Winston, Boris, Volodymyr – and Liz?
This morning in 10 Downing Street, Boris Johnson is honouring Volodymyr Zelensky, who will be attending virtually. The outgoing Prime Minister will be presenting the ongoing Ukrainian president with the Sir Winston Churchill Leadership Award of the International Churchill Society.
No doubt Boris – a Churchill fan and biographer – would have rather liked to receive the award himself, but in a way this occasion works out better for him. Even his many critics find it hard to gainsay the point that he has been the most vocal and effective Western leader in defending Ukraine and denouncing the Russian invasion. His numerous Ukrainian fans are perplexed by his premature departure.
Even without opening his mouth to offer his usual eloquence, as he will today, President Zelensky is a standing rebuke to those in Britain who dismiss Boris as a frivolous adventurer. It took some vision to see the extent of Vladimir Putin’s ambitions and to realise that the reputation and security of the Western world would be compromised if we did not collectively resist. It took some courage to trust Zelensky, who had been widely dismissed before the war because of his previous life as a comedian.
Boris’s stance emboldened the United States and helped shame Germany, the most compromised of the major Nato allies. It also looked more realistic than President Emmanuel Macron’s efforts to tame the Russian bear with honey. History may show that, particularly in the early days, British training and support proved vital in denying Putin the lightning conquest he sought.
Boris will also be conscious of the effect today’s presentation may have on the Conservative Party’s current leadership contest. Ukraine is an issue which benefits Boris loyalists. Even before Rishi Sunak’s resignation, Boris supporters were complaining that Mr Sunak and the Treasury were the least enthusiastic about support for Ukraine. Liz Truss, on the other hand, seemed to be good at overcoming the habitual caution of the Foreign Office.
There is no doubting Mr Sunak’s distaste for Russian aggression, but it is the classic role of treasuries in military situations to say No more often than Yes, because of the costs involved. For this reason, war cabinets usually exclude the Chancellor of the Exchequer. We are not actually at war, so this did not happen, but it did fall to Mr Sunak to take the inglorious role of appeaser over sanctions, leaving Boris to shine with Zelensky’s Churchillian reflected glory. This helps Ms Truss, a Boris loyalist.
As always, Shakespeare furnishes a relevant quotation – in this case, for the Tory contest. Here, from Henry
VI Part 2: “The commons, like an angry hive of bees/that want their leader, scatter up and down/and care not who they sting.” In this context, the word “want” carries its oldfashioned meaning of “lack”.
One has only to claim that X is
the last of some particularly distinguished group for another claimant to appear, so I tread cautiously; but, as far as I can see, Group Captain John Hemingway, DFC, is the last of “The Few”. He is the only survivor, in other words, of the 2,500 or so pilots in RAF Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain – and, in his case, the Battle of France too – in the summer of 1940. He was shot down twice (and two more times later in the war, once behind enemy lines).
This month, Gp Capt Hemingway was 103 years old, and last Friday he was celebrated at a ceremony which included the flight of a Lancaster bomber and a Hurricane (the type of aircraft he flew).
Obviously, this would be a memorable occasion in any circumstance, but what added poignancy was the fact that John Hemingway was in 1940 – and is now – an Irish citizen. Those celebrating him on Friday were the Irish Air Corps. They were making him part of their centenary Veterans’ Day. The Lancaster and the Hurricane were flown by the RAF across the Irish Sea.
Until quite recently, this could not have happened. Irish officialdom felt uneasy with Irish citizens who had fought for Britain in the Second World War and did not accord them public honour. Until the 1980s, the National War Memorial Gardens in Dublin fell into decay. Their rehabilitation by the Irish state was completed in 2011 by the Queen’s famous visit. She and the President of the Republic laid wreaths that commemorated the Irish dead of two world wars.
It is lovely that John Hemingway lived long enough to see his country emerge from the bitterness of the past. He never saw any contradiction between his nationality and risking his life for Britain against Hitler. When he was 100, he was asked, as people are on that occasion, for his advice. He said, “The only advice I can give to people is to be Irish.”
The heatwave and, by extension,
global warming, have been blamed for the deaths of several people by drowning. Obviously, people are likelier to jump into water in hot weather. But the heatwave was the occasion, rather than the cause.
The craze for what people call “wild swimming” is the problem.
It is, of course, good fun, but it is defined as a form of swimming without any “man-made structures”. Man-made structures – for example, swimming pools – are in part designed to make your swim safe. Nature has no such scruples.