RUMINATIONS ON A PUBLIC HOLIDAY

WATCH OUT FOR JERKING KNEES


After an atrocity like the murder of US journalist James Foley don’t necessarily expect calm considered judgement from me. Likewise don’t expect calm and considered judgement from politicians. I would have a three month moratorium on any legislation affecting civil liberties after any terrorist atrocity.
For already the knees are jerking, with both Boris Johnson and David Davies calling for British Citizenship to withdrawn from anyone fighting in Iraq or Syria with Johnson going even further, with his usual populist rhetoric, calling for the presumption of innocence to be shredded, along, one presumes with his cavalier election promises. He calls for a “swift and minor change” to the law so there was a “rebuttable presumption” that those visiting war areas without notifying the authorities had done so for a terrorist purpose.’[1]
Boris Johnson
Whenever he sees a top over it he goes 
Now as I have said elsewhere I am not opposed in principle to the withdrawal of citizenship, though it needs to be done appropriately. I mean do we really want to immediately classify anyone from a relief organisation, freelance journalist or even curious, if foolhardy, tourist as a terrorist. What too about those citizens of Kurdish descent who want to go and fight alongside our allies in the Kurdish Peshmerga? Wouldn't it be an idea to start talking to our European allies, surely the French, Germans and Dutch, amongst others, are faced with a similar problem? Most of all let us take time to breath and think through any response. I can think of only a very few thinks worse than rushed and intemperate legislation. The only victors of any moves to further curtail free speech or civil liberties, like the presumption of innocence will only benefit the Islamic fanatics. 


‘WE WILL THINK ABOUT FIGHTING THEM ON THE BEACHES.’


There is a cruel truth in life that I learned at an early age. Life constantly delivers challenges, they can arrive with vicious speed allowing little time to reflect before making a judgement call, get it wrong and you live with the consequences for the rest of your life.
So it goes with leadership, it is “events dear boy events,” as Harold Macmillan observed, that dictate the course of a Prime Minister or President’s term in office. In 1940, faced with the fall of France, Churchill had to make a decision, either to fight on or gamble on a compromise peace. There were a great number in government lobbying for the latter, for Churchill however it was a ‘no-brainer,’ we fought on. The rest, as they say, is history.
The implosion of the Middle East, from Libya to Iraq and the Levant, with the emergent ideology of Islamism as the predominant force in the region, presents the greatest threat to the free and democratic societies of Europe, Australasia and North America[2],since the end of the cold war. Hard choices are going to have to be made. So what is the reaction from the leaders of Great Britain and the US? Why they take a holiday.


Now I am not usually  attracted by the usual cheap shot, a Prime Minister or President takes a holiday and some photo editor has a picture of him/her in swimwear on the front page under the heading ‘Crisis What Crisis?’ I believe that Prime Ministers and presidents deserve a break, indeed it is probably essential. But holidays should be periods in which they re-charge to face challenges that cannot be ducked. Challenges like…well ISIS.  As Alex Andreou points out in the Guardian this is [Cameron’s] ‘his 17th break in three years – and his second one this month. It was odd enough to go off to Portugal with the Ukrainian situation far from resolved and Gaza under bombardment. But to go on a second holiday to Cornwall days later while “the most serious threat to Britain’s security” – and those are his words – flares up and our forces get involved in a quasi-military support role, is profoundly worrying. Especially in conjunction with a newly promoted foreign secretary who has been in that post little more than a month.’
Cometh the hour and the man leaveth for the beach or golf course. We are now led by pygmies who enjoy the trappings and power of office but who dither, procrastinate and funk it when the real tests come.[3]


[1] Guardian 25.8.14
[2] I am ignorant of the scale of threat to South and Central America.
[3] Can you imagine it is 1941 just a week or so after Pearl Harbour and Roosevelt chooses to take a few days off to catch up on his reading or Churchill goes off for a few days painting landscapes in the Lake District? 

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