tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69424785469681589052024-02-19T11:47:27.462+00:00Lustig's LetterTRYING TO MAKE SENSE OF THE WORLD
Robin Lustighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00578195216460807588noreply@blogger.comBlogger620125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942478546968158905.post-76958485234981896312023-10-08T13:38:00.000+00:002023-10-08T13:38:41.148+00:00Israel-Gaza: again<p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">First, the horror. Men, women and children, overwhelmingly civilians, who have been living their lives as best they can, now slaughtered, kidnapped, brutalised.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Second, the anger. Fury at the cruelty, the futility, of yet more killing, more destruction.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Third, the despair. How much longer must this continue? Is there no one who can stop it?</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">You can have boundless sympathy, as I do, for the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who have lived in fear for decades, unable to enjoy anything resembling a normal life, unable ever to hope for a better future for their children.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">You can believe, as I do, that successive Israeli governments have behaved with a reckless sense of overweening superiority towards the Palestinian people, convinced that their military prowess will protect them against any imaginable threat.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">And you can struggle, as I did on 9/11, to suppress the unworthy, unspoken, nagging voice in your head. ‘What did they expect?’</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">So it’s important to be clear about where we must plant our flag as we confront the new war between Israel and Hamas. No amount of injustice, no history of oppression, can ever justify the indiscriminate killing of civilians. It was true when the Provisional IRA were blowing up pubs in Birmingham and Guildford, or a Remembrance Day event in Enniskillen; when Kurdish extremists or the Islamic State group were murdering dozens of civilians in Istanbul; and every time the Taliban or a Taliban-affiliated group blows up civilians in Pakistan.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">And here is something else that is equally true. Israel’s siege of Gaza (aided and abetted by Egypt) has been unconscionable, utterly inhumane and contrary to international law. It has turned a tiny sliver of land bordering the Mediterranean into, as the <i>cliché </i>has it, an open-air prison. And we all know what happens when the pressure inside a pressure cooker becomes unsustainable.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The never-ending seizure and occupation of Palestinian land on the West Bank as Israeli settlements have expanded has been the final nail in the coffin of any hopes of a so-called ‘two-state’ solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The arrogance and – yes, let’s call it what it is – quasi-fascism displayed by some of the current Israeli government’s most extremist ministers has added yet more fuel to the fires of resentment that have burned for so long among the Palestinians.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">And as if all that wasn’t enough, let’s not forget those unlovely regional super-powers Iran and Saudi Arabia, each with its own interests in the region and each perfectly prepared to countenance extreme brutality to further its aims.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Iran backs both Hamas and Hizbollah, which is a constant threat to Israel from across its northern border in Lebanon. Regional analysts are agreed that an operation on the scale of that which was launched by Hamas on Saturday morning could never have been undertaken without a green light from Tehran.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Why? Perhaps because Iran is desperate to prevent Israel and Saudi Arabia stitching up a deal, encouraged by the US, which would further isolate Iran and further strengthen Israel.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">After the failure of the Oslo peace process in the 1990s, Israel decided it would have to learn to live with a restive Palestinian population on its doorstep and under its control. It came to believe, idiotically, that an endless low-intensity conflict, kept at arm’s length from most of Israel’s population by draconian and humiliating security measures, wouldn’t be so bad. Outsiders who warned them that this was a strategy of the utmost foolishness were dismissed out of hand. ‘You don’t understand the Palestinians like we do. The only language they understand is force.’</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">So now the low-intensity conflict has become a high-intensity conflict. Don’t believe anyone who says this escalation came out of the blue. Everyone – with the exception of Israel’s myopic government – knew that sooner or later, the steady increase in Israeli military and settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank would produce a reaction. They just didn’t know where or when.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Two wrongs never make a right. Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people is unjustifiable. So is the Hamas response. And if there are any Hamas leaders with a sense of history, perhaps they should reflect on this: thirty years of political violence by the Provisional IRA did not end with a united Ireland. Decades of Kurdish political violence has not ended with an independent Kurdish state. The brutality of the Islamic State group in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere has not brought about an Islamic State.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">But perhaps that’s not what matters most to Hamas’s leaders. Perhaps what matters most is ensuring that the world does not write off the Palestinian tragedy. The message from Gaza, perhaps, is as simple as that: ‘We are here. We exist. We have rights.’</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">So what can they hope to achieve, at the cost of hundreds of lives lost, both Palestinian and Israeli?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Message received.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </p><p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px;"> </span> </p>Robin Lustighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00578195216460807588noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942478546968158905.post-55375858759257927802023-05-26T16:58:00.002+00:002023-05-26T16:58:13.653+00:00Is Ukraine destined to become a frozen conflict?<p> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px;">If I were a Ukrainian, I would be reading everything I could find on the history of frozen conflicts.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px;">Korea. Cyprus. China-Taiwan. Israel-Palestine. Western Sahara. Wars which ended without ending, which remain frozen in time. Conflicts unresolved, deaths unavenged, borders undrawn. </span></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px;">Fifteen months after President Putin unleashed an invasion that was meant to last no more than a few days, it is not unreasonable to start asking how – and when – this brutal war will end. Which is where frozen conflicts come in, because not all wars end in victory or defeat.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></div><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">North Korea invaded South Korea on 25 June 1950. The North had clear military superiority and was confident of an easy victory. Three years later, and after the deaths of an estimated three million people, an armistice was signed. It had taken two years to negotiate and did not include a peace treaty. In theory, seventy years later, the two Koreas are still at war.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Turkey invaded Cyprus on 20 July 1974, claiming that it had to act in order to protect Turkish Cypriots and prevent the absorption of Cyprus by Greece. Nearly fifty years later, it still occupies about one-third of the island.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">China has claimed sovereignty over Taiwan since the end of the Second World War. More than seven decades later, it still insists that it retains the right to use force to reunify the two Chinas.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Israel declared its establishment as a Jewish state in 1948. Its Arab neighbours declared war, and 75 years later, only two of them, Egypt and Jordan, have signed peace treaties. Israel’s borders with Lebanon and Syria remain closed, and the legal status of Jerusalem and the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights remains unresolved.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Western Sahara has been largely occupied by Morocco since Spain relinquished control in 1975. A ceasefire between Moroccan forces and the pro-independence Polisario movement has been in place since 1991, monitored by a UN peacekeeping force. No peace agreement has been signed, and the US is the only country that recognises Moroccan sovereignty over the territory.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">So is this how the war in Ukraine will end? With neither side having won or lost, with Russian forces still occupying swathes of the east of the country as well as Crimea? Not just for the next few months or years, but for decades?</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">No one can confidently predict that this is what the future holds for Ukraine. But nor can anyone deny that it is a possibility, perhaps even a strong possibility. After all, Russia knows better than most how to exploit smouldering conflicts that serve its purposes.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Conflicts like those in Transnistria, the pro-Moscow breakaway province of Moldova, or South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the two Moscow-controlled territories in Georgia.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Would Putin be prepared to accept a frozen conflict in Ukraine? It might serve his purposes well. He would not have to give up his claim that Ukraine is historically part of Greater Russia, and he would retain his all-important access to the Black Sea.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">But most important of all, he would hugely complicate Ukraine’s hopes of joining NATO and the EU, because neither group is keen to accept as new members countries that are partly under military occupation. (In 2004, the EU made an exception for Cyprus, but it’s an exception that is unlikely to be repeated.)<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">For the Ukrainians, of course, the arguments are very different. But one day, perhaps sooner than we think, Kyiv’s Western allies will start asking with greater insistence: how do you see this ending? For how much longer will we have to spend billions of dollars on military assistance to ensure that you are not defeated?</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">With a US presidential election campaign already looming on the horizon, it’s a question that is bound to be asked ever more insistently. And the Ukrainians know that without US assistance, they will soon be in serious trouble.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">So will they, one day, decide that an armistice is the least worst option? Not a negotiated peace, but a negotiated end to military conflict. In all the conflicts I have mentioned, there have been periodic spluttering attempts to move away from no-war to something more permanent. None has worked out.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">For now, the view of Ukraine’s Western allies is that it is in our interests as well as Ukraine’s that the reckless Russian military adventure is seen to fail. But that cost-benefit analysis is not immutable.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I’m sure the Ukrainians know that as well as anyone. And I’m equally sure that they have already started reading up on frozen conflicts.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> </p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i> </i></p>Robin Lustighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00578195216460807588noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942478546968158905.post-9094706466603122292022-10-21T11:46:00.000+00:002022-10-21T11:46:23.246+00:00Where we are now<p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaGL__DaLxboN4DSo9jc1h_dsFpq5-2I_hrl4o0JM5T_GRJrmNviqkgs263libDfJunCaq329wDfivKok7UHtEaUkNQfhnwn_-F1Z24IYkKraBVeuaS0OGcysBTbWQoRRlotA3Xx2teBuFcC5HyUDmry9y8UNuSVy6UrETBM4dhAPd5cYijB9Sg0UPvA/s233/lettuce.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="233" data-original-width="217" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaGL__DaLxboN4DSo9jc1h_dsFpq5-2I_hrl4o0JM5T_GRJrmNviqkgs263libDfJunCaq329wDfivKok7UHtEaUkNQfhnwn_-F1Z24IYkKraBVeuaS0OGcysBTbWQoRRlotA3Xx2teBuFcC5HyUDmry9y8UNuSVy6UrETBM4dhAPd5cYijB9Sg0UPvA/s1600/lettuce.jpg" width="217" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large; text-align: left;">The Conservative party has a death wish. It’s the only credible explanation.</span></div><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Its MPs no longer know what they want, what they believe, or what they’re for. They just want it to stop. All of it. Now. Please.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Look at what they have been through.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The supreme folly of the Brexit referendum, foisted on them by David Cameron, a dilettante prime minister who had neither the skill, the courage nor the strength to see off his party’s ultras.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The ramshackle chaos of the May administration, blown onto the rocks by those same ultras who thought the moment had finally come for their Reaganite, free-market ideology.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The shameful immorality of Boris Johnson, who broke the law, broke the rules and told so many lies that even his own MPs could take no more of him.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Let’s be merciful and cast a veil over what came next.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And now, yet again, Tory MPs have to make a decision. Do they continue their slide into political oblivion, reaching such depths of electoral unpopularity that the pollsters are left gasping for air?</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Or do they, somehow, step back from the brink and start the long, painful process of reinventing themselves as a serious political force?</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It has come to something when a former Russian president greets the resignation of a British prime minister by sending his congratulations to the lettuce which had come to symbolise the utter humiliation of the UK government. (Dmitri Medvedev tweeted on Thursday: ‘Bye bye, Liz Truss, congrats to lettuce.’)</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Four prime ministers in six years. Each one a Tory, and each one worse than the one they replaced. They have done immense damage to the UK economy, to its political structures and to the very fabric of British democracy. And now, it seems, many Tory MPs seriously believe that the answer to their problems – the best way to confront the existential threat to their party – is to turn the clock back and reinstate the pound-shop wannabe Churchill whom they kicked out less than six months ago.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The definition of insanity, as Einstein never said, is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The Conservative party used to be the epitome of un-ideology. Remember the old joke? ‘I’m not political at all, I just vote Conservative.’ Now, unless they reverse course, they are about to be dragged over the cliff edge by the very people who have inflicted so much damage both on their party and on the country.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Boris Johnson is no ideologue. But he is perfectly happy to indulge the ideologues if they help him further his own interests.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Nor is Rishi Sunak a cuddly social democrat. But neither, as we saw from his response to the Covid pandemic, is he blinded by ideology.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">After the European parliament elections in May 2019, when the Brexit party won thirty per cent of the vote and the Tories slumped to fourth place, behind Labour and the Lib Dems, with less than ten per cent of votes cast, I <a href="https://lustigletter.blogspot.com/2019/05/so-what-hell-will-happen-next.html">suggested</a> that it might be time for a realignment of the British political party system.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Let’s have four main parties, I suggested: English Nationalists, Conservative Democrats, Social Democrats, and Socialists. ‘It is possible,’ I wrote, ‘that we are observing the beginning of the end of the Conservative party as we know it.’</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The <i>Guardian</i> columnist Jonathan Freedland <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/oct/20/liz-truss-resignation-brexit-brexitism?CMP=share_btn_tw">argues</a> that the Liz Truss experiment marks the end of what he calls Brexitism, ‘the view that reality, including the laws of economic gravity, can be wished away, so long as you screw your eyes tight shut and believe.’</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On the other hand, perhaps Brexitism still has some life left in it, and we really are closer now to the end of the end of the Conservative party than we were three short years ago. We’ll know by the end of next week at the latest.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>Robin Lustighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00578195216460807588noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942478546968158905.post-45568834401230860082022-09-16T13:59:00.006+00:002022-09-16T14:03:56.970+00:00Why all those people in The Queue are, er, a bit odd<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEggMTbGYnDbfxDJRBB6Xc32ezTTATH3a5ltxYB_EysNaARoWUQsUcFKWElFHSiz-hnDEmxo3uawcBfoH--SEy6wFEGmJ0eXwrgU8w3_qKGCs1HS7W2HkBPa6VmFBgM1VGWL5X_1VIfkEOKI--JOo5dGTwLwA-zEo7rfPIzMGGaTVPFuYNthmtXtVY8M8g" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="193" data-original-width="261" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEggMTbGYnDbfxDJRBB6Xc32ezTTATH3a5ltxYB_EysNaARoWUQsUcFKWElFHSiz-hnDEmxo3uawcBfoH--SEy6wFEGmJ0eXwrgU8w3_qKGCs1HS7W2HkBPa6VmFBgM1VGWL5X_1VIfkEOKI--JOo5dGTwLwA-zEo7rfPIzMGGaTVPFuYNthmtXtVY8M8g" width="320" /></a></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;"><br /><br /></span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Cambria;">For the past week, I have been out of London, away from home. Far from the madding crowds – and, of course, far from The Queue.</span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I have been with people who were getting on with their daily lives: shop-keepers, restaurant-owners, dog-walkers and holiday-makers.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(Thérèse Coffey, please note: no Oxford comma.)</span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It has all been wonderfully, refreshingly, normal. It has been, you might say, as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened.</span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">True, I have spotted a few – very few, to be honest – Union flags flying at half mast. And the local bakers have put a sign in their window saying that ‘after much deliberation’, they have decided not to open on Monday.</span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In the evenings, I have been watching the TV news. News from afar, from a different country. A country where countless journalists and broadcast executives have at last seen all their years – decades – of preparation pay off. Who can blame them for wanting to make the most of it?</span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">TV cameras love crowds. They love spectacle, especially spectacle for which they can plan so meticulously so far in advance. Uniforms, bands, men in fancy dress wearing Gilbert & Sullivan medals. It’s all totally irresistible.</span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But I don’t mean to sneer. The death of a monarch, especially the death of the only monarch most of us have ever known, is of course an event of major national importance. It is perfectly right and proper that the event itself, its implications, the ceremonial that accompanies it, should all be reported on and analysed.</span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Yet something has been not quite right. I have been barely 130 miles from London, on the north Norfolk coast – not on Mars, or in the furthest reaches of the Scottish Highlands. But it has felt as if the Britain I have been seeing on the TV each evening has not been the same Britain in which I have been enjoying walks along the beach or delicious pub lunches.</span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I fully acknowledge that for many people – probably millions of people – the death of the Queen has been an event of deep sorrow. I also acknowledge that it is a moment of real significance in the history of our realm.</span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But how do we best reflect the true state of a nation in which there are so many different reactions to the same event? It is an unfortunate fact of life that journalists always tend to ignore the mundane, the ordinary – what’s news-worthy about the thousands of planes that don’t crash? The hundreds of MPs who go about their business unsung, uncorrupt? The thousands of NHS patients who, despite everything, get treated promptly and efficiently by caring health workers?</span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">By definition, what we see on the news is the unusual, the out-of-the-ordinary. The people queuing up for countless hours to file past the Queen’s catafalque in Westminster Hall are not ‘ordinary Britons’. They are the opposite. They are – and I hope they won’t mind me saying so – a bit odd.</span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I use the word odd to mean unusual, not to imply that there is anything suspect or untoward about all those men, women and children, young and old, who have been shuffling patiently along the banks of the Thames to the Palace of Westminster. Each will have had their own reasons for being there: a genuine affection for the late Queen; fond memories of a dead grandmother of whom she reminded them; a simple wish to ‘be there’, to create a memory that can be shared with future generations.</span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But they do not represent an entire nation. They are not typical, they do not symbolise a ‘nation united in grief’, or whatever is today’s <i>cliché du jour</i>.</span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Somehow, and I don’t know how, we reporters need to reflect that reality without appearing to mock or belittle.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I reported for the BBC during that crazy week in September twenty-five years ago when the people of Britain seemed to have lost their heads following the death of Princess Diana. Yes, some of them did go completely bonkers – but most did not.</span></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I think we failed to realise it at the time, or to reflect it – and I fear we’re making the same mistake again.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; min-height: 14px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>Robin Lustighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00578195216460807588noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942478546968158905.post-65775998351758480932022-08-17T15:45:00.005+00:002022-08-21T22:09:44.341+00:00Another 'nasty piece of work' in Downing Street?<p><span style="font-size: medium;"> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">It now seems all but certain that the Conservative party are about to elect another unprincipled opportunist as their leader and our prime minister.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Once a Lib Dem, now a Tory. Once a Remainer, now an arch-Brexiteer. A woman who wears flip-flops in her head, not on her feet. And as if all that isn’t bad enough, an out-and-out admirer – or so she says – of the King of Unprincipled Opportunists himself, Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson himself.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">He was, she says, an ‘excellent prime minister.’ He did ‘a fantastic job.’ Which tells us everything we need to know about the soundness of her judgement. She has positioned herself so far from the political mainstream that if the earth were flat, she’d be clinging onto the edge by her fingertips. (Come to think of it, if there were enough flat-earthers in the Tory party to win her the leadership, she’d emerge overnight as a flat-earther herself.)</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">You have to admire, though, her novel approach to winning the support of voters as they face the worst cost of living crisis in living memory. Call them bone idle shirkers, afraid of doing a decent day’s work. Accuse them of having the wrong attitude, especially if they have the misfortune to live outside London. Even Norman ‘Get on yer bike’ Tebbit didn’t go that far.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I bet it goes down a treat in the so-called Red Wall seats, where all those traditional Labour voters turned to the Tories in 2019 because they suddenly realised that Johnson, Rees-Mogg et al were horny-handed sons of toil who chanted ‘Up The Workers’ in their sleep.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Just as they cheered her to the rafters when she came up with the truly genius idea that teachers, nurses and police officers outside London should be paid less than their counterparts in the capital. So unbridled was their enthusiasm that she abandoned the policy within 24 hours. Truly, a woman of conviction.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I can see the election billboards now: ‘We’re a nation full of lazy buggers who don’t deserve what they’re paid. Vote Conservative.’</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Thank goodness the man whom she admires so much knows the meaning of hard work and is still grafting away at his desk in Downing Street. Who could possibly believe the fake news that he’s jetted off on his second overseas holiday this month, even as the removal vans are pictured outside Number 10?</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">What do you mean you’ve seen photos of him shopping in a Greek supermarket? Don’t you know it was the media that forced him to quit? Surely you don’t buy all that stuff about dysfunctional government, rebellious ministers and ungrateful backbenchers?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">What is it about Conservative party members that so attracts them to obvious wrong ’uns? Are they all piling into bitcoins and non-fungible tokens, convinced that they have stumbled on the best sure-fire winner since Tulip Mania swept the Netherlands in the 17</span><span class="s2" style="font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><sup>th</sup></span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"> century, when a single bulb was valued at 10,000 times the price of an average house? (Mind you, if NFTs are good enough for Mike Tyson, who am I to quibble?)</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Liz Truss prides herself on her plain speaking. She is, she says, a proud Yorkshire woman, it apparently having slipped her mind that she was born in Oxford and went to primary school in Scotland before moving to Leeds and then to Canada. (She now represents a constituency in Norfolk, which last time I looked, isn’t in Yorkshire either.)<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">She has learned well at the feet of her mentor. Not Margaret Thatcher, as she would have had us believe when she posed on board that British tank in Estonia. It is Boris Johnson, who developed the art of political shape-shifting so successfully, who has taught her everything she needed to know.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Always tell the punters what they want to hear. Insist that two plus two equal five if it seems politically expedient. Tomorrow, when you are forced to admit that they don’t, claim that it’s only because you always got the big decisions right and delivered on your promises.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Back in 2013, my former BBC colleague Eddie Mair called Boris Johnson, to his face, ‘a nasty piece of work’. On all the available evidence, Liz Truss is another one.</span></span></p>Robin Lustighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00578195216460807588noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942478546968158905.post-20554548771792697882022-05-26T07:39:00.000+00:002022-05-26T07:39:39.701+00:00Sorry, not sorry<p><span style="font-size: medium;"> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Look. He said he was sorry, didn’t he? He didn’t mean it, of course, but at least he said it. What more do you want?</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">He said he took full responsibility. He didn’t mean that either, but hey, what else could he say?</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In fact, there’s a simple rule to follow whenever he opens his mouth. If the sentence begins with the first person pronoun, insert the word ‘not’ before the verb that follows to work out what he actually means.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">‘I will [not] learn lessons from what has happened.’</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">‘I do [not] fully understand people’s anger.’</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">‘I have [not] been as surprised and disappointed as everyone else at what has been revealed.’</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">What the hell did you expect? This is a man, don’t forget, about whom one of his school teachers once wrote: ‘[He] sometimes seems affronted when criticised for what amounts to a gross failure of responsibility … I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception, one who should be free of the network of obligation that binds everyone else.’</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">He is now nearly 58 years old. Do you really think he’s going to change the habits of a lifetime? A man on his third marriage, who has fathered an indeterminate number of children, who has never bothered to buy a suit that actually fits him, and who lies as frequently as he ruffles his hair.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">He insists that he has always said what he believes to be true. Translation: he has always said what he wants us to believe to be true, but not much caring whether we believe him or not. He has been sacked twice for lying, he has a total lack of interest in what most people would regard as basic standards of human decency, yet … Well, you know the rest, don’t you?</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Napoleon is sometimes quoted – or more likely misquoted – as having said that he would rather have a general who was lucky than one who was good. Our man has an unshakeable faith in his own luck, his luck without end, and he has good reason to. Misdeeds that would have sunk virtually anyone else in public life have left him seemingly untouched, the greased piglet who has slipped through everyone’s hands time and time again.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">He can preside over serial law-breaking, day after day, week after week, disgraceful carryings-on under his own nose, yet claim to have had no idea how the ill-disciplined youngsters in his charge were misbehaving after lights out. Yes, from time to time, he would pop his head round the door of the dorms as the kids were having their cocoa but he was shocked – shocked, I tell you -- to discover what mischief they got up to while he was translating ancient Greek texts upstairs.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">He thought he was running a monastic order. How was he to know it was really St Trinians?</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">He is what he has always been, and he will do what he has always done. Anything and everything that he needs to do or say to get through tomorrow. It’s worked perfectly for him up till now – so why shouldn’t it go on working?</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">At first, as you may recall, his story was that nothing had happened. Then it morphed into, well, some of it might have happened, but there was nothing wrong with it. Now, we’ve got to yes, it was awful, but I wasn’t there at the time.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">Macavity, Macavity, there’s no one like Macavity,<br />He’s broken every human law, he breaks the law of gravity.<br />His powers of levitation would make a fakir stare,<br />And when you reach the scene of crime—Macavity’s not there!</span></i></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Ah. I’ve just realised. I haven’t made clear who this is about. But of course, I didn’t need to, because you’ve known all along, haven’t you?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p>Robin Lustighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00578195216460807588noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942478546968158905.post-29469404219352278482022-04-14T15:04:00.000+00:002022-04-14T15:04:42.506+00:00'If you were me, what would you do?'<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Dear Mr Johnson</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: large;">I am a 19-year-old medical student from Sudan. I have just been released from jail, where I spent six months being severely tortured. My passport has been confiscated and I have been warned that because of my political activities as a critic of the current military dictatorship in my country, my life is at risk.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">My father was murdered by members of a pro-government militia group ten years ago. But my uncle is a successful cardiologist who has been living and working in London for many years, and he has offered to sponsor me and support me if I seek asylum in the UK.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">As I no longer have a passport – and as I have no means of obtaining a replacement – the only way I can leave Sudan is by paying smugglers to help me get out illegally. My uncle says he will pay whatever the smugglers charge to bring me to the UK, but I know that the final stage of the journey will be in a rubber boat across the English Channel.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I also know that the UK does not accept asylum applications made from outside the UK, and I have read that you now intend to deport asylum seekers who arrive in the UK via ‘unofficial’ routes to Rwanda.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I have no wish to live in Rwanda, so my question to you is this: if you were me, what would you do? As far as I can see, your government has provided no ‘safe and legal way’ for me to apply for asylum in the UK.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In other words, you have made it totally impossible for me – and for thousands like me – to seek sanctuary in your country. I can only conclude that even though the UK is a founding signatory to the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees, this has been your deliberate intention all along.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But here’s the thing: I’m still going to try. I shall just have to hope that the smugglers will find some way to get me into the UK without anyone noticing. I’ll stay with my uncle, out of sight, and hope that somehow I’ll be able to make a new life for myself. Despair does that to people: it convinces us that anything is better than giving up hope.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So please, Mr Johnson, think again. Your plan won’t work, it won’t keep us out. It probably means I’ll never be a doctor, though.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Which is a shame, both for you and for me.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Calibri; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">(Author’s note: this is an imagined case study based on current UK government policy as I understand it.)</span></i></span></p>Robin Lustighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00578195216460807588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942478546968158905.post-10338645540466638282022-04-05T08:08:00.000+00:002022-04-05T08:08:51.033+00:00Refugees' Tales<p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">The following article appears in the latest newsletter of the human rights organisation Waging Peace, which campaigns on behalf of Sudanese asylum-seekers and refugees. To find out more about their work, click <a href="https://wagingpeace.info/">here</a>.</span></i></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></i></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><i></i></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9-VNW_0_cUFlfIha8ucWV4I47HdNQy0g8ks8Ai8XPBDG3f5NeedyXmg13339AJjjkX5pD4RTyMZQ0wYpsZ0cBt2wj9h1I1U-aOTCOEwuYZXRWXc_L59PqWF9z-gPLqBMEUUi6-4Y7ddoyvIrpAsTvVQrM6mcWWTw39GIQLG3-F8gqhYnj2NafKxB5FA/s4032/%25jvTI3dESGi+V5K3vycdEA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9-VNW_0_cUFlfIha8ucWV4I47HdNQy0g8ks8Ai8XPBDG3f5NeedyXmg13339AJjjkX5pD4RTyMZQ0wYpsZ0cBt2wj9h1I1U-aOTCOEwuYZXRWXc_L59PqWF9z-gPLqBMEUUi6-4Y7ddoyvIrpAsTvVQrM6mcWWTw39GIQLG3-F8gqhYnj2NafKxB5FA/s320/%25jvTI3dESGi+V5K3vycdEA.jpg" width="240" /></a></i></span></div><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><i><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></i></span><p></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Imagine an 18-year-old girl, living alone with her mother, desperate to flee to safety to escape a genocidal regime.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">She and her mother both apply for asylum in the UK. The 18-year-old is lucky: a relative in London offers to sponsor her, but her mother, aged 42, is ruled to be too old to be allowed in.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The teenage girl was my mother, who fled from Nazi Germany in July 1939. I have her German passport in front of me as I write. It was issued by the Nazis with a large red J for Jew on the first page. Inside is a stamp that reads <i>‘Leave to land granted at Southampton this day on condition that the holder registers at once with the police and does not enter any employment other than as a resident in service in a private household.’</i></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Her mother had to stay behind in Germany. War broke out five weeks later, and in 1942, she was deported to Lithuania and murdered. I thought of her when I heard Michael Gove boast in the House of Commons the other day that ‘our country has a long and proud history of supporting the most vulnerable during their darkest hour.’</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Here’s another story: this time, the refugee is a 20-year-old man who arrives in England on his own from Berlin, having left his parents behind. With the help of a relative, he finds a family of academics in Cambridge who take him in and arrange a job for him as a builder’s labourer. Fourteen months later he is arrested and interned on the Isle of Man as an ‘enemy alien.’<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">After just six weeks, he is released and allowed to enlist in the British army. He ends up working in a top-secret military intelligence unit, which is where he meets his wife-to-be.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">That man was my father, and in 1989, fifty years after he and my mother arrived in England, they threw a huge ‘thank you’ party for all their friends. They never forgot that they owed their lives to Britain – but nor did they forget the thousands of others who never made it. (Footnote: my father’s parents managed to get out of Germany in 1940, and spent the war years in Portugal.)</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Now fast forward to 2003, when a 42-year-old man – the same age as my German Jewish grandmother – fled from his homeland after being captured and tortured by another genocidal regime. He made it to the UK, where, like my parents, he made a life for himself and eventually became a British citizen. His wife and two sons, who had stayed behind, were all murdered, and in January last year, on a return visit to his home country, he was shot dead during an armed attack by a pro-government militia.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">His name was Sharif Barko and he came from the Darfur region of western Sudan. (You may remember that at one time the Darfur genocide was a big news story, but by the time Sharif died, it had been all but forgotten.)<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And in case you’re wondering what’s happening in Sudan now, there are still more than two million people displaced by the Darfur war; the UN has just warned that up to 18 million people could be facing extreme hunger within months, and there’s been an upsurge in violence since the military coup last October.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Today, an alleged former commander of the notorious Janjaweed militia is due to go on trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, facing 31 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-al-Rahman is accused of being implicated in the murders of more than 300 people.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But now, of course, it’s Ukraine that is in the headlines. More than four million – four million! – refugees have fled the country since Russia invaded in February: two million of them are in Poland; 640,000 in Romania; 370,000 in Moldova, the poorest country in Europe; 270,000 in the Czech Republic; and 240,000 in Germany.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Like my parents, and like Sharif Barko, they all fled in fear of their lives. They sought sanctuary wherever they could find it – and to their immense credit, the 27 members of the European Union threw open their doors and offered unrestricted access to all of them, including residence and work permits, housing, health care and education.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Not the UK, though. By the end of last month, the UK had issued a desultory 25,000 visas. The government’s record is utterly shameful, and it stands in sharp contrast to the outpouring of support from the British people: nearly 200,000 offers of accommodation and more than £260 million raised for the Disasters Emergency Committee Ukraine appeal.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Instead of welcoming refugees, which Michael Gove would have us believe is our ‘long and proud history’, the government is now proposing to make it all but impossible for them to get here. Under the terms of its controversial Nationality and Borders Bill (aka the Anti-Refugee Bill), many of those fleeing from war or persecution would be sent to off-shore camps to wait for their asylum applications to be processed, or even stripped of their right to seek asylum if they are deemed to have arrived in the UK by ‘irregular’ means.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So why one rule for Ukrainians and another for everyone else? Take a bow, Sir Bill Wiggin, the old Etonian Tory MP for North Herefordshire. ‘We want Ukrainians and we want Qataris, but we don’t want people in rubber boats,’ he said last week. No one from Iran, Iraq or Afghanistan in other words. No one from Eritrea or Syria.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And no one, of course, from Sudan. No one like Sharif Barko. No one – how can I put it? – who doesn’t have white skin.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Or a few million dollars in the bank.</span></span></p>Robin Lustighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00578195216460807588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942478546968158905.post-56763251882436289122022-03-05T13:21:00.000+00:002022-03-05T13:21:01.875+00:00Ukraine: the best and the worst of us<p><span style="font-size: medium;"> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Wars – all wars – inevitably show humanity at its worst. They show that we are capable of unimaginable cruelty and barbarity, causing unimaginable grief and suffering.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But wars also show humanity at its best. Thousands, tens of thousands, of ordinary people, men and women, reaching out to help their fellow humans in their hour of need.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The war in Ukraine is no different, and it has set me thinking about past wars, in particular the last war that rendered Europe asunder, the one that consumed our continent between 1939 and 1945.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Only the very oldest among us now remember that war, but most of us will have heard the stories, from parents or grandparents who lived through it. Stories of bravery, fortitude, and defiance, as well as of death and destruction on an unprecedented scale.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The stories today that fill our screens and front pages are no different. We see the smoking rubble of destroyed cities, and the tear-stained faces of terrified civilians.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But we also see the volunteers at the Ukrainian-Polish border, welcoming hundreds of thousands of refugees with offers of food and shelter. We see the hundreds of Berliners waiting at the city’s main railway station with cardboard signs offering accommodation to fleeing Ukrainian families.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And we see the grim humour of Ukrainians under attack, exactly the same humour that in another age, in another place, was called the ‘Blitz spirit’. The short wave radio hackers blasting out the Ukrainian national anthem on wavelengths being used by the Russian military; the Ukrainian motorist helpfully offering to tow a broken-down Russian tank back to Russia.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">At an institutional level, we see the EU lifting all visa restrictions for Ukrainian refugees. We see British MPs giving a standing ovation to the Ukrainian ambassador, even as the UK government proves shamefully incapable of rising to the occasion.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Both my parents were refugees. They fled from Nazi Germany in 1939, made their homes in the UK and never failed to voice their gratitude for the welcome they found here. But nor did they forget the hostility they also encountered: the visit from the police when my mother was denounced by someone in a pub who had heard her talking with a German accent, the abuse from local people on the Isle of Man when my father was interned there as an ‘enemy alien’.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">My maternal grandmother was refused asylum in the UK, was deported to Lithuania by the Nazis in 1941 and murdered at the Ninth Fort in Kaunas, shot by an execution squad made up of Lithuanian partisans. (Many Lithuanians backed the Nazis because they believed that they would restore their independence after the Soviet invasion in 1940.)</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">When I visited the site of my grandmother’s murder some years ago, my guide was one of the very few Lithuanian Jews still left in the country. (Before the war, Jews made up about 7% of Lithuania’s population. Today, they are estimated to total 0.1%.)</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And he told me how his mother and her family had spent the war years being sheltered by non-Jewish farmers, who hid them in the full knowledge that if they were discovered, they would all be killed.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The best of humanity, and the worst, side by side.</span></span></p>Robin Lustighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00578195216460807588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942478546968158905.post-25243113385680876692021-11-29T13:05:00.000+00:002021-11-29T13:05:54.235+00:00Refugees: A few useful facts<p><span style="color: #494949; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">Did you know … ?</span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #494949; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none; font-size: large;">There is <i>no legal way</i> to travel to the UK for the specific purpose of seeking asylum. </span><span class="s2" style="color: black; font-kerning: none; font-size: large;">People must be physically present in the UK to claim asylum. </span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none; font-size: large;">(There is no such thing as a ‘refugee visa’ and UK embassies cannot process asylum applications.)</span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #494949; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="color: #494949; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">International refugee law <i>does not require</i> that people claim asylum in the first safe country they enter. Anyone has the right to apply for asylum in any country that has signed the 1951 UN Refugee Convention and to remain there until the authorities have assessed their claim.</span></span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #494949; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="color: #494949; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Article 31 of the Convention says that recognised refugees <i>should not be penalised</i> for illegal entry or presence in a host country if they are fleeing persecution in another country.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></p><p class="p2" style="color: #494949; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">86% of the world’s refugees are in countries that neighbour their own country of origin. In Turkey, for example, there are an estimated 3.7 million refugees from Syria. In Pakistan, there are an estimated 1.4 million from Afghanistan.</span></span></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In 2002, 84,132 people applied for asylum in the UK. In the year ending September 2021, the number was 37,562.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><i></i></span><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">In 2020, there were around 6 asylum applications for every 10,000 people living in the UK. Across the EU, there were 11 applications for every 10,000 people. When compared with EU countries, the UK ranked 14th in terms of asylum applications per head of population.</span></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: large;">All these facts are easily accessible online, most of them in briefing papers prepared by the House of Commons Library.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The home secretary, Priti Patel, is well aware of them. She chooses to ignore them. Perhaps you should make sure that your MP is aware of them as well.</span></span></p>Robin Lustighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00578195216460807588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942478546968158905.post-24831404120585434492021-05-13T08:23:00.002+00:002021-05-13T08:31:33.542+00:00The roots of Palestinian anger<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-align: left;">Why have Palestinians erupted into violence yet again?</span></div><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px; text-align: start;">Let us count the ways:<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px; text-align: start;"><span style="text-indent: -18px;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px; text-align: start;"><span style="text-indent: -18px;">Because Palestinian families in the east Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, which has been under Israeli occupation for more than 50 years, are facing forcible eviction to make way for Jewish settlers.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px; text-align: start;"><span style="text-indent: -18px;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px; text-align: start;"><span style="text-indent: -18px;">Because Israeli security forces prevented Palestinian worshippers from gathering at the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem to mark the final days of the holy month of Ramadan.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px; text-align: start;"><span style="text-indent: -18px;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px; text-align: start;"><span style="text-indent: -18px;">Because during the coronavirus pandemic, they have seen Israel praised around the world for its stunning vaccine successes, while they waited in vain.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px; text-align: start;"><span style="text-indent: -18px;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px; text-align: start;"><span style="text-indent: -18px;">Because the Trump administration moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, a city whose status is still to be resolved, and helped to negotiate so-called peace accords, over the heads of the Palestinians, between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. </span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="text-indent: -18px;"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">In other words, because they feel forgotten and ignored. For more than half a century, they have lived under military occupation and the world has moved on. Even their own leaders treat them with contempt: elections scheduled for later this month have now been ‘suspended indefinitely’. They would have been the first such elections for fifteen years; President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah group were widely expected to be defeated if the polls had gone ahead.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">As for Hamas, the Iranian-backed Islamist group which has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007, the rising tensions could not have come at a more opportune moment. President Abbas is now 85 years old and widely regarded as presiding over a grotesquely ineffective and corrupt Palestinian administration, and Hamas’s sponsors in Tehran are keen to flex their muscles during difficult negotiations over reinstating the nuclear non-proliferation deal that was ripped up by President Trump.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Hamas’s heartless cynicism matches that of the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It knows that the only way it can capture the world’s attention is by unleashing barrages of largely ineffective rockets into Israel in the full knowledge that it will provoke a fearsome Israeli military response and TV images of Gaza under bombardment yet again.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">For decades, the official Israeli mindset regarding Palestinian resistance to its military occupation has been that of a heavyweight boxer raining punches against an opponent already on the ropes. It is convinced that when the punishment becomes too much to bear, the opponent will surrender.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">It didn’t work for the French in Algeria or the Americans in Vietnam. The Russians in Chechnya and the Chinese in Tibet and Xinjiang have tried the same tactic; perhaps it has worked better for them.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Many Israelis, probably most Israelis, have been happy to live with the status quo. They can go about their daily lives untroubled by the festering sore that is the unresolved conflict with their neighbours. Now, after years of a steady slide to the extreme right in the Israeli parliament, gangs of Jewish lynch mobs are reported to be on the rampage against Arab targets, smashing shop windows and pulling drivers from their cars. (Twenty per cent of Israeli citizens are Arabs.)</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">It is as ugly as it has ever been.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">I have been following the Israel-Palestinian conflict for more than 35 years, ever since I was based in Jerusalem as Middle East correspondent for <i>The Observer </i>in the mid-1980s. I used to live less than a five-minute drive away from Sheikh Jarrah and returned frequently during the 1990s and 2000s to report for the BBC.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">In October 2000, at the start of what became known as the Second Intifada, I was in Nazareth, Israel’s largest Arab city, when 13 Arab Israeli civilians were shot dead by Israeli police. I wrote a <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/969442.stm">piece</a> at the time in which I reported that what worried me most then was ‘what seems to be a total loss of confidence on both sides in the idea that problems can be solved by negotiation.’</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: Verdana; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Since then, things have got much, much worse. We can argue for ever over who fired the first shot or the first rocket, and who retaliated for what. It will do no good, and Palestinians and Israelis – far more of the former than the latter – will continue to die.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Many years ago, a senior Israeli peace negotiator – in the days when such people still existed – told me that the conflict would not end until both sides had tired of killing each other’s children.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">I would put it another way: the conflict will not end until Israelis accept that they cannot continue to oppress Palestinians indefinitely.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></p></div>Robin Lustighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00578195216460807588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942478546968158905.post-61997915340793952292021-03-09T17:14:00.004+00:002021-03-10T12:42:08.149+00:00Meghan and Harry: my tuppenceworth<p> </p><div style="text-align: left;">Henry VIII learnt it the hard way. So did the Duke of Windsor. And Princess Margaret. And Prince Charles. And now, so have Harry and Meghan.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">You can't be royal and have what you want. It's written in the job spec: 'You will have riches galore, a life of immense privilege, people bowing and scraping wherever you go -- and you will be miserable.'</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">In fact, there is a way out if you don't want to sign on the dotted line: you keep your head down and get on with your life. Peter Phillips and Zara Tyndall, the children of Princess Anne, and therefore, like Harry, the Queen's grandchildren, are a good example.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Meghan Markle's big mistake was to imagine that she could bend the Firm to her wishes. Harry, who should have known better, seems to have agreed, despite his older brother's apparent warnings. Their mother, Diana, had no idea what she was getting into when she married Charles; Meghan had no such excuse.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It is difficult to imagine two cultures less likely to be able to coexist than California and Clarence House, the official residence of Harry's Dad, the future King.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">California: the cult of the individual, wear your heart on your sleeve, happiness is a basic human right.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Clarence House: duty and tradition, first and last. Stiff upper lip, never apologise, emotions to be kept firmly behind closed doors.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">As for struggles with mental health, this, remember, is a family which institutionalised two of the Queen's first cousins and airbrushed them from history. Katherine and Nerissa Bowes-Lyon were the daughters of the Queen's uncle, the Queen Mother's brother, and -- as viewers of <i>The Crown </i>will recall -- they both suffered from profound learning difficulties and were in effect abandoned by the royal family. (Nerissa died in 1986 and Katherine in 2014.)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">No wonder Meghan, like Diana before her, found that her pleas for help fell on deaf ears. No one who knows anything about the history of the family she married into should have been surprised.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">As for racism, well, hello? Where have you been? Yes, it is shocking that an as yet unidentified family member should have regarded it as perfectly appropriate to speculate in Harry's presence about the likely skin colour of the couple's unborn child. But surprising? Not at all.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Which brings us to the nauseating hypocrisy of the tabloid newspapers. It is Meghan's great misfortune to have been cast as their latest royal target <i>du choix, </i>following in the unhappy footsteps of Princess Anne, who was pilloried in her youth as 'her royal rudeness'; Sarah Ferguson ('her royal idleness' and 'freeloading Fergie') and Princess Diana, whose brother described her after her death as 'the most hunted person of the modern age.'</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The royal family, their many failings and their unerring inability to understand modern Britain, are grist to the tabloid mill. Whoever expressed misgivings about the unborn Archie's likely skin colour clearly has yet to come to terms with living in a racially diverse society. Tabloid editors know that, but prefer to aim their guns at Meghan for 'disgracefully smearing' the entire Firm.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Not that Meghan and Harry can escape without taking their share of responsibility for the way their relationship with the Firm has disintegrated. Judging by her remarks to Oprah Winfrey, Meghan made little effort to understand the rules governing which titles are granted to which royal offspring, or when the taxpayer can be expected to pick up the tab for their personal security.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Perhaps they thought that in a country where the prime minister believes in having his cake and eating it, they should be similarly entitled.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The historian <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/09/harry-and-meghan-interview-this-is-not-just-a-crisis-for-the-royal-family-but-for-britain-itself">David Olusoga</a> put it well in <i>The Guardian: </i>'Trapped in denial -- about everyday racism, structural racism, slavery and empire -- there are parts of British society that appear incapable not just of change but even of its necessary precursor: honest self-reflection.'</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">No one would ever accuse either the tabloids or the royal family of an excessive propensity for honest self-reflection. And two unhappy young people, each of them the product of a seriously dysfunctional family, are paying the price.</div>Robin Lustighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00578195216460807588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942478546968158905.post-88848549270094167732020-08-12T13:33:00.009+00:002021-03-09T13:44:56.464+00:00Some thoughts on who we are<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0teCOIRm5Cu0F8ZuJDqH1oLwTNglvfWaaunE8xATr68zSnwFffy13VAdwtvDSBb8xWj6Wban_SMBnHJ1ppsyHEc1b7vvV0NvcqVdVUNYSp4dQCoDlCmcTuTYIupG3_s186DIGB3xRMjmF/s284/migrants.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="177" data-original-width="284" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0teCOIRm5Cu0F8ZuJDqH1oLwTNglvfWaaunE8xATr68zSnwFffy13VAdwtvDSBb8xWj6Wban_SMBnHJ1ppsyHEc1b7vvV0NvcqVdVUNYSp4dQCoDlCmcTuTYIupG3_s186DIGB3xRMjmF/s0/migrants.jpeg" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">First, some facts.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;">There is no such thing as an illegal asylum-seeker. Under the terms of the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees, anyone is entitled to seek asylum if ‘owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of [their] nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail [themselves] of the protection of that country.’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;">There is no law that says they have to apply for asylum in the first country they escape to. The vast majority do, however, which is why there are nearly 3.7 million refugees in Turkey (from Syria), 1.4 million in Pakistan (from Afghanistan) and 1.2 million in Uganda (mostly from South Sudan or the Democratic Republic of Congo).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;">The much-cited EU Dublin Regulation – which will anyway cease to apply in the UK at the end of this year – applies only to which country should deal with an application for asylum, not where that application should be made.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;">There is no law that says asylum-seekers have to enter a country legally. For obvious reasons, if you pause to consider why they are seeking asylum in the first place.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;">The UK is not suffering a refugee crisis. Last year, there were 35,566 applications for asylum – in 2002, the number was 84,000. Far fewer, incidentally, than in either Germany (161,900) or France (114,500).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;">The UK is not being invaded. The total number of refugees and asylum-seekers (2018) living in the UK is around 170,000, approximately one quarter of one per cent of the total UK population. And if the government can happily offer residence rights to up to three million people from Hong Kong who have British National Overseas status, it is hard to see why the four thousand desperate people who have crossed the Channel so far this year represent a ‘national crisis’.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;">It is important to be clear about this: crossing the Channel in a rubber dinghy is exceedingly dangerous. The fact that people are prepared to pay thousands of dollars to ruthless smugglers for the opportunity to drown at sea tells you all you need to know about the desperate straits in which they find themselves.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;">As it happens, I have seen migration smugglers in action. Not in northern France, but in Mexico, where I observed desperate young men from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador risk their lives by leaping on board a moving freight train – they called it <i>La Bestia </i>(The Beast) – which they hoped would help them cross the border into the US.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;">I noticed, however, that a couple of them didn’t even try to board the train as it lumbered by. Why not? Because they were in the pay of the smugglers, who employed them to extort payment from their fellow-migrants before they were ‘allowed’ to take up position by the side of the tracks. Venality is not the sole preserve of heartless governments, and we should never under-estimate the potential for cruelty of our fellow-humans.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;">To me, this all feels very personal. In 1939, my maternal grandmother, a Jew living in Nazi Germany, applied for refugee status in both the US and the UK. Neither application was successful, and in 1941, she was murdered by a Nazi death squad. (The full story is <a href="https://www.wanderingscribes.com/single-post/2014/07/27/Honouring-Ilse-Cohn-18971941">here.</a>) If she had had the chance to clamber onto a rubber dinghy to find her way to safety, I very much hope she would have taken it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;">We are not who we think we are. We are a mixed up jumble of peoples, ethnicities, cultures and memories. When we use the word ‘we’, we think we know who we mean. People like me. People who look like me, and think like me. People who ‘belong’ here.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;">It is a dangerous delusion. What we share is a common humanity, not the same skin colour or religious identity. Look at the top four names on the official list of UK government ministers: Boris Johnson, whose paternal grandfather was born Osmal Kemal and who is descended on his mother’s side from Munich-born Hubert Freiherr von Pfeffel and Hélène Arnous-Rivière; Rishi Sunak, son of Kenyan-born Yashvir and Tanzanian-born Usha; Dominic Raab, whose Jewish father fled to the UK from Czechoslovakia in 1938; and Priti Patel, whose parents, of Gujarati origin, came to Britain from Uganda.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;">Which brings me to Kamala Harris (it’s KAM-ala, by the way, as in PAM-ela) who has been chosen by the US Democratic Party’s presidential candidate Joe Biden to be his running-mate in November’s election. She’s the daughter of a Jamaican father and an Indian mother, and if the Biden-Harris tickets wins, she’ll then be in pole position to become the first woman to win the White House in 2024.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;">Barack Obama’s father, of course, was Kenyan. Winston Churchill’s mother was American. EasyJet was founded by Stelios Haji-Ioannou, and Tesco by Jack Cohen, whose father was a Jewish immigrant from Poland.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Who knows what future entrepreneurs, national leaders, millionaires, are on those rubber dinghies, bobbing so dangerously across the Channel? Who knows what their children and grandchildren might achieve if given the chance?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;">So let’s hear it for the immigrants. And the refugees. And the asylum-seekers. And if you want to do more to help fight their corner, or simply learn more about them, let me recommend two charities: <a href="https://www.justgiving.com/refugeesathome">Refugees at Home</a>, and <a href="https://www.refugee-action.org.uk/">Refugee Action.</a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", serif;"> </span></p>Robin Lustighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00578195216460807588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942478546968158905.post-14736352553882035052020-06-10T11:20:00.000+00:002020-06-10T11:20:07.044+00:00Some thoughts on statues and legacies<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoj6FOuzrlxDCo9tDVfWvVPLgUKLEPVzhmLrgEWQ_BXYbj9V82eyX-CcqLD8jlqK1foIfUrxUZp8RKbPqAbRdQ8wspfjXhjCKy-D_yMWi0sNJjVcvscH7GnL1Z4x-8oKC2uKvE0RWH0SfI/s266/Equiano.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="190" data-original-width="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoj6FOuzrlxDCo9tDVfWvVPLgUKLEPVzhmLrgEWQ_BXYbj9V82eyX-CcqLD8jlqK1foIfUrxUZp8RKbPqAbRdQ8wspfjXhjCKy-D_yMWi0sNJjVcvscH7GnL1Z4x-8oKC2uKvE0RWH0SfI/" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Statues are symbols, and what they symbolise is respect. If we put up a statue to someone, it means we respect them, either for their character or for their achievements.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Sometimes, admittedly, it just means they did a job with an impressive title. King, Queen, General, Prime Minister. Or that someone, at a particular moment in history, wanted to demonstrate their admiration for, or loyalty to, whoever was to be commemorated in perpetuity.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Statues are interesting for what they tell us about the values thought to be important at different times. They are rarely great works of art, so if they are worth preserving, it is usually for their historical significance rather than for their artistic worth.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Why are there so few statues in our towns and cities of women? Or of people of colour? Because in the days when paying for statues to be erected in public places was the done thing, women and people of colour were not recognised as worthy of respect.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">By removing statues of slave traders or brutal colonialists, we are not removing history. We are re-assessing legacy, which is very different. It is a sad reflection of how deficient is the teaching of British history in our schools that more children will have learnt of Britain’s role in the slave trade in the days since the long overdue toppling of Edward Colston in Bristol than in any number of history lessons at school.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">(Incidentally, the inscription on the base of the Colston statue said it was ‘a memorial of one of the most virtuous and wise sons of the city’. It is worth pondering those words, written nearly 175 years after his death. Virtuous? Wise?)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">We need to acknowledge our past. The <a href="https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/international-slavery-museum">International Slavery Museum</a> in Liverpool is one example of how we can do it. Perhaps the Colston statue should have been found a place there. At the very least, we should ensure that every surviving statue of someone with a gruesome record is accompanied by an information board spelling out the truth of their record.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">And perhaps a new statue should be erected to take the place of Edward Colston in Bristol. Someone like Olaudah Equiano (above), the former slave who became a leading anti-slavery campaigner in the late 18<sup>th</sup> century. Or Mary Prince, another former slave and pro-abolition campaigner, who in 1831 became the first black woman to publish an autobiography in England.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">People who are genuinely worthy of respect and admiration.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Robin Lustighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00578195216460807588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942478546968158905.post-90713585781332907812020-05-11T16:12:00.000+00:002020-05-11T16:50:22.823+00:00Covid-19: the Reagan-Thatcher legacy<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I was born three years after the end of the Second World War. From that day to this, with the brief but bloody exception of the wars in the Balkans in the early 1990s, Europe has been at peace. Seventy-five years: a record in the continent’s turbulent history.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">So for my generation, and for those who came after us, the coronavirus crisis is the first major national upheaval in our lifetimes. There has been no shortage of crises – the Suez crisis of 1956; the Cuban missile crisis of 1962; the oil crisis of 1973-4 and the government-mandated three-day week; the widespread public sector strikes during the winter of discontent in 1978-9; and more recently, the global financial melt-down of 2007-8.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">But nothing to compare with what we are facing now. No wonder so many of us are finding it difficult to cope. And no wonder our political leaders are at a total loss – this is way beyond anything they ever imagined they might have to deal with. As far as I know, a PPE degree from Oxford (remember the days when PPE stood for Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, not Personal Protective Equipment?) has no modules devoted to global public health emergencies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Inevitably, Matt Hancock, the UK’s hapless health secretary, did PPE. So did the chancellor, Rishi Sunak. Boris Johnson, famously, did Classics. Dominic Raab studied Law; Michael Gove did English.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Oh for a doctor or two, like Leo Varadkar, the Irish Taoiseach, or Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission. There are, in fact, eight Tory MPs who are qualified doctors (including Liam Fox), but not one of them is in government. As far as I can see, Rosena Allin-Khan is the only doctor on the Labour benches; Keir Starmer has sensibly appointed her to his shadow health team. (Her boss, though, is Jonathan Ashworth, who, inevitably, studied politics and philosophy.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">All of which is to say that Ministers are way out of their depth. And it is painfully, excruciatingly, obvious. The prime minister’s TV statement on Sunday night, and his statement in the House of Commons this afternoon, did nothing other than to confuse an already confused population by demonstrating his notorious inability to focus on detail.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I can now go to a local park as often as I like. But I can’t meet up with my two adult children or my two baby grandchildren, even if we stay two metres apart. I am allowed, however, to meet up with one of them at a time. Don’t anyone dare try to tell me that this nonsense comes from ‘following the science.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">According to the <a href="https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/question-and-answers-hub/q-a-detail/q-a-coronaviruses" target="_blank">World Health Organisation</a>, ‘coronavirus droplets are relatively heavy, do not travel far and quickly sink to the ground.’ That’s why we’re told to stay two metres away from people who aren’t members of our household. But if we’re relatively safe two metres away from one person, we must be equally safe two metres away from two people. Or four, or six, or ten.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">We baby-boomers used to be called the luckiest generation in history: no wars to be killed in, the NHS, free education up to and including university, jobs galore, and a steadily rising housing market. Now we’re called ‘vulnerable’ and told we’re not allowed to see our grandchildren. Not so lucky any more.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">And if you’re wondering why the US and UK, two of the richest countries in the world, have ended up with two of the worst anti-Covid records, I would suggest you look back at the political and economic philosophies of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Small government, low taxes, squeezed public services, and private enterprise left to pick up the pieces. The tens of thousands of Covid-19 deaths are, in no small part, their legacy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Both Donald Trump and Boris Johnson were culpably, unforgivably slow to acknowledge that urgent government action was required to confront the coronavirus pandemic. Their instinct was to sit back and let the virus do what viruses do: kill people and burn themselves out. The results are there for us all to see: in our hospitals, care homes, mortuaries and graveyards. History will damn them for both their indolence and their incompetence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Robin Lustighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00578195216460807588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942478546968158905.post-1873540075761651482020-04-15T08:06:00.000+00:002020-04-15T08:06:21.520+00:00How free speech saves lives<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Little did I think, when I started work on my series of radio documentaries about the future of free speech, that I would end up with the starkest of conclusions: that restrictions on free speech can cause tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">As I said in the last programme of the series, broadcast today on the BBC World Service and available online <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3ct074d" target="_blank">here</a>, the coronavirus pandemic is proof what can happen when free speech is denied us. The reasoning is inescapable: if doctors in the Chinese city of Wuhan (population: 11 million) who first identified the new virus had been free to speak out, we would not now be where we are.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">(If you missed the earlier episodes in the series, they are all available <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w27vq73z/episodes/player" target="_blank">here</a>.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Perhaps you still remember the case of Dr Li Wenliang, who on 30 December last year sent a message to his medical school alumni group on the WeChat social media site warning them that seven patients at his hospital in Wuhan had been placed in isolation after being diagnosed with a SARS-like virus. He was detained for ‘spreading rumours’ and forced to sign a statement promising to stop his ‘illegal behaviour’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Li died on 7 February, having contracted the virus himself. He was 33 years old.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Why am I so sure that if the authorities had not tried to gag him and his colleagues, thousands of lives would have been saved? Because a <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.03.20029843v3" target="_blank">detailed study</a> published by Southampton University lays it out with crystal clarity: if China had taken immediate action as soon as the Wuhan doctors raised the alarm, the number of cases would have been reduced by 95 per cent.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">95 per cent.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Instead, they waited until 23 January before they put Wuhan into lockdown. It was, of course, far too late – more than 500 infections had already been reported, including in the US, Taiwan, Japan, Thailand and South Korea. Most worrying for those of us living in the UK, between the date of Dr Li’s warning and the Wuhan lockdown, 17 flights had arrived in the UK direct from Wuhan, and 600 more from elsewhere in China.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Freedom of speech has long been regarded as a basic human right. If you heard the first programme in my series, you will have heard me standing awe-struck in front of the original copy of the First Amendment to the US constitution, in the US National Archive in Washington DC. It’s the one that every journalist has engraved on their heart: ‘Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech or of the press ...’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">I started the series worried that free speech was coming under increasing pressure from a variety of sources: authoritarian governments in Russia, China, Turkey, India, Brazil, Hungary and many other places; identitarian lobby groups seeking to close down debate on issues that risked offending or upsetting some people’s sense of identity; and the social media titans whose all-seeing algorithms increasingly dictate the parameters of what we are shown online.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">But by the time we had finished making all five programmes in the series – luckily, our overseas reporting trips just beat the coronavirus clamp-down – I was even more worried. I discovered that my anxiety is widely shared, but that there is still no real agreement on how best to protect our right to free speech.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">As I said at the end of the last programme: ‘Of one thing I am more convinced than ever. Free speech is a precious human right – but we do need to handle it responsibly to ensure that it is never taken away from us. The coronavirus pandemic is proof of what can happen when it is denied us.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Robin Lustighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00578195216460807588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942478546968158905.post-42449318705783179742020-03-29T14:05:00.001+00:002020-03-29T14:05:22.896+00:00My viral thoughts<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Speaking during a news conference on 12 August, 1986, the US president Ronald Reagan famously said: ‘The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help.’ (Source: <a href="http://reaganfoundation.org/">reaganfoundation.org</a></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Not any more, they’re not. Delete and replace: ‘I’m from the Government, and there’s no help available.’ </span><i><span lang="LA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">O tempora, o mores</span></i><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">. </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Small government good, big government bad? Heavens above, where on earth did that idea come from? Hey, we’re all Big Spenders now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">And quite right, too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Oh, and while we’re demolishing hoary old nostrums, remember Theresa May telling an underpaid nurse ‘There’s no magic money tree’? Well, yes, there is, actually, and there always was. It’s just that until the coronavirus appeared, governments preferred to use it to bail out the banks and pay for nonsenses such as the woefully-misnamed independent nuclear deterrent. (Four nuclear-armed submarines, each capable of carrying 40 nuclear warheads. Cost: £5 billion per year.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">As <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/magic-money-tree-will-cost-the-tories-dear-txn7bxwk2" target="_blank">Matthew Parris</a> correctly asked in <i>The Times: </i>‘Doesn’t the apparent discovery of a magic money tree kick the props from beneath the most potent and persuasive of all Conservative beliefs: that there is no magic money tree? … The Tories had better brace themselves for serious questions about how we can [find the cash] for a virus but not to save a shipyard, or the planet from climate change. Or double the future capacity of our hospitals, or prison modernisation plans, or legal aid limits, or nurses’ and carers’ wages.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Precisely so. Parris, with whom I rarely disagree, is a life-long Conservative from the humane, thinking wing of his party, but for him, watching Rishi Sunak turn on the Treasury taps at full throttle is akin to a devoted Catholic watching in horror as the Pope announces he intends to get married.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Government spending is about political choices, not magic money trees. Ministers spend tax-payers’ money on what they think is important, and what they think is important depends on their political philosophy. By their spending choices shall ye know them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Exhibit A, courtesy of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/27/advice-on-protective-gear-for-nhs-staff-was-rejected-owing-to-cost" target="_blank">Harry Davies</a> in <i>The Guardian: </i>‘Documents show that officials working under former health secretary Jeremy Hunt told medical advisers three years ago to “reconsider” a formal recommendation that eye protection should be provided to all healthcare professionals who have close contact with pandemic influenza patients.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">‘The expert advice was watered down after an “economic assessment” found a medical recommendation about providing visors or safety glasses to all hospital, ambulance and social care staff who have close contact with pandemic influenza patients would “substantially increase” the costs of stockpiling.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Exhibit B, courtesy of <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/what-price-saving-us-from-the-next-pandemic-3g0zcq806?utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=newsletter_119&utm_medium=email&utm_content=119_9020036&CMP=TNLEmail_118918_9020036_119" target="_blank">David Aaronovitch</a> in<i> The Times: </i>‘Four years ago, the independent Commission on a Global Health Risk Framework for the Future issued a report on how something like a flu epidemic could kill millions, cost trillions and derail the global economy. It recommended an annual expenditure in the US of $4.5 billion on prevention, detection and preparedness for such an event.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Last September the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board published an expert report warning that “the threat of a pandemic spreading around the globe is a real one – a quick-moving pathogen has the potential to kill tens of millions of people, disrupt economies, and destabilise national security.” Its chairwoman Gro Harlem Brundtland characterised world leaders’ approach as being a “cycle of panic and neglect.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Ministers chose to ignore the warnings. Just as local councillors chose to ignore the warnings about dangerous materials being used in cladding for tower blocks. And the warnings about flood risks unless money was spent on flood protection. And the warnings about climate change. I could go on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Who woulda thunk it? Experts know their stuff. When they publish carefully-researched reports warning of trouble ahead, they deserve to be taken seriously. ‘Project Fear’ isn’t always politically-motivated. Sometimes it’s people who know what they are talking about trying to make cloth-eared politicians understand the foolishness of their ways.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">As I fear the US is about to discover. The world’s most powerful economy, the engine room of technological innovation, the home of cutting-edge medical research, is about to be laid low by a virus that it has had months to prepare for. No one will ever again be able to argue that it doesn’t matter who sits in the Oval Office.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Here’s what his coronavirus task force coordinator said on the Christian Broadcasting Network about the current occupant: ‘He’s been so attentive to the scientific literature, the details and the data – and his ability to analyse and integrate data that comes out of his long line of history in business has been a real benefit in these discussions about medical issues.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">You want evidence of that? Verbatim quote from the man himself: ‘You can call it a germ, you can call it flu, you can call it a virus, you know you can call it many different names. I’m not sure anybody even knows what it is.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Or how about this photo, showing how well the President understands the scientific data?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilZu0CH6S-NrUMA1x_njSGkC82zVL4C-rT5Y_eMK-kKstfSir1lSrBscGb72TF_Cu0D1tqRHgYS4N_cVdEn1VE8sfxf36x5gk2O40k0VdGSJ_45noaMUDMRhX7VrDOJ6kSHsAnK7OykaKd/s1600/OvalOffice.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="383" data-original-width="680" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilZu0CH6S-NrUMA1x_njSGkC82zVL4C-rT5Y_eMK-kKstfSir1lSrBscGb72TF_Cu0D1tqRHgYS4N_cVdEn1VE8sfxf36x5gk2O40k0VdGSJ_45noaMUDMRhX7VrDOJ6kSHsAnK7OykaKd/s320/OvalOffice.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">And this attack ad makes the point even more effectively.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">I’m usually reluctant to draw conclusions about crises until well after they are over. This one, no doubt, will be the subject of countless inquiries in the years to come. But here are two lessons we can learn right now: planning for worst-case scenarios is never a waste of money; and experts are always worth taking seriously.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Meanwhile, if you need a break from all this stuff, do yourself a favour and de-stress by listening to me read some of my favourite classic children’s stories on my new podcast series <i>Robin Lustig reading stories. </i>You can find them at all the usual podcast places or by clicking <a href="https://pod.co/asmr-robin-lustig-reading-stories" target="_blank">here</a>, or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYg_II9sqeD042jzKR_wiIA" target="_blank">here</a> to see me on YouTube.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">And when you’re in the mood for some more of my journalism, my five-part documentary series <i>The Future of Free Speech </i>is now being broadcast on the BBC World Service. The first two episodes are available <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w27vq73z?fbclid=IwAR26VwYMc8vn4jeKTZ0UFvQABIDQ2w6BDNA9ZYt89BEMi4sM-KKo1cbuI4o" target="_blank">here</a>, and the remaining three will become available every Wednesday until mid-April. As you will discover in the final episode, the free speech debate is directly relevant to the current pandemic.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Robin Lustighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00578195216460807588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942478546968158905.post-55067860369139696882020-03-16T09:42:00.000+00:002020-03-16T09:42:36.685+00:00The Future of Free Speech<div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Since the beginning of the year, I have been hard at work on a series of five documentaries for the BBC World Service. They are called </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">The Compass: The Future of Free Speech, </i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">and the first in the series will be broadcast on Wednesday. The programmes will all be available online – click <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w27vq73z" target="_blank">here</a> for the link – and on <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds" target="_blank">BBC Sounds</a>.</span></div>
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Each of the programmes focuses on what we are calling different free speech gatekeepers, the people who draw the line between what we are, and are not, allowed to say. The first programme looks at the courts, and then we move on to universities, religions, journalists, and social media platforms.<o:p></o:p></div>
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It’s a fascinating, complex – and highly topical – issue, so I do hope you’ll get a chance to listen.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Meanwhile, here’s an article I have written to introduce the series, and which appears in the current edition of <i>Radio Times</i>:<o:p></o:p></div>
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I have no doubt that the world would be a much more pleasant place if we tried not to be offensive. Twitter and Facebook would certainly be much more pleasant places. But I am also in no doubt that we must defend our right to be offensive – and it is that right which now seems to me to be increasingly at risk.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Freedom only to speak inoffensively is not worth having. So why, after nearly 50 years as a journalist and broadcaster, am I increasingly worried that speaking inoffensively may soon be all that we are allowed to do?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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While researching my new series, <i>The Compass: The Future of Free Speech, </i>I met Gerard Biard, editor-in-chief of the French satirical magazine <i>Charlie Hebdo, </i>which was attacked in 2015 by two <i>jihadi </i>gunmen who shot dead 12 people, including several of its best known cartoonists. He now has a round-the-clock bodyguard and operates from an office at an undisclosed address.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Biard says that since the explosion of social media sites, many have come to regard their own feelings as more important than the law. Narcissism rules. Instead of free expression, they demand censorship. Instead of testing ideas, they post selfies. The courts can insist until they are blue in the face that the law upholds the right to offend, but many people, including those <i>jihadis</i>, insist instead on their right not to be offended. (<i>Charlie Hebdo </i>had published cartoons mocking the Muslim prophet Mohammed.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222;">If you spend as much time on Facebook or Twitter as I do, it is easy to conclude that free speech is a mixed blessing. No wonder, you might think, that the government now proposes to put media regulator Ofcom in charge of making sure that social media sites do more to protect their users from ‘harmful’ content.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Yes, there is plenty of foul stuff online. Yes, it can do real harm. So can the nutty conspiracy theories that swill about in the deeper recesses of the internet. Even so, I think there is real cause for concern if a State regulator is to be given the power to decree what is ‘harmful’ and what is not.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #222222;">Back in 1968, an anti-Vietnam war protester walked into the Los Angeles county courthouse wearing a jacket emblazoned with the slogan ‘F*ck the Draft.’ He was arrested, but the case ended up in the US Supreme Court, which ruled that his arrest had contravened his First Amendment right to free speech. In the words of Justice John Marshall Harlan II, if the arrest were deemed to be lawful, ‘</span>government might soon seize upon the censorship of particular words as a convenient guise for banning the expression of unpopular views.’ So three cheers for the US Supreme Court.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I accept the need for laws that ban the incitement of hatred or violence. But I am pleased that just last month, Harry Miller won his case against Humberside Police, who had warned him against posting allegedly transphobic comments on Twitter that, although they broke no law, the police chose to classify as ‘hate incidents.’<o:p></o:p></div>
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We need to recognise that one of the prices of living in a democracy is that sometimes we’ll be shocked. We also need to encourage Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and others to grow up and take responsibility for the monsters they have created.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In Washington, the law professor Stephen Wermiel told me that the previously accepted bargain – you put up with stuff that you don’t like in order to uphold free speech – is a bargain that more and more people are now not prepared to accept. I think that is a very dangerous development. And so would George Orwell, whose warning is inscribed on the wall of the BBC’s London HQ: ‘If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.’<o:p></o:p></div>
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Robin Lustighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00578195216460807588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942478546968158905.post-64132729814068090922020-01-31T16:47:00.001+00:002020-02-01T09:48:33.172+00:00Here are the links to my podcasts and YouTube channelHere are the podcasts (scroll down if you can't see them all)<br />
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<span style="color: #171717; font-family: "sailec" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre;"><script src="https://play.pod.co/asmr-robin-lustig-reading-stories.js"></script></span><br />
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<span style="color: #171717; font-family: "sailec" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre;">And here's the YouTube channel:</span><br />
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYg_II9sqeD042jzKR_wiIA">https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYg_II9sqeD042jzKR_wiIA</a><br />
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If you want to make sure you don't miss any new stories, the best thing to do is subscribe. Go to the three little orange buttons below the rather fetching photo of me, and click on the one on the right. If you want to share the podcasts with friends -- which of course you do -- click on the middle orange button. And to download a podcast to your phone or tablet, click on the orange button on the left.Robin Lustighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00578195216460807588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942478546968158905.post-22896169225843248332020-01-28T15:54:00.000+00:002020-01-28T15:54:40.336+00:00My new venture
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<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">When I
used to present The World Tonight on Radio 4, people often told me that they liked
to fall asleep listening to me. I chose, perhaps naïvely, to take it as a
compliment – apparently I have a very soothing voice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Then, just
a few weeks ago, I was stopped in the park near where I live. ‘Are you Robin
Lustig?’ the man asked. ‘I want you to know that ever since you left the BBC,
I’ve had great difficulty getting to sleep.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">So I have
started a new venture – and I very much hope you’ll give it a try.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Given the
state of the world – and this definitely seems the appropriate time, especially if like me
you’re deeply depressed that the UK will have finally left the EU by the end of
the week – I have decided to try to offer you something that just might make
you feel a little bit better.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">It’s a new
series of podcasts (and a YouTube channel) of me reading children’s stories. As
simple as that. I’m starting with the Just So Stories, by Rudyard Kipling, because
I always loved them as a child, and also because I think they’re a perfect way
to switch off from the world as it is, and, just for a few minutes, immerse
ourselves in a world as we would like it to be.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">You can
find the podcasts by simply going to wherever you usually go to find your
podcasts and search for ‘Robin Lustig reading stories.’ They are already available on <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/32OO5xCr3cJ2UwEmAW9Ljh" target="_blank">Spotify</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkLnBvZC5jby9hc21yLXJvYmluLWx1c3RpZy1yZWFkaW5nLXN0b3JpZXM=" target="_blank">Google Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://play.acast.com/s/ASMR-Robin-Lustig-reading-stories" target="_blank">Acast</a>, <a href="https://pca.st/jnwj7ylj" target="_blank">Pocket Casts</a> and <a href="https://www.breaker.audio/asmr-robin-lustig-reading-stories" target="_blank">Breaker</a>, and they should be on Apple Podcasts and others within the next few days.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">(You can also find them on
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYg_II9sqeD042jzKR_wiIA?view_as=subscriber" target="_blank">YouTube</a> if you’d like to watch my lips move as I read.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Or you could just listen here:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #171717; font-family: Sailec, sans-serif; white-space: pre;"><script src="https://play.pod.co/asmr-robin-lustig-reading-stories.js"></script></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">As you can see, I’ve already
uploaded the first two stories, and there will be more in the coming weeks. If
you think you might enjoy them – and if you think your friends and family might
enjoy them as well – please click on the Subscribe and Share buttons, and do
leave a comment. I’ll need you to help me get them out into the big wide world,
so I’d really appreciate your help.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Perhaps
you’re wondering why the letters ASMR appear in the name of both the podcasts
and the YouTube channel. The letters stand for ‘autonomous sensory meridian
response’ – it’s a phenomenon that some people describe as a feeling of
euphoric tingling and relaxation that can result from watching certain videos
or hearing certain sounds, including, in some cases, a particular human voice.
It’s become quite the thing, apparently, so why not give it a go?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I have no
idea if there’s anything in it, but if the stories help you feel better, or
help you get to sleep – or if you just enjoy listening to them – I’ll be
delighted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Many years
ago, a newspaper columnist wrote that the way I said ‘Good night’ at the end of
The World Tonight sent her off to bed with a song in her heart. Perhaps I can
now do the same for you. If nothing else, it’s an opportunity to hear me as you
have never heard me before.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />Robin Lustighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00578195216460807588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942478546968158905.post-79551095544835934302019-12-20T09:19:00.000+00:002019-12-20T15:19:39.385+00:00A new year, and a new era: Hold on to your hats<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">By his Queen’s Speech shall we know him. (And incidentally,
didn’t Her Maj look magnificently grumpy, shorn of all her customary finery, as
she monotoned her way through the guff for the second time in as many months.)</span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Or perhaps not, given the triumphantly re-elected prime
minister’s well-documented penchant for saying things that aren’t true. And a
Queen’s Speech is, after all, no more than a long list of promises, begging to
be broken. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But at least now, we have been granted a glimpse of an
answer to the question that’s been asked by all self-respecting commentators
since this last time last week: what kind of PM does Boris Johnson intend to
be?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Answer, in a nutshell: a re-elected one. That’s the thing
about ambition – once you’ve achieved it, you immediately need to find another
one. So, the man who’s been obsessed for decades with reaching the highest political
pinnacle (‘world king’, in the words of his sister Rachel), having achieved it,
wants to hang on to it. Wouldn’t it be super if he could emulate – or, why not, even
surpass -- Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair’s achievement and win three consecutive general
elections?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Never forget, this is the man who famously said that his
policy on cake is ‘pro having it and pro eating it.’ And let’s be honest: it is
a policy that has served him well. He has lied and cheated his way to the top,
having fun all the while. That was him having the cake, so now let’s watch him
eat it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Can he be both tough and tender? Can he bend the EU to his
will as he negotiates a post-withdrawal trade deal? Can he pump billions into
the NHS and infrastructure projects, prioritising the needs of the left-behind
post-industrial north, while indulging his metropolitan instincts? Can he, in
other words, do what the Labour party can apparently no longer do: retain the
support both of fed-up, older, white, working class males and of younger urban
professionals?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/what-kind-of-one-nation-tory-is-johnson-xnvf7c2r9" target="_blank">Rachel Sylvester</a> in <i>The Times </i>has done some useful
number-crunching that suggests his tried-and-tested cake policy may not be
quite enough to do the trick. Fewer than one-fifth of under-25s backed the
Tories last week, compared with two-thirds of the over-65s. Fewer than a third
of voters with a university degree voted Tory. And whereas Tony Blair swept
into Downing Street in 1997 with a net favourability rating of +51, Boris
Johnson is currently rated at -11.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mr Johnson’s first task – the first post-election wave of
his magic wand – will be to persuade us that come 31 January, he will have
fulfilled his pledge: he will have ‘got Brexit done.’ In reality, of course, he
will have done no such thing. Yes, the UK will no longer legally be a member of
the EU, but under the terms of the agreed transition arrangements (what Theresa
May liked to call the ‘implementation period’), you won’t notice much
difference, other than that no UK representatives will any longer attend EU
meetings.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And then, oh joy, oh rapture, we’ll spend the whole of next
year hurtling towards another cliff edge and the constant prospect of another
‘no deal’ exit. Because – true to his pro cake and pro eating it approach – the
prime minister seems to think that the EU will happily sign up to a no-tariffs,
no-quotas free trade deal while simultaneously agreeing that the UK will also be
allowed to diverge from whatever EU standards and regulations it wishes.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Er, I think not. So it may not entirely surprise you to
learn that this is not only my last blogpost before Christmas, but
also the last in this blog's present form, as I have reluctantly decided that after
nearly fifteen years of posting every Friday, it is time to call a halt.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I started writing regular weekly newsletters in July 2005, the day after the London Tube and
bus terrorist attacks, and just a couple of months after Tony Blair had won his
third successive election victory. Since then, there have been four more
general elections and three referendums (surely you haven’t forgotten the
alternative vote referendum in 2011?). <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I shall continue to post on this blog when I feel I have something I
want to say. (You can make sure you don't miss anything by filling in your email address in the subscribe box.) But it won’t be
every week, as I have realised that with the passing of the years,
there is an ever-increasing risk that I shall eventually end up saying the same
thing to the same people over and over again.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I also have a couple of exciting new projects coming up, which
I’ll let you know about in due course, so I very much hope we can stay in
touch.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Meanwhile, have a very good Christmas and my very best wishes for a happy and healthy New Year.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />Robin Lustighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00578195216460807588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942478546968158905.post-21893949802125479242019-12-13T09:03:00.000+00:002019-12-13T10:44:04.473+00:00The morning after<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
Let’s start with the good
news, because frankly, there’s not much of it.<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 22.5pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">The Greens increased their vote
share by more than any other party in yesterday’s election, and they won
200,000 more votes than the Brexit party. (They still have only one MP, but
hey, this is the UK electoral system. What do you expect?)</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 22.5pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Apart from that, the
political landscape looks pretty grim this morning if you’re an anti-Brexit
progressive with a distaste for lying charlatans.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 22.5pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">In the words of an eve-of-poll
op-ed in the </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/opinion/uk-election.html?searchResultPosition=1" target="_blank">New York Times</a> </i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">by the British columnist Jenni Russell: ‘The
old assumptions – that truth matters, that lies shame the liar, that in a
democracy the press and the public must have a right to interrogate those who
seek the top jobs – have all been swept aside by the Tories’ conviction that in
an inattentive, dissatisfied, cacophonous world, victory will go to the most
compelling entertainer, the most plausible and shameless deceiver, the leader
who can drill home a repetitive and seductive incantation. Facts and details
will be irrelevant so long as voters feel a politician is on their side.’</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 22.5pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">So welcome to the UK of the
2020s. The map has been redrawn; King Boris is master of all he surveys. There’s
no point in denying the reality: he, and his overweening ambition, lack of
principle, tousled hair and Trump-lite populism, have triumphed. He is the most
successful Conservative politician since Margaret Thatcher, and for the same
reason: he has persuaded working class voters that the Tories will represent
them better than the Labour party.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 22.5pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">The Labour coalition – urban university
graduates with liberal social values, united with traditional blue-collar
workers in the industrial and post-industrial Midlands, north-west and
north-east – has well and truly fractured. A party led by Jeremy Corbyn
(London), Diane Abbott (London), Emily Thornberry (London), and Keir Starmer
(London) – only John McDonnell and Tom Watson sounded different – is not a
party that can win support north of Watford.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 22.5pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Scotland is now in the grip
of the SNP more tightly than ever – I expect Scottish independence to be the
next big constitutional crisis as soon as Brexit fever subsides. In the
pantheon of 2019 election winners, Nicola Sturgeon deserves her place beside
Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 22.5pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Farage? The man whose party
won a desultory two per cent of the vote? Yes, because he has won what he has
spent most of his adult life fighting for: the UK will leave the European Union.
This time there really are no ifs, no buts. It is going to happen.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 22.5pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">If you’re still hunting
desperately for silver linings, you may like to consider the possibility that a
Johnson-led government with an unassailable majority in the House of Commons –
able happily to ignore the now irrelevant DUP and the now equally irrelevant
Jacob Rees-Mogg – could, if it wished, sign up to a much softer Brexit than was
politically attainable until yesterday. Is his sell-out on northern Ireland a
portent of things to come? Watch this space …</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black;">Which brings us back to the Labour
party. It has now lost four consecutive general elections – the last Labour leader
to win one was Tony Blair in 2005. Mr Corbyn’s signal achievement is to have
bequeathed his party even fewer seats than Michael Foot managed in 1983. He has
been a disaster for Labour, and his supporters’ attempts to argue otherwise are
contemptible. Whatever his personal qualities may be – and I have never been
persuaded that he is as ‘nice’ as he is often made out to be – his leadership qualities
were conspicuous only by their absence. When I remarked online last night, soon
after the exit poll was published and the scale of the impending Labour defeat
became clear, that I hoped at least some of his followers would be thinking of
the people sleeping on the streets, the NHS workers struggling to keep going, and
the families depending on food banks to feed their children, I was immediately
told it was a ‘hateful’ thing to say.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">No. What is hateful – and what
fills me with anger – is that Labour betrayed the people who need it most. It
embraced a style of student politics which alienates far more people than it
attracts. It bathed in the easy satisfaction of talking only to its own
supporters, and it paved the way for the triumph of the most unprincipled prime
minister in living memory.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">When Boris Johnson addressed
the nation this morning, bathed in glory, he did so in front of the slogan ‘The
People’s Government.’ So here’s a reminder: according to a <a href="https://www.qmul.ac.uk/media/qmul/media/publications/Grassroots%2C-Britain%27s-Party-Members.pdf" target="_blank">study</a> published last
year, 97% of Conservative party members are white, 71% are male, and 44% are 65
or older.</span></div>
Robin Lustighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00578195216460807588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942478546968158905.post-33115511076536427752019-12-06T09:41:00.000+00:002019-12-06T09:41:04.965+00:00There’s just one election issue that really matters<br />
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
At last I understand. With less than a week to go till
election day, suddenly everything has come into focus. This really is, as so
many commentators have already said, a one-issue election.</div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
And the issue is: Does Jeremy Corbyn watch the
Queen on TV on Christmas Day? (Spoiler alert: er, no, he doesn’t. He doesn’t
even know when it’s broadcast.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
What could matter more for the future of our
country? What question could possibly be more important than whether the man
mocked as Magic Grandpa is such a devoted Royalist that he will sit his family
down at 3pm on 25 December to watch Her Maj deliver her sixty-sixth Christmas homily?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
(Factbox: just over six million people watched her
last year, down from seven and a half million in 2017. When George V delivered
the first Royal Christmas message in 1932, by contrast, 20 million people tuned
in. Perhaps Mr Corbyn is in better company than he thinks.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
It seems he is terrified of appearing out of
sympathy with the people he presumably thinks of as traditional Labour voters,
gathered round the TV, preparing to desert his party and vote for the
pro-Brexit Tories for the first time in their lives.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
As a result, when he was asked by Julie Etchingham
on ITV last night about his Christmas Day viewing habits, he lied. He dodged and ducked – and he looked every bit as shifty as Boris Johnson does
every time he is asked how many children he has. (Watch the clip <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okcg07ooxE8" target="_blank">here</a> if you
haven’t seen it yet.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
So in an election in which he hopes to defeat a
prime minister with an unrivalled reputation for lying and opportunism, he
blows a huge gaping hole in what is left of his own reputation as a man who
sticks to his principles (although you could argue that he was already well on
the way with his dogged refusal to come clean on whether or not he wants the UK
to leave the EU).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
I am now finding it almost impossible to take my
own advice. I <a href="http://lustigletter.blogspot.com/2019/11/succumb-to-despair-serious-and.html" target="_blank">wrote</a> last week of the dangers of succumbing to despair, yet now
I am closer to the brink than ever. A NATO summit, which could have offered an
opportunity to take stock of the real dangers we face (Russia? China? Cyber
warfare?), turned in to a tawdry soap opera episode in which the lead
character, a deranged TV celebrity, was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/europe/100000006858065/nato-trump-trudeau.html?te=1&nl=morning-briefing&emc=edit_NN_p_20191205&section=topNews?campaign_id=9&instance_id=14288&segment_id=19307&user_id=dc02080829cd7a267d48c3d99bc22d49&regi_id=17315233tion=topNews" target="_blank">mocked behind his back</a> by his fellow
cast members and scolded to his face by the French president for being flippant
about Islamic State fighters in Syria.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Meanwhile, virtually ignored, representatives from
more than 200 countries are meeting in Madrid in yet another attempt to agree
on ways to alleviate the worst effects of the climate emergency. Nothing like
as important as Mr Corbyn’s Christmas viewing habits, admittedly, unless you are
tempted to take seriously a warning from the secretary-general of the World
Meteorological Organisation, which issued its latest annual climate report this
week.<o:p></o:p></div>
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His verdict? ‘Things are getting worse.’ As the <i><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/04/climate/climate-change-acceleration.html?te=1&nl=morning-briefing&emc=edit_NN_p_20191204&section=topNews?campaign_id=9&instance_id=14260&segment_id=19269&user_id=dc02080829cd7a267d48c3d99bc22d49&regi_id=17315233tion=topNews" target="_blank">New York Times</a> </i>reported: ‘More devastating fires in California. Persistent
drought in the [US] southwest. Record flooding in Europe and Africa. A heat
wave, of all things in Greenland. Climate change and its effects are
accelerating, with climate-related disasters piling up, season after season.’<o:p></o:p></div>
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The current prediction is that unless governments
take urgent action, by the end of the century – in other words, within the
lifetime of children now being born – average global temperatures will have
risen to levels that climate scientists say will have catastrophic and
irreversible consequences. And according to a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/04/climate-models-have-accurately-predicted-global-heating-study-finds" target="_blank">research paper</a> published in the
specialist journal <i>Geophysical Research Letters, </i>the scientists’ climate
models have already proved remarkably accurate.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Before the European parliament elections last May,
I <a href="https://lustigletter.blogspot.com/2019/05/how-im-going-to-vote-next-thursday.html" target="_blank">explained </a>why I had decided to cast my vote for the Green party. I wrote: ‘I
want to maximise the unambiguously anti-Brexit vote, which is why voting Labour
is not an option, and I want to support a party that has convinced me that it
understands the seriousness of the climate crisis that confronts us.’<o:p></o:p></div>
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Next Thursday, because I live in a constituency
where the admirably anti-Brexit Labour candidate is sitting on a super-safe
majority of more than 30,000, with the Lib Dems having come second in 2017, I
shall be voting Green again. <o:p></o:p></div>
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It is the only action I can take to stave off the
overwhelming feeling of despair. And I’m sorry, but no, I won’t be watching the
Queen on Christmas Day. Just like Mr Corbyn and about 40 million other voters. <span style="background: #FFF9EE; color: #222222; font-family: "georgia",serif; font-size: 11.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--EndFragment--><br />Robin Lustighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00578195216460807588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942478546968158905.post-5348172294262580202019-11-29T09:21:00.000+00:002019-11-29T09:21:59.695+00:00Succumb to despair? A serious and dangerous mistake
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Revulsion? Disgust? Despair? Reach for the Thesaurus and
choose the word that most accurately describes your mood as we enter the final
furlong of this miserable election campaign.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A prime minister who lies more often than he ruffles his
hair, and who seems determined to duck out of a potentially bruising encounter
with Andrew Neil.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A Labour party leader still in total denial over the anger
and pain caused by his failure to grasp the anti-Semitism nettle and who can’t
bring himself to tell the truth about his party’s tax plans. (Watch his
<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000bqpt/the-andrew-neil-interviews-election-2019-jeremy-corbyn" target="_blank">encounter</a> with Andrew Neil if you don’t believe me.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You can agree or disagree with what the different party
leaders say about the major policy issues of the day, but what I find most
depressing of all is the sheer hopeless incompetence they display. Boris
Johnson clearly doesn’t understand (or is happy to blatantly lie about) the
Northern Ireland trade arrangements in his own EU withdrawal deal, and Jeremy
Corbyn seems either unable or unwilling to spell out his tax and spending
plans. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In fact, I have rarely seen a more abject display of
political ineptitude than Mr Corbyn’s utter failure to handle Andrew Neil’s
pointed questioning on Tuesday night. I cannot imagine that a single undecided
voter will have been persuaded either by his refusal to accept that his party
could have handled the anti-Semitism allegations better or by his foolish attempts
to deny that people on relatively modest incomes will have to pay more in taxes
if Labour come to power.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
(I don’t intend to wade back into the anti-Semitism debate –
I made my views clear enough in <a href="https://lustigletter.blogspot.com/2018/07/corbyn-on-antisemitism-more-right-than.html" target="_blank">this piece</a> sixteen months ago – but I found a
great deal to agree with in <a href="https://vashtimedia.wordpress.com/2019/11/27/antisemitism-labour-corbyn-sultana-rabbi-mervis-human-problem/" target="_blank">this piece</a> yesterday by Rivkah Brown.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the words of <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/51b6b1f6-1120-11ea-a225-db2f231cfeae?emailId=5ddf8fd7f0276d000434f71b&segmentId=2f40f9e8-c8d5-af4c-ecdd-78ad0b93926b" target="_blank">Philip Stephens</a> of the <i>Financial Times: </i>‘The
campaign has marked out a contest between parties peddling competing fantasies
and falsehoods. The sane answer as to which of the two leaders counts as fit
for office of prime minister is neither of the above.’<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
You may think that politicians have never been held in such low regard as they
are now. Certainly, if you spend too much time on social media – as I do – you
will quickly come away with the impression that they are reviled and loathed
more than at any time in history. So it may surprise you to learn that as long
ago as August 1944, when the country was at war, fighting for its very
survival, led by a coalition government under the leadership of one of
Britain’s most admired statesmen, more than <a href="https://academic.oup.com/poq/article/81/3/748/3858932" target="_blank">one-third of voters told Gallup</a>
that they believed politicians were ‘out merely for themselves.’ By 2014, that
figure had risen to nearly half.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is tempting in the current political climate to succumb
to despair. If they’re all so miserably uninspiring, why on earth should we
vote for any of them? Tempting it may be, but it would be a serious and
dangerous mistake. The simple, unavoidable truth is that we need politicians,
and if we don’t choose them, someone else will. Anyone who has been paying
attention knows that there is no shortage of outside actors only too keen to
meddle. (I do wonder, by the way, if the suppressed report by the parliamentary
intelligence and security committee into alleged Russian interference in the
UK’s politics will ever see the light of day.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So our duty as responsible citizens is clear. Distasteful as
we may find it, we will have to make a choice and cast a vote on 12 December.
My advice is to take a look at the policies on offer, and at the candidates
standing in your local constituency, and make a decision accordingly. There are
plenty of decent, capable candidates standing – it’s just unfortunate that the
two main party leaders, who inevitably are the ones who capture all the
headlines, are such appalling examples of what’s on offer.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My hope is that once this election is over, someone will
take it upon themselves to set in train a process that will enable us to come
up with some serious suggestions aimed at mending what is clearly a broken and
inadequate political system. Five years ago, after the Scottish independence
referendum, I proposed a Reform Commission, which over a period of two years
would hold public meetings and take evidence from voters all over the country
before drawing up a package of proposals to present to parliament.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have no confidence that any of the political parties will
do it – but now that the Brexit debate has frayed old party loyalties, perhaps
some of the liberated-cum-suspended ex-MPs of both main parties could find it a
useful way to occupy their time. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And one last piece of advice: ignore the opinion polls. They
may be right, and they may be wrong. Trouble is we won’t know until it’s too
late to do anything about it. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />Robin Lustighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00578195216460807588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6942478546968158905.post-40333498695643967252019-11-22T09:13:00.000+00:002019-11-22T09:19:17.758+00:00It's time to take Russian electoral interference seriously<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
I have a question for you: where do you think
democracy is working more effectively – in Washington DC or in London?<br />
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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You may well think it’s a tough call: after all, can
any democratic system that throws up a Donald Trump or a Boris Johnson be said
to be working effectively?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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So consider the following.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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In Washington, the President is effectively on
trial, as one by one, senior administration officials are called to testify, on
oath and in public, about his attempts to force the government of Ukraine to
help him dig up dirt, real or imagined, relating to a political opponent, the
former vice-president Joe Biden.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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In London, publication of a detailed report drawn up by the
House of Commons Intelligence and Security Committee into potential Russian
interference in UK elections has been shelved. (A leaked version was published in the <i><a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/revealed-the-russia-report-kz6c9mwxf" target="_blank">Sunday Times</a> </i>last weekend.) A few days after the decision
was announced, the Conservative party received a £200,000 donation from Lubov
Chernukhin, the wife of a former Russian deputy finance minister. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Coincidence? Maybe. She has certainly made big donations to
the Tories in the past: £160,000 for the honour of being allowed to play tennis
against Boris Johnson and David Cameron in 2014, and £135,000 to spend an
evening with Theresa May and six of her female Cabinet colleagues earlier this
year. (Mrs Chernukhin is a British citizen and therefore perfectly entitled
legally to give as much as she likes to British political parties.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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There’s more. An investigation into Boris Johnson’s
relationship with the American businesswoman <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/18/boris-johnson-jennifer-arcuri-investigation-to-review-affair-with-another-woman" target="_blank">Jennifer Arcuri</a>, who was awarded
grants from public funds while Johnson was mayor of London, is currently on
hold while a police oversight body decides whether there is enough evidence to
mount a criminal investigation against him. The oversight body has agreed not
to announce its decision until after the election.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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And on the subject of cash, did you see the details
published yesterday by the <a href="http://search.electoralcommission.org.uk/English/Search?currentPage=1&rows=10&sort=AcceptedDate&order=desc&tab=1&open=filter&et=pp&isIrishSourceYes=true&isIrishSourceNo=true&date=Reported&from=&to=&quarters=2019q3&rptPd=3698&prePoll=false&postPoll=true&register=gb&register=ni&register=none&optCols=Register&optCols=CampaigningName&optCols=AccountingUnitsAsCentralParty&optCols=IsSponsorship&optCols=IsIrishSource&optCols=RegulatedDoneeType&optCols=CompanyRegistrationNumber&optCols=Postcode&optCols=NatureOfDonation&optCols=PurposeOfVisit&optCols=DonationAction&optCols=ReportedDate&optCols=IsReportedPrePoll&optCols=ReportingPeriodName&optCols=IsBequest&optCols=IsAggregation" target="_blank">Electoral Commission</a> showing how much each of the political
parties received in donations during the first week of the campaign? (The
figures relate only to donations of more than £7,500.)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Nearly ninety per cent of the registered donations went to
the Conservatives: as well as the £200,000 from Mrs Chernukhin, there was one
and a half million from theatre producer John Gore, half a million from an
investment firm, and another half million from a property company. The Tories’
one-week total came to £5.7 million, compared to £218,500 for the Labour party,
£275,000 for the Lib Dems and £250,000 for the Brexit party.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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In Washington, there is at least an attempt to uncover
corrupt behaviour. It probably won’t succeed in removing the president from
office (Mr Trump is only the fourth president in US history to face
impeachment, and only one, Richard Nixon, was forced out), but from this side of
the Pond, it looks significantly more effective than what we observe in
Westminster, where the prevailing message seems to be ‘Oh, stop making such a
fuss. There’s nothing to worry about.’<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Johnson himself said as much in a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50433574" target="_blank">BBC interview</a> a few days
ago: ‘There’s absolutely no evidence that I’ve ever seen of any Russian
interference in UK democratic processes.’ Given the prime minister’s
well-deserved reputation for uttering falsehoods (oh, all right then, telling
lies), I would suggest that we are entitled to take his assurance with a large
pinch of salt.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Contrast the disgracefully dilatory nature of the inquiries
in the UK with what the exceptionally impressive British-born former top White
House Russia expert <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/21/us/politics/fiona-hill-impeachment-ukraine.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage" target="_blank">Fiona Hill</a> told Congress. She said the Russians ‘deploy
millions of dollars to weaponise our own political opposition research and
false narratives …’ Does no one in the UK think it matters?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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It is surely not unreasonable to assume that what the
Russians have tried so successfully to do in the US and elsewhere – subvert the
electoral system – they have also been trying to do here. We already know of
the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jul/08/revealed-leaveeu-campaign-met-russian-officials-as-many-as-11-times" target="_blank">links</a> between Russian government officials and senior figures in the
pro-Brexit campaign group Leave.EU and we deserve to know more.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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So my answer to the question I posed above? Perhaps
surprisingly, I conclude that the US system is working better than ours.
Admittedly, it’s not saying all that much, considering how abysmal the UK
record is on such matters. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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But it is a shocking indication of how inured we have become
to external interference in the political process that hardly anyone is making
a fuss. I just hope that the bunch of MPs we elect next month will be up to the
task of cleansing the stables.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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(By the way, if you haven’t registered to vote yet, the
deadline is next Tuesday. <a href="https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote" target="_blank">Here’s the link</a> to the government’s registration
site.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />Robin Lustighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00578195216460807588noreply@blogger.com0