According to the Guardian this morning:
Philip Hammond [has] enraged leave MPs in his own party ... by telling business leaders in the Swiss ski resort of Davos that the government would seek only “modest” changes in its relationship with the European Union.
“Instead of doing what we're normally doing in the trade negotiations — taking two divergent economies with low levels of trade and trying to bring them closer together to enhance that trade, we are taking two completely interconnected and aligned economies with high levels of trade between them, and selectively moving them, hopefully very modestly, apart,” Hammond said.
The story cannot be ignored. It is about the government party beginning to tear itself apart as the influence of Jacob Rees Mogg grows.
And it is about our future relationship with Europe.
But let's move beyond these superficially obvious facts. This is also about something much more important. This is about the future of reasonableness. If you like, it is about whether it remains possible to make a logical statement in British politics and remain acceptable for doing so.
Please do not get me wrong: as regular readers of this blog will know, there are many good reasons why issue might be taken with Philip Hammond. What he said on this occasion is, however, reasonable. If trade is of merit, and most still think it is, then Hammond's logic of putting as few impediments in its path as possible is not modest, as it has been described, but so obviously appropriate that the vast majority would think it reasonable. What is more, those with the strongest commitment to trade as their chosen expression of internationalism, who have always resided on the right, should have been expected to warmly embrace it.
But they haven't. Hammond's entirely reasonable statement of objective for the Brexit negotiations, which is no doubt entirely shared by the Treasury, and increasingly so by David Davis (or so it would seem) has caused furore in their ranks. Such agreement will make us a “vassal state ”. Concorde is unacceptable: it is difference in everything from negotiating position to outcome that is to be valued. So the argument runs. And yet it has always been in agreement that value has been created. And, it should be noted, it is always by reflecting common opinion rather than in seeking to inform it that democratic politics (as opposed to political thinking) has rooted its appeal.
Three consequences follow. The first is that the Tories will, if they reject the compromise that represents the art of the possible in political democracy, make their own already fragile position untenable. By revealing that there is no one right of centre Brexit position the coalition that they represent could fracture, and electoral support could wither as a result. We have seen that before.
Second, unless Labour can adopt a position that is reasonable it too faces alienation from many in the electorate. I am already being told by many on the left that they have no idea who they could or would vote for if there was an election tomorrow.
Third, more importantly, there is a risk that there will be a vacuum in politics in the place where the reasonable person might wish to be.
Don't get me wrong. The reasonable person might accept Brexit, but want the single market or at least the customs union.
And the reasonable person might well reject new-liberalism, precisely because it is a form of extremism.
Just as the reasonable person might want nationalisation of railways and the utilities and the end of PFI.
All these things are reasonable. But there is as yet no one stringing them together in a reasonable way that creates the necessary compromises to take power to deliver a new UK, working with Europe, but within its own rules that redefine the power of the market, that permits the state to play its essential role in the economy, and which puts at its heart the creation of that reasonable consensus on which peaceful coexistence depends.
Hammond said something that, for once, made sense. Except, that is, to a politics that is ceasing to value sense, and consensus, as something of value. And it is the demise of reason and the value of the reasonable person that is the most worrying thing happening in this country right now.
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I’m inclined to interpret this as as a rejection of the ‘Hard Brexit’ proposition which would throw out the baby with the bathwater. And possibly the bath aswell.
Hammond seems to be suggesting there’s no need to risk the baby while the bathwater is still warm, and there’s no plan in place to install anything better than a cold shower.
Sounds ‘reasonable’ enough to me.
As there is no coherent Hard Brexit narrative offering to provide bathing facilities without flying to the most convenient exotic tax haven I think Hammond (though I admit it grudgingly) may be on to something.
“But there is as yet no one stringing them together in a reasonable way that creates the necessary compromises…”
Thankfully I live in Scotland, and may yet escape this madhouse.
Willie John says:
“Thankfully I live in Scotland, and may yet escape this madhouse.”
We’ve got a way to go before I’d put money on that, Willie.
High hopes and low expectations are the order of the day.
‘I am already being told by many on the left that they have no idea who they could or would vote for’
the they aren’t really on the left but still stuck in a faux-liberal cognitive dissonance mood about the EU. there is NO Left in the EU and the EU is destroying itself by pushing politics to the Right.
The focus for the Left should be what we can do as a sovereign currency issuing Government, which, as readers of this blog will know from you, Richard is a LOT! This will offset any negative effects of leaving a Union that is no real Union at all and will still trade with the UK in any event -if some prices go up ( they already have done) then this will be massively offset by lower housing costs and better pay -so the Left needs to focus on that. leaving the EU and carrying on with monetarist nonsense ( like the rest of the EU) will mean the worst of both worlds.
let’s get real here ( sorry to purloin your phraseology Richard!) the EU is finished, Germany is in terrible political trouble and has increasing poverty, inequality, crumbling infrastructure, internal devaluation, massive immigration, a failed non-left with the pathetic Schulz and a fast rising Right.
Banging on about Brexit and customs Unions is just another way of prolonging the neo-liberal continuity program because it is a decoy or displacement activity that takes the Left’s eye off the ball. If the Left split of this nonsense (which it ultimately is) then neo-liberalism gets another ten years while the EU becomes a breeding ground for further Right moving politics.
The left, now, in the UK has a unique opportunity to lead Europe out of monetarist dogma and by dividing over the EU issue because of fantasies about a Social Europe that doesn’t actually exist then that will be a grave mistake. Labour has a strong tradition going back to the early 70’s of being anti-EU corporate and financial hegemony and need to tap into that and link with the real Left across Europe if we want a social Europe that is not a gross fantasy.
I am sorry Simon, but your on opening para is simply arrogant and offensive to the people in question
If people are to be taken with any reform agenda then it has to be inclusive
And since no one is offering any like an appropriate economic agenda in the U.K. right now the comment is entirely logical
In fact I pull struggle to vote Labour right now because it has such poor ideas on the economy so let’s not pretend otherwise : they really do not understand what needs to be done
I agree about your inclusiveness remark Richard but I’m sympathetic to Simon’s frustration. What I don’t get is why so many on the left are defending the EU to the hilt instead of calling Brexit out as largely irrelevant to the more important fight over inequality. I’m no rabid Brexitier, I voted to remain, but you yourself have listed a number of ways Brexit could play to the left’s advantage.
This OECD report from 2014 estimates: “Rising inequality by 3 Gini points, that is the average increase recorded in the OECD over the past two decades, would drag down economic growth by 0.35 percentage point per year for 25 years: a cumulated loss in GDP at the end of the period of 8.5 per cent.”
http://www.oecd.org/social/Focus-Inequality-and-Growth-2014.pdf
As since the 1979 the UK has gone from a GINI level of 0.25 to one approaching 0.4 that’s got to be a massive figure. Maybe somewhere around £700 billion a year? Surely the potential there is greater than any loss from leaving the EU. I know it seems that the Labour leadership is either incapable or afraid of articulating this but who else are you going to vote for that might stand a chance of winning? As Mark Blyth put it recently about the US, while the left argues about identify politics the right have just handed themselves £1.5 trillion in tax cuts. Surely even a misguided Labour government is better than another Tory one.
Note that in my post on the social economy yesterday and in this one I talk about what we can do outside the EU
I voted Remain
But I have always been convinced of the need for change
But for heavens sake: it has to be the right change and my frustration with Labour is there no vision on this
And I fear it’s not because it’s holding back
I can understand why you might think that, Richard -but I have also found the attitude of those supposedly on the Left arrogant -entertaining absurdly idealised views about the EU whilst ignoring the reality on the ground and the almost inhuman cruelty of the Troika and austerity from whose damage it will take years to recover given the psychological scarring and lost potential of so many young people -they still think there is some sort of social Europe behind the neo-liberal rapine. Much of it, to be honest, Middle Class, coffee table internationalism.
The Labour Party is in a mess , with at least 170 of its M.P’s of neoliberal bent -but it is the first Party in Europe to attempt to break the monetarist, austerity stranglehold-and that’s a big thing. Corbyn’s mistake, in my view, was not to have articulated ‘Lexit’ which I suspect is his instinct-a clearly articulated Left view of leaving the EU could have clarified a lot -but he knew the party would largely have not been behind him.
I agree with Alberto when he says: ‘What I don’t get is why so many on the left are defending the EU to the hilt instead of calling Brexit out as largely irrelevant to the more important fight over inequality. ‘ let’s keep the argument there. Labour is not doing a great job in articulating with clarity what a sovereign currency issuer can do and falsl into the neo-liberal framing when it talks about book balancing -but let’s be clear, it is the first attempt at articulating something outside of the dominant ideology of the last 40 years and if it eases the suffering of the homeless, the ill, the vulnerable, gives the young some hope, allows people to live in a home without rapacious siphoning of their last sou then that change is worth it. The left should focus on that and to hell with the EU (which is hell for millions of people).
Two things to end with:
‘1,488,714 Greeks, most of them young and unemployed live in extreme poverty, meaning that they are deprived of basic food items, telephone service, clothes and vacations.
Extreme poverty has hit 68.5% of households with an unemployed head of the house and 45.5% of student households. Overall, in 2016, 13.6% of Greek people lived in extreme poverty.’
And this, a video of a Swedish journalist asking Draghi whether the ECB can run out of money -not the shifty behaviour of Draghi as hi falters and shuffles papers nervously admitting that the ECB can’t go broke:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fF3pNTtmfc
Now refer back to the quote about Greece and then tell me about a ‘Social Europe’ and the cognitive dissonance of some on the supposed left.
I note all you say Simon
I roundly condemned the treatment of Greece on this blog
As I oppose other occasions when institutional capture has led to injustice – including in left wing states
I oppose the euro and always have
But Greece is not enough to walk away from Europe
It’s enough to hang a head in shame
But not walk away
The resolve has to be to do better
And that will not happen from disengagement
It looks like “holding back” to me and the incentives for that are obvious (though possibly not helpful) but then again we are both just guessing.
We must eliminate the myth that the right-wing tendencies of the EU is the cause of rising inequality in the UK, just as we ignore the myth that the left-wing tendencies of the EU are the reason for the longevity of socialism in Europe.
By examining the countries that have the lowest inequality, many are EU members. For example, if we define inequality as the ratio of the income of the top 10% to the bottom 10% (http://uk.businessinsider.com/ranked-income-inequality-around-the-world-2015-7?r=US&IR=T) the list includes EU members Denmark, Czech Republic, Belgium, Slovenia, Sweden. Therefore, the first conclusion is that being an EU member is not the cause of rising inequality, just as not being a member of the EU is not the solution to reduce inequality, just look at the USA.
Secondly, we must therefore identify the cause of rising inequality in the UK and understand that we could have maintained the relatively low level of inequality reached by the end of the ’70s within EU laws. And that time is significant. Although changes of monetary policy occurred in the early ‘70s, it was Thatcher’s (and Reagan’s) embracing of neoliberal policies, designed to move wealth from the poorest to the richest, at the end of the ‘70s and beginning of the ’80s that are the cause of increased inequality (http://www.resolutionfoundation.org/app/uploads/2017/07/The-Living-Standards-Audit-2017-FINAL.pdf, figure 36 page 56). We joined the EU – or EEC as it was back then – in 1973. From 1973 to 1979 the Gini coefficient after housing costs stayed almost constant at 26%. It was only after Thatcher become PM that inequality started to rise rapidly, from 26% in 1979 to almost 37% in 1991 when she was finally kicked-out! After that time the Gini coefficient has varied marginally between 37% and 39%.
So wasn’t this the same time we were members of the EU, and therefore they are to blame? Well, no. The increase in inequality between 1979 and 1991 corresponds with no significant change in the EU except for the introduction of the Euro via the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, which caused great distress as Tory chancellor Normal Lamont first cut interest rates to meet EU rules, only to rapidly increase them in 1992 in an attempt to stabilise the value of the pound as currency speculators sold short knowing the pound was over valued when not backed by high interest rates. But this started in 1991 when the damage was done. The Treaty of Rome was signed in 1951 and the Maastrict Treaty in 1992 so neither can be blamed for the increase in inequality, so there is no doubt that the EU is not responsible for rising inequality.
So what was? Thatcher’s embracing of neoliberal policies that sold-off cheap, truly-affordable housing to council tenants without replacing them, thereby freeing the property market to rise and increasing the reliance on privately-rented properties; the selling off of publicly-owed utilities and transport services to make profits from ordinary people; the elimination of Wages Councils (originally set up by Winston Churchill in 1909) in 1986 and regulations that controlled the pay of the richest in society; the destruction of trade unions and collective bargaining power of workers; income tax cuts for the rich from 75% to 60% and replacing council rents with the regressive Poll Tax; and cuts to benefits all ensured that, instead of redistributing income, the government started moving wealth from the poorest to the richest whilst cutting treasury receipts from over 45% to less than 40% of national income.
Here is the source of rising inequality in the UK. The promise of deregulated markets where wealth would (eventually) trickle-down through society never materialised. The wealthy have amassed wealth through rents on property and IPR, and used their wealth to speculate on commodities and property thereby increasing the price of housing, food and petrol. Their increased wealth, through the concentration of economic growth among the top 1%, has not resulted in trickle-down, but instead has increased the cost of living, stagnated incomes, failed to invest in UK businesses and lost jobs through globalisation, while increasing political power to ensure that successive Tory and New Labour governments continued to create tax-loopholes to hide their wealth offshore and avoid tax and fair contributions to society.
Overall, the economy has moved from one based-on manufacturing and balance of trade to the speculative economy of stocks and shares, and services, where the rich charge rent on the platforms they create (Uber, Deliveroo, Hermes) and then fail to pay tax on their hidden wealth. This is the true cause of inequality, nothing to do with membership of the EU and everything to do with enactment of neoliberal policies by Conservative and Labour governments, unaware of the destabilising and destructive effects that the rise in inequality would produce: increasing mental illness and poverty, and decreasing trust, political engagement and economic growth. Greed is not good.
Fortunately some EU laws have put breaks on the extremes of far-right governments, and invested in areas of deprivation that UK governments blatantly ignored. The EU is still accusing the UK of breaking international law (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jan/24/uk-sick-pay-breach-international-legal-obligations), as are the UN. If we get a hard-brexit with a corresponding destruction of environmental protections and workers rights, inequality will only increase, so, on balance, the EU is a positive force for reducing inequality. However, what we need is a change of government that replaces neoliberal policies, which hand power to multinational corporations, with laws that protect The State, consumers, the environment, common people and small business alike.
Thank you
I would think Progressive Pulse would publish that
Why not offer it?
“I would think Progressive Pulse would publish that
Why not offer it?”
Agreed, that was an excellent piece, Derek Chandler, please do!
Simon
You are wrong. The EU’s agenda is mixed market. It will always be open to criticism from the left that it pushes back against nationalisation & anything that looks like the impost of private property.OTOH it will always be open to criticism from the right that it pushes back against the imposition of private property rights on what would appear to be human or communal rights.
I didn’t, actually, vote Remain for economic reasons. I voted for civilisation v barbarism & barbarism won.
I give it 5 years before the UK brings back capital punishment,
I give it 10 years before the UK criminalises refugees
I give it 15 years before the UK introduces special internment camps for gypsies & Irish Travellers
You will, I’m sure, say I’m being ridiculous & hysterical but giving the mob what they want is never a good idea. Ask John Wilkes
‘I voted for civilisation v barbarism & barbarism won.’
you mean we didn’t have barbarism already? How did you manage not to notice? The EU is civilisation?
Simon
I am again appealing for calm: yoiu very obviously have a case but ou are niot making it in this way
The meaning Eriugenus was quite clear, I think
Richard
Simon Cohen
If I may in support of Richard and Eriugenus and others……………
You do seem to have it in for the EU. I agree that the EU is not perfect. That is because in my view of the dominance of neo-liberalism in the member states who make it up. Therefore it is unsurprising that there is a neo-lib tinge to the EU at an organisational level as a result of the membership. I know it is a circular argument but I feel that it is true.
All that needs to happen is for the neo-lib ‘spell’ (the ring that binds them all) to be broken.
A phoney war has been played out in the UK with the EU in the past, with Governments of Left and Right persuasions sabre rattling for effect in the public eye (to keep the anti-EU lobby happy whether they are Left or Right) when they are really agreeing with other treaty members (who are the EU – remember?). These UK Governments agree because they are either Right Wing or Centre Left – both affected unduly by neo-liberalism.
I agree therefore with Varoufakis – that it is only the Left now that can save capitalism from itself (and this includes dealing with neo-liberalism). To do that it needs to move away from the centre right and move Left back to some sort of middle ground – maybe even slightly Left of that
I want to stay in the EU and if we leave I want to go back in. My only condition on either is that it is with a Left Government willing to tackle the EU (that is – the other member states Simon) on their neo-liberalism. As the saying goes ‘You have to be in it to win it’. Trying to tackle the EU membership from the outside and not being part of a treaty is surely like pushing a dead horse up a hill?
Apologies, Richard -i think I was over-doing it a bit there ( thanks for the refereeing!) -over the years I have read quite a lot about the Greek Situation and the currency swap deals that went on behind it and then the ECB bank bailouts -it was and is utterly inhuman whilst Draghi knew that those ‘odious debts’ could be cancelled easily.
PSR’s point: ‘As the saying goes ‘You have to be in it to win it’.
But there is NO Left in Europe and it it already clear that the EU tolerates vast levels of youth unemployment combined with outright catastrophe-out of it a real Left could show Europe a way forward by ditching Maastricht/Lisbon and the rest of the monetarist baggage. Certainly a new set of alliances can be formed and called something ( this time without insulting Beethoven!). The EU has monetarism baked in and the ECB is enshrined in EU Law – it will not change, there is no sign of that even with swings to the Right that they are rethinking anything.
What is, according to you, “the Left”? It seems you would like it to be a unified body of single thought process. It has never been that, never will be. I’m sure you know that.
Some of us on the Left dream of a proper Socialist regime, one that has never existed before. Some have tried to set up elements of it here and there in Europe and elsewhere, but it has always, always failed. So what makes it fail? Why is this, in reality and in practice, inevitable?
I won’t answer that, because I’m neither an economist nor a political historian, but I’m sure you can find many theories for this constant failure of socialist experiments in the longer term.
So I, and many like me, keep dreaming, and pushing for elements of the dream to influence political decisions.
I only see the EU as a straight-jacket forcing the States that belong to it to talk to each other and depend on each other for trade/human rights/environmental measures/defence purposes etc…all the while creating a space, quite unique in European History, where countries inside the block have not declared war against each other.
Political and economic agendas come and go. Peace remains.
To me, that’s the central purpose of staying in the EU, creating a forced peaceful space, as was its original purpose as described by Jean Monnet.
It has succeeded in that, if nothing else.
There may well be an explosion lead by young people wanting a better future if the political elite refuses to act. I actually hope something will shift.
But why jeopardise the straight-jacket forcing us to remain in peace.
Peace is not inevitable, should not be taken for granted, and is the most precious construction of the last 70 years.
Marie’s question is a pertinent one folks – a time to stop and check before we ‘do’.
What is ‘Left’ these days
Richard,
Might I suggest a blog on this topic when you have the time or inclination – and only then? It might be useful.
Noted
“What is ‘Left’ these days?”
I think Flip Chat Rick made a useful contribution toward answering that question. For those that may have missed this link from commenter, Adrian D on another post
https://flipchartfairytales.wordpress.com/2018/01/03/breaking-the-overton-window/
Marie, when you say ‘I only see the EU as a straight-jacket forcing the States that belong to it to talk to each other and depend on each other for trade/human rights/environmental measures/defence purposes etc…all the while creating a space, quite unique in European History, where countries inside the block have not declared war against each other.’
I think this illustrates the subconscious myopia that many well -intentioned people, many on the Left, have. If you look at the reality on the ground, these countries ARE involved in a ‘war’ of sorts. Countries like Greece and Spain and Portugal have suffered massively as members of the Eurozone with absurdly high levels of unemployment often equaling the Great Recession with Greece, in particular having to sell of many of its public assets as well as experiencing a sustained catastrophe in the health system. This isn’t peace, it is war by economic means putting wealth into the hands of a financial class. You might have hear of the expression ‘banks not tanks’-well that conveys very well what is going on in Europe and it involves many deaths, suicides, lost homes and a young generation in despair.
There is no need for a conventional war because the financial system can simply drain the wealth out of resources and siphon wealth into its own coffers. Why would you need war if you can grab a countries’ assets and keep its populace in perpetual debt?
Marie-please try to look at what is actually happening in Europe rather than dwelling in a starry-eyed world of make believe. As I have said before , it’s no surprise that the EU flag is a circle of stars-you need to be a bit dazed to believe in it.
The EU has nothing to do with the vision of Monet and Schumman -it was taken over in the 80’s by a dogmatic monetarism that was dominated by a banking elite. Close to what Tony Benn had predicted in 1975. The vision of Monet has long since dissolved in a Europe that is dominated by a race to the bottom.
Sorry of this sounds arrogant Marie but the idea that the EU is about the well-being of its citizens has been proven wrong time and time again.
Simon
I am getting very bored by this nonsense. Candidly, you’re getting close to trolling.
The working time directive, protection of part time workers, holiday rights, many equality rights and more in the UK are all down to the EU.
I’d be very grateful if you would stop writing absolute and utter drivel here because the claim that the EU is bad for working people is completely wrong, as the TUC has said many, many times
If you really want to oppose the rights of working people by all means go and play in the sand pit with Rees Mogg.
Yes of course the EU was wrong on monetarism. But so was the US, IMF, World Bank and others, including successive UK governments. Your arguments are candidly getting to be as banal as those of the Tories in blaming Labour for 2008. If you want to continue to post here stop writing nonsense and telling other people they’re wrong when there is not a shred of evidence that the EU is to blame for the suggestions you make, the causes of which can be found elsewhere. They are real issues, but your solution is opposed to the interests of working people and if you sense that I am bloody annoyed about that you’re damned well right to think I am.
Richard
‘when there is not a shred of evidence that the EU is to blame for the suggestions you make, the causes of which can be found elsewhere.’
That’s utterly ludicrous Richard and you know it. The ECB is enshrined in EU Law. And NO absolutely No EU leaders have challenged its actions with any real structural criticism.
And if you think the scale of economic migration from Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Greece and Latvia are not a form of economic ‘war’ and not connected to the EU Governments in some way then you are living in an abstracted concept of the EU which is purely Platonic and has no connection with the reality on the ground.
I was merely pointing out that Marie’s comment was redolent of the mistake many reasonable peopl e on the left are making .
That there is some entity called the EU that has a virtual reality independent of the events on the ground is utterly absurd -but hang onto it by all means.
With respect Simon you appear to completely ignore the evidence
And the fact the ECB is not the central bank of much of the EU, and quite legitimately so. You appear unable to identify fact
You have by default had your comments posted here
Unless they now reflect facts that will no longer be the case. This is not a site for the dissemination of falsehoods and your claims are false because they represent a deeply partial view of what is really happening
Face facts: austerity would gav3 happened without the EU and ECB
Now stop saying it’s their fault when the cause was elsewhere
In the meantime things are getting interesting in Catalonia and the Basque country.
Thanks alot for your website
If we are really honest – the people of this country are being wound up all of the time by the media and manipulated by right wing politicians who have divide and conquer off to a fine art.
Add in a poor and rose tinted education about our past and it is no wonder that reasonable people are thin on the ground. We Brits are not allowed to forget the past to the point where it blinds us to our future.
Even our cultural efforts reflect a certain zeitgeist.
Having sat through the awful film ‘Dunkirk’ (that had soldiers from WWII being taken home in 1970’s railway carriages and paid scant regard to the French efforts to hold up the Hun) we now have another epic for the BREXIT generation ‘Darkest Hour’ about Winston Churchill.
Interesting fellow that Churchill. He could write a speech or two but:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29701767
So, Orgreave wasn’t the first skirmish between miners and the Government! And Thatcher is not the first extreme right leader to be sanitised by this country. But the point is that such unquestioning reverence can only come from a country that knows it is well and truly up the spout or is just living on self deception.
‘Sceptered isle’? No.
‘Septic Isle’? Oh yeah.
It’s a real shame. If a country cannot admit its mistakes, then how can it go forward in any coherent way? And how can it learn? I mean the BREXIT business proves to me that we have not learnt a damn thing.
I would agree with you Pilgrim about the way Churchill’s failings are neatly airbrushed out in films, but I disagree with your take on Dunkirk.
Here’s my reverse-angle view.
The film was about thousands of ordinary people, and how they stopped something very nasty happening. And to quote the film’s strapline:
‘At the point of annihilation
Hope is a weapon
And survival is victory.’
People have short memories. Last May/June thousands of ordinary people stopped something very nasty happening, too.
Mike
I’m talking about a film that is about an event. Not the event itself. My view is that Nolan’s film is complete crap. And the sentimental strapline has therefore no gravity with me.
But you have lost me. What did thousands of people actually stop last May/June?
Staying in or staying out?
Which?
Because it looks as though we are coming out of the EU to me.
PSR
Churchill was complex & certainly did some dreadful things. Gallipoli jumps to mind.
The re-writing of history is, however, laughable. There is more than adequate documentation to show that WSC was warning of Hitler long before he was seen as a threat (when our upper classes were eagerly socialising with him, along with the owners of the Daily Mail) & even more adequate documentation to show that without WSC we might well have struck a deal with Hitler. What would the deal have looked like? Look at Vichy France. We would have retained nominal control of our Empire but made it available to the Nazis. You can imagine how they would’ve treated people from the W Indies, W Africa & india by how they treated the Slavs. Oh, &, like the Vichy French, we could’ve deported the population of Stepney & Whitechapel. I’m sure Oswald Moseley would have been all too eager to arrange that.
The vilification of WSC seems, to me, among the silliest & most ill thought out examples of the politically correct re-pandering from what was to what should have been.
Pilgrim – as I said, short memories.
Last May/June saw thousands of ordinary people stop a nasty party with a nasty authoritarian leader from annihilating all remaining opposition & then what was left of our social democracy.
As for the film, it’s a film & not a documentary, but I think it showed how war in the end is about scared young men trying to survive the madness. OK, it’s got Elgar and spitfires, too – what’s not to like?
There’s also the ‘little’ matter of him (WSC) receiving millions (in today’s money) from the then new oil industry not to mention the catastrophe of returning to the gold standard-WSC said ‘I was only following the advice of my advisers.’
We could also mention his role in causing famine in parts of India -but let’s not be too politically correct here and draw a veil over it!
Eriugenus
Sorry – I’m not having that.
I’m talking about a film ‘Darkest Hour’ – what is portrayed in it and what isn’t. And a tendency to overlook things that helps to reinforce certain myths at a time when we are having huge self created problems with our European allies.
Me – if I have heroes (and I do) I like to know the good points and the bad. That is because I like a balanced of view of these extraordinary people. It stops me from becoming an unquestioning ‘fan-boy’ and to understand why these people did what they did.
Take Harold Wilson for example – some see him as a disaster of a Prime Minister – but was he? I mean he kept us out of Vietnam (are you listening Blair?), contributed to setting up the Open University. But he also sold an island under our protection to the US which had devastating consequences for the indigenous population and left a divided party in his wake that helped a certain lady from Grantham (was it?) to get into power.
Are you a WSC fan-person by any chance? Seems like it to me as you credit Churchill with preventing the Germans making peace with us. But really what we should have done is listen to a much cleverer man – Keynes – who warned the world (1919) that a beleaguered post WW I Germany could pose a threat to European peace. What was Churchill’s position on that BTW? You seem to want to stick up to WSC Eriugenus, so tell us.
And had we made peace in this country at that time – just like we have the BREXIT brigade amongst us now – there would have been rich and poor amongst us THEN (and not just Mosely) cheering the Nazis on as they would have dealt out inhumanity to British Jews and ethnic peoples in our commonwealth.
What I am alluding to in this country is the lack of critical consciousness here towards certain figureheads. That say – Churchill and Thatcher – spend more time in our media output and in our schools being positively promoted than Attlee or the more far sighted Liberals who helped us to create the Welfare State is something I feel should not go unnoticed. I mention schools because I have 2 children in the system and the amount of time spent on both World Wars under the current curriculum is far too much. It is worrying. Are we just helping to reinforce certain attitudes to Europe, say?
You also cannot argue with the fact that Churchill – like Thatcher – have been fully adopted by the Right (its groups and its media) even in its more extreme factions.
And we’ve had plenty of discussions about the effects of the Right on the MSM in holding back socially progressive and courageous policy on this blog.
If you cannot see a Tory continuity between Tonypandy and Orgreave, then that is your problem – not mine. These events are a matter of record – not opinion – from which we can then form an opinion. And I know mine. And many Welsh know theirs!
No one is ‘re-writing history’ (what a crass statement from you of all people) – honestly (disappointed sigh). What we actually do to history is add to it when it is relevant to do so. If events were recorded properly enough at the time, we would not need to fill in for poorly constructed and biased work. And revising the past is perfectly legitimate given that we are still in an age of enlightenment (even though the age of enlightenment as we know it is now heavily assaulted by reactionary conservative driven ‘traditionalism’ and centre left managerialism like never before). We are supposed be advancing as a species aren’t we Eriugenus? Looking back in judgement is reasonable and necessary is it not given the human tendency to forget lessons learnt?
If this country has a problem it is because although we are allowed to revisit our history, we not really encouraged to question it. Because history is big business now.
And I’m not vilifying Churchill. I’m just not into hero worship. I just want more balance and 360 degree view rather than certain attributes of these people being put before others to turbo charge public opinion in the wrong direction at dangerous time in our history (which is being created NOW).
I’d like to see a film about Churchill along the lines of Speilberg’s ‘Lincoln’ where the chicanery and complexities of doing the right thing (ending slavery) were explored. Or how about the very balanced and honest recent series in the US produced documentary on the Vietnam War? I know I criticise the US Government a lot – but American society and its culture is much more balanced than we are led to believe.
Is this country at this time capable of producing such balance? Because the barbarism you mention to Simon Cohen is amongst us now and is pushing at the gate – just like it was pre-war and throughout our history. And if it breaks through you can certainly kiss any rose tinted and quaint views of our country (the much vaunted British ‘tolerance’ for example) and its leaders ‘Good Bye’.
May I make an appeal for calm, please?
WSC was a disaster in many ways
But he did have his moment
Then he was unique
And he was maybe simply because of his gift with the English language
It can be argued Attlee won the war
What if the ‘Age of Reason’ is over, and we are just beginning to see the results?
So the hardline Tory Leave MP’s didn’t like it. Good. The disapproval of those Tories is a good sign. If something happens and they are upset. The chances are that everyone else should be pleased. The more disappointed they are the better.
One doesn’t expect them to be reasonable.
I’ve always reckoned that “Brexit means Brexit” meant “Brexit without the Brexit”
This is the most depressing blog post of yours I have read for some time Richard. I have been consoling myself thinking that much planning is going on behind the scenes of the Labour Party and that, where Brexit is concerned they are playing a long game and will come in at the right moment with the right answers. I have recently begun to feel that they have no answers. It sounds as if we will all go to hell in a handcart.
I don’t think Simon is wrong with his views of the coming years either. I know of at least one forum where such suggestions would be cheered to the rafters. They, by a vast majority, voted leave.
The worst is I have no idea what I can do to make even the tiniest bit of difference to this outcome becoming a reality.
The last is a tough one
Hope for another referendum, maybe
“I have been consoling myself thinking that much planning is going on behind the scenes of the Labour Party and that, where Brexit is concerned they are playing a long game and will come in at the right moment”
Maybe they are. Who knows?
” I have recently begun to feel that they have no answers.”
“Feel”? As I noted previously we are all just guessing on that one.
Penny says:
“The worst is I have no idea what I can do to make even the tiniest bit of difference to this outcome becoming a reality.”
My best suggestion, Penny, is to keep reading and keep thinking and keep challenging stupid ideas when they come up in conversation. (Or on discussion fora etc of you can be bothered.)
People try out ideas and if they are not challenged they count you as supporting their view and it becomes reinforced. It helps if you adept at avoiding arguments. It’s enough often to make it clear you don’t think what a person is saying makes much sense to you.
Other than : BE ALERT (Your country needs lerts) 🙂
Simon
‘There is no Left in Europe’.
Hmmm. If you took a cursory look at the USA you’d think that there was no Left there. But there is. And Bernie has been around for a long time!
Have you heard the stories about a Momentum style campaign/body starting up in Germany as a result of murky Merkel’s deals in coalition? Let’s see what happens.
The Left is here. But as Eric Hobsbawm pointed out, it has been (and still is) having difficulty offering something different to offer the electorate in swoon to market dominance. The time is now right to make a move of sorts because time has been the revelator and reified the negative effects of neo-liberalism we were all told about but ignored at the time.
This means more regulation of the City; changes to financial law and investment , a grown up attitude to tax and a commitment to a mixed social economy. These are only some of the tools that a real post modern Left movement can use to save capitalism.
The Left is there: it just needs encouragement and the right breaks. But above all it is getting to the point where it needs to be…well….courageous but also inclusive and balanced.
Instead of revolution, the Left needs to think in terms of evolution – even if that means rolling back stuff to the State where it should always have been.
The only other thing to say is that the version of the Left I am talking about may not necessarily be in the mainstream British Labour Party! We shall see.
I have suggestion to improve your blog. Just write most demanding
I have no idea what yo mean
I’ve only just seen this which seems to resonate with some of the themes I’ve been trying to put across (i.e. I’m not the only one who has noticed this):
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/27/brexit-britain-myths-wartime-darkest-hour-dunkirk-nationalist-fantasies
But OK Richard.
In the spirit of the 6 Nations I will respect the referee!
🙂
Richard’s pretty good at sorting out rucks!
Maybe…..
Richard could always invite Nigel Owens in every now and then when things get a bit too passionate!
🙂
Pilgrim Slight Return
If you haven’t seen I’d recommend the film of ‘Atonement’. Apart from being IMO a very poignant and powerful story, there’s a sequence in that which is set at the Dunkirk evacuation which I thought was a brilliant evocation of the desolation and bewilderment of the troops stranded there.
Obviously I wasn’t there so I don’t know how accurate it is. I haven’t seen the ‘Dunkirk’ film and it’s not on my must see list. I’ve seen some trailers.
I wasn’t at Dunkirk either but I remember the black and white films of the debacle as a boy.
My late Father also had a weighty set of tomes called the Second World War (all in a dark maroon colour) that depicted it chronologically complete with B&W pictures and I remember seeing those of Dunkirk – bodies and burnt out equipment everywhere on the sand – Dunkirk looked like the end of the world – not a sea swimming contest like Nolan’s effort.
I have seen Atonement and the Dunkirk section is very good Andy but the book is even better – up there with McEwan’s best stories – one of our island’s the best writers ever.
My father also had those books – and they were powerful in the 60s when I read them and so many friends and relatives knew that they too were the censored view
The sanitisation of Dunkirk in the film was as irritating as the fact that the modern port intruded
I agree – Atonement may have been better and Saving Private Ryan showed the utter horror of war on beaches
I enjoyed Dunkirk as a film – but took it with a massive pinch of salt
That was its weakness
We also had a set. Called ‘The War Illustrated’. They never acquired the binders and we still have them wrapped in brown paper and labelled accordingly.
The grandparents had ‘The Great War’ bound in maroon, but I guess they had thought that would be just the one off, as advertised: ‘the war to end all wars’ and smelt a rat when the publishers started another one.
I thought it was The War in Pictures
Much the same thing I am sure
I devoured them as a child
Wartime publishing was a rich seam I suspect. Quite likely there was more than one publication.
Picture post goes back as far as WW2 I believe, but that was probably pricey.
I never read more than one of them, and all I remember from it is the picture of a railway train standing like an inverted ‘V’ in the environs of Cologne (as we called it in those days) with the intact twin cathedral spires in the background. Years later I got a brownie point on ‘University Challenge’ for recognising the Cathedral on the pictorial architecture round.
Now that is definitely bragging!
“I devoured them as a child”
Rationing was about finished by the time I was born. 🙂
🙂
PSR
Thanks for your detailed reply.
I haven’t seen “The darkest hour’ & wasn’t seeking to comment on it.
I think WW1 & WW2 were by far the most important historical events of the last century & vastly more important than any subsequent social innovations. Not only did a great many millions die but the people that survived were changed irrevocably.
Simplistically, WW1 ended innocence & WW2 required a reckoning. The social innovations flowed from those. To talk about the founding of the NHS or the National Insurance or Council schools without talking about the wars would make the narrative meaningless.
To say that a better settlement of WW1 would have averted WW2 is probably true but unhelpful. It has been speculated on many times by far more learned historians than ourselves. It didn’t happen & possibly it couldn’t have happened. Keynes, & many others, might have had their view but I doubt they could have over-ruled Clemenceau’s thirst for revenge.
You’re right that “re-writing history” is a shocking cliche & I apologise for that but not for being dismissive of Tonypandy and Orgreave. Those are tiny pinpricks in the hide of the Twentieth Century &, while I know this will be unpopular, we live in a parliamentary democracy. The Govt that has a mandate (& Thatcher’s certainly did) is allowed to act with a degree of rigour.
Finally, I scarcely think I’m a ‘fan boy’ of WSC. You’re also right that one should be aware of one’s hero’s faults. I don’t think I have a hero & the men I most admire, be it Rasputin, Evelyn Waugh, Art Tatum, Viv Richards or Roberto Duran had more flaws than the Trump tower.
I just don’t think you are getting it. Nazism was a genuine force of evil that, if allowed, would have destroyed everything in this country as it did in the East. They exterminated the Jews & used the Slavs as slave labour. Whatever we did they probably would have been stopped by the combination of Russian military & American economic power, but if we had sued for peace in 1940 they would have done the same throughout this country & its empire. We know they were quite eager to acquire the British Empire largely for its massive population of inferior ‘coloureds ‘ who could be used as slave labour.
TBH, I think that is rather more important than setting up the Open University.
eriugenus, ear-wigging, as I was, your discussion with PSR, you say:
“I think WW1 & WW2 were by far the most important historical events of the last century & vastly more important than any subsequent social innovations. Not only did a great many millions die but the people that survived were changed irrevocably.”
I think it was Eric Hobsbawm who made the point that the two world wars were in a very real sense only one war with an interval. Unfinished business compounded by the vindictive terms of the Versailles treaty ensured a dangerous and ultimately worse retribution. The treaty of Versailles was imposed as if there had been a conclusion, and even as victors justice the terms would have been regarded as severe. but there wasn’t victory there was an Armistice.
In a sense you are of course right, about the overwhelming significance of the war/s but you cannot dismiss the social innovations as being unrelated. On the contrary I suggest. They were directly consequent.
Also I would say that philosophically the two world wars were not in any way radical except in terms of their scale, reach and destructive force. We’ve been doing war since forever and I don’t suppose a week has gone by when we weren’t it doing somewhere in the world ever since.
A welfare state represents a radical change of thinking. The emancipation of women was accelerated during both wars and a lot of other social change. These were a new social contract.
As an aside: Saving the Jews from annihilation is largely a matter of justification after the fact. We are deluded, I think, if we pretend that that there would not have been enthusiastic support for persecution in this country if the Nazis had been successful in invading our island. I find it inconceivable to believe that liberation of the death camps came as a surprise to the cognoscenti surrounding Churchill and Roosevelt. If they didn’t know what was happening it was because they chose to ignore the evidence. The politics as ever was complicated and not very pretty.
Well Eriugenus!
I could take up a few issues here too – but look – you’re entitled to your views which – given your very measured response – I am most respectful of. Fair enough. We will agree to disagree on some matters.
I do get Nazism – I really do.
But my point of reference really is a much more recent piece of history – the break up of former Yugoslavia – which to me was one of the most barbaric and vicious recent conflicts I can think of because it occurred – unlike – say Rwanda – in Europe. Not on my doorstep, but on the next street – if you see what I mean.
Yugoslavia revealed the dark heart of Europe to me – that Europe which, without treaties and accords can tear itself apart as the past has shown. Fascism is still there lurking. And it is still here lurking too. Nazis or no Nazis. Just waiting for its chance.
There is no doubt that overblown nationalism was at the root of the Serbian – Croat conflict and this itself always seems to find itself embedded in fascistic thinking. New pasts are created by those who have a future agenda for the scared and the weak to buy into.
That is why I abhor the creation of cults of personality concerning past leaders and present ones. In heated times, in times of uncertainty – the stories we write and tolerate can take on new meaning and turbocharge rather unpleasant attitudes that lead to self destructive behaviour (which is why I put a link into Ian Jack’s article in the Guardian later).
There is ‘social gunpowder’ all around us Eriugenus just waiting for that unguarded spark to ignite it. We must be careful to avoid falling into the abyss again. Because there lie our monsters.
Thank you for responding.
What a brilliant thread!
I offer the following observation. I had my hair cut yesterday by a chap from Greece who I had not previously met. The topic of the EU came up. The tale of desperate poverty of his extended family and the efforts of him and his brother to mitigate that poverty reinforced my own views of the EU.
It seems to me that the remain/leave debate is a proxy for a range of other debates.
The worry with Greece is which State is next to get its backside kicked by the ECB?
Italy? Spain? Portugal? Ireland apparently gave away all its Euro’s to its bankrupt banks without checking to see if the ECB would it give more Euros so their problems are more self-inflicted.
As much as I agree with the principals of the EU, the Euro was a big mistake.
In 1997 The Guardian brought out a debate booklet ‘The Single Currency: Should Britain Join? edited by Martin Kettle and with contributions from Larry Elliott and Bill Keegan amongst others.
I naively wanted us to join the Euro because I thought its creation might produce a more stable currency than with the multitude of currencies in Europe. There’d be less for the money markets to mess around with. I also liked the sound of a currency that might challenge the dominance of the dollar too.
However, I ended up being convinced by Larry Elliott in the end (even though I am a big fan of Keegan who was ‘watch and wait’).
On page 29 he presciently wrote this (adding in the context of then current unemployment in the EU zone plus the emergence of silicon valley in the US) :
‘..the EU has a blueprint that encapsulates all the drawbacks of a system that is rapidly becoming old-fashioned: monetary union is big; it is top down, taking power away from elected politicians and handing it to unelected central bankers; it will set inflationary policies in concrete’.
That shook my previous beliefs to their foundations. And then much later I saw the documentary of Richard Werner’s book ‘Princes of the Yen’ (later reading the book itself) as well as Wolfgang Streeck’s ‘How will Capitalism End?’.
Streeck looks in more detail at the behaviour of the ECB and what emerges is a central bank behaving more like an private investment bank dominated by private bank practice seeking to recover unpaid debts – consolidating (cutting spending budgets elsewhere) rather than investing – using micro economic tools to solve macro problems i.e. the supply of real money.
As a result I have always taken Larry seriously since 1997! He has a keen eye for the consequences of economic policy. Or lack of.
I became convinced of the value of multiple currencies as an undergraduate
It is why I believe Scotland could thrive with one
But not with someone else’s
Pilgrim Slight Return,
Have you read Larry’s book he wrote with Dan Atkinson? ‘Europe isn’t Working’.
Some very interesting observations therein. Highly recommended.
Andy
Thank you for the recommendation.
I have been pulled into the tractor beam of a book William Keegan referenced in one of his Observer articles:- ‘Tragedy & Challenge: An Inside View of the UK Engineering’s Decline and the Challenge of the Brexit Economy by a chap called Tom Brown.
I never feel that I can ever catch up to be honest. But we can but try!
I have a far too large pile of unread stuff right now…
Richard
About the WWII books – it was The War in Pictures. I too spent a lot of time reading this as a lad.
I always dreaded the last volume with the pictures of the extermination camps – used to give me nightmares (my Dad hid that one from us until we were a little older) .
One of the most horrific pictures though in the previous volumes ( I can still see it now) was of a group of executed (murdered) Polish civilians – including women and young children – lying in the mud apparently having been shot by Nazis. They nearly all had their eyes open and you could see the bullet holes….awful.
Up until then I’d been a typical boy – into military Dinky toys and Airfix kits. After I got into these books I soon lost my enthusiasm for war and drifted into railways. I’ve never regretted that.
We had the same books….
I recall the image