The belief that the moon landings were faked, still firmly held by certain people, would have required the active participation of some 400,000 people (as calculated by James Longuski). It seems inconceivable to me that anyone could have maintained that huge a conspiracy, all working to a single end for a twelve-year period. But still more unbelievable is the notion that not one of those people would ever have told the story to anyone else.
Surely some journalist out there would have been able to offer a handful of them sufficient inducement to spill the beans?
What I have far less difficulty crediting is the opposing cockup theory of history. Call me a cynic if you want, but I find it inherently plausible that most of the things that go wrong around us are down to sheer incompetence rather than to ingenious scheming. Human stupidity, it seems to me, is fully capable of explaining most human-made catastrophes.
Take the difficulties the Labour Party is currently facing over anti-Semitism. Now I’m absolutely convinced that there are some vicious anti-Semites in Labour who ought to be kicked out. But the failure of the leadership to act isn’t, I suspect, down to their sinister complicity with the small numbers of real anti-Semites, but simply down to their ineptitude.
Why am I so convinced of that notion?
Well, take a look at the tweet the British Labour leadership sent out – and then had to delete minutes later – to wish Jews a happy Passover. It’s clearly intended to be cheerful, friendly and encouraging. An olive branch, if I can use a Christian image, towards the Jewish community.
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| Labour leader trying to mend fences with the Jewish Community and cocking it up... |
Alas, one of the festive little icons is a loaf of bread. As rather a lot of Jews immediately tweeted back, the whole point of Passover is that Jews don’t eat bread over the feast. Instead they eat an unleavened equivalent, matzos.
To be fair, I wouldn’t have spotted the error myself, despite my own Jewish heritage. I don’t keep Passover any more than I celebrate Easter, the Christian equivalent. But I don’t run the Labour Party. And I’d like to think that the Labour leadership has the Jewish contacts to ask about this kind of tweet before it sends it out, and the gumption to check with them.
Well, clearly not. Which suggests that their weakness on Jewish issues probably isn’t down to racism, but merely to incompetence. Which is a relief, since it would be appalling to have a racist leadership. Though, frankly, an incompetent one is only marginally preferable.
Similarly, I have no difficulty believing that no evidence exists that Trump actively colluded with Russia during the 2016 election. I think such collusion would require a greater level of skill – Machiavellian skill, certainly, but skill anyway – than I’ve seen him demonstrate at any time before or since. The man who could repeatedly proclaim his enthusiasm for Wikileaks during the campaign, and even call on the organisation to release more of Hillary Clinton’s emails, and now claims he knows nothing about it, is simply too flaky to see a conspiracy through.
That he might have been the beneficiary of one I find far less difficult to believe. That people conducted one and kept him deliberately out of the loop is certainly plausible. But that he conducted one? No chance.
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| Trump: cockup par excellence. But in the White House anyway |
All this puts me in mind of what’s happening in the Ukraine. It looks as though a comedian, known for playing the role of President on TV, may be about to be elected President for real. A genuine comedian in charge.
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| Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Ukrainian comedian playing President and now on the brink of being elected |
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