LONDON LETTER JULY 2015: NOT WITH A BANG BUT A WHIMPER
Not since the summer of 1980 has the triumphalism of the
forces of reaction been so great. In an orgy of petty spite, cruelty, vindictiveness
and vicious class war, the government has turned on children and the young, the
BBC, the Trade Union movement and its links with the Labour Party. It assaults Freedom
of Information [FOI], and human rights legislation, and, with its obsession
with ‘English Votes for English Laws’ the very union itself. For sheer reckless
vandalism, bad faith and malign intention it manages to even outdo Norman
Tebbit at his most toxic.
In the face of this threat the Labour Party seems determined
to commit suicide by electing the Trotskyite fellow traveller and friend of
clerical fascists, Jeremy Corbyn. A man who, if he had had his way and
prevented US intervention against ISIS, would have seen Kobane occupied now by
Daesh. Who supported Milosevic and thought Bosnia was about Western
Intervention, and who believes that NATO not Putin is the greatest threat to
world peace. Who opposes the fascism of the BNP but is happy to shake hands and
call anti-Semites and those that consider homosexuality a capital offence,
‘friends.’ This should render him unfit to be a member of the Labour Party, let
alone standing to be its elected leader. Yet this is the man seen as the saviour of the party, a man who has not
had a new idea since 1981.
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| Corbyn with Friends From left George Galloway MP, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Kate Hudson, Lindsey German, Betty Hunter, Tony Benn |
If Corbyn does win he will be the first leader of the Labour
Party elected by members of the Conservative Party and the Socialist Workers
party. Lindsay German and Toby Young[1] joining
hands to sing the Red Flag. This is how a great party ends, not with a bang but
with the sound of air escaping from a deflating balloon.
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| Corbyn in Hamas Scarf |
To a degree, my age now protects me from the worst. It is
the young emerging into a world in which social democracy, which gave so much
opportunity to so many in the post war period, is slowly being strangled. The
lights are being turned off on the post war European settlement and a retreat
into the fantasy world spun by the Trotskyist hard left will only speed up the
process.
The Dukes flirtation with the Nazi’s has long been a matter
of record, as indeed has been that of the aristocratic milieu in which he
moved. The Cliveden set, Rothermere, Lord Londonderry, and an alphabet soup of
aristocratic luminaries, have become notorious. The Queen Mother however has
largely escaped serious scrutiny.
To be clear the Queen Mother was no Nazi, though she approved
of the way Hitler had brought ‘order’[2] to
Germany. No, the woman who was rancid with unpleasant views[3], full of
malice, who hated Wallis Simpson and despised the Duke of Windsor to the very
end of her life, was a staunch appeaser. Never mind the Czechs, she would have
happily thrown anybody under the bus to appease Hitler’s appetite. Indeed her
enthusiasm for the policy was such that she crossed the line into party
politics, inviting Chamberlain to use Buckingham palace as a platform to parade
his ‘success’ in the Munich agreement.
As Francis
Wheen points out, ‘John Grigg once
described this photo opportunity, which took place before Parliament could
debate or vote on the Munich agreement, as "the most unconstitutional act
by a British sovereign in the present century".’
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| Chamberlain on the Balcony of Buckingham Palace |
Her husband George VI went further and, ignoring foreign
office advice, on his own initiative briefed the Duke of Kent, who then
launched an attempt by the King of England to conduct foreign policy and
dissuade the Germans from war. This was at complete odds with the role of a
constitutional monarch. But to keep Britain out of the war the Monarchy was
prepared to flout the constitution.
All long ago of course, and didn’t we know about Edward already? Only how much we know, not only about Edward
but about the Queen Mother and other members of the royal family is still
firmly under the control of the Windsor’s. They want to keep it that way. That
is why they were so furious with The Sun. Whether as citizens we should be
content with this state of affairs is altogether another matter.
Ominous signs on Portobello Road, a growing number of shops ‘to-let’
remaining vacant. Over the road two houses, six flats, once low rent, now all vacant,
presumably awaiting refurbishment. Their
future, probably some Oligarch laundering his cash, a buy to let landlord?
Certainly their days as property that local people on average earnings could
occupy are gone. This is how a city dies, by a hundred thousand cuts.
I am currently reading F Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and
the Damned, as well as a collection of short stories. Aside from Gatsby this is
my first experience of Fitzgerald. His low opinion of the poor and marginalised
he does not hide. I also detect a streak of anti-Semitism. He does though
capture a powerful essence, the smell of an age long gone, both its glamour and
squalor.
To Shropshire tomorrow to escape the sticky city. Taking
Fitzgerald with me on Kindle. I am a convert.
AT July 2015
[1]
Incidentally the Daily Telegraph’s campaign to encourage people to join the
party on false pretences to elect the unelectable Corbyn, seeking to subvert
the democratic process, is surely a very great scandal. Can you imagine the
fuss if it had been a Trade Union or far left outfit adopting such tactics?
[2]
It has always been curious to me that Germany, post Hitler’s ascension to the
Chancellorship, a society in which you could find yourself in a concentration
camp on a whim, where Brownshirt thugs beat up anyone they didn’t like the look of, and the rule of law no
longer operated is described as one in which order was restored.
[3]
She apparently adored President PW Botha, when he governed Apartheid South
Africa, and thought that it was “awful how the BBC and media misrepresent
everything that Botha is trying to do". http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/jul/19/queenmother.comment?CMP=share_btn_tw
