FraserWords

“What we sowed then, we reap now.” The writer Robert Chesshyre’s bleak conclusion to an excellent article in this week’s Observer (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jun/24/britain-class-inequality-robert-chesshyre ) could hardly be more apt as David Cameron returns to Tory basics.

Rule 1 of the Conservative Party clearly states: “When in trouble, turn on the poor and disadvantaged.”

Like any bully, the Conservative Party gets its jollies by kicking the weak; like any bully, it’s never liked it when the weak kick back, but because like all friends of bullies, the people who vote for them are devoid of moral compass and exceptionally gullible, they just get to carry on kicking. When the going gets tough, the tough look on while the weak get a hefty shoeing. In the Tory version of the King James Bible, the Good Samaritan is a sandal-wearing lentil-eating hippy who should have been arrested for crossing the road and interfering, and was probably on benefit anyway.

Cameron’s tough-guy posing in his latest attempt to persuade the middle classes it’s the poor who are at fault for their difficulties is an eerie echo of an earlier age.

In 1985 Robert Chesshyre returned to Britain from the US and was so appalled at what he found that he wrote a book about a country riven by social division, class hatred, public greed and private need, The Return of a Native Reporter. It was a harrowing chronicle of a nation abandoned to its fate by a dogma-driven power elite concerned only about wealth for the chosen few, whatever the cost.

Neil Conan reviewed it in the New York Times: “…the hopelessness, anger and, all too often, the despair of so many squares very poorly with our fundamental assumption of a fair, tolerant and caring society. It’s not surprising, perhaps, that casual Anglophiles [in America] continue to suffer the effects of royal weddings and ‘Masterpiece Theater,’ but Robert Chesshyre’s brave book makes a convincing case that the British are the victims of delusions far more deep-seated and corrosive.”

Now the book is being republished as When Thatcher Ruled Britain (Alma, £16.99), and in his article Chesshyre draws troubling parallels between today and the morally bankrupt Britain of a quarter of a century ago.

He writes: “When riots broke out again last year in Tottenham, there was not just dismay, but disbelief. There should not have been. The environment from which those troubles sprang was well established in 1987, and the people I met uttered constant warnings. Little had changed. Comfortable Britain’s collective lack of knowledge as to how “the other half” lives has in recent years been yet further reduced. Much of today’s media, dazzled by celebrity and obsessed by triviality, devotes little resource to reporting what life is really like in Britain.”

He partly blames education, and neatly observes: “Seven per cent of children go to fee-paying schools: did ever so short a tail wag so large a dog?”

Many people, of course, refuse to believe that Thatcher was anything but a force for good. They should read Chesshyre’s book.

Many people may refuse to believe that Tory policy, of hurting the weak and helping the strong, is divisive and destructive. They, too, should read Chesshyre’s book.

Barking mad

Dear Captain Kay stirred from his drink-sodden slumbers sufficiently the other day to slur at me down the phone (we keep an open line): “Why doesn’t somebody in the House of Commons just stand up, point at Michael Gove and say ‘He’s mad! Can’t any of you see? He’s mad!”? Because he’s mad! Barking.”

Well, yes. This time, Gove, whose ludicrousness has long been chronicled in these blogs, has decided that what we all need are O Levels. However, he clearly didn’t get one in teamwork because he failed to mention his latest brainwave to Cameron or Clegg.

Now I don’t think there’s anything sinister at all in that, actually. I think it’s simply a logical conclusion of what must surely have been an earlier Cameron statement to him:

“Michael, look. Next time you come up with one of your lunatic schemes, I don’t want to hear about it. Is that clear?”

Should there be any doubt about Gove’s sanity, by the way, may I point out to you that he is said to be the darling of the Tory faithful (Observer today) – just like Norman Tebbit. Anne Widdecombe. Iain Duncan Smith. John Redwood. My, what company.

Banking on who?

What is it exactly that the NatWest has done?

I still don’t understand what went wrong. But somebody said to me: “I hope to God they’ve lost my account details – I’m overdrawn to hell and beyond”.

Seeing as we mentioned Captain Kay, it rather reminded me of the time he was in a mess bar in a barracks in Ulster during the Troubles, having been sent there by some newspaper or other to take photographs.

Suddenly, the barracks came under mortar attack; alarms sounded, klaxons klaxed and the lights went out, plunging the room into darkness. Captain Kay leapt the bar and took cover underneath it, next, it turned out, to the barman, who was crouched there cradling a stiff whisky and a small black book. “What’s that?”, asked the Captain. “That’s the bar tab book,” said the barman. “First thing the buggers go for when the shit starts flying.”

Presumably somebody somewhere has been clutching NatWest’s equivalent to his suited chest in the snuggled comfort of an executive lounge, but my, what a mess.

Surfing the zeitgeist

You must remember, people, that you read it here first: this blog is on the cutting edge of the zeitgeist. Last week the rest of the world discovered Jimmy Carr had lost his credibility; I told you that a few weeks ago. I said any shred of respect he had ever earned as a satirist went for a Burton the moment he agreed to appear at the Diamond Jubilee gig, gambolling respectfully for Her Majesty the Queen. His little tax problem just confirmed it.

You may also remember that I had a few words to say about the Diamond Jubilee of Her Majesty the Queen, but actually I needn’t have bothered: everything that needs saying about the state of the nation and the jubilee is summed up in three words on the back of a packet of Union Jack tissues I was given. Those three words? “Made in Germany”.

That sentiment would appeal to the UK Independence Party, of course, and I must thank Brother Numbers for his link last week to some very entertaining YouTube clips of UKIP leader Nigel Farrage. I know some of you have enjoyed them already  – if you haven’t, go on, treat yourselves.