret Drabble, the text of a speech delivered to the Progressive League in April, entitled 'Case for Equal- ity' (Fabian Society, £1.00).
It was sent to me by someone called Dave from Fabian Society headquarters in 11 Dartmouth Street, SW1, with a some- what cryptic letter which hoped I might be able to give it some publicity. From my Sunday Times, I see that Dave also sent it to Brian Walden. It occurs to me to wonder what sort of publicity Dave was hoping to secure for Drabble's programme of equal wages, equal wealth for every- body, regardless of industry, talent, ap- plication or any other merit.
Walden, as might be expected, took a somewhat censorious line, suggesting that Drabble's tone of moral and intellectual superiority hid a simple need for political convictions which made her feel good, their practicality being secondary. He ends fiercely: 'We can do without slavery dres- sed up as compassion.' I wonder if he would have taken a kinder view if he had read the pamphlet between appointments at this health farm which I am growing to believe is the closest we poor mortals can get to a taste of Heaven on earth: aro- matherapy; stretching classes; steam cabinets and the new delight I have disco- vered of foot massage. I honestly believe that as performed by a beautiful young person called Rebecca in Champney's Ladies' Spa, foot massage (or 'reflexology' as she calls it) may be the most exquisite pleasure available. It certainly puts one in a benign mood for Drabble.
True,, a large part of her message may boil down to a pretty, preening display: aren't I twee?
There is still something in me that hankers after the old, sweeping, all-embracing egali- tarianism of yesteryear. . . . Perhaps commit- ment is bad, perhaps emotion in politics and political theory is to be avoided. But let me express some of my own lingering, outmoded Utopian dreams.
She defines egalitarianism thus:
I shall suppose that egalitarianism is, as it were, an advanced state of faith in equality, an as-it-were unqualified, across-the-board assertion of the need for and desirability of equality in all significant areas of life.
What is wrong with that? Women have been trying to make themselves attractive since time began, and even some men, too. Drabble can share my as-it-were jacuzzi, any time. As one approaches the central point of her position, one is even prepared to overlook the glaring illogicalities of her famous 'oyster' passage: In Dickens's day, the poor lived on oysters. The only reason why they do not eat oysters now is because they cannot afford them. Oysters still taste the same as they always did . . . and they are actually more delicious, more juicy . . . than whelks. I like oysters. In New Zealand recently I ate a lot of oysters. Oysters were in season in New Zealand. They did not cost a lot of money. . . . A redistribu- tion of income would not ruin the savour of an oyster. . . . No, we would be able to choose better furniture, more various styles of architecture, less lethal three-piece suites. No. The reason oysters are so expensive in England is that there is not enough of them. But there is no reason why the comforts of foot massage should not be more widely shared, if that is what the poor would like to do to each other.
The central point of Drabble's position, as she puts it, is that 'I find it much easier to identify downwards in the social scale than upwards.' She offers various possible explanations for this phenomenon, among them 'perhaps because I am a woman'. I doubt that this is the true reason, although I agree that much more study should be made into that unmapped, ill-defined area which lies between politics and gynaecolo- gy. Humanity has always divided between those who worry over the world's im- perfections and those who are happy to celebrate its working parts. The division is neither sexual nor socio-economic, nor professional nor even religious, it is simply temperamental or governed by the humours. A is happy, B is not. But I wonder whether Drabble, before laun- ching into a pilgerish attack on Thatcher- ism for making the streets of Hampstead unsafe, had really studied the people with whom she finds it easy to identify.
I am not, of course, suggesting that she should personally venture into the abor- iginal encampments of Liverpool and New- castle, but much can be learned about the less privileged in our society by reading the Sun. Friday's middle page spread was devoted to the plight of 19-year-old unem- ployed Davey Craggs, of Newcastle. Davey, who has never had a job, lives with his 50-year-old mother, Sylvia, in a run-down council flat, collecting £24.75 in social security. It is a tough area, and the pair have been burgled six times in six months. 'Our light bulbs were nicked,' says Davey, 'and we were in the dark because neither me nor me mam had any money to buy new ones.'
So far so good. Bring out the oysters and good furniture. Now read on. Davey, who spends all his £24.75 on beer and cigarettes (reckoning he can get through 12 pints of brown ale a night) and cadges the rest from his mother, has no desire to come south and earn more money. His reason is that he 'couldn't stand all those poofs'. He loves his neighbourhood, and his pub with all its fighting and head-butting. 'Some of the kids round here are that cheeky, they won't let pensioners inside unless they hand over 20 pence.'
So much for the threat of violence in Hampstead being prompted by inequality. As for Drabble's sympathy, Davey says: `I'm not interested in women. I'd rather spend my dole on another pint.'
Is Drabble absolutely sure that there is justice in paying Davey exactly the same wage for doing nothing as is paid to a highly-skilled surgeon performing two or three fairly major operations a day? More important, perhaps, is she absolutely sure that hers is a very attractive posture? Never mind. As I sit in the bubbling waters of my Drabble-less jacuzzi, I reflect that we have a certain amount of common ground. It is not inequality but prosperity which explains the soccer violence, the Paul Johnson riots in Aylesbury and Dork- ing, all the hideous, stinking manifesta- tions of modern society, from muzak in motorway service stations to caravans choking the Somerset lanes. Drabble sees only the prosperity of the rich, and recoils. While rejoicing in my own prosperity, I see proletarian affluence as a growing threat to all my comforts. They will be in Champ- ney's, next, paying £160 a night to have their feet massaged. Drabble's lunatic scheme would put a stop to all affluence, of course. Similarly, the only circumstances in which I could possibly vote socialist at the next election would be if the discomforts of Thatcher's mass prosperity outweighed the comforts of my own greater prosperity under Thatcher. By different routes we may yet arrive at the same destination.
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