I was at the Oxford Literary Festival last weekend, speaking as well as listening. I’ve been doing that for many years. This time, the mood in the audiences and in the green room seemed to be unusually sombre, at times, profoundly pessimistic. All around me people were talking about the state our state is in. The programme reflected that.
Millions of indigenous Britons hold on to an imagined Britain, which is always the best in the world, unbeatable, uniquely lovely, fair yet brave, creative, innovative and resilient. Some of this is justified; some, just sad, wishful thinking.
Even I, a critical outsider/insider, well up with pride when I think about those who, after the shock of war, had the imagination and courage to set up the welfare state and make the UK work for all and think about great British artists, scientists and thinkers.
But that pride is now overshadowed by bitter disappointment. Fourteen years under these Conservatives has led us to chaos, degeneration of infrastructures, corruption on a scale not seen since the 18th century, inequality so bad it makes one weep, political shenanigans worthy of a banana republic. These guys are reverse Robin Hoods, having taken from the poor and given piles to the rich. It’s abominable.
A spate of books is capturing the zeitgeist. Alun Drake’s Fixing Broken Britain exposes our “dysfunctional parliament building, ramshackle constitution, unfair voting system, absurd House of Lords and winner-takes-all political culture… [also] the country’s two-tier, class-ridden education system that stifles social mobility”. The Telegraph would denounce it for doing down the great country. But we can’t afford such delusions any more.
In his new tome, How They Broke Britain, broadcaster James O’Brien introduces and traduces the new influencers and power merchants from dark think-tanks with unlimited access to Downing Street.
And Gavin Esler, the erstwhile BBC presenter, smartly uses national pride to stir citizens into action. His Britain Is Better Than This is a wake up call: “It’s not the five failed prime ministers since 2016 and their incompetent sidekicks. It’s us. We tolerate a sclerotic, antiquated democratic system allowing people you wouldn’t trust with your wallet or to babysit your children to rise through deceit and thrive through failure.”
My reaction to all of this was despair at first. What can we do? The system looks after the powerful. Democracy has been captured and is in terminal decline. But the more I read and heard these arguments, the more energised I felt. When so many great minds coalesce and come up with similar analyses and urgent messages, not to listen would be a crime against our country and future generations.
Will the forthcoming election lift us out of the swamp? Many voters are too weary and cynical to believe it can. But some things are bubbling up: independent candidates challenging the duopoly, local activism against landlords, parents pushing for better school buildings and food, a new movement, We Deserve Better, which has just been launched by disillusioned left-wing Labour voters.
I find it immensely cheering that many more older people today, instead of turning right wing, as expected, are, like me, becoming lefties. They march in trainers, they write letters to the press, are becoming a new activist force.
Dan, a retired school teacher, was in the audience when I was chairing a Question Time session there. He came up and told me, in a great, big booming voice: “This is our war. We must stand up and defend the country from bastards who have drained it and us.”
I think we can do this. So come on grey activists. Our country needs us.
Silly, boring, concerning, tiresome, absurd, embarrassing, truly baffling, exasperating, infuriating. Those are my overlapping thoughts and emotions at the moment. If the Where’s Kate? mass hysteria carries on, I could soon tip into dangerous rage or screaming madness. It needs to stop.
If you are on this royalist bus going hither and tither pointlessly, get off, sit down and think. What are you doing? And why?
Kate Middleton, the pretty daughter of a couple who got rich making party hats and balloons, married William, the son of Charles and his young, deeply unhappy wife, Diana. Kate was not seen for many weeks. Social and traditional media are apoplectic. Why won’t she show them her scars and stiches? Has she been abducted by aliens? Is she divorcing William? Is he cheating on her? A doctored photo issued on Mother’s Day caused further consternation and speculation, encouraging more dust of mistrust to rise.
Woman to woman, I feel protective towards the young mum whose so-called fans have turned into horrible, insatiably hungry hyenas.
But as an antiroyalist, I must point out that this voracious addiction was abetted by the Palace, their media allies and PR operators. They ruthlessly maligned Meghan and Harry and turned Kate and William into the nation’s saviours. Now they too are being devoured.
Meanwhile Charles is ill with cancer. Camilla and Anne are exhausted. And Andrew is back. Suddenly the Windsors seem depleted and can’t or won’t gratify their followers. Monarchist mouthpieces cannot restore order. This is good. The co-dependency between the hunted and their hunters cannot go on. It’s not a crisis. But it could lead to a few more turning away from the rotten institution.
I went to mosque last Friday. I was missing my mother, immeasurably kind, tough, funny and unforgettable. She died many years ago, in March, just before Mother’s Day. She loved this mosque, a beautiful building in London’s South Kensington. I still meet people who knew her.
We are Ismailis, a progressive sect within Shiaism. Men and women pray together, dress as they wish and make their own life decisions. But the community, which values education, fears freethinking or political talk. It’s very confusing.
For years they were wary of me. This time, several middle-aged men praised me for being a fearless public speaker. One of them said: “If we keep burying our heads in the ground, we will not be able to breathe and will die. We must be more like you.” Change happens in mysterious ways.
The peripheries around our capital are not only calm and beauteous – many were sites of incredible histories. The English Civil war played out in Brentford in west London, for example. And in Ealing Broadway, the newly conserved Pitzhanger Manor, built by the architectural genius and collector Sir John Soane in the early 19th century, gives you a multi-sensual experience of his life and times. I go there often.
Hip urbanites spurn or mock suburbia. More fool than cool, I say.
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