Don’t Let It Be Forgotten

Peter Hitchens writes: 

I could never stand the quiz show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? The questions were either insultingly easy or demanded a profound knowledge of soap operas or sport, which I don’t want to know about. And it was so slow. 

So I paid little attention to the ‘Coughing Major’ case, and merely thought it funny. Now, thanks to the dramatisation of the episode in the ITV series Quiz last week, I have totally changed my mind. 

I don’t know if Major Charles Ingram and his wife Diana were guilty of cheating their way to a million-pound prize. But if the drama was even vaguely true, I don’t believe the case against them was proved beyond reasonable doubt, which is what the law demands. I also have a nagging feeling that the police have better things to do than investigate quiz shows.

It is odd how many times you find that what you thought was clear and beyond dispute is not, as soon as you know the details. I discovered this when I read Josephine Tey’s marvellous novel The Daughter Of Time, in which a Scotland Yard detective, stuck in hospital with injuries suffered while pursuing a criminal, investigates the claim that Richard III murdered the Princes in the Tower. And lo, it turns out that he didn’t. 

And:

The dangerous, greedy campaign to legalise marijuana now has powerful allies on all sides of politics. In my view, it has never been closer to success here, and the pressing need to raise new taxes [there is no such need] may bring that day even closer.

Well, before they fall into this trap, MPs and Ministers should listen to Professor Sir Robin Murray, one of this country’s most distinguished psychiatrists who had until recently favoured limited legalisation. 

But now that he has seen how this has actually worked out in North America, he has absolutely changed his mind. Not only is he sure that the drug’s use is linked with mental illness, he now says: ‘I didn’t appreciate how big the cannabis industry was going to be.’

He compares Big Cannabis with the death-dealing Big Tobacco lobby which cynically used its wealth to defy health campaigners for many decades. He now fears that this ultra-rich pressure group will seduce our cash-strapped Government [again, that is not how the money supply works] into giving way.

At any other time, Prof Murray’s intervention would have been big news. Don’t let it be forgotten.