Marin Alsop: the magnificent First Lady of the Last Night

Prom 75: Last Night of the Proms (Royal Albert Hall)

Marin Alsop conducts BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus ©BBC/Chris Christodoulou

 

A woman can’t possibly conduct this, bemoaned some. It’s a bit like asking one to reverse-park their Ford Ka into a not-so-tight spot. And an American? Good grief, it’s the end of civilisation as we know it, lamented others. It is as though the spirit of Wallis Simpson had returned from Baltimore to purloin the Crown of England. The Proms are international, sure, but the Last Night is a peculiarly British affair, and at all costs we must preserve this sacred institution from the BBC’s interminable trendy ‘modernising’ and its lefty notions of political ‘progress’.

 

What these partypoopers seem to forget is that some of this season’s most thrilling occasions have been conducted by outstanding women, like Sian Edwards, Xian Zhang, Rebecca Thomas and Ruth Waldron; and that the hallowed Last Night has, over recent years, been conducted five times by distinguished Americans like Leonard Slatkin and David Robertson, and three times by the brilliant Czech Jiří Bělohlávek. One does not need to be male to deliver an inspirational programme of music; or British to enter into the exuberant jubilation of a Last Night celebration. It is primarily a people’s event in which the audience reveres the music and buzzes patriotically irrespective of such trivia as the nationality and gender of the conductor.

 

The Last Night has, over recent years, incorporated elements of pantomime along with a few scrappy musical offerings which have become frayed at the edges (to put it kindly). Certainly, these have never quite managed to quench the stirring patriotic fervour (if you like it) or crass jingoistic nationalist imperialism yearning-again-for-Empire (if you don’t). But there was something a whole lot more honed and polished this year: Marin Alsop triumphed.

 

Some maestri conduct their orchestras from poses of stillness: a raised eyebrow heralds a crescendo; a frown a whispered moment of dolore, and a slight jerk of the elbow a burst of con brio. Alsop throws herself at everything with all limbs flailing. Dressed with starched precision in military black and red, her jigging legs and animated arms at times might have appeared like a soldier marionette. But her baton was manipulated by nothing but her spirit: the strings were hers to pull. She is a masterful technical operator, and led the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus exactly where she wanted them.

 

As ever, the evening was a beast with two backs. The first half opened with Anna Clyne’s energised Masquerade, a BBC commission and world premiere. I have no idea what it was about, but it was a brassy fanfare of melodious glory and a darned sight better than any other commissions I’ve heard this season.

 

This was followed by Wagner’s Overture from the Meistersingers of Nuremberg, the vocal depths of which seemed to set the scene for Bernstein’s ‘tonal and tuneful’ Chichester Psalms. The BBC Chorus and heavenly counter-tenor Iestyn Davies brought the entire Hall to the point of divine worship. We were at the altar of the cathedral, contemplating the glory of Adonai and the agony and ecstasy of existence.

 

This segued quite naturally into another wonder of creation – Nigel Kennedy’s rendition of Vaughan Williams’ Lark Ascending, which was quite breathtaking. Every unearthly cadenza was reflected in the intensity of Kennedy’s forehead and manic finger-work: he soared and spiralled like the prodigy he is.

 

But my personal highlight of the evening was the virtuoso mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato. She gave no fewer than seven solo performances, opening with Massenet’s lush aria ‘Je suis gris! Je suis ivre!’ from Chérubin, which was delivered in full Barbara Windsor mode, as though calling time behind the bar at the Queen Vic. DiDonato is a true revelation, seemingly at home with everything from Handel’s Xerxes and Rossini’s La Donna del Iago to ‘Over the Rainbow’ and ‘Rule Britannia’. Her voice is sublime; her trills electrifying; her vocal chords tuned by God.

 

Interval wine downed and champagne flowing, we moved to the second half. Everyone knows what’s coming, so Bernstein’s ‘Make Our Garden Grow’ from Candide and Verdi’s ‘Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves’ from Nabucco had to compete with a bit of impatient flag-waving, balloon-bouncing, a premature vuvuzela and an inflatable banana (no, I have no idea). It’s a shame, because this was the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in all their blazing glory, at their purest and best.

 

The warm-up for the community sing-along was provided by an eccentric, gimmicky, not to say deranged Nigel Kennedy, who returned sporting a Villa football shirt to fiddle-duel with the orchestra in Vittorio Monti’s Csárdás. I have no idea how Marin Alsop held this messy, discursive episode together: it was clearly extempore with dozens of spontaneous insertions and wizardry inventions, but it delighted the audience no end.

 

The rest of the evening was foregone: ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, ‘Rule Britannia’, ‘Land of Hope and Glory’, ‘Jerusalem’, and Britten’s epic arrangement of the National Anthem. Though why these were interrupted (that’s how it felt) by Granville Bantock’s The Sea Reivers and George Lloyd’s HMS ‘Trinidad’ March I do not know. Personally, I still miss Henry Wood’s Fantasia on British Sea Songs.

 

First Lady of the Last Night? Certainly. Toast of the gala? Deservedly. But, frankly, I have no idea why this particular artistic glass ceiling wasn’t broken 30 years ago while Margaret Thatcher was still in No10. Why did the BBC never give Jane Glover the honour of leading the party? She made her Proms debut in 1985 and has delighted audiences over 13 seasons – even as recently as Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Yeoman of the Guard last year. It is really quite astonishing that Roger Wright has never extended the Last Night invitation to her.

 

But Marin Alsop is henceforth an honorary Brit. She has a warm sincerity, a passion for her art, and a great fondness for Britain and its people. This was not so much a Last Night of the Proms conducted for the first time by a woman, but part of a sophisticated personal journey woven through with a world of musical experience. I, for one, hope that this First Lady of the Last Night becomes the second, third and fourth. And then bring on the emotionally-stirring Xian Zhang.

 

But there’s no need for pink balloons or feminist statements on the podium, like ‘Multi-tasking Area, No Men Allowed’. Men, after all, can multi-task, too. There’s just no need to keep mentioning nationality, ethnicity, gender, sexuality or social class: music transcends all the fissures and fractures of our common humanity.

The Olympics must be about sport alone: Stephen Fry should confront Putin in the theatre

 

‘Hetero gentile @Adrian_Hilton thinks it's ok to misrepresent @stephenfry as comparing Putin Russia to holocaust… Imagine being paid to smuther opposition to homophobia. We don't need bigoted straight people telling us what to do thanks… kindly remove yourself from telling people who suffer an oppression you do not, to shut up about it.’

 

This was one of the more judgmental but eloquent rants I received from Stephen Fry’s Twitter hordes following my perfectly reasonable question as to why a ban on the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics is an ‘essential’ response to Putin’s anti-gay legislation, but no such ban is warranted on the arts. Another of them helpfully advised: ‘Please go jump in a lake. I dare say you can swim, but it might just wash off the stench of smug self-righteousness.’ One of Fry’s more intelligent and articulate followers called me a ‘c**t biscuit t**t’, whatever one of those is.

 

I did prophesy a tsunami of derision and displeasure, and they didn’t disappoint. I am grateful to prominent gay-rights activists Benjamin Cohen, publisher of Pink News, and Tom French, Policy Coordinator of the Equality Network, who bothered to engage with the substance of my argument. Indeed, after a brief exchange of tweets, we reached a degree of accommodation: ‘Ok - fair play,’ tweeted Tom. ‘Sounds like a reasonable debate about tactics when it comes to securing equality & human rights.’ Rational debate is clearly possible; just not with self-identifying Freudian Marxists, rootless cosmopolitans and rabid anti-humanists.

 

Naturally I don’t blame Fry for the irrational prejudices and bigotries of his followers, but I do wish he and they had bothered to engage with the substance of the argument instead of swinging on tangents, distorting the plainest meaning or assuming that Andrew Pierce and I are of one commissioned and coerced Daily Mail mind on this. Tom Whitwell, Head of Digital at The Times and Sunday Times, appreciated the hypostatic division: ‘Feel a bit sorry for @Adrian_Hilton who wrote a good bit on Stephen Fry in the Mail,’ he tweeted. ‘It's unfortunate because I would like to read @stephenfry’s reaction to (it).’

 

The thing is, of course, there will be no considered reply because there is no rationale to Fry’s campaign. He demands a ban on the Sochi Winter Olympics with as much casual indifference as David Beckham might encourage a boycott of Glyndebourne: it is easy to be negligent in the absence of liability.

 

 

Having failed to secure his ‘essential’ ban on the Games, Stephen Fry is now asking Olympians to receive their medals either with their arms crossed over their chests, or with an extended bent wrist. There is certain effeminate levity here which goes beyond the encouragement to wear pink shorts or rainbow vests. Indeed, some may find it quite distasteful that he could be so flippant when young gay teenagers are being systematically hunted and humiliated and lesbians suffer ‘corrective rape’ by Putin’s thugs. If Andrew Pierce had dared suggest the limp-wrist gesture – even whimsically – I rather think we know how Grand Inquisitor Fry and his zealous disciples would have tortured and tormented the heretic.

 

The World Athletics Championships are happening in Moscow now, and gay athletes aren’t being harassed; lesbian spectators aren’t being rounded up and ‘disappeared’; bisexuals aren’t feeling the need to turn moments of sporting glory into jarring statements about sexual identity. Mo Farah is there doing his Mobot and Christine Ohuruogu is beaming her sunshine smile back to the UK as they sweep aside the Russians and sale into the record books. Why should the greatest of the athletic greats feel compelled to politicise their moment of glory by playing sporting silver to gay gold?

 

Indeed, you only have to see the frenzied reaction to Fry’s critics now to get a taste of what will happen in 2014: those athletes who dutifully cross their chests or bend their wrists will be hailed gay-friendly heroes; those who wave, smile, do mobots or thank God for their victory will be branded callous and spiritless bigots. The Games are being hijacked by gay-compassion fascism.

 

There is much more to be achieved for gay rights in Russia by engaging and participating in the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games than by banning them. The UK participated fully in the Beijing Olympiad, and I feel sure that China’s dissident democrats and their sympathisers suffer fates rather worse at the hands of the People’s Liberation Army than gays and lesbians do under General Polizmeister Putin. At least being gay in Russia is no longer a crime.

 

It is also worth noting that the clampdown on gay propaganda and perceived proselytism among minors is not entirely new. It is true that the Duma passed further legislation as recently as June, but this is wholly consistent with the regional bans which have been promulgated across the Russian Federation over the past six or seven years. In the Ryazan Oblast (administrative district), for example, the 'propaganda of homosexuality' has been prohibited since 2006, without so much as a peep from Stephen Fry.

 

But the rainbow bandwagon is now rolling, and it is incumbent upon everyone to jump aboard. It is the progressive, enlightened, liberal thing to do.

 

And yet I am at a loss to know why gay bars all over London have banned Russian vodka while the Bolshoi Ballet are playing at the Royal Opera House, without an anti-Putin placard in sight. Why pour perfectly good Smirnoff into the gutter but leave Yuri Grigorovich’s magnificent production of Swan Lake completely unheckled? What has Stolichnaya vodka done that Tchaikovsky’s ballet hasn’t? Why target sales of Russian Standard but ignore Prince Siegfried’s love for Odette? Why risk the jobs of the hardworking Boris and Ivan in the Moscow Distillery Cristall, but leave Maria Alexandrova and Dmitry Gudanov to dance their thrilling pas de deux unmolested?

 

Don’t the Bolshoi Ballet and Orchestra bring rather more glory to Putin’s Russia than a few shots of vodka?

 

Like music and theatre, sporting participation can cut across the religious, political and ideological divisions which gnarl humanity and distort our vision. Like all art, sport can challenge where there is no settled view; it can heal hurt and transform protest. So here’s an offer to Stephen Fry: instead of seeking to ban the Sochi Games, coerce Olympians into trite gestures of solidarity, or deprive ordinary Russians of those glorious moments of ecstasy you experienced during London 2012, why not respect the fact the Russia is a new democracy; a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights; and a member of the Council of Europe? Why not acknowledge the fact that these laws have some popular appeal within an essentially socially conservative milieu? Why not let Olympians be a-political participants before an audience that is free to be relatively indifferent to your concerns or worldview?

 

Why not, instead, take a play over to Russia next year and confront Putin’s abuses with theatre? If he is a tyrant, hold a mirror up to his evil nature to show scorn her own image. If LGBT rights are to be advanced, orthodoxy reformed and culture transformed, let your dramatic gift show virtue her own feature.

 

Stephen, if you want to take a play to Moscow next year, I’m more than ready (qualified and connected) to assist.

National Youth Splendour

Prom 38: Vaughan Williams, Mark-Anthony Turnage and Beethoven (Royal Albert Hall)

Vasily Petrenko conducts the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain at the BBC Proms ©BBC/Chris Christodoulou

 

A free main-evening Prom in the Royal Albert Hall. What a great idea. And before anyone bleats about the outrageous cost of elite arts subsidy to the poor BBC licence fee payer, no musicians were paid in the making of this Prom. In fact, I am assured that no money exchanged hands at all. Tickets were allocated on a first-come-first-served basis, and they flew out of the box office faster than semi quavers in an allegro. This was real orchestral outreach – making music available to anyone and everyone. Sir Henry would have been proud.

 

I had two boys sitting directly in front of me, one about seven years old and the other maybe 12 or 13. The younger one squirmed and fiddled on his swivel chair and ate wine-gums throughout, skilfully dissecting each one with his thumbnail before it entered his mouth. The older one – I assume a brother – was more relaxed and attentive. But their raw and uninhibited reactions to the music were fascinating to watch, so they are woven into this review.       

 

The National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain was joined by a quartet of youth choirs – Codetta, the Irish Youth Chamber Choir and the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain. They were conducted by Vasily Petrenko, who looked about 20 himself. These fresh faces began with Vaughan Williams’ Toward the Unknown Region, and it was a rendition of thrilling depth and great spiritual force. The orchestra was technically precise; the choirs meandered through hymn-like darkness toward metaphysical enlightenment, colouring each phrase in turn with agony – ‘Darest thou now, O soul..’ – and ecstasy – ‘..we float in Time and Space..’.

 

The boys weren’t remotely fazed by this: the younger one had been flicking indifferently through his programme and had gleefully lighted upon a picture of Daniel Radcliffe in the West End production of The Cripple of Inishmaan: Harry Potter had happily diverted him from the transfiguration of Vaughan Williams. But they were a bit young to be considering the mysteries of death and immortality.

 

Then came Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Frieze, a world premiere co-commissioned by BBC Radio 3 with the Royal Philharmonic Society and the New York Philharmonic. And what a thoroughly entertaining piece it was. There were four movements – from ‘Hushed and expansive’, through ‘with veiled menace’ with ‘More relaxed’, and then to two sections denoted solely by metronome frequency. With allusions to Beethoven’s Ninth, the violins soared and oboes responded with an inverted melody. There were exotic bells and ethnic drums, sounding brass and tinkling cymbals. I know I shouldn’t name individuals when an orchestra is a true ensemble, but percussionists Jake Brown and Matthew Farthing were absolutely riveting to watch. They were perched to pounce on their xylophones at every moment, and they did so with athletic precision: every frenzied beat was breathless and immaculate.

 

And it was those two who mostly kept my boys (I’d adopted them by now; parents were nowhere to be seen) quite happy. In fact, to the evident irritation of the grown-ups sitting in front of them, their little bodies bounced to every syncopated thrill. There was some distinct foot-tapping discernible in the fidgeting, and their eyes were welded to the volatile percussive action. It was a wholly accessible piece, infused with rhythmic energy from its tremolo fifths to its booming discord. As a young person’s polyphonic introduction to the orchestra, Turnage gave us a frenetic Nintendo WiiU, reducing Britten to a pedestrian Xbox. At least that’s how the boys saw it.

 

The second half consisted of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the commissioning of which by the Royal Philharmonic we were here to celebrate in the Society’s bicentennial year. I had to wonder why the NYO had chosen this complex, tortuous epic as their finale: it surely needs bearded maturity and emotional breadth to convey its revolutionary drama. But it wasn’t a bad shot: Petrenko was meticulous in eking out of them their absolute best. Some of their more vigorous crash-bang-wallop moments obliterated the subtleties, and a spread of split notes from the horns occasionally felt like an 18-year-old trying to play King Lear. But what they occasionally lacked in finesse and autumnal nuance they more than made up for in youthful eagerness and professional dedication.

 

The massed choirs were passionate in their unified declaration of joy, and I have no doubt that mum and dad and grandpa and grandma and an arena crammed with sisters, cousins and aunts roared and cheered these talented youths to the top of the dome. For me, the NYO and Choirs are a true reflection of the nation’s confident youth and inspirational models of community artistic expression.

 

But my boys weren’t quite transported to Elysium; indeed, wine-gums now exhausted, programme trampled underfoot, their heavy eyelids drifted up to gaze at the bubbled ceiling. The youngest sat through the entire third movement with his arms crossed high around his throat; whitened fingers clasping the back of his chair; his weary head leaning left and then right, squirming for respite. He was too tired to enter Schiller’s holy shrine.

 

I’m all for a free annual prom, and laud every effort to attract a new demographic to sustain Henry Wood’s legacy. But you can’t expect a seven-year-old to sit through a 70-minute choral epic of esoteric brotherhood, especially if Harry Potter isn’t around to explain it all.

 

 

Why doesn’t Stephen Fry call for a ban on Russian music, theatre and all performing arts?

 

“An absolute ban on the Russian Winter Olympics of 2014 on Sochi is simply essential,” says Stephen Fry in an impassioned letter to the Prime Minister and the International Olympic Committee, apparently written on behalf of the entire civilised world.

 

By ‘civilised’, one assumes he means the superior, enlightened and cultured proponents of equality and human rights, as opposed to the barbaric hordes whose primitive tribal impulses seek to outlaw the propagation of ‘non-traditional’ sexual orientations, ban gay-pride marches and prohibit the adoption of children by same-sex couples, as President Putin seems determined to do.

 

These aggressive anti-gay laws are repugnant and so merit an ‘absolute ban’ on the 2014 winter games, according to Fry. Just as the Führer was gleefully empowered by the 1936 spectacle in Berlin, so the Russian President will doubtless exploit his country’s games for political advantage on the world stage. And a savage like him simply should not be honoured with the Olympic brand; the Five Rings ought not to be sullied by association with Putin, who is ‘making scapegoats of gay people, just as Hitler did Jews’.

 

I don’t want to dwell on Fry’s association of the 2014 Sochi winter games with the 1936 Olympiad in Berlin: the systematic incineration of six million Jews in industrial ovens bears no comparison with the marginalisation and repression of minorities in Putin’s Russia, as shocking and deplorable as their ‘beatings, murders and humiliations’ undoubtedly are. I am more puzzled that an actor of the intelligence and calibre of Stephen Fry missed a golden opportunity to highlight the fact that Hitler persecuted gays as well. The pink triangle was nowhere near as prevalent as the Jewish Star, but at least 100,000 gays were targeted for torture or castration by the Nazis, and somewhere between 5,000 and 15,000 are estimated to have perished horribly in the death camps. So why they didn’t get a mention in this letter is a little mystifying.

 

Stephen Fry is not without clout: he has six million Twitter followers – a colossal cyber-platoon which he has readily deployed in the past to mobilise support for his latest grievance du jour. He primes and pokes, and they obligingly agitate and demonstrate by screaming their objections and questions. Then they tweet and re-tweet their defiance and disapproval in concentric circles of engineered outrage, flooding the target of their ire with a tsunami of derision and displeasure. Invariably, their chosen victim is harassed into submission and bullied into issuing a grovelling apology, whether earnest or not.

 

So, instead of pleading with David Cameron and grandstanding to the IOC – over which the Prime Minister has no power or influence at all – why doesn’t Stephen Fry call for a ban on British engagement with Russian music, theatre and all performing arts? Why doesn’t he demand a boycott of Chekhov, Gorky, Gogol and Griboyedov? Why doesn’t he demand a ban on Prokofiev, Pushkin, Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky and Turgenev?

 

I’m not suggesting that UK companies abandon their planned productions of The Cherry Orchard, The Seagull, The Three Sisters, A Month in the Country, The Government Inspector or The Brothers Karamazov – all of which seem to playing somewhere in the UK over the summer. I’m saying that Fry’s rationale for a sporting boycott of Russia can logically be extended to an artistic one; indeed, it is far more attainable since that is the profession in which Stephen Fry manifestly has hundreds of very influential contacts and holds considerable influence as a theatrical knight-in-waiting (it will come). That is where his campaign ought to begin.

 

The excellent Cheek by Jowl theatre company, for example, frequently performs plays in Russian, and they are planning to take Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night to the Mossovet Theatre in Moscow next month. There’s nothing subversive about it: it doesn’t equate Putin with the puritan Malvolio, or portray Viola as a revolutionary member of Pussy Riot – all of which may well justify an incursion into dangerous territory to show Russian scorn her own image. It is funded by the National Lottery and supported by the Arts Council of England. Why doesn’t Stephen Fry demand a ban on this tour?

 

Why doesn’t he urge British tourists and ex-pats to boycott the opulent $700 million onyx-and-crystal Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg? This cultural crown is just as much a part of Russia’s global ambitions as next year’s Winter Olympics. The recent champagne-swilling opening gala was headlined by Placido Domingo, and the guest of honour was an unsmiling Vladimir Putin. Why doesn’t Fry phone his mate Placido and organise a global artistic embargo?

 

And what about the Bolshoi? In November they are staging a series of Britten Concerts in honour of composer’s centennial. Surely Russia’s sequinned opera singers and ballet dancers are as worthy of a total ban as their finely-tuned sportsmen and women?

 

And then there’s Moscow’s terrific Lenkom – a daring experimental theatre. And the Satirikon, the Sovremennik and the Moscow Arts Theatre, famous for Stanislavsky. Not to mention the Moscow Academic Satire Theatre, the Moscow Variety Theatre, and the excellent Malyi Theatre.

 

Why doesn’t Stephen Fry foment his six million followers into demanding that Brits boycott all of the above, with an ‘absolute ban’ on all UK performing arts engagement with Russia? This would be well within his sphere of influence and would make a real, lasting and dramatic impact.

 

He won't, of course, because his fellow actors, dancers and musicians are notoriously poorly paid, and are likely to ignore him. Far easier to pontificate to scurvy politicians and preach about evil in someone else's church. There is no Equity in Russia, no guarantee of paid work and no minimum wage when you get it. Every contract in the arts world is highly prized, and plans are already well-advanced for next year’s cultural Olympiad to coincide with the games.

 

Fry says: ‘The summer Olympics of 2012 were one of the most glorious moments of my life and the life of my country.’ As they were for many of us, not least because the daily ecstasies and exhilarations lifted us beyond the mundane drudge of everyday life. But Stephen Fry would seek to deny such delight and elation to the downtrodden, poverty-stricken and unemployed people of Russia. It isn’t all vodka shots in the Kremlin: those that have somewhere to sleep at night often share kitchens and toilets with five other families. The Winter Olympics are a welcome distraction from cabbage soup.

 

This call for a ban represents no personal sacrifice at all to Fry himself; nor does it constitute any hardship for his fellow actors and artists. It is a haughty and detached gesture which harms the innocent and penalises Russia's outstanding sportsmen and women who will be deprived of their chance to inspire the very generation which might sweep Putin and his thugs from power.

 

By all means demand a ban on the Winter Olympics or a boycott of Russian sport if you must, but its theatre, music, opera and ballet bring just as much honour and glory to Putin as cross-country skiing, figure skating, bobsleighing and the biathlon: it is all culture readily appropriated for political purposes.

 

If he is genuine, Fry needs to write immediately to Declan Donnellan, artistic director of Cheek by Jowl, and demand an ‘absolute ban’ on all artistic cooperation with Putin’s Russia. He should then get his twitter hordes to pester the sponsors by fulminating all manner of disgust at their homophobic collaboration. If he does this, Stephen Fry could become a lion in winter. If not, he’s just a cat keeping down the mice.

 

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Cameron apologise? Only a directly-elected Conservative Party chairman could make him do so

 

“He has not apologised to Howard Flight or to Arundel and South Downs. For that matter, he has never apologised to Boris Johnson over Liverpool, to Danny Kruger over Sedgefield, or Adrian Hilton, in Slough” wrote William Rees-Mogg of Michael Howard in The Times following the 2005 General Election, just after the ‘something-of-the-night’ autocrat had spilt rather a lot of blood after a tyrannical sacking spree.

 

You may recall that Boris had accused Liverpudlians of wallowing in their ‘victim status’ following the murder of Ken Bigley.  Danny Kruger had invoked the Schumpterian doctrine of ‘creative destruction’ of the public services. And I'd had the audacity to defend the Protestant Constitution and the Act of Settlement in The Spectator two years before, in articles which had been commissioned by Boris and approved by the then chief whip David Maclean. As a consequence, we were all publicly humiliated, demoted or summarily dispensed with.

 

All of this would be water under the bridge, except for the leitmotifs in the recent case of Peter Cruddas. David Cameron’s disgraceful treatment of the former Conservative Party Treasurer brings the trials and tribulations of 2005 flooding back. Despite all the modernisers’ trendy rebranding and systematic detoxification of the Tory brand, something ‘nasty’ still lurks in the substructure.  

 

Peter Cruddas had the misfortune to be selected for assassination by a couple of manipulative Sunday Times journalists – Insight editor Jonathan Calvert and reporter Heidi Blake – who were intent on spilling some more Tory blood. In a very carefully-laid trap, they lured Mr Cruddas into a meeting to discuss how they might donate funds to the Conservative Party, and what favours (ie influence over policy) they might expect in return.

 

The conversation was covertly recorded, and the whole country heard next day how the wealthy could donate their millions to the party and then be invited for Parma-ham canapés with the Prime Minister who would then listen very intently indeed to their plans to make the rich richer.

 

It was a devastating subversive sting, which went to the very heart of democracy and the Conservative Party’s integrity. As a consequence of these revelations, David Cameron poured scorn over Peter Cruddas, CCHQ disowned him and the Party Board dropped him faster than a manifesto pledge.

 

But Calvert and Blake had lied. Their story has now been judged in the High Court to have been inaccurate, misleading and malicious. Mr Justice Tugendhat said he found the conduct of the defendants in contesting the action ‘offensive’. And so Peter Cruddas has been awarded damages of £180,000 for libel (including £15,000 for aggravated damages).

 

This is a tidy sum, but it is scant compensation for 16 months of emotional, social and political purgatory. “I was constructively dismissed from my role as party treasurer,” said Mr Cruddas, “and made to feel like an outcast as the Prime Minister and the party lined up to criticise me on television and radio. This hurt me immensely and further damaged my reputation.”

 

 

The truth is that Peter Cruddas – a hard-working, loyal, charitable, self-made millionaire – behaved impeccably in his role as Conservative Party Treasurer. His ‘great personal distress’ at the hands of Sunday Times’ journalists was palpably exacerbated, according to Mr Justice Tugendhat, by the ‘massive public humiliation’ inflicted on him by the Prime Minister.

 

Had Mr Cruddas been a personal friend of David Cameron’s – or attended the right school followed by a proper university – doubtless he would have received unwavering support. But he was not part of the elite: he is the son of an alcoholic taxi-driver from Hackney, who lived on a council estate and left school with no qualifications. He became a lowly bank clerk, and worked hard to become a self-made millionaire. No privilege, no power, no influential contacts.

 

When powerful and influential newspapers are intent on trashing your good name and reputation, it helps if you’ve been to Eton or played tennis at Brasenose.

 

Perhaps Peter Cruddas was naïve in expecting political loyalty and years of dedicated service to be repaid. It is a gentlemanly social contract; the honourable way for honourable members to treat each other, especially when we are concerned with the voluntary side of political engagement. After all, what is the point of volunteering one’s expertise, time and money to the Conservative Party if there is not the least expectation of natural justice, civility or even courtesy in return? Lord Ashcroft encapsulates what ought to be innate: “Surely the instincts of our Party should always be to stand by one of its own until it has been proved that an individual has acted illegally or improperly even if it may be politically appropriate in certain circumstances to suspend someone pending an outcome.”

 

But David Cameron wasn’t interested in Peter Cruddas’ version of events, and neither was a deficient CCHQ or the omnipotent Party Board. And so a loyal philanthropist was forced to resign his voluntary position without fair hearing, in contravention of the party’s own constitution which demands natural justice. He was subsequently ostracised by senior party figures (with the exception of Michael Gove – which is curious because he was one of the few to stand by me in 2005). According to Lord Ashcroft, Mr Cruddas has received no party invitations from his former colleagues since his resignation. I can’t put it better than Charles Moore, who observed: “What bastards they can be.”

 

Justice has now been seen to be done in the High Court, but it has not been done in the Conservative Party, nor is it likely to be. Unlike under the lawyerly leadership of Margaret Thatcher and the appreciative chairmanship of Norman Tebbit, Tory pathology is now geared to auto-rebuttal of the merest whiff of embarrassment, and summary rejection of minor irritants and contaminants. The head used to appreciate the little finger: now it declares imperiously to the whole hand that we have no need of you, even as its palms cradle the most honoured part of the body and wipe the sweat from its brow. Under Cameron, the Conservative Party’s fingers, toes, arms and legs are being cut off and cast away by executive decree. And those that can’t be are isolated and monitored in a secure ward, as if infected with the incurable plague of the swivel-eyed loons.        

 

The Prime Minister will not apologise, for he views such public expressions of remorse not as chivalrous acts of charity but political weakness. He clearly over-reacted to scurrilous gossip in a vindictive rag, but the elite mind is blind to the failings of the elect.

 

Some are surprised that Grant Shapps, the Conservative Party co-Chairman, has refused to apologise no fewer than seven times. I’m not. He is beholden to the Prime Minister for his job, and his career depends on sustained expressions of loyalty. The only solution to such aloof indifference is for the Chairman of the Conservative Party – who is supposed to defend the rights and represent the views of the wider membership – to be directly elected by that membership. Indeed, had Peter Cruddas been working with a directly-elected party chairman, and had he himself been directly elected by the wider membership, neither the Prime Minister nor the Party Board would have been able to act in the peremptory fashion they did. Such separation of powers, shared responsibility and mutual accountability are better guarantors of justice than the highly-centralised, disdainful and unresponsive party machine over which David Cameron currently presides.

 

But a directly-elected Conservative Party chairman and treasurer aren’t going to happen any time soon. Not while the infallible elite dispense perfect justice with matchless precision and know what’s best.

 

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Coalition colludes in a sham Recall Bill

Back in 2009, in the wake of the MPs’ expenses scandal and a profound crisis in the British political system, David Cameron made a speech that electrified the Conservative Party and promised to usher in a revival of democracy. With great rhetorical flourish, he expounded his core conviction like an article of faith:

“I believe the central objective of the new politics we need should be a massive, sweeping, radical redistribution of power: from the state to citizens; from the government to parliament; from Whitehall to communities; from the EU to Britain; from judges to the people; from bureaucracy to democracy. Through decentralisation, transparency and accountability we must take power from the elite and hand it to the man and woman in the street.”

 

It was wonderful Whiggish stuff, which is no real surprise as it echoed (indeed, lifted almost verbatim) the words of self-professed Whig Daniel Hannan MEP and his Roundhead compatriot Douglas Carswell MP, who had co-written just months before:

 

“We need a radical shift of power... to redistribute power back, from Brussels to Westminster, from Whitehall to town halls, from the state to the citizens... to disperse power among communities, through localism and through referendums.”

 

I don’t know if the Prime Minister had read the Hannan/Carswell thesis The Plan: Twelve Months to renew Britain, but with this speech came a genuine hope of the decentralisation of government to lower tiers of administration, and the devolution of power to the people. It was a promise of political subsidiarity and procedural diversity which inspired many to vote Conservative who may not have otherwise done so. It promised the incremental eradication of the political class and self-perpetuating elite. It was about sharing and trust; openness and participation. It was a model of democratic engagement for the Twitter and Facebook age.

 

Perhaps I should have heeded the wise words of Charles Moore, who warned at the time: “But no one should forget that, however genuine Mr Cameron's desire for reform, his fundamental interest, once he becomes prime minister, will be that government should retain power over Parliament. He will want his Bills through quickly, his word, almost literally, to be law.”

 

In fact, since becoming leader in 2005, David Cameron has done more to centralise power within the Conservative Party than any Tory leader since the nineteenth century. Many of the powers which used to be held by local associations are now exercised by an aloof and arrogant elite at CCHQ. Whatever the public mantra of ‘Big Society’ localism and laissez-faire devolution, the instinct has been to centralise and concentrate; to micro-manage and intervene.

 

The Prime Minister’s anti-democratic style mirrors precisely that other great self-perpetuating oligarchy – the EU Commission. While the people are groaning beneath layers of cynicism, disengagement and disillusionment, David Cameron sustains the dying models of corporatism and statist bureaucracy, even while the old politics is organically fragmenting into vibrant, free and transformative interest groups.

 

One of the Conservative Party’s most creative manifesto commitments was to legislate for Recall – to make it possible for voters to get rid of underperforming MPs in between elections. The provision exists in many democracies, usually triggered by popular petition once a proportional threshold of the electorate is reached. If, say, 20 per cent of voters in a constituency aren’t happy that their MP has abused his wife, been involved in a drunken brawl or defected to the BNP, a local referendum would be held as a de facto vote of confidence. If a majority then votes to recall their MP, a parliamentary by-election would follow.

 

This is a much-needed reform of the political system, not least because the ‘rotten-borough’ safe seats would instantly become unsafe as voters would be empowered to challenge and deselect their representatives, and wouldn’t have to wait for a general election to do so. MPs would be compelled to be more responsive and respectful of majority concerns, and impeccable in their conduct and behaviour. It would be a constant reminder to them that Parliament does not belong to superior politicians who then appoint oligarchical guardians of privilege: it belongs to ordinary people.

 

 

Over the past year Zac Goldsmith MP has consistently reminded us of what the Conservative Party promised in its manifesto. It also happened to be a pledge made by the Liberal Democrats, so joint plans sailed into the Coalition Agreement, to ‘bring forward early legislation to introduce a power of recall, allowing voters to force a by-election where an MP was found to have engaged in serious wrongdoing and having had a petition calling for a by-election signed by 10% of his or her constituents’.

 

Agitating from his backbench soapbox, Goldsmith has made speeches, written numerous articles, toured TV studios, lobbied ministers, circulated EDMs and introduced a Bill. He clearly shares his father’s instinctive distrust of the remote, unresponsive, unaccountable, self-serving elite. There must be something in the Goldsmith DNA which is attuned to matters of democratic justice and to telling unpalatable truths.

 

The Government eventually came up with a Bill, which then conveniently ran out of parliamentary time. But it was a sham in any case. I contacted Zac Goldsmith directly about this, and he said: “Under the Government’s version of Recall, an MP could stop doing surgeries, abandon Parliament altogether, switch to an extreme party, break every promise he made before being elected and even go on a two-year holiday, all without qualifying for Recall. It is nothing more than a pretence at democracy. People may believe they have been empowered, but they will soon discover that they have been hoodwinked, and the backlash will be deservedly unpleasant.”

 

Astonishing, isn’t it?

 

Instead of handing the power of Recall down to the voters, the Government’s measure would pass it up to MPs on the Standards and Privileges Committee. This group alone would then determine whether an MP had behaved badly enough to warrant being ‘recalled’. This isn’t the people’s power of Recall: it is one unaccountable elite sitting in judgment upon another. And the elite definition of ‘serious wrongdoing’ is unlikely to coincide with that of the people.

 

A local association and an entire constituency of voters might be thoroughly sick of a disreputable MP who rarely holds surgeries, never answers letters and can’t be bothered to attend debates in the House of Commons. But if he/she happens to be a mate of the Prime Minister’s, you can be sure that the Standards and Privileges Committee will be made fully aware of this. You only have to see the sorts of offenders to whom David Cameron showed no mercy in the expenses ‘Court of Star Chamber’ (Sir Peter Viggers, Sir Anthony Steen, Douglas Hogg), while some others – whose offence was arguably far greater – were treated more agreeably, even generously (Alan Duncan, Francis Maude, Andrew Lansley, Ed Vaizey).

 

The has-been, bed-blocking Tory grandee who causes a modicum of embarrassment is swiftly terminated; the inner circle of vibrant modernisers and pretty-young-things are protected under prime-ministerial patronage. It stands to reason, in cases of misdemeanour, that more of the former would be subject to Recall, simply because their faces don’t quite fit the latest Tory rebranding or they have become a thorn in the Prime Minister’s side.

 

Goldsmith confirms the cynicism: “The Government’s version hands power to a group of MPs to decide if an MP qualifies for recall. Power is handed up to a committee controlled by the Party whips, not to voters. It is virtually the opposite of true recall.

“Nick Clegg and the PM have both talked about so-called Kangaroo courts, but given an MP can only be recalled if a majority of constituents want them recalled, the court they are referring to is made up of their own constituents. If that’s what they fear, then perhaps they are in the wrong line of work. I will use every lever available to me in Parliament to oppose this stitch up and push for true recall, and I hope enough colleagues will support that endeavour.”

 

We need a genuine Recall mechanism which hands power back to the people; not a hollow pretence which somehow shares it between a self-selecting jury of party whips and a tiny privileges committee which deliberates in secret. It shouldn’t be left to the elite to stitch together a mates’ code of conduct and then to judge in their own cause.

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Jeremy Hunt’s demented dementia demands: why not just trust GPs?

 

Dementia is a purgatorial madness. Whatever form it takes – Alzheimer’s, Vascular, Fronto-temporal, Creutzfeldt-Jacob – it is not only the patient who suffers, but their entire family.

The disease reduces the victim to a shell of humanity, emptied of all joy, emotion and recognition. As cognitive ability declines, so too does the memory, the capacity to feel, dexterity in language and the intelligence to reason. Tears give way to mourning; despair to grieving for the living. Loved ones become strangers; relationships are turned to shadows. It is a dreadful affliction; terrifying for the victim, and profoundly distressing for all around to witness.

 

There is no prevention and no cure. Dementia is an inescapable and irrecoverable destiny.

 

Which is why it’s a little odd that the Department of Health tried to make it a contractual obligation upon GPs to be proactive in the timely assessment of patients who may be at risk from the illness.

 

In expert finger-wagging mode, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt announced: “Getting patients an earlier diagnosis of dementia and supporting those with long term conditions are my main priorities. I want GPs to take the lead in making this happen.”

 

And so, from 1st April 2013, the nation’s GPs were instructed (on pain of financial penalty) to embark upon a mass programme of assessment and examination of all those who are deemed ‘at risk’ of developing the condition. You may have been a perfectly healthy and remarkably active 60-year-old, without any neurological symptoms or memory problems at all. But the Health Secretary urged your local friendly surgery to inform you that, with regret, you may be prematurely doomed to senility. 

 

As if torturing the elderly with this hysteria were not enough, GPs have spent three months writing to all those who have a family history of dementia; those with Down’s Syndrome; those who smoke or drink large amounts of alcohol; atherosclerosis sufferers; the obese; those with learning difficulties; and the millions of us with high blood pressure, high cholesterol levels, diabetes or depression.

 

The number of ‘at risk’ patients is longer than any NHS waiting list: it is estimated that as many as 2.4 million people fall within these categories, and Jeremy Hunt wanted all suspects dragged down to their local GP’s surgery and assessed for the fatal signs of mental decline.

 

Bizarrely, the proposal was to link fund-holders' payment to the number of assessments a practice carried out, with the obvious inherent enticement for them to discover herds of ‘at risk’ individuals in every flu outbreak. The BMA had to make the (rather obvious) point to the Secretary of State: ‘Practices should never come under pressure to assess patients for dementia who may not ultimately warrant or benefit from assessment.’

 

Fortunately, the Department of Health has finally seen sense on this, after three months of combative GP harassment. Now, instead of screening en masse for random ‘case finding’, doctors are encouraged to make ‘opportunistic offers’ of dementia assessment where they consider it appropriate to make such an offer.

 

This is an undoubted improvement, but the ethical argument and clinical benefits are still not clear. What is the point of increasing dementia diagnosis without improving the requisite support services available locally? What is the point of alarming a patient if they then have to wait months to get into a memory clinic?

 

Those who undergo the health check and pass with flying colours will be told that they remain ‘at risk’, and so must be reassessed at regular intervals. It is a life-long oppression from which there can be no mental convalescence.

 

And for those who manifest the early symptoms, there is absolutely no cure, and (pace ‘Big Pharma’) no substantially effective treatment. The moment memory loss is detected, the sickness is well-advanced and you’re down to your last spare set of brain cells. The decline thereafter is inexorable, unyielding and cruel.

 

In such circumstances, the compassionate GP would usually have waited for the patient to mention the symptoms, and then, with gentle reassurance, they would have been told that it’s nothing to worry about; it’s just a natural part of growing old. Now, attending practitioners must follow up their ‘opportunistic offers’ with testing and re-testing which will inevitably induce agitation and anxiety in their patients, who will then be prescribed pills that don’t work.

 

This isn’t local healing or devolved trust: it is state-induced anguish.

 

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Vaughan Williams spanned time and space, but Stephen Hough was the star

Prom 1: First Night of the Proms 2013 (Royal Albert Hall)

Stephen Hough and the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sakari Oramo ©BBC/Chris Christodoulou

I’ve never been to a First Night of the Proms before: it’s so much more elegant and stylish than the Last, and this one had a musical coherence of ambrosial heights. Or perhaps I should say Neptunian depths, since the overriding theme was oceanic, and the tide of surging waves bathed the audience in a symphony of wonder.

 

Sakari Oramo conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Chorus and vibrant Youth Choir through Britten’s ‘Four Sea Interludes’ from Peter Grimes and Vaughan Williams’ majestic Sea Symphony. These provided the Prom’s pelagic zone upon which the other items glistened, from the half-light of the world premiere of Julian Anderson’s Harmony to the dazzling highlight of Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paginini and Lutoslawski’s Variations on that same theme. The 119th Proms Season opened with quiet meditation and serene reflection rather than blustery fanfares.

 

Anderson’s Harmony got going (just) with more agitated baton-waving than audible sensation: the pianissimo was very issimo, beginning with ear-straining whispers of stillness out of which emerged the diffuse plucking of violins and shadowy meanderings of trumpets. It was a floaty piece of musical spaghetti, made all the more bearable for its brevity.

 

Britten’s ‘Four Sea Interludes’ brought the natural elements together: from moonlight stillness to sparkling sunlight to thunderous tempest, Oramo grasped the composer’s drama perfectly.

 

But the highlight of the evening was undoubtedly Stephen Hough, whose remarkable muse injected Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with both pensive depths and jazzy panache. No matter what the hemi-demi-semi-quaver provocation, Hough gave us syncopated solemnity, haunting evil and that ‘greatest hit’ melody as though he were consorting with live demons and negotiating his way through the rollercoaster of romance to the summit of love. It was transcendent; Hough was wild, witty and inspired; the crowd roared.

 

The Lutoslawski Variations which followed seemed like an encore. It was originally composed for two pianos, but Hough seems to have 20 delicate fingers anyway. The more obscure variations in the rhythms and harmonies of this new arrangement allowed more time to appreciate the intricate orchestral shades and layers. It was a bold and striking rendition; Hough glowed with passion; the Promenaders, once again, roared and cheered the genius of the Maestro.

 

Vaughan Williams’ A Sea Symphony flooded the entire second half, but, for me, Hough was still reverberating around the dome. As much as I can admire the epic depth and symphonic breadth of this piece, I have never been able to overcome Walt Whitman’s verbal dirge. The BBC Symphony Chorus and Youth Choir were metaphysically epic and glorious, and Oramo led them and his orchestra into a mystical union of sacred oratorio. But I think this is the first time I’ve listened to the whole piece with the Whitman’s gurgling words before me, and it only served to draw attention to the melodic-lyrical incongruities. ‘Behold, the sea’, the Chorus declaims, as though God Himself were creating the earth, sea and sky ex nihilo. But then we get ‘itself’ – ‘..the sea itself’ – and this has always troubled me. The composer endows the second syllable of this meagre word with such an awesome semibreve of harmonic majesty that you would think the tenors and basses were proclaiming ‘Sanctus!’ to the heavens.

 

Still, that’s not the choirs’ fault, and both of them undulated and bubbled with the sublime and spiritual, from the ‘vast Rondure’ to the 'fleck of foam’. The soloists Roderick Williams and Sally Mathews were intrepid in the trackless recitatives; their diction was crystal. They endured with a few beads of perspiration through the (very long) journey to touch the soul of the piece.

 

It was a mystical, nautical and poetic First Night. Vaughan Williams spanned time and space, but Stephen Hough was the star.

 

Royal Mail Privatisation: The prospect of the Queen's head juxtaposed with Virgin ought to offend all who care about her dignity

It was right to privatise British Rail, Coal, Gas, Petroleum, Steel, Telecom, Airways and Shipbuilders, along with Electricity, Cable & Wireless, Britoil, Jaguar and Rolls Royce. Removing these moribund monoliths from public ownership injected some free-market discipline and Hayekian economic stimulation into the industrial sclerosis which had bedevilled the country throughout the 1970s.

 

Denationalisation led to a transformation of industrial working culture and unimaginable efficiencies in productivity. Thatcherism was the people’s capitalism, and The Lady was to be greatly admired.

 

But forgive me, in the case of Royal Mail, if I don’t rejoice with my fellow capitalists and wave the true blue Tory flag with my political compatriots. There was a reason that Margaret Thatcher never went so far as auctioning off the Royal Mail, and it had nothing to do with bloated inefficiencies, chronic losses or impenetrable union power.

 

Margaret Thatcher would no more have privatised the Royal Mail than she would have abolished the Monarchy or disestablished the Church of England. This the Crown, and Royal Mail is royal. The Lady was a Tory who understood the importance of conserving all that is good in the Constitution, along with the preservation of those institutions which engender social cohesion, help to forge the common good and perpetuate a sense of national identity.

 

Contrary to the popular myths, Thatcherism was not all about neoliberal economics and the dog-eat-dog pursuit of personal wealth: it had an acute moral purpose informed by a constitutional conscience.

 

The Royal Mail has a long and distinguished history going back to 1516, when Henry VIII established a Master of the Posts. It has been in public ownership since 1635, and its Royal Charter is symbolic of its national importance and cultural significance. After five centuries of tradition, almost four centuries of state control and 173 years of stamps featuring the head of the Sovereign, Royal Mail is a cherished and valued national institution.

 

It may not be universally loved or unanimously respected. It may at times be exasperatingly myopic and poor in responding to its customers’ needs. But folk in the Outer Hebrides and in all far-flung rural communities appreciate its commitment to universality. It belongs to the nation: it unifies the Kingdom. And the Monarch’s head upon its postage stamps is symbolic of that contract.

 

There was a time when the head of Caesar was symbolic of sovereign political authority. Thanks to our rejection of the euro, the Queen’s head on British coins and notes remains an authentic expression of economic and fiscal sovereignty. Her Majesty’s head upon postage stamps will soon become a complete façade, if not a humiliating farce.   

 

This sell-off may raise £3bn, but let us not pretend that universal provision will not eventually be eroded by aggressive cost-cutting strategies and Teutonic efficiency drives. Yes, the Government may be assuring us that this will not happen: according to Business Minister Michael Fallon, it is ‘scandalous scaremongering’ even to suggest that it may eventually cost more to deliver to some of the UK’s 29 million homes than it does to others; or that six-day delivery may, in some areas, become five-day collection.

 

But the (secret) dinners in Downing Street and (declared) holidays on Necker Island will happen, and political pressure will be applied in the lobbying of ministers for a ‘relaxation’ of uniform pricing and ‘flexibility’ on the six-day delivery.

 

Of course, none of this will happen overnight: like all EU-inspired conspiracies against our national sovereignty, it will be covert, incremental salami-slicing; it will be, as with ever-closer-everything-else, almost imperceptible.

 

But it will come.    

 

No doubt Business Secretary Vince Cable will ensure restrictions on postal advertising to protect the Monarch’s image. But these will gradually diminish with each statutory amendment in order to keep the private companies on-board and the capital injections flowing.  

 

The prospect of the Queen’s head juxtaposed with Virgin ought to offend all who care about her dignity, title, style and honour. And I’m not talking about the Mother of Christ, who has happily coexisted with the Queen on numerous Christmas stamps over the decades. The issue is the myriad of regional delivery networks which will sprout up as Royal Mail is fractured and fragmented into a plethora of local providers. These will undoubtedly include Virgin Mail, which would be licensed to sell its own postage stamps bearing the Queen’s head as part of its contractual entitlements.

 

Effectively, each private company that delivers letters to your door would be granted Royal Appointment. I can see Lord Branson now, ascending to the clouds in a glimmering gold and pillar-box-red hot-air balloon, proudly displaying his new logo of the Virgin Queen.

 

If all private postal companies are obliged by statute to incorporate the Queen’s head on their stamps in perpetuation of some façade of unifying patronage, foreign companies will also be given access to the most famous of royal imprimaturs. HM Government will trade Her Majesty’s image with Deutsche Post and the Netherlands TNT, giving the Germans and the Dutch free licence to unite the European family of nations by Europost.

 

And it is to the EU dimension of this privatisation to which we must turn if we are to understand why Labour began the process in 2007; why a coalition of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are completing it in 2013; and why Vince Cable said in Parliament that this privatisation was ‘an irreversible course’.

The European Postal Services Directive (97/67/EC amended by 2002/39/EU as amended by 2008/06/EC) forces the liberalisation of postal markets across the EU to permit member states to compete in trans-national mail markets. The European Commission decreed that this will improve the quality of service, in particular in terms of delivery performance. We are told: ‘The Commission monitors and ensures the correct implementation of the regulatory framework and, where appropriate, proposes changes to this framework in order to achieve the Community's postal policy objectives.’

 

So, the European Commission demanded Royal Mail liberalisation, and HM Government has responded with privatisation. The parties are united because there is no option to be divided. The resulting regional networks of postal operators will henceforth be scrutinised and monitored at a European level. And the Queen’s head will be the means of deception, the façade of falsehood, and the mechanism of national betrayal.

 

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A Conservative-Referendum Party: the vindication of Sir James Goldsmith

 

The House of Commons has inched closer toward legislation that will, at long last, give the British people an In-Out referendum on our troubled membership of the European Union.

The whipped private member’s bill proposed by Conservative MP James Wharton may be an irregular use of a technical parliamentary process; it may not have much cross-party support; it may be a cynical device to stem the rising tide of Ukip; and it may not be binding on a future parliament. But there is no doubt that if this Bill were to become law and the Conservatives were to win an outright Commons majority at the next General Election, it would be political suicide for David Cameron (or any Conservative leader) to repeal this particular sovereign Act of Parliament.

If they were to renege on their pledge to hold a referendum by the end of 2017, the Conservative Party would quite simply never be trusted again. The Parliamentary Party would certainly fracture, and the wider party membership, already falling away year-on-year, would fragment in disgust.

 

Division and distrust would damn this once-great national party to another generation in the wilderness. The Repeal of the Corn Laws would seem like a relative walk in the park; Tariff Reform would seem like a Sunday picnic. These great schisms kept the party of Disraeli and Peel out of office for 28 years and 18 years respectively. But they would seem like fleeting moments of cursory inconvenience compared to the interminable decades of cynicism, disdain and contempt which would follow another Tory betrayal about ‘Britain’s future in Europe’.       

 

We know that the referendum is to follow what is likely to be a protracted renegotiation of the UK’s precise terms of EU membership. And we may not all agree with the Prime Minister’s red lines (I personally object strongly to the proposed retention of the European Arrest Warrant – reformed or otherwise – which subverts democracy and negates justice). But for the first time since the EEC referendum of 1975 we will all be free to accept or reject the proposed terms of that membership.

 

This is seismic.

 

Established Eurosceptic groups, individuals and ad hoc gatherings are all falling over themselves to grasp a crumb of credit for getting this far. Some, of course, deserve enormous praise and admiration for their decades of tenacity and principled commitment to a cause which, at times, seemed exasperatingly hopeless; not to mention appreciation for the years of personal slander and defamation suffered as they were (and, in some cases, still are) cast as ‘right-wing xenophobes’, ‘eccentric little-Englanders’, ‘fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists’, ‘clowns’ and, most recently, ‘swivel-eyed loons’.

 

There have been a number of published lists of the leading players whose contributions over the years merit acknowledgment. Some are organisations with modest backroom operators; others are self-promoting egos or loud-mouthed careerists with gangs of raucous cheer-leaders. Whatever their motives, they have all played some part leading to the EU Referendum Bill now before Parliament.

 

They include (in no particular order):

 

The ‘Maastricht Rebels’ of 1992 (specifically those who had the whip withdrawn: Michael Carttiss; Nicholas Budgen, Tony Marlow, John Wilkinson, Richard Shepherd, Teresa Gorman, Christopher Gill and Sir Teddy Taylor).

The 81 Conservative ‘rebels’ who voted for a referendum in 2011 (in particular David Nuttall MP, who secured the debate).

Daniel Hannan MEP; Douglas Carswell MP; Mark Reckless MP.

The ‘Fresh Start’ group of MPs.

The ECR group in the European Parliament.

The Express newspaper.

Nigel Farage and UKIP.

The Bruges Group

Better Off Out

The Democracy Movement

The Freedom Association (in particular the late Norris McWhirter)

The European Foundation (Bill Cash MP)

The Campaign for Conservative Democracy (John Strafford)

The Harrogate Agenda (Dr Richard North)

Open Europe

The People’s Pledge

Conservatives Against a Federal Europe

Global Vision

The Campaign for an Independent Britain...

 

I’m sure there are others: this is merely a summary compilation of those who have agitated for an In-Out EEC/EC/EU referendum over the years, with communication strategies ranging from megaphone contempt, through derision and threats, to a repetitive but courteous campaign of attrition. No doubt those on extreme wings of the EU-sceptic spectrum will balk at the inclusion of both: some refuse to break bread or drink tea with each other, let alone speak or cooperate on objectives and strategy. They prefer instead to remain principled, pure and right, dedicating streams of column inches and blog posts to tearing shreds off one another.

 

If they don’t start collaborating and cooperating very soon on the primary objective, the UK will be forever bound on the EU’s wheel of fire by virtue of two decisive plebiscites. Because 2017 is by no means won: the disparate and divided ‘Outers’ will be ranged against the unified voices of all three main political parties, the Foreign Office machine, the Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church, the BBC and most of the mainstream media. If the EU-sceptics don’t get their acts together, 2017 may well simply confirm the decision of 1975, and our fate will be sealed.

 

That the EEC morphed into the EU by stealth and subterfuge will no long matter: the people will have spoken – twice. And both times they voted ‘Yes’ to stay ‘In’.          

I have voted Conservative all my life, with the exception of just one year – the General Election of 1997 – when I voted for myself in Stratford-upon-Avon as the Parliamentary Candidate for the Referendum Party. I stood against John Maples (who never forgave me when he became the Conservative Party’s Head of Candidates). I obviously didn’t win in a safe Tory seat, but I was one of the few Referendum Party candidates to garner more than 2000 votes in the righteous cause of democracy.

 

With James Wharton’s EU Referendum Bill now before Parliament, I feel vindicated.

 

And so undoubtedly is Sir James Goldsmith, the businessman and financier who cared enough about democracy and liberty to pour millions of pounds into funding a political movement which caused consternation among political elites back then and whose personal impact resonates along the corridors of power even now.

 

 

The Referendum Party was established to contest every seat in the 1997 general election, except where the incumbent was an established Eurosceptic of impeccable democratic credentials. The strategy was quite straightforward: we would win the election, legislate for an instant referendum and hold it as soon as possible. Whatever the outcome, a sovereign people would have spoken and either voted to restore their sovereignty or voluntarily surrender it. Sir James would then have gone to Buckingham Palace to ask the Queen for a dissolution of Parliament and a further general election.

 

This was not about the acquisition of power, but the restoration of the people’s sovereignty.

Over those campaigning months I had a number of lunches with the great man at his house in Wilton Place, SW1. We chatted and plotted, laughed and devised. Edward Fox and other celebs were frequent guests. We had objective, enthusiasm, energy and hope.

 

Jimmy was campaign leader: he became my political mentor and a friend. I recall once asking him rather impertinently: “What gives a grocer the right to intervene in a British general election?”

 

And back came the swift riposte: “Because I can.”

 

It was his democratic mission to restore our democratic rights: it was the stirring of revolution – the ‘Rabble Army’, he called us. Jimmy Goldsmith and his Referendum Party were marching for freedom and singing ‘Let The People Decide’ while John Major and Tony Blair and their respective parties were still umming and ahhing over whether or not the people should get a referendum on the euro, let alone on the whole supranational, anti-democratic project.

 

Jimmy was a patriot who cared about the fate of the United Kingdom much more than the political class which has conspired for 40 years in its decline and fall. As he lay dying of pancreatic cancer at his home in France, I recall sending him a letter thanking him for his friendship, inspiration and audacious political intervention. He was kind enough to acknowledge it just a few weeks before he died. He was thoughtful like that.

 

But he not only secured the British people a referendum on the matter of the single currency: it is to him we owe the final conversion of the Tories to the Conservative-Referendum Party – a coalition of undoubted philosophical coherence with clear political intent. What, after all, is the Conservative Party for if it is not to conserve our constitutional heritage of national sovereignty, parliamentary supremacy and tradition of common law?

 

Irrespective of whatever David Cameron manages to negotiate in Brussels, surely we can unite on the democratic imperative of a referendum. The question of ‘In’ or ‘Out’ is the most profound political question the UK faces, and it must necessarily precede the statutory repeal of the European Communities Act 1972. Following that, we must move intelligently and strategically toward dialogue and negotiated cooperation between all interested parties – even those who loathe one another – because the BBC will need to know who to phone when they want a representative from the ‘Out’ campaign.

 

And that joint collaboration of ephemeral chancers, careerists and principled egos requires the patient leadership of an experienced operator, skilful diplomat and inspirational charmer.

 

With respect to James Wharton, I don’t think, at 29, that he is the man for the job. Nor do I see this person in any of the established groups represented above.

 

Sir James Goldsmith built his Rabble Army from the bottom up, so that it became a popular movement which resonated throughout the whole country over a very short space of time. It even attracted the distinguished support of Lord Tonypandy, former Speaker of the House of Commons. The Goldsmith wealth and charisma merely facilitated an organic campaigning machine. This is a strategy the Conservatives must adopt to move beyond the Westminster bubble of procedural technicalities and interminable party politicking.   

 

The country needs another Jimmy Goldsmith.

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