talking politics is ending. just a few more lonely episodes. horsemouth is saddened (he does like the reasonableness of it).
but before that a last attempt to make sense of boris johnson.
of course you can't make sense of any recent history without accounting for people's increasing disaffection from representative politics (and yet their inability to think outside or round it). the US, the UK, all over europe the spectre of populism.
for years the politicians would tell us that nothing could be done that it was all about economics, or the EU, or something somewhere else, so why do we have you then? we would reply.
horsemouth is impressed by the great experimental insanity of brexit (but of course it is not bound to end up well). the it's nothing to do with us (but we are still important) political class were tasked with making 'it' happen, cue parliamentary mud wrestling and attempts at obfuscation and delay. but we wants it hiss the people from the wings.
cometh the hour cometh the man. dominic cummings. with his tame political buffoon boris johnson on a leash. they battle it through. they stand on the side of the people versus the establishment and are rewarded for this.
but now boris has spoiled his copybook (cummings had spoiled his earlier - and, like the servant he is, been dismissed). but when he was similarly caught boris would not go, he looks like a member of the establishment too good to live by the rules he imposes on others. (which is what he is and everyone always knew this). he could still be forgiven by the people with an indulgent chuckle. 'that boris, eh.' one third of the population would still vote for him (or vote tory which is the same thing), he is still popular within the tory party itself (just not with the MPs).
and it is the MPs who will decide his fate. however they will be looking over their shoulders at the rest of the country.
boris has successfully disaggregated the coming shocks. nasrudin promises he can teach the sultan's horse to speak if he is given a year (anything looks like a good bet when you are under threat of death).
'beware the ides of may'
a week is a long time in politics, a year is a very long time, much can happen in a year, and much can happen before may, before the local elections. world events may even happen. boris may have his falklands moment (er. in ukraine? possibly not).
but there is no obvious successor. and boris has gotten up and onto the front foot (smearing starmer) assembling mobs in the street, refusing to play the game of politics even by the westminster rules (such as they are). boris appeals over the head of the chattering media and metropolitan elite to the country (has everyone forgotten that this is his game not parliamentary wrangling).
of course in many ways horsemouth hopes that the tories can't run with the levelling up agenda. if they could run with it they would have a built in structural advantage in english politics, a built in majority, a divided opposition.
'what about the working class?' yells a member of the mob at starmer (sounding briefly sensible, before going all elite paedophile ring conspiracy and anti-vax) 'traitor! traitor!'
it is strange to watch the hannah arendt origins of totalitarianism world re-emerge from out under the pandemic. (remember that's where we were).
of course many anti-vaxxers and anti-lockdown people believe that they are resisting totalitarianism rather than paving the way for the plague). they too have noticed the weakness of the supply chain, look at the truckers blocking the bridge between windsor ontario and detroit, and are applying pressure at the choke points.
of course starmer can't deliver the change people want and he can't reconnect labour with the working class, not in scotland, not in the north, he can only lead us back into a supressing normality (which was what got us here in the first place).
ultimately talking politics pin their hopes on a rebuilding of the centre ground (with a side order of democratic reform). but the toys of populism (and their followers in the street) are by no means guaranteed to go back in the box so easily.
once people realise power is in the street the temptation is to come out and play.
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today looks pretty good. let's check the weather. ok looks good sunny and cloudy. no rain. getting warmer and rainier next week.
last night another morocco set giallo dead of summer/ heatwave/ ondata di calore (1970). the wife of the architect is stuck at home in a malfunctioning apartment block, baking heat, the howling winds full of desert sand, ogling moroccan men.
yesterday's radio and podcast?
an in our time episode on the library cormorant himself (walter benjamin) followed by michael ignatieff discussing late montaigne. the outlaw bookseller turns out to have been from a small hamlet just outside caerphilly, he wanders round pontypridd.
horsemouth has agreed to child portage at the weekend, he will seek to rearrange meeting howard into the afternoon/ evening. today he doesn't know.
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