‘And just to round off the week,’ said the chirpy Radio 3 announcer, ‘the St Mark Passion on Friday.’ Just to round off the week, eh? Did Jesus say, ‘It is finished’, just to round off the week? His death, alone, did not round off anything. Wait till Sunday to find out why!
With Eddie Mair’s interview and Michael Cockerell’s documentary, we have been invited once again to look at Boris Johnson’s life. We have been reminded — how could we forget? — that it has its rackety aspects. And once again, it is suggested that Boris could not be prime minister because he is not ‘serious’. But who in public life is serious, as opposed to not funny? The only useful way in which a politician can be serious is by analysing deeply what is wrong with the country and working strenuously to put it right. None of our recent leaders has done that. In the absence of true seriousness, the voters will naturally prefer fun, i.e. Boris.
Last week, Alex Salmond announced the date for the referendum in Scotland, 18 September 2014. The question is phrased to his advantage. ‘Should Scotland become an independent country?’ it asks. This invites a romantic Yes. In sober, practical terms, the question really is ‘Should Scotland leave the United Kingdom?’ But perhaps we should welcome the wording for other reasons. If we ever get our promised referendum on the EU, the question should be ‘Should the United Kingdom become an independent country?’
It seems extraordinary, but Danny Nightingale, the SAS sergeant who was released early and had his conviction for illegal firearms possession quashed, could well be tried all over again. This is despite the fact that, because of a brain injury caused by over-hydration on a charity exercise in the Amazon in 2009, he has been recommended for discharge from the army. It is probably because of the injury that he failed to hand in the Glock pistol, a present from the Iraqi special forces he helped train. As a result of his injury, Sgt Nightingale suffers from ‘confabulation’, in which he has only ‘islands’ of memory. The Service Prosecuting Authority has to work out by June whether it is in the public interest to prosecute again. No doubt there is a serious problem of smuggling weapons for sale (although no one accuses Sgt Nightingale of this). Perhaps, on an intoxicating ‘Who Dares Wins’ trip, the SPA may fantasise how grand it would be to prove that the SAS is not above the law. But that would be the flipside of those inadequates in pubs who talk big about doing ‘something in Hereford’. Is it really helpful to spend at least another £250,000 of public money pursuing this brave, damaged man, who has served in Bosnia, Northern Ireland, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey and Afghanistan?
In the continuing row about press regulation, it is often pointed out that the Leveson-inspired changes are being inflicted on an industry already in decline. This fact should surprise no one. Politicians are usually not brave enough to attack something unless it is in decline. They have finally plucked up the courage to assault the free press because we are weak. If we give in to this, we really are on the way out.
I am fascinated by the Royal Charter’s concept of a ‘relevant publisher’. You will escape being a relevant publisher if your publication contains ‘news-related material’ only on an ‘incidental basis’, as might be the case in a scientific journal or a trainspotting magazine. The effect of this distinction will resemble that of the old Dock Labour Scheme on British ports. All those in the scheme, such as Liverpool and London, lost their business, due to the union stranglehold. All those outside it, such as Felixstowe, grew and thrived. In journalism, the ‘news-related’ publications will die of Charter-enforced respectability. Anyone wanting to say something naughty about ‘news-related material’ will try to smuggle it into exempt publications instead. At present, my main journalistic commitments are to the Daily Telegraph and to this paper; but if regulation comes in, my only other outlet — Horse and Hound — will have to be my samizdat vehicle for criticism of the powerful.
Until now, my writings for Horse and Hound have solely concerned hunting, itself an activity already persecuted by the law. The sport survives all attempts to suppress it. Last week, I accepted an invitation for the last day of season of the Southdown-Eridge, the hunt immortalised by Siegfried Sassoon. We were the guests of David Robinson, a big South Downs farmer famous across southern England for the huge leaps which, though in his seventies, he still takes. He has broken innumerable bones, but nothing breaks his spirit. The meet was a gathering of the clans because it was the occasion to say goodbye to the long-standing huntsman, Stuart Pocknell, who is going north. Before moving off, large numbers gathered in a barn and drank whisky and ate breakfast. Here were more than 100 people of all ages, all degrees of class, education and wealth, and a rough balance of the sexes. All except two (Stuart and his whipper-in) were unpaid for their services to hunting. The only reason people attend such occasions and co-operate over so much is because they love the sport. Despite the quarrels which sometimes disfigure hunting, that love breeds neighbourliness. Given that agriculture is now such a solitary occupation, there is no other country activity that does this. Hunting is the greatest living rural example of ‘Più società, meno stato’ (as the social movement Comunione e Liberazione, which is supported by Pope Francis, called the Big Society long before David Cameron thought of it). Yet, even under a Tory-led government, we get più stato.
A friend rescued a lamb on the verge of death in the recent snow. He told the farmer, whose lamb it was. ‘If you get livestock, you get dead stock,’ was the wintry response in this bleak spring.
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