The World we're in

 

“. . . .a world suffering from ‘global warming and environmental degradation,  multiple conflicts, rising military budgets,  disregard for international law and international humanitarian law, disruptions to trade, erosion of democratic governance and technological developments that are met with excitement and fear.’ ”

This quotation from a speech by Antonio de Aguiar Patriota, Brazil’s ambassador to the UK, forms the opening of a full page article by the Guardian’s  diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour in last Saturday’s paper.

It seems to be a pretty god description of the world we’re in.

Wintour’s article is headlined “Hope emerges from chaos.”

It wold be foolish to expect the situation  Ambassador  Patriota depicts to influence how the UK’s citizens cast their votes on Thursday.  Perhaps it shouldn’t. 

Many retiring and aspiring councillors and Senedd and Scottish parliamentary candidates would like their electorates to vote according to the skill with which they have or are likely to organise the functions for which their councils and devolved administrations  are actually responsible for. 

However this is a forlorn hope, largely because the UK’s governance is so highly centralised that the councils and devolved administrations have little real independence and are increasingly at the beck and call of Westminster and Whitehall to carry out their masters’ wishes.

 So these local elections are inevitably a verdict  on the performance of the  present central government and an indication (however unreliable) of who might form the next one,

 Therefore  we need to think which of the now five seriously contending parties are likely to be in the best position to deal intelligently with the scenario Patriota describes.

On the basis of their present performances, probably none of the above.

 Wintour’s argument is that the post-Cold War era of US leadership has clearly failed, that we cannot expect it to adopt a more virtuous path once Trump’s wings are clipped by Democrat congressional victories in November, and  a Democrat president restores "normal service" in 2029.  

 The era of American  dominance is over. 

The sane future therefore lies in a coalition of middle-ranking powers:  Germany, France, Brazil , Australia , Canada, and others, dedicated to liberal democracy and prepared to work together in a reformed United Nations reflecting present-day realities.

The UK should be part of this.

(Wintour doesn’t say this, but I would prefer the UK to abandon the pretence of playing a “leading” role: just be a willing and effective partner.  That would be far more productive and less embarrassing than the past eighty years of playing Robin to America’s Batmen)

This will require both vision and optimism.

No single party has these, but in my view a combination of Liberals, Greens,  the less hide-bound ranks of Labour  and One-nation Tories (if there are any left) could achieve them.  Tactical voters should vote for which ever of these is the most likely to win on Thursday.

This could give a signal to the parties as to the policies they should be nurturing for our General Election  in 2029 (or sooner.)

Further reflections (while my internet access is limited)

 

More reflections while still off-line.

 

Peter Mandelson

This afternoon (written Monday 20^th April) Sir Keir Starmer  is to explain to the House of Commons he   Government’s mis-handling of the appointment of Lord (I think he’s still a lord) Peter Mandelson as Ambassador to the US. 

Somewhere  in Bagehot’s famous account of the British Constitution he writes, in justification of the Monarchy, that the people “love a marriage more than a ministry.”  That is probably still true today. 

What is certainly true is that the British media much refer to titillate the public, and therefore promote their profits or viability, with a minor scandal  rather than furnish details of serious issues. 

Yes, it was probably a mistake to make Mandelson our ambassador (though the appointment was widely praised at the time,) but it is not all that important in the wider scheme of things, where people are being frightened , driven from their homes, maimed and killed, some of them with the connivance of our government, the atmosphere is being further polluted by the explosion of  bombs, and the cost of that is being provided by reductions in help  to feed people on the verge of starvation.

 

BBC

Last week the  BBC announced it is to reduce its staff by a tenth.  This is stupid. 

After the threat of nuclear war, which has now risen closer to the surface than at any time since the Cuban Crisis of 1962 (when those in charge turned out to be adult) the second greatest danger to liberal civilisation is disinformation.

Last week I caught a snatch of a Radio 4 programme which claimed that those  attempting to undermine liberal democracy do so by reducing trust in the established sources of information.  They (the Tech Bros?) are being very successful, especially via social media and by taking over the ownership of the established sources. 

 

The BBC with all its faults remains to most trusted source of information in the UK and probably the rest of the world.  As hedge funds  and possibly the Russians and Chinese aim to extend their empires it is ludicrous  to contemplate reducing the BBC’s effectiveness.  Its resources, staff and language services should be increased in order to save civilisation as we thought we knew it.

 

President Trump.

Following from the above, Mr Trump’s pronouncement on current situations, in speeches and on social media, clearly bear no relationship to reality but merely express what he wold like to be happening  rather than what is actually happening. 

I’m reminded of the final speech of Koko, the  Lord High Executioner, in the G&S Opera “The Mikado.” Koko Explains why he hasn’t actually executed the heir to the throne, though he claimed he had “with most affecting particulars.”

Viz;

“It’s like this: When your Majesty says, ‘Let a thing be done,’ it’s as good as done – practically it is done - because your majesty’s will is law.  Your Majesty says, ‘Kill a gentleman’ and a gentleman is told off to be killed.  Consequently, that gentleman is as good as dead, - practically he is dead – and if he is dead, why not say so ?”

 

Unfortunately Trump is not a character in a comic opera, but in charge of the mightiest military force and the largest treasury in the world.  We can only hope and pray that the we survive long enough for the American electorate to put the brakes on him in November.

 

Leo XIV

On which three cheers for the Pope, who in the words of our Prayer Book “continues all such good works ( or words, perhaps) as are set before him,” by saying the thigs our politicians seem freighted to say.

No change here

 

I am reading and enjoying the fourth (?) volume of Alan Bennet’s “Diaries,” published last month.  Here are two highly prescient entries:

7 January 2019:  When Trump destroys the world those who are left  will look at one another  and wonder why nobody stopped him.”

And, a few days later:

16^th January, 2019: “. . .Jacob Rees -Mogg . . .Boris Johnson, ‘Sir’ John Redwood . . .gentlemen who have never been in two minds about anything

 

 Post Script (added Thursday, 16th April)  A letter in yesterday's Guardian (15/04/26) from a John Deards of Warminster, Wiltshire, commends  Bennett's political acumen by quoting the self-same 2019 comment on Trump in the diaries, as above.  I'm rather chuffed that Keynesian Liberal got there first.

 

 

 

ng  except where their own self-interest lies.”