Spiller of beans

DOLLY TOYNBEE is the Oxford undergraduate who spilt the Amnesty beans. But it's not the first sensational happening she's got herself involved in during her twenty years on this earth.
She's been officially expelled from Rhodesia for refusing information to the police, published a novel called "Left Overs", all about eleven young people in London, the sole survivors of a war, and called Oxford "an archaic institution" in an article in the New Statesman.
A couple of weeks ago she disclosed that Amnesty International had received money from the British Government for relief work in Rhodesia. Since Amnesty prides itself on being a strictly non-political organisation this was a pretty serious charge, and the shockwaves which Polly's disclosure generated have not settled yet.
She thinks that Amnesty has been "bought off" by the British Government. "Instead of dealing with legal test cases, it is wasting its time on welfare work which could equally well be done by the Red Cross," she says. Polly, daughter and granddaughter of writers—her father
is the Observer critic Philip Toynbee—puts her first love as writing with acting and music—"Mozart, Scarlatti and classical jazz"—a close second.
In spite of her criticisms of Oxford she enjoys life there and studies hard for the history degree she will take. "After all," Polly Toynbee muses, "I did come here primarily to work."
"In D.W.'s review-article last week on the R.C.s by George Scott, he referred to Catholic societies in a sentence which suggested that a non-Catholic could not be expected to know exactly what weight or lack of weight to attach to papal declarations. This .should, of course, read 'decorations.' " From the Tablet.