And another thing

Paul Johnson

Wednesday, 1st October 2008

From Hadrian to Gordon: sublime to ridiculous

It is a comment on human nature that few absolute rulers ever retire. Diocletian, nearly two centuries after Hadrian, built his colossal palace at Spalato (Split) for his retirement. But I don’t think he enjoyed it for more than a year or two. And the Emperor Charles V of Spain started to build the Escorial for a similar purpose. But these are rare instances. Most hang on grimly. Fear is obviously a factor. Stalin could not have afforded to relax his grip on power; nor Mao. Too many people were anxious to kill them. The dreadful Putin is getting himself into the same position. But hanging on is also a characteristic of constitutional monarchs. Look at Queen Victoria; or our present sovereign, for that matter. Of course Victoria did not want to yield her place to her son, and I have little doubt that Elizabeth II is motivated by a similar desire. Nor do I blame her: it is commendable. Though old Mrs Parker Bowles has much improved Prince Charles since he made an honest woman of her, there is still a real risk he will make a fool of himself, and perhaps destroy the monarchy, if he gets the chance to reign. So long as the Queen is in reasonable health she should stay where she is.

But most rulers have no such excuse. They just can’t bear to relinquish power or position. One wonders why, especially when they see eternity yawning to engulf them. Don’t they long for a few years to devote to prayer or reflection, to making their peace with whoever rules the universe? But then, why did they want power in the first place? Take the egregious case of Gordon Brown, who is at the time I write still our Prime Minister. What has he not done to get into 10 Downing Street! And what is he not doing to prolong his precarious tenure there! Virtually throughout Tony Blair’s decade of office, Brown was intriguing against him, and putting up his unsavoury cronies and underlings to do worse. It was an odious performance from start to finish, almost without parallel on the long and ignoble road to the top of our political system. And the curious thing is that it was written on his face, too. As the years went by, Brown’s envy of Blair, his lustful impatience for power, his endless plotting and pushing, wrote indelible traces on his mug. He had never been a handsome man: now, slowly but inexorably, he became ugly. By the time Blair was pushed out, Brown had become a kind of gargoyle.