BY STEWART SLATER
My thoughts as we begin another month:
- One of the greatest feats of self-control any of us pull off is when the words “I told you so” cross our synapses but not our lips. This is Labour’s problem with “Clothesgate”. Look at any word cloud about the Prime Minister and after “Boring”, the next most common descriptions are “self-interested”, “slimy”, “hypocrite” and the likes. By taking clothes, spectacles, tickets etc. Sir Keir has merely confirmed the suspicions of a large swathe of the population. The campaigns which stick in our minds are not those which tell us something new, but those which confirm what we already thought we knew.
- The Prime Minister does not, of course, see it this way. Most people, he thinks, would say “fair dos” to him taking a hospitality box at Arsenal. Most people, I think, would not, actually. It is reminiscent of an episode during the election when he had a rant at a journalist after an audience had laughed at his “My dad was a toolmaker” line. They were, he harrumphed, sneering at his father for being working class. That they might be laughing at him never seemed to cross his mind (it was, after all, a phrase he uttered with the frequency of a Hindu monk chanting “Om”). For someone who has reached the top of the Bar and politics, he seems curiously unable to put himself in the minds of others.
- His chief of staff, Sue Gray, appears to have a similar failing, taking a salary higher than that of her principal, despite being told this was a “bad look”. To the Westminster commentariat, this is a sign she lacks political judgement. I respectfully disagree. She has the ear of a Prime Minister with a massive majority and it is the best part of five years until the next election. She has power, so she does not need politics. You’re just going to have to suck it up while she does what she wants.
- You can, it is said, tell a lot about a leader from the people they hire. Gray is renowned for her mastery of the Whitehall machine. Boris Johnson chose Dominic Cummings, a man renowned for his desire to blow it up. Which, we might wonder, suggests a desire for radical change?
- Since last we spoke (I am going for a homely vibe with these pieces, imagine you are listening to this on a Bakelite wireless), we have marked the second anniversary of the death of the late Queen, replete with media references to “Elizabeth the Great”. Many monarchs have been accorded this title before – Cyrus for founding a mighty Empire, Alexander for conquering it. Alfred for saving his realm, Akbar and Catherine for extending theirs. The late Queen’s achievements were not of that order – they bent History to their will, she bent to its. That we would include her in their number probably says little about her but quite a lot about us, not least our changed expectations of monarchy.
- The late Queen was certainly a British icon and thanks to the Tory leadership race (eliminating the members of a group of political dwarves one by one is suggestive of Snow White as retold by Agatha Christie – Six Little Politicians, perhaps), we are having one of our periodic debates about national identity. So frequently do we have these that perhaps the defining characteristic of Britishness is the inability of the British to define it.
- We have also recently marked the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Arnhem and the Parachute Regiment transported their mascot, a Shetland Pony, to the Netherlands to take part in commemorating an engagement their predecessors had lost. Hmm. The love of animals and the hymning of glorious failure? Let us twist the late Lord Clark’s famous words slightly “What is Britishness? I don’t know. I can’t define it in abstract terms. But I think I can recognise it when I see it.”
- Arnhem was, famously, a bridge too far and maturity is, I think, the ability to watch the film of the same name and regard it as interminable and impressive rather than interminable and dull. Featuring, it seems, every British actor then in possession of an Equity card, I have long suspected it was conceived as a form of welfare for the nation’s struggling thespians. One of the Hollywood stars who appeared (a bid, no doubt, for the American cinema-going buck) was Ryan O’Neal, playing Brigadier General “Jumpin” Jim Gavin. A one-star at the time of the events of the film, Gavin had signed up underage (probably forging the papers needed to do so) and been taken under the wing of a friendly officer who educated him to get through the exams for West Point. Topping out as a three-star, he is thought to be the only man in history to hold every rank in the U.S. Armey from Private to General (he went on to become Ambassador to France). War may not be much good for society, but it can be very good for social mobility (just ask Sharpe).
- The temperatures are dropping, the nights drawing in, the nation’s poetry buffs are wanging on about “mists and mellow fruitfulness”, all of which must mean that Autumn is upon us. I find myself curiously insensitive to the passing of the seasons. When it gets cold, I turn on the heating. When it warms up again, I turn it off. When it is dull, I open the blinds, when it is sunny I close them. If it is wet, I take an umbrella, when it is dry, I do not. None of which I regard as interesting or an imposition. Perhaps, pace Lord Clark, we do know what civilisation (at least in its modern, urban form) is – the ability to be indifferent to the weather.
- I am, I realise, in a minority as the numbers gleefully downing their pumpkin spice lattes will attest. For Man has long marked the passage of time through ritual. Chinese (Lunar) New Year marks the end of the rainy season, Easter Spring, Christmas and Saturnalia the depths of winter. The decline of faith has not led to a decline in the need for observance, so we now mark the arrival of Autumn with new seasons of Strictly and Bake-Off. Different religion, different format, same function.
- If religion is dying, its practices retain their grip. Sinners must be seen to suffer for their sins before earning readmission to the tribe. Phillip Schofield has, it transpires, marooned himself on a tropical island to display (to the viewers of Channel 5, at least) his contrition, just as Matt Hancock ate the unmentionable bits of unmentionable animals in a bid to regain national favour (not utterly convinced that worked, Matt, but the cheque has probably softened the blow). The only difference with Henry II being whipped by the monks of Canterbury after the unpleasantness with Thomas a Becket is the number of people who can see the sinner suffer. Or maybe not. As I said, Schofield is appearing on Channel 5…
- Autumn will, in due course, give way to winter, a time of celebration but also reflection. A time for observing the minimal requirements of friendship by exchanging greetings and updating those distant in space and time since last meeting on the events of one’s recent life. These generally take the same form – young Hamish has passed his grade 1 piccolo, while Isolde represented the county in under-13s bog-snorkelling. They are records of success. But, as an old boss once told me, the difference between a good investor and a great investor is not the number of times they shoot the lights out but that the latter never has a “torpedo”, that deadly trade which unexpectedly blows up and ruins performance for the quarter. And he was right. Across the course of a life, not getting things wrong is every bit as important as getting things right, but we rarely think about it. Or tell others. So, as the nights draw in, perhaps take some time to celebrate your “negative success”, just as much as your “positive success” it has made you who you are.
- While writing this, it has emerged that Fraser Nelson has stepped down as Editor of The Spectator and it would be remiss not to note the occasion. I first delved into the Speccy at College, when it proved an irresistible distraction from the back issues of the Journal of Hellenic Studies I had gone to the library to read. But, like all long-term relationships, the magazine and I have had our ups and downs, extending, under Nelson’s predecessor to a complete rupture. It was because of his efforts that it won me back, wooing me not with chocolates and flowers, but regular kickings of the Cameron/Osborne ascendency and devout support for Brexit. Many thanks to an editor of the first rank if not, in the final telling, perhaps quite in the same league as that of this esteemed organ (grovel, grovel…).
- The Navy, it is said, has traditions, the Army customs and the Air Force habits. As this is only the third of these pieces, ending with a quote must, I think, be described as habitual rather than traditional. So, as has become our habit, let us part with some Seneca (finishing this way was, after all, his idea. I have just shamelessly copied him):
“Fear keeps pace with hope…both are due to projecting our thoughts far ahead of us instead of adapting ourselves to the present.”
Stewart Slater works in Finance. He invites you to join him at his website.