In a perhaps understandably nasty tirade about Harriet Harman, Rod Liddle, the Spectator’s resident yob, we get this paragraph:
“The reason we should have disquiet about Harriet is because she is either thick or criminally disingenuous. My guess is thick. Being a bit thick should not disqualify someone from leading their party, I suppose, as both Iain Duncan Smith and Lord Salisbury would concur.”
Well it may be true that Ms Harman is as dumb as a stump, a moron of heroic proportions, completely out of her depth, etc. But Lord Salisbury? The gentleman, who was prime minister for long periods at the end of the 19th Century when the British Empire was at its greatest extent, was hardly thick. Wrong, maybe, but thick, no. His shrewd handling of foreign affairs for certain periods, for example, puts him considerably ahead of most contemporary politicians. And he was quite libertarian in many ways, a skeptic about the efficacy of government power to improve human lives. A sign of wisdom, I’d say.
In making such an assertion about Lord Salisbury’s alleged thickness, Mr Liddle comes across as a bit of a thickie himself. And in wondering out loud about the sexual desirability, or lack, of these various New Labour women, he also undermines what might have been a good essay on the awfulness of their ideas by being so incredibly crass. But maybe I am just old fashioned or something. “That is the trouble with you, Johnathan, you’re not “edgy” enough.”
How can it be ‘incredible’ if it occurred?
Frank, it is incredible because I am amazed the editors let this through.
I find ghosts ‘incredible’. I find anything which I believe exists to be ‘credible’. If I believe editors let something through, I find their action ‘credible’. If I think they did not let something through, I believe that action ‘incredible’ provided I have grounds to suppose they would not usually let such a piece through.
But I do not wish to divert attention from the thrust of your piece, the substance of which I do agree with. Liddle has been vulgar about the Labour ladies, and possibly unjust to Salisbury.
I’m enough of a cynic (or paranoid) to lean towards the assumption that every member of NuArbeit’s upper echelons knows exactly what they are doing and are doing it very deliberately.
On the other hand I am willing to consider the possibility that many of them have merely been swept up in the ideology and now can’t see any way to extricate themselves without looking like complete idiots/liars/criminals/wannabe despots.
I find it very difficult to contemplate that there may be people at the top who wholeheartedly believe in the NuArbeit ideology as anything more than a means to more personal power. I believe Ms Harman to be more interested in her personal standings and power than in any form of ideology, but I don’t believe her to be stupid. Such underestimation is dangerous.
Nitpicking to an absurd degree. Like I said, I found it extraordinary that they let the piece through. Leave it.
Dear Frank S,
1. I do not see your name in the sidebar under ‘editor’
2. JP’s use of the word ‘incredible’ is quite acceptable modern use.
On the point of the intelligence of politicians, though: I have known a lot of people (not just politicians) who get wedded to a mindset that turns out to be untenable, who become ‘stupid’ about understanding its problems rather than admit they were wrong.
Mind you, functional stupidity works about the same as the organic kind, but it’s not quite the same thing.
Perhaps we should consider that the stupidity of nineteenth century liberals (that is, non-statists) was the failure to comprehend and oppose the threat of collectivism. Salisbury set up the London County Council and then publicly regretted it, as it was an incubator for socialist experimentations. The failure to understand and counter what was happening is a “stupidity” that cursed us all, for it would have been easier to halt in its incipient stages than now, when it is in full bloom. As G K Chesterton said, you must stop the hammer blow when it is still in the air.
On the other hand, perhaps we should not judge them too harshly. The problem with trying to raise the alarm about anything in its early stages is that at that stage it just doesn’t look very threatening, and the argument is the inevitably weak-sounding one of the slippery slope. If Salisbury had had a crystal ball with which to look at our present day, he probably would have been more vigorously opposed to the collectivists of his.
Also, on the matter of stupidity; if it is indicative of stupidity to be a movement which has absolutely triumphed while leaving its opponents raging impotently on the sidelines in dismay, then that’s one hell of a successful stupidity and we should only wish we too were so stupid. We may take some cold comfort from dismissing Harman as stupid; but her stupid policies are being implemented at every level of our society, in every nook and cranny of our polity, and we have no means- none whatsosever– of even slowing that down, let alone of reversing it.
No Jonathan, you’re not wrong and Liddle is indeed the most frightful lout. It might have been an “endearing” eccentricity on the part of Bozzer to engage him after he was sacked by BBC R4 but for the present management to have continued his employment is crass. His speculation on Ms Harman’s sexual attaction, or otherwise, is crass and oiky. He has a point, or perhaps he just echoes that of others, in questioning Ms Haman’s fitness to govern but undermines his essay with his oafish pondering.
Harriet Harman is not stupid, but neither is she as intelligent as she thinks she is. She is a self-righteous second rater (she has a BA in politics from York for gawd sake). She is also either utterly innumerate, or – which is worse – doesn’t actually care about the veracity of the statistics she uses to justify the government’s policies. But then why should she, Harriet Harman is so obviously morally superior to everyone else is the country, and her righteousness is beyond question, mere facts must not be allowed to get in her way.
Come on, chaps, York U can’t be that bad – I went there. And, which is possibly a more forceful argument, it always ranks high in the league tables: 11th out of 114 according to The Times.
I admit I studied something of doubtful utility – linguistics – but you’ll take my word, I hope, that it was pretty hard.
Liddle is the best of the Spectator columnists.
He is a bit earthy, and this time went a bit too far, but generally he is right on the money.
As for the utility of linguistics, it is a proper and rigorous discipline. Who cares if it is not (yet known to be) any use? Not important.
Study what you want to.
It is of much practical use in translation.
He was foolishly wrong about the Victorian Titan who “saw optimism as cowardice”; but vulgar, misogynistic even, as Liddle is, Ms Harman merits abuse.
I also went to the University of York (although I also attended other universities).
When I was there the Philosophy Department was dying (although, to be fair, it was being undermined) and the Politics Department (where I was) was controlled by people who were both ignorant and vicious (I can think of only one member of it who seemed to know anything – and he was a part timer who came up from Surrey for a few days each week).
When I was at the University of Leicester I had several friends in the department (and, no, they did share my political opinions), that was not the case at the University of York – it was not just a case of a difference of political opinions, the department was made up of people with bad moral character (as simple as that).
“But Paul you have a personal grunge against these people – over your DPhil”.
Certainly – but personal experience is helpful not harmful in this case. Nor can I be accused of being biased in my own case – as no arguments or evidence were ever presented against me.
I short I can not be biased in my consideration of the case presented against me because, even after all these many years, I am still waiting for a case to be presented against me.
We never got past “under our Royal Charter of 1963 we can what we like”.
That and poison pen letters sent to my parents – as they were dying.
I meant it when I said “bad moral character”.
Still Lord S.
“Stupid” – no the man was highly intelligent.
However, he did have a defeatist streak – he so firmly believed in future doom (the rise of statism) that this sometimes undermined his struggle against evil.
Of course I am accused (and with some justice) of the same fault.
“That is the trouble with you, Johnathan, you’re not “edgy” enough.”
But you are Jonathan, you are !
Salisbury? Thick? Besides presiding over the British Empire at its height, he was also a scientific hobbyist. His house at Hatfield was the second private home in England to be electrified; he had a chemistry laboratory there; and he was a Fellow of the Royal Society.
Yes Lord S. was a man of science – both theorectical and practical (he was a railway director also).
“The British Empire at its height” – yes, if not in land area, (that was between WWI and WWII), then in strength.
However, Lord S. was busy writing anti Imperialist articles for the “Saturday Review” in the period (he did not sign them – but it has been proved that they were by his hand).
Yes – the Prime Minister at the height of the British Empire did not believe in expanding empires. He had no sense of “Imperial mission” or anything like that.
History is complex.