Notebook
Abet the time of writing, it is still impossible to ti absolutely certain whether or not Times _e‘A'sPapers will suspend publication this weekend. But to judge only from the number of auto-obituaries that have ?Peared already in The Times and the"daY Times — not to mention a generous _livitation I have received to a funeral party or both papers this Thursday — it seems ,Eltore than likely that we are about to see the iast of them for some time. The first thing to s tress is that this is very sad. The Times, to i_e.sure, is not 'the ideal newspaper' William that Mr Rees-Mogg, as he has written, would like it to be. Its news selection is too eaecentric, its reports often too muddled, t nd seline of its feature articles too dull for it _±.) qualifybut as 'ideal'. It is a cliche, 11,evenheless true, that one must turn to the Tilly Telegraph for a quick, clear guide to Te world's most interesting news. But The ?nes is something else which neither the itelegraph nor the Guardian can hope to be. _t is the national family newspaper It teflects — principally through its letters page those particular qualities of intimacy and Cosiness in British national life which drive Imany people to distraction, even to emigration, but which to others are one of the most attractive features of British civil_Isation. The disappearance of The Times would leave a disturbing gap in many Pe°Pie's lives. It would accentuate those feelII!gs of national disintegration which are !treacly widespread. The same is not true of he Sunday Times. This is not the time for .evitY, but I nevertheless feel compelled to teproduce the first sentence of a letter 143ublished in what may have been the Sun,aY Times's last issue for quite a while. 'As a `19fle voice among millions', it reads, 'may I saY how very much I shall miss your paper if You take the awful step of deciding not to P..ublish from November 30'. Speaking, on the other hand, as a typical representative the silent majority, may I say • • I u°n't mean it really.
A • Journalist from another newspaper recently caught a taxi. The driver announced that he moonlighted on thesame paper as a printer. 'It is a very wellTanaged paper,' he said. 'It has an excellent 0C (chief union official).' This story neatly illustrates the issue at The Times. This con!erns the right of the management to mange. However incompetent they may or may !lot have been, the managers of Times P'lewspapers should be supported in their efforts to establish this elementary right. The mafia of the print unions in Fleet Street n_lost be broken. Meanwhile, where are The 'tunes readers going to go? The answer would appear to be nowhere. The other serious newspapers will not risk further industrial troubles by trying to print more copies. The Guardian, at any rate to start with, will be printing fewer copies. When the Sunday Times presses close, the Guardian will be forced to move for its printing to Associated Newspapers and predicts teething troubles. The Daily Telegraph is lying low and hoping for the best. So there will almost certainly be a shortage of newspapers, which may well lead to a long-term decline in the number of newspaper readers. While Mr Rees-Mogg concentrates on his duties as High Sheriff of Somerset — sadly reduced, I fear, as Somerset has no Crown Court and there are no longer any hangings to attend — let us hope that least the weeklies may benefit.
A television programme this week about Paul Robeson brought home what an exceptional man he was. Not only did he have a magnificant voice like a great organ pipe, but he was a person of extraordinary political courage and — for want of a better word — goodness. What a tragedy, therefore, that he did so much damage, allowing himself to be used as a propaganda weapon by the dictators of Eastern Europe. Good and idealistic men, of course, often do harm, particularly when they are out of their depth in foreign waters. I am reminded of Mr Andrew Young.
One phrase in the Sunday Telegraph's account of the amazing and horrifying events at Jonestown in Guyana attracted my attention. It described how a 'dream of creating a small agrarian socialist paradise in the jungle deteriorated into an ugly police state'. Jonestown, in other words, was just a microcosm of Soviet Russia. In America, Mrs Carter has been embarrassed by the publication of a warm letter she once wrote to the lunatic Jim Jones that began with the words 'Dear Jim'. When asked recently what she could recall about Jones (he once dined with her in San Francisco), she replied: don't remember anything about him. He was just a person.' Odd though her behaviour may seem, Mr William F. Buckley Junior, the brilliant rightwing American commentator, says that she ought not to feel at fault. 'One must suppose, after all, that anyone charismatic enough to persuade 400 people to drink poison, would have at least enough influence to extract from Mrs Carter, or for that matter anyone else, a letter complimenting him on his vague accomplishments,' he writes. But more fundamentally, he sees Mrs Carter's letter to Jones as typical of a depressing cultural trait. 'A society develops certain rituals, among them those amenities that require one —quite properly, if nevertheless hypocritically—to say "good morning" and "good night" whether one actually has any such aspiration in mind. The amenities are important, but unquestionably they have got out of hand, and particularly they tend to do so in the political world where the public compliment is a tribal ritual and any commendation that speaks in other than hyperbolic terms about a fellow politician is regarded as a disavowal. Sometimes, reaching for altitude, the politician will slip. Mario Proccacino of New York at a rally once introduced his running mate, "Frank O'Connor grows on you like cancer." English politicians are still agreeably restrained by comparison.
One might expect supporters of women's liberation to abhor the practice of prostitution because of the indignities it inflicts on the ladies involved. Apparently not. A committee chaired by the women's rights campaigner Baroness Vickers, and with the interesting political support of Mrs Maureen Colquhoun, Labour MP for Northampton North, is demanding that prostitutes should be allowed to extend their activities unhindered by the law. 'To trespass on the rights of women on the game is . . a massive trespass on the rights of many women,* the committee engagingly says. It wants all laws on prostitution abolished.
Mr Kenneth More, the actor, was recently to be found in the Garrick Club looking extremely despondent. When a friend enquired what was the matter, he replied that only a few minutes earlier he had been feeling very cheerful, but that a chance encounter with Lord Longford had been responsible for a dramatic change of mood. 'Good morning,' said Lord Longford, or words to that effect. 'Congratulations on your excellent book. The reviews were first class. Incidentally, I also think you are a wonderful actor. Indeed you are such a good actor that when they come to make a film of my life, I very much hope that you will be invited to play the leading role. You would be ideal in the part.'
Alexander Chancellor
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