A gentleman after all?

There has been discussion recently on the Times letters page, most of it feeble in the extreme as is sadly typical these days of the Times letters, of what is a modern definition of a gentleman. When this comes up, as it does from time to time, I cannot think beyond the wonderful Beyond the Fringe sketch about the railway lost property shop advertising 2000 pairs of ‘lost’ corduroy trousers. Jonathan Miller muses about how they came to be lost all at once, imagining a regiment of men detrousering on command at a predetermined point in the journey and marching off bare legged, to the horror of a watching matron in charge of a group of children – ‘turn your faces to the wall dears, while the ‘gentlemen’ walk by’.

The trouble with the sort of definition that Times readers come up with is that it is nearly always pseudo-funny or pretentious, when gentlemanly behaviour is more than anything a matter of good manners and certainly nothing to do with class. I had a supervisor once who might have passed at first meeting but soon revealed his true colours through his inability (it seemed more than a reluctance) to say please or thankyou to waiters or secretaries. (He also claimed to speak French but could not grasp that a feminine noun in French, such as personne remains feminine even when it refers only to males, a dead giveaway if ever there was one.) In fact it was almost a defining feature of British industry up to at least the sixties that senior ranks behaved in this way – the lack of please and thankyou I mean, not the bad French.

Which brings me to Alastair Campbell. I have long regarded him with the utmost distaste and have held it against Tony Blair that he would ever employ such a person. But from the rash of opportunistic memoirs that have appeared recently following Blair’s departure it is clear he moved in polluted waters. For Cherie Blair, in her own most untimely and inappropriate memoirs, made a number of uncomplimentary remarks about Campbell, including the accusation that he once referred to her ‘personal stylist’ Andre Suard as ‘only a fucking hairdresser’. Campbell denies this vehemently with what, if true, is a good working definition of a gentleman in the modern world. He claims ‘there are other direct quotations... which were not accurate, but this is the one I would like to deny, not least since it goes against the rule I have tended to operate most of my life, which is to save my harshest words for colleagues at or above my level within the organisation’. Of course this could just be an obtuse way of placing his boss’s wife in the pecking order of the Downing Street entourage.

Maybe for a final thought we should revert to Jonathan Miller, discussing the meaning of the famous sign that used to be found in train lavatories: gentlemen lift the seat. Was this, he wondered, a new kind of loyal toast, or maybe a latter day definition of a gentleman?

Inauguration of hope

One of the less edifying sights of the political near future will be that of George Brown sucking up to President Barack Obama. The incongruousness of it is staggering. The man who will lead the free world, whose oratory has inspired millions, who embodies the American creed of yes we can and who so far has proved it, is set to be tainted by association with the bullying, dogma ridden, tediously uninspiring co-architect of the party of no you can’t, don’t you dare and let’s not even think about it.
Twelve years of New Labour, its glib pronouncements, its cynical attitude, its bullying of the whole parliamentary process through an unassailable majority, its twisting of the facts, its redefinition of the basis of any measurement of progress or performance so as to present news to its advantage have reduced me to a despairing impotence and obliterated any memory of why I originally wanted the Tories out. And now Brown is going to try to get some of the glamour, the hope, the sheer quality of Barack Obama to rub off on him. It will be like watching a hyena trying to steal the show from an Afghan hound, a vulture trying to soar with the wandering albatross.
When Obama made his now almost definitive race speech I started a piece that I tentatively called ‘if only we had one like that’. And I didn’t mean black, coloured, African-American or whatever the right term is. His race is understandably important to millions of Americans and more millions elsewhere but to me it was irrelevant. I rejoiced because first the speech emphatically removed race as an issue in the primary process but second and mainly because it revealed him as so clearly the best person for the job, demolishing in the process any claim to special consideration that Hillary Clinton, in many ways an entirely worthy candidate, might have had simply for being a woman. For some reason I never finished the piece, absorbed in the arithmetic of the primary race and daring to hope that someone of Obama’s character and quality could go all the way. In November we celebrated with our American friends and today we simply basked in the final confirmation, as one does at a wedding after the build-up following the engagement announcement. His inauguration speech came down a little from the celebration of his acceptance but seemed to me to have just the right tone - I’ll start as I mean to carry on.
And now our papers are full of speculation over if or when we might have a black prime minister. They miss the point. The British system emasculates potentially good politicians and makes it almost impossible for them to achieve high office before any inspiration or originality has been squeezed out of them. The last one to beat the system, for good or ill, was Margaret Thatcher. It’s not a black prime minister that will save us, it’s a good one. When he or she shows up it won’t matter if he is black, white or green so long as he is a citizen, not a politician.

A time to race

Time to hide from the TV or finish that thousand page book you started a year ago, for the Olympics are upon us. Yes, I shall watch a few events - the 1500 metres final is the cream of them, long enough for tactics to be potentially decisive but short enough to maintain the tension. But the dancing and prancing ones, the swimming, in which who is who is distinguishable only before and after the action, and most of the team games (baseball and softball rightly for the last time) I will skip. Of course one has to keep an eye out for a genuine new star and the occasional woman competitor of both skill and beauty, like the Canadian high jumper Debbie Brill of long ago. If there is a new one I hope she has enough skill to make the final so I can get another look.

The Times will be represented by a mixed bag of writers led by its chief sportswriter Simon Barnes. Barnes is a versatile journalist and unusually erudite for a sports specialist, up there with Bernard Darwin and Henry Longhurst. He does a column on wildlife on Saturdays, has written novels and rides horses enthusiastically - he understands the mechanics of the reverse (or is it inverse) canter that is apparently a crucial part of the dressage stage of the three day event. But his main, recurring, theme is what one might call the soul of sport, appreciation of its ultimate meaning, why we do it, why the best practitioners do it to the limits, what it means to win and lose in terms of basic, raw human endeavour and emotion rather than titles and prizes. He does it better than anyone else.

On Tuesday Barnes reported on a ‘gig’ he had attended that was sponsored by Omega (BBC and advertisers of over-hyped cure-all foods and medicines please note that is Omega, not Omega), responsible for timing at the games. Jaques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee, was there and obliged to make a speech. Barnes feared a traditional brotherhood of sport spiel and was surprised to hear a philosophical essay about time and its relationship to sport. Neat, appropriate and tactful on Rogge’s part certainly but I felt Barnes, unusually for him, missed the mark in his endorsement and appreciation of the theme.

Time matters in sport, Barnes said, adding quite rightly that bullshit, the staple of nearly all post-event commentary, doesn’t. But I think that much sport is at least independent of time and sometimes distorted by too much emphasis on it. The most exciting races are the ones where two or more great competitors come together to find the winner. The winner’s time is secondary. Coe raced Ovett, not the clock. Roger Bannister may be mainly remembered as the first man to beat the four minute mile but his greatest race was when he beat John Landy, who had stolen his world record in the meantime, passing Landy on the outside of the last bend as Landy looked over the other shoulder to see where he was. Gordon Pirie, by contrast, held all sorts of world records but was consistently beaten in head to head races by athletes with slower personal best times. If we miss seeing a race we ask first who won, not what the time was. Time is a measure of progress in training but decisive only when the nature of the event does not allow head to head competition and this surely is why the winter Olympics are so dull, for almost every event has to be decided by either timing or subjective judging. The drama is gone. In which connection what a good device the Cambridge bump races are. With a river too narrow for side by side racing the crews are not timed but set off at equal distances from each other and succeed or fail according to whether they catch up the boat in front before the end of the course. Good primeval competition with the winner clearly apparent as it happens. That is how it should be.

Outside racing sports time can be crucial in defining the end of hostilities. Basketball matches always seem to be determined in the last few seconds and even in chess players run into time trouble and have to rush their moves. Is there a sport unaffected by time? Bowls perhaps, or snooker and some might say golf, but on this last I disagree. There is now a standard for the time a round should take but I have not had much success to date in bringing it to the notice of my club. Just give me time.

Basic certificate in UK citizenship

Elementary Level

Paper 1: Numeracy, objectivity and healthy scepticism

Q1. (80% of marks) An article in the Times reported that a government survey of drinking had found that alcohol had become 69% more affordable between 1980 and 2008. Discuss.

A. Without further information not given in the question one cannot say whether this loose phraseology is the product of the government’s standard of analysis or the current standard of reporting at the Times.

The obvious first question is: 69% of what? It is a reasonable assumption from the data that an arbitrary definition of alcohol affordability has been postulated and given an initial value, based on data for 1980, of say 100. It would then appear that the corresponding value of the index, recalculated for 2008, is 169, which would indeed be a 69% increase - in the index.

Next, to make a proper objective assessment of the significance, if any, of such a finding we need to know how the affordability is defined. Again, one can only postulate and a reasonable assumption would be that researchers have investigated typical patterns of income and spending in 1980, taking into account the then prevalent wages and salaries for typical occupations, the level of taxes on those wages and salaries and the prices at the time for say a pint of bitter, a bottle of chardonnay or a litre of gin. A measure such as the price of a pint as a proportion of disposable income might then be devised. Or it might be the number of pints that could be bought with a week’s disposable income. And here we immediately hit a common confusion when results of such research are quoted in percentage increases. If alcohol has become cheaper relative to other ‘discretionary’ spending, which is presumably, in qualitative terms, what ‘more affordable’ means, then the first measure will show a reduction in the proportion of disposable income needed to buy a pint. However the second measure will show an increase in the number of pints that the disposable income will buy. Only one of the two will show a change of 69% and the second will be the larger. It is therefore likely, in its efforts to make a case for the restrictive actions that will follow, that the government has chosen the second measure.

To further test the official analysis we also need to know the definition of disposable income – assuming that this is indeed the basis of the ‘affordability’ conclusion. One hopes, though one hardly dares assume, that it starts from a basis of taxed income and that essential spending is then subtracted. What is considered essential? Has this changed between 1980 and 2008? Where does council tax figure in the calculation? What alcohol prices were used in the comparisons – a cheap six-pack of Belgian lager sold as a loss leader in a supermarket or a pint of real bitter in a pub struggling to make a living in the face of the smoking ban without degenerating into a pool hall and food outlet? What sort of typical income was used as the basis – a City banker, a man working as the only breadwinner with two children and a mortgage, a professional man trying to keep up with the increases in school fees and golf club subscriptions, or a pensioner whose council tax takes up an ever larger proportion of his meagre income?

The only conclusion consistent with rigorous analysis is that the government has commissioned a fudge, designed to make us feel guilty and to act as a basis for further taxes on alcohol and restrictions to individual freedom.

Q2. (20% of marks) On the basis of the content and conclusion of the report do you consider legislation to control alcohol affordability and consumption would be justified or workable in a democracy?

A. The history of similar efforts in other democracies and in other areas is not encouraging. The extreme measure of prohibition was enacted in the US and later abandoned after it had spawned a significant extension of criminal activities (as is happening with banned drugs in many countries now) and in the UK the attempt to restrict the flow of discretionary spending on foreign holidays in the 1960s merely accelerated it by giving encouragement to the package holiday industry as a means of reducing the impact of the regulations.

However, since it is a fundamental principle of New Labour that the innocent must be punished along with the guilty, legislation is to be expected. It has already happened with smoking, with the same effect. It is most likely to take the form of hefty tax increases (they need the money anyway), compulsory label information on units of alcohol and endless messages about the health risks as if, as with smoking, any drinker can still be unaware of them. It may also involve moves to control sales to minors or act against irresponsible retailers and publicans. These will merely have the effect of making life more difficult as well as expensive for the responsible drinker or the person who simply appreciates a good pint.

A good week for democracy

And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

He chortled in his joy.

Chortling was not enough. I yelled with joy and bounced up and down in my chair, probably wrecking the springs. It took me several minutes to calm down. I am still glowing with delight, as if I had just broken 80 (again, I might add).

The Jabberwock is an apt allegory for the EU, conveying the right degree of doom combined with something weird, unreal, incomprehensible and frightening. I was in Ireland all last week as the final stages of the referendum campaign unfolded, complete with the by then merciful moratorium on any comment about it for the final 24 hours before voting. There were various arguments from the No camp, supported only by Sinn Fein of the main political parties, some valid, some rather spurious but a recurring theme was that voters should not vote for something they don’t understand. The government, which spent far more taxpayers’ money on campaigning for a Yes vote than the privately funded No campaign needed to make its successful case, happily contributed to this by issuing every household a copy, or presumably a précis, of the treaty text. Gunshots and bleeding feet come to mind. The treaty is as impenetrable as a Salman Rushdie novel. It takes over 67,000 words to make its dubious points. The US Constitution, including amendments, needs only 8,000 and can be understood by just about anyone. The Irish on the whole use our priceless language better than we do and have rightly objected to this insult to their common sense and values, in effect saying that if there is a good case to be made why can it not be more clearly explained? In other words, what is the government trying to hide? They even promised under pressure to use the Irish veto at the World Trade Organisation to prevent any agricultural deal that would be ‘bad for the farmers’. The farmers’ leaders seemed happy with this fudge but I heard nobody ask whether they would ask the farmers each time whether they wanted the veto used or not. This ‘trust us, we know best’ attitude is typical of most governments and in spades of the EU itself but it seems not to have fooled the Irish farmers.

On the evening news the BBC treated it a bit like a surprise result in the Euro 2008 football: not in keeping with the form book, now what happens next? Channel 4 gave us an interview with a remarkable politician I have not come across before. Gisela Stuart is the German-born Labour MP for Edgbaston, a drafter of the EU constitution, wrote an article for the Daily Telegraph criticising Gordon Brown for denying us a referendum and understands democracy - a lot of contradictions there. She is also articulate and is willing to give a straight answer to a simple question. Asked whether the treaty is now dead she said yes. Asked whether the EU has a problem with the ballot box she said yes. She berated the EU president for saying everything will still go ahead even before the official result was announced and said he is in denial. Right every time Gisela. The way in which other countries like France and Germany have jumped in to belittle the problem they now have and by implication blame Ireland is disgraceful.

All this will perhaps give Gordon Brown something else to think about as he tries to stop us noticing that he only got his 42 day detention bill through the Commons with the help of nine DUP votes and Ann Widdecome and to kid us that no deals were done in exchange. The resignation of David Davis may have confused David Cameron a bit but he’ll work it out in the end. Brown’s efforts to belittle it are hypocrisy. He firstly knows that Davis will campaign not just on the 42 day issue but on all the areas in which this government has eroded our rights and freedoms and does not relish the embarrassment this will cause and secondly he simply does not understand anyone who could do out of principle something that could harm his career prospects and will have no idea how to conduct the debate. More fun to come there with any luck. I don’t think Labour in general or Brown in particular will be crowing about this for long. The only Labour politician to come out of the 42 day business with any credit is Jacqui Smith and this despite, not because of, being in charge of the department sponsoring it. Matthew d’Ancona, after interviewing her for the Spectator, wrote ‘English, female, articulate, a human being: suddenly Labour MPs are taking a very close look indeed at their Home Secretary’. I thought the order of his adjectives interesting and significant.

Boris to the rescue

The most cheerful week in politics since David Cameron, at his first prime minister’s questions, wrongfooted Tony Blair by offering Tory help to get his education bill passed. It started with the miserable Gordon having to admit he had gone badly wrong in removing the 10p tax band, something he did out of over confidence and vanity and that was exposed within minutes as a fraud that his successor as chancellor would be unlikely to thank him for. It continued with the local elections offering up such delights as a Tory council in Kingston upon Hull. It was so bad for Labour that even their spin doctors could find no way of putting a gloss on it.

Then very late on Friday came the best bit. A properly contested mayoral election in London was overdue and a novelty. This was real American-style politics: two candidates, neither really a mainstream politician, outside the control of their parties though strongly backed by them, slugging it out for a high profile job that is very much what the holder makes of it. It was certainly Ken Livingstone’s true metier and I feel sure it will prove Johnson’s too. Long seen as a loose cannon in national politics and as something of a buffoon in public life in general he, like his predecessor, leaves few people neutral in their opinion of him. As a result we were treated to a campaign in which the characters of the candidates had as much influence on voters as their policies and certainly more than the party labels attached to them and this is as it should be. In such a contest Livingston was a loser from the start against a man quite unembarrassed, and largely unhurt, by various public gaffes and a very competent and entertaining TV performer. The turnout was a third higher than four years ago and it was probably this, if the extra voters consisted, as I expect, of Tories who had had no faith in previous candidates their party had endorsed, that swung it. Was it another case of the power of hope in politics, the appeal to the disillusioned and apathetic to help reverse a spiral of cronyism and mediocrity? Was that why the FTSE index suddenly went up 128 points after barely moving all week?

There is a sense that the cavalry has arrived and now Boris has to deliver. One good sign is that he has made a priority of cutting ‘so-called minor’ crime, particularly on public transport and has made his wishes clear to Sir Ian Blair, the chief of the Metropolitan Police. This is welcome both as an aim and because while he has no direct authority over Blair he is apparently prepared to make life difficult for the Home Secretary, who does, if Blair does not respond. Since Blair sometimes gives the impression of seeing himself more as a politician than a policeman this could be fun.

All in all a good week. London will be a more cheerful place from today and I think England will be too.

Must write to the Times about it

Don’t bother. It won’t get published unless a) you are an MP, bishop or one of the remaining peers with access to the House of Lords, b) you are exercising what amounts to a right of reply on behalf of an organisation that has been offended, whether justifiably or not, by an article or another letter or c) you have a singularly unoriginal contribution to make to some ‘educated classes’ discussion on unwelcome Americanisms or alternatives to the cuckoo as the first sign of spring and the bottom right hand corner is short of even these makeweights.

I suppose a hundred years ago writers of letters to the Times were mostly known to each other and were using its pages almost like groups of a like mind use blogs today. They would write from the Athenaeum or even the Albermarle in the knowledge that by the time the next day’s pre-luncheon whisky came round (the post was quick enough in those days not to need email) their views would be known to everyone that mattered. The letters editor needed only a copy of Debrett or Burke to decide who to leave out and could probably rely on the subject matter being confined to hunting, military strategy and the iniquity of any kind of social reform.

If I ran the paper I would instruct the letters editor that first of all he would see no letter until a minion had separated its text from its writer’s name and address, leaving only a reference number to enable the two halves to be reunited in the event of publication. He would then judge the texts on merit, topicality and originality alone. The trouble is the present incumbent (is that a tautology? – answer no when incumbent is used as a noun, I’ve just looked it up) either has little good material to work with or is in thrall to categories a, b and c above. I do my best to supply him (sorry, him/her) with appropriate topical, pithy missives but with no recognition to date. Meanwhile the most awful drivel continues to get published, particularly under heading c. I sometimes wonder if the letters go via the BBC first.

My most recent efforts were first to suggest that we should adopt a national oath of allegiance before one is foisted on us by the EU (too subversive I suppose) and then to point out that Roy Hattersley had misinterpreted Chesterton’s poem The Secret People by suggesting that the reason the English have not yet roused themselves and made themselves heard was because of their innate English reserve and modesty. I said that the real reason is that we are slow to come to the boil but the time might be coming near. Hattersley’s craven effort was in an article for which he was presumably paid, adding to my ire.

However one man hit the jackpot recently, a reverend whose letter about how certain Muslim countries prohibit the import of Christian material was printed on successive days. He deserved it. I expect him to make bishop any day.

The ten commandments of New Labour

And the Lord spake unto the children of Britain and said:

1. We are the God that is New Labour, which brought you out of the house of the Tories, out of the land of sleaze. You shall have no other God before New Labour.
2. You shall have no idols but the National Health Service and shall not worship at the altars of any other form of healing, for New Labour is a jealous God and will visit the sins of the unfaithful onto their children even unto the third and fourth generation of those who express self reliance, independence or initiative.
3. You shall not take the names of New Labour nor the National Health Service in vain, nor mock them nor criticise them nor hold them to be in any way less than perfect, for New Labour will not hold them guiltless that take the name of New Labour and its munificence in vain.
4. You shall keep holy the appointed day of May in honour and celebration of the heroes of the class struggle and comprehensive mixed ability education. You shall not propose nor observe any other festive days unless in like manner of honour and celebration and shall be damned with cardinal sin if you espouse any holiday or celebration that is or might be construed to be a triumphalist anniversary of any military excess such as the battles of Agincourt or Trafalgar or the commanders of the imperialist forces involved.
5. You shall honour the father and mother of New Labour, the blessed Tony and Gordon of sacred memory, that your days may long continue in receipt of the blessings of the National Health Service and the ten pound winter festive season bonus.
6. You shall not kill any fox nor other mammal unless by humane methods and without pursuit by dogs.
7. You shall not adulterate New Labour beliefs with visions of individual choice or liberty or freedom to mock or criticise those of unusual habits or behaviour. You must nevertheless accept with a pure heart and closed mind whatever indignities or injustice might be wrought against you by such bodies and tribes as have been given licence by equality, human rights or health and safety legislation.
8. You shall where beneficial to New Labour steal from dissenting parties such policies and initiatives as may be likely to win votes. You shall not take political donations from the faithful but shall disguise them as a loan.
9. You shall not bear witness against New Labour nor succour nor encourage those who seek to expose or criticise New Labour, lest you find yourself banished to the regions of outer darkness and the damnation of your employment prospects.
10. You shall not covet your neighbour’s disability allowance, nor his place in the queue for a hip replacement, nor his public service pension, nor his carbon footprint, nor his seat on the board of a quango, nor his grace and favour residence, nor his free holidays, nor his lecture tours, nor his second Jaguar nor anything that is his.

These are the commandments of New Labour said the Lord: observe ye them and avoid the sins of the Devil, being smoking, drinking, eating and the burning of fossil fuels, and New Labour will provide all your third-worldly needs through the miracles of wind power and colour coded food labelling.