LONDON LETTER JUNE 9th 2012

I feel that I write this under siege, I have scaffolding around my flat and  roofing contractors above my head, with it is all set to get worse next week when they start work inside my flat gutting and refurbishing my Kitchen and bathroom. Writing will prove difficult, though I’m hoping reading will be possible, ensconced in the protective cave of my bedroom. The only times in my life that have been truly unbearable have been those times when, for whatever reason, I have been unable to read. I have never understood people for whom reading was an optional leisure activity, for me it has always represented an essential element of living, like eating and drinking, food, at the risk of sounding pompous, for the mind.*

The weather continues to rain on all our parades not least the Jubilee which received wall to wall coverage in all the British media. One of the particularly irritating aspects of such events is the occasional vox pop’s posing the question, ‘why do you think our dear Queen is so loved?’ This after coverage that would have done credit to the state celebrations in North Korea celebrating the birth of the great Leader!

I mentioned my republican beliefs to someone yesterday whose response was, “oh I’m a great patriot.” I let the remark pass, but should not have done so. Leaving for one moment to one side the rather loaded word patriot, patriotism famously representing the last refuge of the scoundrel, I take issue with the purloining of the word for the exclusive use of monarchists. I don’t know whether I would chose to be called a patriot but I do feel a sense of loyalty and solidarity with the geographical community into which I was born. Indeed born in Northern Ireland of Scottish Ancestry, brought up in England by a mother whose maiden name was Jones, I perhaps have a greater claim to British identity than most? Such feelings of solidarity are complex, far too complex to fully explore here; suffice to say that I am proud when my country behaves well, feel shame when it behaves badly, am proud of the traditions of radicalism on these islands and of the struggles for liberty and justice. It is a history the corpulent union jack draped Toffs sipping Pimms with the Queen on Sunday, their money safely tucked away in tax havens, would happily have buried underneath a mountain of invented pomp[1] and cheap bunting.

I don’t travel on the tube so often these days; however I went to the South Bank last week and had to attend a meeting in London Bridge on Thursday. On both occasions I experienced significant delays. On Thursday there was no service in the afternoon between Stratford, the main Olympic venue and Bethnal Green, this apparently caused by flooding, a consequence of heavy rain. I think of the poor unsuspecting travellers from across the globe who expect to be whizzed effortlessly across London unaware, like Thomas Hardy’s Titanic of the fate awaiting them. Still at least we won’t have heavy rain in July! 

I heard the results of the Wisconsin recall election with real sadness, it is a setback for workers rights across the USA and I offer my solidarity, for what it is worth. Workers rights are now under sustained attack across the industrialised world and we need to develop a more internationalised approach to halt the export of jobs and the exploitation of cheap labour, hands across the water.

Here unpaid stewards were provided for the Jubilee by a charity with the sinister name Tomorrow’s People, I keep thinking of the Nazi Anthem ‘Tomorrow Belongs to Me.’ This creeping use of unpaid labour under the guise of giving people ‘work experience’ represents something really rather sinister, coupled as it is with the rolling back of employment rights. For me this made all that flag waving and cheering of privilege and the hereditary principle all the more sickening. Russian television, the propaganda arm of Tsar Putin pointed this out, though which was the greater truth, the account by Russia TV or the BBC?

The Leveson enquiry saw the appearance of Tony Blair and our flexible friend, the esteemed, though largely by the culture secretary himself, Jeremy Hunt. The first time I saw Hunt I knew he reminded me of someone, then the penny dropped, it was the hapless Coyote.

Security was mysteriously[2] breached during Blair’s testimony by one of the Stop the War crowd. These people who gladly give Assad the benefit of the doubt, and acted as apologists for Milsovice and Gadafi, would cheerfully hang Tony Blair from the nearest lamppost.

Hunt and Cameron both old Etonians and both, I guess, would consider themselves, if given to such thoughts, gentleman. What the whole Leveson enquiry has exposed is that both are extremely tawdry individuals, entirely without honour or principle. Hunt lets his fag[3] take the rap for him, whilst Flashman Cameron hands him the BskyB bid fully in the knowledge that he supports the bid 100%. I never had much time for old Etonian Toffs, but they did at least at one time have a code that was clear, when caught out you took your punishment without complaint like a man. Bertie Wooster would have known what to make of Cameron, Osbourne and Hunt; "You sirs are no Gentlemen, you have behaved like complete and utter rotters!"  

* Old Russian joke, when a group of party members need to think about buying a leaving present for the retiring local party chief they gather together; “I know,” says one bright spark, “let’s buy him a book?”
“No,” several people shake their head, “he already has a book.”

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[1] Most of the ceremony we identify with the royal family is a relatively recent phenomenon, some less than a hundred years old.

[2] At a time when it was obvious that someone from the Stop the War crowd would want to disrupt the proceedings someone casually enters from behind the judge! Cock up or conspiracy?

[3] A younger boy at British private school who acts as a servant to an older boy.

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