Malcolm would have to admit Mark Pack came as close as anyone yet to defining why UKIP causes cringing:
Some of UKIP’s support comes from places the Liberal Democrat should leave well alone — especially those yearning for a 1950s-style society of white men at work, white women at home and gays in the closet.
Why only LibDems, Mark? And why only Some of UKIP’s support?
An agenda for retrogression
Meanwhile, there are the opening four paragraphs of Tim Montgomerie’s piece in this Monday’s Times [£]. These provide as good a check-list of the present Tory malaise as you’ll find; so let’s rip them from behind the pay-wall:
Spend most of your time as Tory leader ignoring the issue that matters most to your activist members: Europe. Launch your bid to be leader by promising to introduce a tax allowance for married couples and then, once you’ve won power, fail to deliver that pledge at four successive Budgets. Tell parents that they can set up any school they want as long as it’s not the one they most want, a grammar school.Stop Gordon Brown holding a honeymoon election in 2007 by promising to abolish inheritance tax but then put it up in office. Spend the general election campaign talking about an issue that no one understands — the Big Society — and don’t talk about immigration, an issue that three-quarters of voters do care about. Subsidise expensive renewable energies at a time when families are struggling to pay their electricity bills.
Form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats even though 80 per cent of your members want you to lead a minority government. Promise not to reorganise the NHS, then reorganise it anyway. Oppose press regulation but then embrace it. Keep pledging to tackle European human rights laws but do nothing when Abu Qatada proves again and again that Britain is run by inventive lawyers rather than democratically-drafted laws.
Insist that you want to reach out to northern and poorer parts of Britain but stuff your Downing Street operation with southern chums who attended the same elite private schools as you. And, just for good measure, insult people who normally vote for your party as clowns, fruitcakes and closet racists.
There are six policy-points there, and counting, that Malcolm, as most decent types (probably including Mark Pack) must find close to abominable; but we’re not Tories, and we’re not seduced by Farage’s forked tongue to bite his rotten apple.
Even so, as Clegg was so emphatic that Europe was his main reason for urging Gordon Brown not to resign, to allow more time to knock sense into the Tories, we might reasonably ask: “How well is that one going, Nick?”
The light of evening, 11th May 2010
No election is a “good one to lose”; but that last one came close.
Any incoming administration was going to have to spatchcock a programme out of nowhere. Alistair Darling had already gone a fair distance in sketching one out. That Gids Osborne, not Darling, was the recipient of the poisoned chalice will tax future historians in finding enough ordure to chuck.
Instead we got Alec Issigonis’ (attrib) horse is a camel designed by a committee. The committee being the now-infamous “quad” of Cameron, Osborne, Clegg, and Alexander. Read that as an interior decorator’s otherwise-unemployable son, an EU apparatchik, a huckster for a Scottish ski-lift, presided over by the:
No! No! Who was spawned was even more hideous! The ConDem creature came straight out of Mel Brooks’s Young Frankenstein:
The Monster: For as long as I can remember people have hated me. They looked at my face and my body and they ran away in horror. In my loneliness I decided that if I could not inspire love, which is my deepest hope, I would instead cause fear. I live because this poor half-crazed genius, has given me life. He alone held an image of me as something beautiful and then, when it would have been easy enough to stay out of danger, he used his own body as a guinea pig to give me a calmer brain and a somewhat more sophisticated way of expressing myself.
What could possibly dissuade us from confidently predicting a quick ride to Hell in a handcart? Who could doubt there was something even more horrible and unprincipled waiting in the wings, stage right?
And then all our fears were doubly underlined: it was going to be gothic Dickensian as well:
- Veneerings in 10 Downing Street: bran-new people in a bran-new house in a bran-new quarter of London.
- Thomas Gradgrind for education minister: A man of realities. A man of facts and calculations. A man who proceeds upon the principle that two and two are four, and nothing over, and who is not to be talked into allowing for anything over.
- Josiah Bounderby slashing-and-burning what was left of local government: A man who could never sufficiently vaunt himself a self-made man. A man who was always proclaiming, through that brassy speaking trumpet of a voice of his, his old ignorance and his old poverty. A man who was the Bully of humility.
- Culture courtesy of the Dodger: as dirty a juvenile as one would wish to see; … all the airs and manners of a man. … He was, altogether, as roystering and swaggering a young gentleman as ever stood four feet six, or something less, in his bluchers.
- Health in the claws of Quilp: … his complexion was one of that kind which never looks clean or wholesome. But what added most to the grotesque expression of his face was a ghastly smile, which, appearing to be the mere result of habit and to have no connection with any mirthful or complacent feeling.
- Bumble the Beadle for welfare:
Oh yes, this is looking distinctly due for disaster.
Let’s change the literary media and revert to Young Frankenstein for Gids Frankenstein’s economic experiment on the British body politic:
[after failing to bring the creature to life] Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: Nothing.
Inga: Oh, Doctor, I’m sorry.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: No. No. Be of good cheer. If science teaches us anything, it teaches us to accept our failures, as well as our successes, with quiet dignity and grace. [starts beating up the creature] Son of a bitch! Bastard! I’ll get you for this! What did you do to me? What did you do to me?
Laugh and the world laughs with you
At least one is allowed to laugh at, and with Mel Brooks. The imperial and imperious Cameroonie ukase has gone out that UKIP are no longer “clowns”. Well, respectable thesps do tend to look down on lesser theatrical species.
And that is a shame.
For, if there is anything more ludicrous than the pantomime camel that rules us, it is the troupe of performing Kippers.
What other “party” has been so prone to splits and harbouring frauds? How many kipper MEPs have cast themselves adrift, unable to stomach any longer the overweening pump and pomp of Farage?
And, what — may we ask — are kipper policies? The next mile-stones are the EU-elections (in which the kippers expect to do well) and the Scottish referendum (on which they might be expected to have an opinion). Try the Scottish UKIP websites and you find:
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The requested URL /scotland was not found on this server.
Hielan laddies
UKIP have a “Scottish chairman”. He is one Mike Scott-Hayward, a former Tory councillor … a former army major and ex-coastguard officer. And then we have the amazing political-chameleon,
UKIP’s first Scottish spokesman is Mike Haseler, an energy sector researcher from East Dunbartonshire. He was a Liberal Democrat candidate in Watford in the 1990s and stood for the Greens for the Holyrood elections in 2003.
Haseler has a blog, which explains what a well-rounded specimen he is: a self-proclaimed expert in physics, electronics and some philosophy, studying archaeology, learned Danish to understand the competition, worked in the wind industry (surely, a given for a politico) but is now a climate-change doubter. According to his blog, he joined UKIP as long ago as March, 2013. A “March violet“, indeed. Yet, a person of outstanding merit, to have risen so quickly from aspirant member to “first Scottish spokesman”.
As for “policy”, the aim seems to be to render Scotland into an administered colony:
Although UKIP wants to scrap MSPs, it says it would hold on to the Scottish Parliament, with MPs handling affairs on their doorstep three days a week and UK matters at Westminster the other two.
Presumably, some Tory presence would be required in Edinburgh were there ever to be a Tory government in Westminster. So we can confidently expect the Dáil Éireann solution of a nominated “taoiseach’s eleven” to keep the natives in order.
Slugging it out
Much of this came together in Malcolm’s recent recollection of Julian Critchley.
Critchley was a close buddy of Michael Heseltine, a dandy, a bon-viveur, a man-about-town, possessed of considerable wit, a sharp pen and a waspish tongue. As the Tory MP for Rochester between 1959-64, then retreaded for Aldershot for 1970-1997, that absence cost him promotion in the interim. He was a “country member” of the Westminster club, commuting for whipped votes from Ludlow. He was , by any contemporary standard, wringing”wet”, as the Guardian obituary summed him —
a liberal Tory, supporting one-nation social policies, membership of the European Community, and a defence policy based on Nato and a nuclear strategy. He would have been a natural and able young ally for Edward Heath, campaigning for him against the Conservative right, which was increasingly hostile to the Rome Treaty and current levels of public spending.
Everything that the present Tory tendency is not.
His saving grace was as a gad-fly to whom Thatcher never took (and whom he mocked disgracefully — it was he, not as frequently-cited Denis Healey, who stuck on her the moniker, “the Great She-Elephant”). As a result the ministerial team was denied one of the brighter sparks in sight.
Malcolm’s reason for this memory is that Critchley deplored the dumbing-down of the Tory Party, and the arrival of the “garagistes” (we stand correction on that spelling, though we can be sure Critchley would have made it as effete as possible). The “garagistes” were the golf-club nineteenth-holers, the wide boys, the “Essex men” who came to infest the Tory Party under Thatcher.
So, three decades on, and the change of a single initial letter F for g, we are fulfilling his prophecy, with Nigel of the cheesy grin and the ever-ready pint, as the apotheosis of all things garagiste.
The rule of Humbuggery
I had no idea of the enormous and unquestionably helpful part that humbug plays in the social life of great peoples dwelling in a state of democratic freedom.
That’s yer eck-shul Churchill, that is. De reel fing. Pukka!
And the greatest exponent of Humbuggery is, as always, the All-powerful State.
A Malcolmian aside
Here’s one worth the asking: when did the United Kingdom abolish feudalism?
Well, not even yet. There are bods wandering the world, still puffing out chests and conning the natives they are of some importance, because they are allowed to flourish a baronial title.
But, on another level, after 9th June 2000, with the Abolition of Feudal Tenure etc. (Scotland) Act. As Clause 1 of the Act has it:
The feudal system of land tenure, that is to say the entire system whereby land is held by a vassal on perpetual tenure from a superior is, on the appointed day, abolished.
Humbug 101
Here’s a simple example, to become a British citizen one must demonstrate capabilities in English, for example:
take and pass an English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) course in English with citizenship to demonstrate your knowledge of language and life in the UK, before you apply for naturalisation as a British citizen.
Mr Spock would furrow his Vulcan brow and mutter, “Illogical, Captain”. Surely that should be the qualification for English citizenship. For British citizenship it ought to be a degree of fluency in Welsh (or at a pinch Cornish). For Scottish citizenship, the Guid Scots Tongue or Gàidhlig. And then there’s Ian Adamson and his Ullans.
Advanced study
Once upon a time we had a Freedom of Information Act. The laudable aim was the citizen should have a right to know what the public authorities, operating in her/his name, knew and were up to.
Officialdom and bureaucracy loathed it.
So Humbuggery set about by-passing it by any means, fair or foul.
An obvious means was to classify anything that wasn’t screwed down as “commercial confidentiality”. This could vary from government Department to Department, largely depending on whether or not the responsible Minister wanted to keep a job. That one was traipsed out, recently and notoriously, in the cover-up over the West Coast Main Line:
The independent report into the fiasco of the franchise for the West Coast Main Line, which runs through the West Midlands, was altered by the Department for Transport (DfT) before it was published, MPs were told.
There had been “redactions” by the department to “remove the identities” of certain civil servants involved in the flawed franchise bidding process, said businessman Sam Laidlaw, the author of the report…
Mr Laidlaw told the committee he presented his report to the DfT on November 28, the department published it on December 6, and there had been redactions to his report made by the department which were “a matter for the department”.
Asked about the changes made, Mr Laidlaw said they were done “to protect the commercial confidentiality of bidders” and “to remove the identity of certain individuals”.
“Redactions”
Now there‘s an interesting term.
As far as Malcolm can recall it is a respectable academic expression meaning no more, no less than “editing”, particularly in the sense of cleaning up meaning and expression for a final published version. As the OED has it:
1.
a. The action of bringing or putting into a definite form; (now) spec. the working or drafting of source material into a distinct, esp. written, form. Usu. with into, (occas.) to.
b. The action or process of revising or editing text, esp. in preparation for publication; (also) an act of editorial revision.
c. A new version of a text; a new edition; spec. an abridged version.
2. The action of driving back; resistance, reaction. Obs. rare.
At least in Tristram Shandy ,the blank pages and other devices convey some meaning. Compare and contrast the BBC’s Pollard Report (as right). For a prime example of Humbuggery consider this from the first paragraph [1] of that BBC document:
The BBC sought advice from external counsel to identify text that should be redacted in accordance with the legal grounds for redaction. The proposed redactions were considered by members of the Executive Board before being reviewed and approved by a sub-committee of the BBC Trust to ensure the Trust was satisfied that these were in line with the expectations of transparency previously set out. Then, individuals who participated in the Review were provided with an opportunity to read the material in redacted form and make representations concerning the redactions that had been applied. Those representations were then considered, with advice again taken from external counsel, before a final package of proposed redactions was reviewed by members of the Executive Board and approved by the same sub-committee of the BBC Trust.
At a quick check, that’s six separate layers of bureaucratic scrutiny and Humbuggery, before anything could be made public.
Secret courts bill
No, let’s no go there — yet.
Let’s start instead in 1166, at the Assize of Clarendon. Whether or not Goveian history embraces this seminal event, it certainly featured in Malcolm’s schooling. [On the TCD History course, it reappeared, courtesy of Stubbs's Charters.] The significance was that it, in effect, “nationalised” the law of the land; and it led to trial on evidence, before juries, rather than the mumbo-jumbo of trials by ordeal or battle. It was, of course, something of a power-grab — not just taking authority from the baronial courts, but also from the Church’s “kingdom within a kingdom”. King Henry II was destroying an existing arrangement; but also reaching back for an older one: the juries of the Saxon tunmoots.
The Assize of Clarendon was the first of many small advances to creating the Rule of Law that we have known and loved.
The processes of recent years — getting rid of the flummeries of Latin expression and the like, but, above all, the idea of human rights — have made the law more accessible. In a world ruled by Humbuggery all that has to be put into reverse.
Yesterday the Commons retreated on so much of historical procedures. In four votes, LibDem MPs — in grotesque rejection of anything that could be “liberal” or “democratic” — were whipped to support the Tory Humbuggers. Outside Westminster the average LibDem activists must be weeping into their skinny lattes:
Its’s not been the easiest 24 hours to be a Liberal Democrat. It was very hard to watch the majority of our MPs vote to remove the right to a fair trial in civil cases where national security is deemed to be a factor. Just seven MPs voted in favour of amendments advised by the Joint Committee on Human Rights. The fact that the JCHR had a different view from the Government should surely have raised a huge red flag. An even bigger signal that our MPs were on the wrong course was the fact that Labour were voting in favour of the JCHR amendments. The Bill as it stood was too illiberal for the Party who thought it was ok to lock people up for 3 months without charge.
I spent a bit of yesterday talking to some MPs. I appreciated the time they spent discussing with me but despaired at the way they had swallowed some of the lines they had been given on the Bill. I was asked what my response would be to the “we’re paying money to terrorists and can’t prove our innocence” line. Well, my instinctive counter to that was to say:
I have been told today that a Very Clever Person thinks that’s a good summary of what this Bill means, and why the shredder is the only place for it. There is no amendment that can make it acceptable.
Thank you for that, Caron Lindsay at LibDemVoice: it’s warming to know your party had a shred of decency left. As she goes on:
At one point, our Dr Julian Huppert asked a very important question of Ken Clarke about whether the Bill covered civil habeas corpus – whether people could be locked up without being told the reason why. Clarke didn’t know and he laughed about the fact that he had to get it checked out.
We really have reached the pits. The shivering spine recalls it was Hendrik Verwoerd, the primary architect of apartheid, who responded to British government criticism by saying he would give up his restrictive legislation in exchange for the British tolerated Northern Ireland Special Powers Act. That Act was designed to give maximum, even unbridled power to the Ulster Unionist ascendancy. It permitted closing pubs and clubs at a whim, banning meetings and gatherings, closing roads, occupying premises, destroying any building without any sure compensation, enforcing oaths of allegiance (the Lady in Malcolm’s Life had to take one), prohibiting inquests, outlawing “false reports or make false statements by word of mouth or in writing, or in any newspaper, periodical, book, circular, or other printed publication” (the judge of such “falseness” being the persons complained about). All to be enforced by “ if a male, to be once privately whipped”. If all that wasn’t enough,
any act if done without lawful authority or without lawful authority or excuse is an offence against the regulations, the burden of proving that the act was done with lawful authority or with lawful authority or excuse shall rest on the person alleged to be guilty of the offence.
Humbuggery hasn’t gone that far, yet …
Except this new bill allows any — any — trial which could cause political embarrassment to be held behind closed doors, unreported, with all involved (except the arraigned) declared Persil-clean and hoovered by the security services.
As the Guardian editorial has it:
The justice and security bill was cooked up in rage and embarrassment after a run of cases revealed, or threatened to reveal, UK collusion in torture and wrongdoing. There was Binyam Mohamed, the British resident who British judges ruled ended up being tortured in a Moroccan jail with the connivance of British intelligence, and then a string of others whom ministers preferred to pay off and shut up before the facts could emerge. Rather than asking what corruption of culture had embroiled a once-decent state in such indecent things, the government’s instinctive response was to ask the judges to hear the arguments in secret. When the supreme court said no in ringing terms – Lord Hope warning secrecy “cut across absolutely fundamental principles, such as the right to be confronted by one’s accusers and the right to know the reasons for the outcome” – ministers again refused to stop and rethink, but instead resolved to rewrite the law.
That editorial refers back to a Liberty pamphlet, written by Jesse Norman (now a Tory MP) which celebrates Churchill’s stand for human rights, and is prefaced by a quotation from his Fulton, Missouri, speech:
We must never cease to proclaim in fearless tones the great principles of freedom and the rights of man which are the joint inheritance of the English-speaking world and which through Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus, trial by jury, and the English common law find their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence.
Oddly enough, Mr Norman does not seem to have found himself able to vote, or express a view in Monday’s debate on the Secret Courts bill.
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