Kenneth Roy Eck’s literary luvvies Jim Swire An…

01.03.12
No. 521

John Cameron

Rab Butler wrote a delightful memoir ‘The Art of the Possible’ whose title was based on Bismarck’s famous assertion: ‘Politics is the art of the possible’.
     The coalition is attempting to change two complex, high-spending areas of the welfare state which will certainly test the outer limits of what might be politically practical. Andrew Lansley and Iain Duncan Smith both believe themselves to be on career-defining missions but they face left-wing hysteria and a spectacularly bolshie House of Lords. In an era when the institutional church has failed in every conceivable way, the 26 lords spiritual are determined to show they can at least do ‘troublesome priest’ impressions.
     The health secretary was fortunate to be abused in the street by a shrieking June Hautot, Wandsworth Unison rep and rent-a-mob queen, which garnered him much sympathy.
     Yet I think the government will have to choose to run with only one of the reforms and I suspect it will be welfare and work which is supported by a growing national consensus. Of course we will have to deal with the fact that so much of the health budget is spent on adding a few extra years to life without improving the quality – but not right now.
     The Conservatives have prepared the public for change in the welfare system and were absolutely up-front in making their intentions entirely clear before the election. Iain Duncan Smith’s plans may not have been spelt out in every detail, but the direction of travel was known and it was one with which the vast majority of voters agreed.
     The Tories knew welfare reform was a key piece of legislation for their core vote as well as many swing voters and also extremely popular with Labour’s working-class support. There was a clear continuity with the previous government because Labour had already introduced the contentious work availability tests on those claiming disability benefits.
     On health, voters feared the Conservatives would be ‘the same old Tories’ which is why David Cameron was at such pains to convince them he had changed.
However on welfare, voters were and are looking for the Conservatives to cut back and crack down on malingerers and they really do want them to be ‘the same old Tories’.

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My short career

as a subversive

Scottish nationalist

Jill Stephenson

I’ve been a Scottish Nationalist twice in my life. The first time was around the time, 60 years ago as we all know, when the current queen succeeded to the throne and was called ‘Elizabeth II’.

     I wasn’t one of those who threatened to put bombs in post boxes with that name on them, because she was the first Elizabeth to be queen of Scotland and our post boxes should have said ‘Elizabeth I’ or even simply ‘Elizabeth’, but I remember a group of us going around shouting our protest about it in our own streets where no-one had any influence over what was inscribed on post boxes. At school, we endlessly rehearsed (but never, I think, performed) the ‘Scottish play’. And then it all tailed off when I was about 10.
     Then, when I was a first-year student, I joined the Nat Club at Edinburgh University. A friend had taken up with a leading light in it, and she introduced me to premises in a first-floor flat in Potterrow (now extinct – roughly where the Edinburgh student centre now is) where one could make coffee (rather than buy cups of coffee in the refectory (now extinct). That, as much as anything, turned me into a Nat.
     We met there for social rather than political purposes, and went to parties for the same. According to my memory, one of these was held in the flat in Fountainbridge belonging to Gordon Wilson, later to be SNP leader, where we were sworn to secrecy and shown a heavily disguised radio transmitter. What, and to whom, it transmitted was not vouchsafed – or perhaps I was not paying attention to what was said – and we soon went back to the main business of the party, drinking beer and…well, the other things one did at such parties.

My contribution was to take a pail round to the fishmonger in Lothian Street (now extinct – running along the back of the Royal Museum of Scotland) and to ask for it to be filled with fish heads, bones and entrails.

     There was a rectorial election at Edinburgh University in November 1963, to choose the successor to Liberal Party leader Jo Grimond as rector. The tradition was that students voted for the rector, who chaired the university court. Nowadays, staff too have a vote, and things have not been the same since first Jonathan Wills and then Gordon Brown politicised the office in the 1970s.
     In the 1960s, we were politically innocent (or apathetic), even in the Nat Club. In 1963, there were distinguished candidates including Yehudi Menuhin, Julius Nyerere and Peter Ustinov, but the Nat Club threw its weight behind James Robertson Justice who had appeared in, among other things, the ‘Doctor in the House’ films as an irascible consultant. He had already been Jo Grimond’s predecessor as rector and was popular with students.
     Part of the rectorial tradition was the ‘fight’ in the Old College quadrangle, which was prudently boarded up for the occasion. Only men took part in the fight, under prevailing gender rules. But women were allowed to help. My contribution was to take a pail round to the fishmonger in Lothian Street (now extinct – running along the back of the Royal Museum of Scotland) and to ask for it to be filled with fish heads, bones and entrails. These were used as ammunition in the fight, as were nameless other disgusting things. Whichever side managed to take possession of the steps at the end of the quad was deemed to have won. In 1963, the Justice supporters won. This event had no effect whatsoever on the result of the election, but it was an indispensable part of the ritual.
     On this occasion, James Robertson Justice won the election, and is probably the only person who has served two terms as rector.
     It was not long after that that I took up with other history students and, as we didn’t then say, hung out with them. And that was the end of my career as a Scottish Nationalist. I have consulted myself and, even under the severe provocation of recent months, have found no evidence of its being resuscitated.

Jill Stephenson is former professor of modern German history at the University of Edinburgh

Old Tree

Gerard Rochford’s March poem

My feet like hedgehogs snuffle in frozen leaves;
winter controls the garden – sparks there unopposed.
 
The tree surgeon speaks of my tree as his own father;
of wounds and healing, of tender, bark-strong growth
and elbow-stress from careless youthful work.
 
This fellow bears too much weight, his heart will break,
he’s an old man now but still with good life left.
We will save him, grant him a few more summer years.

 
The stars and moon watch over my tree at night;
we are rooted in earth but always reaching up.

Gerard lives in Aberdeen. He is the Scottish Review’s Makar and contributes a poem each month. Publications include: ‘Failing Light’ and ‘Of Love

and Water’