Porter’s Pensées

His ambition, we’re told, was to become the ‘World King’. Instead he has come Britain’s Clown Prince. This brilliant piece in the Guardian relates how. Read, and be amused – but also very afraid.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/mar/18/all-hail-the-clown-king-how-boris-johnson-made-it-by-playing-the-fool.

Of course our present situation can’t be explained in terms of Johnson’s character alone. (I’m talking of the British ‘us’ here, not the Swedish.) We need to analyse how he became like this: his upbringing, education (Eton, of course), the other influences upon him; his appeal, in terms of the popular culture of the day; the political structures and maybe accidents that allowed him to attain his Princely position; and the nature and motives of the much less ‘clownish’ elements in society that exploited all these forces to raise him to the throne. Political analysts are no doubt working on these presently, as historians will in the future. By then, of course, it will be too late to do any good.

What we need now is a bloody great scandal – even greater than the ones that have been surrounding this government from its first days in power – which will both unseat him and his more po-faced Brexit-fanatic cronies; and at the same time alert the British people to the flaws in their political and perhaps educational systems that have elevated this pound-shop Falstaff to the position he holds today, and from which he looks likely to bring us all down. Any ideas?

Yesterday Home Secretary Priti Patel’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill passed its second reading in the House of Commons, by 90-odd votes. The first reading (for those unfamiliar with British Parliamentary procedure) was a formality; the Bill now passes to its ‘Committee Stage’, when amendments can be made to it. Some of us are hoping that those amendments can delete what appear to be drastic curbs on the right of public assembly and protest, including the criminalisation of protests – even one-person protests – which are simply noisy or an ‘annoyance’ to people, and hefty prison sentences for damaging public statues. (I suppose it’s just a cheap jibe to point out that I find Priti Patel pretty ‘annoying’.) Not only the Opposition parties objected to these, but a few good old-fashioned Tories also seemed troubled, as one might expect of a party that professes to value British ‘traditions’, of which the right to protest has always been considered one. Maybe they will be enough to modify the Bill in Committee. And after that, there’ll be the funny old Lords, who are now in the curious and unprecedented situation of being the House that one relies upon to hold a reactionary government in check.

I watched much of the Commons debate. It made for depressing viewing. One problem was that most of the old-fashioned Tories have been expelled from the party, and hence from Parliament, on account of their position on Brexit; leaving mainly rabid Right-wingers and what used to be called the ‘young fogies’ of the Conservative Party on the Government benches. – A second problem was that the Bill is a huge one – 296 pages long – and pretty catch-all; with scores of measures that the Opposition could normally be expected to support, and indeed many of which had originally been proposed by Labour MPs. That allowed the Government to claim that by voting against the Bill the Opposition was rejecting these, which fitted in nicely with the ‘soft on crime’ image that the Tories like to throw at it. – A third difficulty was that the debate came just a few days after a vigil on Clapham Common, in memory of a young woman murdered by a police officer, was attacked with excessive force by the Police who were patrolling it; which allowed the debate to be diverted into one on the protection of women against male violence, on which the Bill in fact had nothing at all to say. Nonetheless this dominated the discussion, and made it look as though the Bill’s opponents were soft on gendered crime too. In this atmosphere, the proposed measures against ‘protest’, though objected to by one or two MPs, especially by the admirable David Lammy in his summing-up for the Opposition, were rather lost in the general outpouring of sympathy for the poor murdered woman, even from Tories who had never shown any empathy for women before in their lives. 

Clearly the question of policing ‘demos’ should have been the subject of a separate Bill. I imagine it was incorporated in this one in the hope of its getting through under the cover of these less controversial measures. But the right to assemble and demonstrate is different from ‘ordinary’ crimes; on a higher level I would say – the ‘constitutional’ one. It affects us all, not just criminals; bearing on our ‘freedoms’ and the nature of our ‘democracy’ no less. To bury it in 296 pages was like putting a poison pill in a plate of porage. 

All I have to contribute to this debate as a historian – and a historian of ‘counter-subversion’ in particular – is the observation that this, the right to protest publicly and even loudly, is a principle that has been struggled for in Britain over many centuries; and so must qualify as a basic ‘liberty’ which is essential if Britain wants to define itself as a ‘liberal’ State. It’s effectively an extension of the wider and much-prized principle of ‘free speech’. It got me wondering whether Priti Patel had been taught any British history at school (Westfield Technical College in Watford), or as part of her higher education in Economics (at Keele and Essex Universities)? If not, this might explain her blindness to this crucial – historical – aspect of it.

In the debate that preceded this one Boris Johnson, waffling on about Britain’s ‘global role’, made a great deal of the importance of projecting ‘our ideals and principles’ in the world, of which this is surely one. It must come ahead of increasing Britain’s stock of nuclear weapons, which Johnson announced in the same statement to the Commons. That was the non-waffly bit. It was probably intended to make the Opposition look ‘weak’ on defence, as well as on crime. 

Indeed, these whole two days of debate revealed a government hell-bent on exploiting traditional Conservative – and it was hoped working-class – prejudices: against rowdy young left-wing protesters, ‘woke’ (a new and somewhat artificial target), gypsies (also included in the bill), pacifists, do-gooders… and the army of subvert enemies of virtue and patriotism described so brilliantly in the tirade from the Reginald Perrin  series I referenced in an earlier post: https://bernardjporter.com/2021/03/07/second-comings/. Whether it will appeal  equally to the ‘red wall’ of working-class voters – the ones who defected to Johnson over the issue of Brexit in 2019 – has yet to be seen. Boris doesn’t seem to be doing so badly in the opinion polls just now. And that’s without the demon Corbyn to put people off.

What these two debates reveal, in my view, are the latent and instinctive authoritarianism of Britain’s new political order, together with – of course – the weakness of the parliamentary opposition to it. In ordinary times the latter might be counter-balanced by extra-parliamentary opposition: if it weren’t for the Coronavirus, which is making people scared to leave their homes, and prohibited from mingling in large crowds; and this new Police Bill, which will make it impossible to protest effectively even in defence of the right to protest. 

Is this outcome deliberate? Boris, I think, isn’t clever enough. Dominic Cummings undoubtedly is. He has left Number 10, hasn’t he? – But wait: what about the shake-up of the civil service that’s expected in a year’s time, to make it more ‘efficient’ (that is, subservient to Ministers): https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/mar/16/radical-shake-up-of-civil-service-comms-to-be-in-place-by-april-2022? That has the fingerprints of Dominic all over it. And all this together – the Police Bill, the nuclear weapons, the civil service reforms – mark a clear stage in the transition to a more authoritarian Britain in the near future, which some are already labelling neo– or at least proto-Fascist. As a historian, I’m holding my fire on the nomenclature. But whatever it is, it will greatly undermine the ‘traditional British liberties’ which Priti Patel should have learned about at school.

PS (Next day.) Apparently the Committee Stage of the Police Bill is being delayed. A hopeful sign?

The possibility of a form of Fascism’s seizing hold of Britain and the USA soon – if it hasn’t done so already – used to be dismissed and even ridiculed as Leftist alarmism. Now it’s being taken more seriously. Here’s a current American analysis – if you can get it up. (I had to subscribe to do so.)

https://eand.co/americans-are-trapped-in-a-fascist-society-cc6e59bb6bbe

I wonder how many Republicans have read Nietzsche?

Today in the UK they’re about to have a debate in parliament on Priti Patel’s new police bill, which among other things would – apparently; I’ll have to check after the debate – ban even peaceful demonstrations if they are noisy, and would make damaging a statue subject to more serious penalties than physically attacking a woman.

Priti really is a witch! (Or is that sexist? Or mediaevalist?)

It’s blindingly obvious from recent political events in both the UK and the US that our respective political systems are almost irreparably broken. This is not only because they have both thrown up Right-wing governments, which a Leftie like me is bound to regret; but also because, quite irrespective of their outcomes, their procedures seem imperfectly democratic in several respects, and are open to manipulation by un- or anti-democratic forces, with occasionally disastrous results. This time in the UK it’s Brexit; four years ago in the USA it was Trump; but next time it could be anything or anybody. So this is not an essentially partisan point, although the Right, which has done most of the manipulating recently, might be more likely to resist it. Aside from that, however, the reforms to our system(s) that I’d like to propose (below), ought to be acceptable in principle to all democrats.

There’s a historical precedent for this. The biggest mass movement for democracy in Britain was born in 1838, and revolved around a ‘People’s Charter’, which called for six specific reforms of the parliamentary system as it stood then. They were: votes for all adult males; secret ballots; no property qualifications for voters; payment of MPs; equal-sized constituencies; and annual elections. All these save the last were eventually achieved, at least in a rough-and-ready form, and one of them – the first – was even extended, age- and gender-wise. So what is left?

It strikes me that if there were to be a new ‘People’s Charter’, aiming to repair the deficiencies in our present systems, it should have three major, essential and non-partisan ‘demands’, with others being added if there were enough support for them. (That support could be expressed, of course, through the new and reformed legislatures that would be created as a result of the first three demands.) Here they are: nothing terribly original, and in fact all pretty obvious, I’d say; but none of them achieved as yet.

1. Electoral Reform. We have to bring in proportional representation for all important elections. Apart from anything else, it would allow new parties to form and grow, and so opinions outside the ideologies of the two major parties in the state (three in Scotland) to be ‘proportionately’ represented. It would also make compromise easier – indeed, probably essential. (That’s why the ‘conviction politician’ Thatcher was so much against the idea.) Personally, I’d be sorry to see the end of the close connexion between constituents and their local representatives which is the outstanding feature of ‘first past the post’; but there are, I believe, ways of combining the best features of both – as I’ve suggested before: https://bernardjporter.com/2016/02/29/first-past-the-post/. That should be comparatively easy.
2. Democratising the Media. At present 80% of the UK’s print Press is in the hands of extreme right-wing billionaires, with agendas of their own, and an obvious impact on the ‘news’ they publish. Much of it is sheer propaganda. A ‘free press’ is not the same as a ‘free market’ press. The previous Conservative government promised an inquiry into this – Leveson Stage 2 – but then reneged on it. Press reform, in a way that can’t be seen to inhibit its real ‘freedom’, will be trickier than electoral reform; but other countries manage it. How do they do it?
3. Restoring ‘checks and balances’. This has become a particular problem with the present UK government, which is seeking to override, and in many instances has already overridden, many of the institutions that were always meant to prevent unsafe laws or procedures being passed without proper scrutiny: the law courts, the House of Lords (yes: even them!), and the rules of the House of Commons, presided over by the Speaker. The same ‘Reform’ could also restore traditional Parliamentary sanctions against Ministers who tell lies. This should be relatively easy, as it’s essentially a ‘conservative’ – even a ‘reactionary’ – reform.

These should do the job, in Britain at least (America has other well-known problems it needs to address), and for a while, until those clever Rightists have found new ways of subverting the system that emerges. Beyond that, one could add some more demands, which might however be more controversial. I suggest the following:

• State funding for political parties, to replace donations from big business or trade unions; and accompanied by strict – and low – limits on political advertising.
• Educational reform – to encourage rational, logical and critical thought in the electorate. I can foresee a number of objections to this, some of them quite valid. (‘Whose rationality do you choose?’)
• Equal opportunities written into law, especially with regard to representation in Parliament.

Those would bring us up to the original Chartists’ ‘Six Points’. (And there are other political desiderata that could supplement these.) But it’s the first three demands that bear most directly on our parliamentary systems, and are the most urgent. If we had them in place today, just think what a change they could have made to both our countries’ present political situations!

Anyone want to start up a new Chartist movement? I know that there are other modern organisations that have taken on the name (I once signed up to a Swedish-based one, as it happens). But none of those, I believe, had as close an affinity with the first one.

So the Tories’ newly appointed Director General of the BBC is pulling a popular satirical TV show because it’s too left-wing (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9354927/BBC-axes-left-wing-satire-Mash-Report-presenter-Nish-Kumar-hits-back.html). This comes on top of the (Tory) Home Secretary’s bringing in new draconian laws against peaceful (but noisy) political demonstrations (https://www.politics.co.uk/comment/2021/03/11/silencing-black-lives-matter-priti-patels-anti-protest-law/?cmpredirect), and this shortly after she had been forced to settle a case against her of bullying, at the cost – to the public – of £340,000: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2021/03/why-do-politicians-keep-getting-away-scandal; the PM’s refusing to correct a downright lie – among many – in the House of Commons (https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-slapped-down-speaker-23681360); and the High Court’s adjudging the government to have acted illegally in granting Covid-related contracts to Conservative Party donors (https://dpglaw.co.uk/high-court-declares-government-acted-unlawfully-in-its-ppe-procurement/). All this in the last week alone; and probably much else besides.

With the Government’s Commons majority of 80 having been won by rank deception; all decent Tories having been effectively expelled from the Party; the official Opposition demoralised and  toothless – Corbyn’s teeth having been pulled by the Tories’ propaganda agencies; 80% of the press in the hands of proto-Fascists; and Ministers setting aside Britain’s centuries-old democratic ‘checks and balances’ in order to force through Parliament their Right-wing agenda: Johnson seems to be on a roll. He’s had an extraordinary run of luck recently, especially with the coronavirus, on which he can lay the blame for the effects of Brexit – that together, of course, with the evil EU, which his tame Press is still stoking up popular hatred against. 

Or has it all been, not luck, but a deep-laid plot? Not the virus, of course; but the moves – including Brexit – that have allowed the Tory Right to pursue its neo-Thatcherite late-stage exploitative-capitalist program with impunity: impoverishing the poor, protecting the tax havens of the rich, stirring up xenophobia, and giving Israel a free hand against the Palestinians – and the Saudis weapons to use against the Yemenis. In almost any other period of British history any one of these scandals could have been impeachable, by one means or another. In this new situation Johnson, despite his blatant inadequacies and character flaws, must feel that he and his mates can now do whatever they like; unless, of course, the present situation is only temporary, and turns against them. The fear of that must be why they’re in such a rush. Strike while the iron is hot. They might not get another chance to complete the not-quite-finished Thatcher revolution, and turn Britain into the essentially  Fascist state – though of course it wouldn’t be called that – it seems to be headed towards. From my viewpoint, self-isolating in the frozen but sensible North, it looks dispiriting, to say the least. Does it really feel  like this in Cardiff or Colchester or Clackmannan or Coleraine? Or are they inured to it? Or simply blind? Or ignorant? Or apathetic? Or deceived by the propaganda? Or all of these? – Or am I wrong?

Kajsa thinks I shouldn’t go back. She’s also cross about Britain’s stealing the EU’s Covid vaccines away from us. (Is that true? We still haven’t had our jabs; our local vårdcentral tells us it’s run out of them.) I’m more worried generally, about what is becoming of the once-beloved country of my birth. It has always had its dark underside, of course: exploitation of workers, poverty, homelessless, gross inequalities, shocking treatment of Ireland, Enoch Powell, Eton College, perfidy in its foreign relations, much (not all) of what went on in the Empire; and plenty of other stuff. But Britain – and especially, perhaps, Wales and Scotland – also used to have some brighter aspects: literature, science, enterprise, the welfare state, the NHS, a kind of democracy, liberalism (before that became ‘neo’), toleration (of immigrants, even), cricket, humour, village churches, religious nonconformity, a thriving social-democratic movement: all those things celebrated in Danny Boyle’s glorious 2012 Olympics opening ceremony. That seems to have been a turning point. There’s not been much to celebrate since then.

For the moment I’m seeking a mental refuge in the past: 1838 to be precise, when ‘my’ Samuel Laing, the Liberal Orcadian, visited Stockholm while it was in the middle of a controversy over Press freedom, with an editor being sentenced to death for criticizing the King, provoking popular riots. In the end the editor – one Magnus Jacob Crusenstolpe – won. Laing’s foreign take on that is interesting. So I thought I’d write it up. It’ll take me back to a far more hopeful historical era. Laing thought they were on the Road to Heaven then. Ah, to live in equally dark, but crucially more optimistic, times!

I didn’t watch the Royal (ex-Royal?) interview, though I heard and saw some snippets, inadvertently. I can’t get really interested in Royals until they’re played by proper actors (https://bernardjporter.com/2020/12/01/the-crown/), and preferably with their lines written for them by Shakespeare. But I understand that it has re-ignited calls for the abolition of the monarchy. Which of course is a nonsensical institution, especially on the scale – and at the expense – it takes on in Britain (Sweden’s is much more modest); and so is difficult to defend as an institution, in – as they say – ‘this day and age’. 

But… Can you imagine whom we might get as Head of State if he or she were democratically elected?  After the Brexit vote I’m not sure that I’d trust my British compatriots – 51.9 per cent of them at any rate – to make a wise decision. We’d probably get a popular footballer or stand-up comic; or a ‘national treasure’ like Delia Smith or Dame Judy Dench; or – God forbid – Nigel Farage; or even our present amusing prime minister, for the next tenant of Buck House. At least Liz and her offspring (and her offspring’s offspring) are saving us from that. No; better leave it to the historical chance which landed us with the present bunch of hapless and unhappy misfits and their heirs, maybe cut down to size, like the ones here in Sweden. If, that is, they’re still willing to take on the job. I wouldn’t be. And clearly Harry isn’t. Good for him. 

From what I gather – and I’ve not been a close student of this – my sympathies must lie with the (ex-) royal couple, both out of admiration for the fact that they’ve had the gumption to escape from their gilded captivity, and also because their main persecutor (as I understand it) has been the British tabloid Press, which I have no love for either. Abolish the monarchy if you like, and if you can find a way of finding some inoffensive old buffer or dame to take its place. But please find some way of democratising the Press first. 

The interview is all over the Swedish media as well today. The latter is not very respectful –  in case you imagined that her monarchy bestowed any ‘dignity’ on Britain as a nation. It doesn’t; any more than it would if it were made up of the cast of Coronation Street. Who might, if you think about it, make rather a better job of it. I don’t think even a future Shakespeare could get any real drama out of this boring lot.

So Farage is stepping down as leader of his – third? fourth? – political party to take up a new role in the vanguard of the fight against (a) lockdowns, (b) unpatriotic history – which in this context is what the ‘culture wars’ are all about; and (c) ‘the increasing influence of the Chinese communist party over our whole way of life’. (See https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nigel-farage-quits-politics-brexit-reform-party-b1813509.html.)  Gosh! I must say I’d not spotted that last one. Does it come in our Szechwan Chilli Chicken and fried rices? I must be more vigilant at our local Chinese take-away in the future. (Actually they’re mostly Thai in Sweden. Are they in the plot too?)

The news of Farage’s leaving the ‘Reform UK Party’ is not unwelcome, of course – he did seem to have a bit of a personal following – although I don’t think RUKP carries much political clout these days. It has too much competition from other groups on the far-Right, including the present-day hi-jacked Conservative party. What is mildly irritating at best, and downright scary at worst, is that he’s threatening to come back again in this new guise, just as Trump is promising to do in America; in the style of all those ‘I’ll be back’ villains in history and in SF and detective novels: Napoleon, Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, Moriarty, the Mekon (if anyone remembers him); or, if you like, and if you’re of a different political and moral persuasion, Jesus. (Sorry. Deeply inappropriate.) Second comings, while people are congratulating themselves on having seen off the original danger, and are lowering their guards, can be just as dangerous as First comings. The whole modern Neo- (or proto-) Fascist phenomenon, reprising the 1930s in so many ways, is an example of this. Lulled by victory over Hitler and by years of European peace and relative comfort since, and distracted by false threats (mainly the Soviets), few of us saw it coming, at least in such strength. Which was why David Cameron decided to throw his ‘referendum’ dice, confident that the ‘fruitcakes and closet racists’ of UKIP could never prevail. Which of course they did.

The battles Farage intends to fight now, and which one suspects have been his true obsessions for years, are of course the traditional ‘conservative’, reactionary, blimpish and what one historian has called ‘harrumphing’ ones: liberalism, socialism, health and safety, students, political correctness, long-haired men, short-haired women… and so on. They’re all here, in this glorious tirade by ‘Jimmy’, introducing his ‘private army’ to ‘Reginald Perrin’, in the original series of that name: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ-9R6NCZ0A. That’s one of my favourite comedy scenes of all. (It mentions Chinese restaurants too.) The punch-line is delectable. And the late Geoffrey Palmer even looks a bit like Farage.

I have to say that I’m not wholly out of sympathy with Nigel when it comes to the ‘culture wars’. I too am irritated by some of the more way-out aspects of what is called ‘political correctness’, especially – as a historian of the subject – its simplistic view of ‘imperialism’: see https://bernardjporter.com/2021/02/27/imperialism-for-or-against/; but much else as well. I associate these views with callow and ignorant youths, whose hearts may be in the right place, but whose knowledge and reasoning power are sadly deficient, and who are doing harm to the cause of real progress (or whatever you like to call it) by allowing themselves to be used and so easily ridiculised by the anti-progressive Right. I wish they’d shut up; or – better – read up and think a bit before they target (for example) Churchill’s statue. But they don’t merit a ‘war’ being waged against them, when there are so many bigger and more worthy battles to be fought. 

Just a note, but it may be significant.  Yesterday I got involved – very unwisely – in a Facebook argument with a Brexiter about the Shamima Begum case (see https://bernardjporter.com/2021/02/28/shamima/). He seemed to have got the basic facts of it entirely wrong, so I tried to put him right. He still didn’t ‘get’ it, so I politely suggested that he ‘read up on the case’. This is his reply.

‘Nothing to read it’s a sound bight [sic] like I said.’ 

Reading between the lines of that, it occurred to me that some people – he can’t be the only one – simply don’t know that there are sources of information open to them quite apart from slogans, newspaper headlines and ‘soundbites’.  That might explain a lot.

[Incidentally: on the Samima Begum case, here’s a post by the excellent Jon Danzig: https://yorkshirebylines.co.uk/facebook-backs-down-after-wrongly-banning-me/?fbclid=IwAR269TVOfuJo8R95C1gUx-gh7rvwNloBTkxblwgTKRhoQQgMY6JHMDg1zXA.  I don’t think Facebook have taken down my piece yet on the grounds that it’s ‘defending terrorism’ (which of course it isn’t). Too obscure, probably. But how can one tell? Do they let you know?]

This book ought to mark the end of Boris Johnson’s political career. It’s about his habit of lying, shamelessly, about anything and everything, as a journalist, a politician and a married man; and about his journalistic sources, Brexit, coronavirus, Corbyn, and his mistresses. It finds room for other well-known liars too, like Blair (‘WMDs’), the odious Michael Gove, and of course the liar-in-chief over the water; but it’s Boris the book focuses on. It also directs the reader to a website which conveniently lists his many deceptions over the years. You might like to take a look at it: https://boris-johnson-lies.com. Extraordinary.

Here’s the book itself, as advertised on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Assault-Truth-Johnson-Emergence-Barbarism/dp/139850100X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2I3XHK41A0PC6&dchild=1&keywords=peter+oborne+the+assault+on+truth&qid=1614615563&s=books&sprefix=Peter+Oborne%2Caps%2C216&sr=1-1.  It’s by Peter Oborne, who used to be a Right-of-centre political newspaper correspondent, like Johnson, but has now turned against his old pal. For a nicely-produced hardback it’s quite cheap. (I bought it from an independent Swedish bookseller, by the way; not Amazon.)

There have been other books like this, going back some time. I have some of them in England, which I’ll look up when (if) I can get back there. Boris’s rank duplicity has been well known and indeed unquestioned for a few years now, which is why when I’ve called him out for that in my latest books (as well as in earlier blogs: search ‘Boris’) I’ve had no fear of being sued for libel. 

Which bears on the other – and more important – question raised in this book: how on earth is he allowed to get away with it? Oborne devotes his final chapter to this. One answer, of course, is supposed to be his personal charm and even magnetism – ‘he’s a character, isn’t he?’ – although having lived with other ‘charming’ public schoolboys at one stage in my career I’m afraid that does nothing for me any more. The other main factor is the societal and political context  in which he’s allowed to operate. The craven media is of course a major part of this, most of it backing his lies and his ambitions, and the less craven section of it pussy-footing around them. Oborne, as a journalist himself, has inside knowledge of this.

Beyond that there are certain more general contemporary trends, most of them associated with what is called ‘populism’. Distrust of conventional (‘establishment’) wisdom and authority is one; confusion (at the very least) over what is ‘truth’ is another. (Oborne is very good on what he calls the ‘privatisation’ of ‘truth’.) Johnson deliberately plays to all this. This is despite his own solid gold ‘establishment’ credentials – Eton, Oxford, the Daily Telegraph, and all the rest. (But then wasn’t Oswald Mosley a ‘Sir’?) He has also played along with it, for example as Prime Minister by removing a number of higher and traditionally-minded civil servants who turned out to be too keen to ‘speak truth to power’. Oborne argues, persuasively, that this, together with Johnson’s emasculation of Parliament and attempted curbing of the judiciary (‘enemies of the people’) – both probably inspired by Dominic Cummings – is all leading to the destruction of Britain’s democracy, through the undermining of the institutional ‘checks and balances’ that are meant to safeguard it. It is this, incidentally, that makes Oborne’s argument a conservative  rather than a radical one. Radicals – or ‘progressives’, as he calls them – are the enemy here; radicals of the Right, however, rather than of the Left. I’d go along with this. (It’s why, even as a ‘Leftist’, I’ve always had a soft spot for the House of Lords.)

The very end of this book reads as a kind of manifesto for how to resist and counter the danger; but in a non-‘radical’ way. So far as we – ‘we the people’ – are concerned, it mainly comprises writing to Tory MPs and Lords. I’m not sure that will be enough. But it has to be said that Oborne has stated the problem convincingly. Yes, Johnson is a ‘character!’ – that’s part of the problem – but a highly dangerous one. At almost any other time in British history he could not have survived the publication of this quite damning book. But of course he will; at least for a while, or until he’s found out in a really scandalous lie. 

Here’s another reason to feel ashamed of being British just now, and glad of my (dual) Swedish nationality. I don’t want to push historical ‘lessons’ too far, but just to say that the present British government’s determination to prevent Shamima Begum from returning to Britain, to be tried there voluntarily for her crimes in joining Isis in Syria, conflicts with one very proud British tradition; which used to be to admit everyone into the country, even potentially violent foreign refugees (and Shamima isn’t even foreign, or wasn’t until the Home Office took her citizenship away), without question. If they were thought to be potentially dangerous, then the Special Branch put a watch on them. In Karl Marx’s case this lasted until after his death. I’ve seen a report by the police officer charged with this task. (True! I imagine him camped by the grave in Highgate Cemetery in case the old Commie popped his head up through the daisies.)

So the Victorians would never have tolerated this: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/26/shamima-begum-cannot-return-to-uk-to-fight-for-citizenship-court-rules. And Shamima was only 15 when she absconded!  After which, having married an Isis fighter and had several miscarriages, I believe, it must have been difficult for her to escape, even if she’d wanted to. I hate to think how many of us would have fared if as adults we were judged on our views and actions as 15 year-olds. (At 15 I was backing Eden over Suez, for pity’s sake!) As it happens I have a Swedish acquaintance who also went over to join the Jihad, and had children with ‘terrorists’, but then was allowed back into Sweden and is presently a model citizen here. Is there any reason to think that Shamima, with care, would turn out differently? Well, maybe. Perhaps Priti Patel and MI5 have good evidence that the poor girl would be a ‘danger to national security’. I can’t judge; though I doubt whether the Court of Appeal could, either.

The only point I want to make here, and it’s directed at all the Brexiteers and xenophobes and self-styled ‘patriots’ who are violently abusing her on social media just now – here’s one I spotted: ‘she is a traitor to united Kingdom, rot in hell I say’ – is that in terms of many of Britain’s proudest past traditions this was a profoundly un-British  – i.e. unpatriotic – decision. For what that’s worth. (It’s only History, after all.)

PS: Kajsa tells me that there are similar cases to Shamima’s coming up in Swedish courts just now where the legal debate appears to be similar to Britain’s. So Sweden may no longer be as safe for Isis ‘returnees’ as it was for my friend. I’ll look into this, and maybe report back.

PPS: There’ll be a chapter on Britain’s past ‘asylum’ policy in my forthcoming Britain Before Brexit. That is, if you don’t want to bother with my The Refugee Question in Mid-Victorian Politics CUP, 1979. I’ve only cited these so you’ll know that I know what I’m talking about.