Tag: Christmas

Prize (political) idiots of the year

The Economist in its 8th December issue reports on the Spectator magazine’s annual dinner where the editors hand out awards to MPs. Or, rather, The Economist didn’t report. They chose instead, in a year when politicians are ‘falling over each other to make fools of themselves’, to present an alternative set of awards. No bean-feast or ceremony of course, just dishonourable mentions in despatches – the Bagehot page to be precise.

Names names names – if you’re from over the pond, or antipodean, or subcontinental, or even European, they won’t mean much. But you could always come up with your own list. It is Christmas, after all.

I’m not doing much more than reporting here – sharing the names. Compassion, you ask? Should I show some? My counter to that would be – incompetence must out in the end.

1] Ministers who should never have been promoted. Liam Fox, Andrea Leadsom, prime candidates, but ‘no-one can hold a candle to Chris Grayling, whose unpopularity and incompetence put him several lengths ahead of the rest.’ Justice secretary, transport secretary – why is he still there? ‘Maybe it’s because he’s a Brexiteer…’ (Indeed, it is.)

2] Failed comeback of the year: Vince Cable, leader of the LibDems (a little cruel). David Cameron – mooted the idea he might become foreign secretary. Laughter echoed for miles, so I hear.

3] Most deluded politician of the year. Jacob Rees-Mogg? No, the award goes to David Davis: ‘He was a disaster as Brexit secretary, which he blames on the civil service and everybody else blames on his laziness.’

4] Own-goal scorer of the year. Lord (one-time Andrew) Adonis … a candidate for obscure reasons I won’t go into here. But for me he also qualifies as an enthusiastic supporter of HS2, unnecessary speed at extraordinary expense. But that’s not quite an own goal. Not yet. Not until it gets finally buried in a bunker under the Chilterns.

Own-goal, who else? Jeremy Corbyn one suggestion. As an effective opposition (leaving ideology out of it) Labour has been one spectacular own goal since Corbyn was elected. But that was three years ago. We’re in the here and now, and for The Economist it has to be Arlene Foster of the DUP – her strident opposition to Mrs May’s deal makes a second referendum – and no Brexit – that much more likely. For a Brexit supporter, that’s impressive.

5] ‘The most coveted award’ – the politician who has done most to let his party and country down.  Corbyn is a candidate – a ditherer on Brexit, a follower of the line of least resistance.  ‘But Mr Corbyn merely exploited Brexit, and we felt our award should go to one of the architects of this catastrophe.’ There’s one outstanding candidate. ‘He failed miserably as foreign secretary.’ He sniped while in cabinet, from the back benches, and in his Telegraph column. ‘A demagogue not a statesman, he is the most irresponsible politician this country has seen for many years.

‘Step forward Boris Johnson!’

Well done Bagehot for an excellent bit of … reporting? The awards are all spot on, and they made me in these depressing times smile out loud.

*

Just for the record, who won the actual Spectator awards? They were reasonably cross-party. Campaigner of the Year: David Lammy (Labour MP for Tottenham) – right on. Speech of the Year: Margaret Hodge. Inquisitor of the Year: Yvette Cooper. Cabinet resignations of the Year: David Davis and Dominic Raab. (There were so many, comparable to resignations in the Trump White House.)

Take out Davis and Raab and they are mostly an impressive bunch, fighters for causes, well away from the deluded end of the spectrum. The fringe, those who make their fellow MPs cringe, weren’t likely to get far in the voting.

The Economist on the other hand had no such quibbles.

Christmas Eve – the other story

Christmas is a time for charity – but that doesn’t seem to go far when we think of all the violence in the world.

It’s been a year of refugees and displacement.

I listened to Bob Dylan’s Chimes of Freedom earlier today and the words won’t leave me. (I’m only quoting here, not providing the full lyric.) The second line I’ve quoted remembers refugees. How could we, remembering the crisis at the end of World War II, have allowed it to happen again?

….Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight/ Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight/ An’ for each an’ ev’ry underdog soldier in the night …. /

….Tolling for the deaf an’ blind, tolling for the mute / For the mistreated, mateless mother, the mistitled prostitute/ For the misdemeanor outlaw, chased an’ cheated by pursuit …. 

…..Tolling for the aching whose wounds cannot be nursed/ For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an’ worse / An’ for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe

An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

There’s an editorial in the Christmas edition of The Week which argues that ‘people … aren’t that nice’, that Scrooge had a point. If we’re to like others, better they think as we do. Best just to come to terms with the fact, and get on with life.

That sounds all very reasonable, better not to seek the unattainable, we’ll do better if we understand our deficiencies.

But it’s precisely what we have to get beyond.

Compassion isn’t somehow a compromise with our selfish side, something which we engage in out of conscience and a mite reluctantly and find to our surprise that it’s quite rewarding. Compassion is where our true nature shows itself, and the rewards are immeasurable. Peace of mind, yes, but not peace because we seek it, but because it goes with the territory of caring for others. It’s the Buddhist message – our ‘original face’, and the Christian message – more than a pre-lapsarian state of grace, Adam and Eve in the garden – something that’s alive in the heart. And it’s the humanist message too, when we get beyond self.

Leonard Cohen sketches a wonderful, haggard and mournful face in his ‘Book of Longing’, literally sketches, and captions the sketch ‘a private gaze’, followed by the words

‘even though he was built to see the world this way, he was also built to disregard, to be free of the way he was built to see the world.’

I like that. We don’t have to resign ourselves to a selfish human nature. We are built to disregard. Dylan reminds us of a few of the million ways the world malfunctions. And we can do something about it.