Charles Moore
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Until about 15 years ago, Ian Gilmour (former editor and owner of this paper, among his other distinctions) and his wife Caroline used to give a lovely summer party in the garden of his house by the river in Isleworth. Both are now dead, but this year the party was revived by their son Christopher, their daughter Jane, and their spouses. It was just as good as in the old days — in fact better, in being much less dominated by men — but I noticed one great change. In the 1980s, there were plenty of politicians in the throng, and many of them — Roy Jenkins, Chris Patten, David Owen, Alan Clark — were fun to talk to. This time, although the social milieu was very much the same, there were hardly any politicians at all. I saw only one MP, Philip Dunne. Until the 1990s, the tradition was strong in England that politics was part of the wider ‘great world’. Today, politicians have become a caste apart, Untouchables.
Which perhaps is why Mr New Speaker Bercow wants to do away with the idea that all Members must refer to one another as honourable. Some see the change as a less stuffy way of addressing one another, but in fact the notion that each MP is upon his honour in the House is the only way in which a supreme legislative assembly can work. If conscience is replaced by compliance, then some higher authority has been created to rule our rulers. Many MPs may have deserved this fate, but it is still a negation of parliamentary democracy, and so the ultimate victims will be the voters. Doesn’t Mr Bercow realise that it is only respect for this principle of honour which means that the Speaker’s seat is uncontested at each general election? Why should this non-honourable man be given a clear run? It would good for someone with a record of genuine public service to stand against him as an independent candidate for Buckingham at the next election.
Our local hunt’s puppy show took place on Sunday. It followed the set form. The new entry, divided into dogs and bitches, stand, one by one, on some flags and are stared at very hard by two men in bowler hats. This goes on for an hour or so, until the winners are chosen (this year, a bitch called Sorceress was declared champion). Then there is a substantial tea, followed by speeches. On the surface, the occasion was as placid as always, but I noticed a larger than usual attendance, including the new young rector who had just discovered that the hounds were among his parishioners and had bicycled the long and dangerous road to meet them. The turnout was smarter than usual and there was a general air of suppressed excitement. This is because hunting people now believe that, by next year’s show, the government will be gone and the hunting ban going. One farmer came up to me: ‘We’ve got rid of one Scotsman,’ he said, ‘— at Wimbledon. Just two more to go — Chancellor of the Exchequer and Prime Minister. I hope you’re working on it.’ I am, of course, though not because of their ethnicity. But one notices that Scottishness has become a sort of provocation for English voters. Will the combined effect of Gordon Brown and devolution mean that we never have a Scottish prime minister again?
On Monday, the Rectory Society held its Great Vicarage Tea Party at the Old Vicarage, Grantchester, thanks to the kindness of Lord and Lady Archer, who live there. Jonathan Race performed an excellent one-man show about Rupert Brooke, against a background of thunder which people mistook for sound-effects to represent the first world war. Rain drummed on the marquee, but 250 of us remained dry, and enraptured by Race’s rendering of the life and work. Thanking everyone, I asked a question which has always bothered me about the famous end of Brooke’s Grantchester poem: ‘Stands the church clock at ten to three,/ And is there honey still for tea?’ If it is only ten to three, I asked, why does Brooke think that the honey for tea might already have run out? Isn’t it rather early for tea? Prue Leith put me right. The clock is stuck at ten to three: it has nothing to do with teatime.
This column recently reported (Notes, 20 June) a display in the Church House bookshop in Westminster devoting an entire window to a book with the defiantly ungripping title of Lay Presidency at the Eucharist? An Anglican Approach. Perhaps the staff were stung by this mention, because the display has been replaced by another, veering wildly to the opposite extreme. The book now promoted is called If You Meet George Herbert on the Road, Kill Him.
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