The Spectator's Notes
CHARLES MOORE Han-let Harman seems to have won the deputy leadership of the Labour party by saying she did not want people to spend £10,000 on a handbag when other people were 'struggling'. Polly Toynbee tells us that this 'resonated with public distaste' at the 'debauchery of riches at the top'. Did it? If so, why? A handbag that costs £10,000 involves a lot of work by a lot of people, all of whom need to earn a living and most of whom — those rearing the animal which produces the leather, those slaughtering the animal, those tanning the leather, etc. — will not be rich. They will profit, and take pride in a job well done. Besides, if I were a woman with £10,000 to spare, I would love to have a nice posh handbag, and wouldn't think I was being 'debauched' at all. I once 'struggled', as Ms Harman puts it, and paid roughly that sum for a pair of guns, and I suspect that the pleasure in a lovely bag, allowing for the sex difference, is comparable. One of the most expensive bags available in the world today is the Birkin bag, produced by Hermes. It started when the glamorous, fashionable Jane Birkin, who is much more left-wing than Harriet Harman, switched to a leather bag in 1984 (though she did later give it up when it gave her tendonitis). Today, there is a six-year wait for the Birkin because the demand is so high and the craftsmanship required is so great. The lowest price is $6,000, but I am assured that it is possible to pay into 'six digits', depending what materials are used. Obviously Harriet Harman cannot afford a Birkin bag, even though her husband is treasurer of the Labour party, and that is sad for her. Possibly even Polly Toynbee would find it hard to raise the cash. But they should not take out their frustrations on everyone else. They should recognise that the handbag is a proud symbol of female power. A handbag belonging to Margaret Thatcher was auctioned for charity on the internet a few years ago and reached £100,000 — the highest price ever paid on the net at that time. Jane Birkin's grandparents, by the way, managed the cinema in Grantham, and were friends with the young Margaret Roberts. What an inspiring thing that two of the best-known figures in the history of handbags emerged from one little English provincial town. How dare snobby Harriet and priggy Polly try to put them down?
rom time to time, reformers tells us that Britain would be better off if we had an 'orderly transition of power'. But we have just had one here, and it has been ghastly. By intimating his own political mortality in September 2004 and then specifying its exact date in May of this year, Tony Blair subjected the country first to unease and then to boredom. There has been no benefit of any kind — not even to Mr Blair himself — in his final world tour. The whole idea of doings things for a 'legacy' is inimical to a parliamentary system. 'The Queen's government must be carried on'; why should it stop for a bit to watch in awe as the current leading practitioner pirouettes across the stage for the last time? In countries where there is an elected head of state it is important that the transfer be decorous, though even there the rule of fixed terms means that politics suffers from long periods — as in America today — where no one has much real authority. But in our system it is a virtue that everything can be turned upside down, as it is after a general election, in a day. The sight of the removal vans in Downing Street within hours of defeat is immensely heartening. It rubs the power of the electorate in the faces of the politicians. The orderly transition, without election or even contest, which we have just endured, does precisely the opposite.
Although one feels sorry for the residents of Connaught Square because of the disruption to their lives entailed by the arrival of the Blairs, it is important that the Blairs succeed in living there. Otherwise, I foresee a further aggrandisement of politicians, in the name of security, by which the state has to provide a permanent gated community for ex-prime ministers so that they can be better guarded.
Discussing how to catalogue an inventory of old houses the other day, an American friend asked how many square feet each house had. The English people present said that the owners would not have this information in their heads: all they would know is how many bedrooms they had. It is because the British classify their houses in this way that we have failed to notice how much smaller our living space is getting. According to EU statistics, the average size of a British 'housing unit' is 85 square metres, whereas that of a newly built one is 76 square metres. In the Netherlands, despite the place being even more overcrowded than Britain, the average size is 98 square metres and the average of the newly built unit is 115.5 square metres. We are paying more and more for less and less.
t a recent dinner, I was sitting next to the head of an Oxbridge college. The talk turned — as it too often does when one is the parent of children at independent schools — to the class war about admissions. He told me something very encouraging. In many colleges, he said, large numbers of the dons are foreign. They have the greatest difficulty distinguishing state school pupils from private school ones and find it hard to understand why they should be expected to do so. They assume that it is their job to admit the best, and so they do. Thank God for globalisation.
ive yellow triangles, like the Five Orange Pips in Sherlock Holmes, spell doom. Suddenly, in the lanes near us, they have sprouted on the edge of every field in which there is water. On each gate the Environment Agency has screwed a metal notice emblazoned with the five yellow triangles. 'These hazards are present in this area,' says the triangle with an exclamation mark in it: 'Beware underwater obstacles' (yellow triangle), 'Caution — uneven surfaces' (yellow triangle), 'Caution — slippery surface' (yellow triangle), 'Danger — sudden drop' (pleasing yellow triangle of idiot falling from height). None of these hazards is new. All of them have always existed wherever there is a pond or a stream. The notices tell the walker nothing that he could not see with his own eyes or work out with his own brain. He knows already that water can make things slippery and that surfaces in fields may be uneven. The notices are, of course, intensely ugly and obtrusive. They are also very strong, and impossible to remove with a few vigorous tugs. The only useful information they contain is a number for the Environment Agency. It is 08708 506506. Do call.
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