Watching brief - Amanda Platell reads much warbling in the papers
Published 03 February 2003
On the war, the only dove worth its feathers is the Mirror, the only hawk the Sun. The rest are warblers, singing with a succession of constantly changing notes
War makes the unlikeliest of bedfellows. First Tony Bush and George Blair, now Alan Rusbridger and Paul Dacre. Both the Guardian and the Daily Mail concluded after Hans Blix's report to the UN Security Council that the case for giving Iraq more time had been made, but the case for war had not.
The UN weapons inspector provided the opportunity for the newspapers to readjust their war intentions. In the end, most were as equivocal as Blix himself.
Not one daily paper was categorically against war, not one unconditionally for it. Only the Sun and the Star did not have the story on their front pages. All ran leaders, except the Express, which predicted: "It's war".
The most pro-war stand was taken by the Sun, arguing that Saddam Hussein was as deadly as a tank of piranhas and should be given only a few more weeks before being blitzed. The Mirror took the most vociferously anti-war line with its "Cool it, cowboy" splash, claiming there was no proof of an arsenal and no justification for war.
Most papers took the middle ground. The Times leader sombrely concluded that Iraq's evasions brought military action closer. The Telegraph response was low-key, saying the findings of the inspectors lend support to preparation for war. The Financial Times was as glacial as Blix himself, describing this as an interim judgement that put the case for more time and more co-operation. The Independent also called for more time.
The newspapers are fond of categorising others as doves and hawks, but it has become almost impossible to categorise them. The only dove worth its feathers is the Mirror, the only hawk the Sun. The rest can best be described as warblers, capable of singing with a succession of constantly changing notes. Oh, and when setting up his territory, the male warbler sings almost the entire day. No change there, then.
Meanwhile, a war has been raging between the left-wing Sunday broadsheets. The Independent on Sunday was quick to seize upon the surprising pro-war stand of the Observer the previous week. The Sindy's "Stop. Think. Listen" front-page leader - which sounded like a road safety drill for six-year-olds - made it clear that it was opposed to war. The paper's letters page was an open invitation to Observer readers to switch.
Could this have anything to do with the inquisition to which the Sindy's new chief executive, Ivan Fallon, subjected the editor, Tristan Davies, over the lack of a unique selling point for the paper?
The Observer, however, appeared to row back from its gung-ho stand in its own letters special. The previous week had put the case for "decisive action", which "may be the only option". Seven days on, it talks of "possible military intervention" and a "lesser of two evils". Sounds suspiciously like trying to argue yourself off a coiled spring to me.
Could this softening of the paper's line have anything to do with a reader backlash? And was the selection on the letters page - a good one-third supporting the leader, of which about one in three came from America - a fair reflection of reader reaction?
I am still unable to decide whether the Guardian's readers' editor, Ian Mayes, is the most sardonic or the most pompous man in British journalism. His defence of "fucking" in the newspaper last September was a masterpiece in irony and one of the funniest things I've ever read. His recent "open door" on the editor's conference on Iraq shed light on the moral and intellectual journey taken by the paper's journalists to arrive at its current position on the war. Mayes concluded: "An updated statement of the Guardian's position is likely . . . to coincide with the Blair-Bush meeting at Camp David." Gently mocking? Or does Mayes really believe he's the Guardian's answer to Kofi Annan?
The death of Lord Dacre, the historian who briefly authenticated the "Hitler diaries", brings to mind the evening the Sunday Times ran the first extracts as a world exclusive. The presses were rolling and the champagne was flowing when the phone rang. The editor, Frank Giles, answered. It was Dacre. Giles's face went white; the room went silent. "What do you mean, you've changed your mind?"
The BBC has long been suspected of harbouring subversive, anti-monarchist programme schedulers, and final proof came on 26 January with the almost concurrent airing of BBC1's The Lost Prince and BBC2's The Natural World, the latter being a film about Prince Charles's life at his Highgrove home.
One could not help but be struck by the similarities between Princes John and Charles - both exiled to the country by their mean old mums, unloved by a nation that never really understood them, and so deprived of human company that they ended up talking to the plants.
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