Above The Parapet

“Why does everybody have to be happy all the time?” Doc Martin

Professional musician, and WWII RAF pilot, Peter Gibbs, stood up at a rehearsal of the London Symphony Orchestra and said to Herbert von Karajan:

“I did not spend four years of my life fighting bastards like you to be insulted before our own Allies as you did last evening.”

His justification for such an outburst was that the ‘great’ conductor had treated the orchestra with contempt. By most accounts his judgment had been fair but it cost him his job – Karajan had the power.

Fear of dismissal does not appear high on my concerns and, in any event, a number of factors suggest that my views are also likely to be treated with contempt. After all, I don’t have a lot going for me since I am:

• Old. Today the wisdom of age has little currency which may be absolutely fair in my case since I have a history of multitudinously repeating mistakes.
• Caucasian.
• Middle Class although that may have become an aspiration rather than the reality.
• A non-Graduate (this may become self-evident as this tripe unfolds).
• A Veteran (not an appealing term but it will do for now but certainly not a hero).

Of the above, being a Veteran is probably the greatest crime although, unlike a fellow Gunner, I have yet to be set upon by the Kent Police. As the Armed Forces presence, relative to the population, has been shrinking fast over the last fifty years, the public’s awareness of who they are and what they stand for diminish in sympathy. This lack of awareness by the general population has not happened over-night, indeed in 1972 I experienced this brief exchange with a Manchester University student:

Student: “Are you sure you are in the Army?” (even back then my senility had been assumed)

MJ: “Yes, why do you ask?”

Student: “Well you seem quite normal to me”

Of course, I felt hugely flattered to be considered ‘normal’ but in the wider context it was slightly depressing to be apprised of an educated civilian’s perception of the military.

Running with all the above lead weights in pockets, I am taking the risk of putting my head above the parapet on some aspects of the state of the Nation. While the focus of this incoherent piece is on the UK, as Marine Le Pen declares that France is sinking into “barbarity”, the perception may be that we are not alone in facing societal challenges.

Pendulum Swing

It would be both pointless and inaccurate to claim all was well in our society just a few decades ago; unfairness has always lurked in the background but at least it has been democratic unfairness! Within that democratic process, giant evolutionary strides have been to improve the nation’s quality of life and the fairness within it. The Welfare State and Acts of Parliament on Race Relations, Health and Safety, Human Rights etc have run off the production line for the general betterment of society. Indeed, today there are so many rights that many have forgotten the word ‘privileges’. The down-side of such theoretically ‘good deeds’ is that society seems to have become less tolerant which might suggest the old values of: Good manners, parental discipline and a stiff upper lip had a lot going for them.

Today it would seem that many have become dissatisfied with the more leisurely pace of evolution – they want change and they want it NOW; in so doing perhaps forgetting that instant change, such as Tony Blair’s Dangerous Dog Act, often ignites the law of unintended consequences. Genuine grievances aside, there are probably a number of factors that are accelerating the impetus for change which, many might feel, is taking the nation down the path to mayhem (being denied access to the Daily Telegraph by the workings of Extinction Rebellion surely illustrates that bedlam is nigh).

As the BLM shows, a tragic incident that is given the oxygen of publicity can envelope nations in widespread discord and division. Additional fair wind is given to that oxygen through a multitude of ‘news’ outlets, in addition to the Main Stream Media (MSM). Knee-jerk views and unresearched views are accorded unmerited validity on such outlets as Twitter and Facebook; the general dismay at the performance of the MSM has given added impetus to the reach of these new(ish) kids on the block.

In surveying this confusing scene it may be the Douglas Murray has hit the nail on the head with the term Madness of Crowds which he has encapsulated in the title of his book (recently updated). Perhaps oldies like me might have used the term mob rule but, whatever the correct appellation, the world now abounds with opinions that are often devoid of fact. As something of a Twitter junkie, I need to be cautious in commenting for fear of having some of my ill-considered utterances being fired back at me. However, an on-going debate on Scottish Independence reveals, to me anyway, a level of vitriol that throws into question the word ‘debate’.

For editorial reasons, extracts from Twitter exchanges on Scottish Independence shown below do not include those replete with the F and the C words. It would surely be a fundamental misnomer to regard these comments as serious contributions to the art of debating:

“You’ve never left the playground; I keep forgetting that you guys find things hard to process. I’ll dumb it down in future for you; You are painfully thick; Oh, you’re worth blocking for EXTREME stupidity; The only ignorance I’ve found on this thread has come from you unionists; You are so thick I am surprised you can breathe; A brainless malcontent if ever there was one; You thick twat; I expect nothing of substance from you, Jim; Well you will talk pish repeatedly; He arguments are so ill founded he disappears up his own backside; A waste of skin and oxygen frankly; He’s a fanny on repeat, every day of every week; So, total bollocks; You are painfully thick; Do you enjoy being an arsehole?; You are not bright are you?; It’s just bollocks”

For the less fainted hearted here is a visual example of such exchanges: https://twitter.com/Jim1Jas/status/1302577586707537920/photo/1

As a regular Twitter user, the risk is accepted that Emily Maitlis or someone else could trawl back to 1953 and unearth some ill-considered words or phrases that I may have offered at Primary School. But, it is to be hoped, nothing on the same insulting scale as the Scottish debaters.

So, an atmosphere has been created whereby instant, often ignorant, responses can immediately gather momentum and attract an unjustified label of being an important matter of the moment. The problem is that there are too many such matters and the Tsunami of issues seems to have left the politicians and other leaders floundering. However, there is one cause that politicians hold dear – their re-election. Is that the imperative that drives them to garner votes by offering instant support for each passing minority issue? If so, it is predicated on the assumption that their core vote is solid and can therefore be ignored. I would ask politicians to note these wise words extracted from John G Winant’s Epitaph (US Ambassador to the Court of St James 1940-46):

“That caring counts and that where there is no vision the people perish”

He was not talking about fluffy vote catching virtue-caring rather he was seeking root and branch changes to society for its betterment as a whole. However, he is talking of a vision – a concept that has by-passed most of today’s ’live for the moment’ politicians.

A situation appears to have been reached in which any scurrilous claim can gather momentum such as ‘Elvis Presley was a racist” resulting in anti racist graffiti being daubed on the walls of Gracelands. Such vituperative claims are often tracked back hundreds of years – it is no longer the sins of the father that are brought to bear but those of a naughty forebear who arrived with William The Conqueror. Such muck raking is not limited to the new platforms; BBC interviewers prepare for the slaughter of an interviewee with a check list of ‘crimes’ stretching back to 1914.

Douglas Murray expresses concern that the BLM is fighting something that does not exist. He may have a point, after all last year in the USA there were ten million interactions with the police whereas the current filling of the perceived, or real, gap in policing by armed citizenry is not going too well. Further, in the USA 1,004 people were shot and killed by police last year; 1% were unarmed, black men —just 8 but, in comparison, twice as many unarmed white men were shot and killed by police in 2019.  If Murray is right what is the end game? Will it just peter out or lead inexorably to revolution? Further, if it applies to that movement, how many others might be simply manufactured grievances?

It may be the case that in reacting to imagined or real grievances we have witnessed an OTT response from politicians, the media, advertisers and such alleged leaders as the Archbishop of Canterbury. When did the Archbishop last address such issues as: FGM; forced marriages; deaths of Yemeni children; the persecution of the Yazidis; or even the murder of Christians in Africa? I can’t remember. Yet in reacting to recent slave trade issues he immediately instituted a study into what stained glass windows and gargoyles might cause offence. In similar vein, before Roku withdrew my access to BBC I-Player, I tuned in to watch a documentary – all but one of those on offer related to black lives and slavery. To be clear, I am not saying such issues are either imagined or not important but there is a case for suggesting that pendulum has swung too far in a particular direction; indeed, we may be living in the age of minority dominance.

So much of everyday discourse and happenings seem to be OTT; for example, to many it’s truly  extraordinary that a White Professor at George Washington University pretended to be Black for years. Was it an act of ingratiation or simply a facile attempt to raise her credibility?  Gripes, manufactured or otherwise, are numerous, straying into such areas Trans Activism and the castigation of JK Rowling; offensive Darwin exhibits in the Natural History Museum; unacceptable statues; sexist bike racks at railway stations and now amending the spelling of women to womxn on the grounds that is more “inclusive and progressive”. The unfettered ubiquitous clarion call of social media in particular, has thrown up a challenge by allowing minorities to punch above their weight. Society’s response has largely been one of appeasement – anything for a quiet life. The trouble with appeasement is too often that in the long-term, the voracious appetite for change leads to anything but a quiet life.

The rush to instant judgment courtesy of social media and MSM reflects Churchill’s view that “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on”. The hasty vilification of Tony Abbott as being an anti-gay misogynist and climate-change denier offers a recent example.  Famous thespians and other Great & Famous (G&F) wrote condemnatory letters to the Press in the belief that they had to right to change Government policy. As the dust began to settle we heard a robust defence on the misogyny and anti-gay accusations, from those who actually know the man and have worked with, or for, him. As for climate-change, Abbott has freely admitted that he is a denier but then so is Nigel Lawson. When did it become a crime to hold a different view on such an important issue? While science is supposed to deal in facts scientist often disagree – not just on climate-change.

Appeasement has an unhappy track record as indicated by the line taken by Ambassador Joe Kennedy who sought a personal meeting with Hitler soon after the Nazi bombing of the UK in 1940. His pitch to the US Department of State that such a meeting would “bring about a better understanding between the United States and Germany”. He further argued against providing military and economic aid to the UK on the grounds that Democracy was “finished in England”.  As an aside, it is alleged that Kennedy left the Embassy for a safe house whenever a Nazi air raid was predicted, leading to this contemporaneous remark by Randolph Churchill: “I thought my daffodils were yellow until I met Joe Kennedy”.

The nation will be relieved to know that I am not a policy maker so how to meet the challenges is not part of these ramblings. However there is one remaining facet of modern life has some bearing on the increased divisions in our society; that is humour or, more accurately, alleged humour.

Humour is, of course, a very personal matter after all we do not all laugh at the same jokes. That said, the alleged humour has become increasingly nasty and devoid of wit. Too many comedians conflate nastiness with satire.  It seems beyond comprehension that anyone might claim this to be amusing or witty: “I would like to see clawed hands rise from a vent in the ground and drag [Johnson’s] living body into hell”. Frankie Boyle.

Sometimes the double standards of the BBC, beggar belief. On a Ten O’Clock News broadcast, a health warning and apology was offered for bad language used by the PM in the House Of Commons. It transpired that Boris had quoted directly from a third party and that it contained one ‘offensive’ word (not even that on the Gun Park). Switching to BBC 2 after the news, viewers were treated to a fifteen minute ‘comedy’ Nish Kumar programme that contained more F words than I could count on hands and feet.  So what? Let’s remember that some buffoon of an academic claims that “Studies have shown, however, that swearing may in fact display a more, rather than less, intelligent use of language”. Good grief and there was ignorant me thinking that those who swear repeatedly have a limited vocabulary which is not usually an indicator of intelligence.

To find humour, I now tune into Radio 4 Extra to hear Hancock’s Half Hour, Beyond Our Ken, Radio Active and the Goon Show all of which, extraordinarily, attract a health warning about ‘language and views of an earlier age’. As Billy Bunter might have said ‘Cripes’ who would have guessed that back then when I had hair and teeth, I was being subjected to such unsavoury humour.

State of Play 

“The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but that it was impossible to avoid joining in.”   George Orwell

“Tayside Police apologise after Muslims complain over ‘unclean’ puppy in advert” Daily Record

It has already been agreed that unfairness features too largely in our society but it may be that the optimum cure is not yet on the table. Any cure is complicated by a backdrop of viperous debates, intolerance, a demand for instant self-gratification, the destruction of statues, re-naming of streets, and poor leadership. Without being melodramatic, it might be suggested that the pervading inclination to inflict public shame and humiliation has resonances of the voice of Chairman Mao – the Cultural Revolution. Are we entering a world of thought crimes, rhythmic chants and strident calls for re-education? Pressure to ‘bend the knee’ or obliging folk to apologise publicly for ‘White privilege’ might be interpreted as the first steps towards a confusing future.

In a number of regards, the lack of political leadership, in particular, is not helping the challenges our society is facing. Politicians have been too quick to endorse what might be described as movements of the moment, often with unhappy longer term consequences; in their haste to lasso a loin of popularity, they have failed to read the small print. To the dismay of many right-thinking people they have also been too slow to condemn serious anti-social acts such as the assault on the Cenotaph. But worse of all is that some, especially in the USA, have fanned the flames of unrest with such statements as: “Show me where protests are supposed to be polite and peaceful”. That said, trendy US entertainers are not averse to stirring the pot of discord with this advice to protesters: “Punch some people in the face”.  Meanwhile back at the UK ranch Dawn Butler MP Tweets: “Bravo, Extinction Rebellion, excellent work”.

Perhaps with old fashioned and therefore probably unacceptable British phlegm, most of us will ride these problems out. We can surely adjust to being fearful of being honest while quietly casting our heretical votes in the solitude of the Ballot Box, thereby getting our own back on the Pollsters.

Plan B   

Based on the above thinking, in view of my cowardice and current disillusionment this is my personal Plan B:

• Never, voluntarily visit London or any other major conurbation again
• Avoid eye contact on any public transport
• Live or move near the coast or, at least, well away from a major conurbation (already trending)
• Never visit Dover wearing a beret or sporting a Regimental tie or poppy
• Reduce my TV and Radio menu to Talking Pictures and Radio 4 Extra
• Find a pub that is not bulked out with children
• Conceal my true feelings