Lying dictators threaten to take over the world, with the mute compliance and sometimes enthusiasm of the very people they intend to oppress. What perhaps is most frustrating about our current plight is that it has happened so many times before throughout history. Thucydides first warned us about it in 500 BC, but we have never learned. In some ways we seem to be replaying the events leading up to 1939, with Europe then mobilising for an inevitable war, but Britain attempting to stay aloof.
And just as in 1939, that leaves us feeling morally uncomfortable about our fears of sucking up to a tyrant, rather than standing with our friends and neighbours in Europe. The dread word used back then of course was ‘appeasement’, later to become one of the most despised words in the English language. It carries overtones of guilt and shame.
A colleague drew your diarist’s attention this week to some lines by WH Auden written as that last war loomed. In his poem A Summer Night, Auden begins with lying at peace on his lawn, then continues:
“And, gentle, do not care to know / Where Poland draws her eastern bow / What violence is done / Nor ask what doubtful act allows / Our freedom in this English house / Our picnics in the sun.”
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“It’s obviously in our national interest to have a close working relationship with the US, which we’ve had for decades, and I want to ensure we have for decades to come.”
So declared Keir Starmer on Tuesday, before we knew of the 10% US tariffs and when the likelihood of no trade deal with America became almost certain. As we have observed before, the PM does not share our luxury of being able to blow raspberries at Donald Trump. Short of a Belshazzar’s Feast, Mr Trump seems likely to be there for a while, so the economy of this country depends on a more diplomatic tone. But perhaps we could have done without the final phrase.
The PM has grounds to make that comment on our past relationship, and perhaps those last words were merely a flourish. But, without some reassurance, the impression remains – the government’s ‘body language’ if you like – that it is the PM’s determination to have nothing to do with Europe, in favour of mortgaging our future and our honour to the whims of Donald Trump.
The only bright spot, if that is what it is, seems to be that the PM’s words seem at odds with reports from the White House, which has hardly noticed Britain is on the premises – no doubt we had to go in via the tradesman’s entrance – and simply isn’t interested in doing deals of any kind.
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“Ministers and officials are almost euphoric that Trump has levied the minimum 10% tariff on the UK,” asserts Robert Peston. “But if, as they claim, we don’t discriminate against the US, this is like celebrating being mugged for only half as much as your neighbour.”
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So how far will Keir Starmer go to try to placate the tyrant in the White House? We study every nuance, every comma in every statement from No.10 to try and guess where reality lies. On Tuesday we read allegations that the White House was, bizarrely, trying to blackmail Britain into in some way ensuring a ‘not guilty’ verdict in a criminal case against an anti-abortion campaigner in Devon, who has apparently had talks with the Trump administration.
It is not clear quite what grasp of the law the White House lacks, in assuming the outcome of a trial is down to the whim of the government. To be fair, there is no suggestion that Britain seems likely to listen to such pressure, though how on earth could they? We haven’t fallen so far that government ministers yet breathe down the necks of judges. But our government suspiciously refutes that the subject ever came up, which is a problem since there seem multiple sources which claim it has.
If the PM does not trouble to explain himself to his people, then he deserves criticism. At best, the government is obfuscating, at worst it is deliberately misleading us. This, it should hardly need pointing out in present circumstances, is not a good look.
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Likewise, when Rachel Reeves deliberately misrepresents the trade figures, she knows perfectly well what she is doing. The EU is a much more important trading partner than the US. But by unpicking the bloc into separate countries – even though all trade negotiations are for the bloc as a whole – she can claim the US is bigger.
But why should she want to be able to claim trade with the US is the more important, when patently that would be a lie? The only reason this diarist can reluctantly think of is that she is softening us up to choose a US deal over an EU option. From which we can only assume the Starmer government want to stick with Trump’s America come what may.
First Brexit, now this. Avoiding any links with our friendly near-neighbours, with whom we share our culture and our history, and instead throw ourselves supinely at the feet of a fascist would-be dictator?
With this mindset, dear reader, can you envisage any eventuality in which Keir Starmer would ever allow Britain to try to return to EU membership?
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There is simply no way of getting past Brexit since its idiocies become more transparent and more oppressive every week. Yet the government continues to refuse to mention the word, and we must believe by now they never will. The narrative is reminiscent of Stella Gibbons’ ‘Cold Comfort Farm’, in which the matriarch Ada Doom keeps her Starkadder family in thrall by repeating that, when young, she saw “something nasty in the woodshed”. By now she had forgotten what it was, but it holds a terror still, and the Starkadder family hunch round the kitchen table and recite the phrase as their excuse for not breaking free of the old woman’s clutches.
The Starkadders’ fear of something nasty in the woodshed is the equivalent of Labour’s terrified response to the referendum result. The family is eventually rescued by a visit from a distant relative, Robert Post’s child. Sadly though, we have no Robert Post’s child to break the spell. The nearest we have is perhaps Clive Lewis (Norwich S).
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Since when did the King appoint a secretary of state for placating jingoists and racists? Yvette Cooper has been wearing her angry elf look once more – that scowl she adopts when she wants to throw off her juvenile lead look and be taken seriously. But instead of seeming as hard-nosed as any Tory home secretary, which is the aim, she looks instead as though she is put out because she has just fallen off the top of the Christmas tree.
Ms Cooper never gives interviews (or adopts gurning) on any subject other than those – whatever their intrinsic merits – that appeal most to the small-minded and the bigoted. Curiously, she seems keen not to be seen supporting any progressive cause whatever.
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But though in so many ways the government appears to be making a pig’s rectum of their brief, let us point out that, as expected, they are hardly getting a fair crack of the whip from mainstream media. (Which, my dears, is why you need East Anglia Bylines.)
We hear much at the moment about cost of living increases this month. But a comparison drawn from the Office of National Statistics puts things into perspective.
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We wait to see how far we’ll see the vaunted rebellion of Labour MPs against proposed benefits cuts set out in the spring statement. Among the malcontents, so far two MPs from this region have declared their hand to vote against the proposals. They are Chris Hinchliff (NE Herts) and Clive Lewis.
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This week Electoral Calculus published their latest MRP poll on the likely outcome of a general election, were it held now. The previous poll showed Labour, Conservatives and Reform neck and neck, and it hasn’t changed much this week. The most notable figure is the fall in the supposed Reform vote, and as Pecksniff has been pointing out for some time, the nature of that party and its support always calls into question whether they could ever deliver these votes.
They still have no real organisation, and the party remains a repository for the angry, the disaffected and the bewildered. Turning those sentiments into voters who can be arsed to go out on a wet Thursday night to put a cross on a bit of paper is something else again, as any intrepid canvasser can tell you.
Also, as Electoral Calculus points out, the fall in their support is probably linked to the internecine fights between Messrs Farage and Lowe, (which together sound like a traditional firm of gentleman’s outfitters in Ampthill, offering the kind of dress much favoured by Mr F).
The mutual hatred expressed by the two Reform factions is as vicious as it was predictable, (and Pecksniff has been predicting it for some time). So it is likely the fall in their support still has a long way to go, quite probably exacerbated by a split in the party.
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The question of who owns the Reform Party emerges again. It used to be Nigel Farage (Clacton), then he declared he was handing it over to the members. But claims this week suggest that, through sleight of hand, he remains in control. Now, Mr Farage may not feel overly cluttered by moral imperatives, and seems unlikely to dissipate his energies on matters which, as it were, don’t bring in a penny. So, this is perhaps no surprise.
It is difficult to write about Mr Farage without the question of money popping up. This week it was pointed out that a prominent financial backer of Reform also has significant Russian business interests, and according to the New York Times has sold Russia parts for its weapons.
Meanwhile, the good people of Clacton can only wait, like the Melanese believers in the cargo cult, for their god – who used to be the Duke of Edinburgh – to arrive from over the waters. Though it was claimed that this week’s filibuster by Cory Booker in the US Senate meant Mr Booker had been on his feet for longer than the entire time Nigel Farage has spent in his constituency.
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Now finally, as Nigel Farage might say, let us discuss money. The Bylines Network, of which we are part, is almost entirely staffed by volunteers, which is to say (and to make clear our irreproachable virtue) we are paid nothing. Nobody who brings you East Anglia Bylines is paid to write or produce what you read on this site.
But since April is heralded as being disastrous for all our pockets, with unerring prescience the network has chosen this month to launch our fund-raising drive. A lack of money is generally considered an inconvenience, and so eventually it is proving for East Anglia Bylines. Though the journalists strive mightily, day by day, driven only by moral indignation and strong drink, there are such things as software and apps, tech support and occasional consultants of one sort or another, to whom an appeal to embrace our own selfless approach to do stuff for nothing frequently fails to cut the mustard.
The result is that EAB hacks may be sent out, rather like medieval mendicant friars, fustian-clad and sandal-shod, begging for alms in your local market place. (You may well spot us, though we might of course be confused with members of the Green Party.) Anyway, the thing is, we’d like you to bung us some moolah.
The editor-in-chief (a notoriously difficult woman) has guaranteed that all moneys forthcoming will go to running Bylines, and not a penny will be placed behind the bar at the Muckrakers.
So, with the assurance that you won’t even get a drink out of it, how could you fail to be moved by this appeal? For the price of a pint of, say three quid a month, less than the cost of a pint of the throwing bitter, you can help guarantee the continuance of East Anglia Bylines and, in modesty, your humble diarist.
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With thanks this week to James Porter, Liz Crosbie and Karl Whiteman.
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