Porter’s Pensées

Oh no we don’t. Or shouldn’t. She’s changed her political principles so often during her undistinguished career – CND, Lib-Dem, anti-monarchy, Conservative, Remainer, Brexiter – that we can’t be sure where she’s going to stand next week, even; although we know where she decided to plant her flag for this Tory leadership election. She’s now a Boris loyalist, and a traditional low-tax Conservative; which are the two positions that won her the 57% of the votes of the tiny constituency of elderly Tory party members who have now – ludicrously – elevated her to the premiership of the United Kingdom. Well, let’s see where that takes us.

Putting to one side the sheer triviality of this whole procedure, it seems clear that there’s a broader and more basic trend behind it: which is the onward – or if you like backward – march of late-stage capitalism or neo-liberalism, which has gripped most of Europe and America since the days of Thatcher and Reagan. Truss wants to reduce the role of the state, reward the rich even further, and strip away workers’ rights. That fits the pattern. If it’s a global trend it must be basically irrespective of individual human volition, which can only be its tools. Which brings us back to the eternal discussion about ‘agency’ and causality in history…. And, I’m afraid, must diminish Liz Truss somewhat.

From my favourite American doomster.

https://eand.co/this-winter-collapse-is-coming-to-britain-72ace84ab0b4

President Biden has just had the courage – or perhaps the political nous – to call out America’s radical right-wingers for what they are: ‘semi-fascists’. (See https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/30/fascism-biden-trump-american-history/.) The f-word has been bandied about for a few years now – back to the start of Trump’s presidency at the latest – but always against the objections of more moderately-inclined people, as well of course as the semi-fascists themselves, that it was grossly unfair: a typical liberal smear, and even a libellous one. I’ve used the word myself, albeit always (I think) with a qualifier, as in Biden’s case: ‘semi-’ for him, ‘proto-’ or ‘neo-’ or ‘quasi-’ for me; and always conscious of the danger that it might mark me as an unhinged Lefty doomster – the equivalent on my side of the political fence of the Rightists who confuse social democracy with ‘communism’.  

Some of this derives from too narrow a view of ‘fascism’: the one that equates it with Nazism, which in fact was only the most extreme version of it. Of course Trump didn’t intend to gas all American Jews, or even Mexicans, or Leftist liberals; but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t be regarded as ‘semi-fascist’ in other ways. Fascism doesn’t have a precise definition, which adds to the confusion; but embraces a variety of attitudes and policies, including anti-democracy (except in the distorted form of ‘populism’), the Führerprinzip (see https://bernardjporter.com/2022/08/25/das-fuhrerprinzip/), anti-liberalism (except in its economic form: i.e. capitalism), anti-alienism, authoritarianism, disciplinarianism, militarism, censorship, irrationalism, anti-intellectualism, exaggerated ‘patriotism’ (usually based on a skewed history: see my latest book), masculinism, a victim mentality, and general hatred. That’s a lot to choose from. A modern semi-fascism could be woven out of any number – ideally a majority – of these. And it could also take on a softer, more cuddly, outer appearance than it did in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Marching up and down in brown shirts behind fasces may be fun for testosterone-filled young men who find comfort in the comradeship it brings them, but is by no means essential to fascism in all its forms. Nor is knowing that you’re a fascist. That only makes you a card-carrying one.

In Britain’s case the signs of incipient fascism – probably of the ‘semi’ and ‘cuddly’ kind – are all around us. Many of them centre around our extraordinary Home Secretary Priti Patel: abolishing Human Rights laws, curtailing the right to protest, planning at one time to prosecute captains of ships for saving refugees from drowning, sending asylum-seekers to rot in Ruanda, and much more, I’m sure, if she continues in the job; but other ministers too (or ex-ministers, soon) are veering almost as close: attacking judges (and hence the rule of law), acting unconstitutionally, mocking expertise (Gove), confusing democracy with populism, labelling opposition as ‘treachery’, and behaving as corruptly as any fascist dictator in the past. And of course they still have the Daily Mail. If Boris had survived – and he may yet emerge from his political grave, as ex-minister Rory Stewart has warned recently (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/aug/29/boris-johnson-wants-to-do-a-berlusconi-back-to-power-says-rory-stewart) – he would be the one to clothe the new regime in its more acceptable – cuddly – dress. (Maybe that’s the reason for the Boris-loving Tories’ backing of Liz Truss as his successor: so that when she turns out to be as hopeless as is widely predicted, people will turn back to him.)

But – and this is the other reason for people’s not taking the possibility of fascism in Britain seriously – it couldn’t happen here, surely? We’re not Germany in the 1930s. – Well, in fact we are in the ’30s in many ways, or might be soon: depression, inflation, an unstable world, various kinds of fascism abroad (Russia, Hungary…), and the new – or newly realised – existential threat of climate catastrophe. As for ‘not being Germany’: what does that imply apart from an assumption of British national superiority – or at least difference – which comes perilously close to the racism that we associate with fascism. How are we different? Culturally we share many of the same characteristics as pre-war Germany, with only cricket and Marmite really setting us apart. We’ve boasted of our liberalism, peacefulness and moderation in the past; but none of these differences stands up to much scrutiny when we take our imperial history (and Anglo-Ireland’s) into consideration; and all these qualities exerted almost as powerful a hold in pre-‘30s Germany (especially in the Rhineland) as in modern Britain. In fact there are as many precedents for ‘fascism’ in our national history as there were in Germany’s. So, if it isn’t our culture or history that separates us and makes Britain immune to fascism, it can only come down to our ‘race’ (or ‘races’, more accurately, if ‘race’ means anything). That incidentally is what Churchill thought.

But as well as being intrinsically racist, this is clearly not something we can rely on to preserve us from fascism (or semi-fascism) in the future. If you doubt how close we may be to it, look at some of the comments on social media these days, especially the illiterate ones; usually by young men, but some from women. (That I have to admit has surprised me, as a somewhat naïve and idealistic feminist. But Priti should have cured me of that.)

In any case, warning of incipient fascism in Britain or America is emphatically not being alarmist. The only way to prevent it – semi-fascism turning into echt fascism – is to be alive to the semi signs of it before it becomes echt. Joe Biden, take a bow.

I don’t understand. I’ve had it explained to me two or three times, and I still don’t get it. Moreover, I rather suspect that those who have explained it to me don’t really get it either. Or is it just my deteriorating brain, in my old age?

The problem is this. Sweden is self-sufficient in energy, nearly all of it coming from renewable sources, situated in the country itself: wind, water, biofuels (those bumps on the tops of our buses), solar, plus some nuclear (not much). Sweden for long has been a world leader when it comes to ecologically-friendly sources of power. We don’t rely on Russian or any foreign sources at all. So we should be able to control our energy costs, surely, in a way that our neighbours apparently can’t. Yet our electricity bills are about to go soaring, too, albeit hopefully not quite as high as elsewhere. Why?

The answers I’ve had given to me include nuclear decommissioning (for environmental reasons), less wind blowing (!), profiteering, and a number of others; but mainly the fact that we are exporters of energy to countries like Germany and Poland, and so have to be bound by their pricing systems. That’s what I don’t understand. Why should we need to pay what they have to pay, when they have supply problems which we don’t?

The Vänster (Left) party is I think the only one in the forthcoming General Election (11 September) which has latched on to this, and is advocating pricing Sweden’s energy with reference to the Swedish supply-and-demand situation alone. That is being painted as over-nationalistic and uncommunitarian. Is this fair? Or have I misunderstood the whole thing? (Which is likely, I have to say.)

Lastly: isn’t the same true, although to a lesser extent, of the UK? How much gas does Britain get from Russia? Or electricity from France?

Incidentally, I’m following the election here – it will be the first one I can vote in as a citizen – and am impressed by how polite and civilised – boring, if you prefer – the debate is, compared with the British; and also by how competent and reasonable most of the candidates seem to be, again by comparison. (Kajsa thinks I’m flattering them; but then she hasn’t been enmired in British politics these past few years.) The main exception seems to be the Sverigedemokraterna  (SD: very right-wing: think UKIP on akvavit), which has as nasty a line in political invective and lies on social media – not on national telly – as Britain’s wannabe fascists. They’re on 21% just now; Vänsterpartiet (V) is at about 8%; and the Social Democrats (S: equivalent to Labour) on 30%. I’ll be voting V, but hoping that S wins, and takes the Vs into coalition.

I thought that on £26,000 a year – it would be £10,000 more but my ex-wife takes half my occupational pension – I was not badly off.  I can’t afford to run a car, but am not allowed to in any case with my poor eyesight; and have virtually no savings. (A new roof saw to that.) I also pay my way here in Sweden, and have to travel back and forth, which costs a bit. So I’m not a rich man. But I have no mortgage, no obligations to children, who all seem nicely set up; and no other debts – financial ones, at least. And I’ve been getting by for years now in reasonable comfort; which in my eyes makes me richer than most: including the class of filthy rich who always seem to want more.

Then yesterday I read that some government minister or other has warned that even those who earn £45,000 a year are now included in the ‘relatively poor’ category of people who will be hard hit by the current and prospective rise in energy prices; which of course will include me. I had no idea that I was so close to – even under – the poverty line. I imagine that to a Conservative minister, with his ministerial salary, expenses, perks and shares, £45,000 must seem like peanuts. But even allowing for that, it’s clear that ‘comfortable’ people like me are going to find the going hard.

Which won’t affect my own political proclivities. But it hopefully might alert other ‘middling’ people to the gross and criminal deficiencies of this Conservative government, whose lying, incompetence, illegalities, corruption, proto-fascist tendencies, and – yes – partying, have all failed to provoke much of a backlash. For the middle classes, protest generally starts in the pocket.

Hopefully those £45,000 people might also think back further than this present Conservative government, to the days of Thatcher, whose neo-liberal revolution started all this mess off. Which doesn’t look good for Liz Truss, who in the current Tory leadership contest is explicitly positioning herself as the neo-Thatcherite anti-tax and anti-state ‘handout’ candidate. Even ‘middling’ Tories might resile against that, when their energy bills (like mine) start coming in.

For a party and a tendency in British politics that rates ‘leadership’ so highly – Rees-Mogg’s awful book The Victorians is full of it: leaders are his ‘Titans’, who made Britain ‘great’ – isn’t it remarkable that the Tories are so inept at choosing leaders of their own?

In the 20th and 21^st centuries, that is. Before then they didn’t do so badly, with Peel, Disraeli and the Marquis of Salisbury (the 3rd of that title) probably the best of them. But then came Arthur Balfour, Bonar Law, Austen Chamberlain, Stanley Baldwin, Neville Chamberlain, Anthony Eden, Ian Duncan-Smith, Alec Douglas-Home, William Hague, Michael Howard, John Major, David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, and the two current claimants for the role; neither of the last two of whom looks like a convincing ‘leader’ by most criteria, although we may of course be proved wrong in time. The only omissions from that list are Harold Macmillan, who at least looked the part and took his country ‘down’ gently; Edward Heath, who had a vision and managed to achieve it – but is scarcely appreciated for it now by most Conservatives; and Winston Churchill, whom the Tories claim for their own but was never their favourite originally, being elevated mainly by Opposition MPs who wanted someone who, despite his many failings, was more firmly anti-Nazi than many other Conservatives to lead them in the War.

And then of course there was Margaret Thatcher; who could be said to have introduced the Führerprinzip into a political society which had never much taken to it in the past, especially of course during Hitler’s war, but which was now beginning to forget those wartime associations. In Thatcher’s case (not Churchill’s) ‘leadership’ became identified with strong, uncompromising government – ‘I stand for leadership, not followership’, ‘the lady’s not for turning’, and so on – as though ‘resolution’ and single-mindedness were the only qualities required in a leader, whatever his or her policies were. And just look at the disastrous outcomes – right now – of that.

Labour I suppose haven’t done much better, although I still rate Attlee and Wilson as the most effective peacetime political leaders of the past century. But that’s because we’re talking about different things here. ‘Leadership’ was not a crucial part of Labour’s political philosophy. Indeed, Wilson bridled at Conservative accusations that he wasn’t enough of a ‘leader’ in the Führer sense. Both Attlee and Wilson were consensual leaders – ‘followers’ also, therefore – who took ‘the people’ where most of them wanted to go. That can’t be said of Truss and Sunak, who aspire to be leaders more in the Thatcher mould, petty and prejudiced, representing minority and indeed ‘extreme’ opinions and interests, with Thatcher’s social, cultural and economic prejudices driving them, her propaganda techniques honed to a new perfection, and riding on a powerful undertow of history which has often been referred to in this blog. How successful or even convincing either of them will turn out to be as ‘Thatchers pour nos jours’ remains to be seen. Neither presently seems to have the ‘character’ for it. And ‘character’ counts, more than policies or competence, or even basic honesty, if you want to win the support of the Tory party, and so come out on top. In Labour’s case it may be different. Attlee after all wasn’t much of a ‘character’ in the Tories’ sense, and Wilson’s efforts to build a ‘character’ – the pipe, for example, when actually he preferred cigarettes – most people saw through at the time.

Johnson, however, exemplified ‘character’ in spades; at least in the sense of ‘Ah, but he’s a character, isn’t he?!’  Indeed, he had barely anything more to recommend him: no vision (except for himself), no thought-through policies, no significant governmental experience, no gravitas, no judgement, no morals (notoriously), and no interest in or empathy for others. Which served him well so long as he offered electoral success to the Tory party, and ‘human interest’ stories to the appalling tabloid press; but that could only last for a while – three years in all. By all other tests of ‘leadership’ he failed abysmally: in uniting his fissiparous party, as Wilson had succeeded in doing; dealing with the major crises of his time (except symbolically, with regard to Ukraine); even in maintaining order in his own official residence, which is probably what ‘did for him’ in the end. And his likely successor – chosen from among those nondescripts whom he chose to serve in his cabinets, and the likeliest of whom is campaigning as the ‘continuity Boris’ candidate, and is as facile if not so funny as him (see my last post) – is unlikely to help.

What would help, of course, is an entirely new left-of-centre government. We can now see clearly that Jeremy Corbyn, for example, was right about almost everything, and that a Labour government continuing his policies would have avoided most of the appalling mistakes that Johnson’s, May’s and Cameron’s governments have made. It might even have gone further – if allowed to by the aforesaid appalling tabloid press – and reformed Britain’s whole governmental and economic systems, unpicking the Thatcher counter-revolution, and so restoring Britain’s proud post-war tradition of social democracy, in order to ensure that nothing like our recent absurdities could happen again. What prevented that in the last few years, of course, was the fact that Corbyn was not seen as a ‘leader’ in the mould that Thatcher had established twenty years before, even by his supporters – like me – whose support was conditional on his restoring Labour to its socialist past, and then passing the baton on to someone whom the Press would find more difficult to rubbish as an old bearded allotment-digging Lefty whom no-one would respect. Unfortunately it turned out that a very large number of – mainly – young people did respect him, boosting party membership by tens of thousands; which made it difficult to replace him in time for the crucial general election that his enemies in the Press (and in his own Party), homing in on the whole ‘leadership’ thing, would ensure he lost. And so we find ourselves (in Britain) where we are today.

This could be seen as another posthumous legacy of Thatcher’s Führerprinzip: both the failure of Labour to furnish a convincing alternative, and of the Conservatives to provide a competent successor to their old Führerin. Let’s hope that neither party – or of course the Lib-Dems – finds a way to solve this problem. We don’t want another Oswald Mosley – Conservative or Labour; he of course was both before he became a Fascist – strutting around the British political scene.

Boris’s lies were pretty outrageous; but Liz seems determined to trump him.  (Ah yes – ‘trump’. What an apt word for it!) In order to appeal to her prospective voters in a general election, and to her immediate electors in the present unedifying contest for Leader of the Conservative Party, and hence for Prime Minister (for the time being), she’s been coming out with some quite enormous fibs recently: not only about the economy, her ludicrously simplistic plans for it (‘lower taxes’), and the supposed achievements of her disgraced predecessor (still beloved by the Tory faithful), but also about her own early life.

In Yorkshire she claims to be a ‘plain-speaking Yorkshire lass’ despite having been born in Oxford and now living in Norfolk; to have been brought up in a Leeds slum and sent to a terrible Comprehensive school there, which is obviously intended to endear her both to the fabled ‘red wall’ in the North and to the public school-educated ‘blue wall’ in the south (a Northerner lifting the lid on State education!), but which obscures the facts that the part of Leeds she lived in was the poshest (average house prices half a million); that her father was a university professor (he’s subsequently disowned her politically); and that her school was ranked ‘excellent’ by Ofsted. (It got her into Oxford, after all – if that means anything.) Now an enthusiastic Brexiter, she also glosses over the fact that she was a leading Remainer until Remain became the losing side, career-wise. All this, and her overwhelming air, at least, of stupidity – or is this simply intended to appeal to the ‘red wall’ too? – and we begin to understand what a first-class charlatan she is. (Does Oxford offer degrees in charlatanry?)

More to the point: does any of this matter, electorally? Boris seemed to show that it doesn’t, for a while at least – just three years in his case. Old Tory members – the present electorate that Liz is appealing to – tend to go not for veracity or honesty, but for (1) what the candidates promise, in the way of tax cuts especially: that’s what most of the discussion and even the headlines in the Tory press have been about; and (2) where they stand on what are called ‘culture war’ issues, like gender and statues, but also including trade unions (boo!), lazy workers (boo!), Lefty lawyers (boo!), academics (boo!), civil servants (boo!), ‘experts’ (boo!), Churchill (hurrah!), Her Maj (hurrah!), Britain’s glorious past (hurrah!), and ‘woke’ – whatever that is; but (boo!) in any case.

It’s these waters that Truss is dipping into for support among the 160,000 Conservative Party members, 51% of whom are all she needs to win over now. Once upon a time her gender might have gone against her, among that misogynistic lot; but since then they’ve had Thatcher – ‘the only one in her cabinet with balls’ (who was it that said that? ) – to re-educate them. More important than that may be the fact that  Liz supported the hyper-masculinist Boris (‘just pat their bottoms’) loyally to the end. That may be her strongest card. That, and possibly the fact that the only alternative to her just now is a darkie (old Tory-speak), although I wouldn’t rely on that so much these days. The present government is pretty multi-ethnic, after all. Class clearly trumps race in British Tory politics; as it always has, I would say.

Whether the carefully-constructed persona that seems likely to take Truss to Number 10 next month will also win her Party the support of the House of Commons, and then of the national electorate in the General Election which will follow a few months afterwards, must be in doubt. Present polling suggests not. Conservative members are hardly a representative bunch of Brits. Their prejudices – even when broadcast widely by the tabloid press – may not mirror the country’s as a whole. And with the new cautious and ‘moderate’ Labour Party poised to snap up the ‘centre’ ground that Truss looks like abandoning, her present strategy may turn out to have been the worst possible for the Tory Party in the longer term. Even those of us on the Left who would prefer Starmer to be more radical (more ‘Corbynite’, if you like) must hope so. It will be a start. And an end to what I’m pretty well convinced will be seen by future historians as the worst ever government in British history, on many grounds; its choice of leaders – Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss – just one (or four) of them.

I didn’t realise how complicated adopting Ukrainian refugees would be. I have a large terrace house in Hull, which I only need to live in about a quarter of, and for part of the year – being in Sweden for the rest – which would ideally suit the family that has just been allotted to me, after several months waiting; and which – apart from the fact that they have no English, and I of course no Ukrainian (we correspond, awkwardly, via Google Translate) – seem a pleasant bunch. They’ve promised to learn English, and will need to, of course, if they’re to have any hope of landing jobs (if they’re allowed to), or the two teenage girls if they’re to cope with an English school. As well as the girls, there’s a mother and a father – aren’t fathers quite rare, being expected to stay behind to defend their motherland? – all from somewhere in the south of Ukraine, but living in the Czech Republic just now; which I assume was their first port of refuge. There are other complications, which I hope won’t injure their claims for refugee status in the UK; but I understand that having a sponsor arranged for them already in Britain (me) will go a long way in their favour. It’s now up to them, and to Priti. (Gulp!)

It’s also up to me to demonstrate that my house is suitable for them, and that I’m a fit and proper person to be taking care of the girls in particular; being as I am one of those most dangerous creatures: a single man. To that end they’re running a ‘DBS’ (standing for Disclosure and Barring Service) check on me: a procedure of which of course I thoroughly approve. To help allay any suspicions on that score, however, I’ve also told the authorities about Kajsa, who will be living in the house with me some of the time; I thought they might be reassured by my having a woman around. But that’s meant that they’ll apparently have to do a DBS check on her too – in Sweden? – which complicates things a little. The other complication is that I can’t show them around my house while I’m abroad; but I hope they’ll let a neighbour do it for me.

It’s odd that having once written a book about mid-19^th-century political refugees in Britain and their reception, I should now be in the position of receiving some 21^st-century refugees into my own home. The situation between then and now is very different, of course. It may surprise people to know that there was very little of today’s anti-alienism in the 1850s – some, but not much, and certainly not directed at refugees; a theme which is explored in my Britain Before Brexit, published a couple of years ago. (Readers may want to correct me on this: Dickens, and so on; but I have the answers for them.)

I’ve never posted on a ‘fan’ site before. But the other day I did. It was on Miriam Margolyes’ fan site. She’s been much in the public eye these days, especially through her outrageous TV interviews, and her recent autobiography.

I had a very early memory of her that I thought her fans would enjoy. As they did: to the tune of over 2,000 ‘likes’ and comments so far. Which she thoroughly deserves: I love her as much as any of her fans do, not only for her acting and humour, but also for her politics – Left, Corbynite, and more pro-Palestinian than many Jews. On the other hand I felt a bit miffed that a rude story about her should get all that appreciation, when my serious posts about the undermining of our liberties and the approachng end of the world get four or five responses, at best.

(Not really, of course. I know how these things work.)

Boris Johnson, as I understand it, was born in New York, which gave him automatic US citizenship. I think I read that he had abandoned that since. If not, however, and even if so, would his American birth entitle him – now he’s about to become jobless in Britain – to offer himself for election as US President; as a further giant step towards his well-known childhood ambition of becoming ‘world king’? Apparently the Americans find the British upper classes quite lovable. Johnson might be a more acceptable idiot there than Trump. And it would mean that we Brits would be properly rid of him. Just a thought.