DIARY ALAN WATKINS
There are broadly two groups of persons in Britain who are instinctively pro- American. The first are the upper classes and their hangers-on, whose parents or grandparents married America money and who dispatched their wives and children to the United States during the war. The second are the metropolitan intellectual classes and their hangers-on, who range from Mr Peter Jenkins (though I could not find his column in the Sunday Times this week) through Mr Mel Lasky, himself an American, to Mr John O'Sullivan and Mr Peregrine Worsthorne. But most of the voters have little time for America or Americans: we some of us remember `Yanks Go Home'. The interesting politic- al revelation, if such it is, of the Libyan bombing is how far up the social and economic scale anti-Americanism goes. The Government is clearly worried by this discovery and is walking backwards fast.
r Milton Shulman has been saying M that violence on television both causes violence in real life and induces a callous- • ness towards it. With the greatest respect to Milton (whom I have known for almost as long as he has been conducting his campaign), this seems to me so obvious as to be scarcely worth stating. The violent and indecent video films — one of the principal characteristics, even symbols, of Mrs Margaret Thatcher's Britain — have compounded the effect. Hence in part the horrible increase in rapes. Yet sociologists and statisticians are always being wheeled on to show that nothing which is seen or read has the remotest effect on anyone's behaviour. The simplest piece of introspec- tion will demonstrate the falsity of that. The depressing aspect of the controversy is that the 'evidence' always follows a party line. Liberals feel compelled to find that no one's behaviour is ever affected for the worse; those who believe in censorship (Which I use to include legal as well as administrative restriction) that some peo- ple may indeed behave badly as a consequ- ence of what they have seen or read. But accepting this does not entail accepting censorship. You stop the crime directly if You can but catch and punish the criminal if he commits it. That is true liberalism.
Mr George Cunningham, the Labour- turned-SDP MP for Islington (an excellent Member he was), now runs the Libraries Association. He wants Mr Richard Luce to compel public libraries which are not tak- ingthe Murdoch papers to take them again. I doubt whether any minister has such powers, though if anyone does he is, I should think, Mr Kenneth Baker rather than Mr Luce. Nevertheless I am on Mr Cunningham's side. Thirty years ago there were constant disputes in university com- mon rooms and the like over whether the Daily Worker and even Tribune should be purchased. The free press usually won. I cannot see that institutions' not buying the Times and so forth is any different. What people choose to do with their own money is another matter. Talking of universities, I am told by Observer colleagues that the paper is now prospering in Oxford and Cambridge at the expense of the Sunday Times. From my observations, however, all journalists and most politicians, irrespective of their political views, con- tinue to take the Murdoch papers they took before. I should certainly find it irksome to relinquish the Times. Cross- word puzzles I could never do; letters I can do without; obituaries I can take or leave; but law reports are, for me, necessary, not least because the number of 'political' cases has grown drastically. Yet the Times has no monopoly on law reporting. A few years ago the Daily Telegraph considered establishing such a service but desisted. Here is an opportunity for the new Tele- graph, and for the new Independent as well.
When I last met Mr Cunningham I asked him why public libraries, particularly reading rooms and reference libraries, had to be so dismal. Yes, yes, he said, quite agreed, lots of changes needed. I was emboldened to outline my own ideas. There would be a coal fire, leather armchairs with bookrests and footrests, proper lamps, reference works and sets of standard authors on the shelves, library steps, and the latest biographies and novels on a side table, together with the daily papers and weekly magazines. Talking would be prohibited but smoking allowed, except for Virginia cigarettes. There might also be a butler — some of our famous Islington dustmen could do the job admir- ably — who would serve drinks at moder- ate prices. As I warmed to my theme, I could see I was not carrying my audience with me. The people who would appreciate these comforts, Mr Cunningham objected sternly, would be readers already, conse- quently in no need of his or his Associa- tion's attentions. And yet, why should facilities enjoyed by a few in their houses, and by a few others in their clubs or universities, not be provided on the rates also? Spending money in this practical, socialist way is more sensible than spend- ing it teaching karate to one-parent lesbian mothers.
People keep writing that privatisation has been a great success. I have written it myself, reluctantly. If we mean that most politicians and civil servants thought it neither could nor would ever be carried out, that is true enough. But the people who seem to have made most money out of it are those who had a lot of the stuff in the first place. Nor are the services themselves improved. On the contrary: British Tele- com is now a national disgrace. The oper- ators are more inefficient than they were before the change. In the last year or so charges have increased by between 50 and 100 per cent. Pornography is now freely available: 'Would you,' so to speak, 'like me to talk you off?' I have not so far availed myself of this facility but frequently have occasion to ask the time. The chap with the voice now tells me 'the time from Accurist'. What, I should like to know, has a watch manufacturer to do with it, except as a buyer of advertising? But we are today a slovenly nation, lacking moreover in any sense of decency or pride. What is happen- ing is exactly what we should expect if we make a neat parcel of a public monopoly and invite the fortunate recipients to be as greedy as they like.
At the John Player Cup I shall be suporting Wasps, not only because they are an attractive side but also because their opponents, Bath, have such unattractive supporters. What is it about the West Country, I wonder, that makes the travell- ing fans — of cricket and soccer as much as of rugby — quite so horrible? No one, however, expects a match of such quality as last Saturday's Europe v. The Rest. Every spectator I spoke to said it was possibly the best game he had ever seen. Yes indeed: but I remain apprehensive. The South African, Australian, and New Zealand forwards who cruelly over- whelmed our pack were both huge and athletic. A fine player such as Maurice Colclough apart (unaccountably not selected), we do not seem to produce such figures. Rugby is turning into a game for physical freaks resembling basketball or American football. A pity, I think.
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