re: guilty men

Too often we rush to extend grace to those in power who do not merit it.

 

British politics is hopelessly divided and ineffectual. An embattled Prime Minister currently clings desperately to power. Two populists continue to surge in polls amidst growing pains, whilst the Conservatives and Liberals have disappeared into the misty dew of the shires, and the nationalist parties chomp at the bit for a return to form governments in the devolved nations. In this political climate, it can be tempting to don the rose-tinted glasses and look back at the politics of even recent years gone as somehow more decent and less partisan.

But this divisiveness and rancour has always been the nature of British politics, a fact only obscured by the British state’s extensive political rehabilitation process. A retirement from frontline politics by a leading politician is accompanied by a seat in the Lords, a stream of sinecures across public affairs and business, and the right to weigh in on major national questions as distinguished statespeople. Stepping back from the limelight produces this miraculous transformation, whereby the once divisive politician ascends to a realm beyond criticism; attacking them is treated as a sin akin to swearing in the presence of grandparent, a grievous transgression of respect and norms. 

 

It is a particularly British phenomenon, too—in the United States, there is no shortage of public bile poured onto politicians who have left office. Joe Biden is still the subject of chants of ‘Lets Go Brandon’, and Jimmy Carter spent forty years engaged in humanitarian work to rebuild his reputation. Reagan’s name is used as shorthand for all that went wrong with America’s experiment with the New Right, Obama’s as the harbinger of American socialised healthcare. As demonstrated by the weak polling of the Labour government almost immediately after taking office, there is little of that in the public mind here; blaming the previous lot only works if the public considers you materially different from them, which Britons clearly do not.

Politicians as individuals can bear grievances, but as soon as a Prime Minister resigns, it takes a truly exceptional circumstance—like Iraq—to deny that individual any rehabilitation in the public consciousness.  Critical works must be steadily produced, exposing the full depth and breadth of a politician’s failings, before they lose their right to sit at the High Table of retirees. The title of this article comes from such scathing work; Michael Foot, under a pseudonym, co-wrote the essay ‘Guilty Men’ which condemned the pre-war political class for their appeasement of Hitler and failure to prepare Britain for war. It takes a record as abysmal as that of Chamberlain to delay any revisionist effort. And it is only a delay, as historians can never resist the contrarian urge to give unpopular leaders a new gloss of paint.

 

In spite of the high barriers for redemption laid down by his legacy, Blair did not resign to immediate disgrace. It took the Chilcot Inquiry and reports of his consultancy working on the behalf of some of the world’s less salubrious governments to dull the shine on his mythical election-winning name. He still has the right to weigh in on major policy questions as a ‘respected statesman’, run an eponymous thinktank, and criticise his predecessors. Theresa May, second only to David Cameron in her responsibility for how poorly Brexit was managed, now gets to portray herself as a church-attending compassionate granny hosting BBC Radio shows, rather than the architect of the Hostile Environment and worst PM this country has had since Edward Heath. David Cameron experienced a public rebirth as Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson now has a long string of commitments with which to support his family, and even monumental failure Liz Truss gets to publish books and attend the talkshow circuit, favourably compared to our current Prime Minister.

 

These politicians do not deserve such grace. That we are not consumed with pursuing accountability from these people is a show of biblical forgiveness from the populace. Yet they do not warrant it. Few of them offer mea culpas, and those that do attach so many caveats solely in order to divert the passing glare of media attention. For hosting parties in Number 10 as thousands of families were forced to say goodbye to their loved ones over the phone during the COVID-19 lockdowns, Boris Johnson should have spent years dragging himself through the mud before he was even considered a respectable figure again, let alone one whose opinion mattered. Yet instead, he has already begun appearing on CNN and now lectures at Florida State University. Theresa May’s aggressive parliamentary strategy for Brexit and foolish snap election broke British politics for three years, but she too has escaped into the media sphere without any great apology.

It’s puzzling then, that the only leading politician who truly spent any time in the wilderness before reengaging with broader politics , was Gordon Brown. I like Brown as a thinker and politician immensely, but his tenure as Prime Minister fell short of the lofty expectations that many held within and without the Labour movement. Having successfully coordinated the global response to the 2008 financial crash, he was blamed—falsely—by the Tories for the crisis in the UK, and did not truly reengage in public politics until late in the Scottish independence referendum in 2014, making an authoritative and powerful case for remaining in the Union. His interventions in support of anti-poverty measures, multibanks and Lords reform have either filled a void of compassion for the poor that we find in British politics, and injected fresh ideas into an otherwise sterile debate.

Yet, unlike Blair, Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss, and Sunak, outside of his writings he does not go around tooting his own horn. He mainly dwells in Kircaldy, with his wife, and focuses on global charity and poverty relief. Out of all Britain’s modern Prime Ministers, he alone has earned his new reputation; his successors and predecessors have not yet earned it. It took Henry II embarking on a barefooted pilgrimage to seek penitence for his accidental assassination of Thomas Becket. We should be so lucky today.

 

Words by Arun Lewis. Image by Arun Lewis