In my mind's eye it must have been like one of those golden evocations of childhood from European cinema ... possibly German, probably French. A little girl, slightly anxious, slightly hurrying, runs from hiding location to hiding location, but every closet door she opens reveals an older child who shoos her away. As the ominous sound of another child counting towards a hundred gets louder in the background, there seems not a table or bed that does not already conceal a hider.
In this case, the little girl in the story is Patricia Scotland, the soon-to-be-erstwhile Attorney General, and amongst the various bigger children one might find: Gordon Brown (still under the desk and now in desperate need of a bath and shave); Yvette Cooper-Balls (still crying after the B.B.C. interviewer dipped her pigtails in ink); "Whatever Happened To" Jacqui Smith; and Alistair Darling, who now wears the permanently-dazed expression of someone who has survived being struck by lightning. The only one not evidently in hiding is Baron M., and whether this is because his hiding place is too well chosen or because he himself is "coming to get you" is yet to be established.
Poor Baroness Scotland of Asthal! Labour actually has only one big political idea, and it is basically this: get the costs of government paid for twice by the taxpayer by passing back to ordinary citizens the cost of regulation. In this case, employers have been given increased responsibility for ensuring that the people who work for them are not illegal immigrants. Patricia knows all about immigration, not because she was born in Dominica herself but because she was a Q.C. (the first black woman to become one, incidentally) and - oh yes! - she was a Home Office minister who was involved in framing the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality 2006 which tightened those responsibilities on employers.
So, if there was one member of the government you could guarantee would not be caught employing an illegal immigrant, it is Baroness Scotland of Asthal.
(I think when that petard detonated it scared a whole bunch of pigeons that had come home to roost.)
Accordingly - and in a neat piece of role-reversal that will appeal to connoisseurs of irony - the Red-faced Baroness's apology to the nation had to be delivered by Mrs. Brown's little boy, who has become the nation's favourite deliverer of vicarious contrition ever since he apologised for the maltreatment of Alan Turing last week. Surely only the public revelation that his pants were on fire can have dragged the Prime Minister from his customary refuge.
Just when you thought that no member of the government less credible could be found to rush to Scotland's defence, however, Labour demonstrated that in this one critical area they can exceed all reasonable expectations.
The person who was sent onto Newsnight to speak on the behalf of Baroness Scotland of Asthal (Asthal, one notes, being the Oxford village where she now resides, rather than the area of Walthamstow where she grew up) was none other than Keith Vaz.
Keith Vaz, Ladies and Gentlemen!
(Or, if you need to Google him in a hurry, Vaz Scandal.)
Now Sordel is aware that it may be claimed that Baroness Scotland, Keith Vaz and Trevor Phillips attract controversy not because allegations against them are true but because they themselves are not white. Sordel gives due credit to this possibility.
However ... the day that I need Keith Vaz to stand in front of gunfire to protect me, I hope that I will have the courage to talk him out of it.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Balls to (Derren) Brown
Tricks are all very fine, and we admire the work that goes into them.
The Banking industry, for example. One can hardly fail to doff one's metaphorical hat to a business that operates profitably through a boom and then - when the going gets tough - persuades the government to bail it out without apparently conceding in return even a modicum of increased regulation. As bystanders, one cannot help but chuckle appreciatively as the illusionist hands back the bewildered prime minister's watch and handkerchief while unobtrusively tucking his wallet into a back pocket.
(It is only when one remembers whose money was in the wallet that the jokes wears thin.)
Yet when the illusionist turns to the audience and proceeds to "explain" the trick, by reference to the marmoset that, by frequent applications of disappearing ink, he has made invisible before training it in the art of the cutpurse, the audience begins to murmur amongst itself with something less than appreciation. Sure, we want to be deceived. But we don't want to be treated like fools.
Sordel has always enjoyed Derren Brown's act. Hypnotism has always been a part of it, but less of a part than it might first appear, and trying to disentangle a good illusion is always good fun. Sometimes you can "get" a part of it.
Even, however, before Brown explained his latest stunt (apparently forecasting the lottery numbers) it seemed a trifle underwhelming. The numbers were written in felt-tip on a row of ping-pong balls that were apparently visible at all times, but which were only turned to face the camera after the actual result was announced live on B.B.C. 1.
On his explanation show, Brown claimed that there were only three ways he could have done the trick: fake a lottery ticket, rig the machines or genuinely predict the result. Faking the ticket in this case meant that the writing had to be applied to the balls after the result was given; not impossible, I suppose, and Brown certainly misdirected the audience from exploring that option. Not interesting, though.
For most of the hour Brown "explained" how he genuinely predicted the result by averaging the predictions of a special group of people that he had trained for the purpose. This was, of course, complete and utter bollocks.
Brown then, in the last five minutes, outlined another way of doing the trick that involved substituting a heavier set of balls in the Camelot machines. He made a big point of saying that obviously had he done the trick that way he could not admit it, but I also happen to think that the second explanation was bollocks too.
Sordel is not too good at working out how a trick is done, but it seems to me that the only way it could be done was for Brown to know the result in time to write down the numbers before his own programme started. If the lottery result is usually broadcast with a short delay, then he only required the slightest collusion from Camelot to make the stunt work. If it is not usually broadcast with a delay, he needed a little more collusion, but since Brown's stunt was a massive free advert for the National Lottery, it's not difficult to see Camelot's motivation.
The problem is this: the explanation of that trick is never going to be very interesting, and creating a false explanation does nothing to make it more so.
Should the bankers ever do an explanation show, though, I'd watch it. They seem to win the lottery every week.
The Banking industry, for example. One can hardly fail to doff one's metaphorical hat to a business that operates profitably through a boom and then - when the going gets tough - persuades the government to bail it out without apparently conceding in return even a modicum of increased regulation. As bystanders, one cannot help but chuckle appreciatively as the illusionist hands back the bewildered prime minister's watch and handkerchief while unobtrusively tucking his wallet into a back pocket.
(It is only when one remembers whose money was in the wallet that the jokes wears thin.)
Yet when the illusionist turns to the audience and proceeds to "explain" the trick, by reference to the marmoset that, by frequent applications of disappearing ink, he has made invisible before training it in the art of the cutpurse, the audience begins to murmur amongst itself with something less than appreciation. Sure, we want to be deceived. But we don't want to be treated like fools.
Sordel has always enjoyed Derren Brown's act. Hypnotism has always been a part of it, but less of a part than it might first appear, and trying to disentangle a good illusion is always good fun. Sometimes you can "get" a part of it.
Even, however, before Brown explained his latest stunt (apparently forecasting the lottery numbers) it seemed a trifle underwhelming. The numbers were written in felt-tip on a row of ping-pong balls that were apparently visible at all times, but which were only turned to face the camera after the actual result was announced live on B.B.C. 1.
On his explanation show, Brown claimed that there were only three ways he could have done the trick: fake a lottery ticket, rig the machines or genuinely predict the result. Faking the ticket in this case meant that the writing had to be applied to the balls after the result was given; not impossible, I suppose, and Brown certainly misdirected the audience from exploring that option. Not interesting, though.
For most of the hour Brown "explained" how he genuinely predicted the result by averaging the predictions of a special group of people that he had trained for the purpose. This was, of course, complete and utter bollocks.
Brown then, in the last five minutes, outlined another way of doing the trick that involved substituting a heavier set of balls in the Camelot machines. He made a big point of saying that obviously had he done the trick that way he could not admit it, but I also happen to think that the second explanation was bollocks too.
Sordel is not too good at working out how a trick is done, but it seems to me that the only way it could be done was for Brown to know the result in time to write down the numbers before his own programme started. If the lottery result is usually broadcast with a short delay, then he only required the slightest collusion from Camelot to make the stunt work. If it is not usually broadcast with a delay, he needed a little more collusion, but since Brown's stunt was a massive free advert for the National Lottery, it's not difficult to see Camelot's motivation.
The problem is this: the explanation of that trick is never going to be very interesting, and creating a false explanation does nothing to make it more so.
Should the bankers ever do an explanation show, though, I'd watch it. They seem to win the lottery every week.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
The Rescuers Abroad
This from BBC.co.uk: "The final decision to order the rescue of kidnapped journalist Stephen Farrell was taken by the foreign and defence secretaries, Downing Street has said. Gordon Brown was consulted, but David Milliband and Bob Ainsworth sanctioned it."
Had things gone differently, I suppose Downing Street might have made a different announcement. There would have been Mrs. Brown's little boy, smiling with shy pride and unaffected delight before the hissing flashbulbs of the assembled press, explaining his pivotal role in this Entebbe-esque victory. How Gordon would have beamed.
Failure, however, is an orphan. Worse, it is an orphan who has just been unwillingly adopted by David Milliband and Bob Ainsworth: the sort of punishment that even an orphan asking for more gruel might consider severe.
Special forces operations, like wars, roll a die, and the relationship of risk to reward is a complex one, but in a situation where the best case scenario was freeing two prisoners, it was at best a daring operation to undertake. Saving one out of the two ain't bad I suppose, and if it matters to you that it was the British one that they saved then you may feel that the result was broadly successful.
Nevertheless to save one man from very uncertain death at the price, seemingly, of the deaths of four others - the interpreter, a soldier, two civilians - isn't exactly the sort of thing that gets people hanging out the bunting and draining glasses to the health of the Dear Old Queen. If - as is suspected - Sultan Munadi was killed by the bullets of those attempting to rescue Stephen Farrell, then the success was something worse than equivocal.
The question that most stubbornly occurs, though, is this. What was the basis for the decision made by this pair of politicians (without any collusion whatsoever from our prime minister, who merely peeped out from under his desk while stretching for a cup of tea that had been thoughtfully left on the carpet for him)?
Surely only a cynic could suggest that the Go order was given in the hope of securing a headline-flashing victory in the course of an increasingly miserable occupation?
Had things gone differently, I suppose Downing Street might have made a different announcement. There would have been Mrs. Brown's little boy, smiling with shy pride and unaffected delight before the hissing flashbulbs of the assembled press, explaining his pivotal role in this Entebbe-esque victory. How Gordon would have beamed.
Failure, however, is an orphan. Worse, it is an orphan who has just been unwillingly adopted by David Milliband and Bob Ainsworth: the sort of punishment that even an orphan asking for more gruel might consider severe.
Special forces operations, like wars, roll a die, and the relationship of risk to reward is a complex one, but in a situation where the best case scenario was freeing two prisoners, it was at best a daring operation to undertake. Saving one out of the two ain't bad I suppose, and if it matters to you that it was the British one that they saved then you may feel that the result was broadly successful.
Nevertheless to save one man from very uncertain death at the price, seemingly, of the deaths of four others - the interpreter, a soldier, two civilians - isn't exactly the sort of thing that gets people hanging out the bunting and draining glasses to the health of the Dear Old Queen. If - as is suspected - Sultan Munadi was killed by the bullets of those attempting to rescue Stephen Farrell, then the success was something worse than equivocal.
The question that most stubbornly occurs, though, is this. What was the basis for the decision made by this pair of politicians (without any collusion whatsoever from our prime minister, who merely peeped out from under his desk while stretching for a cup of tea that had been thoughtfully left on the carpet for him)?
Surely only a cynic could suggest that the Go order was given in the hope of securing a headline-flashing victory in the course of an increasingly miserable occupation?
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
"Must These Have Voices?"
In retrospect, it wasn't really necessary to wage a massive campaign in Afghanistan to make the country (slightly less un-) safe for voters. It turns out that an honour guard around Hamid Karzai's photocopier would have done just as well.
Personally, Sordel has always felt that we should get democracy working here before imposing it on others. Lest we forget, the man currently cowering under the prime minister's desk was not elected (even by his own party) yet this has not stopped him grabbing the tiller and setting a course for the nearest iceberg. His predecessor was indeed elected, but he spent much of his premiership explaining why (much as he deeply respected the opinions of the overwhelming majority of the electorate) we'd be doing things his way for now. Having promised a referendum before further European integration, Labour decided to ratify the Lisbon Treaty without one, and the low cunning of this decision is confirmed by the failure of Ireland to pass a referendum on the same issue. Et cetera.
This is merely to say that democracy does not operate in the United Kingdom, but let us suppose that it did. Under a constituency system in which the winner takes all, the overwhelming majority of voters will live in a constituency where only two political parties can possibly win. Many people will live in a constituency where one political party has an insurmountable majority.
The smallest parliamentary majority is apparently Crawley, where the current incumbent is handing on by the varnish on her nails to a majority of 37. She's a Labour MP, so I fancy that her chances of holding the seat at the next election are slender. Let us imagine, however, that you live in Crawley at the time of the next election, the seat is won or lost by a single vote, and you find yourself on the winning end. Would this be a validation for you of the democratic system, to have made such a seemingly enormous difference? Or would you consider that the body of votes sloshing backwards and forwards had pretty much made your individual vote worthless? Democracy values all citizens equally, but does not value them highly.
Why, then, are we so persuaded of the value of the democratic system that we are willing to sacrifice lives in order to transform Afghanistan into one? Set aside for a moment patriotic concern for British troops; I am not convinced that is worth the death of a single individual of any nationality to establish a democracy in that country, even were it possible to do so.
Of course, I see that there are significant motives for governments to like democracies, whether domestic or foreign.
But why on Earth should we?
Personally, Sordel has always felt that we should get democracy working here before imposing it on others. Lest we forget, the man currently cowering under the prime minister's desk was not elected (even by his own party) yet this has not stopped him grabbing the tiller and setting a course for the nearest iceberg. His predecessor was indeed elected, but he spent much of his premiership explaining why (much as he deeply respected the opinions of the overwhelming majority of the electorate) we'd be doing things his way for now. Having promised a referendum before further European integration, Labour decided to ratify the Lisbon Treaty without one, and the low cunning of this decision is confirmed by the failure of Ireland to pass a referendum on the same issue. Et cetera.
This is merely to say that democracy does not operate in the United Kingdom, but let us suppose that it did. Under a constituency system in which the winner takes all, the overwhelming majority of voters will live in a constituency where only two political parties can possibly win. Many people will live in a constituency where one political party has an insurmountable majority.
The smallest parliamentary majority is apparently Crawley, where the current incumbent is handing on by the varnish on her nails to a majority of 37. She's a Labour MP, so I fancy that her chances of holding the seat at the next election are slender. Let us imagine, however, that you live in Crawley at the time of the next election, the seat is won or lost by a single vote, and you find yourself on the winning end. Would this be a validation for you of the democratic system, to have made such a seemingly enormous difference? Or would you consider that the body of votes sloshing backwards and forwards had pretty much made your individual vote worthless? Democracy values all citizens equally, but does not value them highly.
Why, then, are we so persuaded of the value of the democratic system that we are willing to sacrifice lives in order to transform Afghanistan into one? Set aside for a moment patriotic concern for British troops; I am not convinced that is worth the death of a single individual of any nationality to establish a democracy in that country, even were it possible to do so.
Of course, I see that there are significant motives for governments to like democracies, whether domestic or foreign.
But why on Earth should we?
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
The Van Gogh School of Music
Generally speaking (perhaps universally speaking if one restricts one's sample to the "youth of today") people would rather watch a talkie to a silent movie, and will watch a colour film in preference to one in black and white. When James Cameron releases Avatar, you can pretty much bet that people will flock to it so that they can ooh and aah over the 3D, and perhaps one day we will all resolutely favour films with the illusion of depth over the flat movies of yore.
There is, however, good reason to suppose that just after entertainment technology makes its critical forward leap, some of the best work will be done in the antiquated form of the medium that has just been outdated. City Lights, one of Chaplin's most revered films, was a (more or less) silent film made in 1931: four years after The Jazz Singer had pointed the way to the future.
September 9th sees tranche of wallet-emptying releases by The Beatles and the most impoverishing part of it is The Beatles In Mono: a 13-disc boxed set that will set you back £200 (or about twenty euros at the current rate of exchange). That's right, mono ... what you bought the headphones for.
The argument runs like this. The stereo versions of early Beatles albums were only ever an afterthought designed to generate a little additional revenue from the few trailblazers who had decided to invest in the new flash-in-the-pan audio format with one extra speaker. Most of the studio time was invested in perfecting the mono mix. Moreover, the stereo mixes were not "true" stereo: what they did was basically split the mono instrument tracks between the two channels, so you get separation but no soundstage.
If you want to form an opinion on all this, it will cost you twenty euros, or slightly more if you are relying on our domestic and quantitatively-eased currency.
But here's the thing. The Beatles In Mono doesn't just cost a bit more than The Beatles In Stereo: it costs vastly more. You can't just buy Please Please Me in mono together with its stereo counterpart and give them a listen, because the mono version is only available in the boxed set. So you will need to buy the mono boxed set plus as many of the stereo releases as you will want to hear.
Which is as it should be, because elitism costs, and right here is where you start paying.
If you just want to, y'know, "listen to The Beatles", you will be fine with vanilla stereo. But - assuming that you have all this stuff already - you will likely be buying for a second, third or fourth time to take advantage of the widely-hyped remixes and their improved sound quality.
If that is your motivation, can you really afford not to have the mono mixes? Because I can tell you this right now. Very few of those who shell out for The Beatles In Mono are going to end up holding the opinion that stereo is better.
That's a luxury they really can't afford.
There is, however, good reason to suppose that just after entertainment technology makes its critical forward leap, some of the best work will be done in the antiquated form of the medium that has just been outdated. City Lights, one of Chaplin's most revered films, was a (more or less) silent film made in 1931: four years after The Jazz Singer had pointed the way to the future.
September 9th sees tranche of wallet-emptying releases by The Beatles and the most impoverishing part of it is The Beatles In Mono: a 13-disc boxed set that will set you back £200 (or about twenty euros at the current rate of exchange). That's right, mono ... what you bought the headphones for.
The argument runs like this. The stereo versions of early Beatles albums were only ever an afterthought designed to generate a little additional revenue from the few trailblazers who had decided to invest in the new flash-in-the-pan audio format with one extra speaker. Most of the studio time was invested in perfecting the mono mix. Moreover, the stereo mixes were not "true" stereo: what they did was basically split the mono instrument tracks between the two channels, so you get separation but no soundstage.
If you want to form an opinion on all this, it will cost you twenty euros, or slightly more if you are relying on our domestic and quantitatively-eased currency.
But here's the thing. The Beatles In Mono doesn't just cost a bit more than The Beatles In Stereo: it costs vastly more. You can't just buy Please Please Me in mono together with its stereo counterpart and give them a listen, because the mono version is only available in the boxed set. So you will need to buy the mono boxed set plus as many of the stereo releases as you will want to hear.
Which is as it should be, because elitism costs, and right here is where you start paying.
If you just want to, y'know, "listen to The Beatles", you will be fine with vanilla stereo. But - assuming that you have all this stuff already - you will likely be buying for a second, third or fourth time to take advantage of the widely-hyped remixes and their improved sound quality.
If that is your motivation, can you really afford not to have the mono mixes? Because I can tell you this right now. Very few of those who shell out for The Beatles In Mono are going to end up holding the opinion that stereo is better.
That's a luxury they really can't afford.
Monday, August 24, 2009
The Quality of Mercy
Readers with a long memory may remember the Guildford Four being released from court after their conviction for the Guildford pub bombings was quashed. The scenes outside the court were indeed jubilant, as indeed they would have been in the home of Daniel Day-Lewis had he foreseen at that moment that from this acorn the mighty oak of Academy Award nominations for himself and Pete Postlethwaite would grow.
The release was a significant one, because they came at the end of a long (seemingly interminable) campaign that many onlookers of the time had associated with a propoganda war being waged at that time by Sinn Fein, an organisation then considerably less respectable than it is today. There was a strong sentiment that the attack upon the legal process that had resulted in the convictions of the Guildford Four, the Macguire Seven and the Birmingham Six was the continuation of war by other methods. Those who favoured a successful appeal were on the Republican side, almost be definition.
History has tended to see these belated acquittals rather differently ... has tended to see those reversed evident miscarriages of justice as heroically fighting not only against the immediate obstacle of a corrupt police force, but also the more remote antagonism of the British Public.
Abdelbaset Al Megrahi will never have the sensation of walking free with his name cleared. The second appeal against his conviction for the Lockerbie bombing was repeatedly delayed by a number of ruses, both political and judicial. Despite the fact that the Scottish Criminal Cases Commission concluded in 2007 (after a four year investigation) that there was a prima facie case for the second appeal to be heard, no such appeal ever took place. Despite the fact that Al Megrahi's case is due shortly to be heard at a still higher court, no one seems to have felt that there was any urgency to hearing the case.
Nevertheless, although we do not know with any great certainty whether Al Megrahi is guilty or innocent, the pictures of his arrival in Libya are surely suggestive. No medal was pinned to his chest, no U. S. flags burnt, Colonel Gaddafi did not congratulate him on a job well done. The reception was, instead, entirely consistent with the celebrations outside the high court in 1989 when the Guildford Four walked free.
Far from honouring a killer, the Libyans acted as though they thought Al Megrahi had been the victim of a miscarriage of justice. Quite possibly they were wrong, but unfortunately we are unlikely to know if so.
Not surprisingly, in a culture where it is still widely thought that Saddam Hussein was guilty of the 9/11 bombings, there is an equally strong conviction that Al Megrahi was guilty. The U. S. has been immoderate in its condemnation of the release, not least as a consequence of its own catastrophic failure to bring subsequent terrorists to trial. Having made prosecution impossible by its enthusiastic use of torture, the U. S. has become a bystander to international law, shaking its impotent fist while other countries embrace due process.
Which leads me to a modest proposal.
With its unique approach to international law, why does the U.S. not simply fly a drone over and blow Al Megrahi up? It would after all not be the first time that the U.S. has bombed Tripoli.
Indeed, for a truly unrepentant bomber one need look no further.
The release was a significant one, because they came at the end of a long (seemingly interminable) campaign that many onlookers of the time had associated with a propoganda war being waged at that time by Sinn Fein, an organisation then considerably less respectable than it is today. There was a strong sentiment that the attack upon the legal process that had resulted in the convictions of the Guildford Four, the Macguire Seven and the Birmingham Six was the continuation of war by other methods. Those who favoured a successful appeal were on the Republican side, almost be definition.
History has tended to see these belated acquittals rather differently ... has tended to see those reversed evident miscarriages of justice as heroically fighting not only against the immediate obstacle of a corrupt police force, but also the more remote antagonism of the British Public.
Abdelbaset Al Megrahi will never have the sensation of walking free with his name cleared. The second appeal against his conviction for the Lockerbie bombing was repeatedly delayed by a number of ruses, both political and judicial. Despite the fact that the Scottish Criminal Cases Commission concluded in 2007 (after a four year investigation) that there was a prima facie case for the second appeal to be heard, no such appeal ever took place. Despite the fact that Al Megrahi's case is due shortly to be heard at a still higher court, no one seems to have felt that there was any urgency to hearing the case.
Nevertheless, although we do not know with any great certainty whether Al Megrahi is guilty or innocent, the pictures of his arrival in Libya are surely suggestive. No medal was pinned to his chest, no U. S. flags burnt, Colonel Gaddafi did not congratulate him on a job well done. The reception was, instead, entirely consistent with the celebrations outside the high court in 1989 when the Guildford Four walked free.
Far from honouring a killer, the Libyans acted as though they thought Al Megrahi had been the victim of a miscarriage of justice. Quite possibly they were wrong, but unfortunately we are unlikely to know if so.
Not surprisingly, in a culture where it is still widely thought that Saddam Hussein was guilty of the 9/11 bombings, there is an equally strong conviction that Al Megrahi was guilty. The U. S. has been immoderate in its condemnation of the release, not least as a consequence of its own catastrophic failure to bring subsequent terrorists to trial. Having made prosecution impossible by its enthusiastic use of torture, the U. S. has become a bystander to international law, shaking its impotent fist while other countries embrace due process.
Which leads me to a modest proposal.
With its unique approach to international law, why does the U.S. not simply fly a drone over and blow Al Megrahi up? It would after all not be the first time that the U.S. has bombed Tripoli.
Indeed, for a truly unrepentant bomber one need look no further.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Some Idiot Went To War And All I Got Was This Lousy Tee-Shirt
Like most of Britain's citizens, Sordel is content to fight his wars on the Home Front. I am not entirely convinced, however, that our Prime Minister should be allowed to do the same.
It used to be inferred from his sullen silence on the subject that Gordon Brown was no supporter of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. War, one felt, was incompatible with a man for whom prudence had become not so much a watchword as the nervous tic of a genteel Tourette. The mongering of war sits uncomfortably alongside fiscal responsibility, which is why many voters may have assumed that Brown would draw a line under the adventuring of his predecessor and quietly withdraw our troops from theatres of war with the discretion of an impresario closing a West End flop.
How wrong we all were.
Brown, it is true, is no wartime leader. One cannot imagine Churchill, or Thatcher, or Blair, presiding over a country at war without the occasionally morale-raising speech, the shake of the flag, the salute to the forces. Brown acts, however, like someone for whom war is conducted far away by strange and distant relatives.
It is an impression that can only have been fostered by Blair's own remoteness. One imagines Tony to have been like as a small boy at boarding school writing reluctant postcards to a disciplinarian and slightly mad aunt. "UN nice, food okay, send more money." "Thank you for the seedcake, dug out a rabbit hole on Saturday, send more money." "Met the president, going to war, send more money."
Sat at home with this collection of haikuesque epistles, the dismal Gordon could only have thought of statesmanship as something that happened to other people in distant lands. Mrs. Brown's little boy - admitted to Edinburgh University by the age of sixteen when most of his peers would have been getting their prefect badges and first serious girlfriends - continued along the sad little road upon which his feet had long ago been set.
No war for Gordon. No prefect badge for Gordon. Gordon excused school sport on account of a nasty injury incurred during rugby.
The result is a man gazing uncomprehendingly at war through a window-pane. When a crisis occurs for which he feels himself prepared (if, for example, someone is needed to pass billions of pounds across the table to the banking fraternity) Brown is the man for the job.
But war is something to which he takes no principled exception and to which he can make not the least practical contribution.
Helicopters? The brass might have more luck asking for seedcake.
It used to be inferred from his sullen silence on the subject that Gordon Brown was no supporter of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. War, one felt, was incompatible with a man for whom prudence had become not so much a watchword as the nervous tic of a genteel Tourette. The mongering of war sits uncomfortably alongside fiscal responsibility, which is why many voters may have assumed that Brown would draw a line under the adventuring of his predecessor and quietly withdraw our troops from theatres of war with the discretion of an impresario closing a West End flop.
How wrong we all were.
Brown, it is true, is no wartime leader. One cannot imagine Churchill, or Thatcher, or Blair, presiding over a country at war without the occasionally morale-raising speech, the shake of the flag, the salute to the forces. Brown acts, however, like someone for whom war is conducted far away by strange and distant relatives.
It is an impression that can only have been fostered by Blair's own remoteness. One imagines Tony to have been like as a small boy at boarding school writing reluctant postcards to a disciplinarian and slightly mad aunt. "UN nice, food okay, send more money." "Thank you for the seedcake, dug out a rabbit hole on Saturday, send more money." "Met the president, going to war, send more money."
Sat at home with this collection of haikuesque epistles, the dismal Gordon could only have thought of statesmanship as something that happened to other people in distant lands. Mrs. Brown's little boy - admitted to Edinburgh University by the age of sixteen when most of his peers would have been getting their prefect badges and first serious girlfriends - continued along the sad little road upon which his feet had long ago been set.
No war for Gordon. No prefect badge for Gordon. Gordon excused school sport on account of a nasty injury incurred during rugby.
The result is a man gazing uncomprehendingly at war through a window-pane. When a crisis occurs for which he feels himself prepared (if, for example, someone is needed to pass billions of pounds across the table to the banking fraternity) Brown is the man for the job.
But war is something to which he takes no principled exception and to which he can make not the least practical contribution.
Helicopters? The brass might have more luck asking for seedcake.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)