John Bunyan & Brexit

 Re-reading John Bunyan’s ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ I recalled how bored I had become the first time I read it many years before. But now, in an age where the lunatics have taken over our asylum, the book reads in a very different light.

The Evangelist, like many of our leaders today, shows many sins of psychosis. By losing touch entirely with reality, it is possible to build imaginary kingdoms. We in the UK are with the rest of the world as if on the Titanic heading straight for the iceberg (a climate catastrophe). But our leaders have taken it into their heads to resolve all our problems by quitting one upper deck cabin for another much lower down away from the sight of our future. They paint a comforting notion that Brexit self-blinding separates us from future perils.

Bunyan’s Evangelist leads the pilgrim through a wicker gate into an hallucinogenic world. This fabulously described world is so divorced from reality that it allows Bunyan to paint a comforting notion that separation from the many perils that beset the pilgrim (and even the cruel death painted for Faith) is merely a prelude for experiencing the celestial drug.

There are many extraordinary quirks in the tale. The familiar depiction of women as little more than harlots and seducers ensures that readers who can stomach the prose are likely to exclude over half the population of the world. The constant referencing to chapters of the Bible as if the ‘progress’ is already a well-laid path with academic credentials. The oddly anti-Semitic moment when Moses beats up the pilgrim and then just disappears is one where Bunyan decides not to provide New Testament referencing. But then Moses reappears with Enoch and Elijah as the Shining Men to be transfigured (presumably through conversion) at the end of Book One and the Pilgrim’s Dream.

Bunyan, like many of our political leaders, lives in a fantasy world. It may provide temporary comfort as the Titanic ploughs on. But even as we strike the iceberg, those in charge will be the first to the lifeboats leaving us with no sight of a revelatory kingdom – only the immense depth of an ocean stretching as far as we can see.

So let’s dump Bunyan’s Tale over the side and take over the ship before it’s too late!

RUSSIAN SCHOOL MODULE

 

21^st CENTURY BRITISH HISTORY curriculum: module 8: Pandora.

 

After the Great Election of 2019, when the “all gifted” leader and clown won, a fellow comic pointed out that the Greek for “all gifted” was PANDORA. And sure enough, whilst Boris the “all gifted” clown was celebrating his triumph: a strange box arrived that he did not recognise.

Despite warnings from other leaders around the world who had received similar boxes that they should not be opened, Boris believed that his victory over his political opponents made him invincible when confronted by any adversary. So he waved away the warnings and opened the box to demonstrate his bravery.

The box contained nothing but invisible carriers of sickness and death that promptly flew from the box. One caught Boris unawares and made him poorly: but most escaped onto the public that had just won him his Great Election. Once the carriers were out of the box, they could never return. Instead they infected millions of unsuspecting people and killed tens of thousands.

Poor Boris did not know what to do. He knew how to celebrate election victories that had been prepared for him by his cunning storytellers. The chief storyteller, Dominic the Master, told him not to worry as most of those who died would have done so anyway within the next decade or two. Their premature demise would simply save Boris’s treasury having to pay more for pensions and the NHS. So Boris wasn’t too concerned. But he needed to look as if he was concerned or those who survived might not vote for him next time.

Some clever professors pointed out that as the evil carriers of sickness usually only killed the elderly, the best way of managing the disaster was to set up special protection for them whilst letting the rest of the population carry on as normally as they could. But Boris knew that this would not be good for his image because he had let the virus loose in the Care Homes, giving them no protection so allowing thousands to die there already. He did not want to admit he had failed to protect old people because the majority of that age group had voted for him and he did not want to lose their support by appearing to be an incompetent, uncaring idiot.

So instead he encouraged his medical teams to invent largely ineffective procedures for everyone in the country to follow so he could pretend that he was in charge of managing the pandemic. His heroes in other countries like the Presidents of the USA, Brazil and India had followed similar policies and found themselves with hundreds of thousands of dead citizens as a result. He told his most trusted supporters (eg fellow Ministers and Media owners) not to report too widely on those countries like New Zealand, Germany, Iceland, South Korea, Vietnam, Denmark and Finland whose leaders were not to his liking and where the boxes had been kept shut (or whatever had escaped had been captured very early to prevent it spreading through the population).

Boris the Comic had to tone down the Clown Act or people might think his next big act, destroying the UK’s trade and trust of our nearest neighbours, might not be well received. This was the policy that Dominic the Master was most keen on implementing to show how clever he was. No one thought it was possible for anyone to persuade most people to vote for a policy that would destroy their jobs, raise prices of essential goods and make the country into a tax haven for some of the most wicked and corrupt people in the world. But by careful manipulation of the media, he had accomplished what his much-admired political teacher had taught him. What became known as Putin’s Brexit became the most remembered action of Boris the “all gifted” and is taught in all Russian schools to show how clever their country’s leader was in fooling Boris and his followers.

IN DEFENCE OF CONSERVATIVES

There are many on the left who blithely point out that political leadership in the face of the pandemic has been shown by those with more left wing views. They point out that right wing leaders like Trump, Bolsonaro and Johnson have failed to protect their people against the virus. They say that these men’s backgrounds do nothing to prepare them for the leadership required to fight covid 19. Defenders of these politicians do them no favours by describing these backgrounds as if they gave them an advantage: Trump with his fortune, Bolsonaro with the military and Johnson with his leadership of Britain’s departure from the EU. Critics quickly point to Trump as nothing more than a TV celebrity whose inherited wealth has given him the power to build skyscrapers and golf courses. They describe Bolsonaro’s extreme misogynistic and racist views and Johnson as little more than a TV comic with multiple failures as London’s mayor, the UK’s foreign secretary and the severe economic impact that Brexit brings.

On the other side, the left point to the many female leaders who have impressively led against the invasion of the virus. Mette Frederiksen in Denmark, Katrín Jakobsdóttir in Iceland, Sanna Marin in Finland and Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand all have decidedly left wing backgrounds: as does the male Moon Jae-in in South Korea who was arrested as a student activist and became a human rights lawyer. Multiple examples of their leadership qualities are described like Jacinda Ardern’s leading her cabinet to join her with a 20% pay cut. In an apparent comment concerning the UK’s and USA’s talking about “herd immunity” as a way to fight the virus, Ardern said ‘Some countries talked about herd immunity as a strategy. In New Zealand we never ever considered that. Herd immunity would have meant 10s of 10000s of New Zealanders dying & I simply would not have tolerated that.’

However, there is a defence that those on the right should adopt. The example is the Conservative leader of Germany. It is true that Merkel showed some decidedly left-wing attitudes when she welcomed in thousands of refugee migrants; but she leads the conservative Christian Democratic party and would certainly not describe herself as left wing. Instead, her supporters point to the way that she has responded quickly to the threat of the virus by seeming to understand the science much better than Trump, Bolsonaro and Johnson. Her conservatism does not appear to have dulled the intelligence that gained her a doctorate in quantum chemistry and her work as a research scientist in the 1980s. Not many left wing leaders have those qualifications: so it is possible to be an effective conservative leader provided that you can demonstrate the qualifications gained by Angela Merkel.

BORIS JOHNSON & OUR FUTURE

To become Prime Minister, you have to know how to play the “game” and convince the voters that you are the person who can best represent their interests. You do NOT need actually to be that person, you just require enough media owners and power brokers that it is in their interests to present you in that light.

Boris has cast himself as the jovial mate who could take a joke on ‘Have I Got News For You’ whilst writing articles for the Daily Telegraph that presented our European neighbours as the enemies of a supposed traditional British way of life. His undistinguished but significant years as Mayor of London were peppered with wasted money and abandoned projects: the sole achievement was following the initiative of Ken Livingstone, the previous Mayor, in expanding the area covered by the congestion charge in cutting down exhaust emissions in the centre of the capital. Eventually he became a Member of Parliament whilst ensuring that his laddish “charm” kept him as a favourite amongst the rank and file of the Conservative Party.

The rise of the far right throughout Europe and the UK decided him that this was a better vehicle for him to ride on than the more traditional one- nation Conservatism that had dominated before the rise of UKIP and the expertise of men like Dominic Cumming in knowing how to sway public opinion. His decision to represent the most Eurosceptic faction of the Party would keep him popular with many in the grass roots despite his disastrous performance as Foreign Secretary from 2016 to 2018.

The significant election of Donald Trump as the USA President could have been a major problem for Johnson. His tendency to make off-the-cuff remarks included accusing Trump of being "out of his mind" and of possessing "stupefying ignorance". The repeated gaffes and inappropriate remarks often undermined any progress with Britain's allies and opponents. He joked about dead bodies lying about in Libya and recited Kipling to offend those in Burma.  His failings even in defending UK citizens abroad could have been his undoing.

Nick Dunn, one of six British men who were detained while working as security guards on an anti-piracy vessel in the Indian Ocean in 2013, spent four years in an Indian prison. Eventually, on release, he explained how Johnson had done nothing to secure the release of himself and his colleagues for fear of threatening a potential trade deal. Perhaps most damaging of all was Johnson’s inaccurate suggestion that the detained British Iranian national Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe had been in Iran training journalists, which her family and supporters said had damaged their campaign to secure her release. Detained in Iran since April 2016, in September 2016 she was sentenced to five years' imprisonment allegedly for "plotting to topple the Iranian government". (She was temporarily released on 17 March 2020).

Johnson’s offending friends and allies, his inability to defend UK citizens abroad, nor his inability to view the damage Brexit brings to UK citizens at home, have not been significant factors in determining whether he should be the Prime Minister. His ability to turn a quick joke, his quirky personality and manner that ingratiates those keen to ensure that the Party remains in power have been far more important. The accusation that he could have led a more determined campaign in countering the effects of the coronavirus much earlier fails to take into account that at no point in his career has he been a leader. On Brexit he was led by Nigel Farage, even as London’s Mayor he followed Ken Livingstone’s initiative, and on becoming Prime Minister he was led by Dominic Cumming. Even on the pandemic, he declares that he is merely following the advice of experts.

The attacks on Johnson as a leader are irrelevant as he is not, nor ever has been, a leader. The UK’s influence in the world has been diminishing steadily for over half a century. In leaving the EU and in electing an unusually weak character as our Prime Minister, the UK is accelerating its way down this path. Those in power see the demise of UK citizens as an opportunity to exploit those with weaker employment rights who have, simultaneously, had to cope with much worse living conditions due to the pandemic and the effects of climate change upon the land. Boris Johnson as Prime Minister suits their agenda perfectly: a man who will follow their lead without qualms.

The massive financial programme announced by the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, was a forced move for any government concerned about the possibility of mass food riots. Again, this showed Johnson as following his Chancellor’s lead rather than leading from the front. Sunak, with his economics background, was far more likely to provide a persuasive account of the government’s handling than Johnson with his background as a part-time journalist and TV comic.

As the country faces consecutive (and occasionally simultaneous) crises, it is uncertain which of Johnson’s credentials as Prime Minister will serve him well. The falling standards of living post-Brexit, the consequences of years of “austerity” has on the NHS and Social Services, the increasing frequency of calamitous meteorological events caused by global warming, the internal divisiveness generated within the United Kingdom – especially in Scotland and Northern Ireland – do not play well to a man more attuned to hoping that charm and good humour would always work as a basic strategy in tackling major problems.

Given these fundamental problems for the “leader” who cannot lead, we should expect that he will gravitate towards powers that he feels will provide the leadership that is required and to which he can next “hitch his wagon”. Johnson has been adept in achieving this in the past. He has a seasoned instinct for getting himself people or causes that can carry him forward. Whilst his current senior advisor has brought Johnson the premiership, it is unlikely that Dominic Cumming will be able to provide simple ways forward in the face of these systematic, large-scale issues. Marketing expertise will still be required: but more radical answers to these issues than those currently espoused by his friends on the far right will be the only ones that can bring Johnson through these current and upcoming crises. Radical solutions grounded in reality rather than the imagery and media postures so beloved of the far right will be the only ones that should attract a canny player like Johnson who is well aware of the games he has been playing to achieve power.

Critics of Johnson who see him as basically lazy, unintelligent and unethical do not believe that he will be able to see himself (nor us) through these crises. They believe that he is bound to fail, if only because it would need a truly remarkable leader of a divided and declining world power to take us through. However, perhaps those same critics might pause for a moment and wonder exactly what leader they would like to see leading Boris Johnson. Replacing him with a Labour (or another Party’s) leader seems to be a long way off. The next election is not due for five years, by which time many of these crises will have been experienced by those of us who live here. It may be more practical to identify which of the realistic solutions to these crises are likely to attract Johnson’s attention and nose for an easy ride. Given the unprecedented breaking away from established, Conservative economic orthodoxy caused by the pandemic; it may be possible to attract Johnson towards further spending that could be seen to directly address the fundamental problems generated by Brexit, the climate emergency and how to cope with an ageing population. Massive investment in public works, health and education that continue where the pandemic cash injection left off might provide Johnson with a new lead to follow – John Maynard Keynes.