I am sitting in a quiet corner in
Toronto, watching the shenanigans that are shaking up the world’s greatest
democracies. Two weeks ago, I would not have believed it if you told me that
the citadel of the once-great British Empire would be enmeshed in the coils of
a drama the likes of which we haven’t seen in decades, even in political soaps.
It all goes to show how tenuous my hold on historical precedence is. But more
able students of the subject would remind us that the last two hundred years or
so have, in fact, been untypically tranquil and orderly in the way that
government transitions take place in England and the kingdom precariously united
under it. So, really, things are merely reverting to type and the status quo that
used to be during the many centuries that preceded the last two. True, no blood
has stained the floor during the internecine wars that are currently raging along
several corridors of power. Not even fake blood. But, exsanguination of a kind has
occurred, nevertheless. And, most horribly, we see those who wield the
assassin’s knife, becoming themselves impaled by the same instrument they employ
to stab former colleagues. (“Friends” would not be the word to use here). The
backdrop to this internecine war is of course the people’s vote that, narrowly,
instructed the government to get out of Europe. In the end, two women were the
ones who remained standing in the contest to lead the governing Tory party that
had made the mistake of calling the referendum. Then there was one. She,
Theresa May, now has the Tory chalice firmly in her grasp, but she may be well
advised to pause before she takes too full a draught from it.
On
the other side of the UK’s political divide is the Labour Party, which is going
through its own self-immolation project. Here, again, the most proximate cause for
the infighting is the Brexit vote which, the leader’s detractors accuse, he did
not do enough to influence in a positive way. Hence, they claim, the bad
outcome. Most in his parliamentary caucus want him out and many in his shadow cabinet
have deserted him, whilst he, in turn, has sacked a few others. And, he says,
he’s going nowhere because the party at large put him where he is, insisting
that their democratic will be respected. The big beasts in the party have
called for a leadership vote from which Corbyn was to be excluded: “See you in
court,” he says, if that vote went ahead without his name on the ballot paper. In
the end, his name was allowed to go through.
Meanwhile, in that other great democracy, they are enduring
their perennial angst as to how to assign equal value to the life of each of
its citizens. Don’t get me wrong. We are all different. But to say that being
in, or of one group means that you should be consigned to a segment of the
populace in which life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is denied makes a
mockery of the principles which that great nation espouses. So, for one week in
July we see, in real time, black men going about their legitimate business, being
murdered by police in the streets. In retaliation, a black man murders five white
policemen and wounds seven others before being blown to bits by a robot bomb
deployed by a police force that had run out of answers on a hot night in
Dallas. All of these events occur in the backdrop of a presidential election
campaign in which the most improbable candidate ever, all but bags the
nomination of the Republican Party. Mr Trump, the man I speak of, has shown
himself to be a most divisive individual, saying explicitly what some of his
constituents think but are too embarrassed to utter themselves. The other
candidate for the presidential vote, the presumptive nominee of the Democratic
Party, Hilary Clinton, and the one I hope will win come November, is having to
traverse a minefield of outlandish accusations laid by Trump and those who
support him. True, Trump also irritates his Republican Party no end, but they
must live with him. It’s him they’ve got, for better or worse. But it was they who
encouraged his kind of nonsense in the first place by making it impossible for
Obama to deliver, in the matter of gun control, for example. I cannot wait to
enjoy my moment of schadenfreude when the lot of them lose in November. But
counting chickens before they are hatched is definitely not good husbandry. Ask
David Cameron.
However, if
things go well, the prospect of Hillary Clinton, Angela Merkel, Theresa May and
Nicola Sturgeon running things is très
délicieux.
Yum Yum.
Tell Fren Tru
