Vitriol is in short supply these days

A correspondent makes jocular mock of this column in a letter which was printed on this page. The writer, who has previously thrown rotten fruit in this direction, wonders if a national shortage of vitriol might explain what he terms a "curiously benevolent attitude to the sleaze-ridden Labour Government" in these quarters.

The writer cleverly contrives the following statement from your columnist: "We used huge quantities during the Thatcher era and stocks haven't recovered yet."

Ah yes, those were the days. You had to go out well-armed with vitriol, just to survive the daily horrors of life. But it doesn't do to look back, if for no other reason than that the nightmares might start again.

It is true that vitriol is harder to come by these days, but then so too is vim. There is something sapping about this Government, as evidenced by the weedy performance of the Opposition on almost any given occasion.

If vitriol has been in short supply here, the enthusiasm tank is no longer full. For Tony Blair's designer-suited Third Way sometimes seems the respectable new face of old-style Tory policies, as illustrated by the splendid wheeze to let private companies run schools deemed to have failed. When the last Government suggested such outrages, the Old Testament Labour Party was left hopping with pop-eyed indignation.

As to the "sleaze-ridden" tag, is this Government really sullied by sleaze? Peter Mandelson's home loan was deeply foolish, but that hardly counts as sleaze. No, the dangers lie elsewhere. For when a Government has such a commanding majority, and still dominates the opinion polls, it is all too easy for internal squabbles to germinate.

Perceived internecine rows also make good copy, as political journalists are never happy with a Government that is doing all right and remains popular. 'Government still ahead in opinion polls' is not a headline to set an editor's pulse racing.

So splits, rows, and battered egos are sought out, even if the truth is that the Government remains in a ridiculously commanding position, though Tony Blair is prone to twitchiness.

In the light of such Government bashing sport, Margaret Cook's very public wailing and blubbing over her private life benefits no one. Her too-much-publicised book spilling the unappetising minutiae of her former married life to then adulterous Robin Cook does no one any favours. Least of all herself. Do we really want to read that while in the Lakes the couple "drank considerably more than was good for us"? Or that Mr Cook was "often the worse for drink"?

I could not read any book which contains the sentence: "To my unbounded horror his memory began to show gaping hiatuses, mostly about recent events". All this soul-bearing is just more flagrant transparency where a little opaque discretion might have been preferable. Or even a gaping hiatus.

Two alarming stories in my Sunday newspaper. One reports that the words 'poo' and 'willies' were cut from an edition of Double Vision, a Radio Four chat show for older listeners presented by Edward Enfield (Harry's dad). The offending words were contained in recordings of children's ditties.

A spokesman hilariously said the cuts were made because "children are around on Saturday mornings". Possibly so, but children were reciting the ditties in the first place! Besides, have you ever heard a group of young children chattering? You can guarantee a high quotient of p- and w-words.

Story two reports that the departing film censor, James Ferman, believes adults are more at risk from sex films than are children. He highlights Japanese Manga cartoons, which certainly sound revolting. But for all such concerns, has anyone ever conclusively proved that watching any film truly had a harmful effect? Nope, thought not.

14/01/99

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.