Social Distancing!.

Social distancing enforced on artists!
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Brexit and Football

An odd statistic from the Political Betting website: the final league table of the Premier League shows that all the top ten clubs, with the sole exception of Burnley, have their grounds in constituencies which voted Remain, whereas all the bottom five clubs are in constituencies which voted Brexit. A mere coincidence, perhaps; but the American writer P.J. O’Rourke in a recent book assessed both the Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump as “The revolt of the losers”. Perhaps this applies in football terms too?

Thought for the day: The role of the press

I found this quotation in the autobiography of Matthew Parris; "Times" columnist, gay rights campaigner and former Conservative M.P.; concerning the behaviour of the press in political battles :-

"All the newspaper editors ever do is  wait until the battle is over, then come down from the hills and bayonet the wounded"

I think this is well illustrated in the conduct of the press after last year's referendum and the recent general election - although the bayoneting of Jeremy Corbyn proved to be premature.

Taleban bans cricket!

The Afghanistan cricket team has made an impressive impact recently, including a memorable victory over the West Indies in the World 20/20 Cup, but we are now informed by the "Times" that a resurgent Taleban has banned the sport, along with other games.
   A tribal elder explained, "The Taliban said the three sticks [the stumps] behind the player represent Allah. Throwing the ball at them means you hate Allah. So stop playing. 
  "Some villagers refused. They said, "Afghan players have raised the national flag all over the world. We will play". But then the Taliban started shooting, and some youngsters got wounded".

It strikes me that this reasoning provides an excellent excuse for anyone who wants to get out of school cricket. After all, children from a Christian background can argue that the three stumps represent the Holy Trinity. This would be just as valid.
   I wonder if anyone will try it?

Rousseau on General Elections

"The English people believes itself to be free; it is gravely mistaken; it is free only during the election of Members of Parliament; as soon as the Members are elected, the people is enslaved; it is nothing. In the brief moments of its freedom, the English people makes such use of that freedom that it deserves to lose it". 

(Rousseau: "The Social Contract) 

Noam Chomsky

My attention has been drawn to a recent review of Noam Chomsky's book, "Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda". 
   Chomsky is a world-renowned expert in the nature and origins of language, but for several decades now he has been writing books denouncing American foreign policy. This particular volume, written more than twenty years ago, is in essence an anti-Plato tract. By this I mean that he attacks the ideas put forward in Plato's famous book, "The Republic", which advocates that government should be entrusted to a specially-trained elite class of "Guardians" rather than left in the hands of the fickle forces of democracy.  
    Chomsky sees the USA and other self-styled "democracies" as under the control of a  class which he calles the "specialists", ruling over the masses, who are called "the bewildered herd". However, unlike Plato's Guardians, who were trained from childhood to use their power solely for the public benefit, Chomsky sees the rule of his "specialists" as being illegitimate; running the country entirely for their own benefit whilst keeping up a mere facade of democracy, and misleading the public mendacious propaganda. He gives various examples of how this is achieved.
   But such a clear dichotomy between "specialists" and the "bewildered herd" is of course absurd. In all western countries there is a large intervening class of educated and intelligent people who do not fall into either category, and are well capable of seeing through blatant propaganda. This number must, of course, include Chomsky himself.

When I read the review, it immediately struck me how out-of-date Chomsky's argument is. The reviewer makes a valiant attempt to tie it into today's world of Brexit and Donald Trump, but wholly in vain. The argument simply has no bearing on a situation where, in America, Donald Trump was elected President after insulting all the leading members of his own party, and is now at war with the "New York Times" and the leading news media, and where in Britain a majority of the people voted for Brexit against the wishes and advice of most MPs, most members of the House of Lords, all living former Prime Ministers, the leaders of all the traditional political parties, a majority of university graduates and the "Times" newspaper. Since the, we have seen senior judges denounced as "Enemies of the people" by the Brexiteer tabloids, to the fury of the legal profession, and Brexiteer Tories complaining that top civil servants are undermining their negotiations. If these people aren't part of the "specialists", then who is? Now Donald Trump has, without a shred of evidence, even accused the FBI of colluding with MI5 to tap his phone!

The reviewer would have done better to portray these events as something truly revolutionary: an uprising of the "bewildered herd" against the "specialists"; the like of which we had not previously seen in the West, and whose consequences we cannot yet foresee. As was said by Michael Gove (a man who rose from a humble background to become a cabinet minister, thereby joining the "specialists"), "The public has had enough of experts". 

Trumpery

TRUMPERY: Showy and worthless stuff, rubbish, ritual fooling. (French: Tromper; to deceive)
       (Chambers' Dictionary definition)

An American view of Brexit

There is an interesting sidelight on the Brexit vote in the “New York Times Review of Books”. The Brexit triumph is seen as a howl of rage on the part of the poor white working class in the old declining industrial areas, who were given the opportunity of venting their frustrations on a single target: Europe. Parallels are drawn with Donald Trump’s success in appealing to the same socio-economic groups in the so-called “rust belt” and the backwoods rural districts of America. Trump himself is aware of the parallels, and encourages his supporters by pointing out how Brexit was able to triumph, against all predictions and against the advice of almost all political and business leaders.

   None of this can be explained by traditional class-based theories. Contrast an area I know well: Stoke-on-Trent: rock-solid Labour; the home of traditional heavy industries (ceramics, coal and iron: all in decline for many years), with its own proud local traditions, and strongly Brexit; with another area I know: Richmond-on-Thames: rock-solid Tory, with some of the highest house prices in the country, and over 70% for Remain. To add to the confusion, the Stoke M.P.s backed Remain, but the Richmond M.P. backed Brexit!

The clearest divisions are in education. In America the majority of college graduates traditionally voted Republican, whereas blue-collar workers voted Democrat. This could well change: probably not many graduates are likely to support Trump, but on the other hand he could do well in a state like Pennsylvania, which is full of rust belt industrial towns (Does anyone remember Billy Joel's classic song "Allentown", about the decline of the steel industry there?). In our referendum, an overwhelming majority of people with university degrees voted for Remain, as did the inhabitants of London and the academic centres, Oxford and Cambridge. Following this, in the general election of 2019, the Conservatives took all the seats in Stoke (which had remained solidly Labour even in the Thatcher years) and cut a swathe through the old Labour seats in the north-east, but failed to win back any of the university towns like Oxfoed,Cambridge, Exeter and Canterbury, and even lost ultra-prosperous seats like Putney and Richmond-on-Thames! This the biggest political revolution in a generation!

Democracy and Representation

(Written in the immediate aftermath of the vote to leave the EU)

Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his book "The Social Contract" (1743) argued that the whole principle of democracy was the hope that a majority of the people, when consulted, would always reach the right decision: the one which was best for the country. If the popular majority reached the wrong decision, he said, then the whole system collapses. Rousseau was writing about what is nowadays called "direct democracy", where the people are consulted about all important decisions, as in the recent referendum. He called the British political system "elective aristocracy", meaning that every so often we choose what leaders we want, and then send them away to make decisions on our behalf until the next election. He did not think such a system was as good, but believed direct democracy could really only work in a small, homogenous community.
      Until the current spate of referendums, Britain did not have direct democracy; instead we had government by elected representatives. The great conservative political thinker, Edmund Burke, writing half a century after Rousseau, discussed the vexed question of whether an elected M.P. was under any obligation always to follow the wishes of his constituents. His answer was a strong "No". His argument was that an M.P. was not a mere delegate or mouthpiece: his job was to exercise his judgement to choose a policy which he believed was in the best interests, not only of his constituents, but of the entire country. Should his constituents object to his decisions, they reserved the right to chuck him out at the next election. He could also have added that an M.P. is probably more intelligent than most of his constituents, and is certainly better informed about the issues!
    The philosopher Roger Scruton (a philosopher with whom I am not often in agreement!) gave an interesting talk on the radio last week in which he attacked the whole idea of holding a  referendum. It was, he argued, an abdication of responsibility by those elected to lead us. What, after all, is a Prime Minister for, if not make decisions on our behalf to the best of his ability? If he insists on holding a referendum, with a promise to abide by the result, then he is abandoning his decision-making role and reducing himself to a mere functionary or mouthpiece, and may well, as has befallen David Cameron, find himself having to commit to a policy which he believes to be wrong for the country. That is no way for a serious leader to behave! I'm reminded of a story told by the historian A.J.P.Taylor about the 1848 revolution in Paris, where a man was seen running after a crowd of demonstrators, shouting "I'm their leader, I must catch up with them!"  

The only reason for a government to hold a referendum is if it expects to win it, thus strenthening its ability to carry through a contentious policy. De Gaulle in France was successful at this, and Hitler was even more so: his more outrageous actions, like the assumption of the Presidency, the remilitaization of the Rhineland and the Anschluss with Austria, were promptly supported by enormous referendum majorities from the populations involved, thereby making it difficult for other countries to take action. The unfortunate David Cameron, by contrast, called a referendum solely to try to paper over a split in the Tory party. He miscalculated severely, and serve him right! Do you recall the A. A. Milne story where Winnie-the-Pooh digs a trap to catch a heffalump, only to fall into it himself? Cameron as Pooh! 

Postscript: A friend has pointed out to me that inthe end De Gaulle called one referendum too many, lost it, and had to resign. We could say the same about Cameron. The difference is that De Gaulle's proposal was then abandoned, whereas Cameron has left his successors to implement a policy which all party leaders, all former prime ministers and a large majority of MPs believe is bad for the country. Bizarre!
    

Terrorism

If the gunmen and bombers of Paris yesterday had any coherent political philosophy behind their actions, it would have to be what in the 1960s was called "Situationism": that is, the performance of violent acts in order to provoke a violent response, thereby undermining the moderates on both sides and shattering the myth (as they see it) of a peaceful, tolerant, liberal society.
   The 9/11 New York bombers and the London bombers of 2006 were the same. A moment's thought would have told them that an inevitable result of their actions would be increased suspicion of all Moslems, and therefore further alienation of Moslems within western society. Did they intend this?

Meanwhile, where is James Bond in all this? Back in the 1950s, when Ian Fleming wrote the books, he showed Bond combating fiendish Russian attempts to destabilize the West (though interestingly enough, when "Goldfinger" was made into a film, the Russians were replaced as villains by the Chinese). A present-day James Bond would surely be infiltrating extremist Islamic terror groups, presumably dressed as a latter-day Lawrence of Arabia. I await this development in a future James Bond movie!    

Disinterested

People persist in saying "disinterested" when what they mean is "uninterested". These words are actually quite different.
     In the first word, having an "interest" in something has the eighteenth-century meaning of having a "stake" in it. Thus, if I am watching a game of football, if I have no commitment to either side (such as a bet on the result, or support for my local team), I am disinterested in the result; but if I hate football and couldn't care less who wins, then I am merely uninterested. The referee must be disinterested (that is, unbiased), but if he was uninterested he would be no use at all.
    The principle of British justice is that the judge and jury must be disinterested: without prior commitment or bias to either side; and juries are carefully selected to this end. This has not always been the case: in previous centuries, judges were seen as "lions under the throne", whose job was to help secure the conviction of the King's enemies, and made little pretense of being disinterested; Judge Jeffreys in the later seventeenth century being a notorious example. Judicial disinterest seldom applies under dictatorships; one need only cite the "revolutionary justice" of Soviet Russia, particularly under Lenin and Stalin, and of the tribunals in the "Terror" of 1793-4 of the French Revolution. But,once again, a judge at any time and in any type of court who was uninterested in the case before him would be useless.
    It was a classic Marxist argument that the promise of "disinterested justice" would always be a sham: class interest is all-pervasive. I wonder if the recent demand in Britain for more judges from the racial minorities, and fewer from the elite independent schools and universities, is based upon the notion that judges from privileged and rich backgrounds are unlikely to be truly disinterested? Or, more likely, that they may not be perceived as being disinterested?  

A harbinger of summer

Spring came very late this year, with a fortnight of unseasonal frosts in March and April, but then all the flowers emerged with a rush, and the fruit is looking promising.
     I call this picture of a solitary violet "A harbinger of summer".

Hayek's question revisited

"If the market is blind to need or merit, how can those who have no reasonable expectation of benefiting from it be reconciled to their situation?" (Friedrich Hayek)

This is a very good question.  If people are rewarded merely according to their "market value" (i.e. whatever anyone is willing to pay them) rather than according to their needs (e.g. food for their families) or by any moral worth (e.g. the social value of their work), why should they support such a system if they themselves are failing to benefit? A traditional Conservative (or, indeed, Rousseauist) notion of the "organic society" would argue that we have a duty to work for the greater good of all, even if others, who seem to be less worthy, are benefiting more than us; but I doubt if notions of "duty" have any place in free-market philosophy. It is also clear that some people who are benefiting from the free-market system by earning large salaries, show little sense of civic duty; for example, finding complex devices to avoid paying tax.

A piece of advice

Many years ago an old English teacher, known to all as Jake, told me the following:
"When I started here, I made four resolutions: I would never prepare a lesson, I would never take work home to mark, I would never lose my temper in class, and I would never tell a lie to the boys. Guess which two I've broken!"
Jake was liked and respected by both pupils and colleagues; but I doubt whether all his resolutions would meet approval today!

Frogs

One infallible sign that spring has come is the appearance of frogs in my pond. This year they have come a week earlier than usual, following a very mild winter.

This year there are about thirty of them, all getting very excited and making a lot of noise. Very soon the pond will be full of frogspawn

Does anyone know why American frogs are supposed to say "Ribbet?" This is quite a difficult sound to make, involving complex movements of the lips and tongue. My frogs never say anything except "Kaaa! Kaaa!"

Cultural Differences

Many years ago my aunt, who had been a missionary in Hong Kong before the war, told me the following anecdote about her experiences there:-
A couple of young British consular officials were playing tennis on a hot day, watched by a rotund and no doubt extremely rich Chinese businessman. As they came off the court, he commented that he didn't understand why they should bother to do something like that, when they could easily afford to pay someone else to do it for them!

An unusual metaphor

A while ago I was in a bar whilst someone was holding forth on the alleged bisexuality of Michael Portillo, a topic much hinted at in the press. One splendid old chap, a retired major I think, overheard this and was moved to ask, "Do you mean to say he's one of these 'round-the-wicket' fellows?". I thought this was such a splendid remark that it merited being preserved.

Henry St.John Hart

The Dean of my college, the Reverend Henry St.John Hart, deserved to be remembered for a great many things, but my principal recollection is of the occasion when he intoned the following little homily to a group of undergraduates, in his much-imitated voice where every word was clearly enunciated:
"When you are old men, you will tell your grandchildren, "When I was at Cambridge, I knew a clergyman". And they will say, "Cor!" And you will say, "And he smoked a pipe". And they will say, "Lumme!" And you will say, "And he read to us from a book". And they will say, "Phew!" And then they will think for a little while and they will say, "Gosh, granddad, you must be very old!"
We haven't quite got there yet, though some progress has been made.

As well as being a biblical scholar, Henry Hart was one of the great Cambridge characters. He had on his desk a framed card proclaiming, in his beautiful calligraphy, "Leisure time is best spent in reading for a degree". He knew and admired Tolkien, both as a philological scholar and as an author. We suspected he was part-Ent. (Professor Sir Herbert Butterfield, by contrast, was quite obviously a Hobbit)

Actors going in for politics

Orson Welles, the actor and film director, once gave his opinion on actors becoming politicians:
"I think Gregory Peck would have been good as President. Better than he was as Captain Ahab anyway!".
Orson Welles admitted that he had once considered politics, but had been advised that he stood no chance of being elected to high office, because he was an actor and had been divorced. He thought this most ironic when he contemplated the career of Ronald Reagan.
(Quoted by Gore Vidal)

Ideologies and Perceptions

I once asked a lecturer in American history why the United States was the only major industrialised country never to have a significant Socialist movement or party. He replied that he thought this was due to the lack of a hereditary aristocracy: although Marxists are hostile to capitalists, it is actually hereditary wealth and privilege which provoke hostility.

This theory can be linked with the anecdote which is supposed to express the difference between British and American attitudes: when the rich man drives past in his Rolls-Royce the American worker says, "some day I'll have a car like that!", but the British worker says, "Some day we'll take that car off you!" I think there is an element of truth here. The reason, however, is that in America it is assumed that the car has been obtained by talent and hard work: in Britain the assumption is that Daddy got it for him. The British worker therefore tends to think that luxury cars are obtained not by exceptional talents but by the good fortune of having noble or wealthy ancestry, and that he, lacking these advantages,has little chance of ever owning one.

I wonder, however, how long this distiction can hold. In politics, America has far more of a hereditary aristocracy than Britain does, though they do not possess titles of nobility. What else can we call the Rockefellers, the Kennedys and the Bushes? In Britain, they would have been given peerages long ago, and forfeited all political credibility. The 2000 Presidential election was actually fought between two aristocrats, Bush and Gore, which is without parallel in Britain for the past century and a half. And Britain is thought to be a class-ridden society! David Cameron, educated at Eton and Oxford, is actually the first Etonian Prime Minister since Sir Alec Douglas-Home in 1964. Few people realise that between 1917 and 1945 not a single Prime Minister had been to either Eton or Oxford.