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separate charges and two wildly differing accounts of reality. Sagely, it split the difference: the MP was found not guilty of theft but guilty of criminal damage. (Fine: £1,000. Compensation: £628. Contribution to prosecution costs: £2,500.) Judge John Gower, QC, said, “I’m almost afraid to mention the words
ladies’ knickers
, because they have assumed a significance out of all proportion to their rightful place in this case.” Mrs. Ron Brown said, “My marriage is as good today as twenty-seven years ago,” and declared herself unsurprised by her husband’s behavior, “knowing men and having lived with one for twenty-seven years.” Ron Brown himself, on being asked whether he was considering resignation, said, “No, why should I?”
    Why should he? It’s well known that a drunk-driving convictiondoes not diminish a judge’s authority in the courts, though quite what degree of criminality is acceptable among those who construct and administer Britain’s laws has never been officially laid down. In the present instance, the wise heads who weigh such matters tended to agree—theoretically, at least—with Mr. Brown. Had he been convicted of theft, he would have had to resign, but conviction for the lesser offense of wielding a bottle of Liebfraumilch in such a way as to commit
damage passionel
did not in itself diminish an MP’s ability to represent his constituents and adorn his party. However, there is the manner as well as the matter of conviction to consider, and here Mr. Brown yet again did not behave in the accepted way. An MP emerging from court in his position is expected to say that the experience has been a deeply chastening one, that he has sworn off booze and mistresses for life and will humbly serve his constituents in whatever capacity they determine, be it only stamp licker and envelope sealer. Mr. Brown, however, was in triumphalist mood. What did he think of the verdict? “It’s a moral victory,” he bullishly declared. The gentlemen of Fleet Street, who had done well out of the story, presented the MP with a bottle of champagne. Mr. Brown shook it vigorously and showered the contents all over himself and Mrs. Brown. In this celebratory pose did the guilty MP bedeck the front pages next morning.
    You are allowed to be a maverick; you are allowed even to be a minor criminal. But as an MP you are not allowed to be a cringe-making clown and a relentless embarrassment. You are not expected to load the gun and press it into the opponent’s hands. Sir Anthony Meyer has just discovered this: having impudently challenged Mrs. Thatcher for the leadership, he has now been “deselected” (the current political euphemism for “sacked”) by his constituency party, and will be put out to grass at the next election. And, on the other side of the House, Mr. Brown finds that his local party has denounced him, Neil Kinnock is after his blood, and nobody wants to hear his pathetic plea that the celebratory champagne was, in fact, mere sparkling wine. His chances of representing Edinburgh Leith at the next election are officially estimated at zero. However, given the natureof notoriety, there will always be a place for Ron Brown. The Rector of Stiffkey, who in a famous prewar morals case was dispossessed of his benefice, ended his days exhibiting himself in a lion’s cage. (The resident lion, drawing on distant Roman memories, finally ate the Christian.) Mr. Brown might not have to go to such lengths as this; but he could do worse than start auditioning right now for the part of Mother Goose.
    March 1990
    Ron Brown was deselected by the Edinburgh Leith Labour Party. He fought the 1992 election there on an independent Labour ticket, without success. Mrs. Thatcher’s impermanence was less predictable
.

2
Fake!
    W e’re back in London again,” Mallarmé wrote to his friend Henri Cazalis in 1863, “the country of the fake Rubens paintings” The poet’s judgment doubtless indicates a wider Gallic