UNCOMFORTABLE DIVERSITY

It came upon me a day or two ago, my Damascus Moment, a flash of illumination preceded by a peal of thunder. Cor blimey, I am absolutely out of step with the modern world! Partly no doubt this is down to age – I will soon be 72 – but too many of the familiar landmarks of my existence are long gone or are disappearing; I probably should just shrug my shoulders and move on, but let me tell you first about some of the things which make me uneasy.

“Pale, male and stale” ministers were said by some to be the target of David Cameron’s recent government cull, or reshuffle, if you prefer. White, middle-class males were over-represented. As a white middle class male (WMM) myself I can hardly applaud much change here but in fact 3 women have joined the cabinet Nicky Morgan, Elizabeth Truss and Baroness Stowell. All 3 seem well qualified and I hope they prosper; no woman should be appointed qua Woman (Maggie Thatcher long ago proved women can have the right stuff in abundance) and they should be judged on their performance. A bright-eyed and bushy-tailed group of other women followed – Esther McVey, Theresa Coffey, Claire Perry, Penny Mordaunt, Amber Rudd, Anna Soubry and Priti Patel – easier on the eye than the old WMMs! Good luck to them all.

Priti Patel

 

Esther McVey

I hope these ladies are treated better than the great casualty of the reshuffle, Michael Gove. 

Michael Gove

Gove has been an outstandingly able Secretary of State for Education. He has wrested control of schools from the dead hand of the local authorities and transferred it to teachers themselves; new kinds of school have been encouraged; he has toughened up curricula and re-introduced invigilated end of year exams at the expense of “course-work”; he has introduced performance – related teachers’ pay. His reforms put him in the same class as W E Forster and Rab Butler. He has inevitably clashed with the teachers’ unions, not least the vociferous NUT, a typically reactionary “public service” union, whose hatred for him has been visceral. He has been the most effective minister in Cameron’s cabinet and is polite and eloquent. His reward has been demotion to Chief Whip and a large pay cut. It is unbelievable and unjust, but wholly appropriate in our “spin culture” where appearances, not reality, count.

Some advisers to Cameron, after a couple of polls, pronounced Gove to be “toxic” and a risk not worth taking in the run-up to an election. Would Gladstone, Asquith or even Attlee have treated a dedicated colleague in this way? Maggie would not, for sure. He is not a privileged Old Etonian either; he is the adopted son of a fish processor in my native Aberdeen and won a scholarship to respected Gordon’s College there (my father’s old school) and went on to Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford and became President of the Union. His sparkling intellectual gifts are certainly needed by the Tories and I expect him soon to bounce back. 

Ken Clarke

 

William Hague

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

The reshuffle was not without its merits. Ken Clarke, an erstwhile excellent chancellor of the exchequer but an uncritical swallower of all the claptrap from Brussels was at last retired, aged 74. William Hague, a star in his time too but an anonymous foreign secretary, will stand down at the 2015 election and no doubt write more political biography. We hope that Eurosceptic Philip Hammond will shake matters up with Merkel, but I see that Herr Juncker, Herr Schulz and the European parliament may reject the British commission nominee, Lord Hill as too Eurosceptic. So much for British sovereignty.

Changing the subject, I see that some senior BBC man has complained that ethnic minorities should be given the privilege of positive discrimination, as they are hitting a glass ceiling at the Corporation and not reaching the higher echelons. The tax-payer owned BBC is the most PC-crazed institution in Britain and has been very generous to excellent ethnic presenters like Moira Stuart, Trevor McDonald, George Alegiah and Zainab Badawi. The BBC needs to take things gradually and not ram its views down its viewers’ throats, or risk losing the licence fee entirely.

Moira Stuart

George Alegiah

Talking of discrimination, I am surprised at the finding by The Office of the Schools Adjudicator (yes, such an Office exists) that the London Oratory, a leading Catholic school, broke some “admissions code” or another by somewhat favouring Catholic children. Well, frankly what would you expect? Various humanist and other pressure group gloated over this ruling but surely all that is misplaced and contemptible. If we tolerate Islamic faith schools preaching jihad and FGM we can certainly tolerate Catholics.

Our Islamic friends have been suspected of subverting school curricula in Birmingham, although local governor Tahir Alam pleads innocence. Vote–rigging and abuse of postal voting is alleged to be rampant in Bangladeshi-dominated Tower Hamlets, whose boss Luftur Rahman has just been re-elected. Will the full weight of the criminal law be brought to bear?  I frankly doubt it – often such people are the new “untouchables” – and saying so is not any kind of prejudice.

Tahir Alam

Luftur Rahman

The Anglicans have their problems too. After generations of argument, they have finally agreed to consecrate female bishops. About time too, even though it puts them on a collision course with the Orthodox and Catholic. More painful has been former archbishop George Carey’s support for “assisted dying” or euthanasia of the terminally ill. The current Archbishop Justin Welby has come out strongly in favour of “the sanctity of life” as might be expected. In the long run, Carey and the sponsor of an assisted dying bill Charlie Falconer, former Lord Chancellor, will probably win this war. But, however well meant, it starts us down a slippery slope which makes me uneasy.

I admit that I am nostalgic for the political certainties of say the early 1960s, with Harold MacMillan, JFK and Charles de Gaulle ranged against Khrushchev and Chairman Mao with background music provided by a crooning Presley. Now our many terrorist enemies wear no uniform, are entirely unpredictable and indiscriminate. We are invited to accept same-sex marriage as a self-evident human right. Plenty about which to be uneasy.  There is not much solace to be found for me in a cacophonous album from the late ravaged Amy Winehouse or a Eurovision Song Contest won by bearded Austrian transvestite Conchita Wurst. I am sadly out of step!

      

Amy Winehouse

Conchita Wurst

   

SMD

18.07.2014

Text Copyright Sidney Donald 2014