A lightning strike in the same place. For the fourth time

The lightning bolt of redundancy has struck me again.

Whoever said that lightning never strikes the same place twice?
Me, it’s struck four times. 
Though on the first three occasions, I may have been a bit to blame

For the fourth time. But this is the last, as now I’m going to head into retirement. At nearly 67, it’s late enough, I’m unlikely to find another job and I’m not especially keen on the idea of undergoing all that stuff again.

Ironically, on this occasion I feel entirely blameless. On the others, I may well have contributed a little to my own discomfiture.

The first time, I probably made it too obvious that I had nothing but contempt for an incompetent at the top of the company, not weighing enough the fact that he was an old friend of the owner and the godfather of at least one of his children. Being more polite might not have saved me, but not being polite enough certainly made sure I was buried.

The second time, I was altogether too keen on transforming our rather lousy main product into something we could be proud of. But it really was terribly bad and the cost of improving it much too high. The owners’ aim was to show a profit, sell the company, make a lot of money, and forget about the quality of the product. They were probably right, because after a wave of redundancies they did just that. The product remained lousy and has now disappeared into well-deserved obscurity – I don’t think anyone’s using it any more – but the money’s real and in the shareholders’ bank accounts.

The third time, my division’s chief was one of those glad-handing incompetents, always ready with a smile, a cheerful word and an encouraging thought, but who presided over an organisation that set itself ridiculous targets that it systematically failed to meet. I should have gone several months earlier, but instead I just coasted, doing far less work than I would have had I been able to work up any enthusiasm, until I hit the buffers of redundancy.

This time, though, it was the reverse. I worked hard, and the work went well. I built a little team, seven strong, with representatives in seven countries on three continents, though most of them in Europe. They were great people, an awe-inspiring mix of clinicians and sales people and customer support specialists, who bounced ideas off each other to produce still better notions and then, and this is quite unusual, put them into practice.

Every single one of them spoke at least two languages, some more.

They were – are – talented, intelligent, enthusiastic. Not by accident. My boss, certainly the best I’ve worked for in my long career, spent time with me making sure we had the right people, and freed ourselves of others who were just as bright and talented but showed that our type of work ultimately didn’t suit them.

The team never stood still either, by which I don’t just mean they were always working, but that they were always looking for the next way to work better. Right at the end, we were beginning to explore a completely different way of selling the product which, I believe, would have been far more successful. It’s a tribute to the team’s approach that the various sales teams with which we were working reacted with great enthusiasm to these ideas for change.

This time, I’d done nothing to attract the baleful god of lightning to strike me down. This time, it was merely cold accounting: we were expensive and that looked bad in a profit and loss statement. So the axe fell on seven of the eight of us, including me.

I won’t pretend that there’s no pain in suffering this fate. Redundancy feels like rejection, of being regarded as of little worth, and that hurts. It would also have been satisfying to work on a few more years as I planned. On the other hand, my soon to be ex-colleagues have been uniformly supportive in their comments to me, which certainly mitigates any pain. Above all, I’m happy to retire, especially when leaving on a high. And a high it’s certainly been.

The last nearly three years have been the best of my working life. I’ve had the best boss, and the best colleagues, working on the best product. I have absolutely no complaints about any of that, and I’m simply grateful to have had the chance to work in that environment.

That’s another of the reasons I don’t even want to look for another job. Even if I found one, it would be a let-down.

Indeed, I’m even going out on a high within the high. My last presentation to a customer was exactly the kind I’ve always longed to give. It was well-received, but I gave it on content I’d known little about the day before, until one of my team members briefed me on it. She explained what I needed to present, how I should present it, and the medical rationale behind it.

It was another powerful example of the value of teamwork. I was covering her while she was at another meeting. And she gave me the material I needed to do it well.

I have a great launchpad from which to head into retirement. I look forward to it as there are so many things I’ve always wanted to do and couldn’t. Now I can.

Watch this space.

Sunset in our local woods: not a bad place to spend time
And not a bad metaphor for where I want to head next

Boris Coup: Day 30

It’s facing a crisis that most truly brings out the character of a politician. For better in some cases. For far worse in others.

Lincoln became a man for the ages in the American Civil War, and spoke of the battle he was leading to ensure that “government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth”.

Churchill won his stature in the world, and his place in history, by the way he faced the threat of Nazi invasion. My mother, who lived through the period, told me how, at a time when voices were being raised to talk peace terms with the Germans, it built the morale of the nation, and personally sent a tingle down her spine, to hear him declare, “we shall never surrender”.

Then there’s Boris Johnson, following his defeat by the Supreme Court, and facing hostile MPs. In particular, he faced criticism from women MPs worried about the threats to their safety that flow from just the kind of inflammatory language Johnson uses, and just the kind of far-right fanatics he encourages. He gave us, “I have never heard so much humbug in my life”.

BoJo lashing out in parliament
Not a pretty sight

Yes. Perhaps not quite so impressive as the other two. Not his finest hour. Hardly a display of self-control and nobility of character. But that’s Boris, on day 30 of his coup attempt, now painfully unravelling before his eyes. He’s starting to sound ever nastier, more willing than ever to lash out at anyone who stands in his way.

A lot of that is calculation. He knows that there are voters out there who value just that kind of brutality. They like to convince themselves that this is strength, not understanding that real strength wins its arguments by winning supporters, and doesn’t need to humiliate or crush its opponents.

Playing to that audience, however, has its dangers too. Trump’s playing that game in the US. It may not work there: although his antics strengthen his standing with his most convinced supporters, they’re not attracting voters from the centre. With an intelligent campaign, and the right kind of candidate, the Democrats can win those votes, leaving Trump with only his core, and defeated.

Unfortunately, things are not that straightforward in Britain. If Johnson can hold a core vote similar to Trump’s, of around 40%, that will probably be enough under the UK system to win him a parliamentary majority. If the election is delayed, he may have enough time to discredit himself, as the consequences of Brexit sink in. But for now, both the weak leadership of the Labour Party, and its apparent readiness to allow an election early, are setting up the conditions for a BoJo win.

So he remains unrepentant, refusing to apologise for his intemperate outbursts, partly no doubt because he’s angry at what happened to him in the Supreme Court, partly because he thinks it prepares the ground for him to win an election.

Another principle attributed to Lincoln, probably incorrectly, is that you can fool all the people some of the time, you can fool some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.

Words that could have been written for BoJo. Who does, indeed, seem to be intent on fooling just enough of the people, just enough time to get himself into Downing Street with a majority to back him.

However unpleasant he reveals himself to be on the way.

Boris Coup: Day 28

Isn’t it great? 

Today, on day 28 of his coup, we have official confirmation, from the highest court in the land, that Boris Johnson broke the law. Which means trying to avoid scrutiny by proroguing parliament wasn’t just a naked power grab, it was illegal.

The UK Supreme Court on its way to the ruling that
outlaws Boris and his coup

To those who’ve claimed that my use of the word ‘coup’ is over the top for what Boris has done, let me just say that an illegal power grab seems to be the textbook definition of a coup. No tanks on the streets, sure, but a coup all the same.

For the moment, the UK remains, however, a state ruled by law. This decision ought therefore to be obeyed. Johnson says he will respect it, but who knows? He broke the law with the prorogation itself, so no one can say with any certainty that he won’t try to break it again. One can only hope, but watch him carefully.

If Parliament holds its nerve, it can even bring him down now. If enough Tories, or more to the point ex-Tories kicked out by Boris, join with enough Opposition MPs, they can pass a no-confidence vote.

Then things would get really interesting. There would be an opportunity to form what many are calling for, a government of national unity. That’s when we’d come up against another hitch. Jeremy Corbyn, leader in name of the Labour Party, has said he would not support anyone other than himself to lead such a government. Few MPs – indeed few voters – would have any more confidence in him than in BoJo.

After all, why should they? Who led the fight back against BoJo’s coup, the one that led to today’s Supreme Court Decision against him? The Scottish and Welsh governments, and a series of individuals, most notably Gina Miller who has now won two major decisions against the government (the other one was to force a parliamentary vote on Brexit at all).

But where was Corbyn?

Why, he was plotting against his Deputy Tom Watson. He confirmed as much to Andrew Marr on BBC TV on Sunday, when he said that, while he knew there were conversations “about the role of deputy leader”, he “did not know that that particular motion was going to be put at that time.”

A non-denial denial. In other words, he knew about the plot. And to all those who say that Owen Smith mounted a coup against Corbyn when he ran for leader, I would reply that it was a legitimate political action, respecting the Labour Party Constitution, open, transparent, followed by debate, and with a result accepted by the loser.

What happened in the move against Watson was that a motion to abolish his position was brought in, without notice, at the end of a meeting, to try to nod it through with minimal debate. Now that’s a coup attempt.

So Corbyn played a minimal role in the fight against the Boris coup. And he showed himself capable of being as nasty and underhand as any machine politician. Indeed, rather like Boris himself.

So why would anyone want him to take over?

If a unity government is to be formed, therefore, there will be a lot of obstacles to overcome. We’d need both Labour and Tory MPs to rebel. In short, we’d need MPs to stand up to the deplorable leaders both main parties have inflicted on themselves.

Of course, we shouldn’t write off BoJo yet. There’s a chance he may just brave his opponents, even in defiance of the law. Or then again he may play on Corbyn’s obsessive ambition to get to Downing Street: Jeremy may not be able to resist the temptation of an election, even though he’s fifteen points behind in the polls.

Then Boris might get back with a Parliamentary majority. Which would mean he could exercise personal rule even within the law. Giving us hard Brexit, subservience to the US and an assault on basic rights.

Then we’ll really know what “taking back control” means.

Unbelievable’s unbelievably good. Believe me.

Imagine an eighteen-year old woman, in foster care since she was three, at last able to move into a half-way house, semi-independent but with staff on-site to protect and support her. And then she’s raped. In her room. By a masked intruder, who comes in through the window from the balcony, binds her, assaults her, takes pictures and goes a few minutes after first appearing.

Kaitlyn Dever as Marie Adler

An appalling, devastating experience. But it gets far worse. After showering sympathy on the victim, Marie Sadler, played with great empathy by Kaitlyn Dever, individuals start to doubt her story. Worse still, the doubts eventually reach the (male) detectives investigating the case. Ultimately, far from having the police on her side, hunting down a criminal, she finds herself facing charges herself, of having made a false report.

It’s a powerful and immediately gripping start to a remarkable Netflix original mini-series, of just eight episodes, called Unbelievable.

All the better for being based on a real case.

Or rather, real cases. Because in episode 2, we’re taken forward three years to 2011, and from the state of Washington into Colorado. There Karen Duvall, a detective excellently portrayed by Merritt Wever, has been called in to investigate an appalling rape. The masked rapist came in through a window, bound and assaulted his victim, took photos and left. There are some key differences: he took four hours with this victim, and he made her shower for twenty minutes, to wash away all trace of DNA. But these are enhancements in his technique. The basic crime is the same.

A stroke of luck reveals to the detective that a similar offence took place in another nearby police district. In fact, when she contacts the detective investigating that case, Grace Rasmussen, played in another fine performance by Toni Colette, the two women quickly realise that this rapist knows something of police procedure, and never commits a crime in the same district twice, relying on lack of communication between separate stations.

Merritt Wever as Karen Duvall and Toni Colette as Grace Rasmussen

So they combine their investigations and discover that there are several other crimes to add to the two they already know about. These were, in reality, what came to be known as the Washington and Colorado serial rape cases.

From this point on, the series is following two stories: that of Marie Sadler in Washington, and that of the two detectives in Colorado. Both story lines are gripping from the outset, intense in their impact on the viewer, powerful in their suspense. We suspect that the lines must eventually intersect, but we can’t be sure and we don’t know how or when. The best kind of crime TV.

The basis in fact gives the series poignancy and impact. The writers have changed names and naturally to some extent fictionalised the account, but the key events are as they were in history. Add to that excellent writing and superlative performances, above all by the three main actors, and you have in Unbelievable an outstanding series it would be a pity to miss.

The magic words of Spain's bureaucracy

“Sin cita”: the magic words of Spanish bureaucracy. 

They mean “without an appointment”.

The words are music to the ears because, as I’ve pointed out before, it never takes less than two visits to a Spanish administrative office to get any one job done. And frequently that means making one appointment after another, usually online with systems that creak at best and breakdown as often as not. Usually for a week or two ahead, when you know you’ll only be told to make another appointment and be forced to wait again, to see someone else in another department.

In our case, our most recent experience involved the payment of some tax. We rent out a flat in Valencia and, as non-residents, a special rate of tax applies to us.

‘Special’, as with any kind of charge, naturally means higher.

You may have spotted the first minor discrepancy with this matter. We aren’t non-residents. But it’s true that we once were, so it’s not unreasonable that we should pay the extra tax. However, we really don’t want to go on paying it, if at all possible.

The tax authorities’ first trick was to write to us at our old address in Luton. In England, in other words. From there the letter made its way to the flat in Valencia, the one we’re renting out. We collected it there and took it to the house where we now live, further out in the suburbs.

There were five pages of closely typed Spanish. I have to admit that I couldn’t fully make out what it wanted, but I saw a monetary figure: €54.83 plus 41 cents of interest, making €55.24.

That reference to interest got me worried. It suggested lateness. And lateness with taxes tends to be frowned upon in most jurisdictions. 41 cents now but what might happen later, when they started applying penalties? A lawyer we consulted told us that, yes, the penalty might be several times the original debt.

My problem? However carefully I read and re-read the document, I couldn’t find any means to pay the sum outstanding. There were even some bank account details, so I tried to transfer the sum there.

“That’s our account,” Danielle told me, after the payment had been refused by the bank. Yep. Banks don’t like payments from an account into the same account.

I phoned the office that had written to us. It was in Madrid. Of course. Why should it be anywhere convenient? Dealing with non-residents is a capital matter, it seems.

“Ah, yes,” the friendly and helpful man dealing with my call told me, “you must make the payment.”

He gave me an address I should visit, and I carefully wrote it down. But then the postcode rang a bell with me.

“That’s in Madrid, isn’t it?”

“Of course,” he said, “that’s where we’re based.”

“But I live in Valencia.”

“Ah, OK,” he said, “That does indeed make a difference. But I hadn’t realised. Erase that address. Look up tax offices and go to your local one.”

Danielle kindly made an appointment for us. Well, two appointments, one for her and one for me. This is something we’ve frequently had to do: two separate appointments, but when we get to the office we go in together and they say, “of course, we’ll deal with both of you at the same time”. But the on-line system obliges us to make two appointments.

It was the same today. We arrived. We got lost in the labyrinth of the offices. We turned up at the desk of the woman we needed to see. She greeted us with a smile and remarked, in a friendly tone, “really difficult to find us, isn’t it?”

She looked through the papers.

“This was sent to you in England?”

“Yes,” I said.

“But you live here?”

“Indeed.”

“So when did you get the letter?”

“Last week.”

She laughed.

“Incidentally,” I went on, “we are now resident here.”

I showed her a payslip from the Spanish company that now employs me.

“OK,” she said, “this is just silly. Let me make a couple of calls.”

Ten minutes later she was back.

“That’s all sorted. You just have to pay the amount shown here and everything will be cleared up.”

Danielle and I both breathed a sigh of relief. It’s always like that out here. Get past the ghastly online services, get past the painful telephone conversations, and actually see a person face-to-face, and generally things go well and satisfactorily – and, above all, sensibly. Not always: we’ve met some awful jobsworths of civil servants, but generally you can find someone else to talk to, and in almost every case they’re not just efficient but fun to deal with.

But I said nothing can be done in just one visit, and this was no exception.

“I still have to pay this amount,” I said, “and I can’t see any way to do it.”

“They can do that at the other office, can’t they?” she called to her boss.

“Yes,” he replied. “Sin cita.”

Without an appointment! The magic words. We could just turn up and do it.

“Yes,” he went on, addressing us directly, “when it comes to paying us money, you don’t need to make an appointment in advance.”

It still wasn’t quite as simple as it sounded. We visited another office. We were seen at once by a friendly, pleasant and polite man who immediately agreed to see us together though we’d both had to take a ticket. He issued each of us with a little slip with which to make the payment (yes, we each had to pay the €55.24).

“It has to be paid today,” he warned us, “this slip won’t be valid tomorrow.”

“We’re going straight to the bank,” I assured him.

The bar code was read, the print was overtype
above all the whole thing was stamped. We're in the clear!

We did. We paid the money. And the matter is now closed.

With no penalty. With no further interest charged. And all because we took the trouble to visit real human beings in their offices.

That’s what it takes in Spain. And if you do it, you can sometimes hear those magic words, “sin cita”. And feel the iron leave your soul.

Boris Coup: Day 19

Nineteen days into the Boris coup. It struck me that this was the time for a tribute to that seminal experience that made BoJo the man he is today. Him and one of his successor, David Cameron.

Boris ‘The Law's for You’ Johnson and 
David ‘It's not my fault’ Cameron

I speak, of course, of the Bullingdon Club in Oxford. This, for anyone not familiar with that fine institution, is a club for the wealthiest students of the university. They engage in activities as charming as they are entertaining, such as trashing the rooms of new members, booking whole restaurants where they get uproariously drunk over an expensive meal and then wreck everything, or throwing potted plants through the windows of an Indian restaurant on their way home.

Ah, boys will be boys, won’t they? Of course, if their parents didn’t rally round and settle all the damages, if indeed they were from deprived backgrounds, respectable Tory voters would be up in arms. 

“To jail with them, and throw away the key,” they’d say.

But when it’s the sons of the wealthy causing criminal damage, Tories don’t want them chucked in jail, they want them to lead their Party. And, indeed, become Prime Minister. Which both Cameron and Johnson have done.

You have to have some sympathy with the poor lads. Well, poor rich lads. With that kind of background, how could they possibly be anything other than what they are? Taught from the earliest age that they are entitled to anything they want, and then having it proved to them by being given it, how can they possibly think themselves subject to the same standards as the rest of us?

David Cameron has been giving interviews to try to boost the sales of his newly published memoirs, which by all accounts they badly need. He’s happy to denounce Boris and his sidekick Michael Gove for the lying campaign they ran for the referendum, and the way they’re trashing the UK Constitution and undermining its democracy today.

But what is beyond him is to admit that he was in any way responsible for this mess. And yet there was no need to call the referendum. Once called, an intelligent cross-party campaign could have been run to prevent a vote for Brexit. He, instead, called it to try to mollify his far right (and look how that’s worked out for him) and then ran a dismal campaign, which was defeated.

According to him, none of that is his fault. How could it be? He lives in a world in which you can trash a restaurant and not be held to account for it. Taking responsibility for things that go wrong just isn’t something he’s been trained to do.

BoJo’s gone still further. He knows that the law simply doesn’t apply to him.

He started his coup by flouting convention and suspending Parliament for an inordinately long time, so that he wouldn’t be subject to any kind of scrutiny or opposition as he prepared for a hard Brexit. We’re now into that period of suspension when he’s working in the shadows where we can’t see him.

Anyone who’s been a parent will remember calling to kids they couldn’t see, “whatever you’re up to, stop it”.

That would be the thing to say to BoJo right now. Except that he’d ignore us. We’re in the extraordinary position of having to ask whether the Prime Minister will obey the law. This may seem odd, since he’s promising us a new law and order initiative in the near future. It seems that’s law and order for us, but not for him.

Look at where we stand these days. Just before it was suspended, Parliament passed legislation obliging the Prime Minister to extend the Brexit process if he didn’t have a deal in place by 19 October, and couldn’t get Parliamentary support for a hard Brexit.

He’s repeatedly said he won’t ask for an extension.

So is he going to break the law?

No one knows. All that we know is that, as another unfortunate whose life was blighted by the Bullingdon Club, all his training tells him that he’s above all that kind of thing. Breaking the law? He makes it, he doesn’t have to follow it. He knows what’s best, and if that means acting illegally, so be it. That makes him a champion of the people, not a common criminal.

After all, at Oxford no one held him to account for failing to respect the law. Why should he now?

So sad. Poor Cameron and Johnson. Ruined by their upbringing. Although, it won’t be them that pays the price, it’ll be us.

Just as in the Bullingdon Club, someone else always pays.

Iconic photo of fervour for liberty. In a less than iconic place

One of our favourite restaurants here in Valencia, the Refugio, has chosen to mark the door to the women’s toilet with a picture which is nothing short of iconic.

An icon of liberty
making a women’s toilet sign which at least has the merit of originality

You might, perhaps, even feel that it was a little disrespectful to use that particular picture for that particular purpose. However, the owner of the restaurant, as well as being likeable, is a devoted supporter of the anti-Fascist cause in the Spanish Civil War. I’m sure he chose the picture as a statement of his sympathies.

What a great picture it is, indeed. A young woman in the informal uniform of a soldier in the militia of the Spanish Republic stands atop one of the highest buildings in Barcelona, the city spread out below and behind her, a rifle slung over her shoulder and a smile on her lips as she looks to the camera.

It’s a picture that has adorned book covers, film promotions, and countless newspaper or magazine articles. It embodies the nobility and beauty of the cause as well as, to those of who know that the war ended with a fascist victory ushering in nearly four decades of oppression, a sense of heart-wringing pathos.

So it’ll come as no surprise to discover that, like so many propaganda pictures, the reality behind the photo is quite different.

In the first place, the ‘young woman’ only just deserves the description. She was seventeen at the time. Perhaps to call her a ‘girl’ would be going too far, but it’s hard not to put the word ‘very’ in front that ‘young woman’.

As she pointed out later herself, Marina Ginestà – yes, we know her name – was far too young to be a combatant. Instead, she was working for one of the Republican newspapers and acted as an interpreter to a journalist from the Soviet Union.

She certainly had not been issued with a rifle by the militia. Indeed, the moment of the photograph was only the second time she’d had a rifle in her hands, the first having occurred only a few hours earlier, when she held one that belonged to a friend of hers. That was also the only time she had fired a rifle, when she pulled the trigger by accident. The only injury her firing the rifle caused was to herself, when the militia man she nearly hit returned the favour with a slap.

Let’s be clear, I don’t condone slapping anyone, least of all a young woman by an older and doubtless stronger man. On the other hand, I can’t help feeling a little sympathy for the militia man in this instance. He must have felt that it was bad enough being shot at by fascists at the front, without having a little slip of a girl without training and clearly unable to manage a gun, opening fire on him too when he was, in theory, somewhere safe.

When I told the restaurateur about the background to the photo, he laughed and sad “it’s a very Spanish story”. In fact, I'd say that the reality has a gloriously human, even earthy, quality to it which perhaps makes the picture less inappropriate for a toilet door. 

But as a photo of what it seems to represent, it’s a complete fake.

However, unlike fake news today, it isn’t a lie. The picture tells a much deeper truth: about hope, the energy and courage of youth, and the vitality of a cause. They’re all worth remembering, decades after the failure of that particular struggle, but as we face similar assaults on our liberties today.

That core of truth is what makes the photo deservedly iconic. And uplifting to see, even as I walk past it on the way to the toilet in a favourite restaurant.

Thanks, Juan Guzmán, for taking the photo. And even warmer thanks to Marina Ginestà  for making it so inspirational, and so wistful.

Boris Coup: Day 15

Day 15 of the coup and, it has to be said, it still isn’t all going Boris’s way.

At least, he’s finally got his prorogation of Parliament in place. On Monday evening. Just as soon as he possibly could. On the way, in the small hours of Tuesday morning, he did have to lose one more vote – maintaining his 100% record of six votes lost out of six votes held – when the House of Commons failed to agree his second demand for a snap general election.

But at any he’s got those irritating parliamentarians out of his hair for the next few weeks. Just like Charles I did when he got fed up with them. Though, to be fair, that didn’t work out all that well for Charles, the only king literally to have lost his head.

In any case, day 15 saw the announcement that the highest court in Scotland decided that the prorogation was illegal and declared it null and void. They didn’t actually order that Parliament be recalled, leaving it to the Supreme Court in London to confirm or deny its judgement and decide whether to issue the order.

Still, however the Supreme Court decides, it was good to see one set of judges saying that it was unconstitutional to suspend Parliament, just because it was annoying the Prime Minister. Most of us would feel the same. Well, most of us who think that Parliamentary Democracy isn’t just an empty phrase.

Tom Watson: only Deputy Leader of Labour
But showing a lot more leadership than his nominal boss

Meanwhile, on the other side of the now-suspended House of Commons, Tom Watson, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party is due to speak out for a clear decision by the Party that it demands a new referendum even before an election – Watson reckons that an election can’t decide the Brexit issue – and that it explicitly backs remaining in the EU in that referendum.

An excellent plan. We’ve had three years of trying to find a Brexit formula that will please a majority of the people, and have been unable to come up with one. Doesn’t rather suggest that the problem isn’t about one deal rather than another, but about Brexit itself? There simply is no Brexit deal that will leave us better off.

So why not oppose Brexit altogether?

And Labour, committed as it is to protecting the interests of the many, should surely be opposing a measure that would leave the many less well of than today.

It’s good to see leadership from the Labour Party. Though disheartening that it has, once more, to come from someone other than the nominal leader.

That leader, Jeremy Corbyn himself, is sticking firmly on the fence on Brexit, and keeps insisting that he wants to see a general election soon. Though not quite as soon as he was demanding a while back. It must suit him to have the excuse of wanting to get a no-deal Brexit firmly off the table first, since he must have worked out that with the polls as bad for Labour as they now are, he would be unlikely to win a majority just now.

The interesting thing is that the Tories, too, are doing badly. Theresa May must be getting some consolation for having been driven out of office by the ghastly BoJo when she sees what a mess he’s in. She must be splitting her sides.

In fact, one of the eye-openers of the first 15 days of the coup is what it has revealed about Boris. Yes, he’s just as unpleasant, narcissistic and authoritarian as most of us imagined. But, and this has certainly come as a surprise to me, he’s proved himself a far less effective politician than I thought.

My fear has been that all his car crashes of the last few days might just make his supporters stronger in their backing, seeing him as the victim of the vile tricks of those wicked Parliamentarians. But the last two polls have his lead down in the low single figures, from the low double figures. Still a lead – no good news for Corbyn there – but far less than before the coup.

So it looks like he may be a significantly less redoubtable figure than I had feared.

For that relief, at least, let’s be profoundly grateful…

Boris Coup: Day 13

The face of day 13: John Bercow.
One of the great Commons speakers. We shall learn to miss him.

After several days of having Parliament inflict defeat after defeat on him, day 13 is when Boris’s coup at last enters into full effect (not enough happened on day 12, which is why I had a break and didn’t dignify it with its own post). The hated Parliamentarians who have been tormenting him are to be suspended. 

I mean, not suspended as individuals, though I wouldn’t put it past him to wish he could. For now, he’s merely suspending the whole institution. That’s the measure known as prorogation.

Attentive followers of this series of posts will remember that this is was the coup act his junta first thought of. Now they’re moving into implementation. Parliament will have no voice for the next five weeks at least.

Executive authority with no scrutiny. Power without responsibility. As another Tory Prime Minister put it, the prerogative of the harlot down the ages.

Above all, it’s the autocrat’s dream.

And, boy, does he need it. I mean, look what’s been happening to him. He’s living proof of the falsehood of the old saying that the truth never hurts. Only the truth hurts, and MPs, from the Opposition but even from his own party (though he then kicks them out, so I suppose they’re the new Opposition) have been exposing the truth about BoJo.

Look at the high-profile defections. It’s pretty desperate when even your own brother finds the atmosphere you’ve created so toxic he can’t work with you. But his resignation was followed by an even more damaging one: that of Amber Rudd, the most senior of the handful of old-style, one-nation Tories (relatively moderate pragmatists as opposed to hard-right ideologues) that had managed to hang on in his government in increasing despair at his antics.

Among other reasons she cited for leaving, was “I no longer believe leaving with a deal is the government's main objective”.

Curiously, this runs counter to BoJo’s own repeated claims that he’s making progress with his negotiations. To which, it has to be said, the people on the other side of the table, the EU’s negotiators, all reply that he has made no progress whatever. You’d have to concede, wouldn’t you, that one side or the other must be lying.

So you choose. Given what we all know about Boris, which side do you think is more likely to be playing fast and loose with the truth?

And once you’ve answered that question, you can also ask yourself, is it really the case that the truth never hurts? Just look at BoJo’s face.

BoJo in disarray. As well he should be

Meanwhile, just before going into its state of suspension, the House of Commons passed one more measure, demanding publication of government documents concerning no-deal preparations, and messages from its advisers (by which I think it means principally the backroom manipulator in Number 10, Dominic Cummings).

The cheek of it! Parliament thinks the public should know what the government really believes. If that happens, how can ministers be duplicitous enough to sustain the self-delusion of Brexiters?

And then came the final sad announcement of this difficult day. John Bercow, Speaker of the House of Commons, announced that he would be resigning, either at the next election or on 31 October, whichever came first.

Many dislike him. I think historians will see him, once the dust has settled, as one of the great speakers. And, above all, as exactly what he said of himself: a man who sought to increase the power of Parliament, a backbenchers’ speaker, indeed, turning to his advantage an expression from the Brexit debate as he did himself, the backbenchers’ backstop.

As Parliament enters its period of suspension, it’s sad to see it lose such a man, such a champion of its rights against an overweening executive.

An executive which, for the next five weeks at least, will feel itself free to run amok. Truly the Boris coup. Unless a new way can be found to stop him.

Boris Coup: Day 11

Day 11 of the Boris coup and Brexiters are in a terrible flap. 

They’re shocked. Appalled. Flabbergasted.

It seems that before voting to block a hard Brexit, the cross-party group of MPs opposing no-deal – the people I like to think of as the resistance – spoke to EU officials to check whether a request for a further delay would be granted if Britain requested one. The Brexiters are horrified. David Jones, a Tory MP, and one of BoJo’s accomplices – apologies, supporters – said that this:

... confirms the level of EU interference in our internal affairs and makes the need for Brexit all the more pressing.

I changed the word ‘accomplices’ back there because I’ve been warned about the importance of words. But more of that later.

It’s interesting that British MPs approaching EU officials amounts to unwarranted interference by the EU in our internal affairs. Does that mean that when Boris chatted to Trump at the Biarritz G7 meeting, that was similar interference by the US? Is it now a political sin to talk to our foreign partners before deciding how we should approach our partnership with them? Or is it simply that David Jones wants us only to consult and be guided by Boris?

Meanwhile, the bill to force BoJo to ask for a Brexit delay is due to receive royal assent on Monday. All eyes are on what Boris does next. Will he refuse to send the bill for assent? Will he refuse to abide by it when it becomes law? Is someone who suspended Parliament because he couldn’t get his way prepared to respect the law?

That we have to ask the question at all shows just how far we have sunk in this febrile coup atmosphere in which we live.

Tom Watson.
So annoying that his political antennae are better than his leader’s

It’s an atmosphere that affects Labour as well as the Tories. Mark Serwotka, President of the Trades Union Congress, was insisting on Thursday – or, as I like to think of it, on day 9 of the coup – that “the actions of some of the parliamentary Labour party such as Tom Watson and others have been really unacceptable”. 

Watson, deputy leader of the Labour Party, should it seems now get in line and stop acting against the will of his leader, Jeremy Corbyn. Whose will, according to Corbynists like Serwotka, should be religiously followed in all circumstances. Just like Boris feels all Conservatives should jump to his every whim.

Tom Watson is annoying to people like Serwotka because he has political instincts. Right at the start of the coup, Corbyn rushed off to Glasgow to do some election campaigning. Business as usual, for him. Tom Watson, on the other hand, got stuck in with the resistance, working immediately with the ‘Stop the Coup’ campaign in London. Corbyn only woke up to the importance of what was happening at the end of the week, when he also belatedly joined the movement.

No wonder Serwotka wants Watson silenced. Who’d want a deputy leader who so eloquently demonstrates how far off the pace his leader is? Especially when he shows it in practice and not just words.

Which takes me back to the subject of words.

I’ve had complaints about my use of the word ‘coup’. What Boris has done, my critics claim, is not a coup. It’s true that if a coup means tanks on the streets, military occupation of the TV stations and political opponents arrested, then it wasn’t a coup.

But there are far more insidious ways of seizing power illegitimately. What Boris did was even legal, as several judges have confirmed, but that only makes it more difficult to obstruct his power grab. The only defence we have in Britain to abusive executive power is Parliamentary oversight, an annoyance to would-be autocrats anywhere, so Boris decided to do away with it.

He would have established a precedent, and precedent is everything in a system governed by an unwritten constitution. It would have allowed the executive illicitly to take whatever power it wished, if it couldn’t bend Parliament to its will.

That is a coup.

It has to be resisted, as any coup should be resisted. Parliament deserves congratulations, and thanks, for having so resisted BoJo, so far with success.

While we’re on the subject of words, let’s look at this one too: conservative.

Generally, it means someone who wants to conserve things. In particular, that would include our conventions and political processes. It’s clear that BoJo has no intention of doing so. That makes him a radical, seeking to change Britain radically, though from the right rather than the left. A radical, not a conservative, with a small c, even though he leads the Conservative Party, with a capital C.

David Gauke
Expelled for opposing his leader’s attack on democratic values

That’s why David Gauke, former Justice Minister but one of the 21 Conservative rebels BoJo expelled from his Party for voting against him, says that Boris, to placate Brexiters, has “had to rebadge the Conservative party as the Brexit party”.

That’s the party of Nigel Farage. BoJo’s behaviour is turning him, in Gauke’s words, into “Farage-lite”.

Powerful words. As words can be when you deploy them to maximise their impact. Gauke did it, and I apologise to no one for attempting to do the same.

Boris Coup: Day 10

Day 10. And Boris keeps giving the lie to Karl Marx, who talked about history repeating itself, first as tragedy and then as farce. With Boris, it happens only once, is a farce throughout but is perfectly likely to end as tragedy.

A tragedy for him perhaps. At least, we should hope so. Otherwise it could be one for the rest of us.

BoJo: not so happy these days

Let’s see what he’s been up to.

Well, he’s had to contend with more resistance to his high-handed behaviour, in particular his expelling of Conservative MPs for voting against him. The worst resistance came from his brother Jo, who will stand down as an MP as well as a minister, because of the “unresolvable tension” between loyalty to his family (i.e. his brother) and the national interest. How tough it must be to have your own brother declare your actions not in the national interest...

Boris laughed at Ed Miliband’s victory over his brother David for the Labour leadership back in 2013:

...only a socialist could do that to his brother, only a socialist could regard familial ties as being so trivial as to shaft his own brother

It seems that fraternal shafting isn’t restricted only to the left after all.

What else has Boris been doing? 

He attended a police training academy in Wakefield, in the North of England. The understanding was that it would be a celebration of his decision to recruit another 20,000 police officers, without a word of politics being breathed. But Boris treated that as a firm commitment, so he broke it.

First he kept the police officers and trainees waiting an hour, standing around in the sun. A fine illustration of how deeply he cares about ordinary people. Then he made a wholly political speech, part of his campaign for an election which, much to his frustration, he hasn’t yet been able to call.

In true Trump style, he took advantage of having police as a backdrop to make the speech. Something the police themselves resented, since they value their reputation, or at least the appearance, of being politically neutral. But Boris doesn’t pay much attention to protocol and procedure. If the regulations get in his way, he simply ignores them.

It was the same when he was an undergraduate in the Bullingdon Club at Oxford University: if he felt like trashing a restaurant, he just did it. Mere conventions suggesting that kind of behaviour was unacceptable were never going to deter him then. They don’t deter him now.

It’s interesting that he’s campaigning for an election, given that one of the votes he lost in Parliament, as I mentioned yesterday, was a motion to call a poll. The latest news is that the Opposition parties don’t intend to give him that election until after the Brexit date.

That’s more bad news for poor Boris. A new poll by ICM for Represent Us, a group campaigning for a second referendum, suggests that the Brexit Party’s vote would double from 9 to 18% if an election were held after 31 October and Britain still hadn’t left the EU. That would leave Corbyn and Johnson level pegging on 28%, whereas in an earlier election BoJo would be ahead by 37 to 30% (according to the Financial Times, which has a paywall).

No wonder the Opposition parties want the vote in November.

Especially as the Lords have now ratified the bill requiring BoJo to delay Brexit if he hasn’t negotiated a new deal by Halloween. “I’d rather be dead in a ditch,” he told the Guardian when asked whether he’d request a delay in Brexit.

He keeps claiming he’s making good progress towards a deal, but since the EU says there’s been no progress at all, like the boy who cried wolf, Boris finds few who believe him.

So he could be heading for 31 October with no deal. Then his choice would be to ask the EU for a delay to Brexit, and comply with the new law. Or he could break the law, which would be a serious extension to his coup and might have some difficult consequences. Or of course he could die in a ditch.

By happy chance, it seems that Parliament may well be digging one for him.

Boris Coup: Day 9

Day 9 of BoJo’s coup, and the wheels have really come off the Borismobile.

His first three parliamentary votes as Prime Minister all went against him. His first Prime Minister’s Questions were a disaster where even Jeremy Corbyn, generally pretty wooden, came across as not just more honest but a lot quicker than Boris. Even though arguably he’s neither.

It looks as though the combative style Boris chose to adopt turned out to be thoroughly counter-productive. Threatening to expel Conservative Members of Parliament (members of his own party) if they presumed to vote against his wishes worked entirely against him. It seems to have strengthened their will to resist his rule. Certainly, without that band joining the Opposition, he would not have lost his three votes.

Nor has carrying out his threat and sacking those recalcitrant members done him any favours. Nick Soames had been a Conservative MP for 36 years, as well as being Winston Churchill’s grandson. Ken Clarke sat in Parliament as a Tory for even longer, 49 years. Phil Hammond was Chancellor of the Exchequer until a few weeks ago, when Theresa May’s government fell.

Sacking figures of such stature from the Conservative Party has excited a great deal of criticism and protest from those who remain.

Phillip Lee literally crossing the House, while Boris is speaking,
to join the Lib Dems and wipe out the Tory majority of one

It also means that his voting strength in the House of Commons is reduced still further. He had, indeed, already lost his tiny majority – of one – when Philip Lee decided to cross the House, voluntarily leaving the Conservative Party to join the Liberal Democrats, choosing a moment of maximum drama and harm to make the gesture: in the middle of BoJo’s report to Parliament on the G7 meeting.

No. Boris’s strongest moves all seem to have backfired. One wonders how long Dominic Cummings, the shadowy figure who seems to be controlling all the doings of Downing Street, will survive. After all, this highly combative, not to say confrontational style, is very much his. BoJo may just have to throw him to the wolves to try to win back some sympathy from his fellow MPs.

If nothing else, the behaviour of those MPs makes clear, if anyone needed it clarifying, just why Boris launched his coup. Parliament is a major annoyance to him. It acts to block the arbitrary decisions of a man who feels his will should be sufficient to set national policy.

For those of us who believe that Britain should be a democracy, that is exactly what we believe its role should be: to prevent arbitrary rule, to stop anyone else setting himself up as some kind of latter-day satrap ruling with virtually monarchical power.

Unfortunately, a great many others take a wholly different view. They mouth the word democracy, but it’s rather like a child denouncing an action as unfair: children don’t usually find it unfair to be given a sweet denied to a sibling, and these pseudo-democrats only complain about undemocratic behaviour when it fails to yield them what they want.

Sadly, there are a lot of people like that. And they weren’t defeated in those parliamentary votes. Indeed, they will certainly resent them, as the papers which reflect their views already do. Indeed, many of them are particularly incensed because one of the votes Boris lost was to call a General Election. Labour abstained and so the motion fell short of the two-thirds majority needed.

Corbyn, say the right-wing papers, chickened out.

The Tory Press whipping up fury over BoJo's defeats

He was entirely right. Because for once he looked at political reality with a clear eye, instead of believing it to be as he might wish it. Labour would lose an election called now. And, if anything, the three defeats suffered by Boris only make that more likely. Those who back him will regard them as instances of Parliament denying them their entitlement, and doing so for self-serving or even corrupt reasons.

Astonishingly, given that no one belongs so entirely to the Establishment as BoJo, they will see him even more than ever as their champion against the established parties in Parliament. They will rally to his cause.

Labour needs to wait. Boris is on a rapid downward slope. The sheen is coming off his premiership. In time, even his supporters will begin to see that.

Corbyn still talks of agreeing to an election soon. That may just be spin, to try to cover his change of position, from forever calling for a vote. If he has any sense, he certainly won’t agree to one in the next few weeks.

A few months from now would be a far more favourable moment. Although I doubt BoJo, or whoever takes over from him, will be half as enthusiastic about holding an election then than they are now. 

Who then will the Conservative press call chicken?

Boris Coup: Day 8

It’s day 8 of the Boris coup, and our hero, chief of the Downing Street junta, has suffered his first setback.

A fine setback, too. The very first vote he’s faced since becoming Prime Minister. And he lost it.

Even more toxic than BoJo: Jacob Rees-Mogg, his Brexit sidekick
Showing the full extent of his respect for the Parliament to which he belongs

John le Carré tells us in Smiley’s People that ‘burning’ (blackmail) is a powerful tool for breaking an adversary, but sadly it can have exactly the opposite effect and stiffen resistance rather than overthrowing it.

The idea of cowing Conservative MPs tempted to rebel against the junta’s diktats, by threatening them with losing the whip and effectively ending their careers, probably came from Dominic Cummings, the PM’s hitman, rather than from BoJo himself. Cummings, it will be remembered, is the man whose management style boils down to, “you don’t like my style? There’s the door”.

Sadly, for him and his boss at least, that approach seems to have had the stiffening rather than overpowering effect. Or so we’re told by some of the Conservative MPs who voted again the Conservative government last night. One of them, Sam Gyimah told the Guardian:

For MPs like myself, Downing Street has framed the choice as: speak your mind or keep your job.

It seems 21 Tory MPs had their opposition strengthened, rather than weakened, by the threats. Or, to put it another way, decided that speaking their mind was more important than keeping the job. Some, indeed, might say that a politician’s job isn’t worth having if you can’t speak your mind.

The cause was helped by the behaviour of BoJo’s sidekick, Jacob Rees-Smogg, who has somehow pulled off the trick of being even more obnoxious than his boss. He lay sprawled across the government front bench during much of yesterday’s debate, showing exactly the respect in which he holds the Parliament to which he belongs.

The vote, however, only meant that Parliament wrested control of its own agenda away from government.

Ironically, it was a wonderful application of the principle Cummings has made his own: ‘taking back control’.

That step was necessary for a bill to go forward blocking a no-deal Brexit. The debate on the bill itself will only start today and it has to be completed fast, before Parliament is prorogued (suspended) on Monday.

Prorogation was the central act in the coup, after all. And it was designed to avoid precisely what MPs are trying to do now. One defeat doesn’t mean BoJo’s authoritarian drive is over. Not by a long stretch. As well as being adopted by the Commons, any move to block a hard Brexit also has to get through the Lords by Monday, and it’s clear that BoJo loyalists in the upper House are going to do all they can to delay it there.

BoJo’s bloodied but not yet defeated.

Meanwhile, on the other side, Jeremy Corbyn has let it be known that Labour won’t vote for a General Election until hard Brexit has been blocked. The Fixed Term Parliaments Act means that a snap election – and early one – can only be called with the consent of two-thirds of the House. If Labour votes against, it won’t happen.

It would be a great idea, from Labour’s point of view. It’s true that Corbyn has been calling for a General Election for years – ever since the last one, two and a half years ago – so changing his tune now won’t be easy for him. But, as I argued yesterday, he needs to. An election in the next few weeks would almost certainly return BoJo to power, with a majority. Just as his blackmail of Tory MPs only strengthened their resolve, so his defeat in Parliament will only reinforce his support among that large minority that wants a Brexit and sees him as their champion against the vile manoeuvrings of MPs.

They see strength where in reality there’s authoritarianism. They see a man taking on the establishment where in reality no one is more establishment than he is. And they’re a minority but a big enough one to give him a win.

Corbyn, and Labour generally, would be far better advised to wait, if Brexit happens, until its pain starts to bite. Then, if BoJo’s still Prime Minister and identified as Mr Brexit, Labour will stand a far better chance against him than it does now.

BoJo, however, may not cling on until then. He’s prepared the ground to weather a defeat like yesterday’s. But how many can he handle? If there are several more, he may find it more than he can bear.

Cummings would doubtless be fired first, the sacrificial lamb to save his master. And then he too would go.

That means that there are two ways to be freed of BoJo’s baleful power: an election a while after Brexit, or more defeats in the coming weeks than he can withstand.

A glimmer of hope. Because in either of those situations, he would be gone. And the coup would be over.

It’s not over yet, but at least we can be more hopeful than at any other time in these first eight days of his drive for autocratic power.