When is a bully not a bully?

The prime minister's recent dismissal of the findings of an investigation into accusations that Priti Patel had been guilty of breaking the ministerial code by her mistreatment of her civil servants has revealed yet again the pernicious culture of cronyism that lies not only at the heart of British governments in general, but of this government in particular. 

The investigation was supposed to be independent, but we have learnt that Johnson attempted to persuade Sir Alex Allan to water down his conclusions. Having failed in that, he simply rejected the report and publicly stated that Ms Patel was not guilty of bullying and, in any event, she had apologised. It is typical of Johnson that he either did not see, or did not care about, the contradictions inherent in these assertions, i.e. that if she had done nothing wrong, why did she apologise? It is unsurprising that Sir Alex chose to resign.

Ms Patel's apologists have pointed out that she is doing a very important job - as though we needed to be told that - but that utterly fails as a defence for bad behaviour. They have also pointed out that the report states that Ms Patel did not receive the service she might expect from her civil servants - one Tory stated that there were faults "on both sides". A journalist actually asked how a woman little over 5' tall could possibly be a bully when dealing with mostly male civil servants. Such rationalisations are either disingenuous, or astonishingly ignorant of the dynamics of the boss/staff relationship. 

The first point is that in the Home Office, Ms Patel is the boss and the civil servants are her underlings; her height and gender are irrelevant to the fact that she is the one with the status and authority. The job of civil servants is to implement the law and government policy. This is true of all civil servants from those at the top in Whitehall to the junior levels that I worked in for 28 years as an executive officer in DHSS/DSS/DWP local offices. Civil servants have little discretion about what they do; to put it bluntly, they have to perform their job as instructed.

As for the suggestion that there were faults on both sides: the boss and her staff do not represent "two sides", which implies a conflict between two equal parties. One is in a position of power and authority over the other. If, as is claimed, civil servants were failing to provide the service Ms Patel required, there are well-established procedures to address the problem.

I was a trade union rep in the civil service for 24 years and while I wasn't involved in representing any mandarins, the procedures my members were subject to were the same as those covering top civil servants. There have been some hints there was an element of sabotage by senior civil servants possibly with an element of racism as to why they weren't (allegedly) doing their job properly. If this were true, then the appropriate response would be to have disciplinary action instigated against the alleged offenders. If the failings were the result of staff not being able to do the job required, then inefficiency proceedings should have been initiated. Those would be the appropriate ways to manage problems with staff performance. The entirely wrong response involves shouting, abuse and swearing. 

Johnson's dismissal of Sir Alex's conclusions, after unsuccessfully trying to influence his investigation, is entirely typical of a man whose own behaviour in both his political and his private life indicates that personal integrity is an utterly alien concept to him. His uncritical acceptance of Dominic Cummings' feeble excuses for breaking the first lockdown constitutes another example of his determination to stand by his mates, no matter what the consequences, which in Cummings's case included damage to the public's compliance with COVID-19 restrictions. The police reported that when questioned about breaking lockdown, many people justified their actions by mentioning Cummings.

Ms Patel's failure to ensure that appropriate disciplinary or inefficiency procedures were used to deal with the problems she claims to have had with staff demonstrates that she has few managerial skills, if any. Bullying is an abuse of a position of authority or power over another, leaving the victim powerless to defend him- or herself, especially as the minister is not a civil servant and is therefore not covered by the internal complaints procedures that do exist in the civil service. This also highlights the utter nonsense of the 'faults on both sides' argument: in vertical hierarchies, there are people with power and their underlings - hardly a battle of equals.

The 'two sides' argument also completely ignores the potential damage that bullying can do to the mental health and well-being of the victim. It is wholly unacceptable to say that bullying is a 'rite of passage' or a fact of life in the world of work, and that you should be a man and just take it on the chin. Recent research on the impact of bullying on both the mental and physical health of victims has demonstrated potentially serious consequences, both in the short-term and the long-term. 

The only protection for victims of ministerial bullying has been the ministerial code, and Johnson's dismissal of the findings will have sent the message to staff that they have no effective defence against overbearing ministers. This whole episode demonstrates that the prime minister is not the right person to adjudicate upon ministerial code enquiries, especially not the brazenly cronyist Johnson; this all leaves the code now fatally undermined.

Ms Patel has form; this is the second time she has been found guilty of breaching the code. Will it be three strikes and she's out? I wouldn't bank on it.

• When is a bully not a bully? When the prime minister is your pal.

The Corn Laws and Protectionism

 

When I first saw the spoof above on Facebook, I copied it and sent it to a number of people "for amusement only". Interestingly, a friend pointed out to me that most people in the UK, and certainly abroad, would have no idea what the Corn Laws were. I pondered this for a while, and realised that I was no expert myself. That's nothing to be proud of, as two of my university History courses were on British Social History of the 19th century. This is not to decry my lecturers of that time, as they were excellent. It's just that I haven't continued reading about this subject since I graduated from Salford University in 1980. I have many history books on a variety of  periods, but not British social history.

I have to thank the friend who pointed out the gap in people's knowledge and my lapsed interest. It's unfortunate that our social history is regarded as dull and of secondary relevance. Without an understanding of how our industrial history developed, we fail to understand how our present-day society came into being. The struggles for the universal franchise,  women's rights, workers' rights and welfare provision might not match the dramas and traumas of European history, but they were bitterly fought for against implacable resistance and should not be taken for granted. And, believe it or not, these struggles of our forebears have relevance today.

The Corn Laws were introduced after 1815 to protect the crop prices of British landowners who had made huge profits selling corn during the Napoleonic Wars. During the war, it had been impossible to buy imported wheat from Europe, but, post-Waterloo, that all changed. As imported corn would have been cheaper to buy, Parliament passed the Corn laws. following pressure from the landed classes, As Spartacus Educational comments:

"Parliament responded by passing a law permitting the import of foreign wheat free of duty only when the domestic price reached 80 shillings per quarter (8 bushels). During the passing of this legislation, the Houses of Parliament had to be defended by armed troops against a large angry crowd."

The British working class are often portrayed as placid and apathetic. This reaction, together with the actions of the much-denigrated Luddites, shows that they were well aware of what high bread prices meant for them. Nor was rioting confined to London. As Samuel Bamford wrote in 1843:

"...at Bridport there were riots on account of the high price of bread; at Bideford there were similar disturbances to prevent the export of grain; at Bury by the unemployed to destroy machinery; at Newcastle-on-Tyne by colliers and others; at Glasgow, where blood was shed, on account of soup kitchens; at Preston, by unemployed weavers; at Nottingham by Luddites who destroyed 30 frames; at Merthyr Tydfil, on a reduction of wages; at Birmingham by the unemployed; at Walsall by the distressed; and December 7th, 1816, at Dundee, where, owing to the high price of meal, upwards of 100 shops were plundered."

Formal opposition began in 1820, with the "Merchants' Petition" written by Thomas Tooke. It failed, but it spearheaded the continued agitation that eventually led to the Repeal of the Corn Laws in 1845. The campaign to repeal the Corn laws was led by groups such as the Anti-Corn Law League (ACLL) and apostles of Free Trade like Richard Cobden, a sort of 19th century Milton Friedman. The Parliamentary lobbying, the ACLL, Cobden, etc, represented the resentment of the industrial magnates, who saw the Corn Laws as a bar to free trade and were concerned that their workers might demand higher wages, or simply become malnourished and unable to work. Richard Cobden put the case for repeal thus:

First, it would guarantee the prosperity of the manufacturer by affording him outlets for his products. Second, it would relieve the Condition of England question by cheapening the price of food and ensuring more regular employment. Third, it would make English agriculture more efficient by stimulating demand for its products in urban and industrial areas. Fourth, it would introduce through mutually advantageous international trade a new era of international fellowship and peace. The only barrier to these four beneficent solutions was the ignorant self-interest of the landlords, the "bread-taxing oligarchy, unprincipled, unfeeling, rapacious and plundering."

Well, the industrialists won in the end, and the Corn Laws passed into History in 1845. The Tory prime minister, Sir Robert Peel, voted with the opposition to win the motion. In Marxist terms, this was a "bourgeois revolution" in which the emergent capitalist class replaced the ancien regime of the landed aristocracy. Well, maybe. Research shows that the aristocracy in Britain married their children to those of the mercantile class, or made new peers by ennobling these industrial upstarts - a system that continues to operate today. 

Something else that persists today is the idea of British Protectionism, albeit in a different form. The propaganda of the Leave vote was undeniably protectionist, with its lies about money paid to the EU and its scare stories about refugees and EU migrants swarming in, etc, etc. Jacob Rees-Mogg is a regular target for mockery, but he is capable of intelligent comment, as Dr Keith Flett observed in The Guardian:

 

"Mr Rees-Mogg has a history degree from Oxford and he is certainly correct that Peel did cause a rift in the mid 19th-century Tory party. The purpose of the repeal of the Corn Laws, as Marx noted in a speech made in Brussels in January 1848, was to reduce the price of bread, not to help workers but to allow factory owners thereby to reduce wages and make more profit. Mr Rees-Mogg certainly agrees with that. Peel’s aim was to rebalance the Tories as a party of the ruling class away from landed interests and towards industrialists."

It is undeniable that the workers, their rights and welfare were of little interest to landowners and industrialists. Very few working class voices were heard in the campaign for the Repeal of the Corn Laws. This only began to change later in the 19th Century, with the coming of mass literacy and trade unionism. 

Nevertheless, the mass agitation did provide impetus to the rise of working-class activism. As Spartacus Educational says:

!The Corn Laws had an important political impact on Manchester... It also influenced working class radicals and the Corn Laws was one of the main issues that was to be addressed at the meeting that they had organised at St. Peter's Field on 16th August, 1819."

And we know what happened at that meeting...

After the Peterloo Massacre, 18 people lay dead, including a 2-year-old boy, William Fildes, and a pregnant woman, Mary Hayes. Hundreds of people were injured. The Prince of Wales (the future George IV) congratulated the magistrates who ordered the attack on the peaceful crowd  "for their prompt, decisive, and efficient measures for the preservation of the public peace". Parliament passed the "Six Acts" which stifled dissent by public meetings or in print for years afterwards.

The poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley, wrote an impassioned poem condemning the massacre - "The Masque of Anarchy" - in September, 1819, which was banned from publication until 1832.

The government cracked down severely on the press. As Wikipedia points out:

"The immediate effect of Peterloo was a crackdown on reform. The government instructed the police and courts to go after the journalists, presses and publication of the Manchester Observer."

The working class struggle had begun.

Diana, Bashir and a Funny Coloured Fish

 If the words "Rest in Peace" have any relevance, they don't apply to the late Diana, Princess of Wales. Since her death in 1997, her life has been subjected to almost forensic scrutiny and bizarre conspiracy theories about her untimely demise. Her failed marriage, her lovers (real and imaginary), her charity work, etc, are frequent subjects for the media, and you'd think there was nothing left to say.

Well, as we know, we got that wrong. Last night, ITV screened the first of two programmes: "The Diana Interview: Revenge of a Princess". Channels Four and Five have presented two programmes on the same subject: "Diana: the Truth behind the Interview" and "Diana: the Interview That Shocked the World". As if you didn't know, these programmes focus on allegations that the BBC journalist, Martin Bashir, tricked Diana into her famous interview by presenting her brother, Earl Spencer, with forged documents. The BBC themselves comment: 

"Former BBC chairman Michael Grade has said allegations that Martin Bashir used forged bank statements to convince Princess Diana to do a 1995 interview were "a very, very serious matter"

Well, perhaps they are, and perhaps Martin Bashir does need to answer the charges against him when he returns to fitness. However, I have reservations about this matter which I will save for later.

It's difficult to explain why Diana became so celebrated in her lifetime. We are told that it is largely because of her kindness, her beauty and her charity work. All might be true, but was she very different from many other personalities in doing good works? The late Christopher Hitchens made a documentary  debunking the Diana myths in 1998. Yvonne Roberts wrote in the Independent, again, a year after Diana's death:

"I am sure Diana brought comfort to many. Her fame may even have expedited an end to the use of landmines. She may have encouraged some people to rethink on Aids and leprosy. The Diana nurses helping terminally ill children will prove invaluable. But, ultimately, what is truly significant about the past year is not what she appeared to ignite but how little has since been sustained. A saint, she ain't; a revolutionary - feminist of otherwise - she wasn't."

Historians will find much to comment upon when investigating the widespread mourning that accompanied Diana's funeral. It engulfed us at the time, and is now generally regarded as an outbreak of mass hysteria. People spent huge amounts of money on flowers to be strewn in the path of Diana's funeral cortege. Tens of thousands of mourners lined the procession route, many weeping uncontrollably and clutching teddy bears. I watched the event with a sort of fascinated disbelief. It was not an edifying spectacle. Another factor that was not edifying was something I learned from a supermarket worker back in my home town of Southport: the fact that sales of alcohol increased dramatically on the day before the funeral. I suspect that for many people in Southport and the rest of the UK, the whole TV event was a sort of entertainment - a "cryathon" fuelled by booze. 

Not everybody appreciated this maudlin TV spectacular (41% of UK households didn't watch) - but here, the mourning took on an ugly aspect. Voices of dissent were not tolerated. As one comedian remarked soon afterwards : "It was Disney meets the Blackshirts". There were cases of shops being intimidated into closing on the day of the funeral and hostility towards unenthusiastic journals. A prime example of this was the treatment of Private Eye magazine. As Peyvand Khorsandi wrote in The Independent in 2017: 

"t was these newspapers (i.e. the tabloid papers), and the ballooning sense of national mourning they were whipping up, that Private Eye punctured with its issue of 8 September 1997.There was outrage – it was withdrawn by three big retail chains, including WH Smith. Why? Because the target of its satirical wit was not the papers so much as the public."

Decades later, it seems to me that such a controversial figure as Princess Diana should be allowed to rest in peace. Not that I want to suppress either comment or historical research, but the present fuss over the interview, I believe, has another purpose besides public interest.

  You're right - that is a red herring, which is what I believe this whole Bashir and Diana "scoop" to be. Bashir was investigated by the BBC and cleared of fraud charges back in the 90s. What interests me is the fact that it has taken 25 years for this so-called scoop to be uncovered.  Without getting bogged down in the details of the controversy, I believe that this matter will work out very well for the present government, even though they are not yet involved. Not yet. As a simple distraction, it takes some of the heat off them for their failings in other areas. The calamity of Brexit approaches (ask John Major) and any diversion will do.

Another benefit for Boris & co will be the discrediting of the BBC over this matter. Already, the right-wing press are flapping their vulture wings, as can be seen in this article in The Tatler, the posh people's magazine. If the Beeb can be smeared by this issue, then it could result in it losing credibility with the general public. and that will suit Boris and his cronies very well. That will be one less independent voice to hold them to account.

If any individuals are guilty of malpractice, then they must face justice. We must not, however, allow the political right to gain predominance in our media.

Trotsky, Weimar and the Labour Party Divided

 

Leon Trotsky, or Lev Davidovich Bronstein, to give his pre-revolutionary name, is not much talked about nowadays, which is unfortunate, as, despite his ideological rants and tragic life, he was acclaimed in his lifetime as an outstanding writer and political commentator. A leading light in the Bolshevik Revolution and subsequent civil war, he fell foul of Stalin and left Russia for exile in 1929. He might have thought himself lucky to escape alive, but Stalin got him in the end. A Stalinist assassin, Ramon Mercador, killed him in Mexico, 20 August 1940.  Trotsky's principal political legacy was his variant of Marxism called "Trotskyism", which inspired British left-wing parties such as the Workers' Revolutionary Party (WRP), the International Marxist Group (IMG), the Socialist League (SL) and - to a limited extent - the Socialist Workers' Party (SWP). The "limits" to his influence on the SWP lay in the fact that the SWP never joined the Fourth International. The names of these parties ring in my mind like distant memories; Trotskyism and Marxism have faded into the political background and no longer have the significance they had back in the 1960s and 70s.

Nonetheless, I believe that Trotsky was a man of rare political vision who can provide us with insight into our present-day politics. Outside scholars and specialist websites, there is no recognition of his perceptive analysis of the reaction by the German left wing parties to the looming Nazi threat in the pre-1933 Weimar Republic. Trotsky, despite still considering himself a communist, saw clearly that the only chance for the Left to stop the Nazi takeover was for the Social Democrats (SPD), Communist Party (KPD) and the German Trade Unions to join forces and fight. In May, 1932, he said:

" I believe that if the most important organizations of the German working class continue their present policy, the victory of fascism will be assured almost automatically...I believe that the Communist Party must propose an agreement for struggle to the Social Democratic Party and the leadership of the Free Trade Unions, from below up to the very top...the united front of the working class against fascism must have a fully concrete, practical, and militant character. Its point of departure should be defense of all institutions and conquests of proletarian democracy and, in a broader sense: defense of culture before barbarism."

Had Trotsky been heeded, and the Left had won, the world would have been saved from some of the most hideous crimes ever committed against humanity; had they lost, at least they would have gone down fighting, instead of the tame way they submitted to Nazi repression.

So, what's this to do with the Labour Party at the present time? Literal-minded people will undoubtedly deny any similarity between the internal Labour Party divisions and the divided German left in the Weimar Republic. Of course, there are obvious differences which I have no need to spell out, but there are similarities that should serve as a warning. 

The internal divisions in the Labour Party have always existed. They are usually depicted as a straight split between Left and Right. It's often more subtle than that, but present-day divisions are broadly between the Corbynista followers of the former leader and a seemingly quiescent faction that supports the new leader, Keir Starmer. In a previous post, I predicted that Starmer would face a barrage of hostility from Corbyn acolytes smarting from the unseating of their "Lost Leader" - the leader who lost the election.

 I was right, as expected. Another Angry Voice thunders: 

" I have tried to give Starmer the benefit of the doubt, but it's increasingly difficult to keep doing it, given that he's outed himself as an opportunistic liar, trampled all over his promise to maintain party unity within months of becoming leader,"

The Canary laments: 

"Keir Starmer has announced a revived approach to the military from the Labour Party, to coincide with Armed Forces Day. But his approach just cements the notion that the new, rather “Blue“, Labour leader is little more than a political opportunist and charlatan; one who’s willing to out-Tory the Tories in an attempt to gain power".

And there are many similar posts on social media. I would not seek to suppress these correspondents, and I know that many Starmer supporters are no less scathing about Corbyn, although I admit to having seen no similar vitriolic attacks upon Corbyn. But the warning from Trotsky and from History is quite clear: factional in-fighting leads to defeat. If the Labour Party cannot put the past behind it and unite, then the real enemy - in our case, the Tory Party - will triumph. I don't often quote the Bible, but...