The Times - UK (2020-09-05)

Land of hope and

inglorious regret

Ben Macintyre

Page 33

sector corporations alike, take fright

and panic.

Great newspapers — institutions

too — are not immune to this

confidence-sapping virus. Some risk

ancient reputations in the search for

online clicks, as has the BBC news

website. Dispensing with editorial

judgment in pursuit of mere traffic

betrays an institution’s failure of

confidence in us, its customers,

whom in a less jittery age it thought

it knew. Media companies lose their

nerve, deferring to what the data

says, wrongly, about us. Collapse in

internal self-belief is as much a cause

of shakiness in our institutions as an

external attack.

I’m far from saying that reformist

assaults upon our institutions haven’t

forever been with us, or shouldn’t

be. We will always rail against

committees, protocol and fustiness,

the stick-in-the-muds and

bells-and-whistles of venerable

institutions. This is healthy. But if a

balance is to be struck between

critical vigilance and a near-anarchic

destructiveness, then there needs to

be pushback. The party of which I

was a member used to provide it. It

was called the Conservative Party.

We knew the value of dragging our

feet. Today, I almost feel the Tories

are on the side of the wreckers.

There’s a war on. The

pandemic threatens. Our

economy staggers. Unemployment

rises. The whole international

order is under siege from the

Putins, Xis and Trumps of this

world. Not disruption but protection,

not upheaval but steadiness, not the

sweeping aside but continuity: this

should be the call: the call of the

known, the tried and tested, the

familiar. Conservatives, of all

people, should hear it.

We’re turning into a nation of wreckers

Attacks on the great institutions that have shaped Britain show how badly the Tories, and others, have lost their way

ALAMY

unvarnished harangues skip the post

box and the PA and are delivered

straight into the chief executive’s

hand. In my experience, people at

the top are unprofessionally

neuralgic about complaints that

come to them direct, forgetting that

silence from most may mean most

are content. Chief executives’ phones,

like ours, make the professional

personal. By letting so much coalesce

in one device, we have stripped back

barriers that gave pause for thought,

or let tempers cool, or took away the

private edge. The mob isn’t at the

chief executive’s door. It’s just in his

pocket. Public-facing executives, in

national institutions and private-

Our planning laws have helped to

preserve Britain’s unique landscape

achieved. Of course reviews and

reform are needed but voices in

government today almost hint that

all planning constraint is regrettable.

I know from living in a national park

that constraint can be life-enhancing.

Then there’s the constitution. Our

Union faces appalling strains already,

and to talk as if the casual loss of

Scotland or Northern Ireland would

be just a bit of collateral damage in

the Brexit wars is horrifying. At the

other end of the scale are institutions

outside government but which

government should see as part of our

national life. British Airways was

bound to take a hit from the

pandemic but are we just going to

shrug and let it go? The National

Trust has been badly shaken by

outside attack.

I must not blame politicians alone.

I could include newspaper

columnists. We love tilting at things.

But the critics of our institutions

ought to be terriers yapping at the

heels of lumbering giants. Often it

now feels as though the giants have

fallen and it is the jugular for which

mastiffs are aiming. Likewise the

Black Lives Matter movement should

aim to correct and critique, not

destroy, and should never forget

what a great, free and civilised

country we live in: here, and in the

United States too. The national

motto of the Republic of Colombia is

Libertad y Orden — Liberty, but

Order too. At its heart must stand

institutions, procedures, structures

and — yes — bureaucracy. These

should not be dirty words.

I’ve mentioned the confusion,

bordering on self-dislike, in private

and public institutions. Some of this

must be traceable to social media. In

the past complaints were stopped at

the door. There were filters. Now

T

here’s one passage I’ve

never forgotten in Robert

Bolt’s play A Man For All

Seasons, about the

martyrdom of Henry VIII’s

lord chancellor, Sir Thomas More.

More confronts his future son-in-law,

Will Roper, who has suggested he’d

“cut down every law in England to

get after the Devil”.

“Oh? And when the last law was

down, and the Devil turned round

on you — where would you hide,

Roper, the laws all being flat?...

D’you really think you could stand

upright in the winds that would

blow then?”

There’s something in the wind

today, something poisonous; and

though it’s hard to put a finger on, I

think it matters. We seem to have

entered an era of popular hostility to

accepted and familiar institutions.

Our leaders wish not to preserve but

to destroy. This is dangerous.

“Disruption” has become the

mantra. “Change” and “reform” are

thought good in themselves. Apple

carts must be upset, established rules

and structures of governance

“challenged”, trusted brands trashed.

There’s a fine line between usefully

critical vigilance over institutions we

cherish, and a habit of scorn towards

the organisations and systems that

time has shaped and which, over

time, have shaped us. I fear we’re

crossing that line.

Take Roper’s frustration with being

tripped up by the law as he chases

the Devil. A case can be made for

trimming back legal aid, or resisting

the advance of the Supreme Court

and judicial review as brakes on the

exuberance of politicians. But if we

don’t start from the massive respect

for the rule of law that (though she

was often impatient) Margaret

Thatcher always showed, then we

risk disaster. Few can have missed

the dog-whistles of Conservative

politicians all but condemning judges

as enemies of the people.

Yes, Minister was Thatcher’s

favourite TV satire. She found the

Sir Humphreys of the Whitehall

mandarinate maddening, as would

any prime minister restless for

action. But there was also deference:

a clear understanding that

Westminster and Whitehall are great

and permanent estates. I don’t hear

that respect today, as politicians and

their media claque routinely refer to

the civil service as some kind of fifth

column to be subdued, broken.

I detect a similarly threatening

attitude to the BBC. God knows

the corporation can infuriate but

when we’re cross, it should be

because we love and feel proud of a

corporation that’s a model to the

whole world’s media.

The same is true of the fabric of

our planning laws and procedures.

Labour’s 1947 Town and Country

Planning Act laid the foundations for

the way we shape our urban and

rural landscapes, and I return from

driving across the Continent with a

renewed sense of what Britain has

The global order is

under siege from the

Putins of this world

Matthew

Parris

Comment

Steer well

clear of the

backseat

non-driver

B

ackseat drivers are obviously

a pestilence. “Whoah! Watch

that car. Oh, you’d seen it.

You go the long way, do you?

Hmm. Mind that cat! Sorry,

was I pressing my imaginary brake

pedal?” But until recently I hadn’t

noticed how much more irritating is

the backseat non-driver. The BND is

extra tiresome because having not

learnt to drive, which where I come

from is like not having learnt to read,

they lack the weary hyper-awareness

of the seasoned driver. They are the

carefree child to your frazzled,

responsible adult. “Here’s a parking

space!” the BND gestured blithely

after ten minutes of wretched

searching. It was a 4ft gap on a

yellow line into which you could

barely have fitted Noddy’s

pedal car.

A study found that more

than half of non-drivers

don’t know what reverse

lights mean. Or stopping

distance. “Just drop me

here,” shrieked my BND

with three seconds’ notice

on a dual-carriageway with

nowhere to pull in.

Look, I know cars are

filthy and we should walk

more. I admire those who

don’t have them for

eco-reasons. Except for when

they frequently accept lifts

from those who do while

virtue signalling. “Still

using unleaded? Blimey. If

I had a car, which I never

would obviously, I’d get electric.

Yes, just keep going, I live ten

minutes up here. Well, ten

Gravely disrespectful

O

utrage has greeted an

escalation in people having

sex in the graveyard of a

6th-century Torquay church and

sunbathing nude “in broad daylight”.

Though how you sunbathe in

darkness is unclear.

Some claim there’s a gothic thrill

in performing life-affirming coitus in

such close proximity to death; two

fingers to the Grim Reaper etc.

Perhaps. But when I was young I

knew people who would regularly

traipse off for churchyard sex for

two simple reasons: privacy and

plenty of flat surfaces. Disrespectful,

but there we are.

Now, with so many adults still

living with parents, maybe it’s one

place where the occupants won’t

overhear you and bang on the

wall. And, at least in the Covid era,

you are guaranteed that everyone

remains 6ft apart.

minutes-ish. What was I was

saying? Oh yes, why does any

fool have a car any more?”

So long, Trev

I

s your name

Trevor?

Commiserations.

Only 11 babies took

your name last year.

It could be worse. The

Office for National

Statistics reported a

mere seven Susans

and, sigh, three Carols.

Three! Why so many?

Pity those bairns given

the lumpen cardigan in

life’s naming lottery.

And who can we thank

for the demise of dowdy

names like mine? The

likes of Ed Sheeran,

that’s who. His new

baby is called Lyra Antarctica

Seaborn Sheeran. In fairness, I

imagine when fellow celebs have

named their children Moon Unit

(Frank Zappa) Bear Blaze (Kate

Winslet) and X AEA-Xii (Elon Musk)

it feels a poor effort to call yours

“Janet”. Meanwhile Susans, Trevors,

Brendas and Colins have become

ironic names for pets. Trevor, I must

admit, is an excellent name for a dog.

Right-on, or just right?

I

have been laughing at the hoo-ha

over “left-wing comedy” at the

BBC, which, funnily enough, is

more than I ever do at Radio 4

comedy. Man, some of that stuff is

lame. The problem isn’t being “left

wing”, it’s being smug. Remember

Bernard Right-on, John Thomson’s

clever parody of Bernard Manning?

He would make a politically correct

statement his anti-punchline.

Comedians tend to rage against

whoever is in power. Except, do

they? In the 1970s and 1980s what

did Bob Monkhouse, Kenny Everett,

Ken Dodd, Eric Morecambe and

the greatest of all, Les Dawson,

have in common? They were all

fans of the Tory party.

y P t l A t b i

Carol Midgley Notebook

@carolmidgley

the times | Saturday September 5 2020 1GM 27