Obviously it is not the fault of Ofsted that a headteacher, Ruth Perry, killed herself after her school, formerly rated ‘outstanding’, was downgraded to ‘inadequate’ by its inspectors. Suicide is, by definition, the decision of the person committing it. It is also true that second-rate schools and teaching unions detest inspections precisely because they keep them up to the mark. Nevertheless, Ofsted does need to think carefully about the impact of that word ‘inadequate’ when linked, as it was in the case of Ms Perry’s school, with another word, ‘safeguarding’. I saw what happened when the same charge was laid against Ampleforth College. ‘Safeguarding’ is a word that contains many things. In the Ampleforth case, for example, one of its alleged safeguarding failures was that the taps in one block were too hot. In Ms Perry’s school, the failure seems to have been about poor record-keeping. The trouble is that in the public and journalistic mind, a failure in safeguarding is seen as tantamount to saying that a school harbours child abusers. It is therefore devastating for a school and overrides in people’s minds all the good things that Ofsted might say about the school in question. In the case of Ampleforth, a fee-paying school, the ‘inadequate’ designation also meant that the Home Office could not issue visas to the foreign pupils who make up about a quarter of the school. In the case of both schools, some Ofsted accusations about sexualised behaviour were factually inaccurate and luridly expressed. Ofsted’s rigour is good, but its zealous overreach is bad. I am happy Ampleforth eventually got out of the valley of the shadow of death, but Ms Perry’s fate is a reminder of how accidental evil can befall.

I once passed on to Valéry Giscard d’Estaing Mrs Thatcher’s complaint that when he gave her lunch at the Elysée Palace, he had been served first. ‘You must understand,’ he told me, de haut en bas, ‘that French presidents are in the line of sovereigns.’ We British tend to scoff at this, but the secretly semi-monarchist French gain some comfort from it. They also get some practical benefits. Next week, the King will pay his first ever state visit. France is his chosen destination. One reason for this, I think, is that our monarchy (with government approval) wants to make up for bad post-Brexit relations with European powers. This is made easier with France because its President, as head of state, can communicate directly with our royalty. When Emmanuel Macron and Boris Johnson were on non-speaks, therefore, the Elysée could speak to the then Prince of Wales without breaking protocol (though annoying Downing Street). The state visit shows this link is now paying off, for both.

Obituaries of Robin Crawford, who died this week, made only passing mention of his role in one of the most successful British undercover operations since the war, the coup in Oman in 1970. British troops had long and effectively backed Sultan Said bin Taimur in the war against communist insurgents there, but the Sultan himself became a problem. He was a reclusive reactionary, holed up in his palace with slaves whose necks were permanently bent in an attitude of obeisance. He banned sunglasses, and bicycling in Muscat, and hoarded his country’s fast-growing oil wealth for himself. Britain decided he should be supplanted by his able, Sandhurst-trained son, Qaboos. Well-connected with Oman and a defence minister in the new Heath government, Crawford, at that time sitting in the Commons under his courtesy title of Lord Balniel, was closest to the coup plan. On the night it was being executed, he was summoned from dinner to his office. A long, hysterical cable had just arrived from Our Man in Muscat, asking whether he should destroy his own cable lest it implicate Britain in the coup if it failed. Balniel sent a one-line reply which has since become celebrated in private leadership courses: ‘Act in Britain’s interests.’ This was not only correct, but also astute because it gave nothing about ministerial involvement away. The coup was almost bloodless, though Sultan Said literally (accidentally) shot himself in the foot. The poor slaves proved too deformed to be able to fire their Martini-Henry rifles. Old Said was housed for the remaining two years of his life in the Dorchester hotel. Qaboos reigned successfully for nearly 50 years, remaining a good friend of Britain. About six months after the coup, the official, returning from Oman, asked to see Balniel. Bravely admitting that he had panicked, he thanked him because his terse reply had steadied his nerve. Robin Crawford was a modest man and a discreet public servant of the sort rare in politics today. I hope his shade will forgive me for this disclosure. 

It is sad that John Lewis is in trouble. It has always interested me that the ‘John Lewis model’ is widely praised but rarely imitated. It is a lovely idea that the staff can hold the business in common and share the fruits of their labours, but it can seriously impede the influx of capital and thus makes the firm vulnerable to competition. In the face of this, John Lewis had to abandon its famous claim of being ‘never knowingly undersold’. Now it risks being knowingly sold out.

BBC Radio 3 has a slot called ‘Sounds of the Earth’, which it advertises, as if it were a health drink, as ‘a calming mixture of music and natural sounds’. It plays birds singing, hippos grunting etc, interspersed with music. I feel it works to the disadvantage of both elements, like those films in which cartoon characters feature with real ones. The sounds of nature are indeed sometimes musical, and very lovely, but they do not have the authorship and therefore the imagination of human composition. And composers creating images in music do not stand or fall by how accurately, say, Beethoven recreates thunder or Debussy renders the sound of the sea. I love hearing each separately, but not both at once.