The latter is the former foreign policy adviser to Margaret Thatcher and pronounces it Pole

The latter is the former foreign policy adviser to Margaret Thatcher and pronounces it Pole.)For years the two have been content to differ, but at a cocktail party a few weeks ago the latter confused things by sticking out his hand and saying “How do you do? I’m Sir Charles Pywell …” “Really, Sir Charles,” retorted the damsel, whose hand he was shaking. “No, no,” he said to John Humphrys, “you are putting two and two together and coming up with 1010.” (The point, according to Morton, is that 10 is the written formula for 2 in binary; but four is not 1010; it is instead 100.)Personally I’ve heard funnier jokes – but in geek circles, Mr Heseltine, I’m told you are rapidly acquiring heroic status ….Great Powell debateI would like, if I can, to put an end to Westminster’s most tedious debate – how do you pronounce “Powell” – the surname shared by the two bothers, Jonathan and Charles? (The former is chief of staff to the Leader of the Opposition and pronounces it to rhyme with towel. It has been pointed out to me by Oliver Morton, the editor of Wired magazine, that a week ago he cracked a “binary system” joke on the BBC’s Today programme. a contingency, I discover, they appear not to have thought of.Hezza’s jokeI am glad to note that Michael Heseltine is speedily getting into anorak lingo for his new role as chair of the new ministerial group on Information Technology. “In the past,” says Chris Harper, marketing manager, “if the computer in situ failed, then we would have to cancel the show Now, we just carry on over the phone.

It’s incredible.” Only, presumably, if the Canadian computer does not itself break down … Should anything break down – lights, special effects, the automated pin- ball machine, curtains, you name it – then all the producer has to do is ring a number in Burlington, Ontario, and the whole thing can be run over the phone from a computer in Canada. “This libel report is the funniest thing I’ve ever read,” he says smugly. In which case perhaps Random had better publish it.Who’s planning?Although, as I reported last week, there is some in-fighting between Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend over what Daltrey claims to be the “sanitisation” of the forthcoming production of The Who’s musical, Tommy, which opens tomorrow at the West End’s Shaftesbury Theatre, the band are at least patting each other on the back about one aspect of its production.It is, I am told, the first show to be completely technically fool-proof. “I have therefore not withdrawn the statement.Random writsOh dear, Random House is hard to satisfy.

First the publishers had that nasty battle with Joan Collins for not writing well enough; then they had that nasty battle with the singer Lisa Stansfield for not writing salaciously enough; now, I hear, they’ve been having a nasty battle with the writer William Donaldson, whose autobiography, From Sunningdale to This, due out this autumn, has had to be put back a year, because it is – wait for it – too risque.”I’ve just been handed a libel report that is 90 pages long,” he tells me, adding proudly; “it is apparently their longest libel report ever.”People who should start worrying about what Donaldson has said about them are the actress Sarah Miles, the singer Carly Simon (above) and the ex-gangster Frankie Fraser Donaldson, however, is very blase. “Evidence of alcoholism was found after the Sheen report was concluded,” he says firmly. Now 103 MPs have tabled an early-day motion calling for Mr Shaw’s “imminent replacement”.Shaw, despite apparently having the backing of only nine of his fellow Tories, is unrepentant. One surviving crewman, Nick Delo, protesting that in the House of Commons the MP could say anything he liked and get away with it, called it “a slur which cannot go unchallenged …”Labour inevitably has taken great offence both to the reference to trade unions and to the allegations of alcoholism (they cite that the Sheen report which investigated the matter made no mention of this).

In reality, the officers were not in control – extreme left-wing trade unionists were in control of the ship … People did not do their jobs because they were drunk.”Given that the ninth anniversary of the disaster is only two days away, his words have caused an outcry among the friends and relatives of the dead. To avoid the challenge will take us into very dangerous waters indeed.. Drunkenness and disorder

It seems that Peter Thurnham’s resignation of the Tory whip served one useful purpose last week – the brouhaha he created arguably prevented a smaller, but highly embarrassing, story of Tory tactlessness from getting much attention in the national press.
David Shaw, the Tory MP for Dover, used Parliamentary privilege to allege that some of the crew of the Herald of Free Enterprise ferry, which sank at Zeebrugge in on 6 March 1987, killing 193 people, were drunk.”The procedures on board ship were a disaster,” he said, “and alcoholism was rampant among the crew. But the alternative would be to risk that most Muslims will drift into the moral relativism that has so ill-served the Western world since the decline of Christianity, while the minority will seek succour in fundamentalism.Defining a post-Christian liberalism, which combines tolerance with a sense of purpose, will not be an easy task. It is only Islamic extremists who want to impose Islam on everyone What we need is a balanced religion. If we use school to inculcate a moderate Islam, those who benefit under it will feel that the system works for their needs and will support it.”Undoubtedly there are risks involved.

And if necessary, we have to be authoritarian in doing so.”A new British style of Islam can live happily with that, insists Mukadam “British law and sharia law can coincide. But if they defend them because they are `true’, then we have to resist their claim and assert the fundamental values of liberalism. But should there be constraints about what can be done within them? Could teaching different curriculums to boys and girls, for example, ever be acceptable?John Gray puts it this way: “Do Muslims defend their traditions on the grounds of fairness and parity in a tolerant society? If so, we have to agree to them. If Muslims want their own state-funded schools, there can be no principled argument against that. They affect the real world – attitudes to education, family life, sex, and when people want to live and die.