The Economist - UK (2022-05-28)

26 Britain The Economist May 28th 2022

ingcoursesoftheirown.Modelcurricu­

lumsmayinfluencethecontentthatedu­

cational publishers put out. Primary­

school teachers, inparticular, maywel­

comehelpnavigatingsensitivetopicscon­

cerningblackandminorityhistory.

Decisionsaboutwhatgoesintothenew

historycurriculumarea wayoff,butthear­

gumentshavealreadybegun.Somewarn

thattheexerciseriskscaptureby“woke”

academics, who will pack lessons with

sombremoralising.Othersreckontherisk

skewstheotherway:a modelcurriculum

thataimstostokepatriotismamongmi­

norities while swerving uncomfortable

questions.Thegovernmenthasyettoan­

nouncewhoithasrecruitedtoitspanelof

experts.Perhapsthebiggestdangeristhat

it cantemptonlytheshrillestvoices.Some

goodcandidateshavedeclinedtopartici­

pate,says one insider.“They are suspi­

ciousofgettingsuckedintoa trap.”n

ThePlatinumJubilee

Land of hops

and glory

I

n ramsbottom therewas roistering,

beer and “rustic sports”. In Bletchington

people enjoyed roast beef and “as much ale

as  they  could  drink”.  In  Llanrothal  there

were  “copious  libations  of  cider”.  Sunday

School  children  in  Spilsby  were  given  “a

plum­cake  and  a  glass  of  wine  each,  to

drink  his  Majesty’s  health”.  Britain’s  first

jubilee, held in 1809 for George III, was cel­

ebrated  with  abundant  quantities  of  beer

and  an  even  more  abundant  supply  of

Georgian  euphemisms  for  “everyone  got

extremely  drunk”.  There  are  numerous

“loyal toasts”, plenty of “patriotic toasts”, a

lot  of  “patriotic  songs”  and  an  almost  un­

seemly  amount  of  “regaling”.  You  can  all

but smell the ale on their breath. 

Royal jubilees are odd sorts of celebra­

tions.  Unlike  most  royal  events—such  as

weddings,  coronations  or  funerals,  all  of

which mark change of some kind—a jubi­

lee is a marker of mere stasis. It celebrates

the  fact  that  the  current  monarch  has

stayed alive for a prolonged period of time.

This might sound underwhelming but it is

a  feat  that  most  English  monarchs  have

failed  to  achieve.  Of  50­odd  English  kings

and  queens,  only  six  have  lived  long

enough  to  qualify  for  a  golden  jubilee  to

mark  a  reign  lasting  50  years;  only  two

have lived long enough for a diamond one,

marking 60 years on the throne; and only

Queen  Elizabeth  II  has  achieved  a  70­year

platinum  jubilee.  Although  she  actually

reached that milestone in February, it will

be publicly celebrated in early June. 

Until  relatively  recently  the  monarchs

of this sceptred isle specialised in untime­

ly and often unseemly deaths, with one al­

legedly  stabbed  on  the  toilet  and  another

through the eye; a third was dispatched by

an  (again  allegedly)  importunate  poker.

Not kicking the bucket was enough of a feat

that English monarchs used to hold annual

festivals to commemorate their accession.

That practice only stopped, says Tracy Bor­

man,  a  royal  historian,  when  monarchs

started to live so long that people “got a bit

bored”. Hence the switch to jubilees. 

Look  through  the  reports  of  past  jubi­

lees and it becomes clear that each has its

own flavour. Whereas the jubilee of George

III involved getting heroically drunk, in the

era  of  Victoria  the  mood  became  notably

more Victorian. In 1887 this paper reflected

on the celebrations for that queen’s Golden

Jubilee  and  was  well  satisfied  by  what  it

saw. The English, the author observed, had

hitherto been a “rough, turbulent and bru­

tal”  lot  but  they  had  improved.  Manners

had  softened;  brutishness  was  in  abey­

ance;  and  a  suggestion  “to  run  fountains

with  beer”  had  been  greeted  with  “the  ut­

most indignation”. Good works marked the

1935 Silver Jubilee of George V: Welsh coal­

mine owners gave their workers a pension

fund,  and  Indian  tribesmen  forswore  cat­

tle­rustling “in token of their esteem”. 

These  earlier  jubilees  seem  like  confi­

dent  affairs.  The  Georgians  might  have

been off their faces but they seem comfort­

able  in  their  own  skins.  This  newspaper’s

account  of  Victoria’s  Golden  Jubilee  ap­

pears shortly after an admiring special re­

port on imperial expansion. 

At  the  queen’s  Silver  Jubilee  in  1977,  to

celebrate  her  25th  year  on  the  throne,  the

prevailing mood was more curmudgeonly.

The Mass Observation Project (an eccentric

but benign project in which volunteers re­

cord everyday life in Britain) set out to take

the temperature of the nation—and found

it chilly. “People are not in the mood,” said

one woman, bluntly. In Scotland, Mass Ob­

servation  reported,  there  was  “total  apa­

thy”.  In  Bath  one  local  observed  that  “The

Royal Family leave me cold. I couldn’t care

less either way.”  

The impending Platinum Jubilee is also

less dazzled by the present, more nostalgic

for the past. The government’s plans for it

promise pageants and bandstands; they re­

fer to village halls and “pomp and circum­

stance”;  they  speak,  in  short,  of  a  Britain

that hasn’t existed for 50 years or more, if it

ever did. 

Even  the  entertainment  has  an  air  of

nostalgia. Instead of new acts, 150 “nation­

al treasures” will participate in the jubilee

celebrations. Once Britain had only a hand­

ful of national treasures, figures such as Sir

David Attenborough and Dame Helen Mir­

ren;  to  suddenly  produce  150  is  an  act  of

cultural quantitative easing that speaks of

a  certain  institutional  insecurity.  Every­

where there will be bunting and street par­

ties,  “jubilee  trifles”  and  cucumber  sand­

wiches,  and  the  taste  of  a  country  that  is,

ever so slightly, playing a part. 

Look closely, however, and you can see

signs  that  there  does  remain,  after  all,  a

strain  of  authentic  Britishness.  The  gov­

ernment  plans  also  include  the  informa­

tion that “to mark Her Majesty the Queen’s

Platinum Jubilee”, Parliament has “passed

an order to extendlicensing hours in pubs,

clubs  and  bars...to1am”.  There  will,  once

again, be regaling.n

Britain is celebrating jubilees more

often, but less confidently

1935 and all that