Another voice
Let dogs delight
Auberon Waugh
'Mr Varley is a member of our party. And so to him falls the honour of settling the score with the Daily Mail . . .He should, to coin a phrase, sue them until the pips squeak. It would be a service not simply, to the Labour movement but also to the cause of serious journalism.'
Thus Tribune, organ of the Labour Party's geriatric left. Of course we are all familiar with socialism's hostility to the expression of anything but its own loathsome and half-witted orthodoxies. The Daily Mail has always been opposed to socialism, ergo the Daily Mail must be punished, fined, humiliated or, best of all, wiped off the face of the earth. Even the New Statesman's leader on the subject demonstrates the absurdities to which thiS sort of team spirit can lead: 'Had the letter been genuine, there would have been no defence. A vote of censure would surely have been carried in the House of Commons, followed by a general election which could only have ended in defeat for Labour.'
A vote of censure would surely have been carried in the House of Commons? Well, yes, of course, the highly principled Tribune group would have voted against the Government to a man, so would the Liberals, thirsting for a general election; even a few Labour right-wingers might have abstained rather than seem to condone such underhand behaviour by Mr Varley and Lord Ryder. The Prime Minister, a man of the most scrupulous honour, would probably have felt obliged to register a vote of no confidence in himself, while goodness knows what Mr Brian Walden would have done. . . oh stop it, Tony, you're killing me. I think it is time the editor of the New Statesman went off and counted Lady Falkender's babies again.
In jumping to the defence of the Daily Mail I suppose I had better declare an interest in that I 'occasionally write leader page articles for it. But these are pretty rare, accounting for less than five per cent of my total earnings in any year, and in fact I have received far more money in my time from the New Statesman, Beaverbrook, the Mirror group, News of the World, The Times, the Telegraph, Catholic Herald, and almost any newspaper you can mention except the Sunday Times and Sunday People, two newspapers I have so far declined to assist largely for snobbish reasons. From a purely financial point of view, I am more beholden even to the stingy old Spectator than I am to Associated Newspapers. My purpose in reciting this long and boring litany is to establish that my love for the Daily Mail is as disinterested as any journalist's can be expected to be. It does not extend to the miserable Evening News and I have no reason to suppose it would extend to Mr David English, a man I have never met.
All! insist is that whether it is the result of some knack or other picked up by Mr English during his schooldays in Bournemouth, or whether it is the result of the immaculate breeding, expensive education, imaginative flair, irresistible physical attraction etc of his proprietor, the Daily Mail is now a grand little paper which in the last few years has made itself as indispensable as TheTimes. The only other publications w'orth reading in this country are the Evening Standard, Books and Bookmen, Private Eye and, of course Spectator, which brings me to the less happy part of my sermon.
Few people read the Spectator and of these few practically none, I imagine, read the weekly leading article. If the writer of signed articles must try and grab his readers' attention and hold it at whatever cost, the anonymous leader-writer has exactly the opposite function: by -self-effacement and repetition of familiar sentiments he assures us that all news is ultimately boring, all opinion is commonplace and unimportant and there is a continuity in world affairs which reduces the mighty issues of the day to vulgar melodrama. The more violent his language, the less the importance his readers will attach to it.
So it is unlikely, I suppose, that last week's leader in the Spectator, entitled 'Black Mail', will have had much effect in any direction — whether to correct the 'severe damage to British Leyland' which it claimed had been wrought by the Daily Mail's allegation of a bribery fund, or to urge newspapers to establish documentary proof of everything they publish for fear of further restrictions on their right to publish anything.
The Spectator's argument, if I may reduce it, went like this: the Daily Mail has been scurrilous and incompetent in suggesting that Ryder and Varley knew about a bribery fund in British Leyland and producing a forged document to support the suggestion. Blinded on this occasion by its lust for a scoop, the Daily Mail has in its irresponsibility strengthened the hands of those who wish to curb the press. We must all exercise greater responsibility voluntarily or we shall have responsibility thrust upon us. NQW let us approach the matter from the other end and ask ourselves whether or not British Leyland has a bribery fund. The Daily Mail obviously believed there was such a fund because it had been told so bY someone in a position to know who Pr°duced a number of documents— and nobodY has yet suggested that they are all forged to support it. If such a fund exists — and hope the Daily Mail will not allow itself to be sidetracked from this vital point the the question must arise — and it is a reasonable field for speculation — whether Ryder and Varley knew of its existence an if not, why not. Unfortunately, the law makes no dist tion between what is printed as specu1ati0,411 or rumour and what is printed as establisbev fact, The only way that Mr Barton could gel his fascinating story printed was by prod°. ing documentary proof — hence the crass forgery of a letter' purporting to come , Lord Ryder. But it is vital to see this idiotic act as the desperate strategem of a man in society where the press is shackled rather, than as the wilful and perverse exercise 0; excessive liberty. Of course the Mail should' have looked harder at the letter an , goodness knows what punishment will nrn‘ be visited on it for neglecting to do so, bnt the essential point of whether the story V'135 a true one or not does not depend upon 1.1,11,e genuineness of the letter, and it is orilY absurd state of our libel laws, wherebY„" defendant is assumed to have told a unless he can prove the contrary, Ilia, produced the red herring in the first Pig's' Once again, it begins to look as if our Pirr laws may have helped to cover up a rnaltlf scandal — with the enthusiastic supPort ° most of the press. Perhaps it is the case that LordA LaA ,r ad Mr Varley suffered some injury to reputation for a period of about twenty-119,!e hours — between the publication of 0/ forgery and its retraction by the Daily Mare If so, they will no doubt receive adaltnlor recompense for this unfair twenty-four-h°et deprivation. But until the press can g together and make sense of its °I , function, whether it is to print a encyclopaedia of officially approved irilo mation and irrefutable fact, or whether, the absence of reliable information, it /I'd serve as a medium for speculation 3be rumour, it will be at the mercy of (At politicians and quislings in its midst,' of present, it is in the ghastly middle stal' ry allowing itself to be treated in law as if eveic, word carried the authority of the Ene:}ed lopaedia Britannica while being dell.lon access to nine tenths of all inforroa,t1 s, available to government and private in° try. One day, it might also insist on a reason' ble pricing system for putative damage the person's reputation (provided that el, person can prove his reputation has b.,,e I unjustly damaged). For my own spent twenty-four hours thinking that olie Ryder and Mr Varley might not be, ed, incompetent oafs I had always inlagnliocl that there was still hope of rescuing II the from being a major disaster area °, was British economy. Now, of course, I see wrong, and apologise to all concern°.
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