The Spectator's Notes

22 July 2006

Writing this column in 90˚F heat on the edge of a normally bleak and chill Yorkshire moor, I reflect on the relationship between political culture and weather. Montesquieu, who attributed great importance to climate and geography in the political spirit of nations, thought that heat contributed to despotism, suppressing the active disposition of a people. But might it not, by the same token, make despots idle? The bureaucrats of oppression are no more likely than ordinary citizens to bestir themselves in the dog days, indeed rather less so. Certainly in Britain the effect of heatwaves is to remove people’s already slight interest in public affairs and in most forms of work entirely. I have often wondered why it does not have a similar effect in hot countries everywhere. Why do they bother to have a war in Lebanon? How can bin Laden’s people muster the energy to blow people up in Saudi Arabia? It is not even as if, in Muslim countries, they have drink to inflame their rage on sweltering nights, which is often a cause of violence in the West. I should have thought that global warming would make people more quiescent, less likely to revolt, but the history of heat and politics would seem to prove me wrong.

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