Monday, November 09, 2015 

And they say Corbyn's the disrespectful one.

One of the lesser noticed pieces of anti-Corbyn bluster from the dog end of his idiosyncratic first week as leader was from a general in the Sunday Times.  The general wasn't named, naturally, but we were assured he had served in Northern Ireland, part of the reason he felt such ire for Corbyn and John McDonnell's dealings with Sinn Fein.  Should Corbyn come to power and "jeopardise the security of this country", such as by scrapping Trident or emasculating the army, although it's not exactly clear just how much more there will be to emasculate once the Conservatives are through, then "people would use whatever means possible, fair or foul to prevent that".

Many took this as the general threatening a full scale mutiny, or worse, understandably.  It didn't seem to occur to the general that the only way Corbyn could come to power would be through a general election, where presumably at the very least the policy of dispensing with our nuclear weapons would be in the Labour manifesto.  If it did, then it made no odds, reminding of Henry Kissinger's remarks about Chile: "I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people".

Now, if I were prime minister, the very fact a general was so much as discussing the idea of a mutiny, let alone hinting it could go further even than that would be enough for me to want to know who this general was and to pull him in for an extremely frank discussion about the nature of democracy.  If his answers weren't suitably reassuring, I would want him either sacked or demoted to the ranks.  There is much said about slippery slopes and logical fallacies, but once anyone in a position of military authority starts talking about "using whatever means possible" to defy a prime minister, it's gone beyond asking for a rethink or warning about the potential consequences to somewhere quite different.  If I was David Cameron, I would be deeply concerned about a general talking in such a way regardless of his remarks being directed at the leader of the opposition.
 
If Downing Street was alarmed by the reports, then any concerns were presumably addressed prior to yesterday's appearance by General Sir Nicholas Houghton on the Andrew Marr show.  Whether or not Houghton was the general with the hotline to the Murdoch press, he decided that on Remembrance Sunday of all days he should answer a question about Trident.  If Corbyn's stance on never using Trident was "translated into power", then Houghton would be concerned, as "you use the deterrent every second of every minute of every day".  Apart from the conjuring up of the potential incineration of millions on the day set aside to remember the fallen, reason enough for Houghton to decline to answer the question, this was about as blatant an intervention into party politics and indeed politics in general as can be imagined.  Nor was he content with just talking about Trident, also commenting on Sky News on how the lack of a decision on bombing Islamic State in Syria was "letting down our allies".

It's hard not to conclude that Houghton's comments were part of the general "get Corbyn" sentiment of the entire day, a view only encouraged by the government backing the general.  Had Corbyn bent over double at the Cenotaph he would have been accused of mocking the entire ceremony; as it was, his nod rather than "protocol-following" bow instead landed him the brickbats that had been in preparation ever since he committed the crime of not singing the national anthem.  Corbyn was nothing other than respectful and respectable in everything he did yesterday, from laying his wreath to then attending a further ceremony in his constituency.  All the pieces had been written beforehand, waiting only to be altered according to what could be gotten away with.

If there ought to be one day a year free from agitating from yet more war, it should be Remembrance Sunday.  Instead, we had the general and ministers once again saying how desperately unfair and immoral it is that parliament won't let them bomb whatever the hell they like.  Standing directly behind Corbyn was a past Labour leader whom, whatever you think of the rights or wrongs of his wars, has many questions still hanging over him.  His patriotism, his respect for the dead is not questioned.  Nor is that of David Cameron, whose media team felt it would be a good idea to photoshop a poppy onto a stock photo of the prime minister, hoping no one would notice.

Precisely what it is the Tories or the Sun and Telegraph think it is they're trying to achieve with all this is not clear.  If the aim is to try to frame Corbyn as this disrespectful, anti-military peacenik, then they can surely leave that in the safe and reliable hands of the Anyone But Corbyn ranks on the Labour backbenches, within the party and on the wider left.  Nothing they've could do, will do, will live up to the claims of Corbyn handing over policy to the Stop the War coalition, to give just one example.

What this continued abuse of remembrance to make political points will do is further the distaste increasing numbers have for the entire period, which is far from now only affecting those inclined towards such feelings.  The Royal British Legion claim 80% wear a poppy; by my entirely unscientific measure of walking through the odd crowd in shopping centres, my guess would be nearer 50%, if that.  The bullying, as that's what it is, of public figures who for whatever reason are seen without a poppy leaves an ever more unpleasant taste in the mouth.  When you make a practice all but compulsory, as remembrance is in distinct danger of becoming, there are always those who are going to resist.  The only people who will suffer from this behaviour in the long run are those whom require the help of the RBL and other military charities, the same individuals whom the the Sun and politicians affect to care so deeply about.  Such considerations are apparently secondary to short-term political gain.

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11/09/2015 09:49:00 pm | |

Tuesday, October 27, 2015 

In the long term we are all dead.

There is something uniquely grim about this time of year.  Putting the clocks back an hour, giving for a few weeks slightly more light early in the morning at the expense of it being pitch black by the time most people go home only accentuates what is a neither one thing nor the other period.  It's not yet winter, and you can't yet either look forward to or dread the approach of Christmas, but nor does it truly seem like autumn, as the trees are stubbornly for the most part hanging onto to their leaves.  Not even the change in colours alters what seems to be a state of limbo.

To add to the gaiety, the end of October start of November also heralds the yearly descent into the festival of remembrance.  If it feels odd that the further we draw away from 1914-1918 and 1939-1945 the more important it seems to have become that we remember the sacrifices of those desperate times, then few pop their head up above the parapet.   Only recently has the poppy come to be omnipresent on screen for around the three weeks prior to November the 11th, mostly out of the fear that if someone fails to wear the red emblem it will be seized on as proof of a lack of something on the part of the individual or organisation they represent.

We can't of course know whether Moina Michael would have approved say of football clubs putting poppies on the shirts of teams mainly made up of players born abroad, being an American and all, but we also can't know that she wouldn't.  Nor can we speculate on how she or the others who were involved in first establishing the poppy as the symbol of remembrance might think of how the Royal British Legion now offers Battle of Britain Spitfire Poppy Cufflinks, at the moment on sale at £79.99, reduced from a ton.  Those with shallower pockets can opt instead for a poppy dress, a snip at £50, or a Union Jack Poppy brooch for a mere £15.  Any objections from say nationalists in Northern Ireland, who have long rejected the poppy due to the role of the British army during the Troubles, were presumably ignored or not so much as thought about.

It is all for a good cause, and how people choose to spend their money is no business of ours.  It does though rather encourage an arms race in those who want to show just how on side with the cause they are; is a mere paper poppy enough, regardless of how much the donor put in the pot when they picked it up? Conversely, does putting down £15 or more for a brooch then mean you can just get it out in subsequent years without making a donation?  Such are the potential hazards of what seems on the surface to be a very straightforward issue.

For instance, before he started agitating for Scottish independence, Stuart Campbell was a video games journalist.  A damn fine one in fact.  What most people might not know is the poppy is trademarked by the Royal British Legion, as Campbell discovered when he put a poppy on the cover of Amiga Power, as was also used by Sensible Software on the packaging of their game Cannon Fodder.  The Daily Star, back when it was almost a newspaper, duly tried to whip up outrage at this unauthorised use of the poppy for commercial purposes.  The Legion itself was less than amused by how the game's tagline was "war has never been such fun".  Despite the tagline and (ironic) title, Cannon Fodder in fact treated the death of the soldiers you controlled with the utmost reverence; those who died were remembered at the end of each mission, and they also each received a headstone on the main screen, far more than almost any game before or since has bothered to do.

You don't have to think the increase in the prominence of the poppy appeal, or at least in the period of remembrance is an attempt to foster the same kind of "support the troops" attitude prevalent in America to find it all rather curious.  There is not the slightest danger in our forgetting WWI, the suffering, the sacrifices, the privations, let alone WW2.  Quite the contrary in fact: previously neglected, the last few years have seen memorials dedicated to Bomber Command springing up, first the monstrosity in Green Park, now a taller than the Angel of the North spire in Lincolnshire.  

As the years pass, it's no longer clear precisely what it is exactly we're remembering.  WW2 offers much in the way of moral certainties, at this remove quite possibly to our detriment, where every dictator or new threat is the new Hitler or new Nazis, where not acting with an iron fist is to repeat the mistakes of appeasement.  WWI might focus more on the humble British Tommy marching off to war, but even here there has increasingly been an attempt on the part of revisionists to paint it as just as necessary as the war it inexorably led to.  One wonders if instead it has become another of those debates where there cannot possibly be any shade of grey: to question it to be unpatriotic; to suggest one day it will be as remote as Agincourt is to us now to be an insult; to view it as little more than an excuse for glorifying in war, an attempt to crush any dissent about maintaining support for military involvement overseas now.

Perhaps the answer in fact lies elsewhere, in our apparently insatiable desire for nostalgia.  Rather than try to understand the ever more confusing rhythm of our lives now, we seek comfort in the hinterland of our collective past.  Whether it be Magna Carta or Back to the Future, the past or our version of the past remains in our consciousness.  Remembrance and a sense of duty, to keep doing something even if it means little to us personally is enough to quash any wider questioning of the how and why.  Like it or not, there will come a time when Hitler, the few, the Somme and the Kaiser will be nothing more than ciphers.  Saying as much ought not to be controversial.

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10/27/2015 10:46:00 pm | |

Friday, November 07, 2008 

The rise of poppy fascism.

One of the most curious things about this time of year is how supposed impartiality is temporarily suspended on almost all TV channels during the build-up to Remembrance Sunday. When this first started is beyond me, but surely poppy fascism, as Jon Snow so accurately described it, is now reaching ever more ridiculous heights. The sight last week of the panellists on Question Time, which had decamped to America for the US presidential election all wearing poppies ought to perhaps have suggested to some of the producers or higher-ups that decree that everyone seen on screen must have a poppy that there should be sensible limits on how far it should go. The BBC incidentally claims, or claimed at the time not to have a compulsory policy on poppy wearing, but incidents such as last Thursday's suggest otherwise.

It isn't of course their fault. They're just running scared, as usual, of the tabloids that think that not wearing one at this time of year is some sort of insult to the memory of those who so selflessly gave their lives in the past. It doesn't matter that the Royal British Legion themselves, in the aftermath of Snow's justification for not wearing one said that wearing a poppy is entirely voluntary and that he was justified in holding his opinion; such outbreaks of free-thinking are anathema, as is the idea of non-conformity.

Likewise, bans on wearing poppies should be similarly resisted. A young woman who protested to the Sun about not being allowed to wear one on the make-up counter in a Christian Dior store was perfectly justified in doing so; it's then that as usual things start getting completely out of hand. The Sun in response has stated that it will, predictably, name and shame any bosses or companies that ban them. Again, that's perfectly acceptable. What is not acceptable is then to do the exact opposite of that and go randomly around shopping centres looking for stores that aren't selling poppies or have employees wearing them, as the paper has:

Here’s what we found in spot checks:

LONDON: Sainsbury’s, Victoria: Poppies not sold, just two staff wearing.

M&S, central London: Not sold. One staff member wearing. A worker said: “We sell them in some stores, but not this one.”

NatWest, central London: None of 15 staff wearing.

BIRMINGHAM: HMV, Bullring: Not sold. No staff wearing them.

Tesco Express: No poppies at tills. Primark: None sold, but a quarter of staff wearing them.

YORK: Morrisons: Two staff members wearing. But a poppy vendor in store.

WHSmith: Lone security-guard wearing. Not sold.

Borders books: Not sold, one worker spotted wearing a poppy.


We've gone then from denouncing bosses that have banned them into doing the exact opposite: naming and shaming stores where employees just happen to be not wearing them. That they have a personal choice to not do so is apparently neither here nor there, as is the fact that banks and stores like HMV might have more usual things to be stocking and doing than competing with the sellers that almost always operate outdoors. The mindset behind this kind of behaviour was again summed up by someone quoted at the time of the Snow controversy:

"Any questioning of the poppy can only cause anguish to the people that have worn it with pride over the years, the families of those who gave their lives and those people who are still doing so."

Yes, any questioning. Snow's invocation of fascism, which was fought so we still had freedom of choice, could not be more apt.

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11/07/2008 11:19:00 pm | |

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