This was their finest bather
Where’s a Winston Churchill when Britain’s in hot water, asks David Slack.
Poor old Blighty! The answer to the question: ‘‘What is almost completely pink?’’ used to be: ‘‘the map of the world.’’ The truest answer today is: ‘‘Nigel Farage.’’
To the victor goes the spoiled diary. Did poor Nigel have time this week for even a single 17-pint lunch? He looked awfully busy.
See him on the TV! See him admit that the biggest promise of the Leave campaign was – how does one put this – complete bull ....
See him in the European Parliament! See him tell them: ‘‘virtually none of you have ever done a proper job in your lives’’. Twitter explained that this is – how does one put it – complete bulls..., by identifying the MPs immediately adjacent: an IT specialist, an army officer, a teacher. See Nigel register nothing.
See David Cameron make a pig’s ear of the whole thing. See Boris Johnson look as though he was caught sneaking out of the bedroom. See Michael Gove auditioning for House of Cards. See poor old Jeremy Corbyn. Try not to look away.
You watch it all from the other end of the world and think to yourself: this is not their finest hour. Do they not have another Winston Churchill ready to go? If they don’t, could they not make one?
So very much about him was unlike today’s politician. His day would begin with a long bath, and back to bed to read the papers for one or two hours. Then work, with a weak whisky and soda, until lunch at one: a three-course meal with Champagne, port, brandy, cigars. An afternoon nap for a couple of hours, then time for another long bath, drinks, dinner and drinks, then work, late, late into the night.
My daughter said to me this week: ‘‘Dad, you drink like a fish and you’ve had two heart attacks. Pa’s 90, there no way you’re going to live as long as him.’’ I say to her: ‘‘Look at Winston Churchill. Drank like a fish, had heart attacks, wrote books and speeches, lived to 91. Leave daddy alone thank you very much.’’
I also say: maybe I should take two baths a day. Maybe we all should. That was where he did his thinking. He would rehearse speeches or lectures, he would mull them, he would sing. He would find the words.
Does anyone in Westminster have the words? The referendum made it clear: there are many, many people who reject this 21st century world for reasons that make absolute sense, and also for reasons that are bigoted and
Twitter identified the MPs immediately adjacent: an IT specialist, an army officer, a teacher.
obnoxious.
And there are people on the other side of the argument who embrace this 21st century moneyed world so eagerly and greedily they don’t seem to see or care how lopsided and unfair it has become. The divide is in Britain, it is in America. It’s here, and you can find it in almost any time zone.
The mistake Cameron made, people say – the mistake Hillary Clinton is making too, they say – is to debate using facts and reason. Your Farage, your Johnson, your Trump know better than to go there. They use pure emotion. It beats rational argument.
This is not at all a new proposition. The Greek orators knew this. They also knew there are times when it works the other way around.
But if emotion is winning, maybe offer it back: talk less about a fact being wrong, talk more about it being a giant lie. When Boris Johnson talks about £350 million a week of EU money for the NHS, that’s a lie. When Donald Trump says ‘‘They’re letting tens of 1000s of people come in from Syria . . . A lot of those people are Isis’’, that’s a lie.
They are not propositions to be rebutted, they are giant lies to be deplored. The words you find as you soak in the bath with your whisky and soda might sound less like: ‘‘If you check the data. . .’’ and more like: ‘‘You’re lying. How in God’s name do you live with yourself? How?’’
No matter who you were, Churchill had words to offer you. You belonged, you had a part to play. He united a nation. Sure, that will only take you so far without a plan or, say, the military might of the US and USSR. But it’s where you start. This bunch of leaders hasn’t even got that far.
@DavidSlack