GENERAL DISMAY

On Remembrance Sunday, when the nation recalls the sacrifice of servicemen and women in armed conflict, a highly unusual letter appeared in The Times. Co-authored by eight Generals (including three former chiefs of the General Staff) and one former head of the Air Staff, the pronunciamiento trenchantly disdained the purpose of the proposed bill to address residual legacy issues of the "Troubles" in Northern Ireland. It would merely open old wounds and do nothing to aid reconciliation, they said. The authors also deplored "an ever broadening interpretation" of the ECHR which is being "used against those acting under lawful authority of the crown". The letter asserted the new legislation was a product of the "legal activism" and "lawfare" which risked weakening the "moral foundations and operational effectiveness of the armed forces on which this nation depends". Those on active duty now had to consider the "lawyer behind" as much as the "enemy in front" and that this was to the detriment of military morale and recruitment, especially in the special forces. The letter rather darkly concluded that "ongoing lawfare risks everything". 

On Times Radio, a former leader of the Conservatives said he could not recall such an intervention and judged it to be "unprecedented". He was very nearly right: although there is a bulky historiography of disagreements between the armed forces and the civil British state, including the now notorious "Curragh Mutiny", you have to go back to the 17th Century to see such a pyrotechnic public display of military dissent. But in their call for the government to "restore legal clarity, reaffirm the law of armed conflict" and to "deviate from the ECHR", were the Generals and Air Marshal right?

At the core of the letter lies a belief that the proposed bill effectively establishes a moral equivalence between the perpetrators of terrorist offences and those members of the security services who were trying to thwart them. The new legislation effectively repeals the "conditional immunity" clauses contained in the 2023 Legacy and Reconciliation Act, thus reviving the opportunity for the prosecution of agents, both state and paramilitary, on either side of the "Troubles". The authors fear veterans will once again be pursued through the courts and argue the "compact" that should exist between the state and armed forces in which the former stands by the latter when they act "within the law, under proper orders and in good faith", is being broken.

While the Generals and Air Marshal deny they are looking for immunity for the security services in respect of past actions and greater leeway in future ones, the dispassionate observer would struggle to reconcile this plea with the other points of the letter. The 2023 Act clumsily sought to draw a line under the Troubles by ending all UK police investigations into past acts and was drafted partly in response to some public disquiet about the continued legal bothering of veterans, especially those of the SAS. The signatories say the reversal of this would be unfair. Yet arguably the 2023 Act also established moral equivalence between the terrorists and state actors and was in any case ruled unlawful by the courts. The authors are tight-lipped on this. 

Their argument the armed forces should be held to a different standard can be grasped by the meanest intelligence. After all, the serviceman and woman are willingly putting their lives on the line in obedience to the dictates of the civil state. Yet there is damaging ambiguity in the letter as to what standard they actually refer. In attempting to draw a line under the Troubles, they implicitly deny due process to those instances, such as Bloody Sunday in 1972, where the armed services were manifestly not acting within the law, under proper orders and in good faith. On the assumption the state enjoys a monopoly of force, public confidence in state institutions cannot be sustained where accountability is denied by vague notions of military necessity. So the authors are right in one sense - a different standard should apply and it is one far higher than that applied to the average citizen. Indeed the increasing application of remotely controlled lethal technology and the greater precision of modern weaponry argues this standard should be higher still.

The letter hints at this higher standard, but then promptly undermines it by asserting its application is eroding the morale of the armed services. It is also, they claim, damaging the retention and recruitment of special forces. For the former point, they provide no evidence. A theoretical case might be made that "lawfare" undermines morale but this does not seem to be substantiated by history. The widespread application of the criminal and civil law to state agents during the Troubles is hardly new: General Sir Frank Kitson was pursued by litigants for his command of 39 Brigade in the Belfast of the 1970s until his dying day in 2024. Yet such "lawfare" and the passage of time does not seem to have  degraded the willingness of service personnel in aggregate to do their duty, as operations in Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan have demonstrated. The issues around recruitment and retention are more easily examined in societal changes, the diminution of military experience in the minds of citizens and the huge deterioration in the support given to service families. A citizen who baulked at recruitment to the services on the grounds he or she might end up in court would make poor martial material. So if there is a problem of morale, it speaks to deficiencies in training, support and leadership, not "lawfare".

The Generals are on far more slippery ground in their emphasis on special forces. The role of these in counter-insurgency operations - particularly in those where the primacy of the civil police is upheld, as in Northern Ireland - is far from settled. For all sorts of reasons, most of them inherently political, the Troubles were never designated as an emergency as had previous civil upheavals like that in Malaya. The rule of law was not suspended and where it was by exception, by such acts as "Internment-without-trial", the effects were counter-productive. Frank Kitson had made his name as the author of the 1971 book Low Intensity Operations based on his experiences in Malaya and Kenya. In it, he was sceptical of the sustained use of lethal force in counter insurgency scenarios, putting a much higher premium on thorough intelligence work, street level security and confidence building in the local communities. It was a doctrine endorsed by one of his proteges, Major General Colin Shortis, who served as both a battalion and brigade commander in Ulster. In a 1982 paper he commented "the use of highly trained, motivated and elite assault units can sometimes cause as many problems as they solve unless commanded by exceptional leaders of intelligence and moral stature". In the context conceived by the writers of the Remembrance Sunday letter (at least two of whom had served with the SAS), the importance of confidence building, deterrence and quiet attrition - which arguably lie at the heart of all successful counter-insurgency operations - appear to be of a second order to the legal comfort of special forces. 

Special Forces have come to occupy an unhealthily dominant place in the public's conception of the military as a whole. Even Tony Blair, on his assumption of office in 1997, thought the Regular Army mostly consisted of brigades of SAS or those of similar capacity. Yet high profile instances such as the Iran Embassy siege and the novels of "Andy McNab" have given a distorted picture of what such special forces can achieve and of their culture. Aside from some spectacularly deadly acts such as at Loughgall in Armagh and Gibraltar, the SAS played a lesser role in the attrition of Ulster-based terrorists. But at a time when the primacy of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) in security operations should have been more firmly established, the use of the SAS in the province further strained relations with the civil population and accusations of a "shoot to kill" policy by the state were widespread. After all it was undeniable that membership of a paramilitary organisation was not, at law, a capital offence.

It remains to be seen if the Remembrance Sunday missive gets further traction. It is noticeable too that the former RUC provided no signatory to the letter. Yet as attested by 16 George Medals and 103 QGMs, the RUC bore by far the largest brunt of the security campaign against the paramilitaries in Northern Ireland; never was the collective GC awarded to its members in 2000 more richly deserved. More importantly the letter obscures one of the main lessons of the Troubles, namely the confidence which the military and police must command from the public if liberal democracy is to be preserved. This can only be achieved by the highest standards of training, professionalism and leadership under a civil magistracy. It is by these standards, rather than by narrow legal ones, that military men and women will be judged by their fellow citizens to be exceptional. The distinguished authors of the letter in the Times probably thought they were making this case. But it was not, alas, persuasive. 

  

 

FLORENCE

One of the most awe inspiring of contemporary sights must be the gigantic throng of pilgrims swirling around the Kaaba in Mecca at the climax of the Haj. The image of thousands of white robed devotees gyrating en masse to the seemingly centrifugal force exerted by the black-shrouded "House of God" gives potency to the idea that while the Christian life has been increasingly marginalised by secular society, the Muslim one is both dynamic and thriving. Between 2.5 and 3 million souls visit this most Islamic of Saudi cities every year and the regime gains much of its authority from its stewardship of the site.

Florence is a mid-sized city of some 350,000 souls situated in a depression of the hilly Tuscan countryside astride the banks of the River Arno. It is the home of some of the greatest treasures of the Renaissance and the Christian iconography of the many paintings, buildings, public spaces, statues and sacred objects is overwhelming. Florence is visited by 11m outsiders every year. Yet you will search the western media in vain for any sign of its modern cultural relevance beyond the demands of the selfie-stick waving tourist and the regular eruptions of passengers from the gigantic cruise liners moored at the nearby port of Livorno. Click "Florence" and you will be bombarded with sites offering accommodation, recommendations of the best boutique hotels, AI generated lists of the busy places to see and offers of tours. You may also find the occasional sniffy article by some aficionado who bemoans the lack of Tuscan authenticity in the food served at the myriad of bars, trattorias, osterias and restaurants.

Yet the management of tourism in Florence is impressive and the visitor, at least to this casual observer, does not seem to be overwhelmed. The crowd swirling around the Baptistery next to the Duomo conjures images of the pilgrims at the Kaaba, but it lacks suffocating religious intensity and is good humoured despite the crush. Notwithstanding,  care is shown to worshippers who wish to pray undisturbed under the vast Brunelleschi dome. Likewise, the famous queues outside the Uffizi Gallery are managed with aplomb and good manners and the general feeling is a sense of civilised democracy in action. The feeding and watering of such an invading horde is also extraordinary and there is an eatery virtually every forty yards. Some are outstanding and good value besides. Escape from the crowds is also pretty easy and you don't have to travel miles outside the city to do so. Ten minutes from the Duomo is the Priory of San Marco with its frescoes by Fra' Angelico, including his famous Annunciation painted in 1442. It was here too that the populist friar Savonarola had his monkish cell. If you are into architectural bombast, there are the Medici mausoleum and tombs at the Cappella dei Principi. Other treasures can been seen completely unimpeded at the Duomo Museum including the magnificent bronze doors of the Baptistery, Giotto's Madonna and statues by Pisano and Donatello. The Boboli gardens on a Sunday lunchtime are delightful, with stunning views of the mediaeval town from the Belvedere. 

The sense of history is profound. The republican reign of Lorenzo di Medici, (the "Magnificent") coincided with what is arguably the peak of the Italian Renaissance and, less well recognised, the beginning of the decline of the Mediterranean world as the central point of focus for the Christian west. Constantinople had been captured by the Ottomans in 1453 and within months of Lorenzo's death in 1492, Columbus had set off on his voyage to the New World. Within 50 years of this longitudinal shift of focus, mastery of the seas and of its trade had passed from Venice and Genoa to the Portuguese and Spanish. In the east, Suleyman the Magnificent took Ottoman power and influence to its zenith.

And Britain? In Scotland, the monarchical state enjoyed an unusual period of peace and stability under James IV and the social organisation of the nation advanced - education was made compulsory. By comparison, all that the rest of the cold windswept archipelago had to show for itself was the beginnings of a centralised and rapacious state under Henry VII. Of culture and art, there is almost no trace, all swept away under the tyranny of his son as he sulked on the fringes of a Europe dominated by far more powerful monarchs than he. In the so-called Northern Renaissance Britain is marked for its almost total absence, save the exquisite selfies painted by Holbein for "notables" newly enriched by the plundering of the English church.

The dominance of the Medici (as well as four popes, they produced two queens of France) was founded on their extraordinary banking wealth. Both they and their rivals and collaborators threw up enormous palaces -  the one built by the Pitti is yet the only eyesore in Florence - and used their great fortunes for public utilities and patronage of the arts. These Renaissance families have their analogues in the fabulously wealthy "dynasties" of the computer-driven age. Yet whereas the Musks, Ellisons, Bezos's and Cooks have become part of an overweening hemispheric elite and increasingly detached from the mastery of their own technical skills, the Renaissance in Italy is marked by excellence throughout. While Jeff Bezos thought the best use of his money was to fire his pneumatically enhanced girlfriend into space, the Medici honed their financial techniques. They also patronised Botticelli, Perugino, Da Vinci, Donatello and Cellini for the edification of God and their fellow citizens. If they themselves appeared in any of the paintings (such as Botticelli's Adoration of the Magi), it is as supplicants before the infant Jesus or the Crucifix. It is hard to find much humility in Silicon Valley.

In an increasingly de-Christianised age, it should not be a surprise that any link between man and the transcendental, no matter how gorgeously realised in art, should be marginalised. If Renaissance Florence means anything to our incrementally ill-educated, "relativist" and philistine establishment, it is as an example of a culture tainted by superstition, excessive and "unearned" wealth or as a destination for gap-year gals on their way to Christies by way of the Courtauld. In such a context, the fascination of western progressives and the political left with the Muslim world seems ironic. The minutely detailed anathemas and prescriptions of a seventh century Arabian cleric would seem to have little relevance to the modern Godless state. Yet with its frisson of Communist obedience to the party, the harsh collective discipline inherent to Islam can easily be admired by the left. Progressives can congratulate themselves too on being able to patronise a mediaeval minority culture at home without having to think too hard about what happens in jurisdictions aboard where Islam holds sway. Would it be possible to see Greta Thunberg or Sally Rooney out of a burka? The thought never crosses the progressive mind. 

Secularists like to think it is their values rather than religious ones which have made us a tolerant and sophisticated society. This is typical of those who believe their own conception of morality marks a sort of year zero. But the reason most of the Western hemisphere lives in a civilised democratic society is because of Christian values, not despite them. The Medici may have made a lot of money, but they clearly understood their ultimate redemption lay in the risen Christ. 

The crucial insight of the Catholic historian Christopher Dawson was that culture is the product of religion, not the other way around. It was a view his better-known contemporary T S Eliot was happy to endorse. Rather than as a precursor to the Enlightenment, the Renaissance marked a lifting of people towards the Christian spirit with a notably humanist overtone - now sole obedience to God was abbreviated by openness to the spiritual appetites of fellow human beings who were ill-equipped to receive God's grace through the medium of dry clerical theology. 

If you seek the evidence of this, go to Florence. It's a reminder of how lucky we are.

 

ANGELA PASSES "GO"

O dear: those blasted rules of the game have once again upended a British government. Depending on your point of view, the Rt. Hon. Angela Rayner - erstwhile Deputy Prime Minister - has been unjustly ambushed by vexatious tax regulations which no sane person could possibly be expected to understand. Further, she is a working class lass who has suffered every disadvantage imaginable, yet who has climbed to the top of the greasy pole to occupy a senior place in the British state. Her somewhat convoluted housing arrangements reflect no more than the concern of a busy and  loving mother trying to do her best for her disabled 17 year old son. Her supporters, of which there are many - even among the columnists of the Daily Telegraph -  say her predicament is a victory for snobs, sexists and misogynists everywhere.

The other more straightforward narrative is that she is a gobby chav from Stockport with no discernible talent beyond a skill for self-projection - she has even described herself as a "mouthy" northerner. The lady has lived dangerously, involved herself again in some complicated and dubious property transactions and has now been found out. Her defenestration is therefore fully merited.

Either way, there cannot be a dry eye in the house. For l'affaire d'Ange contains all the classic and farcically embarrassing ingredients of scandal, incompetence and bad faith which mark ministerial resignations in the modern British state. First there is the toe curling revelation which is swiftly denied. Further revelations of dodgy dealing come to light and the miscreant doubles down while getting supportive parts of the media to spread diversionary chaff. In the next scene, a po-faced House of Commons (or the press in this case) is assured "all the relevant rules were followed". The Prime Minister then expresses his (or her) full confidence, at which point the denouement writes itself. Usually, there is a referral to whichever panjandrum it is whose role that month is to remind ministers how to behave. What normally follows is a lengthy interval while the duty apparatchik sucks his pencil and which allows anyone still awake to speculate and for those hacks who were asleep when the story originally broke to pour scorn on their competitors. At last the cast returns to the stage for the final act. The obscure civil servant produces a carefully worded note of regret, the minister writes some weaselly words of resignation and then falls on their sword. The Prime Minister sheds some crocodile tears of his (or her) own and the press goes back to speculating who is now "up" and who "down". The curtain falls and the proles disperse peacefully, having enjoyed a good laugh at the expense of their "betters". 

Angela Rayner is not the first minister to conflate public duty with private interest. But she is surely the first to have the brass neck to plead mitigation that she was only trying to protect her family barely a year after she was involved in another property caper which attracted the interest of the police. The truth is surely more grubby: it seems she arbitraged her son's trust to fund the purchase of a second property for herself; took the barest minimum of conveyancing advice while ignoring the suggestions she take proper tax guidance; claimed the new dwelling was her primary residence for tax purposes and then tried to "regularise" her affairs only once she had been found out. Not only did she act in bad faith, but she also displayed the most astonishing incompetence. Worse, her inverted snob of a boss tried to defend her by effectively saying her disadvantaged background somehow entitled her to be held to a more lenient standard. You could almost hear Attlee, Bevin, Tawney, Callaghan and even Michael Foot turning in their graves.

Alas, the office of the independent commissioner for "standards" came to the only conclusion that could be supported by the evidence. In a classic civil-service formulation, Sir Laurie Magnus opined that while our Ange's latest tour round the Monopoly board was  an example of "integrity", it was also (sadly) one of carelessness. Those damned and blasted rules. The poor lass who left school at sixteen; who lived in a paper bag (or some such nonsense) and had a fatherless child at seventeen; who doled it out to the toffs and became a darling of the Left - well, he almost sighed with regret, she had "broken the ministerial code". Exit Angela.

How have we allowed ourselves to be ruled by such utter berks? If democracy is supposed to confer some moral as well as electoral authority, how come government ministers and officials need to be told constantly what does and does not constitute ethical behaviour? Is it too much to ask that they be acquainted with what is right and wrong, not just with what they think they can get away with? When personal chicanery is accompanied by incompetence in office, then the chips must surely be down. By any measure, Sir Keir's tenure of Number 10 has been a shambles: unintelligent ministers making decisions way beyond their intellectual ability; a slavish devotion to ever more convoluted process rather than outcomes; a complete lack of leadership when problems occur and the supine acceptance of incompetence and mediocrity until looming disaster prompts a moving of the deck chairs. This Labour government has the lot.

Sir Keir will surely have cause to regret Sir Magnus's letter. Replete with the usual bromides of the Whitehall mandarinate, it has merely anaesthetised Rayner rather than buried her under the ton of housing rubble which she deserves. As erstwhile housing minister, even she should appreciate the irony. She can also breath easy - politics is now all about the game played at Westminster rather than the public good. A sense of shame or an awareness of personal ignorance are no longer pre-requisites for holders of public office We can be sure of her re-incarnation in all its gobby glory as she passes "Go" yet again.

 

THE AGE OF THE BERK

In a week when the Labour government came off the rails, the Chancellor blubbed in the House of Commons and Wimbledon witnessed the time-honoured first week cull of British hopefuls, the press went into a meltdown of its own. To read the editorials, the UK stands on the edge of the abyss. Every chart, spreadsheet, think-tank, op-ed and horoscope screams disaster. The diagnoses of Britain's predicament are legion: government incompetence; out-of-control welfare; porous borders; mass immigration; tax; woke; politicians; racism; social injustice, Trump, Islam - you name it. But there is perhaps a deeper malaise than any of these, which is we live in the Age of the Berk.

The English language can possibly claim the most number of words, idioms and usages to describe folly. Some are straight imports: cretin, for example (French) and jackass (American ). But the sheer range of synonyms and expressions in the English language is nonetheless impressive, while serving an important social function. Perhaps those languages which have fewer words for fools are more prone to civil disorder and even rebellion. The word "cretin" for example seems to cover a lot of bases in France while in English is has a narrower calibration: specifically it refers to an idiotic and repugnant lout; what the Americans would call a "jerk". In both trans-Atlantic uses, the folly invites revulsion and anger. On the other hand the word "jackass" is a softer American idiom in which the fool invites derision and laughter. The genius of the English language is it has yet another which can be deftly inserted between these two usages. The word "berk" neatly describes a person whose behaviour lacks sense, awareness or judgement, particularly where they are in a position of authority or significance. They have no particular talent other than an ability to irritate. They are often high-minded ignoramuses. In face of these types you are scunnered and can only offer a sad shake of the head. You just know the berk will never change; it is an immutable part of their nature.

After last week's shambles in Parliament, can there now be any doubt the government is composed mostly of utter berks? Sir Keir Starmer is of course berk-inter-pares: there is his portentous manner; his sanctimony; his vacuous attempts to look ruggedly "authentic" and solidly competent; his lack of bottle and his complete inability to read the room. As Prime Minister he sets the tone and attracts fellow berks: David Lammy, whose clownish utterances are at least confined to a department where the government has little impact; Angela "Tory Scum" Rayner and her pride in proving you don't need an education to be a total idiot; Bridget Phillipson whose charmless fanaticism is unleavened by her Oxbridge background; Lords Hermer and Falconer who can be relied upon to pontificate mightily with self-regard but little sense and Ed Milliband whose dogged stupidity probably takes the prize in a crowded field. Think too of the preening "Sir" Sadiq Khan. Sadly the other characteristic of the berk is their ability to hang on, barnacle like, to whatever office they occupy. They are untroubled by doubt, impervious to evidence and have no shame whatsoever. Their most irritating characteristic is their chutzpah.

But it would be unfair to single out the Labour Party. What about Liz Truss, Matt Hancock, the aptly named John Bercow and those jackasses (or were they jerks?) on either side of the Tory Brexit debate? Then there are Jeremy Corbyn, John Swinney, Sir Ed Davey and Nigel Farage - all bear the unmistakable marks of the berk. Nor is the tendency confined to politics. Connoisseurs of the syndrome will recognise the Director General of the BBC and Gary Lineker; the head of OFGEM; Jude Bellingham; Michael Eavis; the entire apparat of the All-England Tennis Club; Chris Packham; the Governor of the Bank of England; Daniel Kabede; Dr Chaand Nagpaul; Justin Rowlatt; the Duke of York; Michael O'Leary; Alan Sugar and his apprentices and the berk who gave us abrdn. And whoever it was who brought us Mrs Brown's Boys. Thinking about just one of these individuals is enough to induce depression.

What is responsible for the proliferation of the berkerati ? That's easy: the education system and the peculiar habits of modern parenting. We live in an age of reverence for the achievements of children and all must have prizes. There is "child-centred learning"; "tiger-parenting"; daubs praised as being akin to Picasso; and a vague facility with Lego treated as an aptitude worthy of Brunel. We all know (or know of) parents who think the obnoxiousness of their offspring is fascinating, particularly in the company of other "grown-ups". Every screech of the violin or mew on the recorder produces raptures. And if a child is simply incapable (or unwilling) to jump the ever-descending bar of educational attainment, then they are deemed to have some medical handicap. In such an environment of low expectations the bright, the talented, the diligent and the truly handicapped are effectively incentivised to give up or get out. But to the budding berk or cretin, it's a place akin to nirvana. It is a world in which mediocrity is given a gold star and where "attitude" is encouraged or indulged all the way to adulthood. The berk and the cretin thrive on self esteem but know nothing of self respect. 

Berk-ish behaviour is an increasing feature of our daily lives. As the clipboard wielding and lanyard wearing class expands, so does the propensity of people to behave like berks. It is there in fatuous health 'n safety instructions and in every plodding "risk assessment". The bugle call of the berk can be heard in "See It. Say It. Sorted" and their Bible seen in those stupid and ubiquitous NHS cartoons showing you how to wash your hands. It is there in the notices saying "Abuse of our staff ("operatives") will not be tolerated". Every public sector berk is, apparently, "Entitled to Respect in their Work for You".  Every new rule and regulation expands the sway of the lumpenberketariat; they are the masters of small-print and bye-laws and revel in process and protocols. Their coral reef is the HR department, HMRC, the House of  Commons, NHS administration, the local council office, quango, pressure group and public sector union. Worst of all is their infestation of what today is laughingly called customer service.

Is there any way to avoid a berk? Their lanyard or identity badge will often give you advance warning. Whereas in olden times the berk would ultimately be unmasked by names such as Graham, Nigel, Alan and Gordon, today the surest sign of the berk is the publicly displayed shortening of their Christian name. Beware of anyone in authority called Steve, Dave, Pete, Debbi, Steph or Pat. Their self-appointed role is to thwart and inertia is their default setting; the faux matiness of their title is a guarantee of maximum inconvenience to you and minimal effort from them. For there is no redress against the berk as their bosses are likely to have been cast from the same mould. Alan begat Dave.

The Age of the Charlatan rose with Tony Blair, peaked with Mark Carney and fell with Boris Johnson and Nicola Sturgeon. In between there was the brief interlude of Gordon Brown, an actual grown up who at least had the decency never to refer to himself as one. Today, "The Grown Ups Are Back In The Room" and The Apprentice is back on the telly, as sure signs as any we live in the Age of the Berk. The really bad news is that with the berks in charge, it will take forever to clean up the mess left by the charlatans. All we can do is clench our teeth. 

At least until our patience finally runs out.

  

WILL WE EVER ESCAPE PLANET GUFF?

Christ, the things we read and are recommended to read nowadays. Maybe one should get out more, but what happened to lit.crit. never mind the novel? In 2025, the dogmatic assertions of F R Leavis may seem at best quaint and at worst thoroughly off-putting, but neither now nor then could he be accused of shirking the effort. The small list of novelists whom Leavis determined were the only ones worth reading was perhaps more interesting for its exclusions such as Hardy, Dickens, Scott (possibly the worst omission) and Fielding. Yet in assembling his canon, Leavis had applied a faculty which nowadays can only be used very sparingly, lest anyone else (though they have no standing in the matter) take offence. Leavis applied his highly well informed "judgement". 

The somewhat intolerant strictures of the Cambridge literary scholar were ultimately left high and dry by the welcome tide of pluralism. But his exhortation, that the reader exercises his or her discrimination to judge whether or not the author has successfully encountered and engaged with life and its abstract truths through the medium of the story, has been thoroughly superseded by the beguiling whispers of relativism. Which  relieve us of the necessity of exercising any judgement at all. 

Leavis provided a crib which at the very least established important reference points even if one disagreed with his choice of exemplars. Nowadays, universities eschew anything so musty or fusty as a canon. Perhaps that is why the study of English Literature is in free-fall. After all, what's the point of shelling out nine grand a year to be told, if the tutor can be bothered, that the literary "heritage" is something to do with colonial oppression ? Unwisdom is the new wisdom.

The world of literary criticism has changed too and paradoxically the resources devoted to it by the media have dwindled as the number of works of fiction have multiplied. Partly of course, this is to do with the post modernist trend which disputes all meanings, judgments and categorical statements of "truth". In such a world where even scientific rules can be denounced as a "sexed equations", we're certainly not going to put up with the trenchant opinions of the diminishing band of professional literary critics. Folk like Craig Raine who have had the confidence, to put it politely, to produce work such as More Dynamite: Essays 1990-2012. 

Instead lit.crit. has been superseded by the review, a world dominated by freelancers in desperate need of a cheque and budding novelists who fancy some back scratching by their more established peers. In place of the detached and objective literary critic who has read widely and has a full range of cultural references there is now the reviewer who is in symbiosis with the authors about whose works they comment. Rarely do they exercise any discrimination beyond the level of the superlative and certainly they seem to feel no duty to the poor reader. Instead, contemporary reviews often read as highfalutin PR. Which is of course why publishers love them. 

Today the breathless etiquette of the review and of the literary "feature" are at the point of parody, if not well past it. First, there is the mark of the creative writing course. For example, the words "luminous feast" turn up quite a lot, as if such a dodgy metaphor (which any self respecting author would blush to use) could redeem the lack of insight. What is a "luminous feast" anyway? I'm not sure that any of my culinary efforts could be dignified by the word "feast" and they certainly aren't luminous. I suppose the paintings of Turner can be described as luminous, but that's because their objects are so spare. But are novels? Why not just say they are (or are not) illuminating? Secondly, there is the portentousness. One doorstopper was described thus: "a work which blended formal astrological playfulness with meta-aware storytelling". None of these qualifiers make any sense at all, although they do bear the heavy imprint of the PhD thesis in social sciences. Certainly the judges of the Booker Prize entries were so beguiled they gave its author the trophy. As they were by another Booker winner which was praised for its "intersectional forms of exclusionism" and its "atmospheric set of ventriloquisms". Well, obviously.

Perhaps more seriously the symbiotic relationship of storyteller and reviewer is driving an increasing uniformity in the output of novelists themselves. Of course there are other cultural influences at work, but the point is that the reviewers and their sponsors are important transmitters of the shorthand of those received wisdoms which simply would not be tolerated by the mature literary critic. Why do so many books today rely on the themes of sexual, ethnic or gender based oppression (often in a familial setting) and a search for identity? Victimhood abounds and too many novels (to judge by the reviews) are thinly disguised memoirs of self help. Can self absorption really be described as "fearless"? I suppose with today's culture of instant offence-taking and egregious libel laws, a writer's focus on the self seems the safest course.

Here is a selection from the press in the past week alone: a novel which "is a tender book... which explores identity, belonging and consent";  a work "which celebrates being different and reminds us that we are all, in our own ways, a little bit alien" ; an exploration of "national identity against the background of a soggy Scottish holiday park"; a book which "is a linguistic exploration of belonging". My own favourite is the blurb about an implausible sounding tale of the  relationship between a confused Vietnamese teenager and an octogenarian of Lithuanian descent who suffers from Alzheimer's. As the reviewer gushed, the story "is like a tawdry Middlemarch....an exploration of the inherited trauma of war and violence". It seems pretty clear the reviewer has either not read George Eliot or has not understood the Vietnam War. Or possibly both. 

It is hard to avoid the conclusion the novel in the 21st century has undergone a profound transformation. Narrative, plot, character and action are in very short supply. Instead, solipsism seems the dominant genre and the cult of victimhood has deprived protagonists of all agency, even in situations of the most startling banality. Relief is supposed to be found in "experimental" novels, with their pastiches of Joyce. But typographical novelty, the absence of grammar, confusing changes in the position of the narrator and the casual mis-use of chronology do not make such a novel any more readable today than it was then. Instead the barbed wire which has been erected against our understanding has been reinforced. Apparently, this is dignified as "profundity" and the reviewer implicitly shames all those who don't get with the program.

Perhaps the most arresting of all those approving reviews was the one of a tale of a narrator whose mother tongue is "earthy, sinewy, witty, excessive, wry, noisy, vivid....Hot where English often seems cold. Mouth filling where English seems empty. Patterned where English seems plain". All are perfectly legitimate authorial opinions, although the review did not give an opinion either way. But it is slyly admitted the narrator had only ever spoken English. As for their mother tongue, they had neither articulated nor understood it.

But then perhaps "Fuck this for a game of skittles" sounds more lyrical in Aramaic.

LIVERPOOL - SEMPER MISERABILIS?

What is it about Liverpool which prompts so much official mawkishness? On Monday 26th May, a car ploughed into a crowd of football fans in the city centre, injuring scores of folk, including children. The victims were part of a much vaster gathering which had assembled to celebrate Liverpool FC's topping of the English League. Coming so soon after the conviction of Axel Rudukubana for the murder of three much-loved little girls in nearby Southport, the authorities sounded hugely relieved to swiftly report the perpetrator was a white, middle aged, local man and father of three. It was also briefed the "suspect" was "high on drugs" (although this was not confirmed at his subsequent arraignment). Senior policemen  also said the force was "working at pace" to gather "evidence", which really turned out to be hundreds of hours of images from surveillance camera and verbal recollections from outraged fans. The deputy chief constable of Merseyside solemnly affirmed "everyone would get justice". The Prime Minister (no less) jetted to the city to layer an official patina of concern on the incident. In  time honoured fashion, Starmer's "heart went out" to the many victims and to the "people of Liverpool", whether or not they had been flattened or somersaulted by the recklessly driven vehicle. Their Majesties sent a note of condolence which recognised the fortitude of Liverpool's citizens and implicitly expressed a hope for their forbearance. So, an extensively photographed incident of traffic mayhem; an undeniably alarmed official response; a massive PR operation and a quite extraordinary outpouring of officially led "grief". Thus Britain in 2025.  

Growing up, if my family associated Liverpool with anything it was the Beatles, the "Kop", Ken Dodd,  the "Wigwam" and Aintree. My mother was a great fan of Beryl Bainbridge too and her admiration for the BBC's "Play for Today" introduced us to  the Liverpudlian playwright Alan Bleasdale. His gritty "Boys from the Black Stuff" was to become a cultural marker of the economic upheavals of the nineteen eighties. Who can forget its main character, the unemployed scouser Yosser Hughes? Played by Bernard Hill (actually a Mancunian), it was he who minted the forlorn plea of "Gizza Job", which has entered the lexicon. There have been plenty of real heroes too - Merseyside has produced 16 winners of the VC, including one of only three men who have won it twice, Captain Noel Chevasse of Liverpool Scottish.

The town's port economy also played its own muscular role in Britain's development. It was heavily involved by the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and when that was terminated, it re-invented itself as the foremost European entrepot for the importation of US cotton. Liverpool was to become one of the leading cities of the British Empire and its urban footprint contains some of the finest examples of nineteenth century civic architecture in Britain. It is home to George Gilbert Scott's magnificent Anglican cathedral. The longest in the world, it is physically linked with the equally visually arresting "Wigwam", the Roman Catholic cathedral which stands at the other end of Hope Street. 

It's also worth noting, outside London, Liverpool nowadays probably contains one of the highest concentrations of art galleries and museums in the UK, including the Walker Gallery and Tate Liverpool. There are other marvels. Built in 1836, Lime Street station is the oldest continually operating railway terminus in the world. The city has heft.

My closer association with Merseyside began in 1977 when I was confirmed by Derek Warlock, the unimprovably named Archbishop of Liverpool. He became famous for his friendship and ecumenical collaboration with the Anglican bishop David Sheppard, who had been in the England cricket XI. Both were instrumental in soldering the sectarian divisions of the area, a consequence of the huge influx of folk migrating from Ireland over the years. In 1979 the link was cemented when I was commissioned, aged just eighteen and one month, into my regiment. In a predominantly scouser unit, it was often challenging to maintain authority and a straight face as the frequent hilarities of military life and the instances of humour were numerous and infectious. I got to know many of the families of "squaddies" who were barely older than me but a few of whom already had kids, both in and out of wedlock. As an officer, I was supposed to be able to offer some pastoral insight - a ludicrous imperative given I had only just started shaving. I was taught far, far more than I could teach and had to grow up pretty quickly. But the regiment took its soldierly duties and its sporting ones extremely seriously. Gunnery, battle drills, boxing and association football were big deals, although the tank park indulged the officers' mess by providing two-thirds of the regimental rugby XV. In so far as Association Football figured in regimental loyalties, the majority of the soldiers supported Everton. When I turned up as a teenaged officer, a corporal at the guardroom asked me to name the two most famous football clubs of Merseyside. Thinking it must be the pass-word I replied  "Liverpool FC and Tranmere Rovers". I never looked back. In my last year of service, I was granted a home posting and was sent to act as the Regular Army's liaison with the city's TA units and cadet forces. The latter were concentrated among Merseyside's largest schools, both public and private; these provided a rich seam of recruits for the Army's cadre of "Junior Leaders". In those years, many unacademic youngsters who might have ended up in a life of petty crime or unemployment were recruited as juniors straight into the forces. Many later became senior NCOs, Warrant Officers and holders of a commission. A number went on to make a mark in civil life. In the 'nineties I returned to Liverpool as a civilian myself, this time to meet clients for whom I managed pension and life assurance funds. I often stayed at the inimitable Adelphi Hotel and can recall the spectacular views from the top floor of the Liver Building as we debated investment ideas and local gossip. I missed soldiering and my memories of the place, its regiment and its people were (and are) entirely positive. 

It would be fair to say however, public and official attitudes towards the city have been rather more ambiguous over the years.1981 saw the Toxteth riots but arguably the nadir in the city's reputation was reached in May 1985 when Liverpool FC supporters created mayhem at the European Cup held at the Heysel stadium in Belgium and caused 39 fatalities amongst Juventus and other neutral fans. English clubs were subsequently banned from European competition for five years and 14 of the rioters were convicted of manslaughter. While scouse hooligans were on the rampage over the terraces, back home disorder of a different kind had broken out in the offices of the city council. A caucus of Trotskyite Labour councillors under the leadership of Derek Hatton took on the Thatcher government; refused to set a legal budget; oversaw a breakdown in public services and were subsequently disbarred from office. Liverpool looked to be ungovernable. 

In 1989 a turning point of sorts was reached. That April, Liverpool FC was at the centre of another footballing disaster when 94 of its fans were crushed to death at the Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield. The tragedy was first thought to be the consequence of disorder by the crowd but was later revealed to have been mostly the result of incompetent stewardship by officials and police at the ground. Yet while the Belgians had been castigated for taking a leisurely 4 years to secure convictions for the Heysel disaster, the wheels of British justice barely moved at all. It was not until 2019 that anyone faced criminal proceedings for Hillsborough and nearly all were later acquitted on various technicalities. Thirty years of judicial messing about for nothing: now the British state appeared unable to govern itself.

The rehabilitation of Liverpool has coincided with the growing infantilism of public life.  As society has fragmented and folk are increasingly regarded as "victims" of life rather than free agents within it, mawkishness has replaced solidarity as a sign of political and journalistic seriousness and credibility. Liverpool has certainly been treated to bucket-loads of "grief" over the intervening years. After Hillsborough, who can forget the dreadful and barbaric execution of Ken Bigley by Islamic psychopaths in 2004 and the plangent Liverpudlian accent of the mother of Madeleine McCann, who was abducted nearly twenty years ago in 2007? Such incidents have witnessed outpourings of "compassion" by people and politicians who have absolutely no connection with the those affected by these tragedies. There have been the wearing of arm-bands and two minute silences, anniversary commemorations (rather fewer in the case of Heysel than Hillsborough) and acres of prurient newsprint. Above all has been the sight of senior politicians "reaching out" to folk whom they never knew before and whom are quickly forgotten afterwards. Nowadays, grief isn't really proper grief unless it is publicly expressed. Normal human emotions which should go without saying are loudly trumpeted as a sign of "authenticity". As one commentator put it "Mawkishness is the tribute indifference pays to solidarity".

Today, economic inactivity, whether defined by the dole or benefits paid to those not seeking work at all, encompasses nearly 30% of the working age population of Liverpool. Yet the constituencies of Merseyside have been Labour voting fortresses ever since the franchise was expanded. In a world where empathy now has a higher weight than actual achievement, it could be fairly said that the city's MPs have been rather too snugly insulated by the deprivation and lack of aspiration which they claim to want to alleviate. Indeed it was  a Tory cabinet minister (Michael Heseltine), who did more than any Labour minister to get Liverpool to raise its game after the Toxteth riots. When the Labour MP for Birkenhead, Frank Field, was appointed by Tony Blair to "think the unthinkable" about the destructive influence of creeping welfarism he was however, swiftly removed. Unfortunately, Frank's recommendations were just a little too spicy for the "caring" party.

Liverpool is just going to have to get used to being patronised. 

A HILLBILLY IN THE WHITE HOUSE

Just as the "science" of man-made climate change is apparently settled, so (if the English speaking media is to be believed) is the consensus the 47th President of the USA is shaping up to be the worst in the history of the Republic. It does not seem to occur to the op-ed writers that Donald J Trump is not presently even the worst or the most dangerous president of the 21st century. That accolade surely belongs to G W Bush Jnr, who started two wars and lost both; presided over the shambles of the Federal response to Hurricane Katrina and oversaw an explosion in financial risk taking on Wall Street such as nearly capsized the global economy. So no, by virtually no measure by which effective presidents are assessed is Trump objectively the worst president to have occupied the Oval Office. But some people, whom you would have thought would have the ability to discriminate and judge fairly, will simply not be argued with. They seem determined to be absolutely A-PPALLED and will not tolerate any attempt at enlightenment. Like his permanent tan, the mere mention of Donald Trump acts like Agent Orange on the conversations of polite society where important people of liberal persuasion measure their words oh-so-carefully.

One of the biggest difficulties of defending the 45th and 47th President is that his whole schtick seems purposely designed to enrage his detractors. He is Dennis the Menace with absolutely no redeeming features beyond the odd act of capricious personal generosity. Even these bear the unmistakable glow of his vanity rather than any innate kindness. He is, indubitably, a convicted felon, a liar and a misogynist. But it is equally impossible to see him ordering the dropping of an atomic bomb, an act about which Harry Truman appeared to have no qualms whatsoever. Indeed, in his first term he was reticent about the spilling of any American blood and had the habit of firing those like John Bolton who argued too urgently in its favour. It is also fair to say that until unzipped by Covid, Trump Mark I presided over not only one of the purplier patches of US stock market performance but also one of the biggest rises in the living standards of the lowest income quartile since the Second World War. He also began a necessary re-setting of the terms of trade with China, which had had such a corrosive influence on the creation and maintenance of jobs in the USA.

The US electorate has had a good look at Trump and plenty of opportunity to judge the risks it is prepared to take with a character such as his as Supreme Commander. To the utter astonishment of the commentariat however, who thought the 2021 "insurrection" would be the final piece of Jenga to bury him, he staged one of the most astonishing political comebacks in modern political history. Or, if you prefer a sporting analogy, it was George Foreman recovering the world heavyweight  boxing title aged 45 and after a long absence from the ring. It was a clear knock-out too: the Democrats lost the 2024 popular vote decisively.

While a few far-sighted Democrats have reluctantly concluded their long held political pitch is yielding incrementally lower electoral returns, particularly among blue collar and Latino Americans, the media has doubled down on the Trump bashing.  All the claimed elements of the President's sinister and volatile thought processes are there: the interview-without-coffee for President Zelensky; the tete-a-tete's with the monster Putin; the threat to turn Gaza into a theme park; the weird determination to annexe Canada and seize Greenland. Of course Trump has facilitated this latest pile-on too, as he appears to have no intellectual hinterland beyond a curiosity about what happened to Biggy and Tupac and whether or not the Moon-Landing was faked. In short, since the Donald shows neither depth nor consistency nor even a basic grasp of public good manners, he presents an open goal to his detractors and writes their leaders for them. Which of course tickles his narcissism and is otherwise water off a duck's back.

In public administration as in foreign policy, the Donald has hit the ground running and has cleverly appointed Elon Musk as his Thomas Cromwell to oversee America's very own reformation. His is more than just a war on "woke" but also a wholesale re-imagination of the purpose of the egregious Federal state. This too has caused apoplexy and there are even some commentators who have publicly returned their lease-hire Tesla's while seriously asking us to believe this is a considered political statement. They are on safer ground when they point to the recent wobbles on the US stock market. But this may be no more than the long overdue release of air from an inflated technology bubble where participants are beginning to question whether the whole AI paradigm is everything it is cracked up to be and whether it is China rather than Silicon Valley which is now ahead of the curve.

For a glimpse of the philosophical underpinning of the Trump project however, one needs to look to the office of the Vice President, a position once memorably described as worth no more "than a warm bucket of spit". JD Vance, who once publicly described Trump as a re-incarnated fascist, is now condemned as a turn coat and a lickspittle who has sold out. Of course this odium assumes the vice president is a closet liberal, which he is most decidedly not. But the brick bats hurled at Vance have a noticeable amount of personalised venom attached, a good sign the liberal commentariat takes him very seriously indeed.

In his acclaimed best-seller Hillbilly Elegy (2016), Vance showed that he had walked the walk as well as talked the talk. Deserted by multiple fathers, tethered to a drug addicted mother and raised by foul-mouthed, fist balling and gun toting grandparents in one of America's poorest post codes, Vance defied probability, completed his secondary education, went on to be a marine and graduated from Yale Law School. The rest, as they say, is history. His book is a compelling memoir of the sustaining and redemptive power of the family unit in a wasteland of social deprivation and low achievement. While it is  powerfully insightful about what happens when fleetfooted capital ups and leaves more rooted communities which are then abandoned, Hillbilly Elegy is no polemic against the dark side of the American Dream. Rather, it contains a critique about how welfarism degrades and removes the agency of its recipients to improve their lives, no matter how well intentioned. The key, as Grandma Vance so pithily put it, is "Never (to) be like these fucking losers who think the deck is stacked against them" and this can best be achieved by sticking with school and being supported by a secure domestic base, whether it be led by a cussed grandmother, protective sibling or sympathetic uncle. Indeed Vance makes one of the best conservative cases in favour of comprehensive, publicly funded education that you are likely to read.

Naturally, the vice president has retained many of the elements of his personality which were shaped by the hillbilly milieu of both Appalachian Kentucky and rust-belt Ohio. Despite his obvious and sprightly intellect, Vance was brought up in a community where disagreements were often settled by a smack in the mouth and which fostered vendettas. This side of his character was most clearly on display during the very public dressing down of Vladimir Zelensky, an incident to which the commentariat reacted with almost theatrical horror. But Vance has a very acute understanding of his boss, who has been seriously peeved with the diminutive Ukrainian president ever since his arms-length role in the Democrat's first attempt to impeach Trump in 2019. 

Much more significant was his speech to the European security apparat recently gathered in Munich. In keeping with the themes of resilience which pepper Hillbilly Elegy, the vice president lambasted his audience for their incessant free-loading off the security provided by the USA while losing sight of the very freedoms they are supposed to be defending. Far from a new departure, Vance was merely putting into words a frustration shared by many of Trump's presidential predecessors. The USA is heartily sick of underwriting European defence needs while its recipients carp about the manner of its provision.

If the Donald has ever dwelt upon a book of American history, which must be a bit doubtful, he will perhaps have found a dim echo of his current world-view in the more muscular agendas of his predecessors in the early nineteenth century. Both Monroe in his robust defence of US territorial interests against Europe and Jackson in his championing of the American common man against the elites, spoke of an America to be put first. Today, the critique of Trump's agenda by the liberal brahmins of the East and West coasts is it amounts to form of authoritarianism. But the commentariat conveniently forgets that Roosevelt enjoyed almost dictatorial powers in the forging of his New Deal. They also forget that in his first term, Trump was far too incompetent and distracted to deal with the real centres of power in the judiciary, the academy and among the corporate elites which were determined to frustrate him. 

It will be very much up to the likes of JD if he succeeds this time around.