Entry 8:

Dear Sarah,

Thanks very much for your last letter. I am with you in admiring the Guardian's "Corrections and Clarifications" column. I don't know why every paper in Britain doesn't have one. I think it may be to do with the competitive atmosphere in Fleet Street: We still have 11 national daily newspapers, I think, ­which makes them loath to expose themselves to ridicule by the others by admitting to silly mistakes. But they are wrong. For perfectly understandable reasons, journalists in this country rank lower in public esteem than any other category of professional worker except real-estate agents. Confessing to our mistakes might push us up a notch or two in the opinion polls. What is my worst ever mistake? Gosh, there have been so many in 34 years of practicing journalism. But I will tell you the spookiest.

One day in the early '70s, when I was Reuters bureau chief in Rome, I wrote a story completely misrepresenting the views of the then Archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Marty, as he had expressed them in a closed Vatican conference of bishops. I had him attacking the pope, when he had done nothing of the kind. In fact, he had supported him. I had completely misunderstood a press briefing by some Dutch priest. I was sitting in my office in the Piazza di Spagna, which had a terrace all the way round it, anxiously writing a confession to the head office when the door opened from the terrace to admit a man in a red skullcap whose opening words were: "Excusez-moi. Je suis l'Archevêque de Paris." And he was the Archbishop of Paris. He had coincidentally been taking tea with a French journalist in the office next door and was taking a look around. I thought he would strike me dead or something, but, knowing nothing about my dreadful mistake, he couldn't have been nicer.

This is the second time in two days you have been surprised by something that doesn't surprise me. "I'm surprised at how many people I know and like are royalists, and not even secretly," you say. I wrote somewhere the other day that I have difficulty with people I know and like who support capital punishment. You seem to view support of the monarchy in rather the same way. Why? In the European Union there are six monarchies apart from ours:­ Spain, Holland, Belgium, Norway, Denmark, and Sweden. Nobody considers those countries less democratic, less free, or more class-ridden than the rest. Maybe Britain is a bit different, but yes, I do want to keep the monarchy, mainly because it has been there for an awfully long time and I don't like change. Also because it is still loved by most of the people, and I am a democrat. Those may be rather superficial reasons, but anyway, what does it matter? I would be interested to know how you think this country would improve if it became a republic.

Like everyone else, both you and I were surprised, I think, when the number of Afghan hijack hostages wanting to return home rather than seek asylum in Britain suddenly jumped from 17 to 73. I agree with you that it can't be only because they found that the British "weather was depressing and the food was awful," as one of them reportedly said on their arrival back in Kandahar. Either you are right and he was fed his line by a Reuters reporter or he is a very sophisticated Afghan who knows that this is what foreigners have always said about Britain. It also seems improbable that they changed their minds when they were moved from a Sheraton hotel to a less commodious holding center in Moreton-in-Marsh. The true reason for the hostages' departure may have been revealed in today's London Times, which quoted many of them as saying on the plane that they didn't really want to go home at all, but had been "bullied and intimidated" into submission by British immigration officials.

Goodnight, Sarah. Have a good evening.
Alexander xxxxxxxxxxxxx