Since 2008 when I first started writing these blogs we’ve had a series of epoch changing events that have suggested ways the world is trending.
We started with “greed” in 2008 when the banks jostling to be the biggest and best, playing out Tom Wolfe’s “Masters of the Universe” story precipitated the Global Financial Crisis. When we saw the employees from Lehman Brothers trooping out disconsolately with their cardboard boxes as their bank crashed we thought “is this the end?”
No. It was the beginning of an intense and growing period of greed and avarice, with sports- washing and events like the Goodwood Festival now called the Qatar Goodwood Festival and the Saudis even planning to invest heavily in cricket.
In 2012 the best ever Olympics held in London convinced us we were kings of the world led by that puppet master, the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson. It was an astonishing moment of hubris.
By 2015 the migrant crisis began to become big news across the world (remember Donald Trump’s “wall”?) and with just under a million refugees entering Europe in just one year the scale of this crisis began to emerge. The conflict of emotions – self-protection and charitable fellowship continues today.
But controlling one’s borders became a bigger issue for Britain leading in 2016. Remember “take back control” that potent Brexit slogan which helped bring about one of the most extraordinary acts of self-harm in 2016? Brexit. Stupidly I was resigned to the democratic process. But history will show how crass we and the Conservatives had been ever to let it happen. I heard the news when I was in Venice and at 6am on a sunny summer morning took a vaporetto to St Mark’s Square. In a daze I walked through the practically deserted space, deserted apart from a naked girl being photographed. Dumfounded by Brexit I barely noticed her. The feeling of crisis was like 2008’s crash but multiplied.
Then we had Covid. In the 1961 Cuban Crisis as Russian ships sailed towards Cuba and many people thought we were all going to die in a nuclear holocaust and that there was nothing anyone could do, I saw and smelt fear. In 2019 and 2020 I smelt it again. The lockdowns and the fumbling politicians made it worse. Only Sweden seemed to keep its cool. We had another moment of hubris in our vaccination triumph thanks to Catherine Bingham’s leadership of the Vaccine Task Force. A great effort spoilt by politicians cockily jeering how we were beating the EU.
In February 2022 Russia invaded Ukraine and a war kicked off right under our noses or rather Europe’s nose. Outrage. Misery. Joy at seeing a Churchillian leader in Volodymyr Zelenskyy battling eloquently against the odds. And now…boredom? We have increasingly short attention spans.
In 2023 there are three positive signs:
The deposing and demolishing of self-promoting, dangerously doctrinaire “leaders” (I use that term in the loosest sense) – goodbye Johnson, Trump and Sturgeon.
A realisation that we shall have to behave better towards and work with our European neighbours and the world in general – we are more than an island.
The most talented and self-possessed youth we’ve had since the 1960s when satire and laughter deposed the old political order after what was called “thirteen years of Tory misrule.”
A final word on youth. Whilst some of their obsessions may irritate older traditionalists that’s all they do. Irritate them. Woke views (as they’re known) are rooted in civilised thinking not greed. Recently I interviewed a number of young graduates and you know what? They were smart, nice and well balanced. My great-nieces (17 and 14) and grandchildren (9, 14 and 16) are talented, hardworking and creatively gifted. And I believe from what I see and hear they are typical rather than exceptional.
It's been a rocky 15 years but I believe we’re on course for a better, more satisfying era. Less greed, less hubris, less fear and less selfishness.
So, until the Autumn it’s goodbye from me but as Arnold Schwarzenegger once said “I’ll be back!”
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