President Trump’s role in relation to other countries resembles that of the Fool in Shakespeare. He provides a sort of running satire on how rulers behave, and his antic wit expresses, amid the foolery, certain truths. In relation to Gaza, the prevailing idea of the ‘international community’ is that, because of the 7 October massacres and Israel’s subsequent decapitation of the Hamas leadership, the answer is ‘a two-state solution’. This orthodoxy is tragi-comic in its lack of reality. Mr Trump looks at the matter differently. He sees how a place like Dubai – within living memory just a swelteringly hot port with a strip of sand – has become the preferred permanent, luxurious residence of thousands of peaceful people from all over the world (including, incidentally, increasing numbers of British who can’t stand staying here any longer). He asks himself whether Gaza, which is also hot and coastal, isn’t a ‘riviera’ where piles of money may be made. His idea is not a policy. But it might be America’s equivalent for the Palestinians of Balfour’s declaration for the Jews, a dream on which something could eventually be built.
Like so many things at present, the recent poll in which young people welcome the thought of a dictator reminds me of the 1970s. I remember arguing with fellow undergraduates about this 50 years ago. They said democracies are too spineless: only a dictator can get things done. My point was that freedom was more important than getting things done. Years later, I realised that I was creating a false antithesis. There is usually no reason to think that a dictatorship will be more efficient than a free country. Indeed, the opposite. Or at least, the dictator can be more efficient only in a bad way, such as killing people he does not like. He cannot achieve good things for long, because people dare not tell him the truth. Mao’s Great Leap Forward starved more than 30 million people by the failure of ‘double-harvesting’, because it was literally more than anyone’s life was worth to admit the problem. The reason for the growth of this yearning for totalitarianism was the same then as now, however. The state was taking on too much, and therefore doing everything wrong. The oddity is that the worse state intervention gets, the more people persuade themselves that all we need is more of it.
As well as the young in the 1970s, the old also sought a firm hand. The retired General Sir Walter Walker, veteran of many far-eastern battles – Imphal, Burma, Malaya, Sarawak – warned against the growing power of militant trade union leaders and tried to gather support against ‘the communist Trojan horse’ via a letter in the Daily Telegraph. Perhaps the country ‘might choose rule by the gun in preference to anarchy’, he suggested. Civilian Assistance, the group with which Sir Walter was associated, formed itself to provide volunteer strike breakers. Colonel David Stirling, founder of the SAS, created GB75, which was intended to take over the running of government operations in the event of civil unrest. None of the above happened. The prevailing view was that these were eccentric enterprises of ‘the old and bold’, rather than serious coup plots. Sir Herbert Gussett, Private Eye’s invention, breathed their spirit. In this week, 50 years ago, Margaret Thatcher ousted Edward Heath as Conservative leader, winning the leadership itself on 11 February. Perhaps sensing she might do something about the Red Menace, the old soldiers calmed down. Half a century on, I know of no military stirrings in the bar at White’s, but I sense that the conditions are again being created in which all true patriots feel they should do something, if only they could work out what.
Whenever I turn on Radio 3, which is usually in the car on Saturdays, I find it hard to listen to classical music in peace. But my impressions are too unsystematic to rely on. So I asked a friend who has listened devotedly to Radio 3 but now finds himself defecting to Spotify ‘combined with the Gramophone magazine’s recommendations’ to report. He notes that a core of easy music e.g. Four Seasons, Zadok the Priest, the Lark Ascending, is endlessly repeated and there is more intrusion of film and television music (though he likes the programme which is specifically about film music). He resents the greater interest in therapy than in the thing itself: ‘Apeing Classic FM, there is constant reference to (and advertising of) the music’s capacity to relax, unwind, soothe – rather than offering a serious interest in possibly challenging or complex music.’ Live concerts have diminished. As for the presenters: ‘Perhaps the best you can say is that there are very few (e.g. Martin Handley, Donald Macleod, Petroc Trelawny) who seem to take the music and the listener seriously.’ Too many disc jockeys have saddled up and started burbling. Although descended from the distinguished composer, Sir David Clementi, when chairman, created a BBC board structure which in my friend’s expert view ‘provides no challenge to the executive’. Who, on behalf of the listener, will stick up for the essential BBC credo that to ‘inform, educate and entertain’ are related purposes? ‘Maybe Ofcom should take a look.’
Last summer, I stayed in the Hotel Bristol in Odessa. Bernardazzi’s late-Victorian extravagance is part of the city’s cosmopolitan elegance, more like Paris-on-sea than like Russia or Ukraine. We conferred in a vast underground ballroom. There were power cuts, and the decor was slightly tired, but the pleasure-loving, prerevolutionary and pre-Putin atmosphere lingered. Last week, the Russians scored a direct hit on the Bristol, injuring seven. I was pleased to see that the caryatids (a word I love using without feeling quite secure about its definition) still stand at the entrance and on the stairs. In Ukraine, the view is that the timing of this bombing was deliberate – Vladimir Putin’s small warning that he would happily kill lots of westerners too unless they urge Donald Trump to hurry up and come to terms.
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