A Vacancy

Vacancy

A vacancy has arisen for Prime Minister of what is now called the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

This is a challenging position, mainly as a result of the actions of the last person in post, who has left, having alienated some 33,551,983 customers.

Central to this role will be the job of negotiating a severance of an agreement with another 440,000,000 potential customers which just under half of the disgruntled customers are happy with and the other half are not. This will involve expensive and long winded talks for which the successful candidate will get no thanks.   In this connection, experience in dealing with angry fishermen and Gibraltarians may be of help.

The candidate will be in charge of appointing a suitable person to manage the economy of the country and raising funds to cover the considerable shortfalls expected as a result of the contraction of the economy.

There are other pending issues, one of which will be shrinking of the role as a result of the conversion of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland into a new entity called "Britstump".  The northern part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, known as Scotland, is expected to leave shortly, and this may be followed by its capital.  Britstump is expected to move its capital to Birmingham, Cardiff or Stoke on Trent. 

The Northern Ireland bit really never belonged, and it is anticipated that it will become a war zone, and left to its own devices.

Enough of the job, let's look at the perks.  The salary is reasonable and there is a nice house, outside which the media will be keeping a careful 24 hour watch.

Yes, the Government is an equal opportunities employer - until all that pesky employment law gets a makeover....

J'Accuse

A woman lies dead.

The alleged facts are known to us all and are in every newspaper published in the country.  It is said that a man set forth on Thursday, armed with a gun, possibly home made, and a knife; and after a brief altercation with an elderly gentleman, shot and stabbed Jo Cox MP, causing her death.

A great deal has been said about Jo Cox, and what she had done and might have done, but the truth is that whoever lay there on Thursday, would have left behind irreparable sadness in the minds of family and friends, and others who knew them not at all.

My purpose is to look not at the victim, and only in passing at the alleged perpetrator, but beyond to the "why".

I have seen it said that this murder, or more properly an assassination, was the work of "a nutter with a gun, 'nuff said."  But I do not think that it is enough to say this, nor even that this is a fair summary of what has happened.  It is said that the suspect is a person with a history of mental health problems, but also that for many years he has lived a perfectly normal life to all appearances, working, and keeping himself very much to himself. There is no suggestion so far that he has committed any previous offence, nor that he has been disruptive in any way.   There are many people in our society who lead such lives but who have conditions that have been labelled as mental health issues, but really they are manifestations both of the wide diversity of humanity and the difficulty our complex society presents to all of us.

So Mr Mair is no "nutter".  He was an outlyer in the spectrum of behaviour, perhaps, but no "nutter".

But it is alleged that he has for many years harboured racist and white supremacist views.  It is easy to dismiss this as supporting evidence for mental illness, but it is evident that a very large number of people throughout the world subscribe to these and similar beliefs, and most of them, like Mr Mair had for many years, kept them to themselves, or perhaps to a small circle of like-minded people.  Of course there are some whose convictions lead them to participate in public campaigns and who indulge in offensive behaviour most of which is lawful, and because of our need to preserve rights of expression and assembly, should remain so.  As such, we have seen a succession of fractious and very similar groups, some of which deny being racist but fool nobody.

It seems likely that Mr Mair was not a member of any of these groups.

So what is the likely reason for his actions? Again, it is easy to sweep this under the table, to move on, and forget what has happened. But that is not what I think is right.

If you heat wine, what happens?  The volatile odours are released first, followed by the alcohol, and then the water will gradually boil away leaving a solid residue.  The same is true of society. Increase the temperature, and things will start happening.   And the temperature has been raised, there  can be no mistaking.  One only needs to look at the pages of the campaigns for and against remaining in the EU to see that.  And the language has become more inflammatory.  It has moved from discussion through accusations of lying, deception and suppression of facts, to charges of betrayal and treason. The onslaught on ideas and challenges to facts have turned into verbal attacks on people. I have seen suggestions that political leaders be killed in various ways, few of which have been imaginative, but many of which have come from a visceral hatred.

Here are some samples - spelling unchanged:

• " The end of western civilisation is down to the scum the government allow into this country." 
• "I want to slap George Osborne."
• "about time we made some threats back like.....we'll chop your balls off Cameron or Osbourne we'll pull your teeth out"
• "I think we need a coup in this country ,theres to many traitors in goverment and on the opposition side.send in the army and get rid of theese despots"
• "What I would give to put these 2 on a pedestal preferably with a sharpened point!"
• "..the most hated men in great Britain, They should be hung by the neck untill dead, or an Isis bomb under each one, Traiters to the british people, May they live to regret it"
• "thieving lieing traitorous polotitians are rounded up and strung up to die like in the good old days.... job sorted"

Now the people who lead the Leave campaign are not, in my judgement evil people.  Gove, Johnson, Hoey and Stuart are people who have served for many years in public life, not an easy role, thankless in many ways, and as Jo Cox found out, exposed.  I can see that they formed a view that this country would be better off not being a member of the European Union, and given that this referendum was bound to happen, took that side. 

The campaigns started with a focus on the economy, but it became very evident at an early stage that the economic case for leaving the EU was weak, and that the statistics which were being bandied around by the Leave campaign were inaccurate.  At that point, if any one or all of these people had decided that it was better to abandon the campaign to leave the EU, and to concentrate their efforts into improving the status quo, no-one would have blamed them: they would have been seen to be principled.

However, perhaps spurred on by their political heritage as campaigners, they allowed the Brexit campaign to become toxic: by majoring on immigration and telling lies about the accession possibilities of Turkey and Albania with the purpose of encouraging fears and suspicions based on racial and religious prejudice.  They did this, and they have not stopped. 

Their behaviour was no different from those who accuse Christians of burning Korans in Pakistan, or those who spread the rumour that Jews cooked and ate babies.  No different from the populist dog whistling of Donald Trump about Mexicans and Muslims.  They sought to make political capital from the promotion of hatred and fear. 

And unsurprisingly, like jackals at the smell of death, the people who see the "others" - it does not matter who the "others" are, as a threat, as swamping them, challenging their culture, have come out in their droves, repeating ad nauseam the same messages, the ones they said they could not express before, the views which have not been challenged for years because of their former reticence. 

That is bad enough, as it has set back the cause of tolerance and community for a generation; split families and people who thought they were friends; but in addition it has made those with really extreme opinions, not just the casual racists and jingoists, but the white supremacists and race-hate mongers, seem less extreme and bolder.

And I charge that these leaders of the Leave campaign that their actions strongly contributed to what has happened in a quiet village in Yorkshire. They carry no criminal responsibility, but the moral weight of what they have done will burden us for many years.  Of course they have joined in the chorus of regret:  I have no doubt that they do regret. But regret is not enough. They need to take such steps as they can to remedy the damage they have wrought. They should call at the very least for this referendum to be abandoned, or even for the country to rally round the status quo, but on the basis that the challenges to that status quo that they have raised be the subject of rational debate rather than rotten rhetoric.  

If they do, we should applaud them for putting the interests of their community ahead of short term interests. If not, we should remember that this woman who lies dead, may not be the last to die.