“Congratulations Boris. You have managed to smuggle TWO truths past the team.” The parallels between David Mitchell’s The Unbelievable Truth on Radio 4 and PMQs become clearer with each week that passes.

If you are not familiar with the programme, the idea is that contestants deliver a short essay on a given topic, the majority of which will be false but which will include random truths to be identified.

So, for example, the topic might be the Patel policy of exporting asylum seekers to Rwanda for ‘processing’. It’s a policy which has drawn criticism from labour, Lib Dems, SNP and the Church of England.

None of these organisations, however, has pointed out that Johnson was right, at least in this: that the originator of this policy was not Patel but David Blanket, the Labour Home Secretary under Tony Blair. Blanket described this policy, at the turn of the millennium, as “a 21st century innovation” to solve the “problem” of immigration.

(Johnson went on to describe Starmer as a “Corbynista in a smart Islington suit”. This may not be true now, but it was certainly true when Starmer stood for the Labour leadership. He stood on a programme which adopted the 2019 manifesto but which promised that, with his haircut and tailoring, he was more electable.)

The issue here is Labour’s complicity in the creation of an anti-immigration stance, the “hostile environment” which has empowered Patel and Johnson to put this vile and immoral strategy into practice.

I raise it not merely because I am ashamed and embarrassed by the current Labour party. I raise it because I am ashamed and embarrassed by the state of our politics in general. The government is a shambles of corruption. The opposition is fighting its own activists with more resources and vitriol than it does the government.

Which leaves us where, exactly?

We are nowhere. Nothing shall come of nothing. We are under the hegemony of a political elite which includes both “major” parties, plus the press, plus the broadcasters, plus the church, plus the global oligarchs and financial markets.

I shall work for my local MP - an honourable exception to the above - at the next election. And I will almost certainly continue to howl against the dying of the light in this blog.

But I warn you: It’s not dark yet. But it’s getting there.

Today from the everysmith vaults: Shostakovich of course - the magnificent 10th symphony performed by Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic.

I don’t think I told you, but we moved house last year. We exchanged an elegant garden apartment in a Regency square in Leamington for a Victorian terrace in Warwick. But it’s not just any Victorian terrace. This one has history.

Our new home was once part of the Warwick County Mental Asylum - that’s what psychiatric hospitals were called in those days - and was built in the Gothic style on a grand scale.

It was opened in 1852 and rapidly expanded, gradually acquiring neighbouring farms, and developed into what amounted to a self-contained village with a blacksmith, a chapel, cricket and football grounds, an orchestra, hairdresser and beautician, water from its own spring. It extended over nearly 500 acres and was pretty much self-sufficient, with patients growing and cooking their own food, putting on plays and hosting an annual fête.

If all this seems very different from our ideas of Victorian asylums, that is because it was very different.

The activities and the grounds in which they took place were part of the treatment regime. Occupational therapy we would call it now. But although the treatments were ahead of their time in some respects, they were also of their time. For example, Electro-Convulsive Therapy was used; so was LSD.

Nevertheless, under the direction of John Connolly and William Parsey, pioneers in the humane treatment of mental illness, Central Hospital (as it was renamed) became, relatively speaking, a centre of innovation and excellence, visited by specialists from all over the world.

In 1995, Central Hospital closed with patients transferred to a modern, purpose built facility in Warwick itself. And then the developers moved in.

But as you can see, they did a pretty good job. Yes, there are many new houses built, but much of the landscaped grounds was retained and the original building sympathetically converted into homes.

One of which is now ours. Location, location, location - and the rest is history.


Today from the everysmith vaults: I’m listening to Close by James Knight. It’s a song cycle and it’s about as personal and heart-rending as any piece of music as I know. Including Four Last Songs and the Last Quartets.

“Nothing happens. Nobody comes, nobody goes. It's awful.” Like everyone, I am waiting. Waiting for Putin to invade the Ukraine. Waiting for the MLB lockdown to end. Waiting for the Forde Report. Waiting for the reinstatement of Corbyn. Waiting for the publication of Sue Gray’s enquiry. And waiting for the resignation of the Prime Minister.

These are merely a few of the various sources of angst which I am currently experiencing. And they are all issues over which I have no influence.

But the waiting does give us an opportunity to muse on the essence of those issues, to consider precisely why we feel so helpless: why we are denied the opportunity to act. We can think. We can feel. But what we think and feel is impotence, an inability to influence events, a lack of engagement with the processes that affect our lives.

We are not even in control of our ourselves. As Sartre says, we are ‘trapped in existence’.

Trapped in existence, Jill and I lead a moderately comfortable life: children, grandchildren, good friends, a nice house. All that good stuff.

But that does not eliminate anxiety. It merely mitigates. And I am waiting still for the freedom that Sartre promised would be the outcome of that anxiety.

True, it is about choice and the inability or unwillingness to make choices (which is, of course, in itself, a kind of choice). 

Unfortunately, choices - meaningful choices - are usually false or fraudulent. They are hostages to fortune. And those who make those choices are making the wrong ones.

Which makes me even more anxious. And even more angry.

Sorry about all this. You’ve caught me on a bad day.

Today from the everysmith vaults:​ In keeping with my mood, Shostakovich Symphony #15. Kirill Kondrashin and the Moscow Philharmonic.

We all know that, in the political world, enquiries are not launched to discover the truth; rather, the intention is to kick the can of worms down the street. Hence, for example, the lack of surprise - even lack of interest - at the recent ‘findings’ of Lord Geidt after two separate investigations. And hence the quite extraordinary delay in the completion and publication of the Forde Report into Labour shenanigans, the deadline for which passed over two years ago now.

So what can we expect from the investigation currently being undertaken by Sue Gray, a civil servant and employee of Johnson, into Johnson and his serial partying during lockdown?

Frankly, very little. For two reasons.

Firstly because the investigation was commissioned and launched in order to allow Johnson to prevaricate in parliament. We must wait for the findings he proclaims whenever a pertinent question is asked.

This is of course standard practice for all politicians and one factor in the lack of trust which would appear to be shared by the majority of the electorate.

But it is the second reason which is fundamental to our expectations, and it is essentially about marking their own homework.

Sue Gray is not independent. She is a career civil servant. She has no power to sanction anyone. Her role is tightly defined and it is to lay out the facts.

This should not take long. After all, the facts are already in the public domain and have not been denied. Indeed, Johnson has already confirmed that he attended the party on 20 May 2020. (He also spluttered that he thought it was a ‘works do’, which tells you something about his definition of work but ignorance of the law is no defence.)

No schedule has been established for this inquiry. It will take as long as it takes. And if it does its job, Johnson will not be in a hurry to draw a line under the whole sorry episode. Or episodes.

She will not be helped by the fact that staffers at No 10 have been instructed to clean up their phones (an activity with which Ms Gray is frighteningly familiar), and you can bet that Johnson’s diary will be packed with excuses for being unavailable for interview.

This shouldn’t matter. Ms Gray works in No. 10. She knows what’s going on. She is a member of the elite, part and parcel of the cabal. And the more I hear Tory MPs telling us that she is the best person for the job, the more I distrust both her and the process.

But let’s assume that her laying out out of the facts is accurate, timely and damning. Then what?

Ask Priti Patel. The person who will have to act on the findings will be Boris Johnson. And as with Patel’s bullying, he will decide to move on.

Nothing to see here. No action taken.

Today from the everysmith vaults: The death of Bernard Haitink is very sad news indeed. As he said, he suggested rather than instructed. Delving into the vault I am amazed at how many of my favourite recordings were performed under his baton. Today, it is A Sea Symphony by Vaughan Williams, with The London Philharmonic and the wondrous Felicity Lott.

PS Just as I was about to press the post button, news of yet another party at Downing Street emerges. I worked in advertising agencies in the '70s, where and when to say that a drinking culture prevailed would be an understatement. But we never had this many parties.

If anyone mentions 9/11 to me, the television images flood back. The tanks in the streets, the thousands confined in football stadiums, the bombing of the Presidential palace, the torture and murders, the burning of books, the death of Allende.

No, this 9/11 is not the attack on the twin towers. This 9/11 was in 1973 in Chile when Pinochet and the CIA launched a coup d’etat against the democratically elected presidency of Salvador Allende and for nearly twenty years imposed a vicious programme of neoliberalism.

Essentially, the Pinochet regime turned Chile into a laboratory for experimenting with the ideas of Friedrich Hayek. Hayek was primarily an economist, but his economic liberalism forced him into political philosophy. As thousands of trade unionists and leftists were tortured and murdered, Hayek was writing to The Times to defend the coup.

“I have not been able to find a single person even in much maligned Chile who did not agree that personal freedom was much greater under Pinochet that it had been under Allende” he wrote.

He should have got out more. But his small circle was convinced that democracy was an irrelevance. The free market, he wrote, is ‘indispensable for individual freedom … the ballot box is not.’ Small though the circle was and is, this conviction was and is powerful and influential.

Hayek and Pinochet were, of course, both friends of Thatcher, who carried a Hayek manual in her famous handbag. Hayek wrote to her complaining of the slow progress of neoliberalism in the UK, comparing it with the ‘achievements’ in a short space of time in Chile.

We are nearly half a century on and neoliberalism is still hegemonic, although the term itself is not. Its adherents are in denial. Although I have never heard Sunak use the term in public, he is on record as stating that he emphatically favours Hayek over Keynes. And of there is the odious Nick Cohen in a column published in The Observer on the Sunday before the second round of polling in Chile, claiming that not Blair, not Cameron, not even Thatcher herself, were neoliberals.

In his victory speech, Gabriel Boric told us that ‘If Chile was the cradle of neoliberalism, it will also be its grave’.

I profoundly hope so. For Chile, Latin America, and the rest of the world.

Today from the everysmith vaults: I have been revisiting the Airplane and subsequently the Starship. I think the prompt was a proposed live performance of Blows Against the Empire, which is where I started this morning. The mono version of Surrealistic Pillow followed, then Crown of Creation, and right now the final Airplane show at Winterland in August 1972. Love anything with Papa john Creach.

I have yet to meet anyone who lives within the borders of Warwick District Council and also supports the proposed merger with Stratford in order to create a super-authority across South Warwickshire. I assume such people do exist, because WDC has, this week, voted in favour and our future is now in the hands of Head Leveller-Up, Michael Gove, who will doubtless make his decision on the basis of political expediency.

It is a bizarre but not unprecedented issue. The “majority” for the proposal consists of Deloittes and the Conservative councillors on the Warwick and Stratford District Councils.

But the recent consultation demonstrated that there is a real majority against.

Residents are clearly against. Our MP is against. The Labour membership is against. The Greens are against. Parish councils, including mine, are against. Even four Tories are against. And of course I am against.

I scanned the record to see how my Labour councillors voted. Were they for or against?

Neither.

They abstained.

Given the opposition to the proposal throughout the constituency and, in particular, the call by Matt Western for a local referendum, you might think that this was a strange decision. How can the Labour Party not have an opinion on a proposal which will diminish local democracy significantly?

True, it would not have changed the decision, but it does demonstrate to voters where the Labour party stands. Or rather, sits. Which of course is firmly and uncomfortably on the fence.

I have read the rationale from the Labour leader on the WDC. Announcing that he has been led “to a position of abstention”, he stated that:

“I and my group … will want to take part in discussions about the devolution of powers, assets and decisions to towns and parishes. And above all, we will want to ensure that residents’ and other stakeholders’ voices are heard and heeded whether we continue to explore the merger proposed, service integration and transformation, or some other form of political geography.”

Well, yes. But by abstaining in this crucial vote, Labour has snubbed its MP, reneged on its responsibility, and handed the leadership of the opposition to the Greens.

Having sat on our hands during a key democratic vote, I suspect it may be difficult to regain a role “at the centre of the debates about protecting residents”.
​

Today from the everysmith vaults: Ignoring the call of Bob’s Christmas In The Heart, and indeed almost anything that hints of Christmas, I am listening to Shostakovich, the Jazz Suites. Thanks to Georgia Mann of Radio 3’s Essential Classics for reminding me of them.

I had my data stolen a month ago. I had not given any information to the company from which it was stolen, a so-called ‘third party’, and I don’t even know who the third party is. Nor do I know the extent of the theft, except that it is ‘significant’ and serious enough to involve the National Crime Agency (NCA), National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Which sounds pretty serious to me.

If you are one of the (hundreds of) thousands who received the email from the Labour Party about this ‘incident’, and asked to keep it ‘confidential’, you are not necessarily a member of the Labour Party. You could have resigned, been suspended or expelled. Or - and this is very concerning - you could never have been a member of the party at all.

The fact is your data was stolen because the Labour Party was holding it; not only holding it but also sharing it with ‘third parties’. (I use the plural here because the email referred not to the the third party but a third party, from which I infer that there are more than one.)

It would appear that Labour is in clear breach of the Data Protection Act 2018 and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a breach which could justify compensation.

The issue, and this is why the chances of us ever hearing the full story are minimal, is not the breach itself but Labour’s privacy policies. Actually, not the policies but a succession of actions which do not accord with the policy statement. The ICO has already found against Labour innumerable times for its actions or lack of them, notably for its failures to respond to SARs requests. (SARs are Subject Access Requests which, under GDPR Article 15, makes it compulsory for an organisation to reveal the data it holds on an individual.)

It is, I regret to conclude, yet another example of the contempt with which David Evans et al treat the membership at large. We know that the database is used primarily to troll and monitor the activities of members. We even have an ex-Israeli intelligence agent in charge of this.

The email promised to update us. Don’t hold your breath. Like the Forde Report, the issues have been kicked into touch because,  I suspect, behind the hacking ‘incident’ is a plethora of illegalities and witch-hunting which, I am afraid, is the modus operandi of the current secretariat.

Today from the everysmith vaults: As Bob moves from town to town on the current leg of the never ending tour, I am grateful for the recordings that our American bobcats and Dylanologists are sharing with the rest of us, especially the remastered shows from Bennyboy. I'm currently loving Bloomington.

I haven’t done a word count, but the press reckons that it is 12500 or perhaps 14000 words long. Seems longer. When I embarked on reading it, I was looking to take issue with his policies. Unfortunately, I can’t do that, because there are none. Or, at least, none proposed or even mentioned here.


I didn’t vote for Starmer, but I thought about it. I have his Ten Pledges on my notice board and, when they were published, each one made me more open to his candidacy and potential leadership. It seemed I was not alone. Many of those who had voted twice for Jeremy Corbyn were attracted by Starmer’s claim that he would not change track, and that the 2017 Labour manifesto was the basis of the party in the future.


In my case, I allowed my heart to overcome my head. I voted for Rebecca Long-Bailey. But when the results came in, I nevertheless believed that Starmer would be a good leader of the party, perhaps in the manner of John Smith, but certainly not like Tony Blair, under whose aegis the party lost my support (though not my membership subs).


Since Starmer’s election, a great deal has happened to cause concern amongst those of my Labour persuasion. I won’t list them because most of you will be aware of the purge of the left, the expulsion and suspension of Jewish socialists, the lack of opposition to Johnson, and of course the current proposals to change the one-member-one-vote system within the party.


But this much-vaunted Fabian leaflet - an ‘essay’ apparently, but not even a good try - was Starmer’s opportunity to show himself as a positive, forward-looking leader: someone who had a vision which was not confined to purging opponents, but concerned itself with ideas, practicality, policy.


I have now read it. Not The Guardian’s summary. I have read it all, word by word, cliché by cliché, banality after banality.


It is heart-breaking. Not merely because of the style - where is that forensic approach? Where is that legal mind at work? Where are the strong socialist principles? Where, indeed, are any principles at all?


Where, in short, is the leadership?


Perhaps the claim to leadership is to be found here ….

Or perhaps not.

Today from the everysmith vaults: I have of course been listening to Volume 16 of The Bootleg Series, and tbh, one needs to get to the last two tracks of the fifth and final CD to listen to anything new and/or worthy of the man. I have also been listening to a soundtrack of Shadow Kingdom, which is masterful. But I have mostly been listening to James Knight's poignantl and cathartic suite, Close. Quite beautiful.

There can be few of my generation who remain immune to the works of Joni Mitchell and David Hockney. I’m not saying you have had to love them, or even like them; merely that you must be aware of them and respect them. Joni’s songs, Hockney’s paintings and drawings, have measured out our lives. They are legends.
 
The image is from 2019, when it apparently “commandeered the internet”, but my politics, baseball and Dylan-obsessed Twitter feed failed to alert me at the time. So it was only this week that a random re-tweet brought it full screen on my iPad. It was minus four outside at the time, and the weather as bleak as our mood. We were in the middle of a pandemic and in lockdown. We were desperate for some colour in our lives.
 
This remarkable picture, a snapshot really, provided it. I printed it out for Jill to frame so that we could have a constant reminder of the happiness and contentment it epitomizes. (A thing of beauty is a joy forever.)

It is about ageing, about life, about colour.
 
And this despite the fact that Hockney has recovered from a stroke and Joni is suffering from Morgellons Disease and had to learn to walk again after a brain aneurysm.
 
So it is a powerful representation of optimism, of determination, of commitment to living. And of friendship and companionship and shared interests.
 
I re-post it now for those who haven’t seen it and need to see it. Which is all of us.

Today from the everysmith vaults

​Coincidentally, on the morning after I had first seen it, I came across a website which was featuring the original demo takes of The Hissing of Summer Lawns, Joni’s 1975 album which eschewed the confessional voice of earlier recordings and introduced jazz, rock, sampling. But the demos were acoustic: her beautiful voice, piano and guitar. It came to me with the title The Seeding of Summer Lawns which I love. I commend it to you.

It’s been a busy week. I know, this is not an opening sentence that you will see often these days but if you extend your definition of the word ‘busy’, you’ll know what I mean. Think of it as a verb rather than an adjective; as in “I have been busying myself with a variety of sedentary activities”.
 
These ‘activities’ – another word I use loosely – are better characterized by the original Old English bisig, meaning careful, anxious, diligent.
 
And it is carefully, anxiously, diligently, that I have been following the news. I have watched and listened, read and wrote, considered, responded and ‘reacted’. I have liked, shared, commented, and re-tweeted far more than my blood pressure can handle. I have busied myself with some thankless and demeaning exchanges on local political forums – “I have photocopied your vile post Mr Smith” – and engaged in a series of WhatsApp conversations without discovering what’s up or down.
 
But then two things happened that transformed my sense of ennui.
 
The first was the appearance on Channel 4 of live test cricket, and those who took the decision to outbid Sky must be very happy. I certainly am, because the test, which finished an hour or so ago with a victory for England, was a superb game from beginning to end.
 
Joe Root batted magnificently and captained well. Given India’s fightback on the last day of their final test against Australia, his decision not to enforce the follow-on was sensible and correct.
 
Of course, Root knew that he could rely on Anderson, and Anderson did what Anderson does. That first over, in which his reverse swing did for Gill and Rahane, was as good as any I have seen. And I saw Michael Holding.

​

​The day the test match began, I received my pre-ordered copy of Empireland by Sathnam Sanghera, and I read the opening chapters between overs. He has done his research on the attitudes and methods of British imperialism, and is not afraid to itemize some of the quite appalling actions carried out in pursuit of power and profit, necessary because, as he points out, this aspect of the Empire is not even mentioned, never mind taught in British schools.
 
But his sub-title is How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain. It’s more specific and personal than this, because the book is actually about how imperialism has shaped Sathnam Sanghera: he is open about his own experience growing up in Wolverhampton (Enoch Powell’s constituency), not knowing English until he attended school, but took a first in English at Cambridge and has forged a career in journalism and writer (not always the same thing).
 
He was working for the FT when I knew him, but is now with The Times and Sunday Times, so I seldom see his columns and features, restricting myself to his books (The Boy With The Top-Knot, Marriage Material and now Empireland) where I find myself in awe of his honesty and his prose.
 
Test cricket and a good book. Reasons to be cheerful, part 1.
 
 
Today from the everysmith vaults: Joan Osborne sang with the Dead, or at least the post-Jerry variants of the Dead, and I have long been an admirer. But have only just discovered that she also tackled Bob’s oeuvre. Today, I am playing a show from Charleston, WV in which she shows that she is one of the few who can bring something new to a Bob song. Her version of Spanish Harlem Incident is sublime. Reasons to be cheerful, part 2!