Bagehot: Living in a ‘Disguised Republic’

On February 3rd 1826 the businessman and journalist Walter Bagehot was born. He was author of a number of important works (including one on banking), but possibly most influential for us in the UK was The English Constitution, published in 1867. You can obtain a copy from this site. It is still frequently referenced today with the most oft quoted section regarding the British monarch who, according to Bagehot, has three rights:

…the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn.

The work provided a kind of manual to the British constitutional settlement of the mid-19th century which is still largely relevant today. But it is not purely descriptive and Bagehot makes it clear that largely supports the status quo. The work itself is very much a product of its time and reflects the wealthy mercantile background of Bagehot. What stands out in the work is its suffusion with a sense of contempt for and distrust of those at the bottom layers of society. Here is one example:

The lower orders, the middle orders, are still, when tried by what is the standard of the educated “ten thousand,” narrow-minded, unintelligent, incurious.

Bagehot makes it clear that he considers monarchy is vital to provide a point of reference and national identity of ‘the lower orders’ who are otherwise incapable of understanding politics and government. Ignoring the cheerleading for a constitutional monarchy you can learn a lot from The English Constitution and there are actually some points on which I am  in agreement. For example in comparing monarchism with republicanism:

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Coventry University Music: A Victim of Vandals in Suits

In the late autumn of 2015 a rumour was circulating that Coventry University was axing its Music Degree programmes. The University was tight lipped about it but confirmation was provided by the fact that all reference to the programmes were removed from the University website and they were no longer recruiting for 2016/17. To my knowledge the University shamefully delayed announcing the move to their then current student cohort. Here is a copy of the comment I have made on the protest petition.  Note that I no longer had any association at this point and so had no vested interest in the outcome.

Put simply, it is an act of cultural vandalism. We are familiar with the media stereotype of a vandal as a teenager in a hoodie. But in reality they come in all forms. In this case the vandals wear suits, ties and possess Doctorates. I studied Music at Coventry University a few years ago as a mature student and have since been occasionally employed as an Hourly Paid Lecturer. The courses at Coventry have a distinctive character which emphasise creative exploration and collaboration, stretching the student and engendering a tolerance of diverse musical forms. Moreover it results in graduates who are more flexible and able to cope with the ever changing demands of a fast changing musical environment. For me it meant a transformation in my view of music, arts and even social issues. It eventually led me to discover the solutions to political problems which had troubled me for, literally, decades,

It is ironic that this is happening at just the moment when we learned of the sad passing of David Bowie. There is a broad hope amongst many artists that the consequent rediscovery of his music will inspire a new generation to adventurous artistic exploration. This will NOT now happen at Coventry. Ironic, also, when the city itself is prominent in the bidding for City of Culture in 2021. The council and local MPs need to know that their efforts are being undermined

We are continually told that organisations need to pay senior officers vast amounts of money to attract the right calibre of people. In 2014 the Vice Chancellor was reported as receiving a salary of about £250,000 It is difficult to see just how this salary is justified while simply axing valued assets. Sadly I do not think that Coventry will be the last to kill artistic programmes. Universities have now become part of the Corporate world where those very wealthy senior individuals are effectively lackeys to a philistine government intent on forcing through a doubtful ideological programme.

Isaac Newton, The Enlightenment and Republicanism

Christmas Day 1642 saw the birth of a baby who would grow up to affect our world in ways unimaginable even to himself.  His name was Isaac (subsequently Sir Isaac) Newton. Why does this interest me as a republican? Because as a giant of the Age of Enlightenment his achievement symbolises a way of thinking which was becoming universal. His birth date was, to some extent, ironic.  For most of his life Newton was a mystic interested in alchemy and the goal of spiritual purification it represented.  Such was the astonishing success of his Theory of Universal Gravitation, however, that by the time of his death in 1726, there are indications that Newton himself had started to consider that a purely mechanical explanation of the Universe was possible.

So what were these new ways of thinking which caused a profound change? The Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th Centuries in Europe entailed the view that an understanding of the world could come from human reason.  Enlightenment thinking influenced almost all areas of human intellectual activity including the emerging sciences, art, philosophy and politics. Vital to the movement was an eagerness to question assumptions, to accept no authority as sacrosanct. As JGA Pocock put it:

 …the Enlightenment generally [was] based on a complete rejection of prophecy, revelation and the Hebrew mode of thought at large.

 J.G.A Pocock:   The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition

What form did this new thinking take in the political arena? Before the Enlightenment, monarchs were considered to be the representation of the eternal truth of god which lay beyond time itself. From this we get the idea of a Divine Right of Kings. The notion of a time-bound head of state was literally inconceivable throughout much of Europe following the fall of the Roman Republic and the rise in dominance of Judeo-Christian orthodoxy. The century before the Enlightenment, however, saw rapid developments in political philosophy by a group of thinkers in Florence, Italy and, to a lesser extent, the ‘Serene Republic of Venice’. This explosion of thought in the late 15th and early 16th Centuries, (of which the most famous contributor today is Niccolo Machiavelli) slowly spread through Europe, fostering the idea that a nation could persist without its head of state being linked to an eternal god. Closely associated was a humanist concept which led to a concern during the Enlightenment with  ending the abuses of church and state.  From now on, liberty, progress and tolerance were to be underpinned by reason. But the move to a separation of Church and State was also attractive to many religious communities. It was all very well the monarch being a representative of god, but what happens if is is not your god? In England this all led to the effective ending of the concept of Divine Right in 1688-9 with the Glorious Revolution and the English Bill of Rights which I have blogged about here. This was only one year after the first publication of Newton’s theory in his Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica.

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Two January 4ths, one decade and the world changes for ever

On January 4th 1642 an event happened which, more than any other, propelled England to Civil War. On that day King Charles I entered the Chamber of the House of Commons with an armed guard to arrest five Members of Parliament accused of high treason. They wre forewarned and escaped. Although tensions between Parliament and monarch over finance and religion had been building since the days of Charles father, James I, this event was significant.  From this point forward both sides start preparing for conflict.  The event is commemorated today  during the ceremony of the Opening of Parliament each year. As the monarch is not allowed in the Commons, the queen summons MPs to the Lords chamber. As he approaches the Commons chamber, the queen’s messenger, Black Rod has the door slammed firmly in his face. Sadly history provides numerous occasions since 1642 when the monarch has continued to interfere with parliament.

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Maximus & TTIP: A Clear and Present Danger

TTIP

The poor folk of Cumbria have enough to deal with at the present time and the fact that Atos has the contract for providing the IT Services for decommissioning their local Sellafield nuclear plant is probably fairly well down the list of their concerns.  But when the floods have subsided and some semblance of normality returns the one constant in their lives along with the rest of us is the relentless march of unaccountable Corporate interests.

Atos has a well-documented track record of public sector failures including the spectacular termination of the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) contract for the Department of Work and Pensions and the failure of a critical UK Border Agency IT system. Considering one of the criteria for awarding public contracts such as this one  for nuclear decommissioning contain elements such as technical capability and experience, the fact that contracts continue to get awarded to these companies is a mystery.  Significantly, it is also a mystery to MPs as the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee has been heavily critical of the Government in this report (see Section 2 from Page 9 onwards). The fact that nothing has changed is an indictment of our system of democracy.

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Tom Paine: More times that try men’s souls

In December 1776 the American War of Independence was going badly for the rebel Continental Army. Led by a seemingly incompetent commander (George Washington) and in apparently endless retreat, morale was fast draining away. To raise spirits for the struggle ahead the leadership turned to one of the greatest political pamphleteers in history. Tomas Paine published his work The Crisis (or The American Crisis as it came to be known) on 16th December and it was read aloud to the assembled soldiers of the Continental Army on 23rd December. It commences with one of the most famous lines in the history of political activism:

These are the times that try men’s souls

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The Bill of Rights: why the army is ‘British’ and not ‘Royal’

 

Have you ever wondered why we have a British Army and not a Royal Army or what happened to the Divine Right of Kings?

On December 16th 1689 the Bill of Rights was finally passed as an Act of Parliament (although it had been declared in statutory form since February of that year). This effectively established England as a Constitutional Monarchy with the King or Queen under firm Parliamentary control. Although there were many consequences of the Act I want to point to just two.

Firstly the Bill specifically prevents the monarch from raising an army unless Parliament agrees. The Bill states:

That the raising or keeping a standing army within the kingdom in time of peace, unless it be with consent of Parliament, is against law;

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Bombing Syria: Banks, Plutocrats and Government Deception

Chancellor George Osborne recently claimed that he estimates the cost of the RAF bombing campaign in Syria will be in the ‘low tens of missions of pounds’. It is almost certain that Osborne is being misleading. For a start both he and David Cameron have stated that the campaign could last for years. How many they do not say so any estimate by Osborne is likely to be kite-flying at best or simply disingenuous  It is instructive to look at similar air campaigns as articles such as this one by TruePublica has done. They point out that a very similar campaign in Libya in 2011 cost Britain over £390 million for just 7 months of bombing. Furthermore CND has estimated that the total cost in Libya to the UK (including ‘advisers’ etc) was as high as £1.5 billion.

Even if we take Mr Osborne at his word the point is frequently made that whereas money is freely and abundantly provided for war, other activities including flood defences (let alone schools and hospitals) have seen financial cutbacks. Simply, it is a matter of priorities or, as some cynics have suggested, a question of investment in arms companies by decision makers. The attitude of Ministers is especially provoking, on the one hand assuming a mealy-mouthed attitude to helping the disabled and vulnerable when ‘austerity’ is often cited, compared with an almost enthusiastic glee for military action for which austerity has apparently ended.

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Remembering Dora Marsden: Suffragette Anarchist

A few weeks ago I wrote a short post about Constance Markievicz, suffragette and the first woman to be elected to the House of Commons (though she never actually took her seat). But there are some people for whom the passion for change burns so strongly that it brings them into conflict even with the cause they espouse.  Such was the case with Dora Marsden who died today (13th December) in 1960.  Marsden operated from Manchester and occupied a position on the radical activist wing of the suffragette movement, frequently engaging in illegal activities. From 1909 she accepted a post in the Pankhursts Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) but her assertive campaigning style resulted in frequent conflict with the organization hierarchy.

Splitting with the WSPU in 1911 she pursued a  literary path, founding the Freewoman, the New FreeWoman and Egoist journals. She gave voice to many radical authors who challenged accepted notions of society such as the role of marriage. It would be fascinating to know how she would have viewed same-sex marriage! Another important radical thinker who must NOT be eclipsed by the establishment historical narrative.

John Osborne: looking back at a rebel

The brilliant and controversial British playwright John Osborne was born on 12 December 1929. Possibly his most transformative work was his 1956 play Look Back in Anger. Despite being associated in his early life with left wing politics, he claimed to hold to no firm political views. In his later life he turned towards a libertarian right wing stance, To his eternal credit, Osborne openly questioned the existence of the monarchy in his contribution to a book called Declaration. This was in 1957, a far more deferential age than 2015 and it got him into trouble! The chairiman of the English Stage Company industrialist Neville Blond was furious and a party to celebrate the publication of Declaration at the Royal Court Theatre was cancelled. Ironically, the ESC was no stranger to controversy itself. But I completely agree with Osborne:

My objection to the royal symbol is that it is dead; it is the gold filling in a mouthful of decay.