Another voice

The way ahead

Auberon Waugh

New Year's Day, when we celebrate the circumcision of Our Lord, was originally observed by fasting and penance. It was the impossibility of getting Christians to wear sackcloth and ashes at a time of year when pagans were having the time of their lives which persuaded the early Church authorities to treat it as a feast day after all. From this mixed parentage came the tradition of a Festival of Fools, an op- portunity for us all to purge our Gnostic remnants.

With the arrival of the charismatic move- ment, which would seem to turn the whole year into a Festival of Fools, perhaps the time has come for more reflective people to return to their sackcloth and ashes. From our present perspective, it may be hard to see why anyone should ever have seen the arrival of a new year as cause for rejoicing. The charismatics gather together in groups to wear fatuously ecstatic expressions on their faces, and occasionally to break into wild cries, addressed to nobody in par- ticular, in Double Dutch. This is called the revival of Christianity — everything which Pope John XXIII and the Vatican Council were working towards. To the outsider it might seem that they are celebrating the ultimate breakdown in all human com- munication, the triumph of unreason; but perhaps at this time of year we might ask ourselves whether theirs is not at least one of the logical responses available to us as we contemplate the future.

The ostrich who buries his head in the sand on the approach of hunters has generally had rather a poor press. Friends of the ostrich point out that in fact he does no such thing, although he sometimes lies on the ground, with neck outstretched, to escape detection, More often he runs away at enormous speed. But what does the future, in fact, hold for the intelligent ostrich? Old age, drooping, dying, feathers falling out one by one, death's worst and crumbling to decay.

At least these legendary ostriches have a foe in view. It would be a very silly ostrich indeed who buried his head in the sand in the middle of the north African desert, or wherever he was, on the off-chance that a hunter might eventually turn up and shoot him (or her, I should say. The females are somewhat browner). Far more sensible, really, to hold a charismatic love-feast, fluf- fing up the tail feathers with strange, in- comprehensible noises and waving two-toed feet symbolically in the air. Yet a large part of the English intelligentsia, as I believe, seems to favour the first option.

If I am right, it must be central to my argument that there is no enemy in view or at any rate, no enemy of sufficient credibility to justify evasive action. Ob-

viously, the Russians are waiting in the wings to gobble us up, and under the ap- palling President Carter it seemed for a mo- ment that they might have had a chance. Even _under him, the risks were judged too appalling to justify whatever advantages might have accrued. The risk of accidental nuclear war is something which no in- dividual is in any position to measure, but even if it occurs, the consequences' for the individual can be no worse than whatever he might suffer if he walked through an open manhole, or accidentally drank a bot- tle of weedkiller, or was hit on the head, like Aeschylus, by a turtle dropped by an eagle. None of these risks justifies running away, or abdication from ordinary social

existence. •

Not everybody will agree with me when I claim that the British Left is a paper tiger. Certainly, after such an extraordinary demonstration of human stupidity by the voters of Crosby, I would be the Last to sug- gest that a Bennist or Militant style socialist government might not be returned in the course of the next three or four general elec- tions. The emergence of SODPAL makes it more likely, rather than less. All I say is that no such government will be able to do any of the bloodcurdling things it promises. The fate of Ken Livingstone's London Trans- port subsidy is a case in point. This, the on- ly important change he has yet attempted, was the mildest possible measure which might easily have appeared on a Tory manifesto, let alone a Social Democrat one if the half-witted Mrs Shirley Williams had thought of it first. Many if not most Euro- pean capitals have always had subsidised transport, from conservative Moscow under Stalin to moderate Lisbon under Salazar to the left-wing hell of Stockholm under Olof Palme. Livingstone had a clear mandate from his electorate for this most moderate of reforms. Yet simply because it came from the Left it has ben sat upon for a number of specious legal reasons, first by three judges of the Appeal Court, then by the even broader bottoms of five Supreme Court judges in the House of Lords.

Alarmists continue that under Senn (or Scargill or whoever the next bogey man may be) law lords will have no dominion: the sovereignty of Parliament allows them to be overruled, even retrospectively. My point is that the opposition to anything remotely labelled left-wing or extremist is so deeply entrenched at every level of British society that none of these enthusiasts stands a chance. Beyond the obstuction of judges and law lords is the obstruction of the City and international bankers, beyond that the obstruction of civil servants, then the army and police, beyond that the obstruction of farmers and tax inspectors and customs of-

ficers, shopkeepers, railway ticket inspec- tors and even the miserable `workers' when they find their Toy Town money worthless and nothing to buy in the shops. The (com- paratively) tiny regiment of left-wing trade unionists, polytechnic lecturers, social workers, victims of an unhappy childhood, homosexualists, actresses, criminals, mutants and freaks has no conceivable hope of prevailing against the British peo- ple's immovable resistance to any genuine initiative in any direction.

Which is not to say that the Left, as the most active — not to say the only effective — political force in the country will not have a tremendous influence on the general drift. In fact, so far as the British public is concerned, the Left has already won all the important arguments. In the great division between those who feel it reasonable and right that old age pensioners should have free hairdressing on the national health, and those who don't, the former have quite simply won.

Mrs Thatcher's failure to capture the hearts and minds of the people may or may not be attributable in large part, as I main- tain, to her pigheaded attitude on the Peregrine Worsthorne question. In fact, I write this before the New Year Honours List and I suppose she may have seen the light and done a U-turn with regard to this one. Certainly Mr Worsthorne made an alarming speech at the Spectator Christmas lunch urging us all to support the Govern- ment. So perhaps the tide has already turn- ed.

If not, I can only give readers the benefit of my own conclusions about the future. These revolve around life insurance and wine and are based on the belief that infla- tion has made a nonsense of savings, just as personal taxation has made a nonsense of private investment. Those with little or no capital, concerned only to live a pleasant life and protect their dependants, may care to follow my own example.

The trouble with conventional life assurance is that inflation makes nonsense of its sums, even if these did not rely on past 'growth' which was itself dependent on the good will of the lower classes. Moreover, only a proportion of the premium is allowable against tax. However, there are various 'term' policies available which expire on one's 65th birthday and take the form of a bet with the company that you will die before then. These are en- tirely allowable against tax. The odds run from 18,000-1 in your favour against death within a month of taking out that policy to 15-2 in your favour against dying the day before your 65th birthday. If you combine these with a careful purchase of wine — at present the 1975 and the 1978 Rhones for the long term, neither of which will come into their own for 20 years, but combined

with 1975 and 1978 clarets, 1976 burgundies and any future years which show promise—

then the combination should secure finan- cial provision for one's dependants up to the age of 65 and, thereafter, a 'delirious if brief old age. What more has life to offer the 42-year-old of today?