Rough analysis of advertisements in today’s issue of the People:14—
Paper consists of 12 pages—84 columns. Of this, just about 26½ columns (over ¼) is advertisements. These are divided up as follows:
Food and drink: 5 ¾ columns.
Patent medicines: 9 and a third.
Tobacco: 1.
Gambling 2 and a third.
Clothes: 1½.
Miscellaneous: 6¾.
Of 9 food and drink adverts., 6 are for unnecessary luxuries. Of 29 adverts. for medicines, 19 are for things which are either fraudulent (baldness cured etc.), more or less deleterious (Kruschen Salts, Bile Beans etc.), or of the blackmail type («Your child’s stomach needs magnesia»). Benefit of doubt has been allowed in the case of a few medicines. Of 14 miscellaneous adverts., 4 are for soap, 1 for cosmetics, 1 for a holiday resort and 2 are government advertisements, including a large one for national savings. Only 3 adverts. in all classes are cashing in on the war.
3.6.40: From a letter from Lady Oxford15 to the Daily Telegraph, on the subject of war economies:
«Since most London houses are deserted there is little entertaining … in any case, most people have to part with their cooks and live in hotels.»
Apparently nothing will ever teach these people that the other 99% of the population exist.
6.6.40: Both Borkenau and I considered that Hitler was likely to make his next attack on France, not England, and as it turns out we were right. Borkenau considers that the Dunkirk business has proved once for all that aeroplanes cannot defeat warships if the latter have planes of their own. The figures given out were 6 destroyers and about 25 boats of other kinds lost in the evacuation of nearly 350,000 men. The number of men evacuated is presumably truthful, and even if one doubled the number of ships lost16 it would not be a great loss for such a large undertaking, considering that the circumstances were about as favourable to the aeroplanes as they could well be.
Borkenau thinks Hitler’s plan is to knock out France and demand the French fleet as part of the peace terms. After that the invasion of England with sea-borne troops might be feasible.
Huge advert. on the side of a bus: «FIRST AID IN WARTIME. FOR HEALTH, STRENGTH AND FORTITUDE. WRIGLEY’S CHEWING GUM.»
7.6.40: Although newspaper posters are now suppressed,17 one fairly frequently sees the paper-sellers displaying a poster. It appears that old ones are resuscitated and used, and ones with captions like «R.A.F. raids on Germany» or «Enormous German losses» can be used at almost all times.
8.6.40: In the middle of a fearful battle in which, I suppose, thousands of men are being killed every day, one has the impression that there is no news. The evening papers are the same as the morning ones, the morning ones are the same as those of the night before, and the radio repeats what is in the papers. As to truthfulness of news, however, there is probably more suppression than downright lying. Borkenau considers that the effect of the radio has been to make war comparatively truthful, and that the only large-scale lying hitherto has been the German claims of British ships sunk. These have certainly been fantastic. Recently one of the evening papers which had made a note of the German announcements pointed out that in about 10 days the Germans claimed to have sunk 25 capital ships, ie. 10 more than we ever possessed.
Stephen Spender said to me recently, «Don’t you feel that any time during the past ten years you have been able to foretell events better than, say, the Cabinet?» I had to agree to this. Partly it is a question of not being blinded by class interests etc., eg. anyone not financially interested could see at a glance the strategic danger to England of letting Germany and Italy dominate Spain, whereas many rightwingers, even professional soldiers, simply could not grasp this most obvious fact. But where I feel that people like us understand the situation better than so-called experts is not in any power to foretell specific events, but in the power to grasp what kind of world we are living in. At any rate I have known since about 1931 (Spender says he has known since 1929) that the future must be catastrophic. I could not say exactly what wars and revolutions would happen, but they never surprised me when they came. Since 1934 I have known war between England and Germany was coming, and since 1936 I have known it with complete certainty. I could feel it in my belly, and the chatter of the pacifists on the one hand, and the Popular Front people who pretended to fear that Britain was preparing for war against Russia on the other, never deceived me. Similarly such horrors as the Russian purges never surprised me, because I had always felt that—not exactly that, but something like that—was implicit in Bolshevik rule. I could feel it in their literature.
….Who would have believed seven years ago that Winston Churchill had any kind of political future before him? A year ago Cripps18 was the naughty boy of the Labour Party, who expelled him and refused even to hear his defence. On the other hand, from the Conservative point of view he was a dangerous Red. Now he is ambassador in Moscow, the Beaverbrook press having led the cry for his appointment. Impossible to say yet whether he is the right man. If the Russians are disposed to come round to our side, he probably is, but if they are still hostile, it would have been better to send a man who does not admire the Russian régime.
10.6.40: Have just heard, though it is not in the papers, that Italy has declared war…. The allied troops are withdrawing from Norway, the reason given being that they can be used elsewhere and Narvik after its capture was rendered useless to the Germans. But in fact Narvik will not be necessary to them till the winter, it wouldn’t have been much use anyway when Norway had ceased to be neutral, and I shouldn’t have thought the allies had enough troops in Norway to make much difference. The real reason is probably so as not to have to waste warships.
This afternoon I remembered very vividly that incident with the taxi-driver in Paris in 1936, and was going to have written something about it in this diary. But now I feel so saddened that I can’t write it. Everything is disintegrating. It makes me writhe to be writing book-reviews etc. at such a time, and even angers me that such time-wasting should still be permitted. The interview at the War Office on Saturday may come to something, if I am clever at faking my way past the doctor. If once in the army, I know by the analogy of the Spanish war that I shall cease to care about public events. At present I feel as I felt in 1936 when the Fascists were closing in on Madrid, only far worse. But I will write about the taxi driver some time.19
12.6.40: E. and I last night walked through Soho to see whether the damage to Italian shops etc. was as reported. It seemed to have been exaggerated in the newspapers, but we did see, I think, 3 shops which had had their windows smashed. The majority had hurriedly labelled themselves «British.» Gennari’s, the Italian grocer’s, was plastered all over with printed placards saying «This establishment is entirely British.» The Spaghetti House, a shop specialising in Italian foodstuffs, had renamed itself «British Food Shop.» Another shop proclaimed itself Swiss, and even a French restaurant had labelled itself British. The interesting thing is that all these placards must evidently have been printed beforehand and kept in readiness.
….Disgusting though these attacks on harmless Italian shopkeepers are, they are an interesting phenomenon, because English people, ie. people of a kind who would be likely to loot shops, don’t as a rule take a spontaneous interest in foreign politics. I don’t think there was anything of this kind during the Abyssinian war, and the Spanish war simply did not touch the mass of the people. Nor was there any popular move against the Germans resident in England until the last month or two. The low-down cold-blooded meanness of Mussolini’s declaration of war at that moment must have made an impression even on people who as rule barely read the newspapers.
13.6.40: Yesterday to a group conference of the L.D.V.,20 held in the Committee Room at Lord’s…. Last time I was at Lord’s must have been at the Eton-Harrow match in 1921. At that time I should have felt that to go into the Pavilion, not being a member of the M.C.C.,21 was on a par with pissing on the altar, and years later would have had some vague idea that it was a legal offence for which you could be prosecuted.
I notice that one of the posters recruiting for the Pioneers, of a foot treading on a swastika with the legend «Step on it,» is cribbed from a Government poster of the Spanish war, ie. cribbed as to the idea. Of course it is vulgarised and made comic, but its appearance at any rate shows that the Government are beginning to be willing to learn.
The Communist candidate in the Bow22 by-election got about 500 votes. This is a new depth-record, though the Blackshirts have often got less (in one case about
