BREXIT: THEY'RE OFF!

It is churlish not to give David Cameron full marks for trying, but he came back from his agonisingly tedious “renegotiation” with the EU with a sadly feeble “deal”. The conjuror did not pull a gleaming, attractive rabbit from his hat but rather a scrawny half-dead mouse, unable to quicken the blood of the doubters, instead a confirmation to the growing band of Leavers that the EU elite has no ability to modify its rigid mind-set or adapt to the modern world and the realities of an almost insurrectionary Europe. British political life anyhow will never be the same again.

Boris takes the wheels off Cameron's bike

The battle lines are becoming clearer. About half the Tory MPs, far more than expected, will campaign for Brexit including cabinet notables Michael Gove, Iain Duncan Smith and Chris Grayling, joined by charismatic but erratic Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, and many lesser ministers. Nigel Farage will try to reinvigorate his UKIP constituency and a small band of Labour members will advocate the Brexit cause. Those choosing to remain in are led by the Prime Minister, David Cameron, with his potent powers of patronage, his lieutenant George Osborne and half the Tory members. Once wobbling supporters Theresa May and Philip Hammond have been persuaded to tow the Cameron line. The Remainders are joined by most of Jeremy Corbyn’s chaotic Labour Party, by the much diminished Social Democratic group and by the vociferous SNP, still riding high in Scotland, but cordially despised elsewhere in the UK. There are many clever and many stupid people on both sides of this political divide. Let battle commence from now until 23 June 2016!

I hope the 120 days or so of the campaign will debate the broader issues and not get bogged down in the minutiae of Cameron’s “deal”. Whether or when EU immigrants get social security payments and child allowances is basically irrelevant. What matters is our legal Sovereignty, our economic health, our trade, our defence, our borders and the freedom and welfare of our people. The sniping has started – Cameron unwisely described sovereignty as “an illusion”, which it is within the EU but is a great prize outside; ask anyone from the US or even Iceland. William Hague of the Remainders worries about the position of Scotland; if Scotland votes to stay, can she stay within a UK which decides to leave? I do not accept that the SNP has any form of veto and will just have to accept the democratic decision. Scotland’s aspirations for independence have been made nonsensical anyway by the collapse of the North Sea oil industry. Expect plenty noises off from Nicola Sturgeon, but the SNP may be hard-pressed to maintain its dominance in Scotland. I thought Farage demonstrated his tin ear for public opinion by sharing a Brexit platform with George Galloway, the Leftist extremist, a sure-fire vote-loser. Boris can be an unguided missile too, if an amusing one, but I rely on cerebral Michael Gove to supply the required gravitas. Cameron and Osborne make a formidable team but may not enjoy sharing a forum with Labour and the SNP.

Boris the crowd-pleaser

Michael Gove, the deeper thinker

 

While there are great issues upon which reasonable people will have honestly held different views, I think it was the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg who admitted that in the final analysis the decision will be based upon “gut instinct”. The British are not xenophobic and can separate charming Europeans from those caught up in the European Project. Many feel the EU has overstepped the mark and it is a failing enterprise. It has been well said that Britain “does not want to be shackled to a corpse.” We are presented with a rare opportunity to recapture our birthright, run our nation in our own way and ally ourselves to real, tested friends.

SMD

22.02.16

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2016

THE BREXIT DILEMMA

David Cameron, our wannabe knight in shining armour, assured delegates at the Tory Party conference in  Manchester in October 2015 that he had "no sentimental attachment" to the European Union and was "only interested in two things: Britain's prosperity and Britain's influence." He committed himself to winning repatriation of legal powers, recognition of the multi-currency aspects of the EU, the end to “ever closer unity” for the UK, a curb on immigrants’ rights to welfare and a reduction in bureaucratic regulation. "That's why I'm going to fight hard in this renegotiation - so we can get a better deal and the best of both worlds." Well, he came, he saw and he was comprehensively conquered. The EU conceded nothing to the UK, apart from some footling adjustments on immigrant welfare, refused any treaty changes and avoided substantive discussion. Cameron has the usual politician’s brass neck to hail all this as a triumph and promises to campaign in favour of staying in the EU on these terms. Will the electorate be so easily hoodwinked?

David Cameron with Donald Tusk, President of the EU, February 2016

These terms, which Donald Tusk says may not even be deliverable by the fractious EU, are hopelessly deficient and an insult to the UK. There is no “deal” offered by the EU and the UK voters should simply vote “Leave” at the Referendum and find a new Prime Minister, with a modicum of spine, capable of managing a sensible exit from the fetid EU swamp.

We Brits are cautious and fair-minded people. David Cameron asks the voters to judge him on his merits. Brexit has its perils and we should weigh up the pros and cons as dispassionately as we can. I see the crucial issues as follows:

(1)    Sovereignty. Continued membership of a 28-member Union inevitably means a drip-drip erosion of our national sovereignty, overruling parliament and the UK courts, as policy decisions are increasingly taken by a majority of member nations or are dictated by the undemocratic Commission. Britain does not want to be absorbed by an ill-planned Union, values her own distinctive essence and is confident she can best protect her own interests.

(2)    Trade. After Germany, Britain is the second largest economy in Europe. She is happy to continue trading with her partners there and to grow that trade. She may well benefit from Europe’s weight in negotiations with other countries but I do not believe the EU would rationally seek to disrupt her trade. Their importance to us is mirrored in our importance to them. Sadly Europe is lagging behind in world growth terms and Britain would be free to negotiate her own trade pacts with the more dynamic economies in the Far East and in the Americas. Initially there is some risk that the UK will lose some inward investment. Over time, the UK can re-calibrate her economy back towards the Old Commonwealth and the US, the Anglophone Bloc.

(3)    Defence. Britain and France are the most significant military powers in Europe. They will continue to work in alliance with each other and with the much mightier US and with others under the NATO umbrella. This has worked well for 67 years. Other Europeans, Germany, Italy and Spain are reluctant to spend sufficient on defence and cherry-pick their involvements. The EU is a poor forum for military planning and leaving it would not weaken our shield one whit. A European Army is just a sick pipedream / nightmare.

Schaeuble and Merkel, the EU puppet-masters

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4)    Economics. The continental European and UK economies are very different. Germany, France and Italy still have significant industrial entities. The UK is much more service- and finance-orientated. Agriculture employs 1.5% of the working population in the UK compared with the EU average of 4.5% and much higher levels in Greece (12%), Poland (16%) and Romania (31%). EU statistics are suspect – no audit has been signed off in the last 20 years, so prevalent is corruption and embezzlement. Germany forces through economic policies to suit itself with much rigidity – one size fits all – and sharp deflation has devastated the economies of Mediterranean Europe. Britain by contrast has been relatively prosperous, though over-borrowed, pursuing her own policies. EU hatred of the successful City of London is visceral and numerous attempts have been made by Brussels to tax, regulate and undermine it, so far stoutly resisted. A weak UK government might squander this very precious national asset.

(5)    Political Culture The EU has historically been dominated by the French and Germans and that alliance endures though Germany is much the stronger. The political culture is authoritarian, elitist and dedicated to the long term political, economic and fiscal Union of Europe. The main functioning democratic institution is the European Parliament, a talking-shop rubber-stamping the actions of the Commission, only rarely enlivened by the biting tirades of derision from candid Nigel Farage. When electorates get the chance, especially in referenda, they defy the EU but recently, over the Lisbon Treaty for example, the EU contrives a re-run of the referendum to get the “right” answer! The frantic defence of the Euro, the harsh treatment of Greece and the feeble response to the migrant crisis have all diminished respect for the EU.

The leaders Angela Merkel and her eminence gris Wolfgang Schaeuble, Juncker, Tusk, Dijsselbloem are wildly overrated. Northern Europe is increasingly arrogant, Eastern Europe has thin libertarian roots, Greece and the Balkans are political sewers while Spain and Italy are side-lined into irrelevance. If you judge a nation by the company it keeps, the UK should sup with Europe with a very long spoon, maintaining friendly but distant commercial relations.   

The British referendum is months away, but the EU leopard will not change its spots. My youthful enthusiasm for Europe has died, betrayed by the lack of candour from Heath, Jenkins and successive British governments mesmerised by the Great European Idea. Reality impels me to recommend we vote “Leave” and regain control of our own destiny.

SMD
13.02.16
Text Copyright Sidney Donald 2016

CINEMA IN GREECE

Greece is not a rich country and it would be surprising if it had much of a film industry. In fact it has enjoyed some periods of intense filmic activity and the Greeks, ever in the vanguard of the arts, have left a distinctive mark even if not much has attracted an international audience.

Open-air cinema in Athens

While Athens has her Multiplex screens for indoor viewings, the greater joy is the variety of summer outdoor cinemas. In the warm balmy evenings, one sits on comfortable plastic chairs drinking, smoking or nibbling at nuts with the sky to gaze at if the silver screen does not enchant. It is a special treat. I recall years ago watching a solid diet of Aliki Vougiouklaki’s films when an uncle of my lovely wife ran summer cinemas in the pleasant spa town of Aidipsos on the island of Euboea. Innocent pleasures indeed!

Mercouri and Fountas in Stella

With the post-war rebuilding of Greece and her lethal Civil War (1946-9) it was not until 1955 that a significant film emerged and this was the drama Stella, the debut of alluring Melina Mercouri. The film was a retelling of Carmen with Mercouri as a rebetika singer in love with Georgios Fountas as a footballer. Directed by Michael Cacoyannis, it was enlivened by a musical score by Manos Hadjidakis.

A more popular type of film was ushered in with The Aunt from Chicago in 1957, an evergreen comedy featuring hatchet-faced Georgia Vasileiodorou conspiring ingeniously to marry off her conservative nieces. Mercouri, with her ouzo-stained husky voice and great glamour captivated in Never on Sunday (1960) playing the feisty Piraeus prostitute. The film was directed by American Jules Dassin, later Mercouri’s husband, and had another great Hadjidakis musical soundtrack.

Mercouri smoulders in Never on Sunday

Mercouri went on to be a prominent Leftist politician, together with Dassin a doughty opponent of the military Junta in power from 1967 to 1974. She became Minister of Culture in the 1980s, arguing passionately for the return to Greece of the Elgin Marbles from the British Museum. By the time she died in 1994, she had become a cherished National Treasure.

1955-75 was the heyday of the Greek popular cinema when a group of players, much loved and instantly recognised by their Greek audience, produced a flood of escapist comedies and musicals to general delight. Typical artistes were ubiquitous scheming Lambros Konstantaras (80 films), Dinos Iliopoulos, Kostas Voutsas, Jenny Karezi and Maro Kontou. One of my favourites was beetle-browed Dionysos Papagiannopoulos, whose air of injured self-esteem at the effrontery of youth always makes me laugh.

Maro Kontou and Konstantaras

Papagiannopoulos

Another considerable star was Rena Vlahapoulou. She could sing and she could dance but most of all she delivered her comedienne’s lines with rasping aplomb. As the film industry went into decline, we would seek out Rena in the Athens theatre where she played revue to packed audiences.

Rena Vlahopoulou enchants

However the unchallenged Queen of the Greek cinema was Aliki Vougiouklaki (1934-96). Blessed with a warm singing voice, dark eyes and a bouncy personality, Aliki featured in family melodramas and light comedies always with a reassuring happy ending. The Greeks loved her unconditionally, her private life was a national obsession and her movies are endlessly repeated on current TV.

Matchless Aliki Vougiouklaki

There was to be sure a serious Greek cinema. Costa-Gavras directed the politically charged Z in 1968, starring Yves Montand, thinly disguising police bias and government corruption. Irene Papas brought distinction to her leading roles in the ancient classics Antigone and Electra. More recently the industry has produced worthy art-house films pleasing an intellectual minority..

A much more representative movie and a global hit was Zorba the Greek, starring Anthony Quinn and Alan Bates. It is an Anglo-Greek co-production of 1964, directed by Michael Cacoyannis with Quinn and Bates reinforced by Irene Papas and Lila Kedrova. The splendid musical score was composed by iconic Mikis Theodorakis, happily still with us. The film traces the adventures and misadventures, some comic some tragic, of feckless but irresistible Zorba (Quinn). As their latest scheme, a log bearing conveyor, collapses into the sea amid huge confusion the film ends with Quinn and Bates laughing uncontrollably as they dance the sirtaki together on the island beach.

Quinn and Bates in Zorba the Greek

The film celebrates the Greek spirit. The author of Zorba, Nikos Karantzakis, wrote: I felt once more how simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a feeble little brazier, the sound of the sea. Nothing else. This film epitomises the magnetic originality and the warm, turbulent emotions of the Greek people.

SMD

2.02.16

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2016

RAISING EYEBROWS

It was widely held in the City of London of old that the mere raising of the eyebrows of the Governor of the Bank of England when being told of some new banking whizz was sufficient to signify his magisterial disapproval. Hard-boiled bankers quaked if they were on the receiving end of this subtle rebuke. It is not clear if this eyebrow-twitching was first brought into action in 1866 when the leading discount house Overend & Gurney failed but that was the first time the Bank asserted its power, acted as lender of last resort and averted a more general crash. In any event distinguished Montagu Norman who led the Bank from 1920 to 1944 was certainly hairy-faced enough to muster a fine pair of eyebrows and I am sure he twitched them to good effect.

Montagu Norman, Governor of the Bank of England 1920-44

The ever-resourceful ladies refuse to be brow-beaten and have transformed eyebrows into an extra source of allure. We think of Irene Pappas, Elizabeth Taylor, Brooke Shields and above all of Audrey Hepburn, all possessors of comely and well-thatched eyebrows.

Audrey Hepburn

                                                               

While one would hardly apply the adjective “comely” to Golda Meir, the charismatic Israeli leader had a forceful eyebrow-enhanced face.

Doughty Golda Meir

There was a rich crop of male politicians whose eyebrows bestowed gravitas and instant recognition. France’s WW1 leader Georges Clemenceau, Le Tigre, and Greece’s uniquely competent restorer of democracy Constantine Karamanlis are cases in point.

Georges Clemenceau

Constantine Karamanlis

The most famous pair of eyebrows in British politics belonged to Denis Healey. Denis was originally from the hard Left in 1945 and he was intellectually formidable, drawn towards but not exactly within the circle of Hugh Gaitskell and his acolytes Roy Jenkins and Tony Crosland. Healey became an excellent Defence Secretary in Wilson’s 1960s ministries but was less comfortable as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Wilson and Callaghan governments from 1974-79. Beset by industrial and balance of payments problems, his eyebrows were no help when he was forced to rattle his country’s begging bowl abjectly at the IMF in 1976. That he was ultimately beaten for the leadership by Michael Foot is a testament to the congenital idiocy of the Labour Party.

Denis Healey gestures to his enemies!

Not just the Left sports luxuriant eyebrows. Bernard Ingham, mainstay of Blessed Margaret Thatcher as her press spokesman, recently spoke words of wisdom about Europe.  The European Union is corrupt, useless and riddled with fraud, he observed in a lengthy denunciation.

Bernard Ingham peers out

     

But look at those grotesque eyebrows! I know Bernard is 83 and a Yorkshireman and some poetic licence is permitted, but blimey O’Reilly, Bernard, please apply the scissors immediately!

SMD

29.01.16

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2016

MAN AND BEAST

From time to time we read surveys of young urban people’s knowledge of the animal world. We already know the young think money grows on trees but astoundingly they often do not connect milk with cows or bacon with pigs. Any relationship with the countryside or farming has been entirely severed – school visits to modern farms are to them a total revelation. I am an inveterate townie, but now over 70, I can recall rural scenes from my native Scotland and appreciate something of what has been lost.

A Team of Scottish Clydesdales

I have never been involved with horses yet several friends have adored fine ponies, hunters and even thoroughbred racehorses. I have a soft spot for heavy horses, with their massive 18-hand bulk, feathered hooves and docile nature who were used typically to pull ploughs, brewers’ drays and drag timber. There are four recognised breeds in Britain, the Shire, the Clydesdale, the Suffolk Punch and the Percheron (originally from Northern France).

A majestic Shire horse

A Shires-pulled dray was used at the Whitbread Brewery at Chiswell Street in the City of London until 1976 and a fine sight it was. But my earlier memory was of Clydesdales pulling a plough on a Kincardineshire farm in about 1951, probably at the very end of the heavy horse era. How splendid those gentle animals were and how painful it must have been for the ploughman finally to part with these horses, by then family friends! You could have a quiet dialogue with the Clydesdales in a way you could not with a Massey-Ferguson tractor. So much for the march of progress, though happily many heavy horses are now bred and exhibited in the United States.

Another very attractive animal is the deer, plentiful in Scotland, a shy graceful creature who is easily frightened. There are said to be 350,000 in Scotland, so many they are considered a pest by some.

Ubiquitous roe deer

They do damage saplings but I would have thought we could still get along with them. Some conservationists support the idea of reintroducing wolves (and lynx) to the Scottish mountains in a Darwinian move to provide a predator and control the deer population. Other countries in Europe have done this, but naturally there is some alarm given the fearsome reputation of wolves.

The fellowship of Man and Beast is a vexed question. Foxhunting is one of the great rituals and traditions of the English countryside but the fox must be protected from cruelty and the use of hounds creates many difficulties, but I hope the sport survives in a recognisable form. There are limits too – I do not hear many voices in favour of the reintroduction of grizzly bears, currently getting a bad press after Di Caprio’s performance in The Revenant!

Much pleasure was generated by the antics of another bear, the panda Tian Tian at the Smithsonian Zoo in Washington. He was ecstatic about the recent heavy snow and rolled around holding his feet, protected by his very heavy coat, his normally sad eyes glowing with excitement.

Tian Tian loving the Washington snow

I suppose the key friendship between Man and Beast remains that with the domesticated pet dog. We are currently helping to look after a Shih Tzu “Prapso” called Arthur, a bundle of energy and a most affectionate and delightful companion. Cute, isn’t he?

Arthur, the Shih Tzu Prapso

SMD

24.01.16

Text Copyright Sidney Donald 2016

THE LURE OF HISTORY

I have always loved to study history and I believe historical writing to be one of the glories of English literature. A knowledge of the history of a person, a place or an idea quickly deepens one’s intellectual hinterland and I easily find myself agreeing with Cicero: To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain a child forever. I would like to touch upon the historians I most enjoy and briefly analyse what it is about them which inspires me. I also wish to pay heartfelt posthumous homage to two cherished schoolmasters, one named Donald King and the other, A. J. Morrison-Cleator, always known as “Zeep”, who instilled in me their love of history which has given me a lifetime of pleasure.

Edward Gibbon

I start with Edward Gibbon, whose Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was completed in 1788. The work itself is a masterly achievement but it is Gibbon’s style and the rhythm of his language which captivates. A famous early passage exemplifies the Gibbon manner: a three-fold object: the sardonic punch-line and the illuminating general conclusion:

The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher as equally false; and by the magistrate as equally useful. And thus toleration produced nor merely mutual indulgence, but even religious concord.

Gibbon wrote about 230 years ago and his historic conclusions have not weathered well. His central tenet that the Roman Empire declined gradually and in time fell after the golden age of the Antonines is no longer supported. In fact the Roman Empire evolved into the Byzantine Empire, a realm of blinding lustre, based in Constantinople from 330, remaining the largest and richest world city for many centuries before decline and capitulation to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. The historian Steven Runciman brightly illuminated this period in the 20^th century with his histories of the Crusades, although his scholarship came under attack, and was followed by the more popular John Julius Norwich, a writer of great brio, famous for thrilling volumes on exotic Byzantium and on piratical Venice, La Serenissima.

The 19^th century brings us the narrative sweep, the partisan Whig interpretation and the sparkling drama of Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-59) who valued British civilisation above all others; all good, in his insular view, emanated from The Glorious Revolution of 1688. Self-confident to a fault, Macaulay’s assessments of his political heroes like William III and even literary villains, like James Boswell, will always be controversial, but none can read his enthralling account of the relief of Londonderry without acknowledging his literary genius. Macaulay’s Liberal views long persisted and the 20^th century historian, and his grand-nephew, G M Trevelyan carried the flame; once a much- revered historian Trevelyan became unfashionable after his death in 1962 and Roy Jenkins was immoderate enough to describe him as “a pontificating old windbag”.

The quintessential Victorian historian was Thomas Carlyle, The Sage of Chelsea, with his wide-brimmed hat and strange mutterings, a kenspeckle figure proud of his roots in Ecclefechan. Of wide interests and with a very characteristic prose style, Carlyle brought the French Revolution to life, praised German literature and set a fashion, of dubious subsequent value, of proclaiming the virtues of Great Men.

Thomas Carlyle

Yet Carlyle’s vivid writing style can be irresistible. Here he is describing the execution of Robespierre:

A woman springs on the Tumbril; clutching the side of it with one hand, waving the other Sybil -like; and exclaims: "The death of thee gladdens my very heart, m'enivre de joi"; Robespierre opened his eyes; "Scélérat, go down to Hell, with the curses of all wives and mothers!" -- At the foot of the scaffold, they stretched him on the ground till his turn came. Lifted aloft, his eyes again opened; caught the bloody axe. Samson wrenched the coat off him; wrenched the dirty linen from his jaw: the jaw fell powerless, there burst from him a cry; — hideous to hear and see. “Samson, thou canst not be too quick”.

Britain maybe will never produce a historian of the calibre of illustrious Leopold von Ranke but Lord Acton’s lectures were deeply influential with his reflections on the United States and on the Papacy. The first half of the 20^th century saw highly readable Winston Churchill writing profusely, at his best when a military campaign or battlefield were involved. One of my favourites is underrated Philip Guedalla, whose epigrammatic style enlivened his life of Wellington, The Duke.

By the time I got to Oxford in 1961(I did not read History), the best known historians, and feline rivals, were A J P Taylor and Hugh Trevor Roper. Trevor Roper was the mainstay of the Establishment, but his academic works were sparse though he was a doughty controversialist writing in the heavyweight periodicals. He specialised in 16^th century English history and in the 20^th century, particularly in Hitler, whose Last Days he forensically investigated. His Historical Essays are particularly acute.

Alan Taylor was wildly left-wing and contrarian: his stream of marvellous books on 19^th and 20^th century Europe, on Bismarck, Italian unification, the Hapsburg Empire, European diplomacy, World War II and on England itself were hugely popular. He was a matchless lecturer and became one of the first telly-historians.

A J P Taylor

A widely read and respected historian was Roy Jenkins, though he latterly became over-fond of the Oxford in-joke and could sound rather arch. His well-researched biographies of Dilke, Asquith, Gladstone and Churchill gave me much pleasure.

So too have 3 generations of biographies on Queen Victoria, a perennially fascinating subject: first the famously debunking volume of 1921 by catty Lytton Strachey; then the sympathetic and balanced prose of Elizabeth Longford in 1964: finally the 2014 masterpiece of A N Wilson combining much new research with an acute understanding of the political trends of 19^th century Britain.

This is the history I like and it will be abundantly clear that I am more interested in personalities rather than policies, in the surface events rather than the profounder underlying currents. Reading history gives me consistent pleasure and that is enough for me. The accepted cant is that history broadens the mind and helps guide our steps in the paths of righteousness. Hegel contradicted this comprehensively and sadly hit the nail on the head:

What experience and history teach us is this – that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.

SMD

20.01.16

Text copyright Sidney Donald 2016

BROTHERHOODS AND SISTERLY SCHOOLS

Reading the obituary a few days ago of Ann Arnold, I learnt that she was a member of the Brotherhood of Ruralists, a group formed in 1975, its name suggested by Laurie Lee of bucolic Cider with Rosie fame. The Ruralists, who lived in the West Country, concentrated on figurative and often mystical landscape painting, paying obeisance to the values of much earlier artists; the Ruralists were not admired by the Modernist Metropolitan critical elite. Ann Arnold painted the group in a typically leafy Ruralist composition (she is on the far right). Another member, Peter Blake, set out their position: “Our aims are the continuation of a certain kind of English painting. We admire Samuel Palmer, Stanley Spencer, Thomas Hardy, Elgar, cricket.” This sounds a very attractive list to me and I wish to recall some other Brotherhoods which broadly shared these values.

The Brotherhood of Ruralists by Ann Arnold

Blake had mentioned Stanley Spencer (1891-1959) and although he was really a one-man school, his Cookham (Berkshire) paintings were much admired for their quirky religious themes and striking originality.

The Resurrection, Cookham by Stanley Spencer (1927) 

A Brotherhood has a set of common values and the founders of The Newlyn School all believed that they should paint figurative subjects in natural light –En plein air, in the phrase borrowed from the Barbizon School in France. In the 1880s, an artists’ colony gradually formed in and around the Cornish fishing-village of Newlyn and lasted until about 1914. Their paintings were naturalistic, with political and social comment being largely absent. They displayed much technical skill and conveyed their love of coastal and country life. Typical is Walter Langley’s Between the Tides

Between the Tides by Walter Langley

Stanhope Forbes (1857-1947) was one of the finest Newlyn painters and he celebrated the WW1 civilian effort with his The Munitions Girls.

The Munitions Girls by Stanhope Forbes (1918)

An eminent later painter of the Newlyn School was Alfred Munnings (1891-1959) who became President of the Royal Academy and a very conservative voice. His own speciality was the painting of horses.

Anarchist by Alfred Munnings

An inebriated Munnings gave a presidential address on live radio in 1949 which became notorious. He dismissed Gauguin and Degas as “daubers” but saved his savagery for Picasso. He said he had warmly agreed with Winston Churchill (another conservative painter!) who had remarked “If, Alfred, you saw Picasso coming up the road would you join me in kicking his something something?”.

The most famous artistic Brotherhood was The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (the PRB) who revolted against the conventions of the Victorian Royal Academy.

The Hireling Shepherd by William Holman Hunt

The PRB was founded in 1848, a revolutionary year, by the painters John Everett Millais, Holman Hunt and Dante Gabriel Rossetti with 4 other poets and critics. They sought to return to the vibrant art and colours of the Quattrocento and to paint with precise accuracy. They accepted religious subjects, revered the medieval spirit but tried also to relate to the modern world. The PRB quickly broke up formally but its influence, through critics like Ruskin, through a succession of fine artists and through The Arts and Crafts movement, lasted many years. Typical images are set out below.

Christ in his father's carpenter's shop by John Everett Millais (1850)

Work by Ford Madox Brown (1868)

The PRB paintings are often packed with symbolism, allusion and social comment and reward time spent on their decoding. They are of estimable quality and achievement.

I have only touched on the influence of these Brotherhoods – a fuller account would run to many pages.

Getting into the swing, I propose to found The Post-Thatcherite Brotherhood, a more political group, and adapting Ruralist Peter Blake’s manifesto above, I declare:

Our aims are the continuation of a distinctive British way of life, free from European entanglements. We love the Yorkshire Dales, the Scottish heather moors, the Welsh sea-coast and Ulster’s Mountains of Mourne. We admire the poetry of John Betjeman, the humour of Arthur Marshall, the writings of Alan Bennett and cricket too. In brief, we love all things British!

The Boyhood of Raleigh by John Everett Millais (1870)

SMD

13.01.16

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2016