High life
Do your bit!
Taki
Coming back to good old London always makes me feel good, and I'm look- ing forward — despite the foregone conclu- sion — to the election night party at Christopher's. Mind you, after 28 years of contributing to the dear old Speccie, I never thought I'd see the day when the sainted editor and I would be rooting for different horses. No, I'm not for the disci- ples of the Draft Dodger, Bill and Hillary Blair (electability is all) — nor, however, am I for John Major. As everyone who does not torture butterflies for fun knows, Major is a very decent man, but one who — were he a Wehrmacht general — would not be able to make up his mind whether to lead an SS Panzer division against a French company of Senegalese. Let's face it, the man is no Fiihrer — sorry, leader.
Finally last week, Jimmy Goldsmith and the Referendum Party wrung it out of him. A free vote if he wins. Too little and much too late. What in heaven's name was he waiting for — Kenneth Clarke to get run over by the TGV? Jacques Chirac is about to call an early election for Parliament because he knows that waiting for one more year will turn the election into a ref- erendum not only against him, but also against a European union. Chirac, a weak leader, has seen the writing on the wall. Which wall has Major been looking at the last four years? The rise of the Referendum Party while Major fiddled reminds me of the grumbling in Paris while Louis XVI played at being a carpenter. The RP has woken up a popu- lace that has been misled — as Maggie Thatcher was — by the liars and deadheads who thought the people should eat cake while they sold out to Europe's bureau- crats.
Unlike most hacks, with me it is a case of parti pris, no ifs or buts about it. I am 100 per cent behind Jimmy and his troops, Sir James taking the slings and arrows of an outraged and envious media. Yet the sheer passion of those involved in the referen- dum movement is what has stuck in the media's throat. Although only a humble high life correspondent, take it from the poor little Greek boy: John Major is trying to steal the RP's thunder. 'Trust us,' he says, 'not the people.' If he had a few more guts, Major should have made his opposi- tion to the single currency the declared policy of his government one year, even six months ago, but he was too scared of Clarke.
Now the chickens are coming home to roost, as they say back at the farm. The RP is running at 15 per cent in the south and south-west of England, and I don't give a damn what loaded polls say. The English people are slow to react, but I think they've finally realised what the Heaths, Howes, Hurds, Hezzas and Jenkinses have been up to all these years. (In my Utopia, I'd have them all tried and most likely shot at dawn.) Just think of it in American terms. A group of politicians from North, Central and South America surreptitiously agree that three unelected committees made up of has- and never-beens will decide all poli- cy. The American people are informed of this as a fait accompli. Do you see the Yanks burning down the White House and the Hill or don't you?
Yet the equivalent of this has taken place over here these last 25 years. Just look at some of the people who are panting for full European partnership. The four Hs from hell I've already mentioned and their ilk; the Roys and Shirley Grunwick; Edwina Currie, for God's sake. The walls grow hairs and still this ghastly woman belches hot air and disinformation.
And then there's Anthony Lewis, Lord Gilmour's buddy, a man who writes for the Big Bagel Times, and one who wins the Walter Duranty prize year after year after year. Lewis wants Blair and he will get his wish. But rest assured, dear readers, that a party such as Labour will hand over power to Brussels on day one by signing the social chapter. It will go over on bended knee to borrow its social policy from Europe, and the remarkable state of the British econo- my will be over this time next year. Brussels socialism will prevail as sure as Maggie Thatcher will go to heaven, and you've been warned. By voting for the RP, at least you'll feel you did your bit.
Previous page
