What is the most hubristic line ever written? Against some very stiff competition I would say it is that famous line of Thomas Paine, from the February 1776 appendix to his pamphlet Common Sense: ‘We have it in our power to begin the world over again.’
One of the problems of the line is that even just typing it or reading it brings goose bumps. Not just because it is perfectly phrased, but because it appeals to such a basic emotion. It is an emotion similar to the one which always makes me well up at the end of Peter Grimes: ‘Turn the skies back, and begin again.’ It’s moving, in that case, because it is impossible.
Blair and his colleagues thought they could begin Britain anew, but instead they set up a raft of problems
Yet for some reason the idea that human beings as a collective can begin again always brings a shiver of hope. When you read Paine you cannot help experiencing the most fleeting feeling of: is it possible? Can it be done? Even more so when he continues: ‘A situation, similar to the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah until now. The birthday of a new world is at hand.’ Again, who cannot for a second wonder: can it be possible?
The problem is made more complex by the fact that America, from its founding, really did create something new. At the time Paine was writing there were two serious attempts at forming republics – one in France, the other in America. The one in France went south as fast as any monarchist might have hoped. But America avoided the pitfalls of revolutionary France. Its revolution was not followed by the Terror in part because it had nobler and wiser leaders. Americans were fortunate to have Washington instead of Danton, Jefferson rather than Robespierre. So it could be said that Paine was nearly right.
Yet he wasn’t, of course. For no country can truly begin anew. Revolutionary France turned into a different France, just as every time since that the French republic has rebooted it is still France in some recognisable form. With America it was different, as always. America showed a new way in which nations might be governed, but it was nowhere within its power to begin the world over again.
It was not able to do away with the evil of slavery until almost a century after Paine, and after hundreds of thousands of men had lost their lives in a bloody civil war. America’s founding was something more remarkable than any other political experiment in history, but the species didn’t start afresh. It wasn’t in the gift of the Founders, any more than it is the gift of anyone today.
Yet still the temptation remains to try to start all over again, despite the warnings of the most famous efforts to do so – communist China, Pol Pot’s Cambodia. It appears to hold a perennial appeal even to the moderate political left.
When Tony Blair came into office, he immediately got going on constitutional changes which were meant to remake Britain. He quickly pushed through his Human Rights Act, devolution, the creation of a ‘Supreme Court’, reform of the Upper House and much more. He had an overwhelming mandate to do so, but he still ended up creating as many problems – if not more – than he solved.
The creation of a Scottish Executive has undermined our national parliament. Devolution led to an increase in demands for independence rather than their disappearance. Human rights are a greater advantage to people who have broken the law than to anyone who has stuck to it. And so on. The point is that Blair and his colleagues thought they could begin Britain anew. Instead they set up a raft of problems, many of which we are living with today.
So it is interesting to see even Blair’s moderate Labour successors harping on a similar note today. I suppose Keir Starmer has announced that he is going to abolish the House of Lords because Labour leaders need to have some big constitutional wrecking ball in their pocket when they go to the polls. But it won’t work, of course, because the only thing worse than the House of Lords as it is now constituted would be an elected House of Lords. It would be a house filled with people who would almost certainly be even more ghastly than the average MP and peer combined.
Still, there remains the dream that it can all be fixed. This week Ben Bradshaw MP was asked on the BBC about Labour’s plans for reform. Bradshaw may have stuck in the minds of some readers, as he has in mine, because during his tenure as culture secretary he showed almost no interest in serious culture. What was noteworthy this time was that the MP referred to reform of the House of Lords as ‘unfinished business’ from the last Labour government. When pressed on this he said: ‘In an ideal world we wouldn’t invent this country as we have it.’
It was a remarkably revealing phrase which wasn’t picked up on. But I would say that on this, as on so many things, Bradshaw was resolutely wrong. Until the Labour government’s inept constitutional reforms we had a pretty ideal country. It still is just about the best place to start from. We had (and still to a lesser extent have) a constitutional monarchy, a system of common law, four nations in one union, a House of Commons of occasionally impressive people and their occasional correction by an Upper House of some character.
I suppose the Starmerites think that once in power they will set about sorting out our ‘badly invented’ country in a way that will finally solve it. Personally I am of the opinion that we had a good thing going, to steal one lyric that Bradshaw might not have to look up.
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