Those in the French delegation who had been brought up

to be sworn enemies of Fascism spoke publicly of the profound relationship which they felt between them- selves and the constructive initiative of these new generations.' If he expressed reservations about Mussolini's totalitarian- ism, it was because he feared that it would hinder him from overcoming the `individu- alist anarchy' which was the scourge of the liberal democracies, an aim Mounier shared.

In 1940, therefore, Mounier saw his chance. He became especially active in the school at Uriage, set up by Main in 1940 as the think-tank of the National Revolu- tion in order to educate a new French elite in its ways. (Needless to say, it excluded Jews.) Like Mounier, both Uriage and the Compagnons de France were very interest- ed in the 'new European order', which they associated with the tide of history, IN MY experience, men who kill their wives for the insurance money do so within two weeks of raising the sum assured. This, of course, gives the police a valuable clue as to the identity of the chief suspect in the case, and also as to his motive. It requires, after all, relative- ly slight knowledge of human nature to put this particular two and two together.

Last week, I was asked to write the annual medical report on a life-sentence prisoner. No one knows why life-sen- tence prisoners must have such a report prepared on them every year, as if they were old cars undergoing certification of roadworthiness, but it has been decreed by Authority and therefore must be done. I suspect it is one of those make- work regulations which persuade public servants that they are labouring very hard indeed on the public's behalf.

Some years previously, the prisoner, finding himself in an awkward financial predicament, had increased the life insurance on his wife from £90,000 to £270,000. A week later he strangled her, ran from the house, stayed in a nearby hotel for a couple of days, returned home to 'find' her body, and raised a hue and cry. This fits another pattern which has brought itself to my attention: what Delors presumably believes Mounier's revisionism. However, like Mitterrand, he still shares Mounier's very French dislike of free markets and parliaments, and a belief in the Third Way. Delors thinks of himself as having the mind of an official (not a politician) and has expressed con- tempt for parliamentary procedure. He subscribes to the Mounierist belief that `bourgeois society' is inherently disordered and decadent, which was so popular in the 1930s; in its place, Delors has proposed `the creation of new Utopias'. Parodying Mendes-France's famous dictum, Delors once said, To govern is to plan': during

If symptoms

persist. . .

one might call the Someone Must Have Killed My Wife Syndrome. It did not take the police long to work out what had happened. And not surprisingly also, the judge at the trial passed some rather adverse comments on the man's charac- ter.

the 1970s, he took not only Sweden as a model, but also Communist Hungary. Indeed, he is so opposed to the free-mar- ket economy that he even expressed hostili- ty to the Common Market in 1957, arguing that one could not 'simply hand over the destiny of the French economy to the blind mechanisms of the market'. Believing rather in 'planetary solutions', he called for a 'European system of economic planning'. Delors and Mitterrand also believe, as many Vichyites did, in the necessity of huge power-blocs with which to govern the world. Just as one of the European Com- munity's founding fathers, Paul-Henri Spaak, warned against disturbing the integrity of the Warsaw Pact after the inva- sion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, so both Delors and Mitterrand welcomed the Moscow putsch of 1991, which was designed to stop the break-up of the Soviet Union. Delors wrote at the time that It could have 'positive aspects', and he warned that it was inconsistent to work for the integration of western Europe and to support the independence of the Soviet Republics, by which he presumably means that the European Union and the Soviet Union are comparable entities.

With the recent arrests and resignations of ministers in the Balladur government, Delors' fortunes seem to be rising. The rumour has it in Paris that he might pick Raymond Barre as his prime minister, the centre-right economics professor who served under Giscard in the 1970s. Such a combination would indeed health? A good barometer of this is usu- ally taken to be the presence of remorse. The received opinion is that the remorseful are less likely to re-offend than the unrepentant, though it can be difficult to distinguish between true remorse and its thespian equivalent. No such problem arose in this case, how- ever.

`Why did you kill your wife?' I asked. `Me and she wasn't getting on. We was arguing all the time.'

`Any other reason?' I asked mildly. He thought for a little while, as though searching in the deep recesses of his mind for some recherché fact, like the date of the Treaty of Nerchinsk.

`No,' he concluded. `The life insurance of £270,000 you took out on her the week before you killed her had nothing to do with it?' `It may have been a contributing fac- tor,' he conceded broad-mindedly. `I should have thought it played rather a large, and possibly exclusive, part, I said. 'I read in your file that that's what the judge thought, too.' `Well,' he said, 'you could say I was killing two birds with one stone.'

Theodore Dalrymple

is a sense of interlocking ventures and relationships. The Old Establishment was a club. The New Establishment is a net- work.'

Up to a point. Again, there is something very obvious (apart from white socks) that does bind together most of the leading members of the so-called `New Establish- ment' — or the Titans of Tripe, as Auberon Waugh recently called them only no magazine in America (especially a Conde Nast publication owned by Si New- house) would point it out: they are pre- dominantly Jewish. Whilst part of the blame for the fall of the eastern Establishment is placed on its exclusive good old-boy network and elitist Wasp mentality which excluded outsiders, a delicate question remains. Has the usurping of the white-shoe Establishment by the white-sock meritocracy anything to do with a similarly invidious and protective culture? Now that Jews govern the New Establishment (their official mouthpiece is the New York Times), does any sort of reverse form of class or racial discrimina- tion operate against outsiders trying to get access to the entertainment highway Wasps, blacks, Brits (there is only one Brit of any level of executive significance in all the major studios, and he is Jewish) and others not so favoured? Jewish Club are in the side-shows, the lawyers, talent agencies and management and production offices.

Birgit Cunningham, a glamorous Benen- den-educated, 28-year-old, blue-eyed blonde — her father, who owns one of Hitler's pianos, is German — told me that when she worked as a personal assistant to Vic Sutton, the Jewish head of the fast- track LA commercials talent agency, Sut- ton, Barth & Vennari, her boss would often — if signing a deal — bluntly ask if they were Jewish. `I was surprised,' she said. 'I mean, in England, you'd never hear someone ask "Are you Anglican?" On the other hand, he liked to boast that he had this hot young Nazi working for him. When I told him my family flew in the Luftwaffe he was ecstatic.'

As small-time professional incest it is probably no worse than, say, public school- boys in the City (an analogy used by one senior Jewish executive to rebut the charge of Jewish favouritism in Holly- wood). The 'network' manifests itself in the Jewish country clubs — such as the Hillcrest, the one Groucho Marx refused to join — or tennis clubs (application forms always say 'state religion'). Holly- wood Jews are not notably religious although the town closes down on Jewish holidays, business happily continues at pool-side barbecues, the deli at the Brent- wood Country Mart, endless bar mitzvahs and $500-a-plate Jewish causes or political fund-raisers.

Ermenegildo Zegna

The Driest

is now a screenwriter in LA, told me that he recently came across an old Wasp friend in an LA restaurant who had been president of the Porcellian at Harvard the most exclusive undergraduate dining- club. His friend — a would-be producer was dressed in a black nylon track suit and had gold chains on his wrist; dangling around his neck was a chunky Star of David. Stadiem asked, 'Why the hell are you dressed like that?' The Wasp replied, 'I'm trying to look Jewish.'

Just as in the Eighties people were known to fake being homosexual or bisex- ual as a way of getting on in the entertain- ment business (it is estimated that around 35 per cent of the film community are gay), it has long been a standing joke in LA that the way to get on is to convert to Judaism. Simon Kelton, an Eton- and Oxford-educated screenwriter friend with whom I used to share a house, and who was shortlisted last year for the Samuel Goldwyn film-writing award, always stress- es his Jewish 'ancestry' whenever he gets a chance in LA; something few had ever heard about before.