Another voice

A monstrous crow

Auberon Waugh

The Falklands war goes on and on in the newspapers. Perhaps in time the coun- try will come round to my own view that the whole thing was a ghastly mistake. But one of the more enjoyable spin-offs from the bravery, the sacrifice, the sunk ships and £700 million spent on shot and shell has been an amazing Tweedledum and Tweedledee battle raging between the Sun and the Daily Mirror ever since.

On 7 May, in the middle of its robust support for the Government's war policy which was summed up in Private Eye's parody 'Kill an Argy and win a Metro', the Sun published a leading article to which the Mirror, next day, took grave exception. It announced under a screaming four- column four-decker headline:

THE HARLOT OF FLEET ST

THE SUN, a coarse and sensation- al newspaper, yesterday accused the Daily Mirror, the Guardian and Mr Peter Snow of the BBC of being traitors to Britain.

On Friday, the Mirror returned to the at- tack with another screaming front-page headline: 'Lies, damned lies and Sun ex-, clusives ... see page two'. On page two, it qualified its description of the Sun as the Harlot of Fleet Street. 'On reflection, we think that was unfair.

`BUT ONLY TO HARLOTS.

The Sun is a lying newspaper ...'

The Mirror followed this accusation with four instances when the Sun had made claims which, according to the Mirror, were false. The first two will suffice: • When the VC was posthumously awarded to Sergeant Ian McKay, the Sun printed an interview with his widow, who spoke while "hugging her children at their home in Rotherham, Yorkshire".

`FACT. Mrs McKay was in London at the time of the "interview". She did not speak to the Sun . . .

• On September 16, a Sun reporter, Mr Harry Arnold, claimed in a story under his name that he had been the first British jour- nalist to see Princess Grace lying in state.

`FACT. Mr Arnold did not see the Princess ...'

The indictment goes on to claim a fraudulent interview with Princess Stephanie and an invented 'quote' from one of the Southampton football players accus- ed of raping a Swedish schoolteacher, en- ding with the memorable cry: 'These are lies, damned lies and Sun exclusives'. It might seem to be the wisest course, when a dog-fight on this scale is in progress, to remain on the sidelines. A hero would no doubt try to separate them, but I cannot see that anything very constructive can follow from remarks about people who live in glass houses or pots and kettles. On the other hand, I do not often see the Sun, and it seems unlikely that anybody who works for the Sun reads the Spectator or has even heard of it, so I feel I might add my little contribution to the great debate. Perhaps someone will forward it to Mr Kelvin McKenzie, editor of the Sun, or even to Mr Murdoch.

• On 22 March the Daily Mirror devoted half its front page and three full inside pages to a tear-jerking 'exclusive' report by its star reporter, Mr John Pilger, describing how he had bought an eight-year-old slave girl called Sunee in Thailand for £85.

FACT. Pilger was taken for a ride. The story was a hoax, farcically untrue from beginning to end. The Mirror refuses to acknowledge the mistake and is spending vast sums of money trying to keep me quiet about it.

Spectator readers, some of whom are get- ting very bored with John and Sunee (although not half as bored as I am), will be aware that we possess ample documentary proof of this hoax, due to the patient ef- forts of the Far Eastern Economic Review staff on the spot. If Mr McKenzie and the Sun (or Mr Murdoch, for that matter) would care to chip in, I would like to fly Sunee with her entire family, her head- mistress and about half a dozen other peo- ple to England as witnesses at the trial. In this way, the High Noon-style confronta- tion between myself (Gary Cooper) and Pilger (the other person) will end in general hilarity as we loose off our water-pistols at each other and Pilger bites the dust. I pro- mise the Sun will have the first genuine and exclusive interview after the trial with Sun- nee and her crackling 34-18-34 mother, call- ed Toy, telling their version of the Mirror's world exclusive 'I bought this child for £85 by John Pilger'.

But even as the Tweedledum and Tweedledee act is announced, one can begin to see the approaching darkness which heralds the arrival of the monstrous crow which will make them forget their quarrel.

The monstrous crow which both of them have spied is the spectre of union in- terference in editorial affairs. This time it is not a simple matter of printers refusing to print an anti-union leader, but something far more sinister. The Sun operates a closed shop, which means that no journalist who is not a member of the National Union of Journalists may be employed there. Last week, the left-wing National Executive of the NUJ voted to withdraw the union card of the Sun leader-writer responsible for the leader which accused the Mirror, the Guar' dian and Mr Peter Snow of treason. The leader-writer, it appears, was called Mr Ronald Spark and this ruling should mean that Mr Spark will lose his job and he unemployable anywhere else in Fleet Street.

At the time of the last Labour govern- ment's legislation on the closed shop

was Michael Foot, that staunch chamP10h of press freedom, who ushered it through — many pointed out that it gave union committees greater power than had ever been enjoyed by editors or proprietors, who could never prevent a worker's employment on a rival newspaper. It also made nonsense of any aspiration towards job security which the trade union movement might claim to represent. The standard response was the Left's usual gobbledygook that It was perfectly all right for them to sack anyone for life because they Were democratically elected. What it means ef- fectively is that a committee of political])' motivated twerps and know-nothings meeting behind closed doors reckons to he able to prevent the publication of any or mons with which it happens to disagree. `Vituperative, callous and clearly design- ed to inflame public opinion' was how the union executive described Mr Spark s leader. Perhaps it was all those things, but anyone who wants to prevent Mr Spark from being allowed to publish 111.s vituperative, callous and inflammatory O- nions has rather more explaining to do than that. The Sun chapel gives little sign of tell ing the national executive to stick the recommendation up its junta. In the face of this monstrous crow, even Mirror is prepared to forget its quarrel., 'Nevertheless — no doubt to the surprise 01 the Sun -- the Mirror is opposed to the ex- pulsion of Mr Spark from his union, II pontificates heavily, adding that `Mr Snow should have sued for libel. He would have taken the Sun to the cleaners.' Something rather sad seems to have.haP- pened to the Mirror that it now urges Jour- nalists to settle their squabbles in the courts. I am afraid that it will be the den.th of the newspaper, editorially, if it forgets I. role as the champion of the urchin mentali- ty and starts riding high-horse, talking !i.e. haut en bas to its competitors in peevi sh moral tones. The British working classes . have many faults, but they can usually spot phony when they see one. I hope that Mr Kelvin McKenzie accepts my offer of an opportunity to take the It Jr" whiter ror to the cleaners and expose its than-white protestations to a little healthy merriment. But I am afraid that, 'Ike Tweedledum and Tweedledee, they are only pretending, really, to have a battle. Any minute now they will throw away their P°I,s, and kettles, hug each other and run 01' together into the wood to think up some more 'exclusives'.