Taking me for a tourist, the cabby gave me the scenic route, passing Harrods and Victoria on the way. -- Mr Irving's response

London, Monday,14 May 2001

---

Londoner's Diary

[diary@ standard.co.uk]

Irving is blackballed by the Reform

FIRST the Oxford Union banned David Irving. Now it's the turn of the Reform Club to tell the Holocaust-denying historian not to darken its doors again.

At a stormy Annual General Meeting last Wednesday members voted to invoke Regulation 6D, which excludes certain people from the building in Pall Mall, although a large minority argued that the rule was designed to prevent bad behaviour and not to keep out unwelcome guests because of their political views.

Irving was originally excluded nearly a year ago when he went to a dinner attended by Count Tolstoy as a guest of Michelle Lady Renouf, former wife of the New Zealand financier Sir Frank. The AGM, in which Mori poll chairman Bob Worcester spoke against the ban, was the club's first opportunity to discuss the matter.

"Nicholas Mellersh proposed a motion that the use of 6D should be confined to people who misbehaved," says club member Anthony Delano. "It's a question of principle. The committee was being heavy-handed and making improper use of the rules. We are not endorsing Irving's views."

Club secretary Robin Forrest declines to comment. "It's private business," he says. "We never discuss AGMs."

Nor would the normally garrulous Bob Worcester be drawn. "I never talk about anything that goes on in my club," he explains.

David Irving has written to the evening newspaper, which is London's largest and best: Re today's Londoner's Diary (main item) LET me assure the Reform that my interest in any London clubs (apart perhaps from The Athenaeum) is so marginal that the last time I was invited to lunch at the Savile I took a taxi, not realising that their front door is fifty yards from my own. Taking me for a tourist, the cabby gave me the scenic route, passing Harrods and Victoria on the way.

The same edition publishes a hatred-filled letter from the oleaginous Greville Janner protesting at the Standard's opinion column in Mr Irving's support.

 Oxford Union bans Irving from debate on free speech | Free speech under threat at Oxford Union | debate storm | boycott threat | threat to Oxford Union over Irving appearance