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THE PROSPECT GRID

Our monthly cut-out-and-keep guide to who falls where on the taste hierarchy

UPMARKET
Jimmy Carter.
Chatbots. A lesson to all former
The Anglican Communion
Bing’s AI thingy turned leaders in how to
(b. 1867). Is its life drawing
into a “moody, manic- stay classy
peacefully to a close?
depressive teenager” under All Quiet on the
questioning. Bing bong! Western Front. Alice Neel—the
The second film court painter of the
to do that great underground—now
Richard Sharp clings
book justice at the Barbican
on by his fingernails Roald Dahl is being
to the top BBC job. rendered safe by the
Sally Wainwright.
How very Reithian children’s “censor-tivity”
Elevated the crime
police. Just wait until they
Fawlty Towers is coming series format to a new level.
hear about video games!
back in an alimony-related Just don’t expect a
God may soon be termed sponsorship deal with
move by John Cleese.
they/them. So please stop Yorkshire Tourist Board
Don’t mention the war— The return of singing “Dear Lord and
with his ex-wives the work wife Father of Mankind…”
and the work
husband?
husband
Nicola Sturgeon.
Farewell. You made
Spain’s new trains.
Someone burst all other politicians Tár.
Too big to fit
’s $42,000
Jeff Koons’s look like wee The world of classical
through tunnels
balloon. Will anyone tim’rous beasties music never looked

BANGER
shed a tear? so ugly
DUD

“Delilah.” Madonna.
It’s taken the Welsh Don’t mention the
Lee Anderson.
Rugby Union 50 years to Botox. And—in her
It is considered snobbish to
notice Tom Jones’s song is A Chinese balloon? own words—bow
call the new Tory party vice
un peu problematic. 21st-century snooping using down, bitches!
chairman an imbecile. So let’s
Better late than never centuries-old technology
all agree the man is a genius

We should be dressing
like frazzled English
Bossware. women, apparently. Long hair is back for
Mark Steyn
Companies are Think Bridget Jones blokes. Blame lockdown,
quits GB News, calling a
spying on you and but buzzcuts are out and
colleague “Ofcom’s bitch”.
will sue you for Byronic locks are in
Fake news, surely?
“time theft”
© ALAMY/SHUTTERSTOCK/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

AA Milne is out of
copyright and Winnie-the- The floral midi dress
Pooh: Blood and Honey is is dead, according
the result. Oh, bother! Armchair detectives. to John Lewis. But S Club 7 comeback tour.
Is true crime customers still Reach for the stars!
entertainment making love them
us all into grief ghouls?

DOWNMARKET
2 PROSPECT / APRIL 2023

In this issue

F E AT U R E S

12 How I fixed the Channel crisis

The asylum system is broken.
A former Home Office chief
explains how to repair it—
having done it before
David Normington

Plus
19 No more wave machines
Europeans have shown us that
simple solutions can be effective
May Bulman

36 Crowning glory
Coronations should be an
occasion for spiritual renewal.
King Charles’s will not be
Martyn Percy

46 Pakistan’s hero—or hypocrite?

At home in Lahore, ousted prime
minister Imran Khan recovers from
an assassination attempt and eyes

22 Iraq: the fallout

Twenty years after the US-led
a political comeback
Atika Rehman
invasion, violence and
corruption reign
Lizzie Porter

30 If Poland finds peace

The Ukraine war may have given
clarity to a country reckoning with
an historic identity crisis
Neal Ascherson
APRIL 2023 / PROSPECT 3

REGUL ARS & COLUMNS B O O K S & C U LT U R E PODCASTS

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Consultancies have been good discuss the state of British satire
at avoiding criticism, until now
Lionel Barber → Helen Barnard & Sam Royston
explain a policy tweak that
63 Never again? could stop people dying
Holocaust remembrance may in poverty
not prevent fascism in future
Alex J Kay → At prospectmagazine.co.uk or
wherever you get your podcasts
Dan Neidle, Melissa Thorpe, 66 Ghostbrushers
Sue Parfitt, Paul Powlesland, Here are the women artists
Nina Power who communed with spirits
Francesca Peacock ONLINE
27 What would Tom Nairn do?
George Rosie 68 Books in brief
→ The Prospect website is
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28 The joy of lex: Nepo baby 70 Art: Revelation amid
from our contributors.
Sarah Ogilvie Ukraine’s desecration
Visit prospectmagazine.co.uk
plus Stephen Collins’s cartoon Robert Chandler
for more, including:

29 Philosopher-at-large: 74 Pop: Forlorn in the USA

→ Is carbon offsetting a con?
The pursuit of happiness Laura Barton
Bryony Worthington
Julian Baggini
75 Stage: Your “Oklahoma!”
→ How the Tate Modern fell foul
33 Diary Kate Maltby
of the Supreme Court
Joe Lycett
David Allen Green
76 Film: Rock and rollers
41 Letters plus In fact Sukhdev Sandhu
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54 Sifting the internet junk pile FOLLOW PROSPECT

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6 PROSPECT / APRIL 2023

Dan Neidle

Taxing
questions

Dan Neidle is not obviously

out to excite. When I ask the
unlikely toppler of the “tax-
careless” Tory chair Nadhim
Zahawi for anything about him
that might surprise people,
he says, “I like growing toma-
toes.” And his mum, working
in advertising in the late 1960s,
dreamt up the famous “man in
black” Milk Tray ad. But other
than that, his was a conven-
tional rise. After an “excellent”
Watford comp, he climbed the
ranks of Magic Circle law firm
Clifford Chance, doing well
enough to retire in Norfolk at
the ripe old age of 49.
His passion project is a
new specialist thinktank, Tax
Policy Associates. There’s a
vaguely progressive tilt to the
work—it recently highlighted
the perversity of HMRC slap-
ping “late filing” fines on peo-
ple too poor to pay income
tax—but the impulse is tech-
nocratic. Like the Institute for
Fiscal Studies (also originally
founded by City professionals
with some time and money),
ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOHN WATSON

the animating ideal is mak-

ing a bewildering tax system
coherent. While there’s inevi-
table argument about what tax
rates are appropriate, Neidle
thinks good tax policy “can be
agreed by left and right”.
 APRIL 2023 / PROSPECT 7

What screws things up are ister sacked, is meticulously

“arbitrary lines in the sand, documented on Neidle’s web-
which mean uncertainty for site. What does he take away
good taxpayers and avoidance from the experience?
for bad”. He has written “a bit The first “awful lesson”
of code” that proves ebook was “the difference with poli-
prices didn’t budge after a tics and the world I’d previ-
VAT exemption: “You’ve sur- ously been in”. The City can
rendered £200m of public be “cut-throat”, but you don’t
© PA IMAGES / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

money, and it’s gone straight lie or “your career’s over”. He

to publishers’ profits,” he says. had thought “the same rules
Likewise, retailers gobbled applied” in politics, and that
up the long-campaigned-for while Zahawi might dissem-
VAT cut on tampons. MPs are ble, he wouldn’t “just lie”. The
debating VAT-free sunscreen: next shock was receiving libel
another costly gimmick, he threats along with claims he leader, with amusement. But
fears. Quietly a Labour mem- couldn’t mention them to any- they soon settled in: “Some of
ber, he wants windfall levies on one, which is a “widespread them got really friendly with
Melissa Thorpe
energy profits, but the design is practice” for silencing news- local pubs, and the landlords
all-important: after BP’s heavy rooms. He’s traced the root of were giving them lifts every-
losses from writing off its stake such intimidation not to libel Mission where.”
in Russian oil firm Rosneft, it
would be wrong to whack it as
law as such but professional reg-
ulation—and is making head- to launch Thorpe, who grew up in the
wilderness of British Colum-
hard as Shell. way with the Solicitors Regula- bia, now lives on Cornwall’s
In short, he’s a man of tory Authority about a tweak. north coast with her husband
insistent precision in a popu- He “goes dewy-eyed” think- and two daughters. She enjoys
list age—which was enough to ing about the journalists who It was a mild January day and the county’s ruggedness and
make him a political assassin. tracked down the details that, rocket scientists were prepar- doesn’t mind being stopped by
As a rule, he’d prefer to “resist combined with Neidle’s expert ing to launch satellites into people who recognise her from
the lure” of going after individ- prosecution in the court of pub- space from UK soil for the first the news.
uals, but with “something as lic opinion, did for Zahawi. He time. Nine were to be put into As the Californians discov-
big as the chancellor [Zahawi’s would rather “gargle on bro- orbit, hitching a lift on a modi- ered, Cornwall is an unor-
job last summer] not paying ken glass” than go into politics fied Boeing 747 dispatched thodox place for a spaceport.
tax, I had to follow it.” The six- proper, and expects his lat- from Cornwall Airport New- When the county won the ten-
month trail of sleuthing, shift- est tax hit-job on Labour’s Ian quay—the first facility in the der, online wags joked about
ing responses, press exposés, Lavery to be his last for a while. country given the badge of a launching pasties and cream
bullying lawyers’ letters and But, when prodded, he has spaceport. teas into orbit. They didn’t
defiance, which ultimately saw thoughts on how a Labour gov- In the days leading up to know Cornwall has a thriving
the disgraced millionaire min- ernment could raise billions. the launch, dozens of special- scene of space-related study
And while at pains to explain ist technicians arrived to make and start-ups. Newquay air-
that Rishi Sunak’s controver- final preparations. Among port has a long runway—all the
sial American green card was them were a Californian con- better to launch Virgin Orbit’s
The City can be “the opposite of tax avoid- tingent used to being whisked rocket-bearing 747s. And if the
ance”, he has questions about from launch to launch by launch screws up, there are
cut-throat, but you
the exact consequences of his driver-assisted Teslas; they had worse places for debris to fall
don’t lie or your
wife’s non-dom status. It could to learn that Cornwall doesn’t than into the Atlantic.
career’s over be a while before he can be even have Ubers. “That was Alas, that’s what happened
safely left to his tax-law manu- very bad news to them,” says on 9th January. The rocket
als and tomatoes. ♦ Tom Clark Melissa Thorpe, the spaceport launched as planned, but a
8 PROSPECT / APRIL 2023

fuel filter became dislodged Thorpe’s approach to con-

and stopped the payload from flict sets her apart from other
being released. Into the ocean leaders of the space industry.
fell the rocket and its cargo. “It (Think of Elon Musk’s pugnac-
was emotional,” says Thorpe. ity.) Women, Thorpe says, bring
Late that night, she spoke in “a different way of approach-
front of a scrum of cameras ing problems”; “a more mater-
with a clear message: essen- nal mindset”. Hence another
tially, “This sucks, but it is how of her goals: encouraging girls
this industry goes.” They’d try and women to pursue STEM
again, she promised. careers. This, she says, will be
True to their word, Thorpe good for the industry, as well as
and co are working on a fair. “We need all the help we
relaunch later in the year. Her can get.”
goal is not simply to succeed Three years from now,
where in January they failed; Thorpe hopes to welcome a
she hopes also to demonstrate crewed mission back down
that the space industry can sup- to Earth. That would make
port environmental sustainabil- British and Cornish history.
ity. The 747’s horizontal launch, A spaceport currently known
swooping off from a runway, for the satellites on the Atlan-
uses much less fuel than a verti- tic seabed could instead be
cal take-off; the first attempt’s responsible for the high-water
cargo included nine satellites, mark of the British space
one of which was to monitor industry. ♦ Tom Ough other forms of direct action. do my best to make him send
kelp forests and pollution lev- “What can I do to help [at my me to prison,” she tells me. She
els around Cornwall, helping age]?” she asks. “There are lots declines to elaborate on how
scientists identify appropriate of things I can’t do. But I can sit she might achieve that.
Sue Parfitt
areas for seagrass restoration. on a motorway.” And for as long Days later, a jury exonerates
Thorpe, a 39-year-old as she is able, she plans to con- Parfitt and the three others in
millennial far too young to Heavens tinue. Recently, she climbed her group. The next protesters
remember the Apollo mis-
sions, is more animated by the above atop a train carriage at Shad-
well station in east London and
on trial for the same offence
are not so lucky. “It makes
idea of protecting the environ- chained herself to the under- you realise that justice is very
ment than landing on Mars. side of a lorry at Marble Arch. bizarre in this country.”
Rather than throwing kerosene We meet on the eve of Parfitt, who joined Chris-
on the climate crisis, she wants The Reverend Sue Parfitt is another Crown Court appear- tian Climate Action in 2017,
to be “part of the solution”. back in court again. At the age ance, this time for taking previously worked as a thera-
Two years ago, getting peo- of 80, the retired priest can’t part in the roadblocks that pist while her husband served
ple to understand that was a remember how many times launched Insulate Britain onto as a parish priest in Bristol. In
challenge. Thorpe was heck- she’s been arrested. When we the climate action scene in late 1994, she became one of the
led and followed home by speak, she’s facing three tri- 2021. The protesters are being first women to be ordained in
environmental protesters: “It als in the next month alone. tried in groups of four for caus- the Anglican communion.
was really ugly.” She invited Keeping up with it is difficult: ing a public nuisance, a charge “I’ve always seen the Chris-
them to discuss their concerns “They’re all in a muddle in my that carries a prison sentence tian faith as being a radical
over coffee. Not everyone was mind,” she says. of up to 10 years. place to do with justice for the
convinced, but there were no Parfitt is a climate activ- That’s a “scary thought”, she poor,” she says. “For me, that
demonstrations at the launch. ist and a member of Christian says. Yet when I suggest that a connects completely with cli-
One erstwhile protester Climate Action, the unofficial judge might be inclined to treat mate activism because this is a
has even offered Thorpe his Christian wing of Extinction her more leniently because of justice movement.”
patronage. “He says, if I ever Rebellion. She travels across her age, she says her sense of Although that view is slowly
have anybody calling me or the country bearing a crucifix solidarity would not allow her becoming more mainstream
rushing me or anything, to just and walking stick to take part to be spared if her comrades are in the Church, civil disobedi-
let him know.” in motorway blockades and not. In that scenario, “I would ence remains controversial.
 APRIL 2023 / PROSPECT 9

Parfitt was initially hauled into [else] has worked so far. We’ve defined who it is going to act in the climate crisis. Powle-
a disciplinary meeting by her all done lobbying our MPs and for as ‘who can pay me?’”. And sland was “ignoring funda-
bishop and told she risked los- writing letters and all that.” this means barristers end up mental #RuleofLaw principles
ing her licence to officiate— But with those methods defending the fossil fuel indus- on which a civilised society
although in the end she didn’t. failing to push the govern- try far more often than they depends, ie that everyone—
In her eyes, she’s doing ment into action, her question do the planet and the activists especially those you disagree
nothing new. “The early to critics is: “What would you struggling to protect it. with—is entitled to representa-
Church was breaking the law do? What would you suggest?” The barrister, who lives on tion,” Wolfson wrote. Powle-
all the time,” she points out. Because “the terrifying thing is a houseboat, also campaigns sland has invited any practis-
“So was Jesus.” She is frustrated that there comes a moment to protect the River Roding ing UK barrister to debate the
that the modern institution of no return—and it’s very in Essex, where his home is issue with him—so long as the
isn’t doing more. “If the whole close”. ♦ Jessica Abrahams moored, and for public access meeting is in person, public
Church had sat on the M25 to land, known as the “right and will be broadcast. Nobody
motorway, they’d have insu- to roam”. He sees himself as has yet taken up the offer.
lated the whole housing stock radical only in relation to his Powlesland doesn’t think
Paul Powlesland
immediately, wouldn’t they?” conservative profession (“If I every barrister needs to agree
she laughs, lamenting “the were a doctor, I’d be middle of with him. His goal is for law-
power we have but don’t use”. Raising the road”). He has so far held a yers to start turning the power
She rejects arguments that
motorway blockades are “self- the bar peaceful protest outside Mid-
dle Temple, holding a plac-
of their brains more often to
the issue of climate change.
ish”—after all, she has little to ard and hoping to engage his “In almost every sector of law
gain and much to lose from tak- peers in a chat. Later this year, there are things that clever
ing part in them—and insists he plans to highlight the role lawyers could do,” he says. “If
that they don’t block emer- In a wood-panelled banquet- specific legal chambers play we had more shit-hot crimi-
gency vehicles, always leaving ing hall just steps away from in supporting the fossil fuel nal lawyers acting for climate
a lane free and clearing a path the Royal Courts of Justice, industry. But not everyone protesters, that frees the pro-
when necessary. “What’s self- lawyers whisper beneath por- finds his approach moderate. testers up to do more. We need
ish is being determined you’re traits of the Stuart kings. The Former Conservative jus- injunction lawyers to combat
going to continue making your- Honourable Society of the tice minister David Wolfson the fossil fuel companies get-
selves multi-millionaires” while Middle Temple is one of four shot back on Twitter at Powle- ting injunctions against peo-
the planet burns, she says. ancient institutions with the sland’s accusation that the bar ple. We need personal injury
As it happens, there may right to call lawyers to the Eng- and judiciary are “complicit” lawyers because the climate
be fewer motorway sit-ins lish bar. Across a white table-
this year following Extinction cloth, barrister Paul Powles-
Rebellion’s surprise announce- land, 36, explains to me the
ment that it plans to “tempo- threat he thinks his profession
rarily shift away from public poses to the planet.
disruption” to focus instead on “I’d say ‘London lawyer’
conventional protests appeal- has got to be in the top 10 or
ing to a wider section of the 20 professionals facilitating
public. Parfitt is “in two minds” the fossil fuel industry in the
about this, because although world,” he says. Why? Much of
she’d prefer not to use disrup- the bar in England and Wales
tion, the fact is that “nothing is guided by the “cab rank”
principle: the idea that law-
© JESSICA GIRVAN / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

yers cannot refuse to represent

a potential client with whom
they disagree, just as a taxi
The early Church was driver shouldn’t turn down an
breaking the law all the unappealing passenger. There
time. So was Jesus are exceptions, of course, but
according to Powlesland, the
consequence of this thinking
is that “the bar has entirely
10 PROSPECT / APRIL 2023

crisis is going to cause a huge In her 2021 book What Do we need to negotiate with one
amount of damage.” Men Want: Masculinity and Its another. Outrage is a bad mode
He also hopes that his activ- Discontents, Power laments for politics.” Or, put another
ism will persuade even lawyers the loss of the patriarchy’s way, we won’t get very far if we
who represent fossil fuel com- so-called “positive dimen- We won’t get very are quicker to fight than talk.
panies to do more pro bono sions”, that is: “The protective far if we are quicker to I am sure that is a broadly
work supporting the climate father, the responsible man, uncontroversial proposition.
fight than talk
movement. “In the face of an the paternalistic attitude that But Power, characteristically,
existential threat, barristers exhibits care and compassion.” takes it further. It is difficult
should be putting our skills, She is disdainful of the ortho- to get people to listen to your
imagination, courage and doxies of modern mainstream muscle she exercised study- ideas in the first place, she sug-
influence towards solving this feminism. “The depth of ing philosophy, and when she gests. So don’t we have a duty
crisis,” he says—even if only to thinking that came out of the used to teach the subject at to listen to everyone else? “We
ward off valid criticism from second wave,” she argues, has Roehampton and Middlesex should all read things we disa-
campaigners just like him. ♦ been sidelined and replaced universities, among others. gree with: misogynists, the far
Ellen Halliday with whatever “reactionary” Thanks to this background, right. Even if—perhaps espe-
movement we have now. Power explains, she commit- cially if—we find them abhor-
Power is matter-of-fact ted herself to the principle of rent. There is no person who
but not at all aggressive. She charity when dealing with ide- has a thought who doesn’t have
Nina Power
speaks in the manner you ological opponents. a reason for that thought.”
might expect of a philosopher: “I saw more room for Power’s dedication to radi-
Radical discursive, thoughtful, precise. polemic in my twenties—at cal open-mindedness may be

openness Her ideas wouldn’t make her

popular in a present-day uni-
that age everything feels more
urgent. And there still is room
unfashionable now, but there
is a growing sense that the
versity debating chamber, but for polemic, especially if it’s excesses of “cancel culture”
this wouldn’t trouble her. Long funny.” (She cites the acerbic and censoriousness have gone
gone, she says, is the compas- commentator Peter Hitch- too far.
Rural Wiltshire doesn’t offer sion she saw around her as a ens as the master of the rude The pendulum may be
much in the way of entertain- student activist in the 1990s. polemic.) “But when it comes about to swing the other way. If
ment for children. “The world In its place? A new culture of to the huge questions—like so, Power is one step ahead of
that existed to me,” Nina Power denouncement and censure. ‘what are our ultimate values?’— the pack. ♦ Finn McRedmond
says, “was the books my parents The 90s were “an extremely
owned and the music my dad positive time, in retrospect”,
played.” One song has stuck Power tells me. “But some-
with the philosopher, now in thing strange started to hap-
her early forties: Steeleye Span’s pen around 2013. The cultural
“Black Jack Davy”. She remem- milieu became less comradely,
bers her father asking her to less friendly, not done on an
transcribe it. “It’s about being understanding that everyone
an adventurer and a rogue. makes mistakes.” She chalks
And it was the first time I really up a lot of this shift to the digi-
thought about the relationship tal transformation, where now
between men and women.” people who are supposed to
The track clearly resonated be on the same team publicly
with the eight-year-old Power. chastise each other over every
As we split a sausage roll in a minor transgression.
busy corner of the Blue Boar This, of course, is an
in Westminster, we keep cir- unpleasant way to move
cling back to the same ideas. through the world. But Power
She is obsessed “on a cosmic thinks it inhibits our ability to
level” with the question of deal with important issues too.
how men and women relate to As she got older, she began to
one another, and how the two think more about the value of
sexes can exist harmoniously. being “reasonable”. This is a
 1st SHARE
Conference
© KING’S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE

In October ’22 the SHARE four-year research programme started

at Cambridge University to explore the prospects for a more
egalitarian form of capitalism. On Friday 14th April we’ll be hosting
our first half-day conference at King’s College, Cambridge.

The Conference is free of charge, and will provide an opportunity

to hear the underlying principles and planning for the programme,
more specific discussion of two propositions, for inter-generational
rebalancing and ‘Stock for Data’, and how we intend to build
momentum as the programme moves forward.

Friday 14th April | Registration and coffee from 9am | 9.30am start

Join us in person or online. Register your interest at:

reattendance.com/public/6040 and for more information on the
programme, please visit: sharealliance.org.uk

sharealliance.org.uk
12 PROSPECT / APRIL 2023
APRIL 2023 / PROSPECT 13

COVER STORY

FIXING
THE
CHANNEL
CRISIS
As ever-more people risk their lives in dangerous
crossings, David Normington—permanent secretary
at the Home Office the last time the department wrestled
with an enormous asylum backlog—explains what
politicians need to do: zoom out, understand the whole
problem and base their policies on actual evidence
14 PROSPECT / APRIL 2023

ore than 45,000 people climbed home secretary Suella Braverman failed ous journey in a small boat across a rough

M into small dinghies last year and

risked the perilous Channel
crossing in order to claim asylum in the
to purchase enough hotel rooms to house
arrivals, the Home Office’s temporary
holding facility at Manston became seri-
sea is, to them, one final risk worth taking
to get to the UK.
The attempts by the government to
UK. This compares with 1.1m migrants ously overcrowded. Children and fami- find increasingly extreme deterrents
who, it is estimated, came to the UK in the lies were held in unsafe conditions. There are, therefore, unlikely to work. Even if
year up to June 2022—and with the peak were reports of an outbreak of diphthe- they know about the Rwanda policy in
of 84,000 asylum seekers during the last ria and other diseases. If another symbol general terms, for example, today’s asy-
migrant “crisis” in 2002. were needed of the government’s loss of lum seekers are not going to be deterred
It would be relatively easy to absorb control, here it was, day after day on tel- by the theoretical threat—or, if it comes
into the country the 30,000 or so out of evision screens and on social media. to pass, the practice—of deporting a few
the 45,000 who are likely to be success- Against this background it might seem hundred people a year to Africa. Simi-
ful applicants, and in time most would brave—or foolhardy—of the prime min- larly, the prime minister’s recent prom-
become fully contributing citizens, like ister to make an unequivocal promise to ise to make crossings in small boats ille-
other refugees before them. So why have “stop the boats”. So what are the chances gal and, therefore, an automatic rea-
these people arriving by boat become of the situation being under control by son for deportation is, in all probability,
such a focus of public and media atten- the time of the next general election in futile. If migrants are desperate enough
tion? Why did the prime minister make 2024? While history does not repeat itself, to climb into small boats, declaring it ille-
“stop the boats” one of his five New Year are there lessons to be learned from the gal is unlikely to stop them.
promises to the British people? previous crisis, when the Labour govern- If this sounds defeatist, there are things
The answer is relatively simple. The ment did eventually reduce illegal arriv- that can be done, but the answer will
arrival of migrants in small boats by ille- als and get control of the asylum system? rarely lie in dramatic announcements.
gal means is an all-too-visible symbol of Instead it requires determined, consist-
the government’s apparent loss of con- A difference in risk ent and effective management of the asy-
trol of our borders. We expect our gov- It should be said, first, that this is a much lum system so that claims are processed
ernments to provide and safeguard the more intractable problem than in the ear- efficiently and those whose claims are
basic architecture of the state, including ly 2000s. At that time, people came in refused are deported swiftly. There must
a secure and defined frontier. When that the backs of lorries, in containers or hid- also be an international charm offensive
border is being crossed time after time den in the tiniest of spaces under trains to build relations with countries, such as
in broad daylight, we lose confidence in and other vehicles. This still happens to France and Albania, on which the success
the capability and competence of the some extent, but the evidence that these of the UK’s efforts both to deter the boats
government. The current government routes are largely closed can be seen in and to return asylum seekers depend.
knows this, just as the Labour hierarchy the very fact that migrants are resorting Judging by his statement to parliament
did in the early 2000s. It is why Rishi to small boats as their means of getting before Christmas and his early actions as
Sunak, like Tony Blair in 2002, has made across the Channel. There are often no prime minister, Sunak appears to under-
fixing it a personal priority. other options, and they are desperate. stand this better than his immediate pre-
The government’s performance in The government appears not to have decessors, who patently did not.
tackling the small boats problem has gen- understood this. Most of these asylum
erally been calamitous. As prime minister seekers make a totally different assess- Get on top of the backlog
and home secretary, Boris Johnson and ment of risk from the rest of us. Many of The first priority is to get on top of the
Priti Patel preferred headline-grabbing them have escaped oppression in their backlog of asylum cases. This will not be
announcements to the quiet diplomacy home countries. They have endured jour- easy. It will take time—particularly if ar-
and competent administration that the neys of terrible hardship and put their rivals continue to grow for the time be-
situation demanded. While they were money and their lives in the hands of ing—to reach the point where the num-
calling in the navy and finalising a so- criminal gangs and traffickers. A danger- ber of cases being decided exceeds the
called “world-leading” deal to send asy- number of cases being added. The prime
lum seekers to Rwanda, the numbers minister has promised to recruit and
arriving by small boats grew from an esti- train staff and to improve the productiv-
mated 300 people in 2018 to hit a total ity of those considering claims, but this
last year that is 150 times higher. is not a tap that can be turned on quickly.
The Home Office systems for dealing The government is also proposing
with asylum seekers, fragile at the best of If migrants are to fast-track 12,000 of the backlog by
times, virtually collapsed on their watch. desperate enough waiving the requirement for those asy-
The backlog of asylum cases was below lum seekers to have a face-to-face inter-
20,000 in the years up to 2014; by 2017 to climb into small view. Even so, without further interven-
it was 29,500. It is now around 160,000— boats, declaring it tions, the likelihood is that the backlog
and still growing. will grow further. When I arrived in the
Such was the backlog of asylum claims
illegal is unlikely Home Office as permanent secretary
by September 2022 that, when the new to stop them in January 2006, the backlog of claims
 APRIL 2023 / PROSPECT 15

most difficult aspect of the whole system.

People need papers to return to a safe
destination and many countries are not
very cooperative in providing those doc-
uments quickly, or at all. Those refused
asylum often use every legal means to
appeal their cases: it is not unknown,
for example, for injunctions preventing
deportation to be served on the Home
Office as flights are about to take off.
The government seems intent, in forth-
coming legislation, on severely restrict-
ing the legal means for asylum seekers
to appeal their cases. This is likely to be
fought in the courts, on the grounds that
it is against natural justice to remove all
rights of appeal against administrative
decisions by Home Office staff. As such,
even if the government can pass the leg-
islation this year, it seems unlikely to pro-
vide a quick fix.
© PA IMAGES / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Furthermore, failed asylum seekers

are liable to disappear, so it is vital to have
detention spaces where those awaiting
deportation can be held. There is never
enough such space. What there is fills
up quickly. There are constant pressures
to find or build more, but we have seen
No options: a group thought to be migrants crossing recently the resistance in communities
the English Channel in a small boat to having detention spaces in their towns
and villages. At the end of the process
there can be distressing scenes as those
being deported are dragged onto flights,
stood at 450,000—though the depart- with high turnover and poor adminis- often in handcuffs, kicking and scream-
ment’s systems were so poor that we trative systems. The result has been a ing. Flights can take off with just a hand-
never knew whether the number of files disastrous decline in productivity, dat- ful of the numbers originally planned.
matched the number of people. (It is ing back at least to 2015, long before the The worse news for Sunak is that the
quite likely that there was some double pandemic. Between 2011 and 2012 there government—increasingly reliant on
counting.) were around 380 caseworkers each policies that involve deporting people
We did everything then that the gov- deciding about 14 cases a month; by the quickly—has pretty much lost control of
ernment is promising now—setting up period 2021 to 2022, more than 600 case- the process for deportations.
a new division dedicated to tackling workers were each deciding about five The total number returned to their
the backlog, providing more resources, cases a month (just two initial decisions, country of origin includes both enforced
investing in training and development, when appeals are discounted). Unless and voluntary returns, the latter being
improving the quality of the decision tak- the underlying causes of this decline are cases where individuals agree to leave,
ing, changing processes and technology. addressed, there is no prospect of the often with financial assistance. The total
It took four years to reduce the backlog backlog being cleared. figure stood at 45,700 in 2010, and stayed
by two-thirds, and by then the cases that broadly at that level until 2016. It then
remained were often difficult to decide Deport unsuccessful asylum seekers declined sharply to 19,800 in 2019 before
due to lack of evidence or because the The second priority is to speed up the the pandemic, and then to 9,500 in 2021.
individuals could not be traced. deportation of those whose cases are re- Voluntary returns have fallen every year
An absolute key to success is effec- fused. This is vital to the success of the since 2015 (with a possible increase very
tive leadership from both politicians prime minister’s efforts to tackle the recently) whereas enforced returns have
and civil service managers. Reading small boats because elements of these declined every year since 2012. Depor-
accounts of the inside of the Home Office plans, including the Rwanda policy and tations should increase in number as
today, including by the chief inspector the proposed changes to the law, depend the pandemic effect recedes, but it will
of borders and immigration, one gets on the ability to deport swiftly. take a huge effort to reverse this long-
the overall impression of a demotivated The bad news for the government is term decline. It is not just Covid that is
workforce, badly paid and undertrained, that enforced deportation is probably the to blame.
16 PROSPECT / APRIL 2023

This part of the puzzle matters. On the the Albanian arrivals are young men who
other side of the Channel, those looking are unlikely to qualify as genuine asylum
to reach the UK may not know the finer seekers. It ought to be possible—with
detail of government policy, but they do the cooperation of the Albanian govern-
see that, once their friends and relatives ment—to consider their cases, detain,
get to the UK, the chances of them being re-document and return them within
refused asylum and getting deported are three months of their arrival or earlier.
very small at present. If they were instead to get caught up in
the backlogs and deportation failures,
Painstaking diplomacy or if there is not enough space to detain
The third priority is far more effective them pending deportation, or if the gov-
diplomacy and international relations— ernment’s public pronouncements con-
something to which the government has tinue to annoy Albania, then this would
arguably not given enough attention be another area of failure. Ensuring this
since we left the EU but which Sunak does not happen must be a priority for
looks willing to repair. One of the keys to the prime minister, the home secretary
turning around the crisis two decades ago and their officials.
was a strong relationship with the French Effective management and painstak-
government. France agreed to the UK ing diplomacy do not create headlines.
positioning its border checks at Calais Politicians of all parties are always going

© AMER GHAZZAL / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

and Coquelles, worked in partnership to search for simple solutions that some-
on enhanced security around the Chan- how no one has thought of before. But
nel ports, and closed down the huge San- beware of snake oil sellers.
gatte migrant camp. Most of those meas- Consider, for example, the govern-
ures remain in place and a traveller from ment’s radical and expensive Rwanda
France to the UK may still see young men proposition. Asylum seekers’ claims will
occasionally being dragged from under be considered on arrival by the Rwandan
lorries and the backs of vans by French government and, if accepted, they will
security officials. Bad dreams: home secretary Suella be given leave to remain with no right
Just as French cooperation was Braverman leaving Number 10 to return to the UK. As well as being
needed then, there is today no prospect unlikely to deter would-be refugees or,
of stopping or reducing the number of as the government would have it, “break
small boats without French help. Patel the smuggling gangs’ business model”,
knew this and her successor Braverman time it was agreed, it was a huge step, this plan is also cruel. Once Albanians
must too. Behind their negative rheto- the result of painstaking diplomacy. have been subtracted from the arrivals
ric, they have between them negotiated The same is needed now if we are to go and sent home, the majority of the rest—
and funded enhanced security patrols on beyond the limited new arrangements maybe 70 or 80 per cent—are likely to
the French beaches and joint exercises negotiated by recent home secretaries. have a genuine claim for asylum. It is dif-
to tackle the smuggling gangs. It is esti- The desirability of having returns ficult to understand how the government
mated that the French authorities are agreements with safe countries extends can morally justify giving these genuine
now stopping more than 30,000 peo- well beyond France. The government’s refugees a one-way ticket to Africa.
ple a year from leaving French waters, policy is that people coming from safe
although many are then released to try countries of origin or who have a connec- Create safe routes
again and again. tion to a safe country are inadmissible for A popular alternative proposition, in-
Good long-term relations with France asylum. The embarrassment is that (with cluding from some refugee agencies, is
might also eventually open up collabora- one exception) it has no returns agree- that the government should create more
tion on more radical solutions, includ- ments with any safe countries, so its abil- secure routes from outside the UK so that
ing allowing the UK to return failed asy- ity to send asylum seekers back to those people with an indisputable need for asy-
lum seekers to France or maybe even to countries is nil. The UK lost all its rights lum have a safe alternative to resorting
consider some asylum claims in France to return failed asylum seekers to the 27 to small boats. Here there is the germ of
rather than in the UK. The small boats countries of the EU, and to some others, a good idea that actually could under-
are a problem for the French too, particu- when we left the bloc and failed to nego- mine the smugglers’ business model and
larly for citizens living in towns and vil- tiate new arrangements as part of the would certainly be more humane. There
lages on the French coast. Brexit deal. It was a lamentable failure are, after all, already safe routes in place
It is worth remembering that in ear- and the consequences are all too plain. for those fleeing the war in Ukraine, for
lier times it was not a foregone conclu- The one exception is Albania, whose those from Hong Kong with British Na-
sion that France’s politicians would citizens made up between a quarter and tional Overseas status and for Afghans
agree to UK officials being stationed in a third of those crossing in small boats in who worked with the British pre-Tal-
the country to check passports. At the 2022. Albania is a safe country. Most of iban. (Although, to the government’s
APRIL 2023 / PROSPECT 17

shame, this last route seems not to be states. In a very short time, larger-than- A necessary conversation
working. The Afghan Citizens’ Resettle- expected numbers of migrants started It is difficult to have a debate about the
ment Scheme offers a pathway for those arriving. Many came from Poland: in scale of immigration without it becom-
who supported the UK and internation- the 2001 census there were 58,000 Pol- ing politically toxic on both the left and
al community effort in Afghanistan but, ish-born people in the UK, most of whom the right, not to mention stirring up ele-
so far, not a single Afghan has been reset- had come as refugees before or during ments of xenophobia and racism. But a
tled through it.) the Second World War; by 2011 the num- national conversation is needed on what
However, if safe routes are to be ber was 579,000. Public concern shifted we, as a nation, believe is a sustainable
expanded more generally, there need from asylum seeking and the Labour gov- level of migration in the long term, and
to be convincing answers to three ques- ernment was blamed for what some saw on an approach to asylum seeking more
tions. Who would be eligible? Where as unfettered immigration. Later, in the in line with Britain’s kinder traditions of
would they apply for asylum? How many Brexit referendum, the scale of immigra- welcoming refugees who are fleeing op-
would come? The danger is that more tion from the EU—the result, as many pression and persecution.
safe routes would simply become a draw saw it, of the bloc’s free movement pol- When I worked in the Home Office,
for even larger numbers of asylum seek- icy—became a reason to vote Leave. there were many debates in Whitehall
ers than those currently camped on the Is history about to repeat itself, in the about the rights and wrongs of immigra-
French coast, and act as an incentive to form of an emphasis on asylum at the tion policy. On one side—as is still the
people to come to the UK who had not expense of attention on wider numbers? case now—were those, often in the eco-
previously thought of it. No government It is arguable that, until recently, the gov- nomic and business departments, who
is likely to be willing to take such a risk. ernment has been so focused on the peo- saw legal immigration as an unadulter-
To sum up: if one weighs in the ple arriving in small boats that it has lost ated good, boosting the UK’s economic
balance the determination of some sight of the numbers coming legally to growth. On the other side were the rest
migrants to get to the UK whatever the live, work and study every year. of us, who heard the cries of some com-
risk, the broken asylum system with its The Conservative government came munities that change was happening too
huge backlogs and failing deportations, to power in 2010 promising to reduce net fast; worried about the pressures on hous-
the lack of returns agreements with migration—the number arriving minus ing and public services like health and
safe countries (except Albania) and the the number leaving—to under 100,000. education; and were concerned about
shortage of workable new ideas, then Setting aside the Covid period, that has the resentment and anti-immigrant feel-
there seem to be formidable hurdles in not been achieved in any year since the ing in some sections of the population.
the way of the government stopping the promise was made. The latest published Neither side was wholly wrong. In
boats anytime soon. figures show that net migration was a thriving economy we will need to be
On the most optimistic view, the gov- 504,000 in the year to last June—an all- able to welcome migrants for the skills,
ernment may be able to return some time record. It is, however, not EU immi- knowledge and enterprise they bring and
Albanian arrivals during 2023 (deter- gration driving that: more EU citizens for the way they enrich our cultural, artis-
ring others) and improve Home Office are currently leaving than arriving. tic and national life. In a civilised society
performance in processing claims and They are being more than replaced we must also meet our responsibilities
increasing deportations by 2024. That by arrivals from outside the EU. To be to those fleeing oppression and persecu-
could enable it to claim by the general fair, 2022 is likely to have been an excep- tion. At the same time, we ignore at our
election that the number of people arriv- tional year, with the numbers boosted by peril the pressure that excessive immi-
ing in small boats is declining. But a lot Ukrainians, British Overseas Nationals gration puts on population numbers and
has to go right for that to happen—and from Hong Kong and the general bounce the very real impact of that on communi-
the government needs to be on guard back in arrivals, particularly of students, ties, public services and public attitudes.
against a reduction in Albanian arriv- post-Covid. Nevertheless, since Brexit, It is a startling fact that the last year
als being replaced by arrivals from other the underlying trend of immigration in which there was net emigration from
countries, lured by the smugglers. looks to be continuing sharply upwards. the UK was 1993. Early 1990s estimates of
There is one final warning for the population growth underestimated the
government from the early 2000s. The UK population in 2023 by nearly eight
Labour government of the day did even- million—the majority of that growth
tually reduce the number seeking asylum driven by immigration levels that no one
to below 20,000 a year and got the back- would have predicted at that time.
log of case files down, but while it was There are signs that the government
doing so, the numbers of people arriv- As well as being is now more focused on mass immigra-
ing in the UK through legal migration very unlikely to ‘break tion, but inevitably it seems again to be
started to grow. looking for punitive solutions, which
This was exacerbated by a government
the smuggling gangs’ may do more damage than good to our
decision in 2004 not to put restrictions business model’, fragile economy. The home secretary is
on the entry of citizens from the new said, for example, to be considering new
member countries of the EU in cen-
the Rwanda policy restrictions to discourage international
tral and eastern Europe and the Baltic is also cruel students—a short-term fix that would
18 PROSPECT / APRIL 2023

undermine universities’ finances, deprive

ASYLUM
the country of some of the best brains
available and target groups in which the
majority will eventually go home any-
way. If we want a more sustainable level
of immigration and asylum—one that
rises or falls according to economic need
and the international situation, rather
than growing with virtually no pause, as

How
it has done for almost 30 years—then the
thing to look at is radical reform of the
labour market.
We need to wean the economy off

EUROPE
what is arguably its overdependence on
migrant labour. That means root-and-
branch reform of education and training
so that more UK citizens are equipped
to fill the skills shortages that bedevil
our economy. It means more support for
more UK students to go on to postgradu-
ate studies alongside the thousands who
does it better
come from China and elsewhere to take
advantage of education in our world-
class universities. It means long-term
workforce plans in health and social care
and other shortage sectors, to train more
of our own people for jobs that can often
only be filled at the moment by looking
overseas. Finally, we need more incen-
tives—better childcare, better wages
and conditions, further reform of uni-
Germany and France have imperfect asylum
versal credit and pensions—to persuade systems—but in recent years they have got one thing right,
people to stay longer in, or return to, the
says May Bulman
workforce, including the 300,000 aged
between 50 and 65 who have not returned
since Covid.
These are long-term policies, which ain (not his real name) recently of living? I think about death more than
governments are not very good at, par-
ticularly in the year before a general elec-
tion. However, their advantage, politi-
Z turned 22. He should be entering
the world of work, visiting new
places and starting to figure out his place
life.”
Right now, tens of thousands of peo-
ple across the country are similarly
cally as well as economically, is that they in society. But while he wishes all this for trapped in a prolonged state of hard-
involve positive measures to invest in the himself, it is not possible. Instead, after ship and uncertainty due to Britain’s
talents, skills and enterprise of the Brit- fleeing Syria and his family’s bombed-out paralysed asylum system. A system in
ish people, so that over time we are not home in 2015, he and his mother Nour which traumatised people from con-
so reliant on recruiting talented people live in a dingy hotel room, are banned flict-stricken countries are forced to
from overseas, often from countries that from working and must wait in limbo languish for more than a year, banned
can ill afford to lose those skills. for the UK government to determine from working—despite an acute short-
If this better balance in immigration their fate. age of workers in Britain—while living on
policy could be achieved, we might also Zain and Nour hoped that the UK support funded by UK taxpayers; a sys-
be able persuade the public that accept- would be the place where they would tem in which families are crammed into
ing 20,000 or 30,000 genuine asylum finally find refuge, but more than a year often overcrowded and unsanitary small
seekers each year—and perhaps letting after applying for asylum, they are still rooms for months on end, causing long-
them work while they wait for their asy- waiting for a decision. “It’s like being in term harm to children while costing the
lum claims to be decided—is the respon- prison. It’s hell,” says Zain, sitting in a cof- public purse £5.6m a day; a system that
sible act of a civilised country. This may fee shop in south London, not far from ministers have repeatedly promised to
seem like a pipe dream, but it is surely the hotel he calls home. He looks tired. fix, but which has become only more bro-
a better one than the home secretary’s Between them, he and Nour live on £16 ken. More than three in four asylum seek-
dream of putting refugees on a plane to in government support a week. “We are ers will ultimately receive a positive deci-
Rwanda and leaving them there. ♦ struggling,” he adds. “What’s the point sion—but until then, they’re stuck.
 APRIL 2023 / PROSPECT 19

The situation has not always been so But Britain isn’t the only country to Eurotunnel through which people used
desperate. In 2018, most people seeking see a rise in claims: last year, monthly asy- to cross from France in lorries—Brit-
refuge in the UK would receive a deci- lum applications across the EU reached ish ministers have gradually ratcheted
sion on their asylum application within their highest level since the so-called ref- up the narrative that asylum seekers
a year; in 2021, most had to wait for more ugee “crisis” in 2016. Yet other countries are a threat. Each year, the conversa-
than 18 months. handle asylum applications better. tion moves further to the political right;
Since 2019, the number of applica- The UK may no longer be part of the language that was unacceptable before
tions for asylum has doubled, while the EU, but it can help to look to our neigh- becomes mainstream.
number of asylum decisions made by the bours to compare both the scale of the In 2019, Sajid Javid was heavily crit-
Home Office has fallen by 10 per cent. In challenge and the possible responses. icised for questioning, as home secre-
the year ending September 2022, just Germany and France, two nations tary, whether people arriving in small
18,699 initial decisions were made. The with economies of a similar size to the boats were “genuine” refugees. His words
number of people waiting for an initial UK, are processing asylum cases much seem moderate, however, in comparison
decision has grown threefold since 2019, faster, despite both receiving more to those of his successor, Priti Patel, who
and 60 per cent in the past year alone. It claims than they used to and consider- repeatedly and wrongly referred to those
is now at a record high. ably more than the UK. crossing the Channel as “illegal migrants”.
Successive home secretaries have Immigration lawyers in both coun- This hostile rhetoric moved up another
pledged to fix what they describe as a tries are quick to point out that neither notch when Suella Braverman, the cur-
“broken” system (see Normington p12), system is perfect—France, in particu- rent home secretary, proclaimed last year
but so far none have succeeded. While lar, stands out as having a considerably that the rise in Channel crossings repre-
there’s been a lively debate about immi- higher asylum rejection rate than many sents an “invasion” of the south coast.
gration and asylum in the UK, any mean- other European nations—but why has This has been accompanied by a
ingful conversation about how to address asylum processing in the UK slowed steady flow of controversial, headline-
the system’s failings has been hindered down so dramatically, while similar-sized grabbing policy proposals pledging to
by a tendency to look inwards, as though economies in Europe have fared better? “stop the boats”—very few of which have
Britain is facing the challenges of surging As Channel crossings have increased— come to fruition:
migration alone. a result of bolstered security at the
2020: Send asylum seekers to remote
islands or disused oil platforms while their
applications are processed. Ditched.

2020: Create a “giant wave machine” off

the UK coast to repel small vessels. Among
the most outlandish proposals. Ditched.

2021: Have Border Force conduct illegal

“pushbacks”. Turning small boats back in
the Channel breaks international law. The
Home Office spent months trying to make
this happen, only to be forced to admit that
it couldn’t. Ditched.

2022: Send asylum seekers to Rwanda.

Under the notorious bilateral agreement
struck last April, the African nation would
take in UK asylum seekers in return for a
£120m upfront payment. Almost a year on,
the money has been handed over but no one
has been sent to Rwanda. Legal challenges
continue.

2022: Ban all Channel-crossers from claim-

ILLUSTRATION BY ADAM HOWLING

ing asylum—then deport them. No discre-

tion. No legal basis. No clarity on where they
would be deported to.

The point is that not only have the

Home Office’s avowedly tough plans
in recent years turned out to be largely
20 PROSPECT / APRIL 2023

performative, they’ve also been a damag-

ing distraction from meaningful reform.
Desperate attempts to implement
unworkable policies will have shifted
focus and resources from other essential
parts of the department. One of these is,
of course, asylum decision-making.
One civil servant who assesses appli-
cations told me they felt Home Office
ministers were pushing “unworkable,
attention-grabbing policies” for “politi-
cal clout”, in turn leading to the “neglect
of the fundamentals of how the asylum
system functions”.
Another Home Office staffer who
has been tasked with implementing ele-
ments of the Rwanda deal told me there
was a naive “assumption” in the upper
ranks of the department that sending
asylum seekers there would “bring arriv-

© JOERG KOCH/ANADOLU AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES

als right down”—and that, as a result,
there was “no plan B in place” in the
event that it didn’t work. Describing
ministers as having an “obsession” with
making the policy work, the civil servant
said there was a tendency to “ignore evi-
dence presented to the contrary”.
We know the Home Office has tight
budgets. Devising legally dubious plans
and ordering civil servants to execute
them, despite little to no evidence that All change: refugees arrive at Munich’s main
they will work, can only lead to the ero- train station in September 2015, after Hungary
sion of vital existing functions of the allowed them to pass through and travel west
department.

ata from our European neigh- to almost 10,000—making it the largest decisions to make, and the asylum sys-

D bours shows that there could be

a much simpler solution.
In 2015, Germany opened its doors to
asylum processing system in the world.
“That was a really good thing,” says Ger-
ald Knaus, co-founder of thinktank Euro-
tem didn’t collapse.”
France, too, has experienced a dra-
matic increase in applications and man-
refugees fleeing the Syrian conflict. The pean Stability Initiative. “It was a polit- aged to prevent the backlog of cases from
country saw a 267 per cent surge in first- ical decision to increase staff. During spiralling. In the four years to 2019, the
time asylum claims within two years, that time, they also improved the proce- number of people claiming asylum in
with more than a million people lodg- dures, more quality control. It worked. France almost doubled.
ing applications between 2015 and 2016. Suddenly there were considerably more The French government’s response?
This presented an immense challenge It also increased staffing and sped up the
for the German authorities. The average decision-making process. This approach
time taken to make an asylum decision has paid off. In 2021, more decisions were
increased from around four months to made than applications lodged. At the
more than a year, leaving swathes of peo- end of 2020, the backlog of pending asy-
ple waiting in limbo. The German elec- Desperate attempts lum cases was 84,000; one year later, it
torate was concerned about the influx of was just 49,500.
people; Angela Merkel’s usually high poll to implement Britain, in comparison, has failed to
ratings as chancellor slipped by several unworkable policies tackle the backlog. Rishi Sunak admit-
points. But, unlike the UK, Germany was ted last November that “not enough” asy-
pragmatic in its response. will have shifted lum applications were being processed.
German ministers launched a huge resources from other A recruitment drive led to the number of
recruitment campaign. The number of caseworkers rapidly increasing from 597
staff in its asylum department increased
essential parts of in 2019-2020 to around 1,276 at the end of
nearly fivefold between 2014 and 2016 the department last year—but this has not been accompa-
APRIL 2023 / PROSPECT 21

nied by any meaningful effort to improve

the speed at which cases are resolved.
Piling up In fact, the number of decisions made
In the UK, the gap between applications and decisions is growing, while the German by caseworkers has fallen over the same
and French asylum systems have largely kept up with the rise in claims period—according to analysis by the
Migration Observatory, an average staff
Asylum applications versus asylum decisions by the UK, 2012–2021 member made just two per month in the
year ending March 2022, compared with
eight in the year ending March 2016. This
decline can be attributed to several fac-
tors, including inadequate staff training,
low morale and a high turnover because
of a lack of career progression and pres-
sure to meet targets—none of which min-
isters appear to be addressing.
Maintaining a functioning asylum sys-
tem at a time when arrivals are rising is a
huge challenge, but the British govern-
ment’s response is only making it harder.
Ministers should focus on tackling the
asylum backlog as a priority, as Germany
and France have done when faced with
a considerable increase in claims. They
should concentrate on viable proposals
for safe and legal routes—an alternative
for people who may otherwise risk their
lives in the Channel. At present, these
refugee routes are largely restricted to
specific nationalities (Hong Kongers,
Decisions Applications Ukrainians, Afghans), and some are fall-
ing far short of what they promised.
They could go further and create an
Asylum decisions by the UK, Germany and France, 2012–2021 official pathway to the UK for people who
have already reached Europe. The Euro-
2016: Germany saw a pean Stability Initiative suggests that Brit-
spike in arrivals from Syria, ain could agree to take in 30,000 refugees
Afghanistan and Iraq
from EU countries in return for France
agreeing to accept returns of people who
have crossed the Channel. The latter part
of this idea raises ethical and logistical
challenges, but willingness to coordinate
with Europe around responsibility-shar-
ing could be helpful. It certainly holds
more potential than the Rwanda plan.
The UK’s “broken” asylum system
is a political choice. If the government
doesn’t change tack soon, and those in
power keep on trumpeting tough-sound-
ing but legally dubious and ultimately
futile solutions, more sensible oppor-
tunities to alleviate the backlog will
be missed. People will carry on risking
their lives crossing the Channel, growing
numbers of refugees like Zain and Nour
will languish at the public’s expense, and
our post-Brexit asylum system, which the
UK Germany France electorate was promised would bring
more control, will continue to unravel
Source: Eurostat at its seams. ♦
22 PROSPECT / APRIL 2023

IRAQ

THE FALLOUT
© SEAN SMITH/GETTY IMAGES
Two decades on from the US-led invasion, Iraq is still
suffering from the violence and corruption that the war left behind.
Lizzie Porter reports from Baghdad

wo weeks after Alaa Sadeq Faraj Shia Islamist militia that, like many oth- Six years after Alaa disappeared, with

T disappeared in 2007, another

man answered his mobile phone.
“It was an Iraqi man. He didn’t tell us that
er armed factions at the time, was con-
ducting kidnappings across central and
southern Iraq.
no proof of life available, the family con-
firmed his death in the Iraqi courts. They
showed me the paperwork that enabled
they had killed him. He just said, ‘Go to Mohammed believes that it was Alaa’s his widow and children to each receive
the morgue’,” recounts Alaa’s brother, kidnappers who used his phone, and that a monthly stipend of around $160 from
51-year-old Mohammed Sadeq Faraj. his body was never taken to a morgue but Iraq’s “Martyrs’ Foundation”, a state-
“We went to the morgue to check, and dumped in nearby farmland, never to be run body that supports relatives of those
we didn’t find his body.” seen again. “For one or two years, we kept killed, wounded and missing after dec-
Alaa was 34 years old on 15th Sep- looking for him. We tried everything. We ades of conflict.
tember 2007, the day he went missing asked everyone we knew, but nothing
while on shift as a government security turned up,” Mohammed says during an
guard north of Baghdad. His family be- interview at the Baghdad home where he Right: a palace in Baghdad is hit by US
lieve that he was killed by members of a raised Alaa’s three children as his own. bombing, March 2003
APRIL 2023 / PROSPECT 23
24 PROSPECT / APRIL 2023

The Faraj family’s story is harrowingly

typical of the trauma that still lives in mil-
lions of Iraqi homes. Kidnappings and kill-
ings were rife during the sectarian conflict
that gripped Iraq after the 2003 US-led in-
vasion to topple former dictator Saddam
Hussein. It is normal for multiple fam-
ily members to be dead or missing. It is
normal for Iraqi millennials to recount
childhood memories of corpse-strewn
streets, of moving out of their homes be-
cause al-Qaeda showed up, of narrowly
avoiding explosions.
Following the invasion, millions of Ira-
qis fled the country. More than 185,000
civilians died from violence between
2003 and February 2017, according to
the NGO Iraq Body Count. There are no

PHOTOGRAPHY BY LIZZIE PORTER

concrete figures on the missing, but the
International Commission on Missing
Persons says that up to a million people
have disappeared over decades of vio-
lence both before and after 2003.

wenty years after Saddam Hus-

T sein’s Ba’ath party fell, Iraq oper-

ates—on paper—as a federal dem-
ocratic republic with an autonomous
Mohammed Sadeq Faraj holds a picture of his brother Alaa,
who was kidnapped in 2007 and has never been found

Kurdish-majority region in the north.

Car bombs no longer rip through the
streets of the capital on a daily basis. Snip-
ers do not crouch atop buildings. Many now an MP. “Each state institution—the In the Opec group of oil-producing
fewer people are killed or kidnapped be- ministries and agencies—has problems nations, Iraq is the second largest pro-
cause of their sectarian or ethnic iden- as big as Iraq’s overall.” ducer after Saudi Arabia, but much of
tity. US troops no longer oversee an ug- The state simultaneously provides the subsidised fuel is imported because
ly network of concrete checkpoints that everything and nothing. Every year it authorities have not built enough refin-
once dismembered urban spaces. Islamic puts thousands of people on the pub- eries to process domestic crude.
State, which swept through Iraq and Syr- lic payroll in unproductive jobs-for-life While 4.5m people are employed in
ia in 2014, no longer controls swathes of and spends billions of dollars subsidis- the public sector—and another 2.5m are
territory. There are moments of joy: the ing fuel, the electricity network and basic on the retirement payroll—youth unem-
southern city of Basra recently hosted foodstuffs. It provides benefit payments ployment is high, at 35 per cent, accord-
the Arabian Gulf football tournament— to victims of violence stretching back to ing to the International Labour Organi-
and the Iraqi team won. the 1980s war with Iran. sation. The private sector is almost non-
But Iraq operates at a fraction of its po- Monthly spending on civil servants’ existent, thanks to a complicated set of
tential. It still carries the burden of mul- salaries, pensions and social welfare is vested interests and weak legislation.
tiple traumas—including disappearanc- roughly 7.3 trillion dinars (around $5bn), The number of government jobs acts
es like Alaa’s—amid ongoing cycles of vi- according to Mudher Saleh, an economic more like a “warranty institution” or a
olence and impoverishment. Incompe- adviser to the Iraqi prime minister. That “life insurance company” than actual so-
tence, corruption and dysfunction also eats up at least half of what Iraq makes cial security legislation does, says Saleh.
mean that successive Iraqi governments every month in crude oil sales, the state’s With the state having dominated so
have failed to build trustworthy insti- only substantive form of income, leaving many aspects of people’s lives for dec-
tutions, according to former ministers little for service upgrades. ades, there is an aversion to and even sus-
and officials themselves, as well as ana- As a result, infrastructure is crum- picion of private sector jobs, which come
lysts and political activists. bling. The subsidised electricity network with fewer guarantees and longer hours
“Unfortunately, the strategic politi- is so decrepit that in many places it only than government work. “It’s like, you sit
cal mindset in Iraq has not reached the provides 12 hours of power a day. Home- behind a desk, and the bigger the desk,
stage needed to build a state,” said Jawad owners and businesses resort to genera- the more important you are,” says Mus-
al-Bolani, who served as Iraq’s interior tors to make up the shortfall, their diesel ab Alkateeb, who has led various private
minister between 2006 and 2010 and is fumes smudging skylines countrywide. western firms’ Iraqi operations. People
APRIL 2023 / PROSPECT 25

view private sector work as “demeaning” says Hassan al-Janabi, a former minister helps them. The arrangement is broad-
or equate it with “debauchery of some of water resources. “I think I was the first ly known as al-muhasasa—a quota sys-
kind”, he adds. minister who brought in PowerPoint for tem, in which politicians divvy up posi-
Iraq’s leaders have not made the pro- my senior managers, and they were strug- tions within the state among themselves,
cess of recovering from years of conflict gling. They didn’t know how to use it.” strengthening their patronage networks
or building a stronger private sector any There is also an atmosphere of para- and enabling graft in the form of kick-
easier. In vast government institutions, noia and habit of top-down governance, backs and bribes.
hierarchical management and corrupt which both stem from Iraq’s history of Ot- “Altogether, and particularly in com-
practices reign. Employees and private toman and British occupation, Saddam’s parison to the Middle East, I think Iraq
sector workers who enter this maze de- dictatorship and the power-grabs that fol- still has democratic institutions that can
scribe frequent disputes between govern- lowed his removal. “The government’s re- be either further developed—or they can
ment departments that slow down deci- flexes after 2003 are very much based on fall apart,” says Marsin Alshamary, a re-
sion-making and officials who prefer to an autocratic system whereby it’s, ‘We are search fellow with the Harvard Kenne-
work in silos. in charge, you don’t get to tell us what to dy School.
“The vast majority of senior officials do—we tell you what to do.’ There’s no ex- Other characteristics of democracy
use their positions in their institutions change,” says Alkateeb. are constantly threatened, too. Across
to enrich themselves, their families and “Under Saddam and post-2003, [even] the country, journalists and activists who
grow their patronage networks,” says a water issues have been considered as a criticise powerful political players often
former Iraqi government official, on con- state secret, up to this very moment,” says go missing, or are detained or killed.
dition of anonymity. “Iraq is not led by its al-Janabi, who describes Iraq as “al-daw- Things are particularly brutal for
best and brightest or even cleanest. It is la al-aqima”—the sterile state—because Iraq’s women. So-called “honour” kill-
governed by the mediocre and greedy.” of its dysfunction and unproductiveness. ings take place frequently. In some areas,
Iraq comes 157th out of 180 countries women are visibly absent from public
in Transparency International’s latest raq today is a very young country: places. Girls are often not allowed out by
corruption index, and reports of officials
of all ranks taking kickbacks on govern-
ment contracts are common. Last year,
I around 40 per cent of its 42.2m peo-
ple are under 15 years of age, accord-
ing to the Planning Ministry. Its popula-
their parents, while female labour force
participation is just 11 per cent.
“As women, the biggest danger we face
authorities acknowledged that high- tion is growing fast, too, by 2.5 per cent a is that we don’t have the right to even de-
level bureaucrats had stolen $2.5bn from year, akin to many sub-Saharan African mand our personal rights—to choose
state-owned banks. The money has not countries and far above the World Bank’s what we learn or study, or to travel,” says
yet been fully recovered. 1.3 per cent average for the Middle East Maryam Samir Ali, a journalist and wom-
There is little incentive for most of- and north Africa. en’s rights activist. “It’s my right to choose
ficials to modernise or give up corrupt The youth bulge means that many Ira- my husband, the right person, whom I
practices—even when those practic- qis have no direct knowledge of what it want to share my life with; it’s my right to
es stop Iraq working in ways that might was like to live under Saddam Hussein. live somewhere I like, in safety. But, hon-
help ordinary people live better lives. They hear of his brutality from older fam- estly, we are deprived of all these things.”
“Public sector officials are well paid and ily and friends, but they are not satisfied While freedom is fragile, some ba-
have jobs for life, so their motivation is with their current leaders, either. sic indicators of quality of life have im-
to maintain the status quo and avoid re- While elections take place and anyone proved. The number of children dying
forms,” says Sajad Jiyad, a Baghdad-based can set up a civil society group or politi- under the age of five has nearly halved,
political analyst. cal party, many Iraqis feel that the pow- from 45 in 1,000 live births in 2000 to
A major feature of the Iraqi state in er-sharing system at the core of the 25 in 2020. Sanctions on Saddam’s re-
2023 is a lack of digitisation. In labyrin- country’s politics hinders rather than gime long isolated Iraq from the world,
thine ministry buildings, stacks of papers and their removal enabled access to trav-
presented to ministers for signing in gold el, foreign goods and the internet. But
files symbolise public sector inertia. This that’s little comfort to the millions of Ira-
breeds opportunities for corruption, as qis who live on a pittance and cannot af-
the paper-based systems make it easier ford those things now anyway.
to hide illicit payments. Again, there is
no incentive to reform because many of-
Iraq’s leaders The country’s poorest province is
Muthanna, a four-hour drive south of
ficials fear relinquishing power.
Old-fashioned systems also make it
have not made Baghdad. Most areas here have poverty
rates of over 40 per cent, where poverty
hard for Iraqi officials to communicate
with foreign firms looking to invest in the
the process of is defined as having to live on less than
105,000 dinars (around $70) a month, ac-
country, handicapping efforts to bring in
the sort of jobs and wealth that would re-
recovering from cording to a World Bank study.
Al Hilal is one of Muthanna’s poorest
duce public sector bloat. “Very few peo- years of conflict areas—nearly three-quarters of its pop-
ple there [in the ministry] have emails— ulation lives in poverty. When I visit,
the communication is just paper -based,” any easier Enhaira Raheyef Shannan points to the
26 PROSPECT / APRIL 2023

cracks in the ceiling of the shack where that’s my first and foremost lesson—this
she lives. She is tiny inside the folds of her Girls are question of, just what is the ability of an
black abaya, her rasping cough a painful
interruption to every sentence. often not allowed outside power to impose a new regime on
a country like Iraq?” says Douglas Lute,
There is no air conditioning to ease
the 50°C heat of an Iraqi summer, and
out by their who was George Bush’s deputy national
security adviser on Iraq and Afghanistan.
no escape from the damp of winter rain.
“When it rains, I feel like a duck,” she ex-
parents, while “I think the Iraq experience should give
us pause—or better, perhaps, humility—
claims, with the sort of resigned humour
so common among Iraqis. “I stand out-
just 11 per cent in our ability to impose an answer from
the outside.”
side in the rain because I’m scared of the of women are In 2023, many Iraqis’ lives are char-
roof falling in on me.” acterised by what is missing: the loved
Her son, Saad Aouni Abed, lives next employed ones they have lost, like Alaa and Hedi;
door in a similar breeze-block hut with the lack of opportunity offered them by
his daughter and wife. Their home has a dysfunctional government; the mon-
a dirt floor and bits of plastic covering ey wasted on kickbacks; and the hours
the bare windows. Saad brings in around of productivity lost to power cuts. The
100,000 dinars a month from casual la- where friends had promised they would country’s young population still has so
bour jobs on nearby farms—not enough work together in a barber’s salon. “He many reasons to want to live fuller lives.
to support his family. Enhaira clutches left because he didn’t have work here: “They want to feel that they are human
a wizened handful of foraged leaves cov- our parents are sick, and he was trying beings,” says Maryam, the women’s rights
ered in soil—it will make for a free meal. to get a job to help them,” says Hedi’s sis- activist. “They don’t want to feel like they
“Security is better these days, but in terms ter, 32-year-old Saresh Khdir. The on- are constantly a slave to things—a slave
of cost of living, it’s really hard,” says Saad. ly reminders the family has of Hedi are to their bosses, to their families, to their
“I borrow money to pay for food.” photos and a peace lily that he potted be- surroundings, society, and its traditions
In northern Iraq’s Kurdistan region, fore he left—one of many joyful plants in and norms. It’s our most basic right and
whose autonomy was recognised in the a home filled with sorrow. we feel as though we cannot breathe.” ♦
2005 constitution, instability and un- What can the world learn from Iraq
employment are driving people to leave. and the failures of the US-led invasion? Additional reporting: Stella Martany
The town of Qaladze sits among gracious Perhaps that there are limits to superpow- in Qaladze and Ahmed al-Haddad
mountains, but hope is seldom found ers’ abilities to nation-build. “Personally, in Baghdad
here. It was razed by Saddam Hussein—
the wider area was one of the first to re-
bel against him, in a 1991 uprising—and
while the town was rebuilt, today people
cannot find jobs. They feel let down by
their current leaders.
Many say that the two political fami-
lies that dominate the Kurdistan Region-
al Government (KRG), the Barzanis and
the Talabanis, have enriched their co-
teries at the expense of the man on the
street. “We revolted against Saddam be-
cause we wished for a prosperous, dem-
ocratic and civilised Kurdistan, but it
didn’t turn out like that,” says Abu Bakr
Bayez, Qaladze’s mayor. “Why do you
think people are leaving? They wouldn’t
unless they felt they had to.”
In the past two years, 7,000 young
PHOTOGRAPHY BY LIZZIE PORTER

people emigrated from the Qaladze area

alone, Bayez says. Many take dangerous
smugglers’ routes to Europe. Some go
missing on the way, adding to the thou-
sands of Iraqi souls already lost to war.
One of them was Hedi Khdir Abdalla,
22, who vanished after the boat he was
travelling in sank off Crete in July 2021. Enhaira Raheyef Shannan stands outside the rough breeze-block hut
He had been aiming to get to the UK, that is her home in Al Hilal, Muthanna province
APRIL 2023 / PROSPECT 27

George Rosie
What would
Tom Nairn do?
t had been an odd few days. were Anthony Barnett, Judith Well, maybe. But what kind byterianism. His 1970 essay

I On my way to the funeral

of the great political
thinker Tom Nairn on a Friday
Herrin, Pat Kane, Gordon
Brown and Neal Ascherson. “A
good man”, is how Ascherson
of dream? And if a new SNP is
indeed aborning, who’ll be its
midwife? By Monday, Angus
“The Three Dreams of Scot-
tish Nationalism” ended with
a passage that is now famous
in mid-February, I ran into an ended his short but moving Robertson (originally the (or notorious) north of the bor-
elderly acquaintance I hadn’t eulogy to his old friend. bookies’ favourite to replace der. “As far as I’m concerned,”
seen for years. I knew him to be The eulogies to Tom were a Sturgeon) and John Swin- Tom wrote, “Scotland will be
a well-read man and a Labour lot kinder than those handed ney had ruled themselves out, reborn the day the last min-
party supporter but with Scot- out to Sturgeon’s career as first along with Keith Brown and ister is strangled with the last
tish nationalist sympathies. minister. The London press Neil Gray. That left Humza copy of the Sunday Post.” To
I had time on my hands, so I were downright jubilant. Two Yousaf (tipped as Sturgeon’s date, the Kirk’s clergy remain
stopped to chat. “They’ll baith days after her resignation, choice), Ash Regan (doughty unstrangled and the Sunday
be sair missed” summed up Friday’s Daily Telegraph had enemy of the Gender Recogni- Post continues (although it’s
his feelings about Tom’s death Alan Cochrane calling on the tion Reform Bill) and the mil- not the mighty organ it was
and Nicola Sturgeon’s sudden pro-Union parties to “work lennial Kate Forbes vying for when Tom penned his words,
resignation. We agreed that together to smash the inde- the job. Interestingly, Forbes and neither is the Church of
nobody had explored Scot- pendence movement”. “Scot- was seen by Fraser Nelson (in Scotland such a potent pres-
land’s many social and politi- tish independence referen- the Daily Telegraph) as a big- ence in Scottish politics).
cal pathologies better than dum plan ‘dead in the water’” ger threat to the Union than Regardless, whoever takes
Tom, and in his opinion it was ran a headline in the Times, Sturgeon—Rod Liddle (in the over the SNP will have their
Sturgeon who made the (often while one of its contributors, Sunday Times) called her “ter- work cut out. The toxic Gen-
fractious) SNP into a formida- the poet Hannah McGill, rifying” to unionists—on the der Recognition Reform Bill is
ble political force. declared: “I once shared her grounds that her ardent Chris- still around; the ploy of using
“But she’s cauld kail now, beliefs, but the personality cult tian values might appeal to the next general election as a
and has been for a while,” he around Sturgeon chilled my Scotland’s more conservative de facto referendum is being
added. “It happens to them all. blood.” voters. (Though, as a Wee Free spoken of as a mistake; grum-
That business wi’ the island fer- By Sunday the commen- who has admitted on air that blings are being heard about
ries did her nae guid. I canna tariat were insisting that Scot- she would vote against equal our high(ish) rate of income
see much improvement in the land’s political tectonic plates marriage given the chance, her tax; and Scotland’s business
health service. And yon gender had shifted and that inde- appeal might be more limited folk are still hopping mad
bill, that was sheer daftness. It pendence was more or less off than they think.) about the way (they claim) that
put her and her supporters into the agenda for another genera- A victory for Forbes could commerce and industry have
a fankle that they might never tion. Michael Glackin in the be troubling to the shade of been disregarded. Meanwhile,
get oot o’. She should have kent Sunday Times declared that the late Tom Nairn. In his Salmond’s splinter party, Alba,
better. I canna see Alex Sal- Sturgeon had been an out-and- meditations on the frailties of will be sniping from the side-
mond making a mistake like out disaster who had wrecked Scotland, Tom liked to ascribe lines while the Greens com-
that, can you?” I had to admit I the economy, damaged the some of them to Scottish Pres- plain from within the coali-
couldn’t. health service, set education tion. And he or she will have to
An hour later I sat in a south back decades and, instead of operate, for a year or so at least,
Edinburgh crematorium wait- working sensibly for inde- in what Tom Nairn, in his
ing for Tom’s funeral service pendence, “chose grandstand- book After Britain, described
to begin. At his behest, it was ing and virtue signalling”. The as a Tory-run “nether king-
a modest affair, in one of the following day, Jim Gallagher, If a new SNP dom of dinge, sleaze, rigor
crematorium’s smaller chap- a pro-Union thinktanker, mortis constitutionalism,
els. Around 30 of us, including wrote in the Times that “Last
is indeed tread-water triumphalism and
Tom’s family, had come to pay week was the petering out of a aborning, anti-European xenophobia”.
our respects to one of the fin- nationalist project. Sturgeon’s For my money’s worth, I’d say
est minds that modern Scot- dream is dying, and a new one
who’ll be its Scotland’s political waters are
land had produced. Among us is coming to birth.” midwife? turning distinctly choppy. ♦
28 PROSPECT / APRIL 2023

Sarah Ogilvie
The joy of lex:
Nepo baby
t smacked of sexism when the BBC preference to a relative in conferring than non-nepo babies. But the gain dwin-

I reported earlier this year: “World’s

richest man promotes daughter to
head Dior”. I don’t remember seeing such
a position or privilege, from the Latin
nepot-, “nephew”) was first written in Eng-
lish by Samuel Pepys, but it came from
dles over time, as nepo babies stay in their
jobs longer while others overtake them by
finding new roles with better pay.
a headline when the same man, Bernard the archaic Italian form nipotismo, refer- The study found a gender and race
Arnault, appointed his four sons to lead- ring to the favouritism shown to an ille- divide among nepo babies, too. Most fol-
ership roles in Dior’s holding company, gitimate son (disguised as a “nephew”) by lowed in the footsteps of the parent who
LVMH. I guess it doesn’t count if Del- a pope or other dignitary. shared their gender, with daughters
phine Arnault has already proved she’s more than twice as likely to work for their
worth her salt after a successful 10 years mother’s employer and sons 1.5 times
as executive vice president for Louis Vuit- more likely to work for their father’s (the
ton (another of her father’s businesses).
It’s not just the rich who main exception being black men, who
The message was that she was a “nepo create nepo babies were less likely than white men to work
baby”, someone who got where they are for their fathers). Because of the gender
because of a famous relative. pay gap, sons earned more than daughters.
It’s a charge that few famous faces A recent study of 26m Americans by For now, though, the interwebs is busy
can escape these days—including some the economist Matthew Staiger at Har- “outing” nepo babies, from Justin Trudeau
unlikely ones, such as the apostolic suc- vard showed that it is not just the rich to George Bush. Hailey Bieber was called
cessor to Saint Peter. On Twitter, users who create nepo babies. Favours are cur- a “double nepo” because her father is the
have been asking: “Is the Pope a nepo ried right through the social classes, espe- actor Stephen Baldwin and her husband
baby? Let’s discuss.” cially in blue-collar jobs like construction. the pop star Justin Bieber. She retorted by
Ironic that the Pope should be jok- A third of Americans work for the same wearing a crop top with “nepo baby” writ-
ingly accused of being a nepo baby. The employer as a parent in the early years of ten across it. The perfect Gen Z response:
word nepotism (the showing of unfair their careers and earn 17 per cent more own your weakness, and your privilege. ♦

STEPHEN COLLINS
APRIL 2023 / PROSPECT 29

Julian Baggini
Philosopher-at-large:
The pursuit of happiness

A
fter life and liberty, the US Dec- satisfied you. It has the pseudo-profound a life of pleasure was one of ataraxia: free-
laration of Independence identi- whiff of the Yoda about it: “Only by dom from anxiety.
fies “the pursuit of Happiness” as accepting happiness is unattainable is In the west today, however, happiness
an “unalienable Right”. No nation, how- happiness attained.” is often what people say they most want.
ever, has been foolish enough to assert We are caught between the promise The philosophical basis of this comes
the right to possess, rather than just pur- of satisfaction and the constant feeling from utilitarianism, which promotes “the
sue, happiness. Even Bhutan, whose con- of dissatisfaction, with our more realistic greatest happiness of the greatest num-
stitution enshrines “Gross National Hap- selves trying in vain to keep our hopeful ber” and was founded in the 18th cen-
piness”, pledges merely to “enhance” its selves in check. There is no way out of this tury by Jeremy Bentham before being
people’s happiness and wellbeing. so long as our culture continues to valor- developed by John Stuart Mill. Nietzsche
There can be no right to happiness ise happiness, pressuring us always to be ridiculed it, saying, “Mankind does not
because, as philosopher Mary Warnock looking for means to achieve it. strive for happiness; only the English-
put it, “I do not think that it makes sense The very idea that happiness is the man does that.” But, today, utilitarian-
to say that you have a right unless some- greatest good needs to be challenged. ism in its “hedonic” form has become the
one has a duty to make sure you get what A cursory survey of global philosophies default secular mode of moral and polit-
you claim.” Rights to life and liberty might suggest it is a universal ideal, but ical thinking across the western world.
may be universal. Nations can only add happiness as we understand it today has Increasingly, governments are seen as
rights to education, housing and so on rarely been seen as the main goal of life. having an obligation to promote happi-
when they become prosperous enough Rather, it is something we get when we ness, even if citizens don’t have a right to
to deliver them; no state, rich or poor, can achieve a more worthwhile end. demand it. In this context, since 2012, the
promise to deliver happiness. In Confucian philosophy, the high- Office for National Statistics has been col-
Yet in wealthy countries, the idea that est good is harmony: social, familial and lecting data on subjectively reported hap-
happiness is within everyone’s reach has psychological. Although harmony boosts piness, life satisfaction, the feeling that
worked its way into the collective psy- our happiness, happiness is more a wel- the things done in life are worthwhile,
che. It has come to be seen as a reasona- come side effect than the primary objec- and anxiety. The results suggest that, even
ble expectation, close enough to a natural tive. In the majority of traditional Indian though these aren’t the same things, they
right to be confused for one. philosophies, the ultimate goal is moksha: tend to rise and fall together. The most
Consumer culture doesn’t help, bom- liberation from the cycle of rebirth. The plausible explanation is that happiness is
barding us with promises of the perfect happiness that comes from this is not the result of a life that is high in satisfac-
this, that and the other. But it is not just like that experienced in ordinary life; it tion and meaning, and low in anxiety. If
advertisers who tantalisingly dangle the results in the dissolution of the individual so, perhaps we should not make the pur-
promise of happiness before us. Academ- ego as it returns to unity with Brahman, suit of happiness our primary goal, but
ics write books on how ancient philoso- the universal self. Aristotle is often said rather seek the things we most value and
phies can bring us happiness, and even to have considered happiness the highest enjoy whatever happiness follows. Then
the Dalai Lama packages his teachings good. In fact, the word he used was eudai- we would be less seduced by the promises
as recipes for contentment, as in his best- monia, better translated as “flourishing”. of happiness hacks and, paradoxically,
selling The Art of Happiness. Serious news- As for the hedonist Epicurus, his ideal of would be much happier as a result. ♦
papers include articles about bulletproof
hedonic boosters such as “forest bathing”
and hygge. Little wonder that when hap- When happiness Write to Julian
piness eludes us it can feel like a personal
failure to possess what is rightfully ours. eludes us it Each month Julian Baggini offers a
Even if we know we have been sold can feel like philosophical view on current events.
an unrealistic ideal, that merely opens The idea for this column’s theme came
the door to a subtler sales pitch. There is some kind of from Richard Heller
now a whole genre centred on the idea personal failure
that perfection is impossible, vulnerabil- Email editorial@prospectmagazine.co.uk
ity essential and heartbreak inevitable.
to possess what is with your suggested topics, including
Accepting this is the route to a content, rightfully ours “Philosopher-at-large” in the subject line
30 PROSPECT / APRIL 2023

ECHOES OF HISTORY

© BEATA ZAWRZEL/NURPHOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES

IF POLAND
Poland is with you: the
country said in January
it would release Leopard
tanks to Ukraine with or
without German permission

FINDS PEACE
Warsaw has been one of Kyiv’s loudest champions since war
by
returned to Europe. But one country can have multiple truths, NEAL ASCHERSON
and Poland has still not decided which to believe
APRIL 2023 / PROSPECT 31

ong ago, as the interminable years now Putin: all unable to keep their claws touches an agonising Polish nerve. Twice

L of the Cold War dragged by, a Pol-

ish exile in Paris had some mad
ideas. Count Jerzy Giedroyc, editor of
off Russia’s western borderlands, reduc-
ing them to servile satrapies or boot-
trampled Muscovite backyards.
in history, those two great neighbours
dropped their mutual dislike to divvy
up the pesky, defiant country between
the émigré periodical Kultura, said that But that is only half the truth. Poland them: in the 18th-century partitions and
the mighty Soviet Union was going to must survive with two enormous neigh- in the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939, when Hit-
fall apart. And not only that. When it bours, not one. For much of recent his- ler and Stalin agreed that the Poland page
did, Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania, all tory, Prussia and its German Reich suc- should be torn out of the European atlas
Soviet republics, would become inde- cessor have been as contemptuous of Pol- for ever. Nothing can redact that treach-
pendent nation states. ish independence as Russia. The need to ery and the ensuing horrors out of collec-
His readers were shocked that Kultura look for protection from one neighbour- tive memory—although Poland’s Com-
was printing such ridiculous fantasies. ing power against the other has been munist party regime vainly tried to do so.
Even worse, given that large slices of all strong. At present, Poland is linked to Ger- The government in Warsaw has been
three had been Polish provinces before many via Nato and the EU, but it’s a strik- dominated in recent years by the PiS
Stalin invaded and annexed them after ingly unaffectionate alliance. When she and its allies. Populist, morally repres-
1939, Kultura was saying that a future was Germany’s chancellor, Angela Mer- sive and hyper-patriotic, the PiS chips
Poland must accept those new frontiers, kel was accused of hankering for a special away at constitutional and legal limits
and the loss of the ancient cities of Lwów relationship with Putin’s Russia; the new on its power as its supporters infiltrate
and Wilno (Lviv and Vilnius). Nord Stream gas pipelines were laid from civil society and the media. Today, it is
But the old count was right. And, mer- Russia to Germany, conspicuously avoid- firm and loud in its support for Ukraine’s
cifully, the two men who created Poland’s ing Poland. And now the right-wing Law struggle. But how sound, really, is its
foreign policy after the collapse of com- and Justice (PiS) government in Warsaw, commitment to the integrity of its three
munism, Bronisław Geremek and Tade- nervous about the general election due eastern neighbours? At the war’s outset,
usz Mazowiecki, had been faithful read- this autumn, is encouraging anti-German when it looked as if Ukraine was being
ers of smuggled-in Kultura. They planted paranoia. Its propaganda suggests that swiftly overrun, there were curious wob-
Poland in the “Giedroycian” position, Polish opposition politicians—including bles from politicians and regime journal-
where it remains. This stance involves Donald Tusk, back from Brussels where ists. What if Ukraine broke apart? What
respect for the independence of the he was chairman of the European Coun- role might Poland play in what had been
three new states; no “revanchist” claims cil—are secret agents in a German plot to western Ukraine (and part of pre-1939
on lost territories within their frontiers; take control of the EU and force degener- Poland)? On the other wing, some liberal
and a duty to help each of them towards ate western permissiveness on heterosex- intellectuals in Poland wondered how
democracy, prosperity and (with Russia ual Catholic Poland. democratic a victorious postwar Ukraine
looming over them) security. Warsaw constantly snipes at Berlin for might be, in light of its historical authori-
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a year ago lack of enthusiasm about the Ukrainian tarian tendencies.
put that policy to the test. Today, as Pres- war. But this is not so much about con- But the truth is that Ukrainian-Polish
ident Biden gratefully acknowledged on cern for Ukraine as out of suspicion of any relations have never been warmer than
his recent visit to Warsaw, Poland is the German-Russian rapprochement. This they are now, in the midst of war. Given
most vigorous European supporter of the past, that’s a wonder. Much of
Ukraine’s struggle. More than two mil- Ukraine west of the Dnieper—and much
lion Ukrainian refugees were welcomed of Belarus and Lithuania—was effectively
into Poland in the months following “colonised” by Polish landowners in pre-
Putin’s attack; this January, Poland was vious centuries, incomers whose lan-
the only state to declare that it would guage, religion and culture were usually
give its Leopard tanks to Ukraine with or quite alien to the peasant masses work-
without German permission. The Polish ing their estates. (The English ascendancy
prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, in Ireland felt much the same.) After the
keeps calling on his European Union First World War, as Ukrainian nation-
partners to do more for Kyiv, materially alism began to crystallise, the western
and diplomatically. And to outsiders, regions of Ukraine were annexed with
Poland’s furious reaction seems natural. fierce fighting by the new Polish Repub-
After all, hasn’t Russia been the ancestral lic. In the Second World War, Ukrainian
enemy of Polish independence down the nationalist partisans supported by the
centuries, twice taking part in the blood- Isn’t Putin doing Nazi invaders carried out genocidal mas-
soaked abolition and partition of the Pol- sacres of the Polish and Jewish popula-
ish state? Isn’t Putin doing to Ukraine to Ukraine what tion in the province of Volhynia—crimes
what the empress Catherine II did (over Catherine II did to only recently, after years of silence, admit-
largely the same battlegrounds) to the old ted and brought towards reconcilia-
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in
the Polish-Lithuanian tion. And yet in the Orange Revolution
the 18th century? Catherine, Stalin and Commonwealth? between 2004 and 2005, when young
32 PROSPECT / APRIL 2023

Ukrainians occupied the streets of Kyiv in

protest against monstrous political mis-
rule, young Poles by the thousand poured
over the border to help, waving their red-
white “Solidarity” banners—and were wel-
comed without a word about the “Polish
imperialism” of their forefathers.
Since the invasion a year ago, the

© PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE/ZUMA PRESS WIRE SERVICE

Ukrainian cause has been rewarded
in two ways. As the latest Biden visit
showed, Poland—always deeply and sen-
timentally pro-American—has been pro-
moted to Washington’s favourite ally in
central Europe. And that in turn has
sharply strengthened the hand of the
PiS government in its long quarrel with
the European Union. Membership of
the EU remains solidly popular. There’s
no appreciable movement for a “Poxit”;
in fact, the sense that Poland is actually United against a common foe: Jarosław Kaczyński, leader of Poland’s ruling Law
more European than anybody else— and Justice party, shaking hands with Volodymyr Zelensky in March 2022
through its old myth-role as “the bastion
of western Christian civilisation” against
the barbarian east—is still alive.
But that has not restrained PiS—and patries, almost on de Gaulle’s model: an Research Group at Westminster, have
the radical-right within the Catholic alliance of fully sovereign nation states, disproportionate influence on the gov-
Church—from lurid abuse of the EU as within Nato but independent of Brussels, erning party. Zbigniew Ziobro, minister
a godless fount of moral and sexual lax- which would include post-Brexit Britain of justice and leader of the PiS splinter
ity, and as a “Germanised” conspiracy rather than just the EU’s present mem- United Poland, says ominously that the
to overrule the right of independent bers. But the first obstacle to such visions country cannot remain an EU member
nations to make their own laws. Brussels is domestic. PiS no longer looks invinci- at all costs. The far-right party Confed-
saw the PiS campaigns to disable consti- ble and its hold on parliament is thin, eration, a fogeyish little collection, “lives
tutional restraints on the executive, and dependent on two small but extreme in the pre-1914 world” according to one
to undermine the independence of the groupings. “National megalomania”— commentator. Some members plainly
judiciary, as clear breaches of the EU’s a phrase coined by that Paris Kultura— inherit the policies of the National
commitment to the rule of law. After describes some of the postures struck by Democrats, the most powerful nation-
fruitless talks, the EU suspended Polish these factions, which, like the European alist movement in that distant period,
access to badly needed funding (€35bn in exhibiting autocracy, xenophobia
Covid compensation grants) and is fining and antisemitism.
Poland for non-compliance. Last sum- For now, Putin has fastened Poland
mer Jarosław Kaczyński, leader and co- tightly into the west. If this autumn’s
founder of PiS and effectively the most elections replace PiS with a liberal oppo-
powerful figure in the country, declared sition, the bond will be even stronger.
that Poland would never give in to black- And yet Giedroyc’s ghost would warn of
mail: “We do not fit into the German- another supreme but unfinished busi-
Russian plan to rule over Europe.” Since ness: Poland’s relationship to Russia. Fifty
then, however, a look at the money mar- years ago, in grim Soviet times, his best
kets (and probably at the awful fate of
The sense is that columnist wrote: “We must seek contact
Liz Truss at their hands) has persuaded Poland is actually and understanding with those Russians
Poland to offer tactical reforms to its more European who are prepared to recognise the full
legal programmes. right to self-determination of the Ukraini-
It is Poland’s much-admired sup- than anybody else, ans, Lithuanians and Belorussians.” When
port for Ukraine, rather than the vague through its old such men and women govern Russia—and
prospect of those concessions, which one day they will—then not only Poland,
may persuade the EU to relent and myth-role as not only those borderlands, but all Europe
unlock funds. But beyond its authori- ‘the bastion of can feel safe. And that ascetic, chain-
tarian offensive at home, Kaczyński’s smoking old editor, who saw light ahead
party plays with an alternative future
western Christian when others saw only darkness, can rest
for Europe. This would be a Europe des civilisation’ in his Paris grave. ♦
 APRIL 2023 / PROSPECT 33

Diary
Joe Lycett,
comedian

A
fter a long and intense period of was held in the depths of Broadcasting did the rounds; one that particularly
reflection our (former) great lead- House, in a space reminiscent of a school delighted me showed a man pushing a
er Liz Truss has returned to pub- canteen, with jolly staff and a stainless small domino with “I’m very right wing
lic life to edify us with an overflowing cup steel track so you could slide your tray and I loved it” on it, ending with a much
of her percolations. Personally, I was ex- along the service hatch in a pleasing fash- larger domino etched with “the total col-
cited to hear her finally acknowledge the ion. On the way there I had to get into a lapse of the UK government”. Everyone
harsh truth about the end of her premier- lift, which I walked to with Labour MP was in agreement: I had eradicated a Brit-
ship. At time of writing, she has not. Emily Thornberry. A lift appeared and I ish prime minister… and all on my own!
For the truth is that I, but a young lad stepped inside, but Thornberry saw who Imagine, for a ghastly moment, a world
from the streets of Birmingham, plant- else was in there and wisely waited for the without me. My seat on the Kuenssberg
ed a fertile seed on the eve of her ascent next one. I later learned I was falling into show would’ve been occupied by Fraser
that germinated quickly and devastat- the ground with Richard Sharp, the BBC Nelson from the Spectator, or another co-
ingly. Within weeks we were all within chairman (at the time of writing, lol!!), median of my calibre, perhaps Timmy
the wreckage. Some will tell you that it whom I had never heard of, but then I Mallett. While I am a loyal fan of both,
was her own blind ambition, her refusal am not capable of arranging loans for neither would’ve conducted such a mas-
to consult experts, or powerful market financially struggling prime ministers. terclass in biting satire. Neither would’ve
forces that ended her. No, reader, it was He said something unmemorable to me torpedoed the political establishment
me, light entertainment comedian Joe and we got out. I didn’t have a clue who he as I, Joe Lycett, did, by saying Truss was
Lycett, who slayed the beast, with a last- was, but if you’d have said to me, “Draw “the backwash” of the Tory party. She
minute decision to be sarcastic on a tele- me a picture of someone that donated would’ve come away looking like a true
vision programme I was appearing on to £400,000 to the Tory party” I would’ve stateswoman. The front pages would’ve
sell tickets for a standup tour. drawn him. Good luck to the bugger! run with “Truss Is The Best Prime Min-
Of my accomplishments, which are The brunch was attended by all the big ister in 100 Years” rather than what they
scattered and largely unimpressive, the hitters: Kuenssberg, Sunak, Thornberry, actually printed, which was “Now BBC
toppling of a British prime minister is Sharp, Lycett and various others from the Comic Mocks Liz Truss” (Daily Mail front
up there (alongside a few Bafta noms show. No sign of Truss, who would win page, 5th September 2022). It was only
and meeting Jeremy Beadle). While my the race to become PM within 24 hours. I, through satire, who was able to show
time in her orbit was brief, I am nonethe- I thought it likely she wasn’t in attend- the public, who as we all know are thick
less an essential footnote to Liz Truss, an ance due to the BBC canteen not serving as mince, that she was unfit for the job.
imp in her biography, a thumbnail of grit the organs of domestic dogs. There was Thank God for me.
in her decommissioned machine. I said, a convivial atmosphere, presumably be- Serious debate shows are clamouring
when asked about my thoughts on her cause the attendees hadn’t fully under- to have me back. I’ve been offered the
performance in an interview with Lau- stood the gravity of what I had done. role of Question Time’s first regular pan-
ra Kuenssberg, “I’m very right wing and “He’s just a strange little queer lad eating ellist, appearing on every episode. I said
I loved it.” Suddenly it was over. A rat-a- his porridge,” they must’ve thought, un- no. The director general called to person-
tat-tat of searing wit and she was toast. able to comprehend that I had just Guy ally offer that I replace Huw Edwards. “I
Some said my performance was child- Fawkes’d the whole political establish- am not promoting an arena tour,” I said,
ish, “shallow and vacuous”. It’s easy to be ment in under three minutes of airtime. “thank you Tim, but goodbye.” Political
shallow in the baby pool. Esteemed po- Less than two months later Truss was panels will have to continue without me,
litical producers questioned the wis- gone, engineered by yours truly. Memes populated with the familiar arse lickers
dom of inviting irritating dickheads on and suck ups, loudmouths and well-con-
serious news programmes—a question nected tossers, the rich and the powerful,
© GARY DOAK / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

many have been asking for years. I accept the shape shifters and the pen pushers,
all the criticisms. But I also expect the the haves and the have mores. They can’t
critics to concede that it was my perfor- get me, Joe Lycett, because I am too good
mance alone that completely and utterly The utter destruction and too busy. What a pity that they’ll nev-
destroyed her political career. er again hear from the most astute and
After the bloodbath I was invited
of her political career bright and brilliant political commen-
for what was described as a “brunch”. It was entirely my doing tator this great nation has ever seen. ♦
 36
PROSPECT / APRIL 2023

ILLUSTRATION BY MICHELLE THOMPSON

APRIL 2023 / PROSPECT 37

CHARLES’S CORONATION

CROWNING
GLORY
Coronations once offered an occasion for national civic and spiritual
by
renewal, but May’s ceremony will only throw a spotlight on the M A R T Y N P E R CY
deepening dissonance, diversity and division that afflict British society

illions of us will soon be watch- sacred-sacramental power. Even the medi- a theocracy. The rule of privileged geneal-

M ing a coronation ceremony

that purports to be largely
unchanged for 1,000 years. It will radi-
eval Latin Veni Creator Spiritus (Come,
Holy Spirit), used in ordinations, is prayer-
fully chanted before anointing the mon-
ogy was usurped by a regime founded on
religious orthodoxy. Charles II was more
circumspect and knew he was reliant on
ate spiritual splendour and, to most, arch. The king is generally clad in robes permission from parliament. Charles III
will seem timeless in a world of cease- (Charles will reportedly wear his military will rule by consent more than by right.
less transition. In British coronations, uniform, which does have precedent). The king may be the head of state, but is
the meanings are multiple. The sover- The monarch therefore becomes a sin- otherwise dependent upon and subject to
eign will be presented to, and acclaimed gle conflation of opus dei and opus hom- the sovereign body in the Palace of West-
by, the people—in a kind of nod to egali- inum: embodying both godly and human minster. Democracy will not be replaced
tarian society. He will swear an oath to power. Charles I knew exactly where his by the claim to divine inheritance.
uphold the law of the land. Yet corona- divine right to rule came from: God. For Each coronation marks subtle steps in
tions manifest more. him, defying the king was tantamount social and cultural evolution. For exam-
The ceremony is normally presided to defying the deity. He went to his exe- ple, the coronation liturgy was only
over by the archbishop of Canterbury cution believing that God was being translated from Latin into English for the
and the dean of Westminster Abbey. Tra- usurped just as much as his kingship first time for the crowning of James VI of
ditionally, there is no explicit mention was. Oliver Cromwell, during his short- Scotland as James I of England in 1603,
of other branches of the Christian faith, lived republic, saw things differently. He since the English reformation required
let alone other religions, although they presided over the realm as lord protec- services to be understood by the people.
could get a brief nod this time. tor, transforming it from a monarchy to James VII/II, in 1685, opted for an abbre-
The coronation is something of a viated liturgy. As a Roman Catholic, he
crowning glory for the Church of Eng- felt the Eucharist was superfluous and so
land, and at times is referred to as its it was omitted. His successors were Prot-
eighth Sacrament. Sacramental mate- estants, and restored it.
rials—whether bread, oil, wine, water or The 20th The Latin text made a comeback in
words—are recognised by theologians as
instruments that signify the transform-
century— 1714, for the coronation of George I. As
he was German-speaking, Latin was
ing power of God entering the life of the
world. What was previously an ordinary
perhaps setting the only common language for king
and clergy. George III’s coronation was
piece of bread is now regarded as hal-
lowed, and a channel for blessing.
a pattern— marked by numerous errors and baffling
gaffes. George IV’s coronation in 1821
The occasion almost resembles an ordi-
nation or the consecration of a bishop.
sought to blend was grotesquely expensive and lavish. In
contrast, William IV had to be leant on
Like a priest or bishop, this monarch is innovation with hard to have a coronation at all in 1831.
chosen and anointed by God—and has It eventually went ahead, costing just
been endowed with significant spiritual- tradition tens of thousands of pounds—compared
38 PROSPECT / APRIL 2023

with the £230,000 spent by George IV

in 1821—and without the customary
banquet, thereby ending six and a half
centuries of tradition. Traditionalists
sneered at what they dubbed the “half-
crown nation”, and threatened a boycott.
But the new king stuck to his guns, and
wore his military-issue uniform (admi-
ral). These economising measures set a
precedent for future monarchs.
Victoria was crowned in 1838, and her
coronation largely followed the pared-
down model set by her uncle. But the
service was apparently under-rehearsed,
arrangements for the music in the abbey
heavily criticised by the press, and the
ceremony, in an echo of George III’s,
marred by mistakes.
Coronations usually conclude with
a procession, and in recent times it has
been customary for the royal family to
appear on the balcony of Buckingham

© THE PRINT COLLECTOR / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Palace. There is nothing new under the
sun, and the paradigm set in the last
century was for the pageantry to parade
national and Commonwealth diversity.
The 20th century—perhaps setting a pat-
tern for the 21st—sought to blend innova-
tion with tradition.

Prelates and places

Coronations have not always required
the archbishop of Canterbury. William The coronation chair in Westminster Abbey, 1937.
the Conqueror was crowned by the arch- Underneath is the Stone of Scone, an ancient symbol
bishop of York, and Edward II by the of the Scottish monarchs
bishop of Winchester. Mary I was not
crowned by the then (Protestant) arch-
bishop Cranmer, who was locked up petitions from those who seek to per- dom of Great Britain and Northern Ire-
in the Tower of London; she also chose form a service at the event. It was used land, Canada, Australia, New Zealand,
the bishop of Winchester. Elizabeth I for Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953, and the Union of South Africa, Pakistan and
was crowned by the bishop of Carlisle, heard claims from the lord high steward Ceylon”. The nations and dominions list
but only because the other bishops were of Ireland, who wanted to carry a white will be shorter this time. The archbishop
either dead, too old and infirm, unaccep- wand, and from the duke of Somerset, then asked the monarch:
table to the queen or simply unwilling. who wanted to carry the orb, or sceptre.
The archbishop of Canterbury refused to The dean of Westminster advised the Will you to the utmost of your power main-
recognise William III and Mary II, so the queen on the coronation, as his predeces- tain the Laws of God and the true profes-
joint coronation was conducted by the sors had done. The Liber Regalis—a kind sion of the Gospel? Will you to the utmost
bishop of London. of medieval manual for coronations kept of your power maintain in the United King-
Anglo-Saxon monarchs were rela- by Westminster Abbey—contains guid- dom the Protestant Reformed Religion
tively flexible about their coronation ance and advice on how to run the event. established by law? Will you maintain and
venue, with Bath Abbey, Winchester Perhaps this guidebook helped to shoe- preserve inviolably the settlement of the
Cathedral and even Kingston-upon- horn the 8,000 guests into the Abbey in Church of England, and the doctrine, wor-
Thames favoured as locations. Henry 1953? That was quite a feat, with many ship, discipline, and government thereof,
III chose St Peter’s Abbey, now Glouces- attendees given a seat just 45cm in width, as by law established in England? And will
ter Cathedral, but also opted for a more making social distancing pretty tricky. you preserve unto the Bishops and Clergy
stately coronation at Westminster, four The Coronation Oath Act of 1688 laid of England, and to the Churches there
years after his first. down a statutory formula for the taking committed to their charge, all such rights
An ancient court, known as the Court of the oath. In 1953 the queen promised and privileges, as by law do or shall apper-
of Claims, is traditionally used to hear to “govern the Peoples of the United King- tain to them or any of them?
APRIL 2023 / PROSPECT 39

Granted, the monarch also swears a properties of adiaphora—legitimate disa- external problems the Church faces. But
separate oath to preserve ecclesial gov- greement on matters where religion does a few good days in May, beyond provid-
ernance in the Church of Scotland. But not compel a view one way or the other. ing nostalgic distraction, are unlikely to
this oath is taken before the corona- Yet most members of the Church of make much difference.
tion, and the liturgy affirms the position, England, and the wider population of The time may be ripe to “level up” and
power and privileges of the Church of the country, approve of equal marriage share ecclesiastical power and privilege.
England, which parades itself as estab- and women clergy. Only a minority do If proof of the problem were still needed,
lished by the power of God and parlia- not. So promoting neutrality in order to the recent national census, with its sta-
ment. If repeated in 2023, this might keep the peace is neither right nor fair tistics on religious affiliation, made for
make for an uncomfortable moment and (nor does it yield results: as Prospect goes uncomfortable reading. For the first time
require explication in our multi-faith and to press, the Global South Fellowship of in a census for England and Wales, less
increasingly secular United Kingdom. Anglican Churches has said it no longer than half of the population (46.2 per cent,
recognises Justin Welby as leader of the or 27.5m people) described itself as Chris-
Dissonance, diversity and division global communion). tian. This represents a 13.1 percentage
Coronations have evolved into a spirit- Consider the wisdom of King Solo- point decrease from 2011. As the Church
ual, civil and moral matrix for mutual mon (1 Kings 3:16–28), who boldly adju- Times noted, Christianity is now a minor-
affirmation. In an economically dicated between two mothers who had ity religion in this country.
depressed Britain, limping on with post- staked a claim over one newborn child, The paradox for members of the
Covid wariness, this is an occasion for following the sudden death of the other Church of England—and remember,
celebrating communities and the civic infant. Solomon did not manage this dis- Anglican congregations can be found in
values that bind them. Yet we are left pute by proposing a hybrid arrangement more than 160 other countries—is that
with awkward issues and nagging ques- until the child reached an age where it while the population of England is pri-
tions that no amount of pomp and pag- could choose its mother. marily pro-equality and pro-democracy,
eantry can camouflage. Nobody, on experiencing injustice or the established church remains rooted in
Labour MP Ben Bradshaw has noted discrimination because of their sexual- theocratic hierarchies.
that the Church’s recently announced ity or gender, would expect splitting the There is a better, and older, vision
fudged stance on LGBTQ+ issues—after difference between opposing views to worthy of consideration. The first Chris-
six years of debate and “consultation”— be constructive. Maintaining neutrality tians embodied civil obedience and
places it at odds with its purported voca- simply to preserve unity can legitimise civic engagement alongside generous—
tion to serve its people. The nation as a oppression. True wisdom relies on moral indeed, revolutionary—acts of social ser-
whole has become far more progressive courage, yet churches, like many institu- vice and charity. They drew on the exam-
and inclusive in character and, as Brad- tions, often struggle to see this. ple of Jesus and one of the earliest Chris-
shaw explained, continuing to treat tian doctrines: that of kenosis. The term
LGBTQ+ people as second-class citizens Ancient wisdom comes from the Greek verb kenoun, “to
means the bishops are “heading for a The coronation is set to be a crowning empty”, in Philippians 2:7, which says
major constitutional clash with parlia- glory for Charles III. Yet coronations, that Christ “emptied himself, taking the
ment”. He added: “Parliament will want even dressed-down versions, risk the form of a servant”. According to this doc-
to take a very close look at this. The over- glorification of glory itself. Arguably, the trine, Jesus laid aside his kingly status: he
whelming view of MPs on both sides of hierarchy of the Church needs a grand did not cling to equality with God, but
the House is that it is not sustainable for coronation more than the monarch. humbled himself. This was Jesus’s delib-
our established church to be institution- Ecclesiastical leaders doubtless hope erate divesting of honour and privilege,
ally homophobic.” that a national celebration might provide to embrace and embody full and authen-
An established church might now temporary respite from the internal and tic human solidarity.
be an anachronism, but even a national As David Jenkins—the controversial
church is obliged to recognise the intrin- former Bishop of Durham—quipped,
sic equality of all citizens. The Church of “Don’t worry if the Church is seldom
England adopts moral positions on gen- up to it, because God is always down to
der, sexuality and equality that under- it.” Precisely so. Jesus is the grounding
mine this.
One of the subtlest self-deceptions
Coronations, of God. Exaltation springs from the one
who chose humility and equality over
in the exercise of power is believing we
are always acting in the best interests of
even dressed- privilege and position; the servant king.
The coronation is a potential occa-
others. Laudable selflessness can quickly
turn inwards, with acts of service becom-
down versions, sion for national renewal and presents
a chance for the Church of England to
ing the means of maintaining patri-
mony and power. A bishop or Synod that
risk the begin setting aside its privileged positions
and hierarchies, and fully embrace equal-
shrinks from a clear decision on marriage glorification ity and solidarity with all of its people. This
or gender equality may well think they is a moment crying out for authentic keno-
are modelling some of the permissive of glory itself sis. It could be a genuine opportunity. ♦
 25 MAY — 4 JUNE 2023
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DISCOVER 11 DAYS OF DIFFERENT AT
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APRIL 2023 / PROSPECT 41

Letters
Minority report unification, has been destroyed by
the Russian invasion. There can be no
Peter Kellner does an excellent job of laying out the realpoli- return to a failed status quo ante, but a
tik of the next election (“Labour’s to lose”, March). On the one crucial question will be whether to try
hand, the current geography of party support makes it very dif- to re-establish cooperative security in
ficult for Labour to win an overall majority. On the other, the Europe—with safeguards—or to move to
absence of potential allies in the House of Commons means it political containment and the economic
will be very difficult for the Conservatives to sustain a minor- exclusion of Russia. Trust will be in short
ity government in a hung parliament. And even though the supply and second chances will not be
new constituency boundaries will be somewhat helpful to the offered if Moscow is uncooperative.
Tories, the party will still have to be at least a few points ahead Even in a relatively benign situation,
of Labour to win an overall majority—an outcome that is very the complexity of issues flowing from the
distant from the party’s current position in the polls. war will take many years to settle and the
But I wonder if the piece was too sanguine about the pros- outcomes will be uncertain. It is hard to
pect of a minority Labour administration? True, as was the case know how far trade will resume with an
after the February 1974 election, the Conservatives might be impoverished Russia if and when sanc-
reluctant to bring a Labour government down for fear of incur- tions are gradually lifted. Economic rep-
ring voters’ wrath—but perhaps only for so long as it stuck with arations and justice for war crimes could
the current Brexit settlement. True, too, it would be open to be stumbling blocks, if Russia refuses to
Labour to seek an early dissolution of parliament at a time of pay or to surrender indicted individu-
its choosing. However, when Harold Wilson went to the coun- als. A resumption of the arms control
try again in October 1974 he failed to secure the safe overall agenda, especially on nuclear weapons,
majority he was seeking—not least because changes in the would be highly desirable but will only
country’s electoral geography had already made hung parlia- happen if there is enough trust.
ments significantly more likely. Ukraine’s integration into western
Just a little over two years later, Labour found itself having to institutions, essential in any outcome,
seek the support of the Liberals in order to stave off an election will require some tough love from the
that would likely have resulted in a heavy defeat at the hands of EU to eradicate corruption. And Rus-
a resurgent Conservative party. While it might well be able to sia should realise that a Ukraine outside
put off the difficult day for a while, a minority Labour admin- Nato will have to be more heavily armed
istration could not presume that it would not eventually find than if it is in the alliance.
itself needing to talk to the Liberal Democrats about electoral All this should be occupying west-
reform—or even to the SNP about indyref2. ern leaders’ thoughts. For now, however,
John Curtice, University of Strathclyde a strong postwar hand means helping
Ukraine today to defend itself successfully.
War and peace Ukraine, which is a victim of unwar- Pauline Neville-Jones, Conservative peer
ranted aggression. Clearly the country and former chair of the Joint Intelligence
Jonathan Powell is right to say that west- must not be expected to take on Russia Committee
ern allies should think now about their alone since, even under different leader-
aims for Ukraine’s negotiations with ship, Moscow cannot be relied upon to If only Boris had tossed his coin the
Russia, even though we do not yet know have acceptable views on Ukrainian sov- other way before the referendum—and
how the conflict will end (“Waging war, ereignty. Kyiv will need western support- not joined with Cummings and Farage
planning peace”, March). There will be ers close by—which puts an onus on its in hoodwinking the public into believ-
talks when neither side thinks that con- allies to have come to prior agreement ing that our economic problems were
tinuing combat will bring advantage. on aims and tactics. brought about by joining the EU—he
That point has not been reached, but Moreover, Ukrainian sovereignty would have helped our European allies
could conceivably arrive in 2023. will sit within the context of the set- either avert or win the Ukraine war, prob-
Mediation, implying concessions tlement on wider European security ably achieved his broken promises on the
from both parties, is not attractive for which, established following German home front, and gone down as one of the
42 PROSPECT / APRIL 2023

Letters
greatest rather than worst prime minis- Man. But the eye-catching plans have how much money should go to which
ters in our history. an important PR effect: they help Saudi parts of the country have become ever-
But it is now too late to mend his Arabia associate itself with technology more rancorous, centring on a perceived
fences, and in Europe we are pitied and the future, rather than being closed unfairness to most regional and metro-
rather than venerated, as we were when and medieval-minded. Neom seeks to politan areas of the UK.
the Second World War ended and the US do Dubai, only bigger; by 2030 the plan But regardless of what city or county
finished off our empire. is that it will have the population of Abu is in question, cuts in funding for the
As a centenarian, I have watched all Dhabi. In short, Saudi is converting itself arts—especially when they come out
this happen. I fear for the fate of my grand- from a highly conservative desert autoc- of the blue—can only lead to balance of
children, and those of my friends, unless racy to a highly futuristic desert autocracy. an undesirable kind: less culture will be
Russia comes to its senses and realises Projections of the future hold a mir- made available to everyone. Arts Council
that it is its 2,600-mile border with China ror to the present. With democracy England executives now talk habitually of
that threatens its future hegemony, not under pressure around the world, Neom “reimagining” or “refreshing” our present
the EU. Our best hope is that Rory Stewart reflects authoritarian aspirations to open cultural offerings, by moving opera into
will take over when the electorate and our up economically (foreign investment!) car parks and pubs up north, for instance.
parliament come to their senses. and socially (there may be bars!), without It is not surprising that those on
John A Davis, Cambridge opening up politically. the receiving end of such suggestions
What a contrast with 20 years ago, describe themselves as staggering into
Same old Saudi when western opinion thought Saudi the unknown. And there is not much
Arabia would be forced to democratise. point in aspiring to make us all end up on
Deyan Sudjic rightly notes the connec- The regime change in Iraq would create the same level if that level is rock bottom.
tion between authoritarians and mega- new dynamics; oil was running out; the Freya Johnston, Oxford
cities (“Dystopia unlimited”, March). political model seemed to be generating
This idea of a sparkling high-tech radicalisation; the population was mostly Health check
city is not new for Saudi Arabia: in the under 30 but ruled by old men. Surely
2000s, the country’s General Invest- political reform was needed? Instead, as A balanced and realistic view of the British
ment Authority proposed six new “eco- the Saudi monarchy moves to the millen- and German health systems from Alexan-
nomic cities” to attract foreign invest- nial generation, MBS has opted to reform der Menden (“How not to save the NHS”,
ment. They were not very successful. The everything except politics. Jan/Feb). In the US, a study published in
government wasn’t planning to bankroll Jane Kinninmont, policy and impact 2016 estimated that almost 10 per cent
them, but rather designed them for for- director, ELP of hospital deaths could be the result of
eign investors—who were not convinced. complications of medical treatments.
With Neom, too, Saudi Arabia isn’t Tebbit’s test The NHS is comparatively cheap and yet it
proposing to pay for all this itself. So who continues to surprise the world with excel-
will? Crown Prince Mohammed bin Sal- The article by Peter Oborne and Imran lent research and respectable outcomes.
man has said the Saudi sovereign wealth Mulla ranges widely (“Values for whom?”, Once the NHS has been lost, it will
fund will finance half of the first phase, Jan/Feb), so it is strange to note that a take a few years for people to realise how
estimated to cost $320bn. For the rest, politician who had plenty to say on the much more expensive, and less com-
they’ll tap up other sovereign wealth topic of British values is nowhere men- prehensive, their care is. By then it will
funds, private investors and the local tioned—namely Norman Tebbit. His acid
stock market. One suggestion, given the test of true integration was a love of the
Red Sea location, is that Israeli investors English national cricket team among
might stump up some cash. Tacit Saudi- migrants—a test I, like millions of other
Israeli ties have been developing for British citizens who know virtually noth-
years, based in part on a shared enmity ing about the sport, would fail miserably.
towards Iran, and both Donald Trump Dave Kruger, Nantwich
and Joe Biden have sought to broker a
taboo-busting peace deal. But the age- Levelling down
ing Saudi king, MBS’s father, probably
doesn’t want to see this happen in his Samuel West (“Diary”, Jan/Feb) is right
lifetime, and the new Israeli government to be contemptuous of the vocabulary
doesn’t make it easy to come to terms. of “levelling up”. The headline policy in
One Saudi journalist says Neom question has been invoked with increas- "Have you considered slavishly
likely stands for Never Ever Occurring, ing promiscuity, while arguments about serving the wealthy classes?"
 APRIL 2023 / PROSPECT 43

I N FACT

be too late. Sensible allocation of extra On average, a Briton born in 1956 will receive
Closed church state benefits amounting to about £1.2m. One
funding for the health service would
born in 1996 will get less than half that.
return it to world-leading status. People I was exasperated to read Alice Good-
Economist, 5th January 2023
with the skills to oversee this allocation man’s account of the bias and exclusion
can be found in the health and econom- at her friend’s ordination (“No room in
ics departments of our universities. the nave”, December). How can churches The Ford F-150 pick-up truck has been the
Gareth Greenslade, consultant in still be so tone-deaf ? Services of any best-selling vehicle in the US every year for 41
anaesthesia and pain medicine, Bristol description in a parish church should years; 32 per cent of owners say they rarely or
never be ticketed—that just encourages never use their truck for personal hauling.
Axios, 23rd January 2023
Outside looking in ideas of possession and hierarchy. Wor-
ship should be freely open to all. As a
Iain Martin apparently voted Brexit matter of course, the seats at the front By November 2022, only 8.5 per cent of EU
because he knew we would never be asked should have been reserved for the family and G7 companies with Russian subsidiaries
again (“Conversation”, Jan/Feb). So he and friends of the ordinands, and anyone had divested at least one of them.
thinks we are no longer a democracy? He else could find places in the usual way. SSRN, 13th January 2023
also says the public were deceived in 1973, And people refusing to allow the author
but I was 26 years old then and I certainly to sit with them—awful. This is what hap-
42 per cent of tweets about the design of the
don’t remember anything remotely like pens when the church forgets what it’s Scottish parliament building are negative. By
the incredible levels of fraud and deceit of there for. this metric, it is the world’s ugliest building.
2016, when Brexit was presented as snake Caroline Miley, via the website Buildworld blog, 11th January 2023
oil, the tooth fairy, unicorns and Father
Christmas all in one. I note that the gov- Comma caution Harold Macmillan’s grandfather founded the
ernment has just complained that every
publishers Macmillan; Carly Simon’s father
1 per cent rise in nurses’ pay costs £700m This may seem like a pedantic com-
co-founded Simon & Schuster.
per year—the same amount Brexiteers ment, but I can’t resist pointing out that Wikipedia
claimed would go into the NHS budget in Sarah Collins’s otherwise excellent
every fortnight if the UK voted Leave. piece on the Amazon strike (“Gearing
It is deceitful to call the EU a trans- up”, March) she provides a classic exam- Since 1945, the median length of a
national government: the EU is a series ple of how inappropriate use of the hum- government’s time in office in Belgium—
defined by change of party in the cabinet,
of treaties we exercised our sovereignty ble comma can result in reversing the
change of PM or general election—has been
to sign (with opt-outs from the euro and meaning of the sentence: “It was a pres-
less than 10 months, the shortest in the EU;
Schengen). Detailed regulations, budg- sure-cooker environment… they were the longest was Luxembourg (over four
ets and so on must be approved by the working as hard as they could, so they and a half years).
sovereign governments in the council of didn’t end up in a disciplinary.” Pew Research, 25th January 2023
ministers and by directly elected MEPs. This was a quote from union organ-
It is nobody else’s fault if we elected Ukip iser Amanda Gearing. As people don’t
On 18th February, Bristol City were awarded
football hooligans! The commission can’t speak commas—unless they are doing
their first penalty in 68 games. Football teams
make law and regulation, it can only pro- oral proofreading—the comma has been
in England’s Championship are typically
pose it. The Court of Justice just resolves added by Collins. Prospect is notable for awarded a penalty once every nine games.
legal disputes about interpretation of the the high quality of its articles, as well as Prospect research
treaties. Nato, the World Trade Organisa- their content, and this example is a rare
tion and many other international reg- Homeric nod—but it does make the point
In 2022, 3.4m adult Americans evacuated
ulatory bodies have similar structures that commas have to be used with care.
their homes due to a natural disaster.
and pass binding common rules on those Derek Turner, Thame
IN FACT ILLUSTRATIONS BY REBECCA SUTHERLAND

E&E News, 6th February 2023

states which sign up after (often difficult)
negotiation.
Presumably we will soon have to beg 37 per cent of Britons say they trust the
to return to the EU, and this time we will government; 20 per cent of Argentinians do,
have to accept the single currency and Write to us... the lowest score among 28 countries polled.
2023 Edelman Trust Barometer
the Schengen borderless area. In any Email letters@prospectmagazine.co.uk.
case, half-hearted membership is of little Letters require a full name and address
benefit, as nobody would invest in Britain and may be edited. We have temporarily The Korean equivalent of “Once upon a time”
if we could easily leave again. closed comments on the website while we is “Long ago, when tigers smoked pipes.”
P Basford, Hertfordshire address some technical difficulties @qikipedia, 10th February 2023
Bring it to Bonhams
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46 PROSPECT / APRIL 2023

PROFILE

King
KHAN
The former cricketer’s three-and-a-half years as Pakistan’s prime minister
ended in a Trumpian effort to rewrite the political playbook. As Imran Khan
recovers from an assassination attempt and eyes a comeback, Atika Rehman
examines whether he will be remembered as a hero—or a hypocrite

ot many people would laugh In his hospital pyjamas and with one There is no exchange of pleasantries—

N about surviving an assassina-

tion attempt that left both of
their legs injured. But five days after the
leg bound by multiple plasters, Khan is
busy. Video messages are disseminated
to millions of followers. Interviews are
and no coffee for me. In a country where
even the poorest offer astonishingly gen-
erous levels of hospitality, Khan is not
attack, on a dusty evening in November recorded with international news chan- known for his social niceties. The last
2022, I sit across from Imran Khan at his nels. Lawyers mill about, preparing time that I interviewed him in the same
family home in Lahore and he does just notes for their conversations with “Khan house, in 2013, he ate an entire break-
that. “As the bullets were going over my sahab”, as he is popularly known. A break, fast, gesticulating with a deep-fried puri
head, I immediately looked down,” Khan it is evident, is not on the cards for the in one hand, without so much as offer-
says, smiling. “My first thought was, ‘have former prime minister. ing me a drink.
I been hit anywhere else?’” Khan was on an anti-government “During the Jemima days, there was
We are sitting in a room filled with roadshow on 3rd November when a plenty of everything,” a friend of his once
ornate, gilded accessories and new art- gunman shot him four times. “The bul- told me, referring to the period when
work, none of which features the faces let missed my main artery by a fraction Khan was married to Jemima Khan,
or feminine figures popular in the neigh- of a millimetre,” he tells me. His tone is now a screenwriter. “She was a gracious
bourhood’s upscale homes. Instead, gold matter of fact, as if we are talking about host. But Imran? He doesn’t know how to
frames boast vivid abstracts and Islamic the Lahore weather. Then he calls out to boil an egg. He will never offer a glass of
calligraphy. In the increasingly sancti- someone to get him a “local coffee”, the water, and that’s just his style.” It speaks
monious Pakistan, a refusal to display frothy, sweet Dalgona variety that was more to his poor sociability than his fru-
pictures of the human form is a mark of served in offices and homes across the gality—an odd trait in a culture where
religiosity that impresses the pious and country long before it became a lock- politicians routinely offer journalists
irritates liberals in equal measure. down fad on TikTok. everything from tea and biscuits to clan-
 APRIL 2023 / PROSPECT 47
© BETSY JOLES/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES

Ousted, not out: at home in Lahore, the As he slowly made his way into the for- and much of what happens at home too.
former prime minister hopes to make mal sitting area for our interview, I real- Elected prime ministers have one task
another run for office ised the damage the shooting had done. that supersedes all others: keep the army
He no longer had the easy gait of an ath- happy. Politicians in general, with their
lete. His shoulders were hunched, and he lust for political success and the riches
gripped the sides of a steel walker, keep- that come with office, are often all too
ing weight off one injured leg. For the ready to cut the deals that keep them in
first time, he looked his age: he is 70. But power—an unsettling but chronic flaw in
Khan was not going to miss an opportu- a system that is ostensibly democratic.
destine envelopes of cash. It is what it is: nity to reinforce the narrative that had Khan pulls no punches as he talks
when you are Khan’s guest, there are no lit a fire among his supporters: that sen- about the “powers that be”. He complains
frills. You get nothing but Khan. ior officers of the country’s military, pos- that the army defied him when he was
Earlier that evening I saw him snap sibly with US help, had orchestrated his prime minister. “I could not push them
at his lawyers: “They tried to kill me, for ousting as prime minister and tried to to take action against the corruption of
God’s sake!” He wanted to name names kill him. the elite,” he tells me. He claims that the
in a report of the shooting that his law- outgoing army chief General Bajwa all but
yers were sending to the police, includ- akistan is run by generals. As well dictated political appointments in Pun-
ing those of the current prime minis-
ter and a serving senior military officer
whom Khan believed were behind the
P as commanding one of the world’s
largest armies, a handful of them
play politics, install governments and
jab, the country’s most populous province
where electoral victory paves the way for
power in the centre. He says the military
assassination plot. The lawyers feared manipulate elections. They dictate thwarted his efforts to introduce elec-
repercussions. Khan fears nothing. Pakistan’s nuclear and foreign policy tronic voting machines—he suspects the
48 PROSPECT / APRIL 2023

technology would have made it harder for to the core,” says Cyril Almeida, a polit- a man with overbearing self-confidence,
the army to manipulate election results. It ical commentator. “They planted the was developing views of his own. “Imran
is fascinating to see him hurl these allega- seeds of hatred for the existing political Khan was beginning to get comfort-
tions. Not because they are untrue—but class. In Imran Khan, they found a like- able as prime minister,” says Almeida.
because in Pakistan it is widely believed able man.” “After three years of working together,
that it was the army that put him in power Khan denies that he had the military’s he wanted the military to be his junior
in the first place. backing, but few in Pakistan believe him. partner. What happened was inevitable.”
Before 2018, the military was search- Soon after he took office in August 2018, The opposition had been threatening
ing for an alternative to the two main some of his opponents were jailed or dis- to move against Khan for months but had
political dynasties in Pakistan: the aris- qualified. Wealthy political “electables” to wait for the right moment. For weeks
tocratic Bhuttos and the commercially switched loyalties to side with him. The before his deposal, Islamabad was thick
successful Sharifs. From the army’s point media—always aware of what the army with rumours that Khan’s rivals were
of view, the problem was that both fami- is thinking—largely pushed a pro-Khan in talks with senior generals. Then the
lies were becoming difficult to control. narrative. Some publishers that didn’t same pro-army parties that were said to
The army’s leadership likely day- were censored or shut down. have enabled him to form a government
dreamed about the most famous man With his opponents crying foul, Khan’s ditched him. Khan was going to have to
in Pakistan. At his peak, Khan was a PTI won 115 of the 270 seats up for elec- go it alone.
star cricketer, heartthrob and philan- tion in the National Assembly, fewer Instead of accepting defeat, the ex-
thropist, the face of major brands at than two dozen short of the 137 needed to cricketer who often brags that he plays
home and abroad. In a cricket-obsessed form a government alone. He was exactly “until the last ball” dared the opposition
nation, the Oxford-educated sportsman where the army wanted him: without an to go for a vote of no confidence. Perhaps
appealed to the military establishment’s overall majority and dependent on their he hoped partisan generals would throw
vision of a “new Pakistan” where corrupt, backing. It seemed like the perfect mar- him a lifeline, and simultaneously began
feudal politicians would be shunned— riage: Khan to all appearances supported blaming first the US and then senior gen-
or jailed. Having won the World Cup army policies, gave retired generals key erals in the military for engineering his
in 1992 and later funded a state-of-the- government positions and consulted serv- removal.
art hospital in Lahore and a sprawling ing ones on aspects of governance. Yet On the day the vote was to be held,
university in his hometown, Khan was four years later, in April 2022, the army’s Khan instructed the National Assembly
seen as a man who could deliver. He was golden boy became the 18th prime minis- deputy speaker to dismiss the motion.
clearly a highly ambitious politician, ter to be removed from office. On Khan’s advice, Pakistan’s president
having founded in 1996 his own politi- What went wrong? Many say that was ordered to dissolve parliament, trig-
cal party, the Pakistan Movement for Khan failed to deliver on his campaign gering a constitutional crisis. When
Justice (PTI) . But because he had so far promises and made the country’s debt it became clear that the military had
failed to achieve his goals, he would do burden worse. The army, perhaps, had dumped him, Khan pinned his hopes
almost anything to get into power. realised that an incompetent leader on the Supreme Court, which has its
His nationalistic vision and Islamic was as insufferable as a corrupt one. But own complicated history of judicial over-
populism found support among men in there was something else: Khan, always reach. But the reprieve did not come.
uniform. Speaking passionately in both Out of office, Khan turned on the
Urdu and English, he dared the elector- army. He called the generals names and
ate to dream that Pakistan could become mocked them for their “neutral” stance.
a country where rich and poor would be “Allah does not allow us to be neutral,” he
treated equally; a country that would defiantly told massive crowds in Timer-
not be a “slave” to western “masters”. gara, a city in the conservative province
He referenced Medina, where Prophet of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa; “only animals
Muhammad made his home, as an exam- are neutral.” He bashed the military so
ple of a just society. He invoked the term relentlessly that the army chief made
“jihad” when encouraging citizens to pay the usually elusive head of the Inter-
taxes. He vowed to fight for Pakistan’s Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s top
sovereignty and challenged the US on It seemed like the spy agency, publicly address Khan’s alle-
the war on terror. He pledged to make perfect marriage— gations. For most politicians, this would
Pakistan so economically robust that spell the end of their career—or worse.
“people from outside” would “come to Khan to all But Khan was indestructible, and his
seek jobs in Pakistan”. He would do this, appearances popularity soared.
he said, by making crooked politicians In the months after his removal, I
pay for their crimes, taxing the uber rich supported army spoke with a serving military officer
and creating a welfare state. policies and consulted to understand how the institution felt
“For 20 years, Pakistan’s military told about Khan’s transformation from semi-
the public that the two mainstream par-
serving generals on friendly accessory to fierce critic. “You
ties, the PPP and PML-N, were corrupt aspects of governance don’t think we have audios and videos of
 APRIL 2023 / PROSPECT 49

Khan sahab?” he snapped before he cut

the line.
The officer was alluding to the ISI’s
ultimate weapon, which it has deployed
against many a Pakistani politician:
sex tapes. Given Khan’s lifestyle, many
thought it possible that he could have pro-
vided sufficient material. Sure enough,
explicit clips supposedly of Khan hav-
ing phone sex appeared online. His party
dubbed them “fake”. In any case, the army
tactic backfired. On one level, Pakistan is
a pious Islamic society. On another, it’s a
patriarchy where the sex lives of men are
a source of admiration. Khan is relaxed
about the tapes. “He’s not losing sleep
over them,” one of his advisers tells me.
© SABIR MAZHAR/ANADOLU AGENCY VIA GETTY IMAGES

It’s remarkable how popular Khan

has become out of office, given that the
gap between what he had promised and
what he delivered is enormous. When
Khan came to power, Pakistan’s biggest
problem was rapidly dwindling foreign
exchange reserves. Khan likened the
idea of approaching the IMF for assis-
tance to being enslaved, famously say-
ing he would “rather die than get an
IMF loan”. Nine months later, he got
one. The economy was jolted into action After the attack: police in Karachi quell
but just as growth rates began to revive, protests by Khan supporters following his
deficits reappeared. Foreign exchange attempted assassination
reserves fell sharply. The army and Khan
approached Saudi Arabia for an emer-
gency loan of $3bn. “Most of this hap-
pened because of bad decisions. Khan
pressed the State Bank to make interest
rates negative for much longer than was
necessary. It encouraged the printing of shrines of Sufi saints. Over the past dec- sexcapades and drug-fuelled parties in
money and set the economy on fire with ade, she has become famous in the area Islamabad—allegations that Khan and
inflation,” says Khurram Husain, a senior as a pirni, a title given to spiritual masters his party rejected as propaganda spon-
business journalist in Pakistan. in the Sufi tradition. In a country where sored by his political opponents.
For diehard Khan loyalists, however, scores believe in omens and the evil eye, “To put it simply,” Khan says, “I never
none of this mattered. “He worked 12 Bushra, who is 48, is famed for helping actually believed in soulmates, but I
hours a day, didn’t take a single day off. troubled souls with prayer—as well as less know now what a soulmate is. I have
His performance was better than all conventional practices. been a bachelor for most of my life, seen
other governments, only the media was When I ask Khan about her wherea- so many marriages fall apart… I didn’t
against him,” one Khan admirer tells me. bouts, he ignores my question. I push want to get married because I thought
“He had a clear vision, and was following him to tell me more about their relation- it wouldn’t work. Every now and then, I
the examples set by Prophet Muham- ship. And his reply takes me by surprise. would hear this word ‘soulmate’… and I
mad,” says another. “You would never “I am married now, content… what wondered, will I ever get that lucky?”
name your child after Nawaz Sharif or more could I say?” he says, blushing. I Later, clearly lovestruck, he narrates a
Asif Ali Zardari, but you would give him ask how things are between the two of story from the time that Nelson Mandela
Imran Khan’s name.” them, given his dreadful track record invited him, Jemima and a host of pub-
in romance. In 2014, a decade after lic figures to take a journey on the Blue
ack in his drawing room, I won- his relationship with Jemima ended, Train to raise funds. “I saw him [Mandela]

B der where his elusive better half,

Bushra Bibi, is. His third wife hails
from a conservative landowning family in
Khan was briefly married to Reham
Khan, a British-Pakistani former BBC
weather presenter who later wrote a
and his last wife [Graça Machel] sitting
together. There was total chemistry
between them… I thought to myself, ‘will
the Punjab city of Pakpattan, home to the scandal-filled page-turner about Khan’s I ever have a soulmate?’ Now, I have one.”
50 PROSPECT / APRIL 2023

His words leave me gobsmacked. Not

just because Khan looks genuinely smit-
ten, but because Bushra Bibi, or Pinky
as she is widely known, is the opposite
of what anyone imagined for him. The
media picked up on the relationship
when Khan started visiting Bushra in
“secret” for spiritual guidance, possibly
believing she could help make him prime
minister and that marrying her would
take him to new political heights. Even-
tually Bushra divorced her husband, the
father of her five children, and in 2018 she
married Khan.
In Islamabad, the unsubstantiated
rumours were wild; the drawing room
gossip was that Bushra worked a form of
magic and commanded an army of meat-
eating djinns. Her relatives “used to say
she is a medium of sorts—that she could

© ANADOLU AGENCY VIA GETTY IMAGES

hear voices,” an acquaintance of the fam-
ily tells me. “Our family dismissed it as
nonsense. But she was clever.”
Before his victory, Khan was seldom
seen without a green stone ring on his
pinky finger, believed by many to ward off
danger. People then began to notice that
Khan had largely stopped attending bur-
ials, even of close friends and associates. On the back foot: Khan’s ill-timed visit to
Many suspected, without evidence, that Moscow on the eve of war may have harmed
Khan had come to believe it was bad luck his international image
to be in the same room as a dead person.
Then in 2021, he sparked controversy by
refusing to meet with the family members
of Hazara ethnic minority miners killed
by Islamic State in Balochistan until the
community had buried their dead.
Khan’s alleged superstitions may
have made things awkward in other ister, who welcomed him at the airport. relaxed, meeting the prime minister
ways, too. One of the first public fissures His exuberance at this awkward junc- of Pakistan as if what you’ve done is no
in his relationship with the military was ture was captured on camera. The optics, big deal.” But it became apparent very
over his inexplicable delay in appointing many in Pakistan said, were terrible. quickly that there were no significant
the intelligence chief—one of the most Khan could not have known that trade deals to be made between Pakistan
powerful positions in Pakistan. A serv- within 12 hours of his arrival, Putin would and Russia during this trip. Khan was in
ing minister claimed it was because the announce the invasion. But before he left the wrong place at the wrong time.
first lady told him to make the announce- Islamabad, hoping to make trade deals, How did he get there? “Pakistan has
ment at a propitious time. Where the he knew that tensions between Moscow been trying to suck up to Russia for the
truth lies, it is hard to know. and Kyiv were at an all-time high. Just last 10 or 15 years,” says Kamal Alam, a
that week, US intelligence agencies had non-resident senior fellow at the Atlan-
ew politicians would think it pro- warned that Putin was moving troops tic Council who has worked closely with

F pitious to find themselves in Rus-

sia on the day the modern world
changed forever. But on 23rd Febru-
close to the border with Ukraine and
soldiers had received orders to invade.
An official at the US National Security
Pakistan’s military. “Everyone knows
the US-Pakistan relationship ebbs and
flows… The Russians don’t trust Pakistan
ary 2022, hours before news broke that Agency had called his Pakistani counter- because of this, and see the Pakistani mil-
Vladimir Putin had invaded Ukraine, part and urged caution. From Putin’s per- itary as too ‘pro-west’. In Imran, however,
Khan emerged from an aircraft in win- spective, it was a political masterstroke. Putin saw a leader who could be trusted
try Moscow. “At what a time I have come! “It was the perfect publicity stunt,” a jour- more than those in the past, because
So much excitement!” Khan said to Igor nalist in Moscow tells me. “You invade of his unorthodox thinking. They were
Morgulov, Russia’s deputy foreign min- a country and shortly after you appear waiting for this for 20 years.”
APRIL 2023 / PROSPECT 51

At an Oxford Union address last Octo- han is confident he will win listed him as one of the world’s 37 worst
ber, Khan explained that he went to Rus-
sia in “the national interest”. “Russia
would have supplied us with cheap oil,”
K again—a bigger victory, perhaps,
than ever. “I will only take gov-
ernment if I have a majority,” he says.
rulers in 2021. But he remains unfazed.
“Had we been so powerful, there would
have been no criticism of us,” he tells me.
he said. He added that he wasn’t “anti- “Making a coalition government… that’s For all his army-bashing, he seems to
America” but that he suspected the where army rule became prominent.” admire aspects of the military’s influ-
Biden administration “wanted a more It is unclear when Pakistan will have ence. He says it’s “pragmatic” to work
pliable stooge”. an election. The government is nervous with the generals; the idea of removing
It was this thinking that birthed about Khan’s popularity—his party has them from politics altogether is “ideal-
the “cipher controversy” in Pakistan— triumphed in 27 of 36 byelections held istic”. He respects the military’s power
the conspiracy, promoted by Khan for since his removal—and is trying to stall and organisational skills, and tells me he
months, that the US was behind his the process. But although Khan’s rivals would allow it to work to some extent out-
removal because he was “too independ- are floundering as they try to stymie a side of its constitutional mandate if that
ent-minded” and would not be a “slave” cost-of-living and foreign debt crisis, his served his purpose.
to “western masters”. Days before he path back to power is hardly clear. Out On women’s rights, too, Khan is insen-
was ousted, Khan claimed that he had of favour with the army and hated by his sitive at best. In a country with more
evidence to support his claim: a diplo- opponents, Khan faces a slew of court than 100m female citizens, and where
matic cable supposedly showing that cases and a possible disqualification from the women’s rights movement is grow-
the US had backed “regime change” the electoral process altogether. Without ing stronger, Khan’s position that rape
to overthrow him. The allegation— its charismatic ideologue, the PTI will is often the result of “temptation” or
which Khan finally retracted in Feb- fall apart. “frustration” is offensive. Bizarrely, on
ruary to level unsubstantiated blame For Pakistan’s shaky democracy, occasions when he has been confronted
at the army instead—didn’t shield him Khan’s surging popularity is not all good with the realities of sexual violence, he
from the opposition’s no-confidence news. He wants to rule with an iron fist has often quickly pointed out that sex-
motion. But it did serve another pur- and fantasises about a China-style polit- ual violence against children is a bigger
pose. Khan’s supporters poured into ical system. As prime minister, during a problem.
every major city in the country to pro- state visit to Beijing he said that in “west- Perhaps the biggest disappointment
test his removal. He had become a ern democracies, it is difficult to bring is that Khan, who preaches the tolerance
political martyr. change as you are bound by rules and reg- of Sufi Islam, seems to have goaded and
Remembering these events took me ulations. Democracies of today plan only emboldened religious fundamentalists
back to one of my early interviews with for the next five years. The Chinese Com- when in power, suggesting he is little dif-
Khan, in Karachi a decade ago. We were munist Party achieved better without ferent to his predecessors. Soon after tak-
driving to the airport and he was wear- democracy.” In office, he refused to nego- ing office he chose Atif Mian, a respected
ing a crisp white shalwar kameez—his tiate with the opposition even on crucial economist and professor at Princeton
signature look—and a pair of dark Fer- reforms of national importance. He University, as a member of his Economic
rari sunglasses. He was railing against doesn’t seem to care much for press free- Advisory Council. But Mian belongs to the
the way in which “VIP culture” and the dom, either: Reporters Without Borders Ahmadi faith, a religious minority that has
whims of the elite unleash suffering on been persecuted for decades in Pakistan.
ordinary citizens. Then we hit bad traf- Under pressure from extremist groups,
fic. It looked like he wasn’t going to make Khan ditched him just days later, in the
the flight. first blow to his “new Pakistan” narrative.
As I asked my questions between “Unfortunately the government could
stops and starts, Khan had his eye on the not withstand the pressure it faced both
clock. At one point, he turned to a party within the party and outside on account
comrade at the steering wheel and said, of my faith,” says Mian.
“Do you know anyone at AirBlue? Ask The former adviser now echoes what
them to hold the plane, I need to make many of Khan’s more discerning support-
this flight. I can’t miss it.” He was seem- ers felt early in his government. “Mr Khan
ingly unaware of his double standards— On 23rd February, was a new face in power, and as such many
denouncing VIP culture but expecting hours before hoped he would bring about some posi-
to be treated as one too. He lambasted tive change,” he says. “But effective change
his rivals for their wasteful expenditure news broke that requires a vision that spells out the new
on travel but during his election cam- Vladimir Putin direction for the country, and that vision
paign, he flew from one city to the next must be backed up with political courage
on a private jet borrowed from a friend. had invaded Ukraine, to take difficult decisions. Unfortunately
He understood that winning elections Khan emerged neither vision nor courage was there dur-
required money, influence and deal- ing PTI’s tenure. And so the country finds
making, but railed against his opponents
from an aircraft in itself back in usual troubles, except now
for the very same. wintry Moscow the hole is even bigger.” ♦
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APRIL 2023 / PROSPECT 53

Sam Freedman
Cancel the
comeback tour
ot many politicians ing a graceless screed in the the conscious decision not to be better? There aren’t many

N get to lead their party

twice. Only one per-
son in the history of the Con-
pages of the Sunday Telegraph
blaming everyone other than
herself for her downfall. (Her
feed the beast by presenting
a minister for a media round
each morning, or scheduling
popular Tories at the moment.
And of those fresh faces the
membership could stomach,
servative party has had two claim to have searched her diverting policy announce- none have the experience.
shots at being leader, and that soul doesn’t say much for its ments every day. There are That Kemi Badenoch is the
was Andrew Bonar Law, who dimensions.) Allies dutifully definite advantages to this frontrunner to be the next
only resigned because he was briefed the press that she quite approach. But it means the leader shows the problem. She
seriously ill, and when called fancied another go at leading beast is hungry, and rooting has no significant achieve-
to take back the leadership the post-election opposition. round for tasty morsels. ments to her name, less than a
died not long after. Several While there is a sizeable For the party it’s more year in cabinet and very poor
leaders who left the job amid rump of Tory MPs whose existential. The polls are not levels of recognition from vot-
party hostility certainly felt brains are so addled that they improving. Sunak’s popu- ers. And she’s the best new
they had more to offer—nei- were prepared to vote for John- larity has cratered as non- prospect that they’ve got.
ther Edward Heath nor Mar- son and give Truss a hearing, Conservative voters, who pre- Which is why MPs have
garet Thatcher were ever rec- the public haven’t shifted their viously associated him with begun to forlornly re-evaluate
onciled to their downfalls—but position. When Ipsos asked in the pragmatic generosity of their former prime ministers
they never really attempted to January if Johnson “has what it the furlough scheme, see his to see if they might stand a bet-
retake the throne. takes to be a good prime min- intransigence over nurses’ pay ter chance. As they emphati-
Party leaders lose their ister” he secured a net score and failure to stem the tide of cally don’t, Sunak will end up
position because they have of minus 39 points (compared corruption and sleaze stories. fighting the election. But the
become deeply unpopular with minus 11 points for Rishi Many MPs disliked him from ongoing fixation on the pos-
with voters, evidenced either Sunak). No one has polled the moment he ran for leader, sibility of a Truss or Johnson
by an election loss or disas- Truss given it’s only a few either because they unfairly comeback, the latter espe-
trous polling. Even if they months since she scored the blamed him for Johnson’s fall, cially, reveals the extent of the
manage to partially recover lowest approval rating of any or simply because they see him troubles that the party will
their reputation, it’s by then prime minister in history. as too callow for the top job. face in opposition. The next
too late as a new generation Why then, given their But when they look round for Conservative prime minister
of ambitious politicians has manifest narcissistic absurd- alternatives, they are stumped. probably isn’t even in parlia-
come to the fore. They can ity, are these comebacks being Even if they could face the ment yet and Badenoch, or
perhaps become—like John entertained by the press and opprobrium of another lead- whoever ends up leading the
Major, William Hague or Gor- the Tory party? For sections ership change, who would party in opposition, is going
don Brown—a respected elder of the media it’s largely bore- to struggle mightily to put
stateman in their party, but dom. After almost seven years together a presentable team.
no more. of chaos triggered by Brexit, It’s less clear than it was in
The odd thing about they are drunk on soap opera 1997 where the next genera-
the comeback attempts by politics. Sunak may not have tion are going to come from.
Boris Johnson and Liz Truss impressed voters but he has Younger graduates who vote
is that they haven’t both- stilled the drama. His team Conservative are an endan-
ered waiting for their reputa- leaks far less and, so far at least, gered species. The talent pool
tions to recover. In October, looks more united. His per- in right-wing thinktanks is
a mere three months after sonal style is Goldman Sachs The odd thing is drying up. The party’s donors
half of Johnson’s government data analyst rather than after- that Truss and are mostly of a certain age. The
resigned because they were dinner speaker. Tales abound Tories have always found a way
unwilling to work with him in Whitehall of the prime min-
Johnson haven’t to renew before, but this time
anymore, he decided he’d like ister quizzing officials and waited for their it’s going to be harder than
to have another go. Truss left it experts on tiny details discov- ever. If they can’t find a way
barely 100 days after resigning ered in technical reports. On
reputations to forward beyond Johnson and
in ignominy before publish- top of this, his team have made recover at all Truss, they won’t deserve to. ♦
54 PROSPECT / APRIL 2023

Ethan Zuckerman
Sifting through the
internet junk pile
n the Jorge Luis Borges Want to find bicycle reviews? farms of pages that point to one posts promoting Putin’s

I short story “The Library

of Babel”, the narrator
describes a library of appar-
Search for a document that
uses the phrase “bicycle
reviews”! But this doesn’t work
another. Bobsbikereviews.com
could now have 10,000 pages
pointing to it, with 10,000
agenda and aggravating politi-
cal tensions in the US. The
IRA claimed, as one of its suc-
ently infinite size, composed in a world where everyone can pages pointing to each of them, cesses, the creation of two rival
of hexagonal galleries filled publish and where there are and so on. Google has evolved, groups in Texas: one a right-
with bookshelves. The books economic incentives to cap- and now has methods designed wing populist group pushing
contain every possible configu- ture people’s attention. These to evade this form of search for state secession and cham-
ration of 22 letters and three early search engines were vul- engine optimisation. But the pioning gun rights, the other
punctuation marks. The narra- nerable to individuals post- task is becoming vastly more a faith group, United Mus-
tor describes a lifetime search- ing pages that just said “bike difficult—and recent develop- lims of America, which cam-
ing through them, hoping to reviews” thousands of times. ments in artificial intelligence paigned for Hillary Clinton.
find coherence and, in the end, Google refined the pro- have only made things harder. In a remarkable feat of dezin-
finding only a few lines that cess by adding in the idea ChatGPT, a system that formatsia, these two Facebook
make any sense. of “authority”. For a page to generates text that’s difficult groups, both controlled by the
“The Library of Babel” is a appear near the top of its to distinguish from human- Russians, managed to bring
horror story. On the shelves results, many other pages authored text, is creating a per- dozens of real Houstonians
are every conceivable truth, needed to point to it via hyper- fect storm for search engines. out onto the streets to protest
the solution to every problem, links. The theory behind the For years, people have tried against one another.
the answer to every question— PageRank algorithm created to rig Google by mass-posting Running the IRA required
but also corruptions of those by Larry Page and Sergey Brin handcrafted spam. Most is paying hundreds of tech-savvy
truths, falsehoods impossible was that authoritative pages repetitive and easily ignored English-literate Russians to
to tell from the truths and a would be the destination of by Google and its competi- build online personas and cre-
near-infinite quantity of sheer lots of organic links on the tors. But now it is becoming ate several posts a day in their
nonsense. It is not a new obser- web, while very few people far easier to create masses of voices. That process is now
vation that the internet resem- would choose to link to a page high-quality content and post fully automated. We should
bles the library of Babel. For that repeated a keyword tens of it online in order to direct peo- expect social media platforms
decades, individuals have been thousands of times. ple’s attention towards pages like Facebook and Twitter to
publishing online whatever When Google first laden with ads or deceptive fill up with automatically gen-
they have seen fit to share— appeared, it was a revelation. offers. Search engine giants erated propaganda promoting
whether it’s profound truths, Search results were vastly bet- are already working on this the points of view of controver-
falsehoods, or merely incoher- ter. Before long, though, “link problem, looking for signa- sial political figures.
ent junk. farmers”—who often call them- tures that pages were created Unfortunately, it is difficult
The problem of internet selves “search engine optimisa- automatically, then penalising for people to navigate a land-
junk is about to get much, tion experts”—figured out how them. What is likely to happen scape in which an enormous
much worse. In the late 1990s, to fool Google, too: by creating is an escalating war between amount of the content they are
the rise of the Google search AI-generated pages and algo- exposed to appears to favour
engine revolutionised how rithms designed to help search one point of view. The natural
people found their way round engines sort real human tendency, when bombarded
the sense and nonsense that How do we knowledge from artificial junk. with posts claiming the inva-
is the global internet. Search- Unfortunately, even if sion of Ukraine is legitimate,
ing online requires a differ- respond when Google can learn to sort is to wonder whether your sup-
ent strategy than searching in content is being between the authentic and the port for Kyiv is misinformed or
books. Before Google, most fake, humans may still strug- ill-considered. Do these appar-
digital search engines relied
created not for gle. Remember the Inter- ently ordinary Russians and
on a simple heuristic of look- our benefit, but net Research Agency (IRA)? apparently pro-Putin Europe-
ing for webpages where terms A building in St Petersburg ans have a point?
the user was searching for
to fool search was filled with people whose It will be a huge challenge to
appeared with high frequency. engines? job was to create social media keep these new junk accounts
 APRIL 2023 / PROSPECT 55

in check—and unfortunately, fessional news organisations with no attempts to capture with constant competition for
platforms have all the wrong that has no actual news value— and redirect my attention. users’ attention. If we worked
incentives when it comes to his favourite example is a head- There is an irony in seek- on something closer to a sub-
combatting the problem. Elon line from a credible source that ing the help of AI to help find scription model, material
Musk, witnessing the fallout read, “Stop what you’re doing our way through a landscape would have to be higher quality
from his mismanagement and watch this elephant play filled with junk created by for users to be willing to pay for
of Twitter, may welcome the with bubbles”. This sort of con- rival systems of AI. We might it. And if systems like Reddit
advent of these robots host- tent is created by humans to have avoided this problem did not reward users simply for
ing controversial and high- grab attention: it doesn’t pro- had OpenAI, the creators of creating content that people
engagement content, just so vide useful information about ChatGPT, been more respon- happen to engage with, they
long as his advertisers do not the world, though it might be sible in the way it released its would have fewer incentives to
complain that they are wast- diverting for a period of time. tool to the public. It seems inflate their post count by pub-
ing money in selling ads to Anti-news is Fink’s bête likely that users will be able to lishing junk.
ChatGPT-empowered robots. noire, and he has devoted use ChatGPT or something Perhaps there is a way to
How do we respond when substantial thought to creat- similar in the very near future, build incentives that reward
content is being created not ing a news stream devoid of creating an endless stream of high-quality engagement and
for our benefit, but to fool clickbait and other forms of junk that can be harnessed strongly penalise people for
search engines or promote anti-news. Each day I now either for search engine opti- posting AI-generated junk.
extreme points of view? I receive a newsletter from misation or the generation of But for now it seems likely that
recently had a preview of one the Otherweb that has dis- propaganda. Here’s hoping we this battle for our attention
possible answer with a system tilled thousands of news sto- quickly see innovation in tools will head further into surreal,
called the Otherweb, created ries down to nine selected for that help us fight back. Borgesian territory as we navi-
by AI programmer Alex Fink. their apparent neutrality and We might also benefit from gate an infinite series of hex-
The Otherweb attempts to sort newsworthiness. The system rethinking the incentives agonal galleries online, armed
through the news of the day works extremely well: in a few that make the current inter- with tools to help us find those
and delete “anti-news”. Anti- moments I get a quick over- net work. Spam is a function increasingly rare nuggets of
news is content created by pro- view of newsworthy headlines of an ad-supported internet genuine human insight. ♦
ILLUSTRATION BY VINCENT KILBRIDE
56 PROSPECT / APRIL 2023

Books

I am the resurrection by
DAN JACKSON
The North of England is a place of religion and revolt, exhilaration
and disappointment. Two new books look to the past to spy its future

riving high over the South Pen- Catholic north bridling against the Eliza- Chaucer’s “The Reeve’s Tale”, the north-

D nines was a euphoric experience

for me as a student. As soon as I
hit the M62 on my way back from pit vil-
bethan project to impose Protestantism
and assert the power of the Tudor state
across every part of her kingdom.
erners swear by St Cuthbert, not by St
Thomas Becket. Cuthbert’s banner was
carried in battle by Northumbrian troops
lage Northumberland to the bright lights But perhaps the worst insult to north- against the Scots, and after the English
of Liverpool University, I would slide the ern pride was the burning of St Cuth- victories at Neville’s Cross and Flodden
well-worn cassette of the Stone Roses’ bert’s banner by the fanatically puritan Field, the swords and armour of the cap-
eponymous debut album into the tape wife of the dean of Durham Cathedral in tured or slain Scottish kings were placed
deck of my threadbare Vauxhall Corsa. the 1560s—the same embroidered stand- on St Cuthbert’s shrine in homage.
Mani’s bassline would cause instant ard that had led the northern, Catholic Some of these recurring themes of
gooseflesh, John Squires’s Stratocaster resistance to Elizabeth’s father in the so- Northumbrian history—of glorious cre-
quickened the pulse, and by the time called Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536. ativity and confidence alongside defeat,
that Ian Brown reached the crescendo of It’s hard to overstate how important decay and subjugation, and the place of
“I Wanna Be Adored” or “I Am the Res- St Cuthbert was to the North of Eng- a totemic figure such as Cuthbert within
urrection”, I’d feel practically airborne land. The historian Tom Holland has that story—are the central motifs of two
as I sped past places like Brighouse and described him as “a figure of awesome recent books from two Northumbrian
Cleckheaton. and terrible power, who was valued by writers. The first is Cuddy, an unusual
But the album’s wistful folk number the Northumbrian royal dynasty as a retelling of the life and legacy of St Cuth-
“Elizabeth My Dear” had a different reg- kind of Merlin or Gandalf ”. The glories bert by Benjamin Myers through prose
ister. As a history student, I was intrigued of his shrine in Durham Cathedral were and poetry. The second: Alex Niven’s The
by the echoes of 16th-century hanging, rivalled in England only by those in Can- North Will Rise Again, a lively cultural and
drawing and quartering in the lines: terbury, and the healing power of his rel- political history of the lands between the
ics were the Pfizer vaccine of its day. In Tweed and the Mersey–Humber line.
Tear me apart When I was growing up in the North-
And boil my bones umberland coalfield, a “cuddy” was a pit
I’ll not rest pony, like those who lived in retirement
‘Til she’s lost her throne near us by the railway line. It was also the
Cuddy nickname for men called Cuthbert—not
But which Elizabeth was the song by Benjamin Myers that I knew any, other than Cuthbert
referring to? It’s assumed to be a repub- (Bloomsbury, £20) Cringeworthy in The Bash Street Kids, or
lican rejoinder to the House of Windsor, Lord (Cuthbert) Collingwood, the vice
but I detected echoes of the deep past— admiral whose giant statue still surveys
not least the last great armed rebellion of the mouth of the Tyne for enemy ship-
the North versus the South, against Eliz- The North ping. The saint himself lay in the great
abeth Tudor in 1569, and the state-spon- Will Rise Again: “Cathedral Church of Christ, Blessed
sored butchery that followed. In Search of the Mary the Virgin and St Cuthbert of Dur-
The motives behind the Rising of the Future in Northern ham”, an icon of the Northeast like the
North were mixed. Rival regnal claims Heartlands Tyne Bridge and the Angel of the North,
by Alex Niven
were a serious business, but so too was the and described by John Ruskin as the
(Bloomsbury, £20)
sense of regional grievance from a largely eighth wonder of the world.
 APRIL 2023 / PROSPECT 57

Lionel Barber: Bonfire of the consultancies page 60

Robert Chandler: Ukraine and euphoria page 70

Laura Barton: How the Boss lost power page 74

Kate Maltby: The road to “Oklahoma!” page 75

© BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED / BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

I wanna be adored: a monk kisses the feet of St Cuthbert in

a scene from Bede’s “Life of St Cuthbert”
58 PROSPECT / APRIL 2023

Benjamin Myers is an award-winning But some of the prose tries too hard: “a recorded that he was “quick to reprove
author and journalist whose output has sun that bakes loaves of bread in the oven wrong-doers, but his gentleness made
ranged across the themes of nature and of forever” made me wince, and chants him speedy to forgive penitents”, and
landscape, history and memory, and of “o Cuddy Cuddy o… o Cuddy sainted this saint came to be so associated with
the meaning of place in modern Brit- soul” sounded awkward and unconvinc- Durham that the county was almost
ain. Though now living in the Wuthering ing. But Myers is a natural storyteller, called Haliwerfolc—“the folk of the holy
Heights country of the Upper Calder Val- and if his more experimental writing can man”—like Norfolk or Suffolk. The land
ley, he hails from County Durham, and be patchy, his descriptions of the transit between the Tyne and the Tees was ruled
truly knows the character of the people of the incorruptible “Corpus Cuddy”— by Cuthbert, even while dead, as a necro-
and places he writes about in Cuddy. and the chafing of the all-too-corrupti- cracy, and then as the only Prince Bish-
Alongside Cuthbert’s presence, much ble balls of the monks who humped his opric in these islands, quasi-independent
of Durham’s emotional power derives bier across the edge of the former Roman and curiously detached from the rest of
from its ancient foundations, a palimp- Empire—is genuinely memorable. the country.
sest of Anglo-Saxon, Norman, Georgian But why was Cuthbert so venerated How are the holy man’s folk—and
and Victorian building; and the way in Northumbria? His much-chronicled those of the wider north—faring now? As
Myers tells the story of the devotion to holiness can seem incomprehensible a native of Northumberland, a lecturer
Cuddy down the centuries is similarly 14 centuries later, but there was some- in English literature at Newcastle Uni-
layered. It begins with a spare, poetic thing in his personality that resonated versity and a keen observer of that wider
account of the journey of Cuthbert’s with a people whose own character still north in the pages of New Left Review,
body—which, famously, did not decom- feels distinctive. That Cuddy had been Tribune and the Guardian, Alex Niven is
pose—away from its exposure to Viking a warrior in his youth, before taking up well placed to answer.
sea-raiders on Lindisfarne to its final rest- the cross, meant a lot for a border region His latest book, The North Will Rise
ing place on that wooded hill on a loop soaked in blood and with a martial tra- Again, attempts a wide-ranging cultural
of the Wear. Then comes a The Name dition that persists to this day. There are history of the North of England over the
of the Rose-style killing in the woods of shades of cartoon Geordieness in some past century, with an emphasis on popu-
Duresme, and an account of the hun- accounts of his life. Saint Bede said he lar music and the higher-brow art forms
dreds of Scots who died in the cathedral would “upbraid the monks for their soft- of literature, poetry and architecture.
as prisoners of Oliver Cromwell. A haunt- ness”, while he preferred to spend his eve- This is interlaced with a memoir of the
ing tale follows of an Oxford don called nings knee-deep in prayer and the freez- author’s early life and thwarted career as
to superintend Cuthbert’s exhumation, ing waters of the North Sea, with only raw a musician, as well as a righteously angry
done in the manner of an MR James onions for sustenance. One 14th-century critique of recent British governments—
ghost story. The novel ends with a ten- manuscript even claimed that the young all of which builds towards a polemical
derly observed portrait of the precarity of Cuthbert “pleyde atte balle with the chil- conclusion in favour of greater political
contemporary life for so many in the left- dren that his fellowes were”—so he was independence for a North that is increas-
behind places of County Durham, and clearly a lad who enjoyed a kickabout. ingly poor, marginal and unhappy.
the Cuthberts that still live among us. But it was Cuthbert’s kindness and Niven’s argument is that the North is
Myers has a poetic sensibility, and as a patience that made him so loved. Bede “a place of endless subtlety, exceptional
writer he enjoys the snap and crunch of generosity, fierce love and utopian possi-
words, and the way they can summon an bility”, and that if it “has meant anything
atmosphere, even just from the strange over the last 200 years it has meant pro-
place names of Northumberland: “Etal, gress”. As evidence, he locates the North
Duddo, Twizell, Unthank…” Although no as perhaps the preeminent site of mod-
believer, he also conjures the ambience ernism in the 19th and 20th centuries,
of sanctity that emitted from Cuthbert Taking the long and describes how the surging energy of
in life and in death and that sense of his view, we might northern industries had a decisive effect
time as an anchorite, walled in on Inner on an avant-garde of artists, musicians
Farne, having opened a portal to heaven. say that the history and writers.
of the North of As a cultural critic, his grounding of
A rheumy slit glued shut. British literary and artistic modernism
My eye. England is a in the industrial North of England makes
A gate against eternity. litany of defeats up the strongest sections of the book.
I open it. Niven skilfully connects Wyndham Lew-
All is as was; stone, sea and sky
at the hands is’s northwards-looking BLAST magazine
Pouring in of the South and the Vorticists’ love of concrete and
 APRIL 2023 / PROSPECT 59

machinery with Yevgeny Zamyatin’s general election, he dismisses the appeal

inspiration in the “grand mechanised of the insurgent Conservatives as “a mix-
ballet” of Tyneside shipyards, Aldous ture of morbid curiosity and vague fond-
Huxley’s formative visit to the Imperial ness for the clownish media persona of
Chemical Industries’s huge plant in Bill- Boris Johnson”. Was that it? Their trust
ingham (which “opened the doors of his may have been misguided, but might they
perception”) and on to the influence of have been voting for something positive,
industrial Teesside on the aesthetics of such as the restoration of industry?
Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. I agree with Niven, though, that the
He well evokes the white heat of 1960s North is restive. The new mass of elected
Tyneside, too, where the plate glass of mayors—across the “city regions” of Liv-
Newcastle Poly jostled with local politi- erpool, Manchester, West and South
cal overlord T Dan Smith’s dazzling Nor- Yorkshire, and, from 2024, the North-
dic Civic Centre; where Allen Ginsberg east—has created a new locus of power
conducted bardic rituals in the Morden and influence. In the words of Walt Whit-
Tower on the city walls and Bryan Ferry man that appear on the banner of Chop-
strutted in stylish threads from Marcus well Miners’ Lodge, it will be up to them
Price; where Alan Hull experimented to “take up the task eternal” of patiently
with psychedelic substances in St Nich- renovating the civic structures of the
© TRINITY MIRROR / MIRRORPIX / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

olas’ Mental Hospital and “broke through North and rebuilding the alliance of
to an otherwise inaccessible realm of Northern England, Wales and Scotland
northern consciousness: an exotic world as a counterbalance to the hoarding of
of artistic freedom above and beyond an financial and institutional power in the
often hopeless state of mind”. South (until recently, this task was the
Niven’s analysis is influenced by an main purpose of the Labour party, too).
atypical upbringing as the child of radi- Taking the long view, we might say
cal academics, and he writes movingly of that the history of the North of England
his late father listening to German space is a litany of defeats at the hands of the
rock, reading Ursula K Le Guin and tend- South: the Harrying of the North, the
ing his ganja plants in his geometric pod Wars of the Roses, the Catholic rebel-
greenhouse on the edge of the bleak Restive spirit: the Stone Roses performing lions of the 1500s, Civil War and Jaco-
Northumbrian moors. So it makes sense in Manchester in 1995 bite failure, Peterloo and the Chartists,
for him to think of the North’s “main- and the General and Miners’ Strikes. But
stream cultural tradition” as being “one there have been rare victories. When
of modernism and futurism”, and even to Thomas Cromwell sent his royal com-
dwell on the work of the poet Basil Bunt- missioners to seize the wealth of the
ing and artist Victor Pasmore. church in Durham and strip Cuthbert’s
As influential as these artists were in entry to the nascent European Coal and shrine of its gold and jewels, they sought
northern intellectual circles, however, Steel Community in the 1950s, and on further riches inside his coffin. Planning
such an emphasis leads to an unbal- to the strength of the Brexit vote in the to toss away his bones, they smashed
anced understanding of northern cul- “Red Wall”. their way in with sledgehammers, but
ture. Niven concedes that not everyone This is a blind spot for Niven, and were shocked to discover, “contrary to
shares his enthusiasm for “radically dif- although the book’s political prescrip- their expectation” (according to David
ferent forms of cultural being” and notes tions run to some length, while still being Willem in St Cuthbert’s Corpse: A Life After
there are “plenty of Northern conserva- lightly sketched—“the UK’s political geog- Death), that his body was still incorrupt
tive exceptions to the rule, as anyone who raphy will have to be firmly overhauled” after 800 years and that they had broken
has ever been to Harrogate or Knutsford and “northern revival must be a radical, one of his legs.
knows all too well”. But Northern con- even revolutionary project”—it’s notice- So although they managed to spirit
servativism isn’t confined to these untyp- able how seldom the hoi polloi intrude the Lindisfarne Gospels to London—
ically wealthy enclaves and has always into his narrative. “Scousers and Geordies where they languish still, like Northum-
been a key feature of northern political love shopping, clothes and the trappings bria’s Elgin Marbles—Cuthbert is still
culture—from the North’s unmatched of weekend glamour,” he sniffs, “to an there, a unique figure in the history of
response to Kitchener’s call in 1914 to the extent that often borders on open mania.” English Christianity, radiating the power
Durham miners who thwarted Britain’s And after door-knocking during the 2019 of Northern resistance. ♦
60 PROSPECT / APRIL 2023

© DAVID MCALLISTER / PROSPECT

Books

The McKinsey report by

lionel barber
Management consultancies have avoided both scrutiny and censure
in this modern era of capitalism that they helped to forge. Until now

nlike bankers, management con- for despotic regimes in China, Saudi Ara- world’s most powerful consulting firm”.

U sultants have largely escaped

blame for the sins of modern
capitalism. They have evaded public
bia and elsewhere.
Two books—one an investigative tour
de force on McKinsey, the other a frontal
Their book is a litany of mistakes and mis-
deeds, with no mitigating circumstances.
The tone is unrelentingly chippy, even if
scrutiny, too—no mean achievement lobotomy on the consulting industry in the facts speak for themselves.
for a global industry that is estimated to general—strip away the aura of respecta- Mariana Mazzucato, a professor at
gross up to $900bn a year. bility that has surrounded the profession University College London (interviewed
McKinsey, Bain, Boston Consulting for more than a century. When McKin- on p88), and Rosie Collington, a writer
Group, the so-called Big Three, are purely sey Comes to Town and The Big Con high- and PhD candidate, are equally scathing.
consultancy firms. Deloitte, EY, KPMG light conflicts of interest, hypocrisy and “What we call the Big Con is not about
and PwC, known as the Big Four, also pro- fee-driven avarice. Most damaging is the criminal activity,” they write. “It describes
vide auditing services. Each casts itself as charge that consulting firms create the the confidence trick the consulting indus-
a discreet agent serving government and impression of value rather than deliver- try performs in contracts with hollowed-
industry. Yet they are powerful actors ing tangible benefits to their clients. out and timid governments and share-
in their own right. They have helped to Walt Bogdanich and Michael For- holder value-maximising firms.”
shape policy on issues ranging from cli- sythe, both award-winning reporters at All this adds up to a comprehensive
mate change and “outsourcing” to priva- the New York Times, have nothing positive indictment of the profession. But does the
tisation and tax, not to mention their work to say about McKinsey, described as “the case for the prosecution stack up?
APRIL 2023 / PROSPECT 61

The roots of the consulting business go meanwhile, its consultants continue to

back to 1911, when Frederick Winslow Tay- pull in millions for advising fossil fuel
lor, a mechanical engineer turned steel When McKinsey giants such as Chevron and ExxonMobil,
plant manager, wrote the monograph Comes to Town while the firm insists that it is committed
Principles of Scientific Management. Tay- by Walt Bogdanich to a greener, more environmentally sus-
lor was obsessed with efficient manufac- and Michael Forsythe tainable world.
(Vintage, £20)
turing and the output of individual work- The firm’s shift into work for govern-
ers—what we today call “productivity”. He ments has proved lucrative but reputa-
concluded that manufacturing should be tionally high risk. In South Africa, McKin-
broken into individual tasks, timed rigor- sey became involved in tainted contracts
ously, and carried out by workers selected The Big Con involving, at one remove, the corrupt
“scientifically” and trained appropriately. by Mariana Gupta brothers. In Saudi Arabia, McKin-
In this new world, workers were treated Mazzucato and sey, along with all the big consulting firms,
more as resources than individuals. And Rosie Collington took a sizeable chunk of the $1bn-plus fees
(Allen Lane, £25)
while managers and workers were notion- controlled by Crown Prince Mohammed
ally equal (Taylor, an amateur tennis star, Bin Salman, the de facto ruler.
had spent his earlier career on the shop Most of the business was related to
floor), the managers were in charge of mous professor of accounting at the Uni- “Vision 2030”, the crown prince’s plan
planning and supervision. This emerg- versity of Chicago. An early client was for reducing the Desert Kingdom’s
ing executive class was responsible for the Marshall Field’s, a large department store dependency on oil. But consulting for
results and, implicitly, entitled to a greater in the Windy City that had fallen on hard MBS was not a one-way bet. McKinsey,
share of the rewards. times in the Great Depression. James O working with Bain and Cambridge Ana-
Taylorism spawned a generation of McKinsey took charge of the company lytica, the dodgy data-mining company,
consulting firms in the US and Europe. to ensure his recommendations were fol- appear to have promoted the use of “sen-
Large-scale manufacturers such as the lowed. Some 1,200 jobs were cut in what timent analysis” to track public attitudes.
auto, chemical and steel industries were became known as “McKinsey’s purge”. The Saudi regime subsequently used the
desperate to improve efficiency. The con- Any reputational damage was short- mined social media posts for keywords to
sultant, armed with charts and numbers, lived. By 1968, Stephen Aris, a business track political opponents.
appeared to provide the answer. journalist, wrote that the name McKin- McKinsey pleaded innocence, but
Taylorism even found support in the sey was “becoming as synonymous with one of the government’s targets was a
Soviet Union, according to Mazzucato managerial reform as Hoover is with vac- Saudi national based in Canada who was
and Collington. Initially, the commu- uum cleaning”. He defined McKinsey as an associate of Jamal Khashoggi, the jour-
nists thought management consultancy both a noun and a transitive verb: to shake nalist-dissident gruesomely murdered in
was a pseudoscience aimed at squeezing up, reorganise, declare redundant, abolish the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.
the working class. But by the mid-1920s, committee rule; it was applied mainly to McKinsey denies working with Cam-
Lenin and Trotsky embraced Taylorism, large industrial companies. “If God were bridge Analytica or its parent SCL on
contracting the US-based consultant to remake the world,” Aris wrote, “he behalf of the Saudi Ministry of Econ-
Walter Polakov for advice on developing would call upon McKinsey for assistance.” omy and Planning. The authors include a
the Soviet Union’s first five-year plan. Bogdanich and Forsythe cut the gush. perfunctory reference to the (admittedly
There are plenty of other nuggets in They open with a harrowing account of narrow) denial, along with a quote from
The Big Con, though the prose can be fatal accidents at US Steel and Disney, Kevin Sneader, then the firm’s managing
dense at times. The authors point out which they blame on thoughtless cost- partner. “The world does not want Saudi
that the consulting business has histori- cutting recommended by McKinsey con- Arabia to descend into a place where
cally benefitted from upheaval. For exam- sultants. Far from doing the Lord’s work, there aren’t jobs, and where it gets tough
ple, the Big Three and Four have raked the authors suggest, the Devil’s footprint in a very nasty way,” said Sneader.
in millions since Brexit. Another game- is all over some of the company’s more Surely he has a point. MBS may be a
changer is landmark legislation. The 1933 recent assignments. thuggish autocrat, but he is in good com-
Glass Steagall Act, which banned com- McKinsey advised Purdue Pharma and pany in the Middle East. He has curbed
mercial banks from engaging in invest- the Sackler family on how to boost sales of the influence of the Wahhabi clerics who
ment activity after the Great Crash of OxyContin painkillers, turbocharging the blessed the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the
1929, gave an important fillip to the nas- opioid crisis; the firm provided advice to US. A reversion to radical Islam could be
cent consulting industry. Big Tobacco while it did likewise for the far worse than the crown prince’s stum-
The most notable beneficiary was Federal Drug Administration, without bling efforts to drag his country into the
McKinsey, founded in 1926 by an epony- disclosing a potential conflict of interest; 21st century.
62 PROSPECT / APRIL 2023

The trouble is McKinsey has long Initiative (PFI) became increasingly pop-
behaved like—as one Economist headline ular, partly because the liability was usu-
put it—the smuggest guys in the room. ally recorded off balance sheet and thus
The firm’s mantra is that the client always excluded from the public debt. This
comes first. Its self-image is of a genteel helped burnish New Labour’s claim to be
professional services firm, a thought responsible stewards of the economy. But
leader embodied by its in-house think- there was a catch. A UK Treasury analysis
tank, the McKinsey Global Institute. in 2015 showed that the cost of servicing
In fairness, Deloitte has a “university” debt accrued through PFI was, by then,
located outside Dallas, with offshoot double that of government borrowing.
campuses in Brussels, Hyderabad, Mex- David Cameron railed against “govern-
ico City, Singapore and Toronto. So does ment by PowerPoint”, but the scale and
CapGemini outside Paris. This “quasi aca- scope of contracts awarded to outsourc-
demic” respectability is an essential part ing consultancies only accelerated during
of the management consultant brand. the austerity years. Companies such as
What both these books miss is how Carillon, G4S and Serco became respon-
McKinsey fundamentally changed in sible for cleaning hospitals, delivering
the decade after the global financial cri- school meals and providing security for
sis. I witnessed this first-hand as FT editor public events, including the Olympics.
when McKinsey agreed to co-sponsor the These same companies took over run-
Business Book of the Year award. ning asylum detention centres, border
In 2009, Dominic Barton, a hard- controls, prisons, as well as a disastrous
driving Canadian, succeeded Ian Davis Chris Grayling-inspired excursion into
as managing partner. Davis, a suave Eng- the probation service, since rescinded.
lishman, had a keen commercial eye and The Covid pandemic opened the door
a cute turn of phrase, once advising his wider. Deloitte earned £1m a day from
consultants to act as “viziers and courti- the widely criticised Test and Trace con-
ers” in Saudi Arabia. Barton, ever courte- tracts, while McKinsey had a front-row
ous, had even greater ambitions. seat on vaccine distribution.
He recognised that the fallout from All this raises basic questions about
the financial crisis presented a once-in- the role of the state and the civil ser-
a-generation opportunity. Over the next quality of advice. Consulting firms, they vice and democratic accountability,
decade, dozens of new partners were claim, work from a cost-cutting playbook argue Mazzucato and Collington. They
appointed. The firm’s revenues doubled with minimal attention to individual bemoan the loss of “capacity” and exper-
to more than $10bn. Paradoxically, McK- company needs. Boards use consultants tise in Whitehall and the NHS. In their
insey’s reach expanded with the “agreed as an insurance policy, either to justify a view, consultants have “infantilised” gov-
departures” of lower-performing staff. pre-planned course of action or because ernment. Their remedies—an “entrepre-
These often went on to well-placed jobs they are too timid to act themselves. neurial state”, a more responsible media
and became part of the worldwide McK- It’s true that consulting firms, like ad narrative, “a network of dynamic public
insey alumni network. agencies and investment banks, are all institutions that invest along the entire
With that expansion came an exces- about the mandate. Once signed, the value chain”—sound like jargon. Their
sive focus on fees. Fearful of being eased grunt work is handed over to junior teams, thesis reads more like an attempted dem-
out, some partners chased dubious man- who are often stretched in order to save olition of liberal capitalism. Consultants
dates, especially with governments. The money. But is there really no example of are collateral damage, not perpetrators of
firm became harder to manage. Failures where a second pair of eyes has helped a economic crimes.
of oversight resulted in the departure company to change course for the better? Their broader point holds. The pub-
of Sneader, Barton’s hapless successor. Apparently not. lic sector remains a critical actor in the
The disconnect between the firm’s high- The argument that governments have economy. The pendulum has swung too
minded public image and the grubby become overly reliant on consulting firms far. In the digital economy, the private
pursuit of profit was unsustainable. McK- is more persuasive. Outsourcing public sector is an indispensable source of cre-
insey turned into a case study in misman- services started with privatisation under ativity and innovation, but it does not
agement. Margaret Thatcher and accelerated with have all the answers. Humbled and per-
Mazzucato and Collington pursue a the Blair-Brown Third Way. Public-pri- haps a little wiser, McKinsey knows that
different line of attack, scoffing at the vate partnerships and the Private Finance better than most. ♦
 APRIL 2023 / PROSPECT 63
© STEVE TULLEY / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Books

Never again? by
ALEX J KAY
The ways in which we remember the Holocaust might not help
to prevent the rise of violent fascism in future

T
he Holocaust was the most terri- paths. Our unthinking repetition of the by Holocaust education chime with the
ble atrocity of the 20th century. mantra “never again” is comforting but values of society at large.”
In many ways, it was also unprec- ineffective. He argues that “the answer Stone is right to emphasise that the
edented in the history of atrocities: for to increasing levels of hatred is not more circumstances that allow fascism—cur-
its comprehensiveness and systematic Holocaust education, for that is asking rently, as he puts it, “knocking on the
nature; for the fanaticism with which education to do more than it can provide. door” in the UK—to take power have not
its perpetrators scoured an entire con- Rather, if we want Holocaust education been addressed. If we fail to meet this
tinent in their pursuit of Jews; for the to prove effective, we have first to build challenge, he contends, then the postwar
awful potency of the Nazis’ insinuation a society that desires equality and toler- order founded on internationalism and
that the victims represented a pernicious ance, and in which the values promoted individual freedom, which has already
and existential threat. Collectively, we been weakened in the past three decades,
have spent decades—and published mil- will be discarded and we will have som-
lions of words—trying to understand nambulated into authoritarianism, “if
what happened and why. The Holocaust: not full-blown fascism”.
In his new book, The Holocaust: An An Unfinished
Unfinished History, Dan Stone’s propo- History
by Dan Stone
sition is, to some extent, that we have The other face: Menashe Kadishman’s
(Pelican, £22)
failed. Our search for understanding has, “Fallen Leaves” installation commemorating
in his account, led us down the wrong the Holocaust in the Jewish Museum in Berlin
64 PROSPECT / APRIL 2023

The history of the Holocaust is the dence for Stone’s belief that “the Holo- leading. This misconception remains at
lens through which Stone chooses to caust teaches nothing” that the perpe- large among the wider public—although
view these portentous developments. For trators are largely absent from his book. Holocaust scholars have grappled with
this reason, and because he is the direc- Stone’s deeply humane account draws on it in recent decades. One of the first to
tor of the Holocaust Research Institute an array of testimonies from some of the make an attempt at rebalancing the nar-
at Royal Holloway, University of Lon- most observant and perceptive victims, rative was Hans-Heinrich Nolte, a Ger-
don, it is surprising that he laments that and he uses these to devastating effect. man historian of eastern Europe, who,
“the Holocaust teaches nothing except There is undoubtedly a moral obligation in 2008, published an essay in the weekly
that deep passions that owe nothing to to the victims to tell their story as faith- broadsheet Die Zeit about “Die andere
rational politics can move human beings fully as possible, which Stone fulfils here. Seite des Holocaust”—the other face of the
to do terrible things”. However, to quote Timothy Snyder, the Holocaust—and its “archaic” character.
Is this really true? Like Stone, I believe American historian and public intellec- A year later, the aforementioned Sny-
that we have come to misunderstand the tual: “It is less appealing, but morally der—at a time when he was better known
nature of the Holocaust. Unlike him, I more urgent, to understand the actions as a historian of eastern Europe than as
do believe that there are still lessons to of the perpetrators. The moral danger, a historian of the Holocaust—noted in
be learned from it. Two, in particular, after all, is never that one might become his essay “Holocaust: The Ignored Real-
deserve to be highlighted. a victim but that one might be a perpetra- ity”, published in the New York Review
First, beware the pitfalls of “com- tor or a bystander.” The most insightful of Books, that “as many if not more Jews
munity building”. It’s an innocuous- histories of the Holocaust therefore com- were killed by bullets as by gas”. The main
sounding phrase and, one might think, bine both the perspectives of the victims victims, the Soviet and Polish Jews, had
in normal circumstances, a goal to which and those of the perpetrators. been shot or poisoned by carbon mon-
societies might aspire. But it should also Instead of seeking to teach the reader oxide from internal combustion engines
be noted that comradeship can com- something using the Holocaust as a con- pumped into gas chambers at Treblinka,
pletely remove feelings of personal duit, Stone is interested in highlighting Bełżec and Sobibór in occupied Poland.
responsibility and sometimes requires elements that, he says, have been over- Other historians have since built on
the identification of a common enemy. looked: “There are still major parts of the the work of Nolte and Snyder, so that
As Sebastian Haffner, one of the history of the Holocaust that have not we now know that Nazi Germany killed
most perceptive contemporary com- been understood in the prevailing nar- approximately 13m people, six million
mentators on Nazism, observed in his rative.” He emphasises three. First, “the Jews and seven million non-Jews, in
1939 youth memoir: “In comradeship, perception of ‘factory-like’ genocide is deliberate policies of mass murder over
no thoughts are allowed to flourish, just misleading”. Second, “the Holocaust the course of less than six years from sum-
mass sentiments of the most primitive was not just a German affair”. Third, “we mer 1939 to late spring 1945, but also that
kind.” This was heightened in wartime, need a ‘return to ideology’ following the starvation, shooting and gassing, in that
during deployment on the frontline and movement away from it in several recent order, were the preferred killing meth-
in occupied territories. There is no com- major synthetic histories”—by which ods. If the many works in both special-
munity-building without boundaries, Stone means a renewed focus on the cen- ist and non-specialist publications over
without the Other. The group needs the trality of Nazi racial thinking in the drive the past 15 years have failed to correct
Other in order to become a community. to exterminate Europe’s Jews. the misleading conception of industrial
And the second lesson: people can Stone is right to emphasise that the mass murder among the general public, it
commit terrible atrocities when they notion of industrial mass murder is mis- is hard to see Stone’s book achieving this.
believe they have been wronged, and Likewise, the fact that the Holocaust
feel justified in taking radical action. was not just a German affair can only be
Like most perpetrators of genocide and considered an overlooked aspect of this
mass killing, the Nazis were not only con- Like most history, as Stone maintains, if we assume
vinced that they were victims but also perpetrators of that his target audience is a lay reader-
that what they were doing was right. ship. Martin Dean, Knut Stang and the
They believed it was necessary both to genocide, the late Andrew Ezergailis all published,
rectify what had gone wrong in 1918— Nazis were not only more than 20 years ago, prominent stud-
defeat in the First World War and the ies on collaboration in eastern Europe.
tumultuous fallout it triggered—and, in convinced that they In one chapter, Stone does provide
the new war, to avoid a repeat. were victims but also a nuanced analysis of reactions to the
It is significant that these two les- persecution of Jews in countries allied
sons relate to perpetrators, both Nazi
that what they were to Germany, including considerable
and otherwise. It is perhaps no coinci- doing was right resistance to German demands in Vichy
 APRIL 2023 / PROSPECT 65

throughout. Measured against the goals

it sets itself, then, one might conclude
that The Holocaust: An Unfinished His-
tory falls short. As a well-written history
of the Holocaust and its aftermath, and
in its accomplished use of eyewitness
accounts, however, the book has a lot to
offer a more general audience. Though
the book is not a major new interpreta-
tion, Dan Stone remains an important
and eloquent voice in the field of Holo-
caust studies.
Nowhere is this more apparent than
when he discusses “Holocaust Memory”
in chapter eight. Here, it finally becomes
clear why the book is subtitled “An Unfin-
© INTERFOTO / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

ished History”: “Selective Holocaust

memory is being put at the service of
criminalizing scholarship.” The chapter
neatly and persuasively brings the book
full circle and, again, starkly illustrates
the problems confronting Holocaust
education and Holocaust remembrance
In memory of memory: West German chancellor Willy Brandt kneels before today: “Commemorating with ceremo-
a monument in the former Jewish ghetto of Warsaw in 1970 nies whose template involves heads of
state, a few victim testimonies and chil-
dren’s poems is insufficient to change the
France, Italy, Hungary and Romania. more important than ideological ones… ways in which fascism is interwoven into
This is underscored by Stone’s observa- would make no sense”. the deep memory of western culture.”
tion that Jews in Axis countries “were More importantly, over the past This is the challenge facing us all
more likely to survive than their co-reli- 25 years, the works of Klaus-Michael today. Here, the words of one commen-
gionists in Nazi-occupied lands”. The Mallmann, Wendy Lower and Thomas tator at war’s end, quoted by Stone, ring
response of neutral countries further Kühne, among others, have resurrected true: “Hitler has been vanquished rather
reveals that German domination was the the importance of antisemitism and ide- than repudiated, most of those who
common denominator when it came to ology as a decisive motivating factor for opposed him reacted against the appli-
killing Jews. Ultimately, Stone himself Holocaust perpetrators. The conduct of cation of his concepts to them. They have
must concede that the Holocaust was these perpetrators cannot be explained still to disavow his conception.” It is with
“driven and largely perpetrated by Ger- in terms of their ideology alone, yet it good reason that Stone declares we must
mans”, “a German project first and fore- also cannot be understood without ide- face the meaning of Nazism head on, and
most” and “undoubtedly emanated from ology—because antisemitism provided, that “notions of racial supremacy, of the
Germany and was led by the Germans”. at all times, a general absolution for the right to territorial expansion, of the dis-
The third part of Stone’s argument is actions of the perpetrators. The unity of missal of minorities’ rights to hospitality
that we need a return to ideology. This ideological convictions and sanctioning and membership in the polity in which
prompts the response: a return from from above, on the one hand, and mate- they live” must be renounced.
what? Stone cites two examples of recent rial and career interests, on the other, Like Orlando Figes’s The Europeans,
major synthetic histories to demonstrate can feasibly explain the conduct of a from 2019, a book written in a simi-
this movement away from ideology, great many people during the Holocaust. lar context and with a similar message,
namely Christian Gerlach’s The Exter- There is no empirical basis for dismiss- albeit employing a very different his-
mination of the European Jews and David ing or downplaying the role of ideology. torical example to make its arguments,
Cesarani’s Final Solution, both from 2016. The three aspects that Stone high- Stone’s book is suffused with human-
For his part, Gerlach concluded that “ide- lights are already known to Holocaust ity. The Holocaust remains relevant
ological, material and political consider- scholars. Besides, he heavily caveats one and important because it is a terrifying
ations were inextricably linked”, adding of his main arguments—that the Hol- example of what people can and will do
that to claim “that economic issues were ocaust was not just a German affair— in given circumstances. ♦
66 PROSPECT / APRIL 2023

Books

Ghostbrushers by
FRANCESCA PEACOCK
Otherworldly beliefs have long been a part of the process for many artists—
including, a new book reminds us, many women artists

ad you attended Max Weber’s (Concerning the Spiritual in Art). For an well have taken umbrage with that defini-

H famous 1917 lecture in which he

argued that the world had gone
through a period of “disenchantment”—
essay on such a tricky, elusive subject,
it is surprisingly lively and accessible:
he describes how the “soul” is fighting
tion. She was not painting abstract ideas
or concepts, but was, instead, directed
by the spirit world. Through séances
or, in a literal translation of his German against the “nightmare of materialism”, with other women involved with spirit-
term, Entzauberung, “de-magic-ation”— and how the “glimmer of spiritual close- ualism, she had contacted the “Masters”
then you might have found yourself nod- ness” is the key to an artist’s creation. who controlled her painting hand.
ding along vigorously. After all, the previ- This delicate, tentative spiritualism Indeed, in 1906—when af Klint
ous century had seen the introduction of was also linked to the development of painted her most famous works—she
railways and mass communication, the abstraction itself: with the endless pos- described herself as a conduit: “I had no
spread of industry and empire. Every- sibilities of other worlds, why should art- idea what the paintings were supposed
where, mystery seemed to be giving way ists stick to pure representation? In Hig- to depict; nevertheless, I worked swiftly
to the cold, hard facts of rationalism. gie’s words: “How to picture an aura or a and surely, without changing a single
And yet, if you’d moved in differ- soul? How best to visualise modernity’s brushstroke.” As Higgie notes, af Klint’s
ent circles back then, you might have exciting disorientations?” spiritualism was one of the reasons why
noticed an undercurrent of something But, as Higgie points out, histories of she wasn’t “taken seriously” by cura-
else. Belief in spiritualism, the idea that modern, abstract art have always focused tors and historians (until 2018, that is,
the living can commune with the dead, on Kandinsky and other male artists when the newfound feminist interest in
blossomed throughout the 19th century (Paul Klee and Piet Mondrian among her as a forgotten pioneer made her the
and into the early decades of the 20th. them). So this is the other other side of subject of a sellout show at the Guggen-
Even some of the newest scientific devel- her book: much like Katy Hessel’s The heim). She was far from alone in this pre-
opments—the telegram, the telephone, Story of Art Without Men, from last year, dicament: “When a male artist explored
electric lighting—seemed supernatural there is an effort to give women artists spirituality it didn’t necessarily harm his
compared with what had come before. the primacy they deserve. career, but when a woman followed the
It is hardly surprising, then, that It was over a decade before Kandin- same path, she was dismissed as, at best,
there were those such as Weber’s near- sky’s essay that the Swedish artist Hilma eccentric, at worst, a maverick.”
contemporary, the enigmatic “Madame” af Klint became interested in Blavat- Still more decades before af Klint sum-
Helena Blavatsky (inspiration for TS Eli- sky’s Theosophy. Af Klint’s paintings— moned her spirits, the English watercol-
ot’s “Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoy- concentric swirls of blue and yellow over ourist Georgiana Houghton exhibited
ante”), who founded their own occultist darker blue backgrounds; numbered, her “spirit drawings” in a gallery on Old
movements. Blavatsky’s was the “Theo- circular forms with seemingly symbolic Bond Street. 1870s London could hardly
sophical Society”, a group that believed shapes alongside them; and clean, near- have been prepared for what they saw:
in an “ancient wisdom religion” con- brutal triangular shapes designed for her swirling lines and kaleidoscopic spirals
nected to late antiquity’s Neoplatonism. “altarpieces”—appear, at first glance, to painted over vivid backgrounds—colours
It is this undercurrent—or, you could be an early development of modernism which, according to Houghton, all had
say, “other side”—that Jennifer Higgie’s and pure abstraction. But af Klint may symbolic value—and with tantalisingly
vivid new book, The Other Side, taps into. descriptive titles, such as The Eye of the
Her concern is the artists for whom the Lord or The Portrait of the Lord Jesus Christ.
world was never truly “disenchanted”: Houghton became interested in spir-
The Other Side:
those who retained their interest in spir- itualism after attending a séance, and
A Journey into
its and fairies; those who engage with Women, Art and the
had then trained herself to become
#witchtok and tarot cards nowadays. Spirit World a medium. Her paintings were, she
In 1911, the Russian forefather of by Jennifer Higgie claimed, the result of being directed
abstraction, Wassily Kandinsky, pub- (Orion, £22) by the spirit of “Lenny” (the late Henry
lished Über das Geistige in der Kunst Lenny, the prince consort), other royals
 APRIL 2023 / PROSPECT 67

so, this approach can leave the reader

wanting. What, for example, is the pre-
cise link between conversations with the
dead and Carrington’s psychedelic invo-
cations? What were Colquhoun’s occult
beliefs that got her expelled from the
British surrealists?
A more precise approach to the super-
natural’s many manifestations would
not lessen the radicalism or interest of
the subject, but would, instead, enable
it to be taken more seriously. Higgie has,
rightly, drawn attention to an underap-
preciated area of art history, but there is
a more academic study to be written: one
with a clearer delineation between those
who believe fully in these “other worlds”
and those who use them to further their
art; an explanation of how beliefs in spir-
its have co-existed with Christianity for
centuries; and an understanding of how,
© MANGO ART / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

despite their fringe status, these alterna-

tive beliefs are often highly codified.
Higgie also posits this interest in the
spiritual as something intrinsically fem-
inine: it is women, more than men, who
have been drawn to other worlds. She
brings attention to a supposed heritage
Directed by the spirit world: detail of “The Ten that goes as far back as the 12th-century
Largest No. 3” (1907) by Hilma af Klint religious mystic Hildegard von Bingen
and traces it, sketchily, through to the
witch-hunts of early modernity and con-
and famous painters, and 70 archan- than one possible meaning. Is her most temporary interest in all things spooky.
gels. As Higgie puts it, “No one was mak- famous work, Scylla, a depiction of two But if there is a certain female strain
ing anything like this in the London art ancient mythological monsters—Scylla of spiritual interest, surely it is linked to
world of the 1860s. No one is making any- and Charybdis—or something more women’s historically peripheral position
thing like this today.” phallic? Or, in yet another reading, is it in religious teaching? There is no men-
The spiritualism of the 19th century the view of a woman’s open legs? tion of the female mystics Julian of Nor-
developed into a 20th-century interest It can be all three, says Higgie: wich and Margery Kempe, nor any of the
in “other worlds”. With all its emphasis Colquhoun was as interested in the super- early female philosophers, from Margaret
on the importance of the subconscious, natural and the mythological as she was Cavendish to Anne Conway, whose natu-
dreams and “automatic writing”, the sur- in new ways of depicting sexuality. Much ral philosophy was more open to the pos-
realist movement has much in common the same could be said of her fellow sur- sibility of other worlds than many men’s.
with the spirit-directed art of the Victo- realist Leonora Carrington, whose books Even with these shortcomings, how-
rian era. One member of the British sur- and paintings are replete with outrageous ever, The Other Side is a colourful, varied
realists—whose work was shown in the animals and bizarre occurrences. look at the many artists and thinkers who
recent Surrealism Beyond Borders exhibi- There’s a difficulty here: it is unde- have touched worlds beyond our own—
tion at the Tate—was Ithell Colquhoun, niably tricky to write with precision and a necessary reconsideration of why
a poet, writer and artist who moved to about something as wilfully intangi- they have all too often been “brushed
Cornwall in the aftermath of the Second ble as “other worlds”, and Higgie estab- aside”. Let us, in 2023, walk through the
World War. With a fascination in tarot, lishes early on that she is not bothered by door into what Colquhoun evocatively
the occult and esoteric traditions, her the veracity of an artist’s claims to have called the “depths of the phantasy-life,
paintings seem to be reaching towards interacted with the spiritual (“the crea- that dream-world of which many are
a different world—and always have more tive act is often mystifying”). But, even hardly aware in waking consciousness”. ♦
68 PROSPECT / APRIL 2023

Books in brief
Magisteria: The Entangled Christians, Muslims, agnos- Data Driven: Truckers, not in others. Data Driven pre-
Histories of Science and tics and atheists are all equally Technology and the New sents a library-bound, rather
Religion Workplace Surveillance
prone to misuse this cliché, as than roadside, view of what’s
by Nicholas Spencer by Karen Levy
Spencer observes. Stop-offs on happening (although, to be fair,
(Oneworld, £25) (Princeton UP, £28)
his journey of analytical story- she does quote some truckers
telling are such oft-misunder- whom she has surveyed), while
stood and oft-simplified epi- a full third of its 231 pages are
sodes as the early 17th-century given to appendices, notes, a
harassment of Galileo by the bibliography and a remarka-
Roman Inquisition, the con- bly thorough index. But it’s also
frontation between Thom- breezily written; a quick and
as Henry Huxley and the bish- informative read.
op Samuel Wilberforce of Ox- It culminates with a series
ford in 1860, and the “Monkey Part of me always wanted to be of chapters that offer partial
One of the glories of the his- Trial” of the teacher John T a trucker. Driving down long hope: examples of how truck-
torian’s task is that it enables Scopes in 1925. Spencer enjoy- American highways, lugging ers have managed to resist
them to comment on the past ably complicates all these sto- the lumber and steel that make ELDs, at least until AI-driven
in order to undermine the stu- ries, and much more. that country possible. The sun automation kicks in, as well
pidities of the present—for His survey of more than scorching my left forearm. The as a reminder that “technolo-
the benefit of that cheering- two millennia to the pre- rain cracking against the wind- gy isn’t deterministic”—we can
ly numerous band of thought- sent day is consistently well- screen. The solitariness and choose how it operates and the
ful general readers beyond informed, witty and merciless the freedom. sort of society it operates with-
their own specialist profes- to those wanting easy head- Or maybe not. Karen Levy’s in. Perhaps it’s not too late
sion. With his new book, Mag- lines. Every journalist would Data Driven is one of a number for me to become a trucker,
isteria, Nicholas Spencer has benefit from reading this sub- of post-Zuboff books—which is after all.
done tremendous work in this stantial but very useful text, to say, post-Shoshana Zuboff ’s Peter Hoskin
direction. but all its readers will emerge totemic work The Age of Sur-
Sometimes bad history is better informed—and perhaps veillance Capitalism—that focus All Sorts of Lives:
Katherine Mansfield
poisonous enough to kill peo- even saner. on the mechanisms of surveil-
and the Art of Risking
ple, as is the case with the na- Diarmaid MacCullough lance capitalism in a particular
Everything
tionalist nonsense spouted by sector; in this case, trucking.
by Claire Harman
Putin to justify his campaign And “surveillance” really is the (Chatto & Windus, £18.99)
against Ukrainian identity. word. Since the introduction
Even when it’s not that poi- of a mandate in 2019 requir-
sonous, bad history still en- ing Electronic Logging Devices
dangers our capacity to think (ELDs) to be fitted in US trucks,
straight. At a lower level of tox- drivers have been under more
icity than Putin’s perversion scrutiny than ever before.
of Russkiy mir, but depressing- In fact, Levy argues persua-
ly widespread out there, is the sively that truckers are a kind
idea of a fundamental conflict of “canary in the coalmine”
between science and religion, for the future of work. If even
with such subsidiary narra- Sometimes this scattered, sovereign indus- Katherine Mansfield caught
tives as “science has disproved try can monitor its workers’ gonorrhoea at age 21 and tu-
religion” or “science proves the
bad history is routes, efficiency levels and berculosis a few years later. She
truths of Holy Scripture”—mu- poisonous bodily functions, what hope do was very ill for the last years of
tually contradictory fruits of a the rest of us have? her life, when she produced
misleading and comparatively
enough to kill Levy is an academic, and her greatest short stories.
recent notion. people this shows in some ways, but When she died in 1923, aged
APRIL 2023 / PROSPECT 69

34, her friend Virginia Woolf 100 years since her death. But soon caught up in a bewilder- intriguing imagination the op-
declared regretfully that she Harman’s book looks to cor- ing caper. portunity to flourish. There is
was now “a rival the less”. rect that, in part by highlight- Everett assembles all the tension on every page. By mov-
Each chapter of Claire Har- ing her great skill in captur- necessary ingredients—a beau- ing the narrative backwards and
man’s compelling new biogra- ing the small details of life— tiful damsel in distress, shark- forwards in time, the expecta-
phy, All Sorts of Lives, describes as Mansfield wrote in her jour- infested swimming pools, sub- tion of astonishment drives the
one of Mansfield’s stories and nal, “I shall tell everything, marines, laser guns—but noth- plot. We don’t anticipate exact-
places it in the context of the even of how the laundry basket ing is quite what it seems. Or ly what happens, but enough is
author’s life. Many—includ- squeaked.” is it? (“I have to tell you that all trailed to widen our eyes.
ing the famous “The Garden Emily Lawford this talk about nothing is con- Cursed Bread is a short, in-
Party”—take place in New Zea- fusing me,” complains Walu Ki- tense and highly literary psy-
land, where Mansfield spent Dr No tu’s brainy colleague Eigen Vec- chological thriller. For the right
her first 15 years. Although she by Percival Everett tor; if she’s struggling, there’s reader it will be an engaging and
(Influx Press, £9.99)
attended school in London, little hope for the rest of us.) immersive read. Think of it as
and was close friends with the One thing’s for sure, though: having a Madame Bovary-style
Bloomsbury group and other Kitu is no James Bond. He’s a premise—in this case, a baker’s
prominent English writers, she “nerdy and Aspergery and awk- wife, frustrated with the restric-
felt she was an outsider—refer- ward” virgin who tenderly car- tions of small-town life and a fal-
ring to herself as “the little Co- ries his beloved one-legged dog tering marriage, becomes ob-
lonial”. She was married twice around in a BabyBjörn. But he sessed with a mysterious char-
and had numerous affairs with is the only one who truly under- acter called the ambassador and
men and women. stands that nothing matters. his wife, sophisticated but trou-
Some of her fiction was cop- Although it lacks the bloody bled new arrivals—only with
ied almost directly from her Percival Everett’s The Trees, a bite of The Trees, the beauty of added ghosts, bizarre suicides,
own diaries. Her 1915 story “An grisly but riotous black come- Dr No is that it’s no more or less dead horses, a somewhat unreli-
Indiscreet Journey” depicts dy about lynching—yes, in the preposterous than any Bond able narrator and an eerie tone.
lovers meeting in the French right hands, such an achieve- film (the references may be clas- The tension often uncoils into
war zone, and was written just ment is possible!—was one of sic Connery, but the general the uncanny.
weeks after Mansfield had her- the best novels published last vibe is more the high camp era To others, however, these
self travelled to Paris, disguised year, so fans will be pleased of Roger Moore)—and it’s every same qualities may frustrate.
under an androgynous haircut to hear that a similar madcap bit as entertaining, too. The plot’s dreamlike suspense
and a borrowed coat, to meet energy courses through his Lucy Scholes is, I found, well established but
one of her own lovers. Mans- follow-up. rather less well resolved. One or
field, whose brother died in a As the title suggests, Dr No Cursed Bread two points about the ambassa-
by Sophie Mackintosh
training exercise, vented her is part Bond-inspired thriller, dor eluded me in the end, and
(Hamish Hamilton, £16.99)
frustration with writers who ig- but also part philosophical en- the solution remained a little
nored the war: “I can’t imagine quiry about the nature of noth- too mysterious—in a book this
how after the war these men ing and part satire on the evils tightly controlled and dramat-
can pick up the old thread as of white America. When Walu ic, that niggles.
tho’ it had never been… Id say Kitu—a distinguished profes- Since I read Mackintosh’s
we have died and lived again.” sor of mathematics at Brown last book, Blue Ticket, I have
She was equally critical of University whose expertise is been eagerly looking forward
herself. While dying, she de- the study of nothing—is ap- to this one. It has turned out
scribed her bitterness at hav- proached by John Sill—a bil- to be quite a different sort of
ing written “only short stories; lionaire and wannabe supervil- work—which, in a way, is a sure
just short stories”. Compared lain (“You know, evil for evil’s By choosing a historical mys- sign of her talent. So here I go
with some of her contempo- sake”)—to help him break in- tery from 1951 as the setting for again, happily anticipating
raries, Mansfield’s writing has to Fort Knox and steal a shoe- her third novel, Sophie Mackin- what’s next.
been largely overlooked in the box containing nothing, he’s tosh has given her strange and Henry Oliver
70 PROSPECT / APRIL 2023

Art

Revelation amid desecration

An exhibition of Ukrainian art from the early 20th century, currently
in Madrid, is an important act of cultural salvage
by robert chandler

IMAGES REPRODUCED WITH KIND PERMISSION OF KONSTANTIN AKINSHA AND HIS CO-CURATORS

T
his exhibition of tin Akinsha, one of the cura- tions of this “appropriation” less promoter of Ukrainian
early-20th-century tors, had compiled most of the are admirably restrained. The folk art. A true cosmopolitan,
art from Ukraine was catalogue before finding a loca- painter and teacher Alexan- Exter never declared herself as
organised with unusual speed. tion for the exhibition; in his dra Exter, for example, was belonging to any one nation.”
Many of the works now at words, he “put the cart in front born in 1882 to a Greek mother Exter taught or worked
the Thyssen-Bornemisza in of the horse”. and a Belarusian father, in a with many of the artists repre-
Madrid, for its exhibition In the This lengthy gestation may town then part of the Russian sented. Before the First World
Eye of the Storm: Modernism in in part account for the clarity Empire but now in Poland. War she regularly exhibited in
Ukraine, 1900–1930s, are from and balance of the catalogue Her family moved to Kyiv Paris. She met Picasso, Braque
Kyiv museums and were in articles. In the past, many of when she was three. In 1924, and Léger, and was particu-
obvious danger. Plans for a pro- the artists represented have she emigrated to Paris. Ukrain- larly admired by Apollinaire.
ject of this kind, however, had been classified as Russian, even ian curator Katia Denysova In the compendium Treasures
been maturing for a long time; when they themselves emphat- sums her up as follows: “She of Ukraine, art historian Myro-
Russia’s escalation of the war ically asserted their Ukrainian remained deeply devoted to slava Mudrak describes her
was simply a catalyst. Konstan- identity. The curators’ correc- Kyiv… She also acted as a tire- as “a courier of Modernism
APRIL 2023 / PROSPECT 71

horses and flowers. The paints of colour and thick impasto.

were all prepared on the spot Calling himself “a child of the
from various clays and dyes… Ukrainian steppes”, Davyd
This was the background wrote, “My colour schemes are
against which the feeling for deeply national… It would be a
art and artistry developed good idea to transfer a part of
with me.” my paintings to Ukraine, my
From 1918 to 1920, Exter ran beloved homeland.” Neverthe-
an art studio in Kyiv. Accord- less, he is still often labelled a
ing to Denysova, her course in “Russian futurist”.
stage design “produced a gen- No less important was
eration of theatre artists who Krasna Poliana, the home of
would revolutionize the field the Syniakov sisters on the
not only in Soviet Ukraine, outskirts of Kharkiv. Vladimir
but also in Europe and North Mayakovsky, Mikhail Mat-
America”. Exter went on to iushin, Boris Pasternak,
work, in Moscow and Paris, as a Velimir Khlebnikov and many
stage and costume designer. others stayed there for long
Exter, Alexander Archi- periods. Lilia Brik, Mayako-
penko and many others vsky’s muse, writes of these
trained at the Kyiv Art School. five sisters, all of whom were
Two more informal cultural involved in one art or another:
milieus also played a crucial “They roamed the forests,
role in the artistic life of the wearing tunics, their hair
time. One was Chornianka, a loose. Their independence and
vast estate near Kherson man- eccentricity bewildered every-
aged by the father of the three one. In their home, futurism
Burliuk brothers; it was there was born.”
that the main futurist poets Maria Syniakova’s bright,
and artists planned many of simple watercolours, influ-
Revolutionising the field: their exhibitions and publica- enced by fauvism and Ukrain-
above, “Still Life” (1913) tions. The flamboyant Davyd ian folk art, are highly roman-
by Alexandra Exter
Burliuk, the futurists’ princi- tic. The tone of Khlebnik-
pal cheerleader and compère, ov’s poems about the sisters
Left, “Carousel” (1921)
by Davyd Burliuk
is appropriately represented is rhapsodical. This is not for
in this show by his oil paint- nothing; during the Russian
ing Carousel (1921)—one of Civil War, Krasna Poliana was
several variations he made of truly a sanctuary. Khlebnikov
the subject—a dazzling swirl was notoriously unworldly;
between western Europe, Rus- movement known as supre- the Syniakovs not only fed him
sian artists, and her colleagues matism—it has been said—was but also saved him from con-
in Ukraine”. Most of her paint- as needlework. This inter- scription by the Whites in 1919.
ings are radiantly colourful, penetration of modernist and
The exhibition Khlebnikov died in 1922, aged
and some are humorous; and folk art is all the more inter- was organised only 36. But for Krasna Poli-
she seems to have particularly esting in light of Malevych’s with unusual ana, he might well have died
enjoyed painting bridges. own account of his childhood of semi-starvation still earlier,
In 1914, Exter co-organised in rural Ukraine: “I watched speed. Many of before composing many of his
an exhibition in Moscow of with great excitement how the the works are greatest poems.
embroideries executed by peasants made wall paintings, During the first years of
Ukrainian peasant women and would help them cover the
from Kyiv the Soviet regime, the Bol-
based on designs by Kazymyr floors of their huts with clay museums and sheviks bought the support of
Malevych and other members and make designs on the stove. non-Russian nationalities by
of the avant-garde. The first The peasant women were
were in obvious promising “freedom from the
public appearance of the excellent at drawing roosters, danger yoke of Russian oppression”.
72 PROSPECT / APRIL 2023

Ukrainian culture was briefly himself was evidently as coura- from the following three years, have been because he was dis-
allowed to flower. From 1930, geous as he was gifted. In 1930, and he portrayed Wanda in a illusioned by the revolution,
Stalin reversed this policy. A the authorities forced him to variety of styles. In 1914 he also which he had initially sup-
great many Ukrainian artists stage the play Dyktatura (liter- completed an important trea- ported, or it may have been
and writers were executed or ally, “dictatorship”), a justifi- tise, The Art of Painting and the because, in 1920, he was diag-
sent to the Gulag—far more, cation of the central govern- Elements, anticipating theories nosed with tuberculosis. In any
in proportion to their overall ment’s authoritarian policies. later expounded by Malevych case, after returning to easel
numbers, than their Russian He “recoded” the play, stag- and Wassily Kandinsky. His painting in 1925, he devoted
equivalents. The influential ing it as satire. Afterwards, he accompanying illustrations of most of his last two years to a
Mikhailo Boichuk, founder of wrote: “We all know what dic- the effects of different lines, single project, a large triptych
a specifically Ukrainian school tatorship is… The obligation of forms, rhythms, intervals and titled The Sawyers. He com-
of neoclassicism, was executed every actor was to make every colours are strikingly lyrical. pleted two panels but painted
in 1937; many of his mosaics spectator understand that the Between 1917 and 1925, only a small watercolour study
and frescoes were destroyed. rudder of history is in his own Bohomazov did no painting for the left-hand panel, titled
The most powerful painting in hands.” Kurbas was executed or drawing at all. This may Rolling the Logs. This work was
this section of the exhibition is in 1937.
Jewish Pogrom (1926) by Manuil Several fine costume and
Shekhtman, one of Boichuk’s stage designers studied under
followers. Five figures in the Exter and went on to work with
foreground are clearly deline- Kurbas. The costume designs
ated, in bright colours. At least of one, Anatol Petrytskyi,
eight more figures in the back- range from the folkloric to
ground merge into the land- the futuristic; he also painted
scape in muted browns and more than 150 portraits of
greys, growing indistinguish- leading Ukrainian writers and
able from the rocks as if disap- artists. Many of his subjects
pearing from our memories; were later executed or sent to
some, probably, are lying in a the Gulag, with all but a dozen
mass grave. of the portraits destroyed.
That Petrytskyi is not bet-

IMAGES REPRODUCED WITH KIND PERMISSION OF KONSTANTIN AKINSHA AND HIS CO-CURATORS
A
nother part of the ter known outside Ukraine is
exhibition is devoted surprising. It is barely believ-
to the Jewish Kultur able, however, that Oleksandr
Lige. Between 1918 and 1922, Bohomazov has only recently
it had branches in almost 100 emerged from near-total
towns and shtetls, administer- oblivion. Bohomazov’s “cubo-
ing schools, libraries, drama futurist” charcoals and oils of
studios and music circles. It modern city life, such as Tram
seemed that a progressive Yid- (1914) and Locomotive (1916),
dish culture—neither Zionist, are breathtakingly dynamic.
nor traditionally religious— The works from his two years
was about to flourish. From in Armenia (1915 and 1916),
1920, however, the Lige was though equally full of move-
gradually taken under Com- ment, employ more organic
munist control. Several of its forms.
best poets and artists moved to Bohomazov’s marriage to
Warsaw, where a lively Yiddish Wanda Monastyrska was cen-
culture survived for longer. tral to his life and work. He first
The exhibition’s various proposed to Wanda in 1908.
strands meet in the section As if divining the responsibil-
devoted to theatre. Director ity this marriage would entail, From the folkloric to the futuristic:
Les Kurbas’s innovative Berezil Wanda accepted his proposal a sketch by Anatol Petrytskyi
for a 1925 production of “Vii”
company was both theatre only five years later. Much of
and research organisation. He Bohomazov’s best work dates
APRIL 2023 / PROSPECT 73

me when I was a child. I only There is at least one other

learned much later what was inexplicable instance of a
inside. During World War II, gifted Ukrainian public figure
when Kyiv was occupied, the remaining forgotten for many
street where my grandmother years. Despite the worldwide
lived was part of the ‘forced recognition of the novel Life
eviction zone’. She rescued my and Fate, it has only recently
grandfather’s trunkful of price- come to light that Viktor
less paintings and manuscripts Shtrum, Vasily Grossman’s
by pushing them in a wheelbar- fictional nuclear physicist, is
row, on foot, to Svyatoshyno, modelled on a real-life figure—
many miles away. When Kyiv Lev Shtrum, one of the found-
was liberated, she brought eve- ers of Soviet nuclear physics.
rything back the same way.” Like Bohomazov, Lev Shtrum
The first foreign exhibi- worked and taught in Kyiv.
tion of Bohomazov’s work Born in 1890, 10 years after
took place only in 1991, in Tou- Bohomazov, he was falsely
louse, and there was another accused of “Trotskyism” and
long gap before several more executed in 1936. His books
exhibitions followed in the and papers were removed from
past decade, put on by British libraries and he was deleted
art dealer James Butterwick, from the historical record with
Bohomazov’s most deter- remarkable thoroughness.
mined champion in the west. Only in 2012 was his innovative
Breathtakingly dynamic: “Locomotive” (1916)
by Oleksandr Bohomazov Yet the general lack of inter- theoretical work rediscovered.
est is surprising. In the 1910s, There is much in this exhi-
Bohomazov was well known. It bition to be celebrated. Its joy
is equally surprising that nei- and energy, however, make it
ther Exter nor Archipenko, for- still more painful to witness yet
mer colleagues who enjoyed another wave of destruction
evidently of huge importance Platonov, Wanda performed a successful international sweeping the country. ♦
to him; already severely ill, he heroic task. Her granddaugh- careers, ever mentioned him
drew more than 300 anatomi- ter, Tanya Popova, wrote in an in later years. It is yet more sur- “In the Eye of the Storm” is in
cally precise preparatory stud- exhibition catalogue in 2016: prising that George Costakis, Madrid until 30th April. It will
ies of such details as hands “I now realize what a modest the first and greatest collec- then be in Cologne from 3rd June
gripping a saw or the heels of life she led, on a very small pen- tor of Russian avant-garde art, to 24th September
one of the sawyers. It has been sion, in a tiny room, with her appears to have been unaware
suggested that the sawyers are husband’s work rolled up in of his work. Read a longer version of this
preparing to fashion a cross. a trunk in the corridor. That review by scanning the QR code
Triptychs are associated with trunk seemed enormous to t is possible that Ukraine’s below:
religious art and—according to
his daughter Yaroslava—Boho-
mazov’s last words were: “God
I 20th-century tragedies—
the Civil War, the Holodo-
mor, the execution of so many
exists, but don’t tell anyone.” It is barely of the cultural and political
Aware that her husband’s believable elite in the 1930s, the Second
drawings, paintings and manu- World War, the first year of the
scripts were by then consid- that Oleksandr Shoah—were so overwhelming
ered anti-Soviet, Wanda kept Bohomazov has as to intimidate outsiders from
his work hidden. Only in 1966 paying serious attention to the
did two Kyiv art historians “dis-
only recently country’s cultural history. A
cover” it and mount a small, emerged from half-conscious prejudice—an
semi-legal exhibition. Like the assumption that all Ukrainians
widows of Mikhail Bulgakov,
near-total were mere peasants—may also
Osip Mandelstam and Andrey oblivion have played its part.
74 PROSPECT / APRIL 2023

Pop the medium of interpretive songs telling of downtrod-

dance, but, since we’re short den lives and the dream of
Forlorn in the USA on space here, let’s outline it
as a business model in which
escape through music, motors
and hands strapped across
There’s a row raging between artists and prices are adjusted in response engines. We knew it wasn’t
to changing demand. We’re true. As he conceded in his
audiences over ticket prices. Now even
accustomed to this strategy 2017 Broadway show: “I have
The Boss has been dragged in for booking airline tickets and become wildly and absurdly
by LAURA BARTON hotel rooms, but Ticketmas- successful writing about
ter’s option for artists to use it something that I have no
is more recent. knowledge of.” And yet, still,
In the case of Springsteen, between Bruce and his audi-
the headline-grabbing news ence there hung until now an
was that the price of tickets for exquisite and radiant trust.
some shows leapt to more than Springsteen recorded the
$5,000. The subsequent revela- song “Backstreets” in 1975.
tion that only 11 per cent of tick- It’s an intoxicating six-and-
ets were dynamically priced, a-half-minute tale of a bro-
with the rest set between $59.50 ken relationship—complete
and $399, and just over 1 per in itself, although, when he
cent sold at over $1,000, did lit- played it live in its early days,
tle to assuage fans’ concerns. Bruce would often introduce a
Nor did remarks the singer semi-improvised segment that
made on the subject to Rolling became known as the “Sad
or many years, the a review of the singer’s 1978 Stone: “Hey, we’re 73 years old,” Eyes” interlude. This was filled

F Seattle Center Coliseum

was the city’s major con-
cert venue, built for the 1962
Seattle show.
Over the next four decades,
Backstreets Magazine would
he said. “I want to do what eve-
rybody else is doing, my peers.”
Certainly, many of Spring-
with the wrench of memory
and regret, and with the bitter-
ness of betrayal.
World’s Fair and famed for become both a cherished quar- steen’s peers, including As I have followed the Great
its rooftop, which gathered terly and a popular website, Beyoncé, Paul McCartney, Springsteen Ticketing Deba-
upwards like a handkerchief. housing news and reviews and Madonna and Taylor Swift, cle over the past few months, I
The Beatles and Fleetwood a hugely successful fan forum, have chosen dynamic pricing. have come to wonder whether
Mac played there. The Beach where the devoted traded tick- It’s a way to make more money, Bruce’s fans now stand in their
Boys and Jimi Hendrix. ets, music and political views, of course, but also an attempt own Sad Eyes interlude: bewil-
On a Friday evening in late and of course shared their to redirect some of the cash dered, somewhat betrayed, yet
October 1980, the Coliseum abiding love for Springsteen. made by touts back to the art- their passion still present.
played host to Bruce Spring- Then, in early February this ists—if Ticketmaster matches Perhaps my favourite exam-
steen and the E Street Band, year, Christopher Phillips, the the prices on resale sites such ple of this interlude comes
then touring the singer’s fifth editor-in-chief of Backstreets, as StubHub, the argument from a show in Passaic in 1978.
album, The River. You can find announced that the next issue goes, the scalpers will no I recently watched it through
recordings of the show online— would be the last. The web- longer have a marketplace. several times on YouTube. I
bass-heavy, a little muffled, but site, too, would cease to post. Springsteen is not the only remembered that there is no
entirely captivating. Phillips explained that recent artist facing criticism, but the better live performer on this
For many Springsteen fans, developments over the cost of wrath that has greeted him Earth. That his music has car-
the show stands out because it tickets to Springsteen’s cur- has been far greater than for ried me through most of the
is so intimately entwined with rent US tour had left him, and others. His decision, Phillips days of my life. That it’s quite
the history of the Springsteen many of his readers, feeling wrote in a Backstreets editorial, something to play three-hour
fanzine, Backstreets Maga- “dispirited, downhearted, and, “violates an implicit contract shows at the age of 73. And that
zine. Founder Charles R Cross yes, disillusioned”. between Bruce Springsteen maybe that’s worth something.
passed out 10,000 copies of To understand this situ- and his fans”. “It just doesn’t get any bet-
the first edition that night: ation, you must first under- That contract has rested ter than this,” wrote one
a free four-pager with a cen- stand the concept of “dynamic on a mutual suspension of commenter. “I can never
trefold poster, an appraisal pricing”. The best explana- disbelief: The Boss is the bard repay you Bruce for the joy
of 30 bootlegged albums and tion would probably involve of blue-collar America, his you’ve given me.” ♦
 APRIL 2023 / PROSPECT 75

of the show is in blazing light! Rodgers and Hammer-

This idea of trying to say it’s a stein’s musical has always had
specific thing: it’s bullshit. It’s dark American history at its
not our place to say it’s dark or heart. “It’s based on [Green
bright or happy or sad. That Grow the Lilacs] a play by Lynn
belongs to the viewer.” Riggs, who was a gay Cherokee
British audiences may bring cowboy,” Vaill reminds me. “To
less cultural baggage to the go to college, Riggs sold his
show than American ones—or ‘Cherokee allotment’ that had
perhaps different cultural bag- been apportioned to him by
gage. Vaill is refreshingly wary the government as part of eth-
of making claims about what nically cleansing the territory
© MARC BRENNER

Brits may or may not read into of Oklahoma. So this piece is

this production, although he born out of a really fucked-up
does venture that the show country that is built on stolen
presents a community dealing land. And it takes place in an
Stage with rapid change and turning area where, 20 years after our
on each other. A web of gossip story is set, a massacre hap-
Your ‘Oklahoma!’ results in mob justice. In Fish’s
production, this gets a twist
pened.” He’s talking about the
Tulsa Race Massacre, in which
Is this West End production dark, light, that will feel familiar to anyone up to 300 people were killed
intelligent, dumb, something else? The director with an internet connection. and many more injured, when
The production has evolved white mobs attacked a black
is adamant: it’s for audiences to decide
in an era of political disrup- neighbourhood in 1921.
by kate maltby tion and disinformation in So who does this show
both the US and UK. “We’re belong to? Fish’s production,
into our fourth US presidency which features a diverse cast,
n the 16 years since he first community and how it treats since we’ve been exploring has also been termed “the

I developed his production

of Rodgers and Hammer-
stein’s Oklahoma!, American
loners and makes scapegoats.
Two team members have
stayed with Fish since he built
this show,” reflects Vaill. “We
had ‘Dubya’, Obama, Trump…
and now Joe Biden. There’s
black Oklahoma!”, “the femi-
nist Oklahoma!”—even “the
incel Oklahoma!”. Conversa-
director Daniel Fish has come the project for drama students one speech in the play, the pro- tions about diversity are ongo-
to loathe some of its market- at Bard College in 2007. Light- posal scene to Laurey, when he ing in theatre; in January,
ing straplines. “They’re like: ing designer Scott Zielinski says, ‘Country-a-changin’, got the National Arts Centre in
‘It’s not your grandmother’s has changed our focus—liter- to change with it!’” Ottawa announced a plan to
Oklahoma!’.” But, as he tells me, ally—from Oklahoma! ’s insid- Fish chimes in: “When we “welcome an all-Black identi-
“It’s not fair to grandmothers. ers to its outsiders. Patrick did it again at Bard in 2015, fying audience” for one night
I think there are grandmoth- Vaill, discovered by Fish as a they had just passed marriage before backtracking.
ers who might have an inter- student, has revolutionised equality; then we were doing Fish is cautiously resistant.
esting experience with this the part of Jud Fry, the misfit it during Brett Kavanaugh’s “I don’t mean in any way to say
production.” farmhand who loses Laurey confirmation hearings for that I know what it is like to be a
Fish’s reinvention of this to swaggering cowboy Curly. the Supreme Court. It meant black person or a woman in the
musical has a cult following in It was a Broadway hit in 2019, something different then.” US. Yet there are ways in which
the US. Earlier productions— and now their production I believe that people are capable
not least Fred Zinnemann’s comes to London’s West End of identifying with aspects of
1955 film—have made a whole- after a sell-out run last year at another person. That’s part of
some idyll of this Midwestern the Young Vic. Fish and Vaill Rodgers and why I read, why I go to movies,
landscape, where heroine Lau- spoke to me during rehearsals Hammerstein’s why I go to the theatre. Because
rey must choose between two in Bethnal Green. I think that if you can’t… it
suitors. With a dogged fidelity Fish has more to say about
musical has makes me just want to put a
to the text but a sharp change the nature of pre-show buzz. always had dark fucking bullet in my head.” ♦
in emphasis, Fish has exposed “They say it’s ‘the dark Okla-
what Rodgers and Hammer- homa!’. What does that even
American history “Oklahoma!” is at Wyndham’s
stein also tell us about a rural mean? Ninety-eight per cent at its heart Theatre until 2nd September
76 PROSPECT / APRIL 2023

Film selling “Soho Bibles” (aka, of filth which you have been
rollers), and described as a propagating in this part of
Rock and rollers “bohemian character with
shoulder-length hair and a
England I don’t know.”
For me, the heart of Under
Short, amateur porn movies have their place Gauloise cigarette perma- the Counter lies in its account of
nently drooping from the left the Watford Blue Movie Trial
in cinematic history
corner of his mouth”; John in 1974. Police investigating the
by sukhdev sandhu Lindsay, a former student at producer Anthony Colling-
the Glasgow School of Art, bourne tracked down perform-
later a photojournalist, direc- ers in his films who were living
tor of Jolly Hockey Sticks, and a together in a commune that
blue movie “freedom fighter” doubled as a studio. Eleven
who claimed, “I risk my free- arrests were made. At the time,
dom to give YOU the right to it was the longest obscenity
buy them”; David Sullivan, trial in British history. A solici-
now chairman of West Ham tor’s clerk climbed onto the
United, who bought old soft- court’s roof and threatened

© ROBERT EVANS / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

core magazines and repack- to set off a cylinder of laugh-
aged them with new covers ing gas in the ventilation sys-
to hoodwink customers into tem. Four defendants married
thinking they were hardcore. each other. One performer
Getting rollers out into the told the press that the trial was
world was a tricky business. more degrading than the films.
Some producers added innoc- Bathos, squalor, comedy, the
uous footage at the start and state versus cultural “subver-
end of their films to reduce the sion”… it’s all here.

O
liver Carter was they have—or whether they risk of being rumbled by pro- Hardcore pornography was
barely a teenager in should even have it.” The Brit- cessing labs. Rollers from Den- decriminalised in 2000. Most
1994 when he real- ish Film Institute doesn’t hold mark were concealed in lorries of those involved with it are
ised that the tapes of “the lat- any “rollers” (known outside carrying bacon. One distrib- untraceable or have died. Cel-
est Mike Tyson fight” his dad’s the UK as “stags” or “loops”). utor, Carter learnt, not only luloid has been replaced by
barber used to hawk contained Perhaps that’s no surprise— used a list of off-radar landing digital, clandestine screening
hardcore porn rather than box- not only did individual rollers zones, but “would have films rooms by smartphones. Power
ing highlights. Where there’s last barely 12 minutes, but they dropped in the ocean where is in the hands not of male
muck there’s brass: soon he were illegal, often made by they’d be collected by boats. producers but, increasingly,
was scouring the classified non-professionals, printed in It’s the kind of thing you’d of female “pornpreneur” per-
adverts section of Video World, amateur or semi-professional expect to see in Miami Vice!” formers. I ask Carter if he feels
sending off for titles such as labs and produced in small Rollers were not the pre- nostalgic for the old days. “Fun-
An American Buttman in Lon- runs. Collectively, they’re serve of sex shops in red-light nily enough, Lindsay Honey
don, which he duplicated and important documents of the districts. They were screened [better known as Ben Dover]
sold at a profit to his school- dream life of postwar Britain. above pubs, in working men’s told me he preferred it when
friends. The internet spelt the For Carter, who has tracked clubs, after hours in car fac- hardcore was illegal. He told
end for his enterprise, but he down more than a thousand tories. Officers from the Scot- me, ‘I wish they would leave it
never lost his interest in what titles (among them Kinky Les, land Yard Obscene Publica- to us people who were brave
he calls “pariah capitalism”. Couch Vibe and Carpet Layer), tion Squad would settle down enough to make these films
Now an academic at Birming- they represent “a forgotten with beers and watch them and risk getting in trouble with
ham City University, he’s just film history that no one’s ever together on Friday nights. the law. There was more money
published Under the Counter, a talked or thought about.” There was even a Cotswold to be made back then.’” ♦
riveting account of the making The real drama of roller travelling film show. The judge
and selling of British hardcore films happened off screen. who sentenced its two organ- Read more from our critics
films between 1960 and 1980. Under the Counter teems isers harrumphed, “How two online, including Imogen West-
“Porn is the archive’s dirty with misfits, chancers, odd- men with your background Knights on “The Last of Us”,
secret,” Carter tells me. “A lot balls. Tom Fletcher, the and previous good character and Peter Hoskin on how
of archives don’t know what owner of a Soho “bookshop” could descend into this morass virtual reality needs to get real
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78 PROSPECT / APRIL 2023

My life has been in limbo for eight

years, and repeated rejection has left me
having to prove my worth over and over
again. At this stage, you’d think I’d get the
message. I’ve been through many rejec-
tions from family, friends, co-workers
and from my own native countrymen
and women in Trinidad and Tobago.
It hurts, I am not going to lie. Rejec-
tion knocks you off balance. I’ve learnt
to own my anger, sadness and the feeling
of not being enough. I accept and feel the
pain, as raw as it is in that moment. Then
I transition to hope, because that’s some-
thing that not even the Home Office can
take away from me.
What does this latest rejection mean
for my future? Peace comes with a lot of
goodbyes, and eventually I may have to say
goodbye to the life and friends I’ve made
here in the UK. That’s normal—we all have
to let go of something or someone in life—
but I am not ready to give up the people
around me and the work I am doing here
just yet. There are still many people to help
and there is much work to be done.
As I reflect on why I left Trinidad
Displaced life As soon as I got into my room I and Tobago, I am struck by the fact that
decided to rip off the Band-aid and reveal if I hadn’t sought asylum in the UK, I
The letter that my fate. “On the 22nd February 2022 you
made further submissions based on asy-
wouldn’t be free to be myself in the way
I am now. I wouldn’t be the person I am
broke my heart lum/human rights grounds. I am writ-
ing to tell you that your further submis-
today. The social and public discrimina-
tion that I suffered there felt like a dog
by Jason Thomas-Fournillier sions have been rejected,” it said. The text collar on me—at any time anyone could
was in bold. I paused, in silence, taking it and did show their bigotry in bullying
January and February lived up to their in. I’ve endured refusals from the Home and even violence.
reputations as cold and depressing Office so many times that I’ve become I am not returning to that persecution,
months. I returned to Doncaster from numb. I no longer react with panic or a nor am I going to live like that again as
Leeds after attending a dear friend’s meltdown. When I’ve panicked in the long as I still draw breath. I’ll keep fight-
funeral, the emotional turmoil of which past I’ve ended up having to spend four ing, dear reader, but I know I’m getting
triggered an epileptic episode that left days in hospital for an epileptic seizure— closer to the coast, and there may be a
me physically spent. I was longing for I wanted to avoid that this time. moment when I have to start a new jour-
some much-needed rest. But when I Not knowing when a decision on my ney. I realise how much I hate arriving
turned the key and unlocked the front asylum appeal will come is nerve-wrack- at a destination. Transition is always a
door to my flat, I saw, among the post, ing. But I’ve learnt that when it does relief; destination means death to me.
an envelope in the Home Office’s trade- arrive the rug is pulled from under you, So, if I could figure out a way to remain
mark beige paper with my name on it. I whether you decide to open the envelope forever in transition, in the disconnected
knew from previous experience that the or not. “Granted” or “rejected”: these two and unfamiliar, I could remain in a state
day was about to get considerably worse. words make or break a person. of perpetual freedom. ♦
 APRIL 2023 / PROSPECT 79

worse still, they kneel down and address profound rage and desperate humour. It
you like a small child. Then there is the ends with the shocking spectacle of the
food and drink—when balancing a plate suicidal man setting himself alight, as
and glass, how are you supposed to wield our heroine tries to smother the flames
a fork? Or grab a passing canapé? engulfing him. We see her explaining to
Why is this 90th so important to my her sister through not tears but gasps and
nearest and dearest? Are they suddenly inarticulate squeaks of despair: “I think I
reminded that I won’t be around much might have singed one of your crocheted
longer? Probably the last chance for a blankets.”
party before the wake, when they will talk Life is simultaneously horrific, funny,
about me rather than with me? incomprehensible and glorious. Human
Several people have pointed out that beings just try to hang onto normality.
Long life they want to mark a life lived through an The big world can do what it likes in the
amazing epoch of drama and change. few years that I have left; it threatens to be
No The war, the grey aftermath, the swing-
ing 1960s, the technological revolution,
pretty complex. I will do my best to help.
But at the same time, I will enjoy the odd
nonsense an extraordinary 90 years of history.
But I haven’t noticed all that.
cup of tea and digestive biscuit. ♦

I have been getting on with the nitty-

by Sheila Hancock gritty of existence: getting a meal on the
table; controlling potentially delinquent
OK, so I’m 90. How did this happen? offspring; surviving illness, poverty, grief,
I’ve never taken much notice of birth- failure; and cherishing cuddles, unex-
days, but this one is difficult to avoid. Eve- pected prosperity, love and picnics.
ryone keeps asking me how I am going to Oh, that picnic on Brighton beach in
celebrate the “big one”. My daughters are the 1970s!
threatening to organise a party. Trouble Sally Wainwright’s script for the sen-
is, I hate parties. I have the sort of deaf- sational BBC series Happy Valley cap-
ness that means in a crowded place I can’t tured the stubborn ordinariness of life,
hear a word anyone close to me is saying, even when circumstances seem horrific.
especially when loud music is added to The final confrontation between the
the mix—invariably the kind that, for the policewoman heroine and her nemesis Mindful life
musical snob that I am, is a cacophony begins with what seems like an almost
that sets my teeth on edge. cosy chat full of pauses, repetitions and Care for
Standing for a long time in one place non-sequiturs, but underscored with
is demanding on old legs and feet, but if carers
you manage to find a chair and sit down
you are trapped in the company of only by Rebecca Lawrence
the people who choose to approach you,
rather than circulating away from the As I drag myself painfully out of my
bores and choosing who you want to recent depressive episode, I am struck
talk to. The added problem is that I can’t Is this the last and touched by how much support I
ILLUSTRATIONS BY CLARA NICOLL

remember anyone’s name and end up chance for a party have received from health profession-
sounding like an affected actress call- als, friends, family and most of all my
ing everyone “darling”. When people before the wake, husband. He is the only one who has been
discover that you can’t hear unless they when they will talk with me consistently: hardly ever com-
shout, they start having a conversation plaining, always affectionate.
with somebody else over your head, and
about me rather I am considerably better now, and the
you sit there feeling old and ignored. Or, than with me? other day I asked him, teasing, if he’d put
80 PROSPECT / APRIL 2023

on weight. He looked at me, and then at flexible working was a boon, but he still
his midriff, and said, “I was comfort eat- had to go out occasionally, either to work
ing, you know, when you were most ill, meetings or the shops, and he found this
back in the autumn.” For a moment I was very hard because he would mull over
struck dumb, and then overcome with what he might find on his return. He
shame that I hadn’t thought of this myself. also had the difficult task of explaining
Worse, I had criticised him when I should to our daughters what was happening,
have shown sympathy. although it’s probably easier for them to
It has always been hard for him when understand now that they are older.
I have been unwell; this time we perhaps How could any of us have eased
talked about that more than in the past. his burden? I include myself because,
I asked him what it was like when I was although there was little that I could have
Clerical life
first ill, many years ago, and found his done when ill, as a couple perhaps we
answer profoundly moving. He said that
it was as though he had lost me, as though
could have planned better. For instance,
I should probably have been admitted to Holy matrimony
the person he knew had disappeared and hospital at least for the first few weeks—
been replaced by someone else. He had it was too much to expect him to take all by Alice Goodman
no idea then whether I would ever come the responsibility of caring for me. He
back. My illness has, perhaps, become said that I required constant reassurance, Until two years ago—when it was stopped
less cruel to him over the years—he knows for example that my face wasn’t chang- by the pandemic—we used to do a Mar-
now that I will return eventually. But ing shape (bizarre, and I can’t remem- riage Preparation Day in this benefice.
when I am ill, the pain for both of us is ber thinking this now), and that he could It ran from 10am until 4pm, beginning
still constant, day in, day out. The person barely cope with the worry that I wasn’t with coffee and biscuits and ending with
who would normally help him with any eating. Both he and my psychiatrist knew tea and cake, with a lunch in the mid-
problem becomes the problem. I didn’t want admission, but ultimately it dle. “Always have a hot pudding,” was the
This time, again, his life was turned was selfish of me to say no. advice we religiously followed. So, a hot
upside down while I was oblivious. Nor- Admission to hospital only occurs pudding there was, generally a crumble.
mally he would go for runs or extra dog when things are dire, however, and I’ve All the couples being married in the ben-
walks to alleviate stress; instead he found been wondering what support could be efice would be invited.
himself watching slightly more Netflix, provided to carers when they are looking In the morning, there was a short talk
drinking slightly more whisky and sleep- after someone at home. The healthcare on the changing understanding of mar-
ing badly. He prepared all the food; I ate staff at the hospital have always been very riage over the centuries as demonstrated
nothing for two weeks, and little thereaf- helpful, but the reality is that my hus- through the law, as well as on the intrica-
ter, so he ate it all. Telling his colleagues band has minimal contact with them and cies of the ceremony now. One couple
was stressful, though they were very they never come to our home. He has no would act out how each takes the oth-
understanding. The current trend of background in healthcare himself, and er’s hand to make their vows and repeats
so needed reassurance that he was doing the words after the priest. Then they’d
the right thing. open their folder of questionnaires from
Many years ago, as a junior doctor, I counselling charity Relate and go off to
worked in a psychiatric day hospital that discover whether they knew what their
provided care and activities for patients, beloved’s favourite colour was—and recall
as well as support and relief for carers. whether they’d ever discussed money,
Sadly, it closed many years ago, and cur- children or where to spend Christmas.
rent resources within the NHS mean that After lunch, there would be a panel of
It was as though such units are unlikely to be reopened. married couples—old married couples,
But at the very least, carers should middle-aged ones and people married in
he had lost me, be able to get advice and support when the past year or so—to answer questions
as though the they need it. Better investment in mental about marriage and weddings and to talk
health and increased support for patients about their own. There were more group
person he knew will also lessen the burden on loved ones. discussions, including, as I recall, on
had disappeared Otherwise, the stress and the deleterious the languages of love—that was the one
effect on carers’ own health may lead to where I learnt that my husband’s habit
and been replaced increased suffering—and yet more pres- of bringing me, unasked, a perfect cup
by someone else sure on overloaded services. ♦ of tea just when I needed it was his way of
 APRIL 2023 / PROSPECT 81

expressing undying devotion. Which was ers and sisters fear, I’m one of many clergy I am still (just about) of the age where
good, because when I would say, “I love who think of this development as only the my dad will take me on holiday, and he
you, Our Geoff !” he’d generally reply, “I beginning. kindly offered to take me skiing with
know,” or “Uh huh.” Every married person is meant to be him and my stepmum in France as Janu-
We also discussed rows and how to both lover and beloved. What we say ary came to a welcome end. It had been
behave when quarrelling. The church about marriage, what we bless in it, we a shit month, and I was ready to fill my
organists and flower arrangers came in can say and bless whether the couple lungs with Alpine air and my stomach
to consult about music and decorations. are bride and groom, bride and bride, or with European beer. But it meant that I
The last exercise of the day was to write bridegroom and bridegroom. Our three would be—once again—an only child look-
a love letter to one’s betrothed. We pro- churches in this parish are looking for- ing for respite from grown-up conversa-
vided paper and pens of every colour of ward to the day when we can make use of tion on a family holiday.
the rainbow. these prayers of blessing, and to the day— My stepmum had learnt to ski as a
The squire kindly let us use the soon, I hope—when there will be gay and young adult. I listened enviously as she
ground-floor rooms of the manor for lesbian couples at our Marriage Prepara- told me how she and her brother had
this, which added a lot to the day. Cou- tion Day (we hope to restart next year). made the most of the uniquely tacky ski-
ples would look out at the lawns and the In the meantime, a church warden will resort nightlife, and resolved to do the
nibbling sheep and the distant nature be climbing the tower of St Vigor’s. He’ll same. I am not an experienced skier, so I
reserve, and we would all feel that the hoist up a big red wooden heart. It’ll be had lessons in the mornings from Mon-
married state was somehow endowed visible from half a mile away. I’d wanted day to Wednesday—and the opportunity
with a bit of extra grandeur. to climb up too, but have been advised— to meet people my age.
My husband never came to these he has a pawky sense of humour—that On my arrival, I immediately sussed
events, in case you were going to ask. He I’m needed on the ground to make sure out the other young people in my group.
was separated from his first wife when it’s hung straight. ♦ Making friends as an adult is not so easy—
we met, and—seven years later, when games of hide-and-seek won’t cut it. You
we married in the registry office—the have to ask questions like, “so, what do you
Church of England didn’t yet marry cou- do for a living?” and explain that, while you
ples in which one or both partners had a live in London, you’re originally from a
previous spouse still living. Neither of us vague part of the UK, so as to appear relat-
was ever able to remember what vows, if able and down-to-earth.
any, we made. Rather than marching straight up to
A close reading of all that I’ve said will someone and asking if they’d like to hang
suggest to you that I see no theological out, you have to engineer situations in
reason why gay couples shouldn’t be able which chatting is possible. I would strate-
to marry in our parish churches as they gically situate myself within the proxim-
can in the United Reformed Church ity of one of the Scottish lads in the queue
down the road. I see no reason why gay for the chairlifts and embark on a charm
couples who have a civil marriage at the
Young life offensive. Thankfully, I was able to secure
registry office shouldn’t have that mar- the phone number of one of them.
riage blessed here, as is already possi- Après-ski, He was there with 11 friends from uni-
ble in the Church in Wales. I see no rea-
son why gay clergy shouldn’t be able to solo versity, having graduated a couple of
years ago. Perfect. A few hours after the
marry their partners, and every reason lesson, he texted me with an invite to his
why they should. The marriages of my gay by Alice Garnett and his friend’s joint birthday celebra-
friends, colleagues and former students tions. I was thrilled.
don’t appear to me to be different in kind I am an only child. Other only children When Thursday arrived, I spent the
or quality to my own marriage or to the reading this will be familiar with the morning in the mountains, enjoying
marriages I’ve witnessed and blessed in unique loneliness of family holidays sans family time safe in the knowledge that
ILLUSTRATIONS BY CLARA NICOLL

church over the years. siblings. Fortunately, making friends as a later that day I’d be with people my own
The Church of England has just agreed child is easy: you propose a game of hide- age. I briefed my dad on the evening’s
on what is coyly referred to as a “suite” of and-seek and it’s a done deal. I have vague itinerary, promising to keep him up-
prayers to allow for the blessing of a civil- memories of the holiday-friends I made to-date on my movements to soothe his
partnered or married same-sex couple in growing up. Often, they were other only inevitable anxiety.
church. It’s not as much as I would have children, looking for respite from their When I got to the bar it was teeming
wanted, and, as my traditionalist broth- parents’ grown-up conversation. with Brits stumbling around in ski-boots.
82 PROSPECT / APRIL 2023

Locating my new friends in the crowd or perhaps he just fancied me, but mid- Until this year, I knew little of the town,
wasn’t easy. I tried to appear confident as way through our conversation he inter- which is some 32 miles from my farm.
I introduced myself to the rest of the party rupted with a fail-safe line: “Can I kiss I can forgive myself for being unaware
and offered to buy the birthday girl a pint you?” Maybe because he was the birthday of the history. But I should have known
(it was the least I could do). Making my boy, or maybe because I just fancied him, more of the rich agricultural landscape,
way through the crowd at the bar, I stood I obliged. part of the Fens created by the draining of
next to a group of disgruntled French It was refreshing to be able to engage around 1,500 square miles of marshland
boys who were bemoaning the number in scandalous behaviour without worry- that used to reach south beyond Ely and
of Brits in the resort. I kept my mouth ing about becoming the subject of gossip. west to Peterborough. The settlement of
firmly shut as “Sweet Caroline” came on So I threw back vodka cranberries and Wisbech was first recorded in the year 656,
and every Englishman in the vicinity lost continued to flirt with reckless abandon and its name is thought to mean “on the
their minds, biting down on the urge to until the early hours of the morning. ♦ back of the (River) Ouse”. It’s a town that
scream “BAM BAM BAMMM” in chorus has hosted kings and castles, a port and a
with the masses. prison, and provided passengers for the
Three pints later, I reconvened with Mayflower voyaging to the New World.
my dad and stepmum for dinner. Besides But it’s the agricultural magnificence that
knocking cutlery off the table several should put the town firmly on the map.
times, I enacted a five-star performance Wisbech is the branch of the NFU that
as a sober and sensible daughter, before produces the most varied array of foods
stumbling down the mountain to rejoin in Cambridgeshire. At their AGM, I met
my new friends at another bar. farmers growing typical cereal crops—
As I approached the door, I was inter- wheat for breadmaking, along with bar-
cepted by a Frenchman who gasped “mad- ley for beer and animal feed (and Mal-
emoiselle” and offered me a cigarette. tesers)—but also rapeseed for cooking
I took it, we chatted and he asked me oils and biofuel, and maize for anaer-
who I had come with. When I explained Farming life obic digestion systems that produce
that I was there as a “solo agent” who had green energy from plant material. With
befriended a group of strangers he was
more shocked than impressed. But I was
Not a top-grade peat soils high in organic mat-
ter from the former marshland they also
honoured that this close-knit group of
friends had welcomed me into their night.
flyover state grow potatoes and sugar beet here, plus
fruit and vegetables including apples,
Knowing that I would never see these pears, carrots and parsnips, as well as
people again meant I could let go of all by Tom Martin ornamentals and bedding plants, poin-
inhibitions. So, while taking in the cold settias, roses and gypsophila.
air and another cigarette, I grilled my con- In February, I was invited to give an after- Growing a variety of crops as diverse
tact from the group about the dynamics dinner speech at the Wisbech branch of as this—and there are undoubtedly even
of his inner circle—who was into whom, the National Farmers’ Union. The town more that I’ve forgotten due to the influ-
and who had history. My curiosity knows of Wisbech is an inland port a hand- ence of the “G” in my “G&T”—requires
no bound(arie)s. I may have overstepped, ful of miles from the Wash in the north immense knowledge. All this wisdom was
of Cambridgeshire. To my shame, I’ve in the room; men and women, tenants
passed by many times without paying it and landowners, old and young spoke to
any attention, like plenty of others jour- me about their love of the land and of the
neying between the thriving industrial- wildlife that shares it, and demonstrated
ised city of Peterborough and the pictur- a deep knowledge of the soils beyond the
esque coastal villages of north Norfolk. scope of textbook learning.
In the US, the states in the middle of the However, the feedback that I received
country are sometimes disparagingly during my speech illustrated to me how
called “flyover states” in the assumption deeply my fellow farmers feel misunder-
that they are observed only from the air- stood by the wider public. The audience
Midway through plane window as people travel between nodded enthusiastically as I spoke of my
our conversation the east and west coasts. Despite being excitement about the current age of farm-
near the coast, Wisbech, together with ing which—though not without its chal-
he interrupted with the surrounding countryside, is the east lenges—is a time when technology means
‘Can I kiss you?’ of England’s “flyover state”. we can learn from farmers across the
 APRIL 2023 / PROSPECT 83

world. But heads bowed when I spoke of 90 minutes, the film followed a 2005 Why do we become
my sadness that, despite this, our nation Spanish La Liga match between Zidane’s
has never been less informed about where team, Real Madrid, and Villarreal. The passionate for
its food comes from and farmers are often camera focused almost entirely on the teams or players
feeling vilified or ignored. player himself.
We had laughed and joked through- It was indeed a portrait of the man, not
we hardly know?
out the evening, but this is a subject that only of the man as footballer. It revealed
holds no humour: there is a feeling of a mixture of extreme alertness, speed of
despondency about the fly-tipping that is reaction and energy, alternating with a
spoiling our beloved countryside, about sort of laidback absence from the fury.
the hare coursers and unruly dogs that In the last state, Zidane would reveal his
are terrorising livestock and wildlife, underlying presence by a repeated little
about the rural crime that leaves many gesture of stubbing his foot in the ground
farmers feeling less safe in their homes. like a browsing, pawing deer, ready for
As I reached the end of my speech, I a dash for safety if a predator appears.
encouraged my fellow farmers to throw But immediately we saw too Zidane the field, especially in the first few minutes
open the farm gate by using social media, predator, a leopard creeping up on a herd of a match, rather like an older man who
the parish magazine and letters to offi- of potential victims, each clawed paw has wandered into a frenetic game played
cials and members of parliament, to get poised, quietly ready to pounce. by the kids, or a cat-burglar casually cas-
our voice heard by the public and those The film was in a way prophetic of ing a joint before breaking in through the
making decisions. We must share the a deep-seated tendency in the man: smallest of gaps. He is almost a flâneur, a
highlights and hardships of farming life near the end of the match, suddenly sort of lounger with time to kill. Yet this
and remind the nation that we are grow- embroiled in a brawl, he was given a red impression of detachment alternates
ing food for the industrial cities and the card and sent off. A year later, this hap- with incredible dribbling skill, com-
beautiful villages, from London to Land’s pened again. Provoked by his marker, bined with a wonderful touch, delicacy
End to Lerwick. We are UK farming, and Marco Materazzi, he lost control, head- and force in his passing and shooting. He
we are not a flyover state. ♦ butted the Italian and was sent off (for combines the qualities of a great striker
the 14th time in his career): notoriously, with those of a great playmaker.
the context for that outburst was extra- I found myself supporting Argentina
time in the final of the 2006 World Cup. for the final in Qatar. The main reason for
It was Lionel Messi, the key player in my sympathy, for this temporary identi-
the Qatar World Cup in November and fication, was Messi. I love his genius, his
December last year, who reminded me of subliminal knowledge of where everyone
Zidane—not because of fits of madness, is, especially his teammates. In the first
but because of his extraordinary com- 20 or so minutes of the match, he played
bination of physical electricity inter- several delicately incisive passes from an
spersed with passages in which he hardly inside-right position to left-winger Ángel
seems to be bothered with what is going Di María. And after all his lounging, he
on around him. turned up in the right place in the six-
Messi does not fit one’s image of the yard box to score—plus landing two suc-
modern professional footballer. Short, cessful penalties.
Sporting life with a low centre of gravity, he doesn’t But why do we become passionate for
look like a great athlete. As he was very teams or players we hardly know? Why do
What’s Messi short for his age as a young adolescent, we find ourselves devastated when they
he was prescribed growth hormones. give away a goal? Why so elated when
to me? The family could afford them for only a “our” team scores one?
couple of years before his team, FC Bar- One feature of sport is this sort of iden-
ILLUSTRATIONS BY CLARA NICOLL

by Michael Brearley celona, picked up the tab. At 35 he is old tification, among viewers as well as play-
for a top footballer. He’s round-shoul- ers. In our minds we become the player,
Zinedine Zidane, the French super- dered (my wife commented on how his we join the team. We adore the beauty,
star footballer of the 1990s and 2000s, sloping shoulders are just like mine— the sublimity of the skill. In the case of
was the subject of a fine film directed by I said “two great sporting icons”, but Messi, as of Zidane, we love the shifts
Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno, underneath was slightly hurt). He has a from restful detachment to ecstatic
Zidane: A 21st-Century Portrait. Lasting wonderful way of drifting about on the involvement.
84 PROSPECT / APRIL 2023

In Hamlet, the player king sobs when felt for Argentina again. Could they sur- ism. There are drawbacks and risks in this
playing the part of Hecuba. Like Hamlet, vive these ghastly disappointments? stance. We, the variable ones, are liable to
we ask ourselves, “What’s Hecuba to him, Could they revive? ignore or distort our own sense of belong-
or he to Hecuba?” What’s Messi to me, or, In 1990, Norman Tebbit coined the ing; perhaps we bend over backwards to
to be sure, me to Messi? “Tebbit test” for being a real Brit: an immi- avoid it. We risk disloyalty, inconstancy,
It’s all in the imagination. We watch grant becomes British by supporting the even masochism. We may become sen-
with passionate eyes. We live the game England cricket team. I have shocked timental, like a parent who ignores the
with our present heroes. We celebrate and some people by failing this test myself! I close-to-hand exclusion of his own chil-
mourn with them. usually support the England team, but not dren while loudly supporting suffering
Until we switch. When Argentina had always. I may support the underdog (and children on the other side of the world.
dominated for about 70 minutes, I began plenty of them had their terrific moments Charity, our opponents might say, begins
to yearn for a real game, for France to in this football World Cup) or the opposi- at home.
come alive. I had enjoyed France, too, in tion because I admire an individual’s flair, We are right to be upset most strongly
their close match against England. If the or their resourcefulness and courage. when our families and friends are suffer-
French could get it together and score a We are, some of us, variable creatures, ing. And yet, and yet. Imagination and
goal, then there would be a real match, with many strands of identification and empathy have wings; they soar beyond
not—what seemed most likely—a by-now allegiance. EM Forster famously said, “If the local. We have many identifications;
foregone conclusion. I started to back the I had to choose between betraying my we belong in many actual and virtual
new underdogs. And they scored! Kylian country and betraying my friend, I hope groups.
Mbappé of course. Before we had got I should have the guts to betray my coun- Well played, Morocco and Japan. And
much further, they had a second. Now I try.” Such people go beyond local tribal- well played Messi! I’m glad you won. ♦

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 Decorative, Asian Art and Fine Objects
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86 PROSPECT / APRIL 2023

The Generalist by Didymus

Across           
1 A socially important and dignified lady (6,4)
6 Verbal transposition by the Reverend Archibald (10)
 
12 Double-reed woodwind instrument with a pear-
shaped bell called a Liebesfuss (4,6)
13 English name for the sports and leisure facility in  

Colwyn Bay, where Steve James scored Glamorgan’s 

first-ever triple century, against Sussex in 2000 (6,4)
 
14 Falklands War battle between 28th and 29th May
1982, during which Lieutenant-Colonel Herbert
Jones was killed (5,5)   

15 Irish novelist who wrote The Country Girls and Wild 

Decembers (4,6)  
17 Antimony hydride, a colourless, toxic gas (7)
      
18 Traditional Christmas carol; its original setting is a
 
macaronic text of German and Latin, now well-
known in an arrangement by JM Neale (2,5,6) 

19 Vegetarian’s classic meal (3,5)   

20 Yellow oily liquid with the formula C6H5NO2 (12)

23 Vectis Isle (5)  
24 That is to say, in Latin (2,3)
32 Italian for “Old City”, associated with the historic
 
heart of Bari and Trieste, and Mdina on Malta (5,7)
33 Three of its counties are Chaffee, Huerfano
and Saguache (8)  

35 A rumour-monger (6-7)
37 The Reverend Ndabaningi, president of Zanu
10 Anagrammatically idealistic! (10) How to enter
in 1963 (7)
11 Creating a completely new change to a person’s style Send your solution to
38 Beef stews made with beer (10)
of dress (6,4) answer@prospect-
39 Brazilian beach resort near the entrance to Guana-
16 … Astley, composer of the theme music for the ITV magazine.co.uk or:
bara Bay (10)
series Danger Man and The Saint (5) Crossword
40 Orange-red rosaceous plant which grows on high,
21 Shropshire town noted for its alternative commu- Prospect,
open moorland (10)
nity of artists, writers and craftspeople, and home to 2 Queen Anne’s Gate,
41 A fowl slit sideways, opened and then grilled flat (10) the Three Tuns, the UK’s oldest brewery (7,6)
SW1H 9AA
42 Tactfully choosing one’s words (10) 22 See 5 Down
43 Having transparent spots (10) Include your email
25 Vinegar; CH3COOH (6,4)
and postal address.
26 Superior first-class cabins on board a ship (5,5)
Entries must be
Down 27 Amtrak employee, for instance (10)
received by 20th
1 Literary pseudonym of Amantine Lucile Aurore 28 Garlic-flavoured mayonnaise (5)
Dupin, the French novelist who had an affair with March. Winners
29 AOC and Grand Cru vineyard for white wine made announced in our
Chopin (6,4)
of Chardonnay in the Côte de Beaune region (10)
2 Defenders of arguments (10) May issue
30 Religious and political reformer in Florence in the
3 Aboriginal musical instrument, a very long tube latter half of the 15th century (10)
which produces a deep resonant sound (10)
31 Village on the Black Isle near Fortrose on the north
4 Former Scottish county where Annan, Lockerbie side of Chanonry Ness (10)
and Moffat are situated (13)
34 See 7 Down
5/22D Verse drama by TS Eliot about the assassina-
36 Acrobat’s swinging bar (7)
tion of archbishop Thomas à Becket (6,2,3,9)
7/34D Group One flat race for thoroughbreds aged
three years and older which is run at Long-
champ, usually on the first Sunday in October
(4,2,4,2,8)
8 The paper crane is the basic creation in this art (7)
9 South coast resort where Debussy stayed in 1905 and
completed the orchestration of La Mer (10)
APRIL 2023 / PROSPECT 87

Last month’s crossword solutions How to enter

Across: 10 Wine vault, 12 Hearne, 13 Meme, Bobby Seagull’s Email your answer
15 Brescia, 16 Harlech Castle, 17 Anatolian, to answer@
Brain Teaser prospectmagazine.
18 Time capsule, 19 Diphthong, 21 Infidels,
26 Neandertal, 28 Washington, 30 Diver, 31 You are jet-setting around the world co.uk using the subject
In dire need, 32 Trombonist, 34 Sue Ryder, visiting a different country each day. On heading “Brain
36 Crowberry, 40 Raith Rovers, 41/33 the 6th day, you will visit South Africa. On Teaser”
Alexander Armstrong, 42 Cameron Norrie, the 5th day, you’ll visit Guyana. On the 4th
The winner receives 43 Pea soup, 44 Nene, 45 Le Nain, 46 day, Malaysia. On the 3rd day, Belgium. On
a copy of “In the Eye Tail-ender. the 2nd day, Nigeria. Unfortunately, you
of the Storm: are not able to complete this logical
Modernism in Down: 1 Cwmbran, 2 Kneecap, 3 Murali- sequence of visits with a starting country
Ukraine, 1900– tharan, 4 Itchen, 5 Thorntons, 6 Maremma, on the 1st day. Why?
1930s” by Konstantin 7 In the can, 8 Gertrude Stein, 9 Terese, 11
Akinsha, Katia Victoria Derbyshire, 14 Campaign For Real Last month’s solution
Denysova and Olena Ale, 20 Hyades, 22 Sonata, 23 Gneiss, 24 The author’s surnames spell out LOVE: “The
Kashuba-Volvach Dandie Dinmont, 25 Yarrow, 27 Lid, 28 Owl and the Pussycat” by Edward Lear; the
(Thames & Hudson) Wet, 29 Homme d’esprit, 35 Enounced, 37 Roman exiled to the Black Sea is Ovid (whose
Menorah, 38 Edmonds, 39 Drapery, 40 work is the collection “Amores”); “Candide” is
Download a PDF Racine, 41 Avesta. by Voltaire; “The Love Song of J Alfred
of these pages at Prufrock” by TS Eliot. The winner
prospectmagazine. receives a copy of
co.uk Last month’s winner Lear, Ovid, Voltaire, Eliot “Masquerade:
Ian Wilson, Thames Ditton The Lives of Noël
Last month’s winner Coward” by Oliver
Robert Pellegrinetti, London Soden (Weidenfeld &
Nicolson)

Learn more about these and other titles at

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The Conservative Party Naked Feminism
After Brexit Breaking the Cult of Female Modesty
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the Conservatives’ fortunes over the last decade. From the bombshell Brexit History
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The Left Way Back from Woke
Umut Özkırımlı
Land Sickness Özkırımlı reveals how the Left has been sucked into a spiral
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88 PROSPECT / APRIL 2023

Brief encounter
Mariana Mazzucato,
economist

What is the first news event initiate a programme to cre-

you can recall? ate healthy, tasty and sustain-
Not sure it’s the first, but it’s able school meals—affecting
the clearest: the death of arch- the entire supply chain of food
bishop Oscar Romero in 1980. production and getting kids
He was a revolutionary in the involved too. Germany’s condi-
Catholic Church, murdered for tionalities on loans provided to
his lifelong work of helping the the steel sector meant that the
poorest in and around El Salva- sector couldn’t just get a hand-
dor. He fought against the most out but had to lower its mate-
powerful Salvadoran families rial content—creating one of
who had killed protesters to the greenest steel-production
maintain the dominant social processes. In general, I find it
and economic order. I was 12 inspiring when governments
when this happened. I attended invest in their in-house capaci-
a virtual memorial service at ties instead of outsourcing.
Princeton University, in the
town where I was living (we What would people be
moved from Italy when I was surprised to know about you?
five as my father worked at the I draw—mainly women from
university). It was that event, my imagination—to relax…
alongside the death of Chilean with charcoal and using my
president Salvador Allende, hands to smudge the shades
that got me interested in poli- their chains”—back to my iner- What’s the worst, ignored almost like it was a sculpture.
tics and political economy. tia point! dysfunction of developed Even though my four kids are
economies? teenagers now, on Sundays we
What is the biggest problem? Which of your ancestors or Financialisation. In the last sometimes just sit and all draw
The biggest problem we have relatives are you most proud of? decade, US companies have on the floor.
today is inertia. Unless we My mother. She passed away in spent over $5 trillion—$1 tril-
move quickly and with deci- 2011, much before her time. She lion in the last year alone—on What do you most regret?
sive action—across all parts was the most empathetic per- share buybacks. All to boost My mother died a month after
of society and led by govern- son I have ever met, able to put stock prices, stock options I had visited her from London
ment—global warming will fin- herself in others’ shoes before and executive pay. It’s not a (she lived in Princeton). I had
ish us. As Greta Thunberg says: judging. I am grateful that my surprise that the labour share been working in New York and
no more blah blah blah. kids not only met her but are of global income is at one of was missing my kids, so decided
blessed with her character. its lowest levels ever. More to leave a day earlier to get back
If you could spend a day in one should be said about this dys- to them. I regret I had not spent
city or place at one moment in What have you changed your functional form of corporate an extra 24 hours with her. ♦
history, what would that be? mind about? governance that increases ine-
Among the women strikers I used to think that all ESG quality and prevents reinvest- Mariana Mazzucato is a profes-
in Petrograd in 1917! The Rus- (environmental, social and ment in the real economy. sor at University College London
sian Revolution was sparked by governance) metrics were just and author, with Rosie Colling-
women textile workers striking green- and social-washing. But What businesses, countries or ton, of “The Big Con: How the
ILLUSTRATION BY MICHAEL REA

because of shortages of bread— now I think that if we can make individuals are getting it right? Consulting Industry Weakens
not male workers. them rigorous and account- I don’t think any country is our Businesses, Infantilizes our
able, they can really change perfect, but there are good Governments and Warps our
What is your favourite quote? business (unlike the old “cor- seeds being planted. Sweden’s Economies” (Allen Lane, £25).
Rosa Luxemburg: “Those who porate social responsibility”, challenge of having a fossil- It is reviewed by Lionel Barber
do not move, do not notice which is pure blah blah blah). free welfare state led them to on page 60