DIARY JOHN MORTIMER
Athe tide of racialism rises, from Russia to Rostock, from Bosnia to Belfast, to the English bus stop where, unbeliev- ably, an Asian woman can be burnt to death, there is a danger that our right to free speech may also be under attack. That is, if Sir Michael Day of the Commission for Racial Equality has his way. It's true that the Court of Appeal started the rot when it decided, in the 1978 Gay News case, that our antique blasphemy laws could be used to protect Anglicans. It was obvious that if the Church of England got a blasphemy law everyone else would want one, and now Sir Michael would extend this absurdity to the Islamic faith. Who's next? Must we not laugh at Moonies, mock tele- vision Evangelists, poke fun at 'born again' Christians? No doubt many sincere atheists are sensitive souls. Must they not be scorned? Should we imprison Dave Allen for laughing at Catholicism, or prosecute Jewish comics? Presumably Sir Michael would add a spell in Wandsworth to the murderous threats suffered for so long by Salman Rushdie, for which no one has been prosecuted. There is really nothing to be gained by resurrecting legal attitudes which should have died with the Inquisition and no faith is worth having unless it can withstand disagreement, derision and abuse. This healthy treatment should be available to strengthen all beliefs, even if they involve a God who, apparently, never laughs at Himself or even at his Creation.
If whatever gods exist are capable of such a thing, they must be laughing at our extraordinary approach to the evils of the world. Aeroplanes must be sent to protect women and children in the marshes of Iraq but not in the streets of Sarajevo. We can do deals with Balkan terrorists and allow them to put their cases on radio and televi- sion, but Irish terrorists must never speak or be spoken to, let alone be bargained with. The murderous tyranny in China is to be rewarded with 'most favoured nation' status. And so on for ever. The biggest Olympian guffaw must greet the appoint- ment of David Owen to solve the Yugosla- vian problem. This 'able and experienced statesman' (sic M. Roland Dumas) is distin- guished by the near-fatal damage he did to the political parties he belonged to at vari- ous times. Will he support the Serbs, the Muslims and the Croats in turn and ruin all their chances? I suppose that's the best we can hope for.
The great advantage of watching under- graduates act Shakespeare is that, unlike some professional actors, they understand exactly what they're saying. Watching an
Oxford production of Hamlet on the Edin- burgh Fringe this week, I realised that the difficulty of teaching these plays to young children is greatly exaggerated. My eight- year-old daughter sat silent and engrossed until the moment when her older sister, playing Gertrude, started to drink the poi- soned chalice. Then she gave way to help- less and delighted laughter.
There was a small police guard outside the elegant Smith Gallery in Covent Gar- den. Inside, the Koestler Award pictures were on show; a collection of often bril- liant, always highly professional works of art by prison inmates, and some of the painters were at the opening. These awards, now run by David Astor, provide a successful way of finding self-respect and self-expression in the squalor of prison life. It was encouraging to see so many enlight- ened governors and workers in the prison service there who are determined to do all they can within a dreadful system. My sim- ple reform to the Criminal Justice Act would be to require all judges to serve a fairly short but undetermined sentence of imprisonment on appointment. The excep- tion to this rule would be Judge Tumin, by far the best Inspector of Prisons we've had, who has, happily, just been reappointed. `Did you ever defend Tom?', Stephen Tumin asked when he introduced me to a participant. 'Awfully nice fellow actually, with only an occasional tendency to indulge in armed robbery.' It's now over ten years since I gave up crime, so I can't claim to have helped any of these excellent artists by losing their cases, but I wondered how many careless Rumpoles, forgetting the evidence after lunch, had inadvertently introduced their clients to painting. I remember meeting a playwright at some awards ceremony and wondering where had seen her before. Then I remembered a curious case about a death threat to a mil- lionaire and the sending of funeral corteges round from Harrods to his London home, and I knew I had last seen the distinguished author — before she became a distin- guished author — in the dock at the Old Bailey. Her alleged part in the crime was peripheral and I had been defending the leader of the group. I think that if I had acted for her I might have got her off, and she might never have had the subject for a memorable piece of theatre. So many writ- ers have done time, from Ben Jonson to Brendan Behan, and Koestler himself, that prison seems a natural start for a life in art. Visit the Smith Gallery today. The pictures are worth buying, reasonably priced and the prisoners and their families can get the money.
Our great battle in Turville over whether the disused school should be con- verted to house a dozen primary-school- aged, inner city children for short holidays rumbles quietly on. It seems that one mili- tant from the anti-children brigade has written anonymously to warn off a potential benefactor of the home, a desperate shot that has missed the mark. Despite such guerrilla tactics, however, friendship has broken out and everyone met amicably at the village fete. Much the best turn was a human fruit machine; you pulled a lever and arms shot out of holes bearing an apple, a banana or a lemon. When so much rubbish is written about philosophic com- puters with souls, it's good to see people taking over from machines.
We're all tired of reading about the slump, bleak economic forecasts and hyste- ria on the Stock Exchange. Now, at last, comes news of a return in consumer confi- dence. Fergie's toe, modelled in Blackpool rock, is outselling all other sweets in the North of England. With this, and encourag- ing sales figures for tabloid newspapers, it's clear that the monarchy is our best hope for economic recovery.
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