Writing this Diary and the amiable correspondence I have had recently with my old friend Mathias Döpfner as he assumes control of the Telegraph titles remind me of how much more agreeably simple my days are now than when I was Telegraph chairman. Thanks to the internet, my reflections on a number of outlets in different countries ricochet all around the world to an astounding number of people. It is uplifting to be well paid for my opinions and not to have to spend one minute listening to the personal problems of employees, enduring the inanities of journalists’ or other unions, not having to worry about competition, not having to deal with verbose and ungrateful shareholders or exchanging one word with securities regulators (although London’s are the most constructive in the advanced world), and not haggling with newsprint suppliers. Döpfner will be a splendid Telegraph chairman; there had to be a non-Commonwealth national newspaper chairman eventually, and that honor could not have gone to a more competent and likable man.
It is almost a year since I was last in Britain and I am afraid I am losing touch, especially as I have reached the age where as Lady Diana Mosley once said to me, “people are dying non-stop.” The most recent, in my case, were the magnificent Annabel Goldsmith and the incomparable Tom Stoppard. I did have the opportunity to meet up with some English friends at Rupert Murdoch’s 95th birthday in New York a few months ago. It was a convivial occasion. The highlight, apart from Rupert’s excellent and in places affecting address, was a big screen appearance from Donald Trump. Undeterred by the fact that he is suing the birthday celebrant’s company for $10 billion, he jauntily concluded his brief remarks: “Rupert, you and I are showing that only the good die young.”
I wish to apologize to my old comrade Max Hastings, whom I criticized about six years ago for his attack on Boris Johnson. I don’t share Max’s personal dislike for Boris, but he was correct in predicting that he would be an unsuccessful prime minister. I thought not and I was mistaken. Max and I had the odd disagreement when we worked together at the Telegraph, but got on well. He was a good editor. I always thought that he had the envious anti-Americanism of the British military and was reminded of this when he wrote about going out to protest the visit to Britain of President Trump. It reminded me of when I learned of Max’s firing of Carol Thatcher from the Daily Telegraph from her mother when she called me one evening at about midnight, bellowing about “a terrible outrage.” I had some difficulty the next day getting it across to Max that whatever the rights and wrongs, a newspaper that supported a prime minister who commanded a parliamentary majority of 120 did not sack her daughter quite so abruptly, especially as neither of us would have been in our positions if Margaret Thatcher had not been the first person elected to three consecutive full terms since before the First Reform Act. Max and I had a few other differences. But the years go by and I wish him well.
I hope my fellow Britons (I am a dual citizen with Canada), know how deeply worried a very great number of Americans and Canadians are at what appears to be Britain’s sudden loss of the aptitude for self-government. Seven prime ministers in ten years is reminiscent of the French Fourth Republic as it floundered to an end, and there is no British de Gaulle to sort it out. Britain had been generally regarded as the most politically stable of all major democratic countries since the Stuart Restoration, until recently. The most shocking elements of Britain’s problems, viewed sympathetically from overseas, are the failure to end illegal immigration, the false accusations against citizens of racism when their concern is rising housing costs and diminished social services because of illegal immigration, and the failure to defend Jews and other minorities from persecution by extreme groups more recently and less legitimately resident in England. The fact that the Labour party in particular is so dependent on Muslim votes that it is afraid of their lawless minorities is shameful and distressing to all Anglophiles. Before too many people join Hastings in anti-Trump protests, they might remember that he oversees an economy 150 percent larger than that of China or the EU, growing five times as quickly; has ended illegal immigration, deported more than a million illegal migrants; has lowered violent crime to the lowest rate since 1900; and has cracked down effectively on anti-Semitism. Every British citizen has the same rights as Don Pacifico. All of us who can say “civis Britannicus sum,” as Palmerston did, wish to do so proudly.
Conrad Black will speak at The Spectator’s Nixon Revival event on September 30 in our refurbished office in New York.
Comments