ANOTHER VOICE
The former premier who made love 14 times in one night
AUBERON WAUGH
In my slightly senile way, I cannot remember whether I have already told the story of how, staying at Chateau Latour a couple of years ago, my wife and I were asked out to lunch at Chateau Margaux. Since no experiences with comparable name-dropping potential have been re- corded since, I had better tell it again. The point of the story was that the chatelaine of Margaux, an extremely attractive, efficient and modern-minded young woman, had always employed English nannies, as had her mother and her mother's mother be- fore her. It was an old family tradition. The latest English nanny — a girl in her early twenties — had arrived and after a few days in the extraordinary comfort of Chateau Margaux announced that she could not possibly stay unless she was able to keep up with events in the Sun newspap- er. So Madame Mentzelopoulos-Petit, which was the name of my hostess, drove 40 miles or so into Bordeaux in order to purchase one. Before handing it over, she made the mistake of glancing through the pages. She was so appalled and disgusted by what she saw that she sacked the girl on the spot and resolved never to employ another English nanny.
I weakly suggested she try an Australian or New Zealand girl, who are said to be very good, and there the matter ended. People will say that I am becoming obses- sed with the Sun newspaper, although I single out the Sun chiefly because it is undoubtedly the trend-setter and leader of its class. Where it pioneers, the Star, the People and the stinking News of the World follow, although entirely lacking the panache, the occasional generosity of spirit and the unexpected little glimmers of wit. The Sun, in its disgusting way, is un- doubtedly a great newspaper — something which nobody could ever say about the Star, the People, or the stinking News of the World. But the reason I bang on about the gutter press is that I feel that few of my compatriots realise how terrible it is, or how any half-decent citizen of another country will be first incredulous, then deeply shocked by it. Least of all do they realise what it says about contemporary Britons, that we can create and nurture such an outrage against decency, good manners or simple human benevolence. People complained about the Weimar Re- public and I agree it can't have been much fun to watch Issyvoo lisping around the place, but nothing in the bars and cabarets of Berlin can surely have equalled the depravity spread before our eyes every morning in the Sun.
It was Mr Grub Smith (more name- dropping. He is currently managing editor of GQ magazine) who first opened my eyes to the fact that the Sun is truly the voice of modern Britain. Last Tuesday, on the same day that it announced it was appoint- ing its own in-house Ombudsman to deal with victims' complaints — 'top journalist' Ken Donlan, 61, currently its, managing editor — the Sun had a classic page-one lead story, complete with a quotation from `Tory MP Terry Dicks': Fury erupted last night after a mother was jailed for pouring boiling water over the genitals of a teenager who raped her five- year-old daughter. The girl's father and brother were also locked up for the horrify- ing revenge attack on pervert Lee Roberts.... Evil Roberts, 19 — the family's lodger — was left scarred for life when the mother emptied a steaming kettle on to his privates, Exeter Crown Court heard. He had earlier been beaten senseless by the husband and brother.... The 37-year-old mother told police: 'I was going to kill him — that dirty little pervert. No one does that to my child
and gets away with So I got the boiling kettle and emptied the water down his front. Then I hit him with a broken chair leg....
Needless to say, this revolting woman is now not only the toast of the Sun, but also, if we are to believe what it tells us, the heroine of its readers: 'Tory MP Terry Dicks said: "The mother should be given a medal and the judge should resign. My only regret is that the mother did not castrate this man." ' Sun readers were invited to register their conviction that the sentence was wrong. According to the Sun, calls began flooding in at 5 a.m. and peaked at 8,500 an hour. Thursday's paper announced: An astonishing 100,000 Sun readers called yesterday for the jailed rape-revenge mum to be freed. They rang our special phone-in petition to protest that Judge Sir Jonathan Clarke was wrong to imprison the 37-year- old woman after she scalded the genitals of a teenager who raped her little girl.
Next day, we read:
A massive 182,805 Sun readers have now called for the release of the jailed rape- revenge mum.... She scalded the private parts of a teenager who raped her five-year- old daughter. In that little story we seem to have Thatcher's New Britain in a nutshell: an obsession with sex and kiddies, revenge, a particularly unpleasant and sadistic emph- asis on punishment, and contempt for lawful authority. All that is missing is a link with the Royal Family — nor are we told about Sir Jonathan Clarke's private life; I suspect it is only a matter of time....
I was quite excited by the idea of a Sun Ombudsman, especially when I learned it was to be 'top journalist' Ken Donlan. Reluctant to believe that the Sun was planning to waste its time with any goodie- goodie posturings, I assumed that the Ombudsman's role was to hand out piles of money in £20 notes up to a maximum of £5,000 to those who complained that their lives and marriages had been ruined by the Sun's intrusion. This seemed a just and sensible arrangement. No jury will award a pop-star huge damages in the High Court if he could have settled for £5,000 from the. Ombudsman like everyone else. It ruled out the lawyers and kept everything in proportion. But enquiries suggest the Sun is involved in goodie-goodie window dres- sing. The claimant has to rule out legal action before his claim is heard, which is no way to do business, and there is as yet no suggestion of payment.
But it would make sense to have a semi-automatic cash dispenser for this pur- pose. Nobody can suppose that the present scandal can continue, whereby the ex- tremely rich pick up grotesquely huge stuns and nobody else (except the lawyers) gets a look-in. It is obviously just that a read- ership with these perverse and unpleasant tastes should be expected to pay for them. The other alternative is to abolish all libel laws, all redress. The Sun, Star, People and stinking News of the World only do harm because the existence of the libel laws makes people believe that some of their stories might be true. Abolish the libel laws, and every newspaper decides its own level of credibility. On the Sun, genius could open its wings and fly: HE MADE LOVE TO ME FOURTEEN TIMES: Vice girl's astonishing claim: Former premier Lord Home of the Hirsel had no comment to make last night about lovely vice-girl Judi Gumboil's astonishing claim that the raunchy 85-year-old Romeo success- fully bonked her 14 times in one night. 'I could not believe it was happening to me, said the blonde 23-year-old.
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