Sunday
I came to stay at Claridge’s recently, during the strike by some of its staff, to demonstrate my solidarity with the hotel’s owners. The rooms cost from £38.50 a night upwards (Times, 11.4.78 and 15.4.78), so it was not a cheap gesture. In contrast, a London waiter’s pay had just been increased to £30.27 for a forty-hour week. The take-home pay of a Claridge’s chambermaid on the picket line was, after various deductions, £23 a week. The strikers had come out for two things: recognition of their union, and the re-instatement of their shop steward, who had been sacked — victimized, according to the strikers.
As often happens in these affairs, the strikers went back empty-handed (Times, 25.4.78). The shop steward later accepted compensation from Claridge’s, but he stayed sacked, as the hotel had insisted he would. We capitalists get the best of both worlds. The hotel-workers, like the firemen, the Grunwick employees, and many more, were beaten into submission; and at the same time many workers remain entirely convinced (by the press and television) of the ungovernable power of the unions, which can therefore be blamed for the miseries of their lives.
Monday
It is absolutely essential for us that the working class do not discover what Socialism really is. In this we are much helped by the left-wing parties—the Labour Party, the Communist Party, the various Trotskyist groups—who allege that certain capitalist countries such as Britain, Russia, China, or others, are really Socialist, or could easily become so with a few more reforms. These allegations are naturally made much of by avowedly capitalist-supporting media-men. Peregrine Worsthorne had an article in the Sunday Telegraph (2.4.78) in which he commented sarcastically on James Callaghan’s stay at the British Embassy in Washington, being waited on by servants and taken round in chauffeur-driven cars. The article was called The Splendours of Socialism — in reality a completely irrelevant title, but an effective piece of propaganda — and the article went on with attacks on state capitalism (labelled “Socialism”), of which Russia and what he called the “Communist countries” were given as dreadful examples.
Worsthorne made another good propaganda point, alleging that Callaghan was living it up in a way that “no British capitalist, however successful, could hope to emulate” (who does he think stays at Claridge’s?) Thus the workers who read the paper are assured that the capitalists are not really very well off. Well done, Worsthorne!
Tuesday
With my business interests I need a pied-à-terre in town, and for the last couple of months I have been paying £500 a week rent for a furnished flat in central London—really luxurious ones bring up to £1000 a week (Times, 5.6.78 and Observer, 11.6.78). However, I have decided to get somewhere more permanent. I think 1 will go after a house in St. John’s Wood: it’s a nice size, with five bedrooms and two bathrooms, and is offered at £475,000 (Times, 9.6.78). At a modest price like that, not even half a million, of course it’s not freehold: the lease is fifty-seven years.
I’ve made a start on the furnishings. A pair of George III mahogany commodes was sold by Christie’s for £95,000 to a London dealer “on behalf of a private collector” Daily Telegraph, 16.5.78). They should look well in my new house.
Wednesday
A film starlet recently told a journalist (Sunday Express, 21.5.78) of a discovery she had made while filming The Greek Tycoon. They borrowed a luxury yacht, and she found that “there was a crew of twenty-seven to look after just eight guests. That’s all they can have on board; there are only four guest cabins. Now that’s ridiculous . .” All in all, “I realized for the first time that rich people do live lives quite different from the rest of us.”
Well, yes, my dear, we do. We have more money, you see. Some of us throw it away foolishly. Mrs. Kitty Milinaire, the Duchess of Bedford’s daughter-in-law (who was recently charged with taking away on approval from Cartiers’, the royal jewellers, a gem stone and a couple of rings worth £204,000 and not returning them, but was cleared of any blame after a court case) — Mrs. Milinaire admitted losing £3 million in five years by gambling (Daily Telegraph, 29.6.78).
Even she was slower than Sir Hugh Fraser, the millionaire industrialist, who confessed some time ago to losing one and a half million pounds on the roulette tables “in the last year or two” (Times, 8.12.76). That’s throwing away about £20,000 per week, taking the average week in, week out, for eighteen months. To get through that much he had to play several tables simultaneously, sometimes as many as five, and make his rounds continuously among them.
These, however, are exceptions. And even this money isn’t “lost”: it goes into the hands of other rich people, either fellow gamblers or casino owners.
Thursday
Poor results have been reported from one of the companies represented in my portfolio of shares. Dunbee, the toy manufacturers, didn’t do as well as expected in 1977, particularly in the last half of the year (Daily Telegraph, 16.5.78). As the joint managing director said, “Christmas didn’t happen last year". (The remark, incidentally, shows a refreshing candour as to what Christmas really amounts to in a commercial society, despite the annual dose of religious propaganda.)
The disappointing sales no doubt resulted from the fall in many people’s purchasing power owing to the failure of after-tax pay to keep pace with prices (City Comment, Daily Telegraph, 16.5.78). That is one of the many dilemmas of our society: we capitalists strain every nerve to keep our workers’ pay down, but at the same time we must bear in mind that they are our customers. It is these contradictions within capitalism which lead to struggles between political policies which take place in every capitalist country (that is, in every country in the world).
After reading the Dunbee report, I had to console myself by arranging a week’s salmon fishing—I took a week on a crack boat on the Tweed, one rod, £1000 a week (Times, 16.5.78).
Friday
My old friend Lord Lilford has triumphed in the Court of Appeal. Lord Lifford’s fourth wife, who is now married to her third husband, sued Lord Lilford (who is now married to his fifth wife) for extra provision for their two daughters. When the plaintiff and the defendant got married, Lord Lilford “made financial provision for her former husband and her two children by that marriage” (Sun, 13.5.78). When they were divorced, Lord Lilford gave his ex-wife at least £200,000 in money and properly and shares, and also handed over £30,000 for each girl’s education, plus £1812 a year each until they were eighteen. The girls’ mother thought that that was not enough, and sued the baron for another £25,000 for each girl. She won in the High Court, but Lord Lilford’s appeal has now been upheld. The former Lady Lilford said after the case: “I think he should feel very proud of himself over the trifling sum of £25,000 for each of the girls out of his untold millions.”
But it’s the principle of the thing that counts (or, as you might say, the principal—and the interest). £50,000 is neither here nor there to people like Lord Lilford and me, but you have to draw the line somewhere.
Saturday
Went shopping in the West End. Bought rather a nice little book about the various New Zealand Rugby touring teams, for my nephew, who is keen on the game. It cost £200 (Times, 12.4.78). I met my girl friend, and 1 bought her a straw hat for £68 (Times, 25.5.78), and a pair of silk pyjamas, £200 (Eastern Daily Press, 16.6.78).
Have just booked for a three-months’ cruise with the QE2 later this year. In April 900 passengers landed from a three-month Far Eastern cruise, for which they paid charges ranging from £5000 to £100,000 (and that’s apart from their spending money on the trip). They included 150 “well-heeled English gentlefolk” (Observer, 23.4.78).
Capitalism is run, naturally, for the benefit of the capitalists, but that fact must be concealed as far as possible. Thus, while some capitalists go on fantastically expensive holidays, their journalistic apologists like Worsthorne continue the task of persuading the rest of the population that no British capitalist could afford even a chauffeur- driven car.
If we members of the ruling class did not have such a vast propaganda organization working for us, how long, I wonder, would our system last?
Alwyn Edgar
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