"Yes" says the OED snootily, "educated people care about such things." So there!
In the same edition of the Telegraph which published news of this altercation, a letter writer pointed out that a radio commentator talking about the octuplets described them as "inconceivable" and he was reminded of an immigrant who had described his childless wife as "impregnable" and "unbearable." I find this utterly charming because they illustrate poignantly the sheer ambiguity of the English Language.
English language purists are pint-sized bores who refuse to accept just how confusing some words can be. How is it, for example, that the simple three-letter word "row" could have so many completely different meanings? Try telling a foreign language student that you are standing in a row having a row with a man who rows a boat!
Out of all of the facetious, conceited, feckless, self-important pen- pricks masquerading as 'new-wave' journalists these days, surely the odious Quentin Letts, (formerly Telegraph diary, now sort of roving man of the Times) takes the biscuit. Even the Olympic hosts at the disastrous Atlanta fiasco singled him out for special abuse for "whinging". He has now found some ghastly harridan Sloane Ranger to share his abominable dinner party drivellings. But I now have a genuine complaint about his crass self-assurances. I quote his utterly glib statement: "The boiled egg generally performs at its best after immersion in hot water for five minutes." That, you snot- nosed little cad, is fighting talk and we must call Nanny to give you a good spanking.
The correct boiling of an egg is virtually an art and is a matter of the greatest intellectual dispute. The definition of getting it exactly right is that you may dip buttered 'soldiers' in the yolk and take all the orange liquid out with the bread, without a tiny bit dropping on your bib. Depending on age and size the dispute is between those who put the egg in boiling salt water and simmer for exactly three minutes, or those who put it in cold water and bring to the boil - removing it immediately on the first hot bubble. I think there is only one other culinary dispute which can cause otherwise sane and gentle people to reach for a baseball bat: Do you put the milk in a cup of tea before or after pouring?
What is not in dispute among any person conversant with the boiling of chicken roes, is that you never put an egg in hot water for five minutes. Alright, Nanny, get on with it.
Late at night on a mountain road in Northern Cyprus, Angus James - co-founder of Scallywag magazine and half brother of editor Simon Regan - was being driven back to his hotel when the car swerved suddenly and then toppled over the edge into a narrow gully.
The driver, Simon Stander, and two young women in the back, all employed by James on his recently launched Spiked magazine, escaped with heavy bruising and were treated for shock. James himself died instantly from multiple head wounds. Despite the fact that the road was isolated, many local people emerged out of the dark to launch a rescue operation and very quickly an ambulance and fire appliance arrived to bring up the car and take all the injured to hospital.
The party had been on a working holiday and, after a week of keen but pleasant negotiation, had done a deal with Asil Nadir for further investment in James's publishing venture. A contract had been written and signed and all the parties involved had, that very night, been celebrating the new situation.
The cause of the accident is a matter of conjecture. Like most accidents, it did not need to happen. Angus James was an exceedingly fit young man at his very prime and was poised to become a significant voice in magazine publishing.
Stander, the driver, was in charge of organising the trip and was normally very careful about the details. However, because the journey was arranged quickly at the very last minute, he had omitted to get the relevant insurance.
The two girls were speedily put on the next available flight home (by Nadir's aides) and they arrived in London, after the compulsory stop- off in Turkey, in a state of extreme trauma. Stander was transferred from hospital to a hotel and his passport was withdrawn, pending police inquiries into the cause of the accident. This was partly for his own protection. If a second vehicle had been involved, the relatives of anyone else who had been hurt, may have been looking for revenge.
While the party had been drinking it had not at that stage been to excess. They were planning a night cap at the hotel. Stander, however, was marginally over the limit and would certainly be charged. He was put under hotel-arrest and had to forfeit his passport. The investigation would last weeks and a charge of manslaughter was being seriously considered. At time of writing this situation has not yet been resolved. In fact he seems to have disappeared.
He had died in the early hours of a Friday morning. Our mother, Valerie Wilson, 72, of Kentish Town, London, was informed during the next morning and the whole family was naturally very shocked. Angus was very much the 'kid brother' of the family. His death seemed an extraordinary waste. Trauma ran amongst us that weekend in a most potent way. The shock was mainly one of disbelief.
But my mother's troubles had really only just started and she had to basically numb her brain to deal with the tragic situation. Stander, at that stage still under hotel-arrest, had been visited by the consul of the British High Commission. Stander gave the consul my mother's London number and he, the consul, told her she had two choices.
Angus could either be cremated in Cyprus and the ashes sent home, or they could organise it so that the body could be returned by air for cremation in London. They warned my mother that they could do nothing until she deposited some money with the Foreign Office. They added the rider that Turkish Cypriots had very primitive embalming procedures and speed was of the essence.
In her state of trauma my mother became very anxious indeed to get Angus's body back as soon as possible. But it was a weekend and the banks were closed. Like many people of her age she has a small nest egg and the interest from it, in a high interest bank account, just alleviates her weekly budget. That is, she lives from her pension, but any small luxury, such as her two glasses of sherry at midday, must come out of the extra cash.
In order to draw the money, on Monday morning, she had to pay more than £100 to transfer it from the high interest account into cash. Angus's wife, Susan, then went to the FO to pay over £2,500 in cash. It took a further week to get the body back and no one had a reason for the delay, or could explain it.
The man at the FO in England put her in contact with the local High Commission in Cyprus and they gave her a shopping list which included three different levels of coffin. One would be a teak affair and cost more than £2,000. The 'middle range' coffin, which was described as 'adequate but not ostentatious', was £500 and then there was a 'package' which the FO intimated was of cardboard. My mother chose the £500 coffin. It would cost a further £500 to send the body by air. At London airport the FO's responsibility ended.
It would eventually cost a further £2,000 to bury Angus.
When I did the homework with the FO and pointed out that a £500 coffin and a £500 air fare did not amount to £2,500, the official said: "The rest is for paper work." This was not specified. My mother wanted to know what an HM consul actually did if he had to be hired at £1,000 to deal with obvious consular problems. There was, within the family, several ways in which my mother could be reimbursed. But the pressure had been on her to pay up quickly and get the wheels in motion, without even questioning the FO's demands. She did wonder what might have happened if she had not had her nest egg.
The undertakers, Levinson and Son in the Malden Road, Camden, were very supportive and collected the body from Stansted. It was taken to their central office for embalming and then brought to the Malden Road in case anyone wanted to view it. Angus had sustained grotesque head injuries and the undertakers gently suggested that it would be very upsetting to look at him. The Cypriot authorities had not even kept the body in a cool place and it had begun to fester. The undertakers did suggest to my mother that they would like a member of the family to look at the coffin. My other brother, Robin, did so.
He found poor Angus had been sent back in a cheeseboard box which had been tacked up loosely. The tacks had come undone and, at the airport, the body had been partly exposed. On the top of this rough crate someone had tacked on a piece of metal which resembled a cross. The undertakers said they simply could not be responsible for taking the body to the crematorium in Golder's Green in the crate provided. So on top of the £500 my mother had given the FO, she then had to buy a new coffin for £250. It was an infinitely better coffin for half the price. But the nest egg was beginning to look rather tattered.
I went to the FO to tackle them. My mother had not had a specific detailed receipt, just a small scrap of paper with the total paid. I could not find out what the £2,500 was actually for. I was fobbed off again with "paper work". There was no explanation for the coffin except "you get what you pay for".
It does appear that Her Britannic Majesty's Consul doesn't give much of a damn about Her Britannic Majesty's subjects once they become corpses. If it had been me, old Angus would have punched someone on the nose.
Part of this story subsequently appeared in the Independent and a letter from our local MP, Frank Dobson, brought a full but unsatisfactory explanation from Malcolm Rifkind the Foreign Secretary - with an acceptance that Scallywag's mother had been grossly overcharged and would be reimbursed a significant part of the sum she had paid. As it happened it was just about what she had had to borrow to pay all the bills. Since then Stander has disappeared completely and many, many questions have arisen as to the true circumstances of Angus's death. A chance remark led Scallywag to begin his own investigations from London and, although he had started by dismissing foul play, various things led him to change his mind. So a second, more detailed letter was sent to Dobson.
Hon. Frank Dobson MP
House of Commons
London SW1
11 November 1996
Dear Mr. Dobson,
Further to my letter concerning my brother, Angus James's death in Northern Cyprus, I write again on a perhaps more worrying and complex matter. Forgive me if I try and put the situation into a proper perspective by spelling out the background.
Spiked magazine, which Angus founded and edited, was first funded by Felix Dennis, of Oz fame who now runs a formidably lucrative chain of computer magazines. It was later funded by Mohammed Al Fayed with a considerable amount of money - certainly, to date, several tens of thousands, possibly hundreds. Fayed's interest was to use Spiked as a sort of glorious and expensive publicity handout to oil the wheels for his desires to expose sleaze in the present government. Naturally, as we all know, he had many other irons in the fire but it was made obvious to Angus by Mark Griffiths, Fayed's "fixer" that the budget for his aims was "unlimited." Angus had access to Al Fayed's extensive files which are presently being leaked in generous doses and have been painstakingly compiled at truly massive expense.
Angus and I had launched a London version of Scallywag together, some years ago now, using a legacy from my late stepfather, Andrew Wilson, as capital. You may be aware of the fact that we quickly became a thorn in the side of the Conservative party. First of all with a rather ridiculous libel action from John Major and Clare Latimer. But we did go on in Scallywag to make several serious allegations about other members of the cabinet. As a result the Deputy Head of "research" at the CCO, a "Dr." Julian Lewis, began an almost obsessive campaign to close the magazine down, which to all intents and purposes, he has done.
One of the sponsors for Scallywag was Owen Oyston who has since been give seven years custody for rape - something we genuinely felt he was not guilty of. Angus and I were responsible for "packaging" the Oyston story and giving what we considered to be Tory dirty tricks a wide airing. A large part of the story we exposed was tape recordings between a known nutcase called Murrin and Michael Atkins who was then a junior minister and who had clearly compromised himself in lengthy telephone calls to Murrin.
Most of all this is merely background to a situation which became very involved and complicated but, quite clearly large sums of money had been made available to the CCO/Lewis to "deal" with us and if necessary I can give lengthy chapter and verse on this. Both Scallywag and Spiked had well known financial connections with various people who had a bone to pick with the government and were ardently supportive.
Angus and I, amicably, parted company and I was to continue on my own with Scallywag while he raised further funding to start publishing a new magazine, Spiked, without any "previous convictions", which he did through Felix Dennis and Al Fayed. When we had launched Scallywag we made many parliamentary friends, including MP's, ex-MP's, secretaries to PPS's, and dissolute lobby correspondents who could not get certain stories published, among others. Until his death, Angus had nurtured these contacts very successfully and had a very good working knowledge of anything untoward which was happening in parliament. I know that his next edition, planned after his immediate return from Cyprus was going to be a "corker" and for the first time was going on the web internet.
One of our contacts was Brian Basham, a dirty tricks PR who had not only organised the BA conspiracy against Virgin for Lord King, but had then sold out to Virgin for considerable further profit. He and I did not particularly like each other because, if anything, I fully believed we should be exposing him, not co-operating with him, and he knew it. But he took a shine to Angus and they began working out in the gym together. Angus was shamelessly heterosexual but I, and he, had very serious doubts about Basham's "crush" on Angus. Basham wanted to take Angus "on board" and teach him the "tricks of the trade". I found this whole situation unhealthy and disassociated myself from Spiked even though at the time I had no other income because of the CCO activities. But Angus had come to see Basham as a mentor and Basham and clearly seen Angus as a protégé. It was Basham who fixed up the deal between Angus and Al Fayed. Basham was on the huge "expenses unlimited" gravy train which Al Fayed had created and was in receipt of roughly £250,000 a year, plus expenses, just as a retainer. There is no doubt in my mind that Brian Basham is a dangerous man with no scruples. Angus, who had a few, but not many, was delighted to be a recruit to the various gravy trains Basham controlled. His lifestyle before he died had become massively excessive and in my opinion he and Basham were operating only this side of the law.
Basham was also hoping to be retained by Asil Nadir in Northern Cyprus, which is getting to the relevant part of the story. Nadir's main man in Cyprus is Peter Diamond who has a permanent suite in one of Nadir's luxury hotels. Diamond is a sort of political minder for Nadir and you simply cannot get to Asil unless you go through Diamond. His main stipulation was that, if they met, the meeting would have to be a complete secret. There was other wheeling and dealing in London prior to the Cyprus trip and I knew something big was impending. What it was in full is probably only known by Angus. All I know is that, prior to Angus going to Cyprus, Basham and Diamond had struck a deal and Angus was going to be the conduit. Basham's brief was to create a situation in which Nadir could return to the UK under "benevolent" terms. That is that, at best, he is not charged at all and, at worst, the evidence against him is flimsy and he gets a token sentence. Basham is probably one of the few people in the world who could possibly create this situation. My knowledge of him is that he moves in a strange moonlight world of double-dealing. It is very unlikely that he had anything directly to do with Angus's death, but it was quite possible that he might have been double dealing Asil Nadir. He had a long association with the CCO, especially just before the last election. Basham is extremely adept at letting others do the actual dirty work, while he picks up the profits.
On the Friday before the flight on Saturday morning, I met Angus in the Pembroke Castle, the nearest pub to the Spiked office in Primrose Hill. He and his sort-of-second-in-command, Simon Stander, plus Angus's mistress, Allison, who also worked for the magazine, and Shona, a typist for the paper, were all in holiday mood and the girls had been shopping for beachwear. Apparently Al Fayed had absolutely no time for Asil Nadir and was not informed of this visit - even though he was paying for it.
While the others chatted about the impending holiday, Angus and I talked deeply about what the visit was all about. Apparently (a story strongly backed up by Stander) Angus had been offered compromising pictures of Michael Portillo in explicit situations with a young boy. The pictures had been shown to both Angus and Stander and the vendor was asking for £100,000 for the negatives. Basham had been brought into the conspiracy and had approached Al Fayed who had turned the whole concept down as being far too underhand. I have not seen these pictures myself, and am aware that, like the Diana video, they could easily be fakes. But Angus and Stander certainly had and the vendor was willing to submit the negs to any necessary scientific analysis for the sum mentioned. This, however, was to be merely the cream on top of a huge folder of allegations collected via Fayed and given to Angus by Basham.
The idea, as outlined by Angus, was to get the deal financed by Asil Nadir and the suggestion was that he may use it as a leeway to do a deal with the government. I.e. it was low-class political blackmail of the most insidious kind. Angus and Stander, without the girl's explicit knowledge, were going out to Northern Cyprus to offer a package to Nadir which would also include anything else they, or Basham, could put together to compromise the government into a situation whereby Nadir would face the minimum of prosecution.
This frankly disgusted me. If I had such compromising pictures, I would have verified them and published them and be damned, but only if it was obvious that the boy in question was under-aged. We were never on a witch-hunt against homosexuals, but paedophiles were a different matter. I would have published them in the public interest because I don't think a Defence Minister should be so foolish and because I despise hypocrisy and a party which stands for "family values" should be seen to do so. But under no circumstances would I have resorted to anything which was tantamount to blackmail of any person, even though I find Portillo, and his policies, quite repugnant. Our policy was never homophobic, but we campaigned vigorously against paedophiles and, always, hypocrisy.
Why Angus believed the veracity of the pictures was that they were apparently taken with secret cameras in a set-up organised by the two top private detectives permanently employed by Al Fayed, but also used at one time by Owen Oyston to try and discredit witnesses against him. Al Fayed also sanctioned these two, on behalf of Spiked, to do a "complete job" on anyone suspected of having any kind of relationship with Michael Portillo. Which they did, and I know of at least one break-in to the house of a BA employer where documents and letters were stolen and were apparently of a compromising nature.
Peter Lilley was also subjected to such a vigilance, but I don't know the full outcome. So was Michael Heseltine at one stage, but that was not financed directly by Fayed. However, we did produce irrefutable evidence that when Heseltine had his heart attack he was actually in bed with his mistress in the Venice home of Lord McAlpine, who, incidentally, we had also accused of being supplied by young boys from a Welsh children's home by Ian Greer. All this from a party who canvasses for "family values." While both Scallywag and Spiked had hinted heavily of much of the information available, we had been largely ignored. In the hands of professional dirty tricksters, however, the information being offered to Nadir was potential dynamite.
What I do know is that Angus went to Cyprus to offer Nadir a "package" and that on the day he died he had called my mother and said the deal had gone through, for a "lot of money" and they were going to Nadir's well-protected house with Peter Diamond to celebrate. This was a Friday - exactly one week after I had talked to him, and they were due to fly back presumably with a significant cheque the following morning. Although they had not drunk a great deal - Nadir is no big drinker - the driver, Stander, was over the limit and Diamond offered him a car and driver which he refused. They had gone as a foursome, but during the week Stander had made a serious play for Shona and had been rejected. Because of this he had become petulant and boorish and on the night in question this had turned into naked anger. The theory of both girls is that when they were driving back to the hotel to have a night-cap, Stander was deranged enough to try and commit suicide and take the others with him. However, it is inconceivable to me that he could knowingly kill Angus alone. Whatever, if this suicide theory is correct, it didn't happen as it was planned. The girls survived to tell the tale and only Stander knows the full truth.
Diamond's reaction to the accident was sheer panic and he hustled the girls out of the country on the next possible plane, even though they were naturally seriously traumatised. He called my mother to tell her he would do everything he could to help - as long as the incident was never connected to Asil Nadir, his paymaster. While in a state of trauma the girls allowed Diamond to do all the packing and arranging for the flight, etc.. Without a passport, however, Stander would have to stay. While doing the "arrangements" Diamond was able to take into his own custody all Angus's belongings, including all his compromising files and papers, and, presumably, the cheque. As soon as the girl landed in the UK Diamond was completely unavailable for any kind of liaison and only by duplicity was I able to get through to him. His only stipulation at that point was that, under no circumstances, could Asil Nadir be involved with either the visit or the death. He was, he said, going to "fix things" for Stander. The hire car was swiftly disposed of, without even a cursory examination by the police.
However, Chris Blackhurst, Westminster correspondent for the Independent and a good friend of Angus knew who Angus had gone to see, but not why, and he published a small item naming Nadir. At that point Stander disappeared. His youngest son had arrived in Northern Cyprus to try and bail his father out - or at least smuggle him out, for the police had seized his passport and the last communication anyone had with Stander was through his son. His eldest son, however, has had communication with his brother and attests that Stander had decided to stay in Northern Cyprus and had been fixed up with an income by Diamond, i.e. Nadir and is presently in hiding as a permanent guest. Only Stander knows what the deal was (apart from Nadir himself and Diamond). Whatever it was, it fell to pieces when Angus died, because Angus was the conduit and Basham would not deal with anyone else. Stander could not be of any further importance to Nadir, so there must be another explicit reason why he wanted to hide Stander and co-operate in his failure to return home.
The Coroner in London (the official hearing is next month) told my mother that under the circumstances of Stander's state of mind on the night, according to the two witnesses, the girls, if the accident had happened in England Stander would almost certainly have been charged with manslaughter. However, as best I can I have used my journalistic skills to get some reactions from Northern Cyprus and it can, in my opinion at least, not be ruled out that the brakes of the car had been interfered with. Who may have done this and why is a matter of huge conjecture and a whole bevy of conspiracy theories spring up. All I know is that Angus's death was not a straightforward matter, one way or the other, and the key to it is to track down Stander. If there was foul play, which I at first ruled out after talking to the girls, Northern Cyprus was the perfect place to do it, and it could be counted on that Nadir, perhaps innocently, would make sure the authorities out there would not dig too deeply. I just now have an overwhelming unease about the circumstances of this accident. This is neither hysterics nor paranoia. It is a gut feeling shared by several others.
The situation at present is that we have one dead Angus, one missing Stander, two witnesses who have at last got over their trauma, and are now able to reconstruct the events leading up to, during, and after, the accident; and a "package" of potentially compromising material which is still floating around and may well be used in a blackmail operation to get a Polly Peck crook off the hook.
May I say that my present motives are not journalistic, and will not be until or if it is proved to me that Angus's death was no accident. Until I can rule this possibility out, I intend to pursue the matter until I have exhausted every strand. An obviously problem is that, if foul play is considered a possibility, it was planned down to the last detail and will be very difficult indeed to uncover.
The Foreign Office, according to Dr. Fox's (PPS to Rifkind) letter, have two agents in Turkish Cyprus, and it might be invaluable if they have local knowledge as to where Stander might be, and perhaps further knowledge of the accident. I presume, also, that the security services may have an interest, and certainly the Minister of Defence. It is an unhealthy situation whatever way you look at it and whatever my views are concerning the CCO's nasty obsession with Scallywag, I hate blackmail far more and am absolutely partisan about the whole thing. Unless, of course it was "them that dunnit".
One of the problems, or at least doubts, is that all traffic between Northern Cyprus and the UK is routinely monitored by GCHQ, and I would imagine that there would be a special interest in telephone calls concerning Asil Nadir, so it is quite inevitable that the security forces in this country must have known about Angus's visit, and why he had gone there, and that on the day he died he had told my mother everything had "gone through." This inevitably raises a question mark.
I now have the means to continue my own investigation, both here and in Cyprus and am determined to be resolute, including going to Cyprus myself if necessary to try and pick up the pieces. I want to confront Stander about the exact circumstances of the deals that might have been done and about my brother's death. But if Stander has been hidden by Nadir and enjoys his sophisticated security system, this may be difficult. It has also not completely escaped my notice that should I venture into those waters, then my own life could well be dispensable.
I would be deeply grateful for any help you feel you might be able to give me on what is obviously a very complex matter and would appreciate it if you, as my constituency MP, were able to circulate this information to any government organisation or person who may have an interest or who may be able to help me in my quest. Angus and I had many heated disagreements, particularly about journalistic ethics, but I did not know just how much I loved the young bastard until he died. My purpose is to try and eliminate doubts. Not to prove points, and I am sure there must be several government agencies who may have an interest in the above, for one reason or another. If they have, I want to get to them. I think perhaps the only way in which light may be thrown on this one is to kick up a bit of a fuss.
It is not my desire, however, that Angus's death should become a party political issue. Merely to get to the truth.
Again, thank you for your kind consideration.
Yours sincerely,
Simon Regan
Endnote:
At time of writing, 3rd December 1996, there has been no
response to this letter. This is a genuine whodunit because, in
classic Christie-style, there are at least a dozen people with a
motive and, to all intents and purposes, the main possible evidence
of foul play, the car, has been disposed of. But will any of the
predictions in this story come true? Will Asil Nadir try and
blackmail himself back into the country? Will compromising pictures
of the Defence Minister eventually emerge? What else did Angus have
in his package? How much did Brian Basham actually know? What has Al
Fayed still got up his sleeve? Will the FO, as requested, make their
own local inquiries?
You've only got to leave the UK for a short break and you get back to find they've abolished hell. This, of course, is something of a relief, But how dare they - just like that? I had looked forward to toasting the bread with Lucifer. I was always sure he had been much maligned. A bit of a demon, maybe, but so are we all, and since the wretched feminists have insisted God is a woman, I was sure I'd prefer Satan's company. However, I have now learnt that the Lucifer that was is gay and has been reserved exclusively by the CCO in a huge deal arranged by Ian Greer Associates, Apparently, Lucifer agreed to act for the Conservatives if Greer and Co gave him Maggie's soul, which, of course, was very easy indeed. Now I'll never know. But, surely, if they've done away with hell, what are they going to do with heaven? There is simply no fun anymore in breaking the Ten Commandments, so I might just stop being slothful, envious and greedy. Although I absolutely refuse to stop coveting my neighbour's wife.
The argument rages on about whose statue should adorn the spare plinth in Trafalgar Square. Some ghastly colonel from the backwoods demanded it should be Maggie, but no one but Telegraph readers took him even vaguely seriously. To settle this great and needless public debate, as a last resort, I am unselfishly offering myself. As there is no longer a heaven or hell, then I haven't really got anywhere else to go to, and I think I can live with the odd pigeon dropping. Mind you, I really would object if the tricksters in Smith Square came and pissed on me. Alternatively, why not the devil? In memory of the billions of poor people who lived persecuted and pious lives because they believed he was waiting to nab them.
Because of my health situation my solicitor gently suggested I should make a will, even if I had nothing to bequeath. He pointed out that there was the title of this magazine for a start, but I wouldn't will that on anyone I liked, so I am willing it to Julian Lewis instead. If he owned it he might stop persecuting its printers, distributors and wholesalers, to say nothing of the poor shopkeepers. As "Scallywag" already has a useful "brand name" and is widely devoured in the Palace of Westminster, and indeed throughout the whole establishment, he would have a perfect vehicle to promote his dirty tricks.
Meanwhile, even though Julian has gone very quiet of late (he's terrified of upsetting his potential constituents in New Forest East where he is standing in the next erection, (sic) my own campaign is getting underway. A hundred students (a veritable army) from Southampton University have offered to help on the campaign trail. Various others with valuable political experience, including former enemies of Julian's at Smith Square, are volunteering to be managers, press agents and so on. Also, an old sailing chum from Lymington, a wag and a rogue if there ever was one, has kindly donated his extensive country house to be my campaign HQ. A kind subscriber has donated a case of very good champagne to celebrate our victory, which will be counted only in relation to the number of votes we know we have taken away from Lewis. The more votes, the more heartily we shall imbibe. If Lewis should lose to anyone, and it is highly possible in the present political climate, then we shall paint the New Forest red. As many of my student supporters are very nice looking women I shall not need to hire rent-a-girlfriend tarts from an escort agency as poor Julian is forced to do every time he meets the old maids of Brockenhurst. As Lewis steadfastly refuses to sue me, or rather his lawyers won't because they know they won't be paid, and even though I have already taunted him with the world's most elaborate libel, I shall feel entirely free to vilify him at will. Every constituent will get a special eight-page edition of Scallywag which will spell out in great detail the dire pitfalls of voting for this cheating charlatan. My Private Army will be on the streets, knocking on doors, speaking in the market places and villages of Hampshire. No house or hamlet will be immune to the Scallywag hordes. And, as Southern Newspapers, owners of the Southampton Echo which covers the constituency, has a strict rule of giving every candidate equal space, then I shall even have an official platform to air my views. It's going to be a great deal of fun. Well, for me anyway. There is no greater exhilaration I can think of, than using the establishment system itself to help dismantle the establishment!
Oh, and by the way, Julian, there are many excellent gay bars in Southampton, mainly to accommodate the hundreds of sailors in town, so you will no doubt feel entirely at home down that way. The New Forest is far more extensive than Hampstead Heath, and therefore far safer for a jaunt or even a frolic in he heather. Just make sure you don't get the gorse up your bum. The gays even have their own local newspaper, so the clubs won't be hard to find. They are not, of course, nearly as refined as the Oxbridge gay club at the CCO, so you might have to rough it a bit, but that's politics for you. Learning how to be rough will be excellent training for when I see you around May. As I am being kind and forgiving enough to bequeath you this magazine, the least you can do is buy me a drink. That is, if you have any money left after paying the exorbitant escort agency fees. And, of course, if you haven't already passed away from apoplexy.
For good measure we sent the following letter to the Chairman of the New Forest (East) Conservatives. Naturally, we didn't get a reply:
The Conservative Office
New Forest (East)
New Forest,
Hampshire.22 February 1996
Dear Sirs and Madams,
I was most intrigued to find you had adopted my old sparring partner, Dr. Julian Lewis, as your next candidate. Far be it from me to question your wisdom but down in Hampshire you may not be aware of some of his recent activities and perhaps you should be informed that this magazine is presently in a protracted battle with him - both in the courts and in the public domain. This melee is most unlikely to let up in the foreseeable future, whether Dr. Lewis is in Smith Square or the New Forest. It has also attracted wide publicity outside our organ.
I attach for your interest some of the various charges we have made against him. He has yet to press any kind of litigation towards us, although, typical of his tactics (read Dirty Tricks), he has persecuted as many soft targets a he could find, including the old soldier who sells papers by Westminster tube station, and a small and innocuous bookshop in Camden Town.
He misguidedly libelled our solicitor so badly that David Price (a) had no alternative but to sue and I am also suing him for malicious libel. Unless a realistic settlement is made, both these cases will go to court and everything you read on these pages will be brought up in some depth. This should all come to court about one third of the way through the next Parliament.
As Dr. Lewis has been so insistent in trying very hard to close us down, we have absolutely no qualms at all about continuing our campaign. We truly believe that his activities have been so underhand that he has brought serious disrepute to your party.
I am now seriously considering standing against him as a Scallywag Party candidate, in order to tell the full story to your constituents (we previously stood against Glenda Jackson in Hampstead and, while we naturally lost our deposit, it gave us very high profile platforms for our views).
Yours sincerely,
Simon Regan
The Editor, Scallywag,
34 Cal Barranco,
Alora, Malaga,
Spain 29500
It posed a huge and confusing problem for the Politically Correct brigade. First of all we were dealing with child abuse and women's' rights, both of which horrified the PCs. But second of all, if one objected, we were dealing with a case of racial discrimination. So, one way or the other the PCs and the authorities - all of them - simply decided to ignore the problem.
Indeed, it was the helplessness of the situation which was the greatest anomaly. The girl's family were second-generation immigrants and growing in number all the time. The method was simple: have lots of kids and marry them off to distant cousins so they may legally enter the country and have lots of kids.
Well, the law is the law and if that is how it works, so be it. Scallywag detests racialism of all kinds but questioning the immigration laws does not necessarily spell racialism.
British expatriates all over the world, and especially in third world countries, continue to live their lives much as they would at home: eating British food, worshipping in Anglican churches; marrying under British law; celebrating the Queen's birthday at the Embassy, and speaking our own language among ourselves. A fair few "go native" - that is, they adopt the laws and customs of their host country and identify themselves with them as far as is possible. These people are often derided by both sides as not belonging to either.
But if the Brits in say, Pakistan, eat pigs, or, in Saudi, drink alcohol, they are subject to that country's laws and, if caught, punished accordingly. The punishments are far more horrific in both places than anything we might hand out to an immigrant in the UK, even for rape and murder, both punishable by death in the East. Why then, even if a Pakistani family wishes to live as closely as they can to their ethnic origins, which is entirely understandable, even if it is sometimes anti-social, are they not subject to the full range of British law?
The answer, it seems, is that for everyone concerned who could have done something about the wretched girl's plight decided it was all too 'sensitive' to intervene. It was clear for a long time to teachers, social workers, and eventually even the police, that the girl was being seriously abused on a daily, on-going basis, and this included savage beatings, domestic imprisonment, constant verbal abuse and threats, and she finally just disappeared into the hinterlands of the sub-continent and no one, absolutely no one, asked what had happened to her. According to the ST, disappearances of young girls in such circumstances is commonplace but there is no structure in law, the social services or the education system to do anything at all about it. If you interfere with a Muslim breaking his ten-year-old daughter's jaw with a rolling pin you are bound to upset the ethnic communities where behaviour like this is widely tolerated, even encouraged.
When this sorry saga came to light, indeed, the family and most of their community closed ranks and angrily accused the girl of bringing shame on the family. They were trying to spirit her back to Pakistan where she and everyone else knew very well she would be savagely murdered. "It is," the official version went, quite incredibly, "family business and we have no jurisdiction in Pakistan." Not even when the girl was a British subject, and not even considering the fact that Pakistan is still very much in the Commonwealth.
Well, frankly, the only people who brought shame on the family and the community, as well as all Muslims everywhere, and Pakistanis in particular, were the parents who wished to enjoy what they considered to be the privileges, and certainly (in comparison) the huge financial advantages of living in the UK, but were not willing to comply by our laws and, indeed, appeared to be outside British jurisdiction. This, surely, is a farce and the sooner we rectify it the better.
Whole communities now are third and fourth British-born and enjoy our welfare, health and education systems. And so they should. They pay taxes along with the rest of us. But these communities should now be as 'sensitive' to the British way of life as we should be in respecting theirs.
The Qu'ran, like the Old Testament, is a book of law, both claimed and believed to have been dictated by God. The Qu'ran in particular is a beautiful concept and a hugely logical book, but it was laid down in tribal situations and basically deals with how a man may survive in the desert and find his own path to salvation. While a Jew is free to completely follow the teachings of Moses, he must still obey British law and by and large, does so.
Why not the Muslims?
Knowing full well that Maggie's invention of the Basildon man - a grotesque yobbo yuppie who fornicates with his mobile 'phone but none-the-less voted Tory - is now very passé, they've gone for new targets. These spinning snakes are now slithering up-market to seduce what Smith Square has identified as Worcester Woman. She reads Hello! and Bella, is married to a skilled tradesman, buys her brats the latest video games for Christmas and holidays in Florida. There are apparently millions of these ghastly creatures in the Midlands and the Cons are confident that if they re-design the PM, Hello!-style, the wretched harridans will flock back to the Tory fold. Well, if it works, they deserve each other. Anyone who actually reads Hello! probably would have fantasies about a wheedling wimp.
The latest edition of Chambers 21st English Dictionary has at last bowed grovellingly to "political correctness". After piteous arguments about the exact nuances of words in which academia runs riot (see diary), they are now advocating a change in a great mass of the English language as we know it by being "cautious" about using any word ending with "ess". For a start, this will be immensely confusing. Without an "ess" a Princess must become a Prince and a lioness a lion. Diana will now be known the Prince of Wales and people will simply not be able to differentiate. Can you imaging a lion without a mane?
How can an "ess" be disparaging in any possible way? It merely helps the poor, hapless immigrant to differentiate between members of our Royal family, for surely, to the chef in the local Chinese takeaway, we must all look the same.
This idiotic movement in PC, of course, is all invented by the lesbians who have convinced themselves Diane is really a man. It will come to a head only when Prince Anne needs to wash her hands at a Save the Children function in Harlesden and she will be directed to the stand-up only gents.
The cowering dictionary insists from now on we find words which are "sex-neutral". I estimate that this will completely eliminate some five per cent of the words currently in daily use in the English Language. This constitutes a massive revolution which pleases absolutely no one but a couple of fat, black, biologically distorted sexual freaks playing with their dildoes who hardly speak a word of proper English anyway.
They simply MUST not be allowed to massacre our beautiful language by neutering it. They have already neutered the bible, Shakespeare, the Romantic Poets, and British History. That's just over here. Across the Big Pond they have first circumcised and then castrated the entire nation.
How are these people able to bully us so much? Your average lesbian is a disagreeable, rude, wretchedly unhappy, snarling bitch with a man-sized chip on her shoulder. We long-suffering males should get together and start a fund to buy the Island of Lesbos where they can all bicker to each other and leave the rest of us to get on with our own language.
The same dictionary orders we must no longer specify a particular disability because it "connects too closely with the word charity". Therefore all individual problems must be put under the general flag of "person with a disability". You therefore might be trying to communicate with someone you think can't see you, whereas, in fact, he/she can't hear you. Thinking he might be suffering from palsy you put sugar in his tea and find out he is in fact diabetic.
All PC manages to do in the end is confuse everyone and this has got to be detrimental to the disabled themselves. Whatever words you use to couch meanings you must still fathom it out. Does a man with a "drink related situation" find it simply difficult to take liquids, or is he an alcoholic? You could spend the first hour getting it wrong and probably infuriating the poor bastard into the bargain.
The good citizens of Arkansas, in their wisdom some time ago, decided to tackle the serious problem of wife beating. It was apparently quite prevalent in this reactionary red-neck Southern cotton state and enlightened legislators ruled that a man should only beat his wife once a month. A most rational and prudent law which still exists, although the state law does not stipulate conditions on the instrument used. In Britain we may still legally beat our wives as often as we like, but may only use a stick which is less that half an inch in circumference. I think feminists should get onto this one. After all, we are not Little Rock red necks but a highly civilised nation. Surely it is only fair that we should beat our wives with a stick less than half an inch wide only on, say, the first Thursday of every month.
The idiosyncrasies of American law are vast and often highly amusing to a dedicated misogynist. In Michigan, for example, all female body hair is owned by her spouse. How, why and where the law originated is not specified, but just imagine what fun you might have if you owned your wife's pubes. You could quite fairly demand to inspect your property whenever the idea took your fancy. If she tried to divorce you, you could demand that she attends court completely hair-less and if she refuses you just wait until the first Thursday of the month to put her firmly in her place.
For once I completely agree with Germaine Greer, presently celebrating her menopause. She says all males should be vasectomised at the age of 16. Their sperm should be frozen and released only after they have shown themselves to be first class citizens. 'First class' only according to the Laws of Greer. It would, of course, gradually eliminate all yobboes, Millwall fans, rapists, and malcontents of all kinds and create a world of obedient, dutiful and docile men who all lived by the 'Greer Doctrine.' But Greer does not go far enough. I would advocate doing this at birth. And, what about women? Surely she is not suggesting there are no female malcontents?
It is only fair that, at puberty women should all be fitted with a coil which can only be removed surgically when a woman has proved herself an equally worthwhile citizen. There should be a 25-year probation period for both sexes and this would gradually eliminate all ardent feminists who are the most anti-social creatures of modern society. Leaving the obedient, docile, dutiful and beautiful women to be enjoyed exclusively by good natured and faultless people like myself.
By the way, is Germaine a close relative of Ian Greer? It would explain a lot of things.
Why does everyone insist I should be basking in the "feel good factor" when everything around me conspires to make me feel bad? The only people in this country entitled to feel good are the fat cats and the politicians. In the Village of Westminster they're all so insular that they think that if they're feeling good about their new pay rises, the world will feel good with them.
I mean, what is there left in England that a decent man can feel proud about? The last things remaining which gave me some solace and made me feel proud were the British passport, the Red Arrows and the World Service. Now they're putting all these out to grass. I gave the monarchy up years ago. Along with the Welfare State which is being dismantled at a rate of knots. I mean, they've sold County Hall to the Japs, and Admiralty Arch to some wretched hoteliers. Our pubs are becoming fast-food eateries selling ghastly and gaseous beers and now they're even going to let kids in. It was bad enough when they dismantled the public bar and let women in. Once I could spend one of those white fivers anywhere in the world and get a really decent rate for it. The whole world respected that note. Now Sterling bows to the bloody Germans and the Japs and a fiver won't even buy you a return fare to Peckham.
I tried it out on my old colonial friend Felix only the other day. I mean, Felix is the only man left who especially wears a hat so he can take it off when he passes the cenotaph. "What," I asked him, "can you think of today that makes you proud to be British?" He thought for a long time and came up with, "the Daily Telegraph, the Queen Mother, Enoch Powell, the grey spires of Oxford, and possibly Fortnum's and Mason's." But he was very hesitant.
Only a few years ago he would have rattled off, Maggie Thatcher, the whole Royal Family, the Church of England, the Union Jack, the old blue passport, cricket, rugby, our higher education, Harrow and Eton, our transport system, ("the escalators don't work and I call the train to town the 'shake, rattle and roll'"), our immigration policies, ("they've opened the doors to the wogs") the Queen's English, ("it's better these days to speak Urdu") muffins for tea, Whites and the Military Clubs, Sunday lunch, ("poisoned beef"), the British Museum, ("full of gadgets"), Simpsons in the Strand, ("they let the women in these days"), Savile Row, ("only pop stars can afford them now and you can't get credit"), Harrods, ("owned by that Arab"), the postal system ("on strike all the time").
Now he thinks the royals have gone down the tampax - along with the Royal Yacht. Our sacred arts are run by the Lottery and the Orangemen are defiling the Union Jack - although he likes their bowler hats and brollies. Even bloody Cuba beat us hands down at the Olympics and when he comes up to town to see Coutts, his bankers, he can't find anyone in London who speaks English. He can no longer eat the roast beef of England and now even Dorset lambs are suspect. He's got a flimsy little green passport in which "Her Britannic Majesty" does not ask foreign governments to let him in - and the huns who he fought in the Coldstream Guards are keeping up the price of his gin and tonic. Cowes is full of yobs and Chinese businessmen have bought all the royal boxes wherever you look.
It is official. London is the rudest capitol in the world. I don't know why they had to spend tens of thousands finding it out when it's been patently obvious since we said goodbye to the eighties. Aussie barmaids whinge at us in our excuse for pubs; bus drivers try and murder us as we struggle up the aisle with the Sainsbury's shopping bag; you have to apologise to people who bump into you; if you want to know the time, never ask a policeman because he'll think you're acting suspiciously - and even though they've got these bloody cameras everywhere there's still half a dozen yobbo junkies trying to mug you every time you turn a corner. When did you last get up to give your seat to a lady on the tube? When did anyone last hold the door open as you go in and get your paper in those cluttered Patel shops where there's always ten people reading the naughty magazines and you can't get past? The only half-polite kids you get these days are begging cigarettes while their mates are trying to frisk you for your bus pass. In the old days of course, you'd give them a clip on the ear and if they complained to their dads, the old man would get the belt out.
And everyone's blaming everyone else. They're trying to tell me the kids these day are so bloody unruly because it's our fault. They tell me my generation brought them up without any motivation and crammed them into a lousy environment. Well, give 'em a bus shelter so us oldies can stand for hours without getting wet and they shit in it, break all the glass, and then daub it with mindless slogans. I mean, in the old days, graffiti used to be worth reading. But now it's illiterate squiggles and they tell me they only do it because they're deprived. If we gave them all more video games they'd stay off the streets. Makes you sick.
I once sat by a pool-side on a Sunday in Florida with a party of fun- loving people intent on the serious art of eating and drinking in the sunshine. Most were Americans who worked on the same newspaper as I did. One, a secretary, had brought her fiancee who worked for a funeral parlour. He had on him, as we gently imbibed, chatted merrily, and generally horsed around, a high-powered radio which scanned the police networks. It suddenly burst into life and barked that there had been a fatal accident on the freeway and they needed several ambulances. Our fellow-guest was out of the door like a shot - straight to the scene of the accident where he hoped to follow the ambulances to hospital in the hope of meeting the close relatives and clinching another body for his business. He was what they called an "on the scene tout" who spent all is life listening in to this morbid dialogue. He had, according to his wife-to-be a "second ear" that could hear a disaster even when he slept. Did it ever get on her nerves? "It's business, and if I'm gonna marry the guy, I'd better get used to it," she said.
Jessica Mitford had gone through a similar experience, and, like I had been shocked and irritated by this blatant insensitivity. She went on to write one of modern journalism's most brilliant exposes on the whole ghastly and cynical multi-million dollar business which surrounds dying in America. I had read it, but until that day I had not fully believed it.
By coincidence, twenty years later, last Easter, in fact, I was at a similar gathering, this time in Spain, with Jessica's nephew Jonathan Guinness, now Lord Moyne, the son of the celebrated Diana Mitford, who was imprisoned for her fascist activities after she deserted Jonathan's father to marry Oswald Mosely. There were five sisters in all, known as the Mitford girls, and each of them was eccentric, if not insane, and each of them were uniquely different in the widest possible sense. No more widely than Jessica being a dedicated communist and Diana a fanatical fascist. One embraced the communist side of the Spanish Civil War while the other embraced Hitler.
Jessica went on to become a sweet and gentle old lady, although still outspoken to the very last in what she felt were her humanitarian views. She never did forgive Diana for bowing to the Swastika.
Revisionists, in the light of European Development since the Second World War, have pointed out that Spain would have faired far worse under a communist dictatorship than Franco's rule and that, had the Republicans have won, Hitler would have invaded and we may well have lost the Battle of the Mediterranean. After the war, Spain would have become another Yugoslavia, and today plunged into an even worse and more bloody civil war than the first one. If that is possible. But in Jessica's time everything was so romantically clear cut, and one must deeply respect her for it. I hope the morticians had a good time.
Col. Mitchell was not, of course, a living mortal, but a puppet straight out of Thunderbirds, with his square jaw, his joining eyebrows, and his marble cold eyes. Therefore, as he was only a fantasy, I might have switched off the box and ignored him. But I cannot forgive the section of the script he wrote for himself which glorified the bagpipes at time of battle. That made him into Rob Roy, another egotistical bandit, but this time from Hollywood. MM was, of course, a "good soldier" who was decisive and gallant. But so was Genghis Khan. Seriously, though, is there anything more completely ghastly to listen to, in battle or not, than the wretched whine of the bagpipes?
"Ma'am, this unfortunate divorce brings up a few matters of protocol which I feel I should discuss with you. You see, protocol is virtually the last area in which you have real power.""I see, Sir Esmund, so what exactly is the problem?"
"Well, Ma'am, The Princess of Wales is insisting she keep the title Her Royal Highness and it's quite a poser. We in the protocol department (as you know the Palace links up with Defence and FO on this) have had a few sleepless nights over it."
"What's the problem? It's only a three-letter word."
"Begging your pardon, Ma'am. It really is a teeny weenie bit more than that. As merely the Princess of Wales, especially after the divorce, she's just another Princess and as you know, Europe's swimming with them. I mean, in protocol terms she'd be on a level with some White Russian émigré or, let's say, the Princesses of Monaco."
"She'll be in excellent company there."
"But, with respect Ma'am, that's not the point. You see, she is the mother of a future King of England and in a way her position at the table, as it were, is a reflection on the crown. Until Prince William is a little older, that is."
"And she'd remain top of the table with HRH, is that it?"
"Precisely, Ma'am. You see, it's really up to you."
"Me, me? Why is it always me. Why do I have such a retinue of grovelling advisors and in the end they leave all the decisions to me. Surely, as the mother of a future British monarch, she's entitled to the initials?"
"Not necessarily, Ma'am. You convey the title and it remains completely at your will. You could strip her down to simple 'Mrs Wales' if you so wished."
"Oh, what fun. Could I really? That would teach her to have her toes sucked in public."
"With respect, Ma'am, that was Princess Sarah. But yes, all royal titles are your prerogative, although there are constitutional difficulties if a person was born with the title. The difference in a large banquet between a mere Princess and an HRH Princess is normally about twelve places. In smaller banquets you'd be putting her down with the Earls."
"Well, to be honest, I've always thought it would be a lot more fun to be down there with the Earls than up at the top with all those stuffies."
"Yes, but Ma'am without the HRH the mother of your grandchildren and a future monarch would have to curtsey to the Duchess of Kent."
"God forbid, that dreadful woman would have a field day. I swear she's already the biggest snob in England and she's just like Mrs. Simpson. She's got the Duke all gaga, so much so that he doesn't even think of England any more."
"Precisely, Ma'am."
"Well, all right, Sir Esmund. So what shall we do about it? There must be a reasonable way out."
"Yes Ma'am, there is a way.......but.......eh......it would need a great deal of manoeuvring by our department, and the Princess deeply resents any involvements we make as it is."
"Go on."
"Well, we just make sure she's not invited to anywhere important where she might embarrass the crown by being in the middle of the table. Make sure we keep her away from the Duchess at all times and wait until Prince William is eighteen years old."
"What difference will that make?"
"Oh, the world of difference, Ma'am. Then she could escort him to any important function. As a future Monarch he'd be very much top table and as his escort she'd have to be up there with him."
"You mean a sort of glorious Lady-in-Waiting?"
"Up to a point, Ma'am. But she'd in effect be more of a Queen Mother- in-Waiting."
"So she wouldn't have a really meaningful title, but she would enjoy all the privileges of one?"
"Yes, Ma'am. In protocol we feel it is the only real way."
"Okay, Sir Esmund. We give our permission, but be careful. She's already run off with half the Duke of Cornwall's estates and I'm having to bail him out. If she gets her way, she'll run off with Balmoral too."
"I shall consult with Sir Matthew immediately Ma'am."
The evening sounds of Alora always seem to blend into an animated cacophony. There is the paseo just down in the square and the kids are shrilling. Wild gitano cats are baying with lust and the fighting cocks are sparring with each other from distant shadows in the hills. Always in the Barranco where each evening I sit on the small porch of my hovel, there is the flamenco. Some kids with bare backsides will be beating the wall with plastic bottles; the two aimless sons of the Hungaro family on one side, or the demented daughter of the Beticos on the other, will be wailing laments.
"Please Mr Policeman,The Barranco is the gypsy slum quarter of the small but prosperous town of Alora, some 30 miles up the fertile river valley from Malaga in Andalucia. It is known as a "cerrado town", that is that it is a "closed community" which does not welcome strangers, but I didn't know that when I moved in a year ago, a refugee from political upheaval.
don't arrest me.
Arrest your daughter,
for she has stolen my heart."
My casa is built against the ramparts of a Roman wall. Until I moved in, the attic room where the wall is still preserved exactly as it must have been two millenniums ago, housed goats. Pepe, who waters my garden each evening when we share a Soberano cognac together, likes to quip that the house still does. I may go down to Andre's for a night-cap. But then I might not. Inertia is part of the luxury of Andalucian living.
As I watched Monolo the horse man light some brushwood in a dustbin lid, and his daughter Carmen hanging the washing on a bush, it all seemed a long way from the steps of High Court court 13, where, only three years before, Angus James, my half brother and myself (sort of co-editors) had felt the taste of what we thought was victory. In those illustrious corridors there was a posse of powdered wigs and the ominous flourish of black gowns, all representing the prime minister, and others acting for a Primrose Hill sandwich bar owner called Claire Latimer, also known as a Downing Street caterer. If looks could kill!
On our side, like a gunslinger, was the diminutive, very Jewish young lawyer, David Price (b). It was very much the Gunfight at OK Coral. "Hang in there," Price had urged. "We're heavily outnumbered, but I think they're going to crack." There was exactly three minutes to countdown before the usher would haul us all before Judge Drake in a libel action which had already dragged on for nearly two years.
"Would we," the other side said, "agree to pay costs and apologise?"
"No". (In fact, Angus's exact words, were a lot more Anglo-Saxon).
The flurry of gowns got intense as the seconds ticked away. "Then just apologise and we can all walk away from it," the posse came back.
"But we are not sorry," we said. The usher was putting on her own gown, so was Justice Drake. "They've cracked, they've cracked," Price said, so icy calm that he had gone quite white. "I can feel it. We'll have to give them something to save face."
The court doors were flung open. "Will your clients agree not to repeat the offending words?" It was a deal. Just about every other paper in the world had already repeated the 'offending words'. Even if we had intended to do so, there was not a lot of point. Both sides explained to Mr Justice Drake that they had come to an agreement. "Oh," he said, "how very disappointing, I was looking forward to this one." And in many ways, it was, and so were we.
Price and ourselves went across to the Wig and Pen for a celebratory drink and he phrased a "victor's" announcement on the back of a napkin for the Press Association. In fact, as it emerged, it was a very hollow victory indeed and the actions we had unleashed outside court thirteen would reverberate relentlessly until finally Scallywag magazine was reduced to a few illicit pages on the internet.
What John Major's lawyers had done, and what the Conservative Central Office would do countless times from then on, was issue writs against any soft target they could find - printers, distributors, wholesalers and even retailers. A poor and innocent Patel in Stepney High Street would suddenly receive a writ out of the blue, quickly alarming and confusing every Patel in the country. Even the old soldier outside Westminster tube station was verbally threatened. Until then he had regularly sold 250 copies, almost exclusively to MP's. They and their coterie of lawyers who eventually numbered some of the country's top legal brains, found out quickly that little people with livelihoods at stake would cave in very quickly.
In the end Dr. Julian Lewis, the Deputy Head of Research at the CCO and self-confessed "dirty trickster" began to look upon the campaign to close us down as a personal feud, bordering on a vendetta. He had cut his teeth, controversially, on a long-running campaign against the CND in which he had actually been arrested for dropping dung on a disarmament rally. It had not, however, all gone his way. Friends in the lobby would delight in meeting us in Whitehall to tell us how they had just left Dr. Lewis "tearing his hair out."
We went on to publish some very damaging stories about several cabinet ministers and a damning report on how millions of pounds were unaccounted for in the Tory coffers administered by Lord McAlpine during Margaret Thatcher's reign. While the opposition did not openly acknowledge us or Scallywag, we have since noticed how much of our original material is turning up in articles from labour's present spin doctors. About half a dozen early day motions were posted acting almost exclusively on information supplied by us. And none of us were by any means confirmed socialists - just confirmed anti-this government.
Over a rather cheeky lunch in the Churchill Restaurant in the commons (which raised more than a few eyebrows), a shadow cabinet member admitted, "If the truth be known, Scallywag has tied down (in the run up to an election) a significant section of Smith Square's most virile and dangerous crack squad. It is rather like a couple of hundred partisans pinning down two panzer divisions in Norway in the last war just before 'D' day.
It does appear, however, that the CCO took us far more seriously than we did ourselves. We were cavalier, even careless sometimes; they were deadly and professional. And their extremely well co-ordinated and even well-financed campaign began to pay off. Gradually, even when we found ways of getting printed secretly (against the law) and were using underground freelance distributors, terrestrial publishing had become unfeasible. It came to personal crunch with me when a small and independent book shop in Camden High Street, Compendium, got a barrage of writs and threats and quickly coughed up £2,000 and costs.
Compendium is one of those lovely "bookish" shops that you can spend a year browsing round. By coincidence they had been the very first to stock us when we had started in Camden and, by the time of the threat, was the very last. It was one thing for us to cock a snook at the political establishment, but quite another to have your oldest supporters cruelly victimised in that way.
Apart from the Prime Minister, however, the CCO and their friends had been studiously careful in not suing us direct. We would have been equally studious in defending ourselves. In the end, however, we were reduced to sending (by sponsorship) copies to every MP, and a large press list, as well as some 2,000 subscribers. Our pages on the internet regularly had up to 2,000 hits a day - until someone at the CCO persuaded the site owners, Demon, to wipe us off. We had to go to Amsterdam to continue.
Under no circumstances can I plead innocence, nor that we did not ask for serious retribution. We gave them hell. But I was naïve enough to believe, for a very long time, that the political establishment in this country was not as powerful as our traditions of freedom of opinion and information. I was incredibly wrong. And when I found that out a sort of massive disillusion set it. It was time to look for fresh pastures.
Until I moved to Spain, I had run a form of Scallywag for seven turbulent years. Firstly, in Dorset where it scourged civic embarrassments and scandalised many corrupt local businessmen. At the same time we started a Camden edition which quickly grew to be a "national". This was riding high at the time of the Major writ with a print run of 50,000. It was, of course, a savage irony that during the months of the lead up to Court 13 when we got barrages of publicity, we could not find a printer who would touch us. By the time we could, we were old news.
A year ago now, the time for a change became compulsive and I chanced upon Alora by accident. Leaving what I had, to what I got into, was some change. It was not a just culture shock so much as a journey into another planet. It took me at least six months, for example, to come to proper terms with mañana. But when I did so, mañana became the ultimate pleasure. It is quite exquisite to always put off everything you don't really need to do today until tomorrow. But you really do have to learn how.
Then there was the news. In England I read most of the dailies and all of the Sundays. I half listen to the radio all night and watch the main TV news bulletins. At first in Spain I twiddled thumbs in a bar (I have to travel 40 miles to buy an English paper), and suffered from acute withdrawal symptoms. I remained glued to the World Service - night and day. But, quite gradually yet perceptibly, I got weaned off it until one day, when I needed new batteries, I forgot to buy them and simply did not listen again.
After a year of almost complete isolation studying and recording the original "street flamenco" of the gypsy quarters of Andalucia, I came back to find a tube strike, riots in Ulster, rows over MP's pay, a wretched Russian war going on and gloom and despondency across every front page almost every day. How utterly unimportant it all now was.
How much more fascinating to hear that Manuel the horse trader had just sold his two best mares to the horse ranches of the Domeques in Jerez; or that Antonio the amorous plumber was finally marrying his cousin; or to watch the raid on the tiny cottage just below me where the guardia civil picked up the ninety-year-old woman in black who had been grassed by her brother for cocaine dealing. Or, to sit on my porch listening to the "boss man" up the road who is singing: "The little tree in the field/ is watered with dew/ like the pavement of your street/ is watered with my tears".
Yet, if I wanted to, coming back to reality is in fact very easy on the coast. I merely have to cross the motorway which divides the Costas from the rest of Spain. There I can argue with men from Bradford and women from Cardiff on the state of the nation. Eat eggs and bacon, drink pints of Whitbread, read the Sun and watch the football on Sky. There is more Spanish spoken in Camden Market on a Saturday than there ever is between Malaga and Fuengirola.
But these days I'd rather chew the fat in Andre's bar with the locals and enjoy the escargots the niños bring fresh from the mountain dew each morning. Andre's wife creates a loving broth from buckets of them which almost defies the imagination. If not the snails, then the squid caught overnight off Malaga and brought to the town on the first train before dawn in seething plastic bags. Andre's wife knows how to make them melt in the mouth. While I occasionally get a hankering for Dorset lamb's liver and Scottish bacon, I'll happily settle for a goat meatball stew. I'm also blissful enough imbibing the tinto de verano or one of Andre's lethal cocktails, (main ingredients cognac-con-absinthe). And rather than argue the toss across the motorway on whether Alan Shearer is worth the money, I'm just as happy to come to screaming pitch with Monolo, the vaquero, over whether Joselito or Jesuline are really the greatest living bullfighters or just opportunist fly-by-nights; or even whether the new communist mayor in town is going to fire the fascist Chief of Police. You can get your knees broken over that one.
It's all well worth worrying about, at least mañana. And it's all a million miles or more away from Smith Square.
The Daily Telegraph Thursday, February 27, 1997Homosexual slur wins Tory £16,000By Robert Shrimsley, Chief Political CorrespondentA FORMER deputy director of the Conservative Party yesterday secured £16,000 in damages for allegations that he was a "raving homosexual" who had used private sexual information to pressurise political opponents. Julian Lewis, a leading Euro-sceptic who is standing for the safe seat of New Forest East, accepted an apology from four magazine distributors over a 1994 article in the now-defunct Scallywag magazine. They also face legal costs of more than £50,000. Dr Lewis has already won damages from four other distributors, and the latest settlement brings his total to £29,500. His actions have played a key role in shutting down the magazine which is now available only through the Internet. Christopher Jackson, Dr Lewis's solicitor, told the High Court in London yesterday that the article said the former deputy director of the Tory Research Department had compiled a "dossier on alleged homosexual activities by a senior Labour politician and used illegal electronic bugging devices to assemble it. It also alleged that Dr Lewis had previously used private sexual and financial information to put pressure on his political opponents in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament". The magazine had also stated that Dr Lewis was "rumoured to be a raving homosexual" and was therefore a hypocrite to collect information about alleged homosexual activity by a Labour politician. "There is not the slightest truth in any of these scandalous allegations," Mr Jackson said. Yesterday's apology and damages came from BJB Magazines Ltd, Johnsons News Ltd, Solent News Distributors Ltd and Surridge Dawson Ltd. A fifth distributor, Thames News Services, are still contesting the action and the case is pending next week. |
WHAT A WAGScallywag What is it? A British satirical political e-zine. Where you'll find it: http://www.scallywag.org/ What's it like? The confused cultural identity of Scallywag is its major stumbling block. In the introduction, there's talk of "exposing corruption, hypocrisy and injustice within Britain's political and judicial establishments," and a claim that a conspiracy by the ruling Conservatives has forced the printed version of Scallywag off the shelves. "Great, we're in for some pleasingly subversive stuff," you'd be forgiven for thinking. Sadly, no. Mixed in with the decidedly unoriginal (though well written) anti-government guff, are the odd quips about the writer's favourite watering holes in Paris, and his predilection for Pyraneen snails, which hardly fills you with confidence in their revolutionary stance. Otherwise it's mainstream journalism, whining on about the Churchill fiasco, the Thatchers, Saudi, European fishing regulations (?) and so on. Nothing that the dailies don't already provide. Upside: Anti-Tory. Downside: But totally non-subversive. Typical quote: "If there is such a thing as an amateur expert, then I am one on escargot. Preferably the scoop fulls of little ones from the Pyranees they serve as tapas in Navarra." WaAAAAAnker! Overall: * TT
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The .net Directory is obviously a specialist magazine which deals in one subject. Scallywag never was or pretended to be. Scallywag set out to be exactly what I wanted it to be and it clearly undulates with whatever mood I am in when I face the keyboard. Like most people who indulge themselves in this way, this is entirely dependent on whether any one agrees with you enough to either buy you or react in any other way they feel fit. If they don’t buy you then you are out of business. If no one reads you, then you are writing exclusively for yourself.
The point is that, if I wish to write about government ministers bonking on the top floor of the DTI on the night of the last election and I am happy with our information, then I shall do so. If, on the other hand, I wish to inform my readers that they should taste the snails of Navarra at least once in their lives, or visit the best watering holes of Paris, or Sydney, or New York, or Singapore, or Timbuktu, which was (literally) a "watering" hole, or the Purbecks in Dorset, or Hampstead High Street, or any of the other World-class pub crawls, then why should I not do so? You just don’t have to read me if it annoys you.
If we have not exposed "corruption, hypocrisy and injustice within Britain’s political and judicial establishments" why should they ever have gone to such huge lengths to close us down? And whoever claimed to be subversive or revolutionary? Certainly not me. I am merely against this government and what it purports to stand for. So, it seems, are most people in this country at this time.
The terrestrial Scallywag always had clearly defined areas in which we made it clear we were, on certain pages, on a campaign over various issues. Just like, say, the Sunday Times does. But they and we also had sections which pandered to others who may not give a toss about government shenanigans. They might just care instead, to read about the snails of Navarra (which are deliciously fresh with the morning dew of the Pyranees, succulent, very small and "meaty", cooked with immense personal care and love, normally in a large pot, and do not need the disguise of either garlic or butter to bring out their subtlety. The giant snails of Vietnam, introduced by mistake, could answer the world’s hunger problems if they were not treated as a pest. But even tough they are huge, very succulent and highly nutritional, they are never as tasty as those from the foothills of Navarra. The only escargot which are seriously bland, tasteless, badly cooked, tinned in brine, and a National disgrace are those under that title served up in France).
If it is of any interest to .net Directory, my views on the best escargot in the world were deeply contested by tens of thousands of web surfers who disagreed with me and, if nothing else, I have become an expert on the subject - which is exactly what something like Scallywag set out to do. Indulge himself and luxuriate in those topics which interest him most.
Meanwhile, if you really want to know which two cabinet ministers were found bonking on the top floor of the DTI building, just refer back to Scallywag’s files.
Notes:
(a) (b) Profile of David
Price.