22 THENEWYORKER, NOVEMBER 11, 2019
LONDONPOSTCARD
HARMONIZING
O
n the evening before the stymied
British Parliament decided that
the best course of action it could pos-
sibly take was to dissolve itself, Dame
Caroline Spelman, a Conservative M.P.
who has represented the Midlands con-
stituency of Meriden for twenty-two
years, cast her vote on the Prime Min-
ister’s call for an early election, then de-
scended to the Chapel of St. Mary Un-
dercroft, for a restorative hour and a
half of singing. Spelman is an alto in
the Parliament Choir, a cross-party cho-
ral society that rehearses every Mon-
day night in the ornate, gilded chapel
in the bowels of Westminster. “It’s very
wearing, living on tenterhooks like this,
because that’s my job we’re talking
about, that might or might not exist
tomorrow,” Spelman said. “So, obvi-
ously, coming to the choir is a source
of sanity and serenity.”
The Parliament Choir is open to
anyone who works in Parliament; its
members have included ministers, but
also policemen, cleaning staff, and even
one holder of the office of Black Rod—
the figure who, for ceremonial reasons,
has the door of the Commons slammed
in his or her face at the State Opening
of Parliament. Singers are drawn from
both Houses: its current ranks include
Lord Aberdare, a cross-bench heredi-
tary peer; David Lidington, a Conser-
vative M.P. who was Theresa May’s
de-facto deputy; David Lammy, a pro-
Remain Labour M.P.; and Sir Bernard
Jenkin, a Conservative M.P. who is
among the hard-line Brexiteers. Jen-
kin is fond of saying that in the choir
there are only four parties: sopranos,
altos, tenors, and basses. Given a polit-
ical climate in which Parliament is, ap-
parently, divided between sopranos and
basses who persist in singing loudly in
different keys, the choir offers a rare
opportunity for harmony.
“In an enterprise where we are de-
signed to work against each other, in
tribes, this is a way of us trying to see
through and make an understanding
for ourselves about how we relate to
each other,” Lord German, the trea-
surer of the Liberal Democrats, who
sings bass, explained before rehearsal.
Neither the current Prime Minister nor
the Leader of the Opposition is, or has
ever been, a member of the choir, though
German testified that Boris Johnson is
capable of holding a tune, having been
seated near him at a memorial service
for Jo Cox, the Labour M.P. who was
murdered by a pro-Brexit assailant
during the 2016 referendum campaign.
“What I would call campfire singing,”
German said.
The choir was founded almost
twenty years ago by Simon Over, its
conductor. (He is also the music di-
rector of Southbank Sinfonia.) “I was
working at Westminster Abbey, and I
had a little choral society in which
some members of both Houses sang,”
Over explained. Members kept hav-
ing to miss rehearsal because of pesky
voting obligations, so Over started a
new choir in the Palace of Westmin-
ster, where members can easily slip up-
stairs when the division bell is sounded.
There’s no cell service in the chapel,
which was built in the thirteenth cen-
tury and lavishly refurbished in the
nineteenth, so singers have to wait
until rehearsal is over to find out
whether a motion has been passed.
Occasionally, Parliamentary business
does get in the way of the choir’s com-
mitments: in 2017, after Theresa May
the Oval Office, as a show of political
support. Then the Administration with-
held that offer in the apparent hope that
Zelensky would open the desired inves-
tigations. When that didn’t work, Trump
proposed his “favor” in the July phone
call. Zelensky still hesitated; over the
next month, Trump tied his demands
to the release of nearly four hundred
million dollars in military assistance that
is essential to Ukraine’s defense against
Russia. (It had previously been known
that, in mid-July, the President ordered
Mick Mulvaney, his acting chief of staff,
to hold back this aid, which Congress
had already approved.) On September
1st, according to Taylor, Tim Morrison,
an N.S.C. aide, told him it appeared
that the aid “would not come until Pres-
ident Zelensky committed to pursue
the Burisma investigation.”
According to Taylor’s account of an-
other conversation with Morrison, on
September 7th, Trump told Gordon
Sondland, his Ambassador to the Euro-
pean Union, that, while he was not ask-
ing for a “quid pro quo,” he nonetheless
wanted Zelensky to “go to a microphone
and say he is opening investigations of
Biden and 2016.” (Last week, testifying
in a closed session, Morrison confirmed
the gist of these discussions, the Times
reported.) The next day, Taylor wrote,
Sondland explained Trump’s thinking:
“When a businessman is about to sign
a check to someone who owes him some-
thing ... the businessman asks that per-
son to pay up before signing the check.”
Taylor replied that this “made no sense,”
since “the Ukrainians did not ‘owe’ Pres-
ident Trump anything.” He added that
holding up security assistance for do-
mestic political gain was “crazy.” (With-
out explanation, the Administration re-
leased the aid on September 11th.)
In view of all this, Trump’s recent en-
thusiastic reliance on his base-rousing
mantra “No quid pro quo!” is puzzling.
The phrase’s simple meaning is “a favor
for a favor”; it’s already clear that he
sought such a trade, an egregious abuse
of power. Trump seems to believe that
if he shouts denials often enough and
loudly enough the public will believe
them. That the Trump machine’s tor-
rents of populist propaganda may do
more to persuade voters than any sober
presentation of damning facts poses per-
haps the greatest risk to Democrats as
they take their impeachment investiga-
tion to the public.
The Ukraine story describes abuses
of Presidential power that touch on a
pillar of U.S. foreign policy in Europe.
It is understandable that Democrats in
the House believe they must follow the
Constitution and consider an impeach-
ment. It is also a political gamble. Trump
is the opposite of a Teflon President;
everything sticks to him, and yet he
blusters on, unburdened by shame. For
the Democratic Party, the road to Elec-
tion Day, a year from now, still looks
long and treacherous.
—Steve Coll
