Notes on Italy and England
GOODMAN, WALTER
Fair Game BY WALTER GOODMAN Notes on Italy and England On a recent visit to Italy and England, my wife and I found the newspapers occupied with stories about elections to the European...
...One pleasant evening, wetookasubway to the Piazza del Populo to join a rally for the Socialist candidates...
...They had other matters on their minds...
...in their ultimately low turnout at the polls, the Europeans resembled Americans...
...The crackdown in China came during the campaign, and Italy's Communists were quick to declare their opposition to the Beijing hardliners as well as their championship of freedom and democracy...
...Fair Game BY WALTER GOODMAN Notes on Italy and England On a recent visit to Italy and England, my wife and I found the newspapers occupied with stories about elections to the European Parliament—or some facsimile thereof—that is supposed to ease the way to a united Europe promised or threatened for 1992...
...During our visit, the transport workers endeared themselves to Londoners by shutting down the Underground and stopping the buses for a day, while the BBC staff was threatening a job action that would black out Wimbledon...
...And as Americans, we could attest to the economic benefits of a single, big national market, unobstructed by trade restrictions...
...Portia, remember, took her time, and Britons, bless them, are jealous of their Britishness...
...In their persistent refusal to give a mandate to any combination of politicians, the Italian people show they know how to avoid despotism...
...Labor does seem to have fought off one threat, in the form of a testy alliance forged several years ago between Social Democrats and Liberals...
...Suppose that amajority of the lately elected Parliament, whether of Left or Right, were to attempt to move Europe in a direction that the people of Britain found repulsive...
...Come sleep with us, " say the Communists to the Socialists...
...At the Madrid meeting of European Community leaders, which occurred during our stay in London, Thatcher played the reluctant maiden—being wooed, cajoled, pressured by French, German, Spanish and other suitors...
...What, then, happens to British democracy...
...As tourists, we could not fail to be attracted to one aspect of the Greater Europe movement—a joint currency...
...Although the members of the new Europe all observe democratic niceties at the moment, they hardly share traditions and values to the extent that America's 13 states did when they decided to cometogether...
...Granted, England's formidable leader is not at the height of her popularity at the moment, with inflation up, butif Laborruns to form, it may well throw itself into disarray before the next national election...
...The crowd was cooler than the expensive cappuccino to which we treated ourselves at a handy caf...
...Maggie Playing Portia In England, the Left immediately interpreted its success in the European elections as a portent for the overthrow of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher...
...Portia is not one of Shakespeare's most beloved creations, but it was easy to sympathize, to a degree, with Thatcher's unwillingness to commit England to a problematic Europe...
...The unions' habit of trying to saddle the Labor Party with their views on such matters as unilateral nuclear disarmament continues to be an embarrassment...
...The Labor Party's greatest strength, its ties with the nation's unions, is also a considerable weakness...
...A united Europe is a grand idea, yet so is an independent Britain—and Britain has the better record...
...Compared to workers' shows of muscle in Poland and the Soviet Union, the slogans of British Labor these days seem like weak tea...
...If nongovernment can work in Italy, why not in Europe...
...In June, the British voter was plainly more interested in cricket, Ascot, Wimbledon, the lack of rain, and the latest lectures of the Prince of Wales—who has emerged as England's pre-eminent Royal scold—than in Margaret Thatcher's encounters in Madrid...
...An acquaintance likened the maneuverings to sex play...
...These Socialists seemed like the sort of folk good American liberals could comfortably associate with and even vote for, in the assurance that if they ever gained power, it would only be temporary and they wouldn't do anything too socialistic...
...She had not become head of Her Majesty's government to give control over the British economy and, hence, some aspects of its political life to a bunch of foreign politicians with views that she, along with plenty of her fellow citizens, finds uncongenial and a little flaky...
...Italy's squeaky clean Communists have been making overtures to the Socialists, hoping to bring about an alliance that could compete with the dominant Christian Democrats...
...We spent a lot of time with the estimable Hoffman this trip: Rain Man was shown both on our flight to Europe and our flight back...
...So far, they have also staved off anarchy...
...The speakers were received rather passively...
...Not that the lack of a prime minister appeared to be a source of particular distress, Rome's bureaucracy having long since learned to keep things running, in its somewhat haphazard way, government or no...
...Now it is the Greens who have achieved a presence, and both Conservatives and Laborites are claiming to be greener than the next fellow...
...That far, even a British union did not dare go, and Wimbledon got on the screen during a second work stoppage when nobody got on the Underground...
...It may have seemed even to the Italians, who went to the polls in fair numbers, like an odd exercise to be voting for some distant body, with dubious powers, while their own country was once again without agovemment...
...The people we spoke to were unenthralled...
...Communists have never been famed for a sense of humor, but these days they are providing the best political jokes everywhere...
...She was like Portiain The Merchant of Venice, which, as it happened, was playing to packed houses on the West End, filled with Americans who had come to see Dustin Hoffman assay Shylock...
...Onlyif we can be on top," answer the Socialists...
...The actor was much better as the idiot savant than as the luckless Jew...
...It'smy hunch that her resistance to being rushed into European engagements will serve her well in future elections...
...No sooner had we gotten accustomed to counting out thousands of lire for postcards than we were trading the notes in for pounds, and taking a beating on the exchange...
...This may be wishful thinking...
...Would their views be slighted in behalf of some all-European goal...
...the lethargic yells of an opposition claque, whether of Left or Right we could not determine, were tolerated...
Vol. 72 • June 1989 • No. 10
