Charles Moore

We went to the perfect midsummer wedding of my wife’s god-daughter in Norfolk this weekend. The service was pure Book of Common Prayer, omitting only some of the longer prayers and the woman saying ‘obey’ and (I think) ‘serve’. The service states the theological nature of marriage (‘signifying unto us the mystical union that is betwixt Christ and His Church’), and then its purposes. These are 1) children, ‘to be brought up in the fear and nurture of the Lord’. 2) as ‘a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication’. 3) for ‘the mutual society, help and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and in adversity’.

Gordon Brown, echoing Aneurin Bevan, says that the greatest gift that the NHS brings to people is ‘serenity’. He is surely right that this is what it brought 70 years ago — for the simple, important reason that people would no longer need to say of treatment, ‘I just can’t afford it’. But comparable ‘serenity’ is provided, in different ways, in, for example, Germany, the Netherlands and Australia. Defenders of today’s NHS have to explain not why it is more serene than pre-1948, but whether it matches the current arrangements of comparable countries. ‘Serenity’ is not the word one would apply to many British hospitals today. In these Notes last week, I mentioned the fear felt by the old.

Upskirting is such a pretty word: it sounds like a charming village in Yorkshire, or an olde worlde custom, like swan-upping. Actually, it is nasty, and not as new as people claim. Fragonard depicts it in ‘The Swing’ (though obviously the young man had no camera). Margaret Thatcher, who was most reluctant to wear trousers, nevertheless did so when she knew she would have to climb a ladder, because she did not trust the photographers. Upskirting has been the raison d’etre of the Sunday Sport ever since it was founded in 1986. In 1993, the Mirror published close-up pictures, taken by a concealed camera, of Diana, Princess of Wales, when working out in a gym. It paid the gym-owner, who had set up the camera, more than £100,000.

Obviously, one mocks little President Macron for telling a teenager to call him ‘Monsieur le President’. How long before the French will have to say ‘Vive l’Empereur!’? But I do have a sneaking sympathy for the man one must not call ‘Manu’. The presumption of modern culture that everyone is on first-name terms makes people confused because they come to believe they really are friends with ‘Harry and Meghan’, or whoever it may be. The famous people thus addressed are also unhappy, because they cannot remember who they do and don’t know, and because they feel that people are trying to own them. Full, formal modes of address provide a ‘Noli me tangere’ which preserves sanity on both sides. Look at the Queen.

I really will miss Paul Dacre when he steps down as editor of the Daily Mail. There have been times, I must admit, when I have attacked the Mail’s grotesque behaviour and stupefying hypocrisy, but the following are good and true points to be made about Paul. 1) He fully, properly edits, and his proprietor has the sense to let him do so. 2) He values good writers, and pays them accordingly. 3) He is brave, especially in not minding the disapproval of polite society; and this courage has enabled him to crash around in the china shop of political correctness at a satisfying decibel level. For us in Sussex, there may be a compensation for Paul’s departure.

The Archbishops of Canterbury and Westminster have launched an ecumenical app which allows users to report car washes if they think they are employing slave workers. The Bishop of Derby, who ‘leads on modern slavery’ for the Church of England, spoke of people who had been ‘kept in conditions like animals’ and even of some whose shoes had become melded to their feet. I would not be surprised if abuse does take place. Whenever I have my car washed in this way (about once a year), I ask the workers where they come from and am amazed by the variety of countries named, though perhaps Albania predominates. The presence of a watchful boss is usually very noticeable. The app may help catch bad actors.

Richard Madeley pulled the plug on his interview with Gavin Williamson, the Defence Secretary, last week because Mr Williamson kept avoiding his question. Madeley’s decision seems to have been popular. He did what he did ‘on behalf of the viewers’. There is a false assumption here, which runs deep in our culture and gives interviewers a massive advantage over their subjects. If someone asks us a question, we think it is rude or evasive to refuse to answer. Sometimes it is (and Mr Williamson certainly was evasive), but we do not subject the questioner to the same scrutiny. Why has he picked that particular question? What right has he to set the entire agenda of the encounter? Is his editor whispering in his ear that he must try to ‘get’ X on the subject of Y?