“What invariably kills Tory governments, in the end, is private affluence and public squalor. Today too few Conservatives are sufficiently conservative: they seldom speak of the value of community, of the shared institutions that bind us together and give purpose, dignity and meaning to our lives. And so, Britain crumbles. “
– from Crumbling Britain: thousands like my elderly aunt suffer as the public realm decays by Jason Crowley
“It’s not a natural human noise – too joyless for a laugh and yet too lacklustre for a jeer. If a Foley artist had to recreate it for a film’s soundtrack, they’d fill an old accordion with gin and throw it down a flight of stairs – it’s the only way to get that thudding braying noise, wheezing out malicious approval like a drunk uncle watching Benny Hill reruns.”
To the long list of stiff upper lip-wielding Brits, including the Duke of Wellington, who defeated Napoleon at Waterloo, Sir Francis Drake who defeated the Spanish Armada and Henry V, the king who defeated the French at the Battle of Agincourt, we may add King George VI, father of the current Queen Elisabeth.
King George woke one desperate May morning in 1940 to a call from Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, who was just then desperately holed up in an air raid shelter in a palace garden against an ongoing assault from the Germans.
“She begged me to send aircraft for the defense of Holland. I passed this message on to everyone concerned & went back to bed.”
Attaboy.
Quoted in Last Hope Island by Lynne Olsen.
From an intriguing website, new to me, called Tubemapcentral.com.This map comes from a pdf newsletter available on the site. Best way to properly view it might be to download the pdf and then enlarge the map. Brings back a disappeared world. Not entirely forgotten, especially probably if you were a non-British resident somewhere far out in the empire.
The keeper of the newsletter writes:
“Many of you will be familiar with a particularly splendid poster from 1937 advertising air services by Imperial Airways. This included a schematic map in an inset, detailing mileages and frequencies of flights to all sorts of exotic destinations.”
Here’s a test for you: what was the last interesting thing the Prime Minister said? The thing we noticed, that stood out, that took a stand and risked controversy in pursuit of a cause?
The answer is: you can’t recall. Since the general election debacle earlier this year she has been largely irrelevant to the political conversation in this country.
That is because she lost her authority when she lost her majority. So instead of doing things, things are done to her.
During the Brexit referendum, a distinction was made between sovereignty and power. An institution can, like the Moldovan Parliament, be sovereign with limited powers; another, like a multinational company, can be powerful without being sovereign. The Westminster Parliament, some Leavers argued, was no longer sovereign: hence the language of ‘taking back control’. They weren’t swayed by forecasts of a loss of international influence because they were concerned with sovereignty, not power.
Parliament, as a sovereign body, can legislate as it likes. The effects of its legislation are a function of its power. The Article 50 notification may take back sovereignty; it gave away power.
