OK, let's discuss

There have been so many comments and analyses of those election and referendum results that I see no point in doing more than adding a few thoughts that might be interesting to discuss. I was going to post a link to UKIP results but as of Saturday afternoon, the website had not been updated and the news items were still about what had been said during the campaign.

By Saturday evening there was a piece about Young UKIP's results but still no proper tabulation of all candidates, votes and positions. For the time being, therefore, we shall abandon that subject, mayhap to return to it when whoever runs UKIP's website gets his (or her) act together.

It is always difficult to write about local elections and draw any conclusions from them because the results tend to depend on .... well, local conditions and circumstances. Of course, by now we all know that the party that suffered the biggest defeat was the Liberal-Democrat and it couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of people. The supposed anger with the Cleggeron Coalition policies did not really direct itself at the Conservatives who lost very few seats and actually gained some councils. Possibly the reason is that those who support the Conservative party in local elections, that is the absolute bedrock are unlikely to be annoyed about the supposed (but never actually happening) cuts while the Lib-Dim supporters are truly angry with what they see as a betrayal of their principles even if no-one can really understand what they are.

Labour did well but, as we have been reminded, not as well as they did in 1981 under Michael Foot, easily the most disastrous of their leaders.

In other words, this election leaves the same feeling as last year's GE but on a smaller scale: nobody is that enthused by any party.

Which leaves us the unwanted and unneeded AV referendum that was won by a 69 per cent to 31 per cent on a higher than expected turn-out by the NO side. While their campaign was nothing much, the YES side had an even worse one. The real entertainment came with the Prime Minister and his Deputy pitching into each other, rather like Tweedledum and Tweedledee when they decided to have a battle.

Of course, there is an argument to be made for ignoring the whole thing as it really does not matter how we vote for the puppets in the House of Commons, given how much of our legislation comes from the European Union and cannot be rejected even if it actually goes through Parliament, which is not always the case.

All true, but there are still certain aspects of our politics that are domestic and they are often the most intractable ones - education, health and welfare spring to mind. Furthermore, we need to look forward to the day the EU collapses (I am beginning to be cautiously optimistic that it will happen on my watch) and we shall be left with an appalling mess but, at least, we shall still have a workable parliamentary system. Unless, the Boy-King decides to do away with it in some other fashion.

So it is not just because one cannot help rejoicing at the discomfiture of what must be the most hypocritical party in British politics and of all those rent-a-celebs that makes one feel pleased with the outcome. No matter what system is proposed, the one that says people vote for their MP directly and not through a party list is the best one.

Furthermore, the proposed AV system was not exactly going to be helpful to smaller parties, no matter what the Leader of UKIP said (and I suspect it did not help the party much). Some sort of a top-up system would be better for that. What we voted on had one aim only: to make the third party politically stronger than its support warranted, something the Lib-Dims have achieved already, thanks to Cameron's pusillanimity.

What of democracy? This was a question we discussed on a programme I took part in earlier today at ... yes, you guessed it .... the BBC Russian Service. (I suspect my opinions are better known in Russia than in Britain but I am not sure what I can do about that.) Unfortunately, there was no time to go into the subject in any depth but my answer to that is straightforward.

Democracy is not simply a question of votes and government by the majority though, clearly, without that it cannot exist, which, again, makes the AV system suspect. Beyond that there are rights of the minority and individual liberties, both sadly forgotten nowadays by successive governments in this country. After all, what was the attack on the hunting community and, beyond that, on the people who take field sports seriously by the Labour government but an affirmation of the principle that if you are elected you can do anything you like?

It was pointed out to me by a supporter of AV that the only way minority rights can be protected is by them all being separately represented in the Commons. Or, I think, that is what he meant. Certainly he tried to argue that those electoral districts that voted predominantly YES, such as Camden, Islington and Hackney in London, parts of Edinburgh, Oxford and Cambridge had a bohemian population as well as areas of diversity and poverty. Therefore, he argued tentatively, they may be more concerned with minority representation.

Ahem, I responded, my own borough, Hammersmith and Fulham, is very mixed in population. Are you suggesting the people of Islington are really more concerned with minority rights and representation than the people of Hammersmith?

Democracy can exist seriously only if all of us, those who vote and those who are voted in, accept certain principles that go beyond elections while also knowing that legislatures and governments have to be accountable to the people, often in the light of those principles.

I have just finished reading Peter Whittle's new book Monarchy Matters, which deals, just as the title suggests, with the role of the Monarchy in Britain's present and future. One of his themes is the Monarchy's importance as the symbol of something far bigger than transient political or cultural ideas, one that links past, present and future. I am glad to say that Peter (yes, yes, he is a friend and a colleague) writes exactly what I have always said and did even during the broadcast of the Royal Wedding: the whole fuss over Diana showed how important the Royal Family was to so many people in this country.

Writing about the commemoration of the sixtieth anniversary of VE Day (appropriate as we are commemorating the 66th tomorrow), Peter says:

Those who turned up that day could cheer and clap if they wanted, in the sure and certain knowledge that cheering and clapping would not be seen by some central political figure as signifying approval for a policy or a particular course of action. They could be there in the knowledge that their reaction was not about to be manipulated. On occasions such as this, the monarch is the personification of the state and of the country; by virtue of the monarchy's hereditary nature, the Queen is also the living, breathing emblem of the full sweep of Britain's history. Can the French president, riding in the Bastille Day parade on the Champs-Élysées, truly occupy such a position and have the same resonance in the eyes of his compatriots, half (if not more) of whom probably voted against him?

When the monarch lays a wreath at the Cenotaph in Whitehall on Remembrance Day, the politicians (prime minister included) are well off to the side, awaiting their turn. They are there representing the government, the opposition, and so on. As such, the Queen barely acknowledges them. She is there on behalf of nobody but the people. We might vote for David Cameron, or be supporters of Ed Miliband, but we do not want either of them ot be laying wreaths in memory of the dead on our behalf.

As it happens, we do not vote for David Cameron or Ed Miliband but for our MP and that is the system that is likely to continue for the foreseeable future.

It is interesting to watch the efforts politicians make to usurp the Queen's position: all that talk of Blair being the head of state, of Cherie Blair being the first lady, Blair trying to take a leading role in the Queen Mother's funeral and, more recently, David Cameron appearing in the Mall to talk to the people who were lining up for Prince William's wedding. On a slightly different level it, too, is an assertion of the principle that if you have been elected you can do anything, which is not the principle of true democracy.

Michelle Malkin takes us through the Fog of Fog

This is truly inspired. Michelle Malkin points out that what we have here is not the Fog of War but the Fog of Fog.

Errors happen. Miscommunications happen. Confusing the name of which of bin Laden's myriad sons died (Hamza, not Khalid), for example, is no biggie.

But the hourly revamping of key details of Sunday's raid suggests something far beyond the usual realm of situational uncertainty that accompanies any military operation. The Navy SEALs did their job spectacularly. The civilians tasked with letting the world know about the mission, however, have performed like amateur dinner theater actors in a tragi-comic production of "Rashomon-meets-The Blind Men and the Elephant-meets-Keystone Kops."

Mind you, with material like that anyone can be a comic writer. Read the whole piece. Very well worth it.

No sooner do I ask ...

... than I get a reply from a reader. I knew someone would know the answer to the puzzle of the banker who was the best Homeric scholar. It was, apparently, Walter Leaf (1852 - 1927). Wikipedia tells us about his banking career, which was spectacular:

In 1877 he entered the family firm, becoming in 1888 chairman of Leaf & Company Ltd. Later he became chairman of the Westminster Bank. He was one of the founders of the International Chamber of Commerce, of which he was elected president in 1925. From 1919 to 1921 he was president of the Institute of Bankers. He was president of the Hellenic Society and the Classical Association. He married Charlotte Symonds, daughter of John Addington Symonds.

From another source we find that he was a pioneer of psychical research:

Leaf was also an active member of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), London, and served a tenure on the council (1889-1902). He took part in the SPR sittings with the medium Leonora Piper in 1889-90 and frequently contributed to the Journal and the Proceedings of the SPR.

The really important aspect of his career was sent to me by the aforementioned reader of this blog and it is taken from the current Cambridge University Press edition of The Iliad, which was edited by Walter Leaf:

Walter Leaf (1852-1927) was a banker and classicist, whose various positions as chairman of the Westminster Bank, founder of the London Chamber of Commerce and president of the Hellenic Society reflected his wide-ranging professional and scholarly interests. Leaf was educated at Harrow School and won a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1870. He became senior classic in 1874 and was elected to a fellowship the following year. As a scholar Leaf was concerned with uncovering the physical reality of the classical world, a stance which set him apart from Jane Harrison and the Cambridge Ritual School. Leaf ’s The Iliad, with introduction and notes, first appeared in two volumes (1886–8), and was regarded for several decades as the best English edition of Homer’s epic poem. Volume 2 of the second (1902) edition comprises Leaf ’s preface, an introduction to books 13–24 of the poem, and the annotated text.

I feel more than usually inadequate.

Seen this afternoon in the Strand

It's not a great photo as it was taken by phone. The group of Zimbabwean exiles are outside Zimbabwe House in the Strand every Saturday, collecting signatures for a petition, displaying pictures and slogans and, most of all, singing and dancing. You might be able to see the group of men dancing behind the front line of women with the petitions. Every time I go past I wonder.

Could this be what people mean?

One of the things I find particularly puzzling is the widespread if somewhat fuzzy opinion that politicians should not be professionals but, somehow, be just "ordinary people". Of course, when they do behave like ordinary people opinion turns against them and they are berated for not showing a better example.

What exactly is the problem with "professional" politicians? Is it the fact that they are paid? Well, I go along with that. The idea of paying them was to allow people who are not rich to enter politics and to keep them honest. May have worked in the first case though there were plenty of people in politics who were not rich before but, obviously, not the second. Honesty, thy name is not politician.

So, do we mean that we actually do not want people whose only job is politics? I go along with that as well, but to achieve that state of affairs, we need to have two very big changes. We need to allow people to speak in the Commons on subjects they know about, that is those they actually work in, and, above all, we need to reduce government drastically. As things stand, no politician can even think of earning money for anything honest and honourable and do his or her work in the House. Things are different in the Lords but they do not get a salary. That could be the model for the Commons.

Perhaps, we want people in politics who have first done or achieved other things. Well, maybe. There is, as it happens no evidence that successful businessmen or officers make good politicians. And, as we look back to what we may consider to be the hey-day of British politics we find people who had dedicated their lives to a political career.

What we come to is a vague acknowledgement that politicians in the past may have dedicated their lives to their political careers but managed to have some other interests in life and, often, some other business or profession.

I have been reading a book of essays by that (failed) liberal politician, short-term barrister, historian and man of letters, Philip Guedalla, which I picked up in one of the few remaining second-hand bookshops in Charing Cross Road. Incidentally, he, too, represents a breed that is well-nigh extinct.

The essays are about writers, politicians, places and personalities; they give a wonderful view of what educated opinion was like in the early 1920s and, as usual, a great deal of amusement about the analyses and predictions. Still, Mr Guedalla is not often wrong in his judgements.

In his essay about Stanley Baldwin, then newly become Prime Minister, Mr Guedalla writes about the man's much publicized love of pigs their breeding, comparing it with Disraeli's peacocks and Joseph Chamberlain's orchids. All these men's politics seemed to be tied in with their choice of hobbies.

Then he adds an interesting point, one that applies to the discussions of our own times:

One has rarely known a statesman in these islands who was not racked by a distinguished craving to be something else. Sometimes our Premier is a manqué golf professional. Once (and a Peer, too) he had scientific leanings. But mostly he sits among the red boxes at Westminster and sighs for the English countryside. These thwarted longings are an invariable indication of political aptitude: perhaps it has some unpleasant explanation in psycho-analysis.

Mr Disraeli, who died in politics at seventy-six, craved only for the conversation of his fellow-farmers in Buckinghamshire. Lord Palmerston, who died in office at eighty, was believed to know no pleasure except in Hampshire. And Mr. Gladstone, who only retired at eighty-five in deference to the failure of eyes and ears and the successful persuasion of his united colleagues, found his sole happiness in the crash of falling trees at Hawarden.

The English always prefer someone, who is something, to be really something else: this is called the amateur tradition, and is a sure safeguard against the grave menace of professionalism. Their statesmen are recruited from the crowded ranks of successful competitors at local flower-shows; their favourite critic of the drama is a Civil Servant; and their one Homeric scholar is a banker. it is a grand tradition of inconsequence.

Let me add a couple of things. First of all the Premier with scientific ambitions was Lord Salisbury and those ambitions did not do him much harm when it came to understanding politics.

Secondly, the description of a barely capable Mr Gladstone being finally eased out of office reminds me of the time the same thing was done to a barely capable Churchill in 1955.

I am not exactly clear as to whom he means when he talks of the Homeric scholar who is really a banker. Perhaps, some readers will know.

But having read Mr Guedalla's gentle mockery of amateurism and inconsequence I can only say that if he were to see the Britain of today he might change his mind and long for the good old days.

Yet another last word

I fear I have to return to the big story briefly as I had an interesting exchange on the subject with a journalist friend. Let's get the news out of the way: President Obama has decided not to release pictures of Osama dead or being made dead though there are, apparently, some genuine pictures of the compound after the raid around. His argument is that those nasty pictures will simply heighten hatred of America. A spurious argument, I would say. Those that hate America will go on doing so and those who think there is a conspiracy around the whole episode will go on doing so. Others might accept what happened and many on the famous Arab street might actually admire a decisive action on the part of the Great Satan. Besides, back in 2009 Obama had no problems about releasing pictures of maltreatment of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet, if there is one thing that intensifies hatred of America it is the sight of American servicemen dealing with their prisoners with less than total gentleness and civility.

Talking of conspiracy theories, I have now distinguished three but shall be glad to hear of any I have missed.

Theory number one is that bin Laden is still alive and the American government, the CIA, the US Navy SEALS and the entire world media has taken an enormous gamble in publicizing the story while the man can pop up at any moment and announce that reports of his death have been greatly exaggerated. (I am sure he reads Mark Twain.) On the other hand, bin Laden has, for some reason best known to himself, seems to have gone along with the hoax. Perhaps, he has, in reality asked for asylum and entered one of those special programmes for people who turn state evidence.

Theory number two is that bin Laden was killed some time ago but for some reason (unspecified) this was not made known and for some other reason (also unspecified) has now been released.

Theory number three, much favoured by some Russian bloggers and a few nutters in the West, is that the man never existed at all.

The beauty of all this is that they are all mutually exclusive and we can argue about them for ever. But to go back to the exchange I had with the journalist friend: we both disliked the sight of Obama and his immediate circle (or some of it) watching the raid in live-time, as if it were a film in the cinema as my friend said. It reminded him of being in the audience for public hanging, a gruesome thought. On the other hand, public hangings were immensely popular and I am not at all sure they would not be that again if they were, so to speak, resurrected.

I think there is something more here and that is the strange personality of President Obama. Whatever the issue - fall of the Berlin Wall, end of World War II - he, notoriously, always brings his statements and discussions back to himself. All narratives are about him. It seems to me that he truly believed that what people wanted to see was him watching the raid; that, he assumed, was the only important part of the whole event. This is going beyond the usual politician's habit of using everything for self-promotion. Obama does that, too, but his apparent inability to understand that not all narratives are about him is truly bemusing.

UPDATE: It seems that what President Obama et al were watching with the world watching them was not live footage. So, what were they watching? What scared Hillary so?

Backtracking again

As promised yesterday, I am abandoning the bin Laden story for the time being and going back to other matters. So, when I say backtracking I do not mean the White House and its various unco-ordinated accounts or yet another sob-story from bin Laden's family who, if one were to believe some people, resemble George Washington in their inability to tell a lie.

No, it is the Cleggeron Coalition that appears to be backtracking again, this time on the subject of whether the private sector should take on some of what is known as "public services".

The BBC tells us:

Leaked documents suggest ministers have decided the "wholesale outsourcing" of public services to the private sector would be politically "unpalatable".

Ministers instead want to use more charities, social enterprises and employee-owned "mutual" organisations.

Outsourcing was meant to be a key part of the government's drive to cut costs and reduce the UK's budget deficit.

The shift in policy will raise questions about whether the government can make the savings it has promised - or deliver the services it is committed to - just by using charities and mutuals.

The change will also raise questions about whether the Conservatives are bowing to Liberal Democrat pressure to focus more on delivering public services locally rather than privately.

The government's plans will be unveiled in the long-delayed Open Public Services White Paper which is expected to be published later this month.

The Guardian is cautiously hopeful that its main source of revenue - advertisements of public sector jobs - will not be affected.

A leaked memo of a meeting between business chiefs and the minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude, says there will be "no return to the 1990s" and wholesale outsourcing. Maude is preparing a white paper on public services – delayed since February – setting out the future direction of public services, which is expected to contain plans to match private sector companies to charities and volunteer groups to run public services.

Labour accused the government of being in retreat after the fierce opposition to plans to bring in private providers to the NHS and forestry. But Downing Street played down the reports. "We were never planning wholesale privatisation. It was perhaps interpreted as such but that was never the plan," a spokesperson said.

Well, goodness me, we can't have competition within the NHS. Why that would mean patients having a choice and, perhaps, not choosing the pharmaceutical companies that the government and the extensive NHS bureaucracy has set up various deals with. You know how contrary some people can be.

Well, another day, another U-turn. Nothing to wonder about. Nevertheless, the news and its reporting shows up what is so deeply wrong with the Cleggeron Coalition's attitude to the whole problem of the public sector. They see it entirely as a matter of cuts to save money. No possible question that in all ways - economic, social, moral - much of what the public sector does would be better in private hands. Of course, the thousands of people employed to push bits of paper round whenever their computers crash and click on various computer programmes in the odd intervals between those crashes might find that they have get real jobs and work a good deal harder than they do now, and that would never do.

The very language used gives it away: "outsourcing". In other words, the norm is services run by the state and in the interests of saving money they might have to be "outsourced" to private companies who would probably be better at it. This, to the Cleggerons, is a shocking thought. No, no, no. We shall deal with charities, which are really quangos as they live off money handed out to them by the state, and the bloated and inefficient local government that has shown itself incapable of running anything. After all, that is precisely what happened in the nineties (and the late eighties).