Material Witness

Why is there so little climate emergency fiction?

Something I've thought a lot about in recent weeks is the role that fiction can play in bringing ideas to life - and specifically climate change. If you look at the main body of dystopian work, either in print or on film, end-of-days work tends to be focused around zombies, deadly viruses (where truth is scarier than fiction) or apparently unavoidable catastrophes such as meteorites, earthquakes or volcanoes. While a zombie apocalypse seems unlikely - although it would be unwise to rule anything out in 2021 - the others are clear and very present dangers, but neither clearer nor deadlier than the climate emergency. 

 

And yet, the climate emergency is largely noticeable by its absence in fiction and therefore two recent television shows stick out for me. The first was The Commons, a 2019 Australian series, that highlighted in the starkest terms both the geophysical perils of climate change and the human cost - a huge refugee crisis. Then this week I finally caught up with The Trick, a BBC film detailing the events of 2009 when data was stolen from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit. The data were subsequently manipulated and leaked to the media with the purpose of undermining the growing scientific consensus behind the dangers of man made climate change - in the run up to the 2009 COP meeting in Copenhagen.

What The Trick showed perfectly were the lengths that vested interests will go to undermine and discredit science that damages commercial activity. While the perpetrators of the data theft were never revealed, the evidence appeared to point to either state or commercial fossil fuel interests. Towards the end of the film, Professor Phil Jones, the leading climate scientist whose work was first discredited and then vindicated, estimated that the scandal may have cost us 10 years in the fight against climate change. While the science is now largely settled, those vested interests haven´t gone anywhere and will be in or around next week's COP in Glasgow, working to halt progress that threatens their wealth and influence.

And there's a great deal at stake here. As he prepares for a critical Select Committee meeting investigating the affair, the fictional Professor Jones (brilliantly played by Jason Watkins), is asked what would be the consequences of not halting climate change. "What happens if everyone ignores your measurements, your graphs? What happens Phil, for our children and their children? No numbers, just consequences."

"Well...," he says. "By 2100 dust bowl conditions across North America and Africa, Asia too. Sooner than that, a massive reduction in agricultural production, access to drinking water, migration in huge numbers. Bushfires on a massive scale in Australia, on the West Coast. Annual melting at the poles, the West Antarctic ice sheet, because of that the global sea level rise of, well, metres. In this worst case scenario 70% of the habitable world will no longer be able to sustain human life. Millions of species will become extinct. And coastal and delta cities will be underwater and if the methane in the permafrost and on the seabed is released, well, the climate will collapse and the world as we know it will be gone."

It's an incredibly powerful piece of television and the starkest of warnings. And made all the more powerful by being a dramatization charged as it is by emotion that no scientific paper could reproduce. So, I wonder again, why isn't there more of this? It feels like this is a serious deficiency in our armoury in the fight against climate change. Or maybe I've just missed it and ask for recommendations for reading material as I warm up for my trip to Glasgow next week. 

Dickens, Hard Times, and the books you should read

Sometimes the books you don't read because they're the books everyone tells you that you have to read turn out to be the books you should read. So it was for me with Dickens (and George Eliot and others) but having started during Covid I'm now sorry to be nearing the end of his novels.

Hard Times is a short story by Dickens' standards, and very unusual in that it is set out of London in Coketown, a fictional northern mill town. It's the perfect setting of course for a Dickens polemic on the exploitation of the working man, as it partly is, as well as an exploration of the absurdities of the  human condition, in this particular case the utilitarianism of Mr Gradgrind and the faux humility of Josiah Bounderby. 

Dickens has fun at the expense of both men. Bounderby, the "bully of humility" who could have been the inspiration for Monty Python's famous Four Yorkshiremen sketch in which they play a game of competitive poverty. "I hadn't a shoe to my foot. As to a stocking, I didn't know such a thing by name. I passed the day in a ditch, and the night in a pigsty," Bounderby lies, to anyone who will listen. Gradgrind, a character so sharply defined his name entered the dictionary as  "one who values factual knowledge at the expense of imagination and feeling", is not quite so grotesque but is not a man you'd want to go for a pint with.

A sense of fun is not something I'd expected to find in Dickens, but it's on full display here. Character names are always an adventure - Tulkinghorn, Sweedlepipe, Uriah Heep - but here M'Choakumchild, a teacher in the Gradgrind school of reason, is the standout. It's clear Dickens was enjoying himself, and throughout this book, which is not always the cheeriest the playful, clever and often barbed language can be funny and entertaining. 

And the more I read Dickens, the more convinced I am that nothing ever really changes. In December I read Oliver Twist, which was perhaps the most unsettling of the novels so far as its depictions of childhood poverty and deprivation as well as domestic violence, chime with modern narratives of the UK in 2024. There may no longer be workhouses or children sold into lives of slavery by unscrupulous parish officers, but they are learning in classrooms so cold they cannot hold pens, and more than ever face food poverty. 

There is tremendous power in the arts and literature, as Dickens showed in his own time, and that we have seen recently in victims of the Post Office scandal finally receiving recognition for the injustices they faced, and hopefully reparation.

Dickens today would probably be written off by Tories and the right wing press as 'woke'. But that's because he tells important and inconvenient truths. And we should read his novels, not just because they are wonderful and entertaining, but because they are a powerful reminder that real change takes courage, determination and persistence.

REVIEW: Politics on the Edge by Rory Stewart

The most obvious response to Rory Stewart's thoroughly satisfying political memoir Politics on the Edge is what a tragedy it was that when this thoughtful, diligent and serious politician put himself forward as the next leader of his party in 2019, his Conservative colleagues chose instead the moral abyss that is Boris Johnson.

At the time Stewart himself warned of the complete unsuitability of Johnson for the role, during a campaign in which he briefly became the favourite Tory of non-Tories. In his memoir he frequently refers to Johnson's "staggering willingness to insist on the untrue" as well as his less appealing characteristics.

What Stewart makes clear in his book, however, is that a large proportion of the first electorate in the Tories' two stage process  - 300 members of the Conservative Parliamentary Party - knew this full well too. For a range of reasons from naked self-interest to cowardice, they decided not to do what was best the country and voted for him anyway, with entirely predictable results.

Stewart then found himself on the outside looking in, losing the Conservative whip in Boris Johnson's great purge of the sane and sensible in September 2019 and then out of Parliament altogether after the December general election. He returned to a semi private life, as a fellow at Yale University teaching politics. And he also become half of one of the UK's most successful podcast duos, joining Alastair Campbell in The Rest is Politics. 

And he set about writing this book, which is a hugely entertaining and revealing read that takes us through one of the most turbulent periods in UK politics from the coliation victory in 2010 to Johnson's electoral triumph in late 2019. During this period Stewart held a number of minsterial posts, covering everything from the environment to international development and prisons. In a political world increasingly in thrall to the 24 hour news cycle, with many politicians more interested in spin than substance, Stewart reveals himself as a serious and diligent public servant, desperate to leave things better than he found them.

The parts that cover his time as Prisons Minister in the Department of Justice is perhaps the most interesting.  The UK's overcrowded, crumbling and often stil Victorian prisons are dirty and full of violence and drugs. While Stewart finds the prison service and its officers trying to do their best in a very bad situation, many senior officials are disillusioned and fatalistic about ever being able to solve their problems in the face in the face of severely constrained budgets. But Stewart sets out with energy and determination to get back to brass tacks to rid prisons of violence and drugs, and in 2018 during a radio interview says he will resign if he failed to show results in pilot schemes run in 10 difficult prisons in 12 months. He succeeds. 

Anyone currently despairing of the quality of political life in the UK - is anybody not? - will find little here to cheer them up. Stewart paints a portrait of a system in which almost every single element is in decline and badly managed, from the cabinet, to parliament and to most departments. He finds vain and foolish politicians where we need titans and geniuses. His depiction of three of the four Tory PMs he served under - Cameron, Johnson and Truss - will reinforce every negative perception of them.

The compensation for the misery is that the book is funny, fascinating and important. It is stuffed full of entertaining anecodtes, astute insight and perceptive commentary. In the hands of another politican it might have been inusfferably smug. But Stewart is charmingly self-deprecating and that gives him licence to document the weakness of others.

Five stars.

 

Glenda Jackson, Notting Hill and see you next Tuesday

In the spring of 1998, the year-old Labour government of Tony Blair fulfilled one of its manifesto promises by giving Londoners a referendum on reviving City-wide government in the capital, 12 years after Margaret Thatcher shut down the Greater London Council.

As a young and very junior staffer at the Greater London Labour Party, I had the chance to participate in the campaign for a Yes vote that was widely regarded as a foregone conclusion. 

The only element of my role in these historic (Isn't this overdoing a bit? Ed.) events that I remember was driving various celebrities and politicians around the city to campaign stops in a party-issue red Rover 45.

Among those I chauffeured was Prunella Scales, who was charming and witty, a handful of largely unmemorable MPs, and the great, now sadly late, Glenda Jackson.

Glenda was both politician and celebrity. She had jacked in her extraordinary, Oscar-winning film career and been elected as Labour MP in the marginal Hampstead and Highgate constituency in 1992. Six years later, with a new majority of over 14,000, she was a minister with responsibility for transport in London and was regarded as a potential mayoral candidate. 

She was then highly active and visible in the campaign, and I drove her on three occasions. One passed off peacefully, and I remember little of it, except realising that for the general public, she was still a huge star. People loved her. 

I loved her. She was very very funny, smoked like a chimney, swore like a trooper and was enormously entertaining company. In private at least she was acerbic and spoke entirely without filters. She was also generous. I smoked at the time too, and she liked that. Coming away from one of the visits, she suddenly yelled, "Stop the car", and jumped out, diving into a local newsgagent. She came back with four packets of Dunhill, two of which she gave to me. 

On the second of the three visits we went to the Arndale Centre in Wandsworth, a down-on-its-luck shopping mall. Glenda was there to support the local party and Tony Colman, the MP. Colman's chief claim to fame was that he succeeded David Mellor in Putney on May 1 1997, and at his own declaration was a mere witness to one of the most dramatic and memorable moments of the night, when James Goldsmith taunted Mellor with his "out, out, out" chant. 

I digress. I drove Glenda from Westminster to Wandsworth and dropped her at the entrance to the shopping centre before going to park the car. That could only have taken 15 minutes, and I returned to the Arndale ready to support the campaign activities.

None of which lasted long. As soon as I reappeared, Glenda, clearly fuming, snapped, "Get the car, we're leaving."

Somewhat bewildered, I did as asked. I brought the Rover back around to the front of the shoppung centre. Bidding her adoring public goodbye, Glenda climbed in. 

"That man is a cunt," she said.

"What? Who? What?" I am no shrinking violet and have been known to swear, but I was shocked. 

"Tony Fucking Colman," she said. "We came all the way down here to support him, and he spent the whole time on the fucking phone."

Please understand that there is an element of paraphrasing some of the dialogue in this story, and so while it might not be a 100% accurate transcription of the conversation, I can assure you it captures both the spririt and the substance as well as individual words and phrases that are etched in memory.

It turned out that Colman had been on the phone when Glenda arrived and treated her to a series of raised fingers indicating he'd only be a couple of minutes. She lost patience quickly and that was that. 

A few days later, I was asked to collect her again. On this occasion she was to visit an active set to promote London as a destination for filmmakers, something that would be made easier somehow by having a Mayor and elected assembly. 

Off we went to West London and the Portobello Road market where I deposited Glenda on the perimeter of the set from where she was collected by a flunky. Or met by dignitaries. I don't know, because on this occasion I was to take the car away and return at a pre-set time to collect her. 

And I did, Glenda got in the car, in all likelihood lit up, and was off.

"What a cunt," she said. 

I was less shocked this time. 

"Who's a cunt this time?" I asked.

"Hugh Grant."

OK, so now I was shocked. My entire exposure to Hugh Grant at this time had been watching Four Weddings and a Funeral, which I loved, and who could possibly not love floppy-haired Hugh?

"What did he do? Wasn't he nice to you? Did something happen?"

"He was perfectly charming," she said. "It all went fine."

"So, er..."

"I will tell you this, if someone had come to one of my film sets and asked to interrupt for something like that there's no fucking way I'd have allowed it."

It seemed to me somewhat ungrateful and I said so.

She spluttered bit and sort of agreed I may have had a point, although she neither looked or sounded like she meant it. And so we smoked a bit more and moved on. It turned out that Grant had been filming the famous scene in Notting Hill where he walks through the market as the seasons change, although I only realised that later after watching the movie. (Which I also like)

I dropped Glenda back in Westminster and never met her again. Although almost 20 years later I did see her in the flesh one last time. She was cast as King Lear at a production at the Old Vic, and despite living in Madrid I wouldn't have missed it for the world. She was powerful and magnificent and it made me regret I hadn't had the chance to see her on stage in her prime. She must really have been something.

The poster for that production hangs in our house, and I cannot help but smile and whisper a four letter word when I walk past it. 

So long Glenda, and thanks for all the fags.  

My favourite books of 2022: Part 2, non-fiction

My reading resolutions for 2022 included reading more non-fiction, and it's been a hugely rewarding experience. The 11 - up from two last year! - all opened new worlds, from the 17th Century English Republic to the Moorish history of Spain - and all showed that story-telling isn't just for novelists.

The 2022 reading was turbo-charged in the summer when a friend was appointed to the non-fiction Bailie-Gifford Prize judging panel and I started picking books out of the long and short lists, which proved to be an absolute treasure trove.   

Invisible Child by Andrea Elliott

Meet Dasani Coates, the unforgettable protagonist of Andrea Elliott's extraordinary journey into the hidden shame of New York City, where poverty, violence and narcotics blight countless lives.  NYT journalist first encounters Dasani as an 11-year-old child living with her mother and partner, and her seven siblings, step- and half- siblings in a single room in a Brooklyn homeless shelter. Dasani is strong and smart and resilient and she needs every ounce of her inner will because what follows is an extraordinary journey through an adolescent life that would likely smash all hope and lifefrom most. With parents in and out of rehab, stuck in a system that often seems designed to compound rather than address their problems, Dasani fights to stay above water and find a route, through education, out of the poverty that has afflicted her family. It's a spell-binding story, at times unbelievable but all too real. It speaks about love and courage and the crsuhing oppression of systemic poverty as experienced by black people in the world's richest and most glamorous city. Elliott deservedly won a Pulitzer for her work.   

The Escape Artist by Jonathan Freedland

No matter how much I read about the Holocaust, such is the scale of the evil and horror that every time I read something new about it, it always has the emotional intensity of reading about it for the first time. This incredible story brings that intensity over and over again as it recounts the tale of Rudolf Vrba, who in 1944 became the first Jewish inmate to escape Auschwitz, alongside his friend Fred Wetzler. Vrba's intimacy with the Auschwitz killing machine helps to deliver a detailed description of life within the camp, as he uses the Nazis predictability and adherence to order to help to plot his escape. This is thrillingly told - it's non-fiction written as a novel - and the aftermath, when Vrba and Wetzler struggle to persuade the world outside to accept the truth of the camps and to act, is quite extraordinary.    

Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe

For anyone who enjoyed Dopesick - either Beth Macy's brilliant book, or the television adaptation - Empire of Pain is mandatory reading. Radden Keefe's meticulous, detailed but thrilling history of the dastardly Sackler family and their destructive influence on US society through the opioid epidemic is magnificent and every bit as compelling as any novel I read this year. The story starts with the migration of Isaac Sackler from the Ukraine to New York in the early 20th Century and finishes with the law suits against his descendants' company for its role in the misery, chaos and death caused by the painkiller OxyContin. The middle is an astonishing story of the rise and fall of an American dream. It's brilliant and deservedly earned Radden-Keefe the 2021 Bailie-Gifford prize. 

Restless Republic by Anna Keay

Just as the new Carolean age began in September of this year, I was cast into this history of the events that separated his two eponymous predecessors. England's only period without a monarch in a millennium. The history I was taught in school covered a handful of key Civil War battles, a regicide and the Restoration, with very little detail of what happened in between. Anna Keay fills this gap with a very human history of the English Republic that artfully builds a story around the activities of a handful of influential and extraordinary figures. These range from William Petty, the doctor who surveyed Ireland for Cromwell, to Charlotte Stanley, Countess of Derby, who led one of the last holdouts against the new regime on the Isle of Man. It's brilliantly constructed book, full of vivid detail that brings the story to life as well as sharp insights into the political and social turmoil of the Republic. 

España by Giles Tremlett 

The closer we get to leaving Spain, the more urgent my need to make better sense of all we've seen and experienced here. This concise story of the country provides fascinating insight into how both its history and geography has shaped modern Spain. It's a country apart, separated from Europe by the Mediterranean and the Pyrenees and with long and profound influence from the Moors to the South and Hispano America to the west. Tremlett covers everything from Trajan to Velazquez and Colón to Franco in a successful quest to bring insight and context to the story of this beguiling and elusive country. I also thoroughly enjoyed Spain by Jan Morris, a travelogue first published in the 1960s. 

A Beer in the Loire by Tommy Barnes

For a complete change of pace, this funny and enjoyable tale of a disillusioned London marketing exec packing it all in and reinventing himself as a craft brewer in the Loire is great fun. Barnes documents his often disastrous attempts to bring great beer to wine country with a charming self-deprecating humour, all the while testing the patience of his wife, his neighbours and his murderous dog Kurt. 

 

 

 

Bookmarks, Bond and tea - life with and without the Queen

Tucked away in a shoe box here, with other treasures including adolescent love letters, expired passports and Somerset membership cards, is a green leather bookmark embossed with silver print.

The bookmark was given to me in 1977 by my junior school, the Highlands in Tilehurst, to mark the silver jubilee of Queen Elizabeth the Second. The following year, the Queen visited Reading. We were marched out of school to a roadside to see her. It was, to be honest, a somewhat underwhelming experience. She drove past and didn’t even stop to say hello. 

It was the only time I saw the Queen in person. And yet she has been a presence during the full fifty years. She has been in the background, in the papers, on stamps and in the inside front cover of my passport requesting various fractious border officials allow me “to pass freely without let or hinderance”.

She has been both there and not there throughout 50 years, and to be honest again, I’ve lived most of those without giving her much thought.

Now, however, she is not there at all, and like many others I am thinking about what she meant to me and to the country, as well as what it means to be without her.

For almost all of us, Elizabeth is the only monarch we have known. The longevity is extraordinary. The longest I have stayed in a job is seven years. The Queen outlasted the school, which closed a decade or so ago. She outlasted all the adolescent romances, of course, but not the cricket club. We have lived the entirety of our lives in the second Elizabethan age.

Her life, however well lived and however dutiful her service, will not define those seven decades. They are likely to be remembered for the Cold War, the arrival of the internet and the relentless march of digital technology, for unprecedented access to travel, for advances in medical treatment, for globalization, for climate change. And scores of other developments, good and bad.

But the Queen lived them all, meeting Eisenhower and Obama, Gorbachev and Putin, McGuinness and Mugabe, Monroe and Sinatra, Attenborough and Berners-Lee, Bobby Moore and Brian Lara. She appointed 15 Prime Ministers, one earlier this week, although it feels like last year.

She was both there and not there. Not taking political decisions, not taking positions even, but helping to facilitate the work of others, providing a reassuring, perhaps even maternal presence on the national and world stage.

And she’s been a presence in our home, even here in Madrid. Downstairs in the kitchen are three commemorative tea caddies, marking her golden, diamond and platinum jubilees. There are mugs and tea towels, there is crystal and china.

In 2012 she came into the house in the most unexpected and unforgettable way, with James Bond! So it seemed she had a sense of humour and fun. I’d never really thought about what she was actually like. While, for better or (mostly) worse the personalities, whims and caprices of every other royal has been turned inside out by a combination of the tabloids and their own PR machines, the Queen has maintained the mystery the monarchy used to consider vital to its survival.

And since 2016 she’s been on Netflix. Not her, of course, but Claire Foy and Olivia Colman. It’s best to treat The Crown as fictional, even if it has taught me some history I hadn’t previously known. But even then, as her grandson Harry said, “loosely it gives you a rough idea about what that lifestyle, the pressures of putting duty and service above family and everything else, what can come from that.”

And understanding that notion of service is very important, as it’s the essence of monarchy in the twenty first century. Every obituary published in the last 24 hours, every tribute references it. As Emmanuel Macron, in a beautifully crafted statement, put it, she was, ‘faithful to the heavy burden of her duties’.   

That burden has now been passed on to her son, and the Queen, who has been the one constant in times that have been extraordinarily turbulent, has gone. I’ve seen it written that she was a unifying force, perhaps the only one, in a country that is fragmented by many fault lines: urban and rural; rich and poor; north and south; progressive and conservative; remain and leave. (And it should be pointed out that there are communities in our disunited Kingdom where the Queen and the monarchy she represents are divisive themselves.) So who or what can unite us now?

Of course, there is a new monarch, a King. This alone will take some getting used to. Singing the national anthem for the next five years will be like writing the date in January, remembering too late that it is 2022 and not 2021. Good Save the Que…, er, King.

Charles, a divisive figure for many reasons, inherits the throne and probably some of the goodwill people felt towards his mother. The rest he will have to earn. There are many who have loved and respected the monarch but not necessarily the institution. His challenge will be to unite the two.     

Queen Elizabeth’s passing is significant and momentous. I haven’t seen her since 1978, but she was always there. And now she is not.

Welcome aboard the steam train to Little England

Of all the bilge spouted on Brexit by the government and their puppet-masters in the right-wing press - and there's plenty of it -  the piece that makes me the most angry is the idea that leaving the EU liberates us to become 'Global Britain'. 

I suspect this Tory erotic fantasy is borne out of an unshakable belief that the world and Britain was a brighter place when the sun never set on the Empire and our ports were full of great ships exporting Victorian genius and values throughout the world. In a nutshell: Britain and the British are best and know best. 

And if you don't believe me, just take a look at the language used on the front pages of the Mail, the Sun and the Times today. The new Iron Lady crushing Johnny Foreigner for having the temerity not to dance to Albion's tune. It's as offensive as it is unhelpful, and to many of us - 48% of  the voting electorate, don't forget, not a small minority - it's embarrassing, humiliating even.   

There's so much wrong with this, it's difficult to know where to start. But explain this to me. How exactly will my children, and the rest of us, be more 'global' after they've lost the right to live and work in 27 other countries? We're not in the fast lane heading for Global Britain, we're on a steam train to Little England. 

The Tory view of the world was perfectly encapsulated by David Davis this morning, who said: "If our country can deal with World War Two, it can deal with this." Later, Clown-in-Chief Boris Johnson was it also, to all intents and purposes accusing our European 'partners' of employing Nazi tactics in potential negotiations. (And you may well believe this is an extreme interpretation of the toxic vomit from Westminster's liar-in-residence, this is how Europe sees it.) 

Again, where to start? This is such a loaded statement - I think we can all imagine what the odious Mail will do with it - but three things stand out. First these two jingoists are comparing a political and administrative process with a 70 year old conflict in which 10s of millions died.  Is that a helpful analogy? Second, the inference (that is all over the front pages) is that European politicians are the enemy again - Mussolini and Hitler in the guise of Hollande and Merkel. Who runs a negotiation like this? How on earth is this going to help us secure markets for our goods, free passage for our people?

Third and finally - just stop and think about what Davis said, because I wonder if it isn't some sort of Freudian warning. During the Second World War, the people of Britain lived through serious deprivation, food shortages, in permanent fear and afterward suffered the impact of 10 years of economic gloom. And they know, they know, it's going to be rough and it's going to hurt (not them, of course), and they're doing it anyway. 

It's total madness, but the baying hounds in the (offshore-owned) press are lapping it up, while the poisonous nutters from UKIP welcome the Tories onto their political territory. What has happened to us?

Throughout the debate that has followed the June 23 referendum, the Remain discourse has been that May and the three ministers for Brexit (Johnson, Davis and the disgraced former defence secretary Liam Fox) have no idea what they're doing. In one sense I don't doubt that this is true. Ian Dunt,  who has brilliantly covered the UK's march over the Brexit cliff edge, covers off the obvious and not so obvious difficulties in the government's lunatic strategy here at Politics.co.uk. 

I don't think they have the first idea how tough what they're getting into is going and they certainly have no idea how it ends. So with little more than a few Dad's Army soundbites and some insults slung across the Channel they're marching 65m people towards total economic uncertainty at the same time as restricting their freedom of movement. It won't end well.

But I don't accept the idea that they don't know what they're doing. They know exactly what they're doing. They're doing what the Tories have always done: putting the party first, and to hell with the rest. Europe has been a running sore for the Conservatives for as long as I've been following politics, and time and time again it has taken them to the edge of civil war. The survival instinct is strong and so they've always pulled back from the brink, but here now is the perfect exit strategy - and if you have to dispense with the single market to achieve it - so be it. 

And at the same time they're also being given an opportunity to lance another major boil: UKIP and the Romanians. 

I've not seen a credible report yet that suggests that European immigration is anything other than a net positive for the UK economy. But every good horror story needs a bogeyman and the disgraceful Leave campaign knew exactly who that should be.  The mythical hordes of Turks heading across the borders and the eastern Europeans who live and work in the UK, pay their taxes and contribute to society.

And so with the slogan 'the people have spoken', the Tories - no better than Farage's poundshop fascists at this point - have stolen UKIP's clothing and destroyed their European problem in one fell swoop. And if the UK economy and millions of jobs and lives are put at risk in the process - as much objective analysis suggests - then what of it? The Party comes first, always and forever. And with the hapless Jeremy Corbyn having ceded official opposition duties to a combination of Gary Lineker and LBC's James O'Brien, they can do it with impunity.

And what of Britain? I'm sorry to say I'm ashamed of where we are, what we've become. A smaller, sadder, insular and nasty place. I used to be proud of our openness, tolerance and decency. But just at the precise moment it became critical for us to present that face to the world ahead of whatever carnage the next US president delivers, we have withdrawn throwing insults at our partners. It's hard to look at my Spanish neighbours, or German and French colleagues, in the face when they ask what's going on? In Spain, we've known nothing but a generous welcome and kindness. Evidence suggests that those going the other way are finding an entirely different environment. 

It is no exaggeration to say I am filled with fury and despair and impotence at the events of the last six months and the prospect of the next six years. I take some solace in the fact that things rarely are as good or as bad as one thinks. But that's not much is it? I know one thing, and perhaps this is the scariest of all, home - England, Britain, the UK - no longer looks, sounds or feels like home. Fortunately, for now, Madrid does. Perhaps it's time to start thinking about that as a permanent state. 

 With thanks to the brilliant Valeria Cafagna. 

REVIEW: The Trinity Six by Charles Cumming

Spying, even fictional spookery, is not all first class international travel, Inspector Gadget themed weapons and vodka martinis. Devotees of John Le Carré will know that, of course, but in case anyone needs further proof I present the excellent novels of Charles Cumming.  

I picked up my first Cumming novel a year ago on the recommendation of a friend and as 2016  closes (good riddance) I'm just starting my seventh. I've loved all six so far - the three Thomas Kell books, the two featuring Alec Milius and now this standalone novel, The Trinity Six.

The five Cambridge spies - Burgess, Blunt, Philby, Maclean and Cairncross - who passed post-War secrets to the Soviets have been a mine of material for writers of fiction and non-fiction alike. One of the core themes in this has been the pursuit of other potential traitors cut from the same cloth. And this, as the title suggests, is the premise of Cumming's  extravagantly entertaining 2011 novel. 

The latest on the trail of the mythical sixth spy is Sam Gaddis, a down-on-his-luck professor at UCL's School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies. Gaddis, with school fees and the tax man to pay, needs to find a marketable book to sell. An idea arrives in the form of his journalist friend Charlotte Berg, who is on the trail of the sixth man and believes she might have found him in the form of one Edward Crane.

When Berg is found dead in her home, Gaddis soldiers on solo, quickly to discover that anyone wondering near the story of Crane has a habit of doing so. Nobody it seems wants the story to be told, including the secret services of both Russia and the UK.   

The Trinity Six is fascinating on many levels. Cumming, who was reportedly approached to work for MI6, always delivers interesting insights into the workings of modern security services, portraying working life there as a mixture of mundane routine ('spying is waiting', Kell is fond of saying, quoting John Le Carré) and explosive excitement, with the former dominant.  Cumming also explores the moral complexity of the trade, with Kell and the freelance Milius in particular spending a lot of time in the grey between what might be the patriotic and professional thing to do, and what might be the right thing to do. Gaddis, no more than an enthusiastic amateur, strays into some of this territory but is often too busy either recklessly trying to get himself killed, or trying to survive his own recklessness. 

As the quest for the sixth spy turns to the more famous five for clues, there are also interesting history lessons around the post-War surge of support for communism within the academic elite that created such a ripe environment for Soviet headhunters.

Equally, at the heart of this novel, is a ruthless critique of modern Russia, fictionally run by one Sergei Platov, a thinly disguised (we're talking fag-paper-thin here) Vladimir Putin. 

Finally, The Trinity Six is just a great thriller with everything you'd want from that. A great narrative runs at a grace pace with enjoyable characters and terrific writing. And I could say the same for all six of Cummings novels I've read. 

If espionage is your thing, you'll love The Trinity Six. And if it's not, try it anyway. 

What would Lincoln think?

There is something utterly magnificent about the Lincoln Memorial, the vast Greek temple that stands at the western end of the Mall in Washington D.C., commemorating the life and achievements of the 16th President. 

For one thing the scale of the monument is something to behold. If the seated Abraham Lincoln were to stand up, he would reach the height of 28 feet. Then on one of the interior walls is inscribed the Gettysburg Address, a quite brilliant 272-word speech that captures the very idea of America, 'a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal'. Finally there is the location. Lincoln looks the down the Mall past the Washington Memorial to the great dome of the US Capitol building, while just to his left is the White House.

As he gazes down upon his successors in Congress and at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Lincoln is frozen forever as a noble and dignified figure, intelligent, contemplative and full of the political courage that so distinguished his career in the White House. 

The Memorial features in the opening credits of House of Cards, and as I watched an episode the other day, I couldn't help but think, 'what on earth would he have made of what's going on  in the US today?'

It's not an original question, of course. Every day tens, perhaps hundreds, of millions of Americans must ask themselves the same as they absorb the toxic daily dose of absurdity, banality and profanity that passes for a modern Presidential campaign. Most of the rest of us, out in the world, have simply watched on in horror as this political tragedy has unfolded.

A short recap. During the current campaign, truth and facts have become optional for candidates - and perhaps even damaging. Racism and misogyny, charges that would have killed any other Presidential candidate in living memory, have become politically toxic to Donald Trump only at the point at which the latter has spilled over into criminal behaviour - and the Republican Party, Lincoln's party, has legitimised and perhaps even institutionalised it.

The entire 'debate' has been almost utterly bereft of reasoned, credible debate and policy proposals over the most pressing issues of the day and has instead descended to the puerile politics of the playground, where bullying and name-calling have been normalised.  Finally, inevitably perhaps given the direction of the campaign over recent weeks, Trump refused to confirm he would accept the verdict of the American people, perpetuating the insidious and baseless claims of his campaign that the 2016 poll is 'rigged' somehow.

From this perspective, a few thousands miles to the east, the American political system looks utterly broken. Campaigns and candidates appear entirely in the thrall of wealthy backers or powerful pressure groups, incapable of breaking free of those shackles and reaching independent conclusions about what is best for America and its people. At the same time the long history of consensus-building and pragmatic compromise in the interests of the country has been all but lost. The coasts and the cities are blue, the south and the heartlands are red and never the twain shall meet. Where once there was fierce but rational and civilised political discourse, there is now the politics of talk radio. 

 

Why does this matter? Well, for all of my lifetime, most of us in Europe and the West have looked to the United States to lead the free world - in defence of liberty, justice and democracy. None of these have ever felt so fragile as they do now, with fascist tendencies and rhetoric on the rise and the rule of law threatened at every turn. America has never been perfect, but it has been there - a courageous and steadfast friend. 

From a personal perspective, the current situation is as heart-breaking as it is bewildering. I have loved America since spending much time there as a child. The anger, bitterness and intolerance I see there now makes it unrecognisable from the optimistic, confident, welcoming place I knew. 

Irrespective of the result of tomorrow's election, this has not been America's finest hour and the cracks in society that were already becoming visible now threaten to become great dividing chasms. 

I am a liberal and so I hope - in common with the vast majority on this continent I suspect - that Hillary Clinton prevails. The alternative, once unimaginable, but now horribly feasible would be catastrophic for America and the world.

Even if she is elected the first female President - an extraordinary achievement in and of itself - the danger is not past. Even if Trump were to accept the result, the divisions in society he has exposed remain.

Lincoln also knew a thing or two about societal schisms and their consequences: ' A house divided against itself cannot stand'. 

May God bless America, and us all.

  

#Brexit: A 10-Year-Old's View from Spain

On the final day of the last Spanish school year, June 24, the day after the UK's Brexit decision, my 10-year-old daughter Agnes asked her school friends to sign a t-shirt. The reason for this was simple: she didn't know whether she would still be allowed to stay in Spain following the vote. I suspect for most English 10-year-olds, Brexit is a distant, abstract thing, if it exists at all for them. But for Agnes, it is very real and something she thinks about and, unfortunately, worries about. In anticipation of Theresa May's visit to Madrid on Thursday, Agnes has laid out her views on Brexit below. The work is all hers. 

By Agnes Hunt 

 As young as I am (10) I do understand the negative impact brexit has on Britain. There are huge perks of being a part of the EU. Together we've prevented wars and we brought in important laws. we made a community that Britain has decided to leave.

As part of the EU British people can travel freely to study, work or just live. Citizens of other countries could do the same in Britain.

Then there are just the little things, for convenience, like sharing the same currency, plug, and most drive on the same side of the road. There's also Schengen, another thing which Britain is not a part of.

As an English expat in Spain I do hope that there will be a second referendum. Teresa May has dealt very well with this situation so far, but I still stand by my word in saying that we should remain in the EU and we should have a second referendum for the people who didn't vote or people who have re-thought their decision.

I was born in England of Irish descent but live in Spain. I do not feel British or Irish or Spanish. I am a European citizen and Brexit is taking that away from me. 

Even if my family and I have to leave Spain, I'm very glad I had this opportunity and I know that there are many others like me who have had a similar experience. Living in Spain I have been able to learn a new language, try new things. I've loved the weather, culture and meeting new people. Overall I've had an incredible time.

If Britain is really willing to leave I and many others understand why people have decided to vote leave. but we think that they are taking a wrong turn because they haven't been as lucky as me to understand the benefits of the EU. There shall be consequences of leaving the EU for example the pounds value has dropped. Here is a chart of what has happened.

Is this really what you want for you and the people of your country?

And next time you vote just remember you have a vote, a decision.  Use it well because your country depends on it. Every vote counts

Dark post Trump vision illuminates the Tearling trilogy

Not very far into The Invasion of the Tearling, the second installment of Erika Johansen's fantasy trilogy, a very odd thing happens. The story, which to that point had taken place in a distant future that resembles medieval Europe suddenly pitches back in time to a near future that looks a lot like what I imagine the US will become if Donald Trump is elected President in November.

Johansen, who does a fair job of creating an 'o ld' new world - the Tearling, where a young queen tries to lead her people out of enforced servitude to its eastern neighbour - proves somewhat brilliant at creating a nightmarish vision of a mid-to-late 21st Century United States. Here a young woman lives in servitude to her violent, loathsome arms dealer husband in a walled New England community where the rich drive Mercedes, play golf and drink champagne while outside the walls the poor starve or freeze or die because of lack of basic medication. This near-dystopian world is governed by 'Security' an all-seeing, all-powerful arm of the state which has responsibility for maintaining the iniquitous status quo. 

The Invasion  Of the Tearling then settles into a future-past rhythm in which the story flashes back and forth between the tales of 21st Century Lily Mayhew and Kelsea, 24th Century monarch. Kelsea, a newcomer to royalty (see: The Queen of the Tearling)  in her New London keep pursues strategies to postpone what seems inevitable defeat at the hands of the evil Mort people and their Red Queen. They are invading the Tearling after Kelsea cut off the constant flow of slaves sent westwards to Mort as part of an earlier military settlement. Lily Mayhew, in the meantime, is doing little more than trying to avoid impregnation by the odious, wife-beating Greg. Until a 'terrorist' with a gun shot wound falls over her back wall and begins to introduce Lily to the idea that there could be 'a better world'.

This creates a very strange division in the narrative. Queen Kelsea's story takes place in Young Adult territory, as was the first novel. Hers is in part a coming of age tale - discovering herself as she seeks to save her land and its people. It's a story that has some charm - enough to make me come back for a second helping anyway - and one that tackles some interesting issues including feminism and fascism, albeit in a manner that my 13 year old son could comfortably ignore if he so chose. Kelsea is a strong and attractive female character, if occasionally somewhat clumsily drawn. Publicly she is tough and uncompromising, but privately riddled with doubts.

Johansen's near future post-Trumpian vision is not YA in the slightest. Her portait of an entirely divided, morally bankrupt, misogynistic US society owned and managed to maintain the status of a tiny rich and powerful elite is dark and disturbing.  Even the language is different - harsher and more profane - than that of the Tearling story. And Johansen has a message for her readers that nobody could ignore: beware the increasingly alarming inequality of  wealth; beware the erosion of your civil liberties, particularly when they are taken in the name of security and liberty; beware demagogues with a narrative based on fear, and a strategy based on alienation. Does that sound familiar to anyone?

While Kelsea's somewhat meandering story remained the focus of the novel, the narrative was lit up by the Lily Mayhew story, particularly as she finds hidden depths of courage and resolve in herself. This narrative also begins to fill in the historical gaps about the development of the Tearling, hinted at throughout the first novel, which makes it clear that the land was populated following a 'Crossing' from the United States in the distant past. Without this element, I might not have been prepared to return for a third installment, but now I look forward to the final book in the trilogy later this year.