CASTLE HOWARD and BLENHEIM PALACE: The Stately Homes of England (2)

[This is the second in a series of articles describing some English Stately Homes and their connections]

Castle Howard and Blenheim Palace are two of the most spectacular Baroque buildings in England. Both are generally attributed to the architect Sir John Vanbrugh but he was substantially assisted by that enigmatic yet highly talented pupil of Wren, Nicholas Hawksmoor, whose trademark monumentality unmistakably characterises both buildings.

Castle Howard, Frontage

Castle Howard is 15 miles north of York and 6 miles from Malton, in North Yorkshire. The Castle was the project of the highly ambitious, rich and unpopular Charles Howard, 3^rd Earl of Carlisle who organised the building between 1699 and 1715. Taking a reckless chance, he appointed as architect Sir John Vanbrugh, a successful playwright, wit and society figure with a persuasive artistic imagination. Vanbrugh had never built anything before but he closely consulted Nicholas Hawksmoor, already widely experienced as a pupil of Wren in rebuilding St Paul’s and the City Churches, destroyed by the Great Fire in 1666. The two made a formidably talented team.

Vanbrugh and Hawksmoor conceived the huge central dome hitherto only seen in royal palaces. Together they completed the grand Baroque Front and East Wing. After Vanbrugh died in 1726, the West Wing was completed in the Palladian manner by Sir Thomas Robinson, nephew of the 3^rd Earl.

Castle Howard, The Great Hall

The Great Hall is the finest room, all columns, capitals and carved figures with (now restored) paintings by the Venetian Rococo master Antonio Pellegrini, beneath the soaring dome. There are fine paintings, porcelain and classical statues in other parts of the Castle as several later earls were avid collectors. The extensive grounds contain Vanbrugh’s fanciful Temple of the Four Winds and Hawksmoor’s beautifully austere Mausoleum

The Temple of the Four Winds

     

The Mausoleum

  The Castle was neglected in the 19^th and early 20^th century; the 10^th Earl moved to Naworth in Cumbria and Howard cousins inherited the Castle. Requisitioned as a girls’ school for WW2, a fire devastated the Front and destroyed the Dome. The shell was patched up by the trustees who assumed the family would never return.

 In fact George Howard, returning from the war after being a Major in (naturally) the Green Howards, moved in, rebuilt and restored important parts of the Castle to Vanbrugh and Hawksmoor’s plans. He saved this great house, which became familiar to the public as a setting in Granada TV’s 1981 serialisation of Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited. There were terrific performances by Anthony Andrews as Lord Sebastian Flyte, Jeremy Irons as Charles Ryder and Laurence Olivier as Lord Marchmain. The Castle was used as the Marchmain country seat and there were few more evocative sights than Castle Howard emerging out of the morning mist, accompanied by the lovely plaintive theme music composed by Geoffrey Burgan.

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Blenheim Palace, at Woodstock, Oxfordshire was also the work of Vanbrugh and Hawksmoor, appointed in 1704, but it was a much more public building erected as a reward to the military hero, John Churchill, 1^st Duke of Marlborough and to the honour of his royal patron, Queen Anne. Marlborough and his Duchess, Sarah, were in high favour, he, after the stunning victories of Blenheim, and later Ramillies and Oodenarde and she, as the long-term friend, confidante and courtier to Queen Anne.

 Political intrigues in London by Tories Harley and Bolingbroke led to his dismissal in 1711 and hot-tempered Sarah had lost the friendship of the Queen in 1710. £220,000 of government money had been spent on Blenheim but the money dried up by 1712: Marlborough himself paid £60,000 to complete the Palace when he returned from self-imposed exile on Anne’s death in 1714. The building of Blenheim was not a smooth exercise: Sarah complained, with some justice, about the extravagance of Vanbrugh and the high fees of sculptors like Grinling Gibbons. Vanbrugh was finally dismissed in 1716 and spiteful Sarah had him barred even from the Park when he tried to revisit before he died in 1726. However the end result was truly magnificent.

Blenheim Palace, Frontage

I cannot properly describe the splendid interior so full is it of treasures. The Great Hall, 67 ft high, has a Grinling Gibbons carved stone royal coat of arms and an allegorical painted ceiling by Thornhill. A Green Drawing Room with Hawksmoor moulded ceilings has paintings by Kneller, Romney and Reynolds is followed by a Red one with a Van Dyck and famous Reynolds of the 4^th Duke and a Sargent of the 9th with his American wife Consuelo Vanderbilt and the 10^th Duke as a child. With the Green Drawing Room we start a sequence of rooms dominated by huge Brussels tapestries commissioned by the 1^st Duke to record his victories. The Saloon, a state dining room, boasts ravishing ceiling and mural paintings by Louis Laguerre and striking Grinling Gibbons door-cases.

The Red Drawing Room

the Second State Room

  

               

                 

Three State Rooms are followed by the immense (180 ft long) Long Library with stucco executed to Hawksmoor’s designs, a huge organ and tremendous statues and busts by Rysbrack. Finally the Chapel, with a tomb again sculpted by Rysbrack holds the remains of the 1^st Duke and his Duchess.

The Grounds include lovely fountains and water gardens and a notable formal parterre. The Lake created in the 1760s by “Capability” Brown complements Vanbrugh’s cherished Bridge to make what Lord Randolph Churchill described as “The finest View in England” and the Palace is overlooked by the Column of Victory dedicated to the 1st Duke.

Blenheim Bridge and Lake: "The finest View in England"

                              

Blenheim Palace, like Castle Howard, was not a convenient or practical place in which to live. It was built for show in a spirit of triumphalism. Apart from the 1^st Duke, the Marlboroughs have not been a particularly distinguished family. Blenheim has always been a burden as well as a pride. Lord Randolph Churchill, a mere 3^rd son if briefly an important politician, married American Jennie Jerome, promiscuous and neglectful mother to Winston. “Dollar Duchesses” Lillian Price and Consuelo Vanderbilt, daughters of millionaires, kept the Blenheim bandwagon going, winning their social cachets at the cost of large sums spent repairing the roofs and fabric of the Palace.

 

The brightest of bright stars was of course Winston Churchill (1874-1965). As a junior sprig of the family his connection with Blenheim was tenuous, although he remarked “At Blenheim I took two very important decisions; to be born and to marry” (he had proposed to Clementine Hozier in the Temple of Diana in the grounds) “I am happily content with the decisions I took on both those occasions”. He revered and wrote a biography of his ancestor the 1^st Duke and he was on good terms with his cousin “Sunny”, the 9^th Duke. Winston’s horizons stretched far beyond Blenheim, yet as the Saviour of the Nation he was modestly buried in nearby Bladon churchyard beside his mother and father.

Winston, the finest of the Churchills

SMD, 

30.07.13,

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2013

HATFIELD HOUSE and BLICKLING HALL: The Stately Homes of England (1)

[This is the first in a series of articles describing some English Stately Homes and their connections]

One of the many glories of England is its profusion of great houses, often owned by a single family for a number of generations. Most have an interesting history and have been preserved against all manner of threats - such as extravagant heirs, woodworm, agricultural slumps and death duties. The creation of The National Trust has helped save more than 200 houses from destruction but Noel Coward’s famous comic song “The Stately Homes of England” pithily recounts their tribulations and one can only be thankful that so many have survived. I start this series with two mainly Jacobean houses of the early 17^th century designed by the same architect, Robert Lyminge.

The original Hatfield Palace had been since 1497 the property of the Church and it was seized by Henry VIII in the mid-1530s and used as a residence for his daughters Mary and Elizabeth, who were step-sisters. The Elizabethan influence has been carefully maintained, Elizabeth’s successor James I did not like the house and persuaded his chief minister Robert Cecil to swap Hatfield for the nearby Cecil residence, Theobalds. Robert Cecil pulled down 3 sides of the old Palace and built the great house we now see to the designs of Robert Lyminge in 1608.

Hatfield House from the South

Hatfield House in the town of Hatfield in Hertfordshire is only about 20 miles north of central London. It has been the home of the illustrious Cecil family for 4 centuries. It is a Jacobean gem, with its distinctive pepper-pot towers and Renaissance room plan. 

Hatfield, The Marble Hall

There is a succession of splendid rooms exuding the dignified Jacobean spirit, well maintained even though renovated by later generations.

Hatfield, The Long Gallery

Wonderful though the House may be, the Cecil family at Hatfield produced many important figures. Robert Cecil (1563 – 1612), the first Earl of Salisbury, hunchbacked and conspiratorial, was a trusted minister of Queen Elizabeth and adroitly managed the accession of opinionated James VI of Scotland to become James I of England when the crowns were united in 1603. The 3^rd Marquess (1830 – 1903) was 4 times Foreign Secretary and 3 times Prime Minister in late Victorian Britain; he promoted his relations like nephew Arthur Balfour, giving rise to the ribald expression “Bob’s your Uncle!” He was a cultivated man but his views were somewhat gloomy: “Whatever happens will be for the worse, and therefore it is in our interest that as little should happen as possible”

 The 5^th Marquess, (1893-1972) known to his friends as “Bobbety” was a Tory grandee and arch-imperialist. Charged with interviewing the Cabinet to help choose a successor to Eden in 1957, he famously asked the same question “Is it Wab or Hawold?” – Rab Butler or Harold MacMillan, once you penetrated his speech impediment! A more familiar face was Lord David Cecil, distinguished professor of English literature at Oxford, whose machine-gun style of speaking was seen on TV but whose eccentric neglect of his teaching duties foxed his undergraduate pupils like Kingsley Amis, who went on a vain search for him after 2 terms of silence. His biographies of poet William Cowper, The Stricken Deer, and of Prime Minister Lord Melbourne, Lord M, were much admired.

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Blickling Hall, designed again mainly by Robert Lyminge from 1619 is situated north-west of Aylsham, about 16 miles north of Norwich, Norfolk. The building we now see was erected by James I’s Lord Chief Justice, Sir Henry Hobart (pronounced “Hubbert”) and passed down generations until the Hobarts became Earls of Buckinghamshire. On the Hobart line dying out, Blickling passed to a cousin, the 8th Marquess of Lothian and it was finally occupied by Philip Kerr, the 11^th Marquess who bequeathed the Hall on his death in 1940 to the charity The National Trust, the first substantial house accepted by the Trust under its Country House Scheme which mitigated death duties, largely run by the famously elitist, occasionally malicious and highly entertaining diarist, James Lees-Milne.

Blickling Hall, the Front

The architectural affinity of the Hall to Jacobean Hatfield is very evident: 18^th century additions to the Hall overseen by the Norwich architects Thomas and William Ivory are important too.

Blickling Hall, the Long Gallery

The Long Gallery with its sumptuous plasterwork is much admired. It is now the Library containing the unique Ellys library of rare books inherited by the 1^st Earl in 1742. The Hall, somewhat altered from the original by the Ivorys in the 18^th century, features a handsome staircase and carved wooden figures.

Blickling, The Hall

Finally, amid rooms with eye-catching Mortlake tapestries and dozens of fine paintings including Canalettos and Gainsboroughs, the transient fashions of the 18^th century are epitomised by the Chinese Bedroom in Palladian Rococo, with Chinese hand-painted wallpaper

Blickling Hall, The Chinese Bedroom

The Gardens and Park of 4,500 acres were remodelled and replanted by Humphrey Repton and his son in the early 19^th century underlining how munificent a gift Blickling Hall was to the National Trust in 1940.

History has not been kind to the donor Philip Kerr, 11^th Marquess, who after a brilliant career in Milner’s kindergarten in South Africa, private secretary to Lloyd George and finally British ambassador in Washington 1939-40, was castigated as a leading member of the” Cliveden Set”, which revolved around the Astors of Cliveden and advocated appeasement of Germany in the 1930s. Kerr was high-minded and believed that a rational German government would be pacified by a policy of accommodation. His and their influence have probably been exaggerated, as they did not appreciate that the Germans had entrusted their future to a criminal gang led by a paranoid madman. Kerr was from a prominent Catholic family but embraced the quackery of Christian Science, like Nancy Astor in the 1930s. Falling ill in Washington he declined to call a doctor for religious reasons and duly expired.

The now 13^th Marquess is Michael Ancram, an erstwhile genial Tory MP who was an articulate spokesman in the Major, Hague and Duncan Smith eras. He retired from politics in 2010 and has no connection with Blickling. The Lothians retain their Scottish estates.

SMD

28.07.13

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 1913

LORD MANSFIELD AND LORD BROUGHAM: Scots in UK Politics (8)

William Murray, Earl of Mansfield (1705-1793) and Henry Brougham, Lord Brougham and Vaux (1778–1868) were both distinguished lawyers, respectively, though Scots, Lord Chief Justice of England and Lord Chancellor of Great Britain. Quite different in their political allegiances, they both were ardent reformers of the law and notable opponents of the firmly entrenched yet evil vested interest of Slavery.

Murray was a scion of the Scottish aristocracy, fourth son of Lord Stormont and born in Scone (pronounced “Scoon”) Palace outside Perth. His father had Jacobite sympathies but young Murray prudently distanced himself from such ideals and later sought Hanoverian preferment. He was well educated at Perth Grammar School and in 1718 moved to the leading public school of Westminster, becoming a scholar and then on to Christ Church, Oxford University. He became a barrister at Lincoln’s Inn in 1726 and specialised in pleading Scots cases at the House of Lords, making his reputation defending Edinburgh from disfranchisement after the infamous Porteus riots.

William Murray, Lord Mansfield

He entered politics in 1742, really as a stepping-stone to judicial promotion, soon becoming Solicitor-General and proving a highly effective Commons spokesman for the governments of Pelham and Newcastle, later as Attorney-General. He was described as “beyond comparison the finest orator in the House of Commons”. In 1754 the sudden death of the Lord Chief Justice created a vacancy and a reluctant government, loth to lose Murray’s services, appointed him LCJ and raised him to the peerage as Lord Mansfield. Mansfield held this office until 1788, although he ceased to sit as a judge in 1786.

His legal reforms were very wide-ranging. Reorganisation of procedures made the Law less expensive and speedier. The Kings Bench Division became the busiest court displacing the archaic Court of Common Pleas. The medieval commercial law was completely overhauled following European patterns. Judgements on copyright, uberrima fides (utmost good faith) in insurance contracts and commercial consideration galvanised other legal developments. The slavish following of precedent was modified by the recognition of equity. A US academic praised him as "not only the greatest common law judge but the greatest judge in Anglo-American legal history".

Mansfield’s most famous judgement was handed down in 1772 in fugitive slave Somersett’s Case, “[Slavery] is so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it, but positive law. Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from the decision, I cannot say this case is allowed or approved by the law of England; and therefore the black must be discharged.^”

The judgement was on quite narrow grounds and Mansfield was cautious about the economic consequences of the abolition of slavery. But his judgement was understood to mean that slavery was unlawful in England and some 15,000 slaves were immediately freed. The abolitionists were encouraged mightily, although the slave trade and slavery itself persisted many years more in the British Empire overseas. Yet a vital cornerstone had been broken in the dam of Slavery.

Mansfield held high office, even presiding in the Lords on the Woolsack in the absence of a Lord Chancellor, but he was too logical to become politically adept. He was an enemy of William Pitt the Elder, Earl of Chatham and when the popular hero Chatham collapsed dramatically with a soon-to- be fatal fit in the Lords in 1778, a famous painting by the American J.S.Copley depicts Mansfield with his back turned in indifference as the other Lords crowd around the stricken statesman.

Mansfield finally retired in 1788 and lived out his last years at his exquisite house and lovely park at Kenwood, between Hampstead and Highgate in North London, which the distinguished Scots architect Robert Adam had renovated. The Library at Kenwood is a delight, an oasis of civilisation, a wholly appropriate place of repose for a man of Mansfield’s great gifts.

                     The Library at Kenwood, built for Lord Mansfield by Robert Adam

The merits of Henry Brougham, later Lord Brougham and Vaux (pronounced "Broom and Vokes") were of a different kind. The Brougham family hailed from Westmorland in the North of England but had moved to Edinburgh where Henry was born. He was an admired pupil at the Royal High School and was accepted at Edinburgh University at the age of 14. He principally read Natural Sciences, but also Law, becoming a Fellow of the Royal Society at the age of 25. He was admitted to the Scottish Bar in 1800 and to the English Bar at Lincoln’s Inn in 1808.

Brougham was not a rich man and he co-founded The Edinburgh Review, a quarterly literary magazine supporting the Whigs, to supplement his income and he was initially its most energetic contributor. His scientific pieces were often ill-informed and he attacked Wordsworth and the Lakeland poets, but he was a tireless promoter of political causes including popular education and the abolition of the slave trade. The Edinburgh Review became an influential publication and Brougham was a well-known figure by the time he moved to London in 1804.

The Young Brougham

Brougham mixed with the Radical supporters of the Whigs but had to wait until 1810 until he entered Parliament. He soon made his mark as a frequent and persuasive speaker, criticising Lord Liverpool’s government for its repressive measures against organised labour and parliamentary reform, culminating in the “Peterloo Massacre” in Manchester in 1819. Brougham was not a supporter of universal suffrage but pressed for an extension of the franchise and was considered a Radical leader.

He leapt to national prominence as the advocate defending Princess Caroline of Brunswick, wife of the dissolute and unpopular George, Prince Regent. Their marriage had long been unhappy and she had lived rather scandalously on the Continent. George wished to divorce her and set up an investigatory commission to examine her behaviour. The commission found against Caroline and a Bill of Pains and Penalties was presented to Parliament. Brougham defended her brilliantly and although the Bill scraped through the Commons, Lord Liverpool decided to drop it in the light of strongly pro-Caroline public opinion. Brougham was the hero of the hour. Caroline subsequently tried to gate-crash George IV’s coronation ceremony in 1821 and was repulsed in humiliating and undignified circumstances; later bought off by the Government, she died soon after. This ill-favoured lady was certainly an adulteress, but her faults were nothing to those of George IV.

Brougham, allied with Lord Grey, campaigned in the 1820s for parliamentary reform, the abolition of slavery and for improvements in education with ragged schools and mechanics’ institutes for “the great unwashed”, a phrase attributed to Brougham. He was also one of the founders of University College, London in 1828. He had a few scrapes; he was blackmailed by the strumpet Harriette Wilson, whose client he had been, to pay to avoid mention in her memoirs. Unlike the robust Duke of Wellington – “Publish and be damned” – Brougham quietly paid up and his name was not disclosed. He was also one of the many lovers of Lady Caroline Lamb, wife of Lord Melbourne, future Whig Prime Minister.

In 1830 the Whigs at last took power and Grey appointed Brougham Lord Chancellor raising him to the peerage as Lord Brougham. The great Reform Bill of 1832 was guided through Parliament with Brougham, somewhat the worse for drink, making an impassioned plea for support in a 3-hour speech in the Lords. The Bill passed to great popular enthusiasm. It was followed in 1833 by the Abolition of Slavery Act, ending slavery in the British Empire, a cause for which Brougham had campaigned for many years. Brougham was Lord Chancellor for only 4 years and most of his concerns then were political; he did speed up court procedures and oversaw the creation of the Central Criminal Court.

Brougham as Lord Chancellor

He was said to have been roaring drunk at Musselburgh races in his full regalia and his Whig cabinet colleagues found him a difficult colleague, arrogant, interfering and too radical. When Melbourne succeeded Grey in 1834, his ministry soon fell. He blamed Brougham for the ministry’s failure and told Brougham he would not be reappointed Lord Chancellor in uncharacteristically heated terms:  “God damn you, but you won't get the Great Seal"

Brougham never held office again but he functioned as a voluble member of the House of Lords on judicial matters making proposals on the court system, real property law, municipal reform, marriage and divorce. This colourful politician remained popular and became vice-chancellor of Edinburgh University in 1860, making a speech on the merits of a classical education. He kept up his scientific interests and found time to design the 4-wheeled, one horse carriage, always known as the “brougham”. In 1835 he was delayed on a journey in the South of France and discovered the fishing village of Cannes. Entranced by the place, he built a house there and it eventually became a very fashionable resort. His statue dominates the sea-front and the famous Promenade de la Croisette. He died there in 1868, aged 89.

Thus two Scots lawyers were at the centre of great events in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. Mansfield the calculating man of parts rising effortlessly to high office, Brougham the dynamic risk-taker and aspiring polymath; both united by the humanity towards their fellow-men so typical of their native country.

SMD

25.07.13

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2013

CHALLENGES TO DEMOCRACY

Our reverence for Democracy is one of the accepted platitudes of the age. “We, the people”, “The People have spoken”, “The People’s Princess”, the phrases are easily parroted and imbued with righteousness. In a select band of countries Democracy works well and her citizens are often rather too keen to export this heady brew. The truth is that Democracy untrammelled and unguided is a dangerous toy, quite capable of delivering misery and catastrophe to its proponents.

The positive side of Democracy is well-known and deserves all the praise it gets. Britain has a well-oiled parliamentary democracy, the product of many generations of compromise and creative evolution. The temper of the people is pragmatic and unconfrontational. A majority party will not force through its programme without consultation and adjustment; the importance of winning general consent, however grudging, is understood. With no written constitution and plenty governmental illogicalities, Britain nevertheless is an inclusive, reasonably contented society.

The United States is a model and beacon of Democracy for many nations. It operates under a carefully drafted constitution, modernised by many amendments. The legislature, executive and judiciary are formally separated and the 50 states jealously preserve their local rights. Participation in community matters, local and national elections is at a high level and the contests between the two main parties, after noisy campaigns, almost always end in expressions of unity. The office of the President is greatly respected. In our times, the slow implementation of civil rights for 44m black Americans is the only blot on an otherwise fine record, much redeemed by the Obama presidency.

The Capitol, Washington

The Democracies of Western Europe are now admirable too, although many have a dark history before 1945. Many (like Italy, Greece and Spain) boast a profusion of parties, a bad sign, as it suggests fixed positions, weak coalitions and a lack of the compromises so necessary for smooth government. British and American influences have seen flourishing Democracies in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and, remarkably, in India together with the systems in many smaller nations.

Outside this rather tight group of truly Democratic countries, the picture is less clear. History tells us that simply holding or winning an election or plebiscite does not legitimise every action of the government, although it is a much-used ploy. The majority can be as tyrannous and illiberal as any dictator. Hitler’s Nazis were the largest party in Germany in 1933, as were Mussolini’s Fascists in Italy in 1924. The war-weary French flocked to vote for Papa Petain in 1940. These regimes were in no sense Democratic as they persecuted their opponents without restraint and thus sullied the common values lying behind the Democratic ideal.

Sham Democracy: Hitler and Hindenburg

In our world, we are witnessing the “Arab Spring”. Fetid regimes in Iraq, Libya and Egypt have been overthrown but their likely replacements are not much better. The Muslim Brotherhood claims to uphold Islamic ideals, but many Muslim scholars dispute this. The new politicians often have a sectarian programme and resurrect archaic notions of exemplary punishments and of the inferior position of women. They may have popular support – no doubt jihadists and the Taliban claim as much – but they have no place in Democratic society as long as the civil rights of others are abused.

To its credit, the EU has tried to lay down standards of civil rights and the rule of law for all countries applying for membership. Yet we may well be uneasy at the admission of some Balkan and Eastern European nations, whose Democracies are at best skin-deep. Ethnic tensions blew apart the former Yugoslavia and racial hatreds lurk below the surface. We do not easily forget the 1995 massacre of over 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys at Srebenica by murderous Bosnian Serbs under General Mladic, while a supposedly protective 400-strong Dutch military contingent (more engrossed perhaps by their hair-nets and earrings) failed to intervene in a shameful display of craven collusion. 

Restitution and atonement are required before such peoples can be classed as Democratic.

It is a mistake to take a complacent and smug view of Democracy. There are other roads to take in peacefully developing a nation. Although opposition was suppressed, Kemal Ataturk’s modernising government quickly lifted Turkey out of its Ottoman lethargy in the 1920s and 1930s. The desire for a “strong man” to lead the nation is a powerful motive. Immense China, after the Mao Terror, progresses spectacularly in its own fashion under a single-party regime. Russia, ever an enigma, holds elections, transfers powers, prospers and may yet adopt Western standards. Latin America had generations of strongmen, but Democracy is taking root there; Africa is often gripped by corruption and brutality, yet its one-party system may be suited to its genius. Only in the Islamic world are there significant groups openly inimical to the West – in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Pakistan – who plot terrorist strikes against our citizens. Our easy acceptance of these people as immigrants or even visitors is sadly a naïve error.

Our sworn Enemies, the Taliban

Democracy is a delicate plant and may only be the least bad system. We currently rejoice in our good fortune in living in peace and contentment. It is by no means safe or eternal and the shock of economic dislocation or of war can overthrow it. My hopefully paranoid nightmare of a dispirited Britain or an abject US ruled by Taliban Revolutionary Guards or by a Mandarin Chinese functionary is maybe not quite so far-fetched as we think. Just ensure it is not in my time, please.

A future US President?

      

SMD

17.07.13

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2013