Porter’s Pensées

For those of you who know that I live in Sweden much of the time, and who may have been alarmed by yesterday’s report – from the President of the United States, no less – that we’ve just had an Islamicist massacre here, I’d like to reassure you that I’m quite unscathed. – Here’s Trump, in Melbourne, Florida:

‘You look at what’s happening in Germany, you look at what’s happening all over the world. Take a look at Nice. Take a look at Paris. You look at what’s happening in Brussels. You look at what’s happening last night in Sweden. Sweden, who would believe it! Sweden.’

Well! Who would believe it, indeed. Obviously our liberal Swedish media is as adept at hiding these atrocities as the American.

As it happens we went into Stockholm city centre on the night in question, to see an operatic stageing of Lars-Erik Larsson’s Förklädd Gud (God in Disguise) at Folksoperan. We should have been nervous, I suppose, when we learned that a number of the performers were beggars, exiles and Roma taken from the streets, many of them undoubtedly Muslims. But none of them turned on us. The performance was set in the context of Sweden’s recent extraordinarily generous Middle Eastern refugee policy: a sign, the piece was saying, of that ‘disguised God’ in all of us. The music is glorious (there’s a good version of the original here, with Kurt Wallander [!] as the narrator: www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkN2Gbe1aD8), and the whole occasion was very moving. It reminded me of why I like living here.

The Swedish papers have had great fun at the expense of Trump’s silly lie. Here’s one reaction, from the tabloid Aftonbladet: http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/Vn17J/in-english-this-happened-in-sweden-friday-night-mr-president.

I like the randy moose story. I don’t suppose he was a Moslem ‘in disguise’?

If one referendum is ‘democratic’, why should a second one be ‘undemocratic’? That’s what the Brexiteers are arguing; most recently the awful Iain Duncan Smith in response to Tony Blair’s call for a rethink of last year’s EU vote: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-38996179.

I can see the practical objections to repeating referenda over and over again until you get the ‘right’ result; but not any reasons of democratic principle. In this case I’d have thought the argument for trying to elicit a considered verdict on the question from the British people, freed from the extraneous considerations that marred the first vote (see https://bernardjporter.com/2016/06/16/is-it-really-about-the-eu/), and in the light of the knowledge that’s now beginning to accumulate of the probable problems and disadvantages of Brexit, was pretty unanswerable. Otherwise we’re staking our whole national future, not on what the people necessarily want today, but on what they thought they wanted at one brief and fevered moment of time in the past.

Again: what is particularly democratic about this?

Alice Wheeldon was a pacifist and suffragette in World War I Britain. She irked the government of the time by sheltering draft-dodgers and helping them to escape abroad. In order to neutralise her she was ‘fitted up’ by police spies on a fake charge of plotting to assassinate Lloyd George, and sentenced to a long term of imprisonment. (The episode is mentioned in my Plots and Paranoia.) Next month, to mark the centenary of her trial, a ‘Vigil’ is being arranged at the London Law Courts by the group that is trying to elicit a posthumous pardon for her. As this notice points out, the issue of police spies and agents provocateurs is still a topical and troubling one. (See below: https://bernardjporter.com/2016/04/25/police-spies/.) I hope I can make it to the Law Courts on the 10th.

Watching Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience on U-Tube reminds me that we shouldn’t take the Victorians too seriously – because they didn’t take themselves all that seriously. Patience mocks everyone, including the mockers themselves; not only aesthetes, its best-known targets, but also, for example, the military: the butt of much scorn, as well as admiration, in Victorian Britain generally. And there’s much more of this kind of thing in the other Savoy operas.

Elsewhere, for those who believe that Victorian Britain was defined by its empire, there was plenty of anti-imperial and anti-war mockery too. Take that famous ‘Jingo’ music-hall song of 1877/8:

We don’t want to fight but by jingo if we do,

We’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men, and got the money too!

We’ve fought the Bear before and while we’re Britons true

The Russians shall not have Constantinople.

This is supposed to mark the origin of the word ‘Jingo’ used in this context, and to be evidence of the ubiquity of British patriotism at the time. But what is often forgotten is that there was a contemporary mocking version of that song, which was also popular in the music halls:

I don’t want to fight, I’ll be slaughtered if I do,

I’ll change my togs, I’ll sell my kit, and sell my rifle too!

I don’t like this war, I ain’t a Briton true

And I’d let the Russians have Constantinople.

Indeed, the amount of anti-imperialism there was in 19^th-century Britain, both satirical and serious, is not I think properly credited by historians. One of the points I make in my last book (British Imperial, £16.59 from Amazon and worth every penny) is that it was the Brits who effectively invented anti-imperialism, and so should be given credit for that. (The American revolutionaries weren’t properly anti-imperialists. They just wanted to free themselves from Britain’s empire, in order to go around doing some imperializing of their own. See my Empire and Superempire: £18.99 from Amazon.) This was because Britain wasn’t ever a homogeneous society, with what is sometimes called a ‘dominant discourse’, or anything like it. And because we Brits have always joked about ourselves. In difficult times, it’s what makes life bearable for us, and makes us loveable (I hope) to foreigners.

America may be the same just now: viz the glorious torrent of anti-Trump satire currently flooding the internet. It must make their recent disaster more tolerable to liberal Americans. And it’s why I still love the country so much.

Apparently retirees are now better off than working people in Britain: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/feb/13/pensioners-now-20-a-week-better-off-than-working-households. I’m not surprised. Most of us have good occupational pensions, unlike the next generation. (I would have, if half of it were not going to my ex-wife.) We’ve paid off our mortgages. The children have fled and are (mainly) self-sustaining. We get free bus rides. We don’t need so much, at our age; and what we do need the good old NHS will provide. (Up to now.) And for ten years the Tory government has carefully sheltered us against rising ‘austerity’, in the belief that (a) we oldies are more likely to vote, and (b) we’re more likely to vote for them. So it’s not a bad life, in Theresa’s Britain; if you’re old enough to enjoy it.

Of course this is unfair on our children’s generation; but then we post-war oldies always have been the lucky ones. I count myself extraordinarily lucky, to the extent that I can’t really credit any of my achievements, such as they are, to my own efforts. I missed the War, and then missed – just by a few months – post-war military conscription. I was nurtured early on by free school milk and orange juice, and kept alive (literally, in my case) by the spanking-new NHS. My parents could afford to buy a house, while they were reasonably-priced; as was I, forty years later. Thereafter, already installed on the ladder, we merely profited, when house prices escalated. I got a good – privileged – secondary education, without having to pay for it; which fed me through to a prestigious university, which again I didn’t have to pay a penny towards. The State even contributed to my living expenses. There was full employment. Social democracy was firmly established, and improving year by year, even under Conservative governments. Above all, perhaps, we had hope. (See my piece here on 1956: https://bernardjporter.com/2016/02/28/1956/.)

Then of course it all came to shuddering halt, as the Conservatives re-discovered their old Victorian roots, and started eating away at the ‘molly-coddling’ – the ‘nanny state’ – that was supposed to be stifling our ‘get-up-and-go’. In fact I genuinely believe that I would never have got up and gone anywhere useful and productive, if it hadn’t been for the State. If, that is, what I’ve done in my life has been useful; or more so than if I had been forced to struggle in thankless jobs for money, or to march up and down in my ‘National Service’ years, or even to keep alive, without free health care, as a child.

And now, having had this extraordinarily fortunate life so far, the privilege is being extended into old age. It really is unfair. Seeing my children striving for what came effortlessly to my generation fills me with very real guilt. But then I suppose it could well be making them into better people than I’ve turned out to be. Per ardua…

Having been a skeptical student of ‘conspiracy theories’ for many years – arising out of my work on Britain’s secret services – I thought I could distinguish ‘true’ from ‘false’ news fairly easily. But it really is becoming more difficult nowadays. The problem arises with stories that you would like to believe, because of your political (or other) predilections, and which genuinely could be true in view of what else you know about the person or people targeted. Usually that will immediately rule out the craziest rumours swilling about – Hillary Clinton involved in child pornography, for example, or Obama’s Kenyan nationality; but then along comes a person who is crazy (in the loosest meaning of the term; I’m not claiming, yet, that Trump is certifiable), and the bounds of possibility immensely broaden out.

Take the following: a report that the Trump organization erected a fence around a cottage abutting on one of his Scottish golf courses (the owner refused to sell it to him), and then sent the owner the bill, à la Mexico: surely this can’t be true? It’s just the sort of thing a satirist might make up, in line with all those other glorious anti-Trump jokes circulating around the internet just now; and for those of us most distressed by the result of the American election, making Trump’s victory almost bearable – a bit like Low’s Hitler cartoons in the 1930s. It resembles one of those myths that expresses an even deeper truth than the literal truth: like Peter Mandelson being taken into a fish and chip shop and asking for ‘some of that lovely-looking guacamole, please’. (I.e., for non-Brits, really mushy peas.) But the ‘Scottish wall’ one is in the Torygraph, no less: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/8555683/Donald-Trump-angers-neighbour-after-erecting-new-boundary-fence-and-then-billing-him.html. And it was repeated on Swedish Radio this morning. (Thanks Kajsa.) So it might be true. How can we tell?

There’s much talk these days about the ‘post-truth society’, and ‘alternative facts’; not an exclusively modern trend, of course, but seemingly becoming more widely acknowledged now. I blame capitalism: capitalists don’t need to tell the truth, only what they think they can get away with, and what will ‘sell’. That’s Trump’s whole career, to a T. (See this superb account by Sidney Blumenthal in the latest LRB: https://www.lrb.co.uk/v39/n04/sidney-blumenthal/a-short-history-of-the-trump-family). I suspect that in intellectual circles the ‘relativist’ tendency in ‘post-modernism’ might also have had an influence, if only to undermine otherwise intelligent people’s resistance to ‘post-truth’. Whatever.

The difference today appears to be that it’s more widely accepted that politicians (and others) tell lies; not occasionally, but as their default position. That’s what true ‘conspiracy theorists’ used to believe, which is what turned so many of them into universal cynics. Trump’s lies, and the fact that so many people – almost a majority – voted for him in full knowledge of them, are turning more of us that way, which doesn’t bode well for America, for us in Britain (that deceptive Brexit campaign), or for democracy. For it is arguable that a stable society needs to be built on trust, even if that trust is naïve and wrong-headed. How can we carry on, now, if we can’t even be sure whether something is a joke or not? Or if we can’t even rely on the Daily Telegraph? (Irony.)

I stopped researching the secret services a few years ago when I found all this deception – on both sides: both the spies and the counter-spies – getting through to me. In this ‘wilderness of mirrors’, I had no firm ground to stand on. I started erecting all kind of ingenious conspiracies of my own. One was that Thatcher was a Soviet ‘mole’. (It fits! Here’s a novelistic version of it I posted a year ago on this blog: https://bernardjporter.com/2016/01/31/the-thatcher-conspiracy/.)  I first aired that in the conclusion to the second edition of my Plots and Paranoia, merely to illustrate the damage that this kind of history could do to one’s mind, and to explain why, therefore, I was returning to the more dependable field of imperialism. (Yes, of course, that involves deceit too. But it’s not quite so intrinsic to it.) One reviewer, obviously blind to irony, took me seriously.

One could write a whole history of Britain or America along these lines. I might try it myself, as my next project. I could incorporate the query jokes, and the query false facts. It would be an ‘alternative history’, of Britain and/or the USA. They’d love it in Trump-land, if I pitched it right. It would be fun to do, and maybe even useful, if I made its purpose plain. I’ll give it some thought.

(Actually, it’s already been done. Read any ‘patriotic’ American or British history. And look up ‘Carroll Quigley’ on Google. But my angle would be different. I haven’t decided on that yet. Any suggestions would be welcome.)

I voted – twice – for Jeremy Corbyn as Leader of the Labour Party, and am still loyal to his ideals and policies. I also think he’s done a good job in many ways, bearing in mind the hostility of the press to him, his lack of support – even ‘treachery’ – from his own side, and his own deficiencies in what are taken to be the necessary qualities of ‘leadership’ (the Führerprinzip) in this post-democratic age. By that is generally taken to be meant his lack of ‘charisma’, and his association with what is now regarded as an ‘old-fashioned’ type of socialism, going back to the 1960s. So far as ‘charisma’ is concerned, Attlee was pretty lacking in that too, and yet he was arguably the best and most successful British peacetime prime minister of the last century. We appreciated quality and ability then, over and above ‘show’. And secondly: ideas that were successful at one time shouldn’t be dismissed today simply because that time was fifty years ago. I’m thinking, of course, of social democracy. Good ideas are timeless. Thatcher was never dismissed as ‘old-fashioned’ simply because her policies were a hundred years old. But then she had plenty of the Führerin thing.

My preference for Corbyn as Leader was always predicated on the idea that, after he had shaken the Labour Party out of its grey Blairite suits, he might hand over to someone who had more of what the media recognizes as ‘leadership’ qualities in her or him (https://bernardjporter.com/2016/07/06/2710/). I couldn’t see any of those qualities, or many of the ones I would want to see in a Leader, in any of the candidates who led the contests against him over the past couple of years. Boring grey suits (or pleated skirts), every one of them. I remember thinking – though this may just be the old man in me – where are the great men and women of yesteryear: Bevan, Wilson, Crossman, Healey, Castle, Benn Mk 1…? Until someone of their quality emerged, I thought, best stick with the good Jeremy.

Recently I think I’ve spotted signs of this quality emerging in one or two Labour MPs (Clive Lewis? Yvette Cooper? Benn Mk 2?) – though I’d like to see more of all of them before I place any bets. It’s this that makes me not at all disturbed by the new rumour making the rounds – which may only be that – that Corbyn himself is thinking of voluntarily handing over quite soon (http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/jeremy-corbyn-to-quit-rumour-untrue-says-ian-lavery-gossip_uk_589aec47e4b0a1dcbd03f9ba?gkhp62ymvaomwmte29). If it could be done like that – a friendly succession rather than a coup, and to a higher-profile figure whom Jeremy and we on the Left trusted – it could be an ideal preparation for the next General Election campaign; once we’ve got through this Brexit mess. Blame the Right-wing press; but I’m afraid Labour needs someone who comes up (or down) to its notion of ‘leadership’.

The National Health Service is our greatest national achievement. It could also be our greatest national asset, if it weren’t currently being starved of funds. Horror stories – patients lying in corridors, delayed operations, elderly patients taking up beds because care in the community has also been decimated, and so on – appear in the papers every day. The Left suspects that the Tories are doing this deliberately, in order to make privatization – a long-time dream of theirs and their backers – more acceptable to the general public. The more obvious villain is simple ‘austerity’: the idea that we, as a nation, simply can’t afford anything more. Other contributory factors are the escalating costs of better medical treatment and technology; and the increasing demands of an ‘ageing population’ – ageing, and not dead, of course, because of the achievements of the NHS in the past.

That’s me. My body is collapsing bit by bit, and having to be patched together continuously. My latest problem is a hernia which needs to be operated on, but can’t be for 14 weeks, because of the waiting list. I need to get it done, or my guts will drop into my scrotum. (Here. My FB Friends will have seen this pic before.)

I don’t fancy pushing my bits around in a wheelbarrow. But I feel guilty at taking up our doctors’ hard-pressed time. I’m a burden.

The NHS used to be a source of great security to me. Tories, of course, don’t like the idea of security, unless it’s purchased at someone else’s profit, on the grounds that it takes away the need to strive. Of course that’s nonsense. A secure base to one’s life allows one to strive beyond that base. I couldn’t have written half my books without the NHS to sustain me at various times; and besides that, free education, through to university and beyond. Knowing that whatever goes wrong with me, I can have it put right without financial worries, and by hospitals and doctors that have time for me, has been a great comfort throughout my life. If I’d had to strive just to keep alive, I wouldn’t have accomplished so much. That’s why people of my class origins in the past generally didn’t accomplish more. I’m one of a greatly favoured generation, from free school milk via free education and free care, to the ease of getting jobs, all facilitated by the State. Today’s youngsters have it tough, by contrast. And i-phones don’t fully compensate.

Now hospitals are over-full, doctors over-worked, and treatment has to be limited. We’re being told to avoid ‘unnecessary’ visits to A&E, and to visit our GPs instead. But there aren’t enough GPs, so we’re then told to ask our pharmacists for advice. We’re made to feel a burden. I don’t believe I’ve ever been to a doctor unnecessarily, but now I feel guilty about going for anything. I’m waiting for the pain in my neck to be a sign of cancer, which would have been treatable if I had gone sooner, and risked being told I was wasting my doctor’s time.

Care for the infirm elderly is even more of a problem. It’s expensive for local councils, and hard to find of a reasonable standard. At my age you suddenly realise that you might soon come to need this, and so become even more of a burden to everyone. I’m determined not to burden any of my loved ones with my care, if it comes to that. I’ll strap on a bomb vest – or hide a grenade in my scrotum – and try to get near one of our modern villains. A Health Service privatizer, perhaps.

Of course the answer is higher taxes – or less spent on nuclear subs and bailing out banks. That’s how Sweden does it; but there they have a more enlightened view of taxation, and of the individual citizen’s obligations to society. I’m almost hoping that my hernia bursts before the fourteen weeks are up, and I have to be treated here, in Stockholm, as an emergency. That is, if we haven’t Brexited yet.

Of course the other way of getting traction from a ‘Reichstag Fire’ (see last post) is to pretend that it happened, but that the lying liberal press are covering it up:

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/donald-trump-terror-attacks-are-not-being-reported-media_uk_5898db13e4b076856216ef0e?c8ublprf9ubpxecdi; and:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38890090.

Remember the ‘Bowling Green Massacre’?

On another related point: John Bercow’s announcement yesterday that if Trump accepted May’s invitation for a State visit later this year, he – as Speaker of the House – would not permit him to address the House of Commons (it’s in his gift) –

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/racist-sexist-donald-trump-john-bercow-westminster-hall-state-visit_uk_5898aafee4b076856216dee7 –

came as a surprise to everyone in Britain, and was welcomed, I think, by most of us, apart from the Right-wing press. The reasons Bercow gave were Trump’s racism and sexism, plus the ‘Muslim Ban’. Even more surprising to me – as your Sweden Correspondent – was that it made the top spot in last night’s STV News, with the Commons scene filmed and reported in full. That may do something to repair the British people’s reputation abroad. (Kajsa already thinks more of us.)

What President Trump could do with now, while his travel ban is suspended by the courts, is a Reichstag fire, and an immigrant close at hand to pin it on. He’s almost said as much: ‘if anything happens now it’s the judges’ fault’. It doesn’t have to be the Federal Capitol; it could be almost anywhere public (Trump Tower?), but it has to be blamed on a recently-arrived Muslim refugee. (Preferably one that is shot dead in the course of his arrest – the typical American way – so he can’t be questioned too closely.) I wouldn’t put it past either Trump’s people or the Islamic terrorists to arrange this; both sets of extremists, after all, want the same thing – to ratchet up the ‘war’. Let’s hope to God it doesn’t happen.

Of course this isn’t 1933, and Trump (it needs to be emphasized) isn’t Hitler. For those who scoff at that comparison, however, two points need to be made. Firstly, German Fascism didn’t begin with the death camps. Hitler’s first solution to the ‘Jewish problem’ was to boot them all out. This didn’t make him any less Fascist. Secondly, take a look at this poster, currently displayed in the US Holocaust Museum in Washington. I don’t know its provenance, but still. Trump ticks every one of these ‘early warning signs’.

So aren’t we right to be vigilant, even afraid?