The oldest surviving stories in the world are The Iliad and The Odyssey, by Homer, probably dating from around 700 BCE. It is arguable that Homer was not really an author in the modern sense, given that his works were composed, and delivered, as oral poems. In presenting the adventures of Odysseus, Homer uses disjointed chronology, in an account full of circumlocution. This is a type of narrative that engages the attention of the reader. In the twentieth century, Homer’s The Odyssey provided a basis for Ulysses by James Joyce, who moved the action from the eastern Mediterranean to Dublin.
I took holidays on the island of Crete, during both 1992 and 1993. In the first of those years, I visited Knossos, the remains of a palace, reputedly the home of King Minos, and location of the legend of the Labyrinth. I also bought an ornate chess set, with metal pieces based on figures from Greek mythology, and a marble board. Having not unpacked the set while away, I found on my return to England that some pieces were duplicated, and others missing. A year later, back in Crete, I successfully exchanged the set, with a surprised shopkeeper. The moral of this tale is, beware the sale of a Greek gift! During the latter holiday I read Homer’s The Odyssey, as an epic tale of ancient Greece.
The Odyssey was the first book to be published in the Penguin Classics series, back in 1946. Penguin Books had been founded in 1935, starting the paperback revolution in Britain. The 1946 volume was a translation of Homer by E V Rieu, which would be revised by his son, D C H Rieu, appearing as a Penguin Classics in 1991. The copy of The Odyssey which I read was the revised version. The Rieu translation is a prose version of Homer’s work, which manages to convey the poetic nature of the original.
More than a decade after reading The Odyssey, I finally got around to The Iliad. The latter book was published as a Penguin Classic in 1950, and reissued in 2003 – again with translations by Rieu father and son respectively. I was rather disappointed, as the original piece felt excessively violent, and lacked the epic scope of its sequel. The Iliad covers the Trojan War, focusing on the period of a few weeks in the ten year conflict, but ranging across other events. There are also flashbacks to the war Homer’s second work, which mostly deals with the disjointed journey home from the war of Odysseus. This treck takes ten years, as various events, directed by the Gods, and adversaries on Earth, hinder his path. Odysseus encounters the Cyclops, Circe, Calypso, troubles at sea, and the song of the Sirens, before he is reunited with Penelope, twenty years after he set out to fight in the Trojan War. I do not suppose all of that is much of a spoiler!? (The !? juxtaposition in chess notation means an interesting move – ?! by contrast means a dubious choice).
The full span of events mentioned in The Odyssey probably cover between sixty and eighty years, from the youth of Laertes, the father of Odysseus, to the death of the latter, a point made by Peter V Jones, in the 1991 Penguin Introduction. Jones provides a fine explanation of the temporal sequence of events expounded by Homer, along with the themes and structure of the work. Amidst the complex sequencing of his stories, Homer provides reassuring rituals, which are repeated across many days, which open as “Dawn appeared, fresh and rosy-fingered”, and close when “the sun went down, and all the ways grew dark”.
Today is the anniversary of Margaret Thatcher becoming Tory Prime Minister, 45 years ago. Here is a piece looking at her terrible legacy, taken from my recent book “British Politics”.
Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister in 1979, by leading the Conservative Party to victory in a General Election, setting in motion a turning point in our political history. Thatcher was born nearly a century ago, in 1925, but casts a long shadow over contemporary British politics, decades after her spell as Prime Minister, and several years on from her death in 2013. Thatcher’s 11 and a half years as Prime Minister, lasting until 1990, proved to be the longest continuous spell since that of Lord Liverpool, a Tory, who was premier for almost 15 years, between 1812 and 1827. Thatcher ended a consensus, in which the Conservative and Labour parties informally agreed upon a basic political settlement, during alternating spells in power.
Thatcher was elected as MP for Finchley in 1959, and given a role in the Conservative government, as a junior pensions minister, in 1961, holding this until Labour won the 1964 General Election. The Conservatives were back in office from 1970 to 1974, with Edward Heath as Prime Minister, while Thatcher rose to prominence as Education Secretary – reducing access to free school milk for children.
At the start of 1975, Margaret Thatcher caused a surprise, with a successful challenge to Edward Heath, in a party leadership election. Labour renegotiated the terms of Britain’s membership of the EEC, and submitted the deal to a referendum, held on June 5 1975. Tony Benn, a radical Socialist, had persuaded his Cabinet colleagues that the decision on membership should be delegated to the people. The outcome was a vote for Britain remaining in the EEC, by a margin of 67 per cent to 33 per cent. Thatcher and the Conservatives campaigned for Britain to stay in the EEC.
Despite its small majority, the Labour government survived, helped by a pact with the Liberals, from March 1977 to August 1978. It looked likely that a General Election would be held in the Autumn of 1978, but James Callaghan, who replaced Harold Wilson as Prime Minister in 1976, announced there would not be such a contest. There followed “The Winter of Discontent”, during which union opposition to the government’s pay policy brought significant disruption, aggravated by severe weather. The government was weakened by its failure to carry devolution for Scotland and Wales, and the Scottish National Party wanted a General Election. Taking advantage of this, Thatcher moved a Commons motion of no confidence, on March 28 1979, and the Labour government lost by one vote.
During the 1979 General Election campaign, the Conservative Party manifesto had an unlikely title, Time For a Change. Polling took place on May 3, and the Conservatives emerged with 339 seats in the House of Commons, ahead of the Labour Party on 269, while the Liberals took 11 seats, and the other groups 16. The Conservatives had a majority of 43 seats, and Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister the day after the vote. The Conservatives were destined to have 18 uninterrupted years in office – the longest ever spell for a single party in the period since the Reform Act of 1832, which paved the way for modern British politics. A month after the Westminster poll, the Conservatives won the first British election to the European Parliament, held on June 7, taking 60 seats to Labour’s 17, while the other parties won 4 seats. Turnout at the General Election had been 76 per cent, but a lack of enthusiasm saw only 32 per cent of eligible voters participate in the European Economic Community election.
When Thatcher’s government took power, more than a million people were unemployed. This number increased to two million people in August 1980, and three million in January 1982. In a speech to the Conservative Party Conference, in October 1980, Thatcher acknowledged the rise in unemployment, but stated that economic policy would not change. Thatcher announced: “To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase, the ‘U-turn’, I have only one thing to say. You turn if you want to, the lady’s not for turning”.
Thatcher’s administration was authoritarian, inflexible, and callous. It attacked the democratic rights of the British people, notably with increased power for central government, and restrictions on local authorities, breaking here with a Conservative tradition. Thatcher followed an aggressive foreign policy, involving hostility to the Soviet Union, and was involved in constant disputes with the European Economic Community. Thatcher’s rigid defence of what she perceived to be British interests within the EEC, an organisation founded by the Treaty of Rome, resulted in her frequently being referred to as a modern-day equivalent of Boadicea. Thatcher notably failed to improve the position of women, and her role as the first woman to lead the Conservatives was anomalous, as the party has perpetuated male dominance of British society. Strong belief in ideology placed Thatcher outside the mainstream of Conservatism. Thatcherism was proclaimed by supporters as radical, but it was a reactionary attack on progressive institutions.
The Conservative government became increasingly unpopular, until its fortunes were revived by the Falklands War. The Argentinian invasion, ordered by General Galtieri, of the Falkland Islands, in April 1982, represented a crisis. Thereafter the military operation to recover the territory reflected well on Thatcher, with the phrase “Falklands Factor” being used to describe the impact on her electoral prospects. Thatcher dishonestly presented the war as a fight against Fascism, having previously allowed the sale of armaments to the military dictatorship of Argentina. It was only when these armaments were being used against Britain that Thatcher saw a problem. Nevertheless this surprise did not provoke Thatcher into opposition to Fascism, as during the war against Argentina she worked in alliance with the Pinochet regime in Chile.
Four years into her premiership, Margaret Thatcher called a General Election, with polling on June 9 1983. The Conservatives won 397 seats, Labour 209, the Liberal and Social Democratic Alliance 23, and the others 21. The Conservative majority of 144 seats was the largest for a government since Labour’s margin of 146 in 1945. The size of the Conservative victory was deceptive, with the party’s 42 per cent share of the vote being little higher than the 40 per cent they obtained in 1945. Labour got 28 per cent of the vote in 1983, not far ahead of the Alliance with 25 per cent, but the First Past the Post system left the latter group with relatively few MPs. Turnout was 73 per cent, a drop compared with 1979.
A few days after calling the Election, Thatcher made a speech at the Scottish Conservative Party Conference. Thatcher said: “This is a historic election. For the choice facing the nation is between two totally different ways of life. And what a prize we have to fight for, no less than the chance to banish from our land the dark divisive clouds of Marxist Socialism, and bring together men and women from all walks of life who share a belief in freedom, and who have the courage to uphold it”. This followed on from Thatcher claiming “Without a shadow of a doubt, this Labour Party has the most extreme and most damaging programme ever placed before the British electorate”. One Labour policy highlighted by Thatcher was a plan to leave the European Economic Community, which she believed would put Scottish jobs and investment at risk. Britain’s place in Europe was destined to cause problems for Thatcher, and several more premiers. Britain eventually left the European Union in 2020, at the behest of the Tory Brexiteers, following a 2016 referendum in which most Scottish people voted to remain members.
The miners went on strike during March 1984, in opposition to the Conservative programme of closing coal mines, which was part of a wider attack on industry, and the trade unions. For a whole year, the government was to preside over this damaging dispute, without attempting to settle it. Thatcher told Conservative MPs, at a meeting of the 1922 Committee, “Galtieri and the Argentinians were the enemy without. Arthur Scargill and the miners are the enemy within”. This demonisation of working people caused widespread public outrage.
The Conservatives lost ground in a European Parliament Election, staged on June 14 1984, but emerged as the largest party, with 45 seats, while Labour won 32 seats, and the other parties 4. Turnout, at 33 per cent, was little improvement upon the 1979 European Election. Later in June, Thatcher negotiated a rebate on Britain’s contribution to the EEC budget. Thatcher narrowly escaped an assassination attempt, in October, as the Irish Republican Army bombed the Grand Hotel, in Brighton, at the time of the Conservative Party Conference. Five members of the party were killed, including Anthony Berry, Deputy Chief Whip in the government. British Telecom was privatised, the Tory word for the sale of nationalised assets, in November. The privatisation programme was a means to transfer the value of assets, from the general public, to a propertied minority.
The Conservative government discarded monetarism, during the Autumn of 1985, realising it had failed, but maintained their general economic plan. Margaret Thatcher signed the Anglo-Irish Agreement, with the government of the Republic of Ireland, on November 15 1985. The aim was to counter continued terrorism in Northern Ireland, carried out by both unionist and republican groups, with a wider political process, in which the government of the Republic of Ireland was given a consultative role. The aim was to work towards a restoration of devolved government in Northern Ireland, which had ceased in 1972, but this did not happen over the next few years.
At the beginning of 1986, two Conservative Cabinet Ministers, Michael Heseltine and Leon Brittan, resigned amidst a dispute over the ownership of the Westland helicopter company. Heseltine dramatically told his colleagues “I can no longer be a member of this Cabinet”, and walked out during the course of a meeting. Thatcher’s position appeared threatened, by Heseltine’s revelations about her disregard for Cabinet government, but she survived the crisis. Thatcher temporarily adopted a more positive approach to the EEC, playing a leading role in a 1986 agreement on the principles of a European Single Market. Withdrawal from the Single Market was to become a central aim of Conservative Brexiteers, following the 2016 EU referendum.
Margaret Thatcher visited the Soviet Union, early in 1987, with the Cold War starting to thaw. This trip was an unlikely way for a leader of the Conservative Party to improve their electoral prospects, but that was one of the aims.Thatcher led the Conservatives to a third General Election victory, with polling day being June 11. The Conservative manifesto was entitled The Next Moves Forward, with a Foreword in which Thatcher made the curious claim that her government was fulfilling the “One Nation” ideal. Thatcher ran a poor campaign but, with the opposition weak, the Conservatives won 375 seats, Labour 229, the Alliance 22, and the others 24. The turnout was 75 per cent, slightly up from 1983. The Conservatives retained power, with a majority of 100 seats. Reconstruction of the government included the sacking of John Biffen, who had been Leader of the House of Commons. Biffen responded by saying that Thatcher’s government was Stalinist. As Thatcher entered her third term in office, the thinking of the Conservative Party was characteristically incoherent.
A few months later, Thatcher, the champion of selfishness, told an interviewer: “There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It’s our duty to look after ourselves and then to look after our neighbour”.
Thatcher became agitated about developments in the EEC, and was opposed to Britain joining the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). Thatcher made a high-profile speech, at Bruges in Belgium, on September 20 1988, setting out her Eurosceptic approach. Thatcher said “We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them re-imposed at a European level, with a European super-state exercising a new dominance from Brussels”. The Bruges Group, a Eurosceptic think tank, set up during 1989, in honour of Thatcher’s speech, remains active in the current day, as an ally of the Conservative Party’s hard-line Brexiteers.
The United Kingdom section of an election to the European Parliament took place on June 15 1989, and turnout was a lowly 36 per cent. The Conservatives were reduced to 32 seats, while Labour won 45, and the other parties returned 4 MEPs between them. This was first defeat for the Conservatives in a General Election or European Election since 1974. The Green Party received 2,299,287 votes (nearly 15 per cent of the overall vote), but was not rewarded with any MEPs, due to the first past the post system. By contrast, the Ulster Unionist Party’s 118,785 votes returned one MEP.
Nigel Lawson, who favoured membership of the Exchange Rate Mechanism, resigned as Chancellor of the Exchequer, in October 1989, feeling that Thatcher was undermining him. In November, Sir Anthony Meyer, a veteran backbench MP, challenged Thatcher for the Conservative leadership. Meyer, who was pro-European, saw himself as a “stalking horse”, hoping this would prompt a more high-profile MP to stand against Thatcher, but nobody else had the courage to do so. Thatcher won the contest by 314 votes to 33, but one sixth of the Conservative MPs either voted against her or abstained.
In the Spring of 1990, the Community Charge, trialed in Scotland a year earlier, was extended to England and Wales, by the Conservative government. This flat-rate charge, on local government electors, immediately became known as the Poll Tax. There was widespread public protest against the unfair nature of the charge, and an anti-Poll Tax riot in London. Throughout her premiership, Thatcher had undermined the NHS, making clear a preference for private health. The National Health Service and Community Care Act, passed in June 1990, introduced a wide internal market to the NHS. This paved the way for future privatisation of large parts of the service, with Tory legislation in 2012 and 2022 being particularly significant steps.
Britain joined the ERM, in October 1990, on the initiative of John Major, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, although Thatcher remained a sceptic. The following month, Geoffrey Howe resigned from the Cabinet, and made a speech in the House of Commons attacking Thatcher’s style as premier. This prompted Michael Heseltine to challenge Thatcher for the Conservative leadership. In the first ballot, on November 20, Thatcher beat Heseltine by 204 votes to 152, but fell four votes short of the 15 per cent majority needed for outright victory. Thatcher announced an intention of proceeding to the second ballot, but was persuaded by Cabinet colleagues that she had lost the confidence of the Parliamentary party. Thatcher withdrew from the contest on November 22.
John Major and Douglas Hurd, the Foreign Secretary, entered for the second round. On November 27, Major took 185 votes, Heseltine 131, and Hurd 56, a result that left Major two votes below the majority required for victory, but the other two contestants withdrew. Major was declared leader of the Conservative Party and, on the following day, appointed Prime Minister, by Queen Elizabeth II. Thatcher returned to the backbenches, with her 11 years in power having ended in humiliation. Thatcher retired from the Commons in 1992, and moved to the House of Lords, having been given a peerage. Major elements of Thatcherism have been followed by several governments, and continue to damage Britain.
During 1998, Augusto Pinochet, the former Fascist dictator of Chile, was arrested on a visit to Britain, and held under house arrest, pending possible extradition to Spain, to face trial for crimes committed by his regime. In 1999, Margaret Thatcher made a speech – to a fringe meeting – at the Conservative Party Conference, for the first time since her downfall as Prime Minister, calling for the release of Pinochet, who she had visited a few months previously. Thatcher celebrated the actions of Pinochet’s Fascist dictatorship, claiming it had built a “prosperous democratic order”. Thatcher failed to mention that Pinochet had ordered the murder of countless thousands of people. After a protracted legal battle, Pinochet was released in 2000, and allowed to return to Chile, on the questionable grounds that he was too frail to face a trial.
The death of Margaret Thatcher, in April 2013, led to re-assessment of her legacy. While Conservatives lauded a saviour of Britain, many people saw that Thatcher had encouraged a form of capitalism that was in crisis, had sold off important public assets, and divided the nation. A lasting effect of Thatcher’s policies was a drop in the level of support for the Conservatives, who only gained a majority in one out of the five General Elections between 1992 and 2010.
Rishi Sunak has led a chaotic Conservative government since the latter part of 2022, the year he became the third Prime Minister in the space of a couple of months, following the resignations of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. Sunak was born in 1980, educated at Winchester College (a public school) and Oxford University, before working for Goldman Sachs (a multinational bank) and a series of hedge funds. He was elected as Conservative MP for Richmond, in Yorkshire, at the 2015 General Election – being the successor to William Hague, who took early retirement to the House of Lords. Sunak joined the government in 2018, and became Chancellor of the Exchequer in 2020, replacing Sajid Javid.
Sunak was the man behind the Eat Out to Help Out scheme. During August 2020, public money subsidised people eating meals at restaurants and pubs, the aim being to boost the economy. A smiling Sunak was filmed, pretending to be a waiter, delivering dinners to customers. The economic benefit of the scheme was questionable, and it soon became clear that Eat Out to Help Out led to an increase in Covid cases, and deaths, at a time when it looked as though the pandemic was relatively under control. Other schemes set up by Sunak, to help businesses struggling during the pandemic, proved open to fraud.
Rishi Sunak is married to Akshata Murty, a businesswoman, and the couple are known to be multi-millionaires. They own several houses, including one in London believed to be worth about £7 million. It is doubtful whether Sunak understands the experiences of the millions of people on average, or below average, incomes. Sunak’s October 2021 budget set out planned tax increases, forecast to take the tax burden, as a proportion of gross domestic product, to its highest level since 1951. In contrast to the Conservative Party’s tax-cutting propaganda, Sunak was carrying out the reverse.
In the space of a few months, during 2022, Sunak resigned from the government of Boris Johnson, was runner-up to Liz Truss in a Conservative leadership contest, and then replaced the latter as premier. Sunak was appointed Prime Minister, by King Charles III, on October 25, becoming the fifth Conservative to take the role during the party’s twelve years in power. This was an echo of the four Tory premiers between 1951 and 1964 – namely Winston Churchill, Anthony Eden, Harold Macmillan, and Lord Home. Sunak, aged 42, eclipsed both Tony Blair and David Cameron, becoming the latest youngest Prime Minister since Lord Liverpool, way back in 1812 – the original milestone had been set 210 years earlier. Standing outside 10 Downing Street, Sunak announced “This government will have integrity, professionalism, and accountability at every level”. A few hours later, Sunak showed he did not mean this, re-appointing Suella Braverman to the role of Home Secretary, just six days after her resignation for breaking the Ministerial Code.
Two weeks into the Sunak premiership, Gavin Williamson departed from the Tory Cabinet, for the third time in three and a half years, having been accused of bullying several MPs. Moving into 2023, Nadhim Zahawi, the Conservative Party Chairman, and Dominic Raab, the Deputy Prime Minister, both left the Cabinet, after investigations into misconduct. Sunak, who had a reputation for indecision, belatedly sacked Suella Braverman, in November 2023, after she had been a disruptive influence in the Cabinet for several months. With their economic policy failing, an increasingly authoritarian Conservative government clamped down on public protest, and trade union rights. They also tried to distract the public, with a culture war narrative, attacking modern British values, and ramping up hostility towards desperate asylum seekers, fleeing from persecution abroad. This was done despite Sunak and Braverman being born into families of Indian origin, which migrated to Britain, via east Africa, in the 1960s.
The year 2024 opened with lots of speculation over the date of the next General Election, which was likely in the next few months, although a dissolution of Parliament could be delayed until December, with an Election the following January. On January 4 2024, Rishi Sunak said publicly “my working assumption is we’ll have a General Election in the second half of this year”. In the following weeks, the combination of Tory government dishonesty, opinion polls, and By-Election results, consistently suggested the Conservative Party were headed for a large defeat in the forthcoming General Election. The Conservatives won only four out of the 22 By-Elections in the current Parliament, held between May 2021 and February 2024. Labour won 12 of these By-Elections, the Liberal Democrats four, the SNP and the Workers Party of Britain one each. Both Labour and the Liberal Democrats gained several previously safe Conservative seats, while a large number of the By-Elections were caused by Tory MPs leaving Parliament in disgrace.
This profile is from my forthcoming book “British Politics”, which provides an A to Z summary of the contemporary political scene, with historical background.
This debut novel from Briony Cameron is an amazing read. The Ballad of Jacquotte Delahaye is based on the life of a legendary female pirate of the Caribbean. The story begins with a short prologue, set at the start of 1656, with Jacquotte in prison, and awaiting execution, for her supposed crimes as a pirate. The narrative then moves back to the series of events, just three months earlier, in which Jacquotte, a determined woman, aged just 20, moves from being a shipwright to a pirate.
The early chapters unveil a series of surprises, which force Jacquotte to re-examine her already difficult place in a male-dominated society, as she faces double prejudice. Jacquotte is an assertive young woman, running a successful business, and the mixed race daughter of a white Frenchman and a black local woman. This happens in Saint-Domingue, a Spanish colony in the western part of the island of Hispaniola, a territory that corresponds to the contemporary Haiti. The actions of her father find Jacquotte tangled up in a dangerous political plot, as Florian – her old friend, about to become enemy – challenges the rule of his uncle, the local governor. Coincidentally, the early part of 2024 has sadly seen instability in Haiti, with the collapse of its government, amidst gang warfare in the capital city, Port-au-Prince.
Wishing to avoid spoilers, I will not say much about what happens once Jacquotte becomes a pirate, but must compliment the many dramatic twists. These stretch across Hispaniola, Cuba, Jamaica, and even a long Atlantic voyage south to Brazil – illustrated by a map in the preliminary pages. Briony Cameron packs an enormous degree of detail into the 360 pages of this tale. The narrative moves at a great pace, while the development of the characters of Jacquotte, Marceau (her brother), Teresa (her lover), and their growing circle of friends, is excellent.
As someone who is a bit squeamish, I admit there was a bit more violence than would have suited me, but the author is good at writing fight scenes, particularly an extended battle for control of a town, near the end of the book. This work takes on difficult themes, including slavery and domestic abuse, with the outlaw pirate crew being cast as more enlightened than the people who make the laws. There are some beautiful descriptions of scenery, along with evocative descriptions of the clothes people wear, and the food they eat. Amidst the brutality, there are pauses for some great humour.
This is one of the finest pieces of historical fiction I have read. The publicity for the novel says it “reimagines one of the first purported female pirates to sail the Caribbean in the seventeenth century”. Whenever I read a historical novel, I avoid reading the detailed factual background, to keep clear of possible spoilers. Once I finished The Ballad of Jacquotte Delahaye, I learned that she was probably not a real person, but has become a legendary character. In that spirit, we should celebrate Briony’s work, as a great development of the story of Jacquotte Delahaye, and a testament to the camaraderie that can be found among society’s underdogs, both past and present.
The Ballad of Jacquotte Delahaye by Briony Cameron is published in the US by Atria Books on April 6 2024 (the day I am writing this review), and in the UK by Piatkus on June 6 2024.
Many thanks to Piatkus for sending me a free proof copy of the UK edition, ahead of publication, in return for an honest review.
The Cloisters, the debut novel from Katy Hays, was published in 2022, and I caught up with it in the following year. Hays is an academic, living and working in the USA, who has put this experience to good use in the book. The story is told in the first person by Ann, who has just completed university, and is now moving to a Summer job in New York City. After a mix up at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Ann is transferred to a subsidiary establishment, the Cloisters, which specialises in the Medieval era.
Katy conveys the Gothic beauty, and atmosphere, of the Cloisters in a manner that seems too good to be true. On finishing the book, I found that the Cloisters actually exists, and is much as it is described by the author. Strangely, I already knew the Met was real! Here they are linked in a brilliant novel of intrigue and rivalry, mixing modern day New York with an Occult mystery from Renaissance Italy. Ann is fascinated by both times and places. The book has a beautiful dust jacket design, with a picture of dark plants being visited by red butterflies, while the text has a lot of gold lettering.
Ann begins work as a research assistant for Patrick, who is planning an exhibition on the use of Astrology in the Renaissance, and hoping to find solid evidence for the use of tarot cards, in the prediction of the future, back in the fifteenth century. Patrick, more than twice Ann’s age, already has a young lady, Rachel, engaged in the project. The other main character is Leo, the gardener at the Cloisters, who has a bohemian personality, and chequered career. As the academic story develops, the personal relationships between the four people, including possible or potential romances, help drive a complex, and clever, plot. The character of Ann changes as the book progresses and, midway through, I started to wonder whether she is an unreliable narrator.
The story is set across a Summer, with the author, via Ann, regularly telling us whether it is June, July, or August. The many August events, often separated by a few days, appear to me to extend to a timeframe beyond the 31 days in the month. I wonder whether Katy kept track of the sequence as she wrote. I have never been to New York, or anywhere in the USA, but felt that Hays’ writing in this book captured the vibrancy of a hot Summer in a city. Parts of the narrative had me recalling working in the centre of London, many years ago.
There are some good minor characters, and I felt more could have been made of Stephen Ketch, a dealer in antiques, and rare books, some of doubtful provenance. I wonder if Katy has read John Steinbeck’s The Short Reign of Pippin IV, where a similar role was played by Charles Martel?
An unsettling atmosphere becomes darker, as the story unfolds. Several developments in the plot turn upon rather unlikely coincidences, and I thought the closing chapters were a bit over dramatic, with revelations that left me without much sympathy for any of the main characters. Despite this, I found The Cloisters an excellent read, and hope Katy Hays is able to follow it with another book before too long.
I acquired The Cloisters on the same day as The Ghost Ship, by Kate Mosse. The next day I posted pictures on Twitter of both books, mentioning that the cover of Katy’s novel includes an endorsement from Kate. This led to a replies from Kate and Katy, who each confirmed their admiration for the other’s writing. I do not suppose it needed humble me to connect these two great lady writers, but it was pleasing to play a part. A subsequent Tweet from myself about The Cloisters prompted another response from Katy, this time with three black hearts – I wondered if this had a tarot meaning?
Twitter is the most politicised of the social media platforms in Britain. Having an account, and posting frequent Tweets, appears almost mandatory for high profile politicians. Twitter was launched in 2006, and the website is still generally known by that name, although it was rebranded as X during 2023. In March 2024, Rishi Sunak, as current Prime Minister, has 2,300,000 followers, half the size of Boris Johnson’s 4,600,000, while the Conservative Party’s account is far behind, on 618,000. David Cameron has 1,700,000 followers, Theresa May 995,000, and Liz Truss 669,000 followers.
Among other living former premiers, there is a Gordon Brown account with 226,000 followers, which is not verified by Twitter, but appears genuine. Neither Tony Blair or John Major have a personal presence, but the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change has gained an audience of 242,000 other accounts.
Four years after he ceased to be Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn has 2,600,000 followers, well ahead of Keir Starmer on 1,400,000, with the official Labour Party account trailing with a 1,000,000 following.
Looking beyond the two largest parties, in terms of both MPs and Twitter support, there are three others almost tied for third place, with the Green Party and Scottish National Party both on 337,000, followed by the Liberal Democrats with 335,000 followers.
Two other very large accounts call to be noted, with Nigel Farage of UKIP / Brexit Party / Reform UK having 1,800,000 followers, and Nicola Sturgeon of the SNP on 1,400,000.
Finally there is the largest of all Twitter followings for a British political account, with 5,900,000 for the UK Prime Minister feed, which has passed between each incumbent in the role since being set up, with Gordon Brown, in 2008.
Yesterday things had felt fun, even for Eleanor Rigby. The wedding at the church had been beautiful, everyone agreed that the young couple being married looked beautiful. The weather was warm and sunny, the church was wonderfully decorated and illuminated. All the wedding guests were in a happy mood. Well almost all the guests. Eleanor had had the misfortune to overhear Polythene Pam (apt nickname for a silly girl) making a cutting remark to somebody else about someone else. Seeing the said someone else, with whom she had once – years ago – been at school, Pam said “Oh look, there she is, Eleanor Rigby, very much the spinster of this parish.”
At the time, Eleanor had dismissed the remark as the usual nonsense, but now it was preying on her mind. Yes, Eleanor could be called a spinster of this parish. She had been born here, and had always lived here. To be precise, here was Liddlehurst, a quaint village (or was it a town?) in the New Forest, in the south west part of Hampshire, a few miles north of the south coast, and a few miles west of the local metropolis and international port, Southampton. A lot of imported alcohol sloshed through Southampton, including Martini and Bacardi, but not actual port. Liddlehurst had once been named Lyndhurst. It was renamed Liddlehurst in honour of Alice Liddell, a resident of the village who inspired Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, first published in 1865 – and never out of print.
Eleanor swept, and picked up, the remaining pieces of confetti, mixed up with rice, like the sad remains of a Chinese takeaway dinner, littering the entrance to the church. She lamented that there was no prospect of her becoming a beautiful bride any time soon. She was unmarried, apparently left on the shelf, now aged 30, and one of the few lonely people lost amidst the happy community of this picture-postcard English village.
She was not one of the beautiful looking, and probably equally beautifully smelling, people at the wedding. She was just there, trying to keep quietly efficient and inconspicuous, on the fringe, as the church verger. The virginal verger, that was another phrase she had heard whispered about her in the church, by the young “ladies” who had plenty of men, before their own chaste white weddings. Eleanor was not bitter….she told herself….she just enjoyed having a way with words. Having a way….having it away…..she smiled to herself. If only the others knew what she was thinking. Perhaps one day….when she retired….she might drop her dignified stance, and principles, to reveal all….with an outburst, subtly worded (not too direct), in the parish newsletter.
The May weather was predictably changeable. The warmth and sunshine of yesterday had given way to a damp and chilly day, with a cold wind swept down from the Arctic, according to the very Scottish lady (with tightly packed isobars) explaining things on breakfast TV. Why is it called breakfast TV? It goes on for hours, much longer than a single breakfast. Probably caters for a nation’s staggered breakfasts. Eleanor wondered how many of the wedding guests, staying in the posh hotel in the village, had staggered to their breakfast this morning, nursing hangovers, and thinking a drink of orange juice might help.
Eleanor went home, and sat in her sitting room. She looked out of the window, and watched people walk past. Where were they going? What were they doing? In a rare moment of spontaneity, Eleanor decided to go out for tea, or coffee, at a village café. She even decided to smarten herself up for once, putting on a bit of make up, and made a mental note to put on a smile (on her face) when she went out.
Eleanor remembered her chat earlier in the day, back in the church, with Father Mackenzie. He was always referred to as Father. Most people had forgotten his first name, or not even known what it was. “Call me Malcolm”, he sometimes said to people, but the message never got through. Malcolm Mackenzie….did not quite sound right. Anyway he had confessed to Eleanor today. Nothing scandalous, nothing worthy of confessing to a priest. Absolutely nothing requiring absolution. He just said that after the excitement of the wedding, in a well-attended church, he had been at home last night writing his next Sunday sermon, and wondering how many people would be in church to hear it. He always believed in the power of religion, but sometimes it was soul destroying how few people seemed to share the faith nowadays – at least, they did not have the conviction to get themselves into church regularly. Malcolm….Father Mackenzie….even admitted to sadly darning his socks last night, and wondering whether this solitary task was of more use than the writing of the sermon.
Eleanor took the short walk from her home to the main road in the village. It was the only road of note in the village. Half a mile of small shops, a few pubs, and an unusual number of tea rooms. One of the shops, a cluttered place that sold all sorts of stuff, ranging from toys to camping equipment, via kitchen mops, and who knew what else that was hiding amidst the tightly packed shelves, literally did not have a name. In the absence of a name sign on the front door, Eleanor had once asked the proprietor about this, and learned that she shop was indeed nameless. When asked how such a shop attracted customers, the lady behind the counter simply said “People just know about us, we have been here for decades.” In view of a prominent display of mops in the shop that day, Eleanor decided to refer to the shop, if only to herself, as Moppatops.
As she wandered, Eleanor exchanged hellos and a few words with people she knew. There were also smiles. Despite the chilly weather, Eleanor retained the smile on her face. In the café, Eleanor had an unscheduled meeting with a friend who coincidentally happened to be there that late afternoon. It was Father….Malcolm….who had popped in to talk to the owner, Mrs Miggins, about pies, and catering arrangements for a forthcoming church event. Eleanor ordered her coffee, nothing too sophisticated, and was drawn into the conversation. Then Mrs Miggins went off to serve other customers, and Eleanor chatted with Malcolm, who was drinking tea, and eating some rather dull biscuits (a Rich Tea tribute act?).
Aware of low chatter elsewhere in the café, Eleanor looked up and saw Mrs Miggins sharing a joke with a lady she recognised, but could not place. Said unknown lady and Madame Miggins, known as the hostess with the toastiest, were caught looking at Eleanor and Malcolm….Father Mackenzie. Were they amused by the dullness of Eleanor and her companion, or were they suggesting this might be some sort of romantic rendezvous? Eleanor decided to put such thoughts out of her head, as she had tried to many times before. After some unremarkable conversation, Father Mackenzie returned to his home.
Eleanor had another coffee, and then went to the Deforestation Arms pub, where she ate fish and chips for dinner, drank some wine, and caught up with a variety of messages on her phone. She renewed an interesting exchange of messages she had been enjoying with a man from an Internet dating site, which she had recently joined. He sounded a fun and interesting man, and they tentatively arranged to meet up, for a first date, at the weekend. He was a mature student at a local university, Maxwell Edison, majoring in medicine.
I start writing this review on July 5 2023, the anniversary of the founding of our National Health Service, 75 years ago, back in 1948. I finished reading Dr Julia Grace Patterson’s Critical three days ago. The sub-title is a bit wordy, but does sum up the basic themes of the book. After several years working as a junior doctor, in our NHS, Julia moved on to become Chief Executive of Every Doctor, a group that campaigns on patient safety, plus staff pay and conditions. Opposition to the privatisation of our NHS is increasingly a focus for Every Doctor, an organisation founded by doctors, but now developing into a wider alliance of NHS staff and patients.
Dr Patterson provides a powerful diagnosis of the main problems being experienced by the NHS, these are underfunding by government – so resources fail to keep up with the growth of our population – fragmentation of the system, and privatisation. Early in the book, Julia tells us that there has been creeping privatisation, of large elements of our NHS, across the last 40 years. Anyone with a sense of political time will recognise the point being made, but I thought Julia was being too coy, until she makes it clear, about a quarter of the way through the book, that the attack on our public service health system was begun by Margaret Thatcher, and a Conservative government, back in the 1980s. We are now thirteen years into the misrule by another Conservative regime, one which has been ramping up privatisation.
In between two spells of Tory trouble, a Labour government massively increased funding of the NHS, but unfortunately enabled some privatisation, and the accumulation of massive debts for NHS Trusts, with the Private Finance Initiative programme. The author does not specifically make the point, but the New Labour approach, spearheaded by Tony Blair, undermined the founding principles of the public sector NHS, set up by Aneurin Bevan, the controversial and charismatic Minister for Health in the Labour government, elected in 1945.
I think that the author could have given more detail on the relentless growth of privatisation across recent decades. There is a lot of good material here in respect of recent years, along with a critique of the massive corruption of Tory government ministers giving Covid-related contracts to friends of Tory MPs. The latter is an issue which Every Doctor and the Good Law Project took to the courts, gaining a judgement that the government had acted unlawfully. Dr Patterson also clearly explains the way in which private health companies fund, and influence, MPs. This began as a Tory preserve, but unfortunately an increasing number of Labour MPs are also taking this suspect money.
Julia writes eloquently, with anecdotes from her growing network of NHS staff, about the massive scale of the crisis facing the service, and the daily pressures on front line staff. Patients are increasingly suffering, as the 40 “new” (mostly refurbished) NHS hospitals, and 50,000 new nurses, which the Tories have been promising since 2019, are imaginary, but over 7,000,000 people are on waiting lists – and this record number is increasing.
Much of the evidence provided by Julia is from the last few months. The author and publisher, Mudlark (an imprint of Harper Collins), should be congratulated on getting such an up-to-date book out, just before the NHS 75 celebrations. On the other hand, there are signs of some hurried writing, with a lot of repetition in both the points being made, and the actual phrases used in making them. Some factual inaccuracies have escaped the editorial, and proof reading, process. For example, the National Health Service Act was passed in 1946, an event Julia places in 1948, the year the plan was implemented (page 49). There is also a reference to Jeremy Hunt being Health Secretary from 2010 to 2017, whereas the correct dates are 2012 to 2018 (page 74).
As someone who has proudly worked as part of our NHS since 2013, in finance and administrative roles (I currently make decisions on patient funding), I am all too well aware of the crisis faced by the service. Despite the many problems set out by Dr Patterson, her ultimate message is a positive one, that NHS staff and patients (the latter group being the vast majority of people in Britain) are best placed to understand the crisis, and start to tackle it. Supposed political leadership is letting us down, but there are many great advocates, both NHS professionals and patients, for the rebuilding of our publicly-owned healthcare system, with treatment free at the point of use, and based on clinical need. Critical serves as a powerful manifesto for supporters of the NHS, and is therefore a book that deserves to be widely read, and debated.
A Tory novel in the learned tradition of Benjamin Disraeli.
This is the first book I have received as a physical proof for review, a few weeks ahead of publication. Following an exchange on Twitter, I was kindly sent the book by Biteback Publishing. This appeals to my sense of irony, given that Jesse Norman is a Conservative MP, and current government minister. By contrast, I am the author of books, about politics and history, critical of the Conservative Party!
The proof arrived with an information sheet, showing that Norman’s novel has received pre-publication plaudits from Michael Dobbs, Stephen Fry, Suzannah Lipscomb, and Andrew Roberts. Having read the book, I do not fully share the acclaim bestowed by other – more knowledgeable than myself – advance reviewers.
“The Winding Stair”, spanning the years from 1570 to 1626, is basically a drama drawn from the factual life of Francis Bacon, a man on the fringes of government during the reign of Elizabeth I, and at the centre of events under James I. Bacon was a Member of Parliament, and government lawyer, whose lasting reputation rests on his philosophical writings, including the book “Essays”. Modern day suggestions that Bacon was also the author of William Shakespeare’s plays appear wide of the mark.
Jesse Norman has previously written biographies of Adam Smith (free market liberal economist whose name has been kidnapped by Thatcherite lobbyists, masquerading as a “think tank”), and Edmund Burke (Whig politician posthumously appropriated by the Tories). I wonder why Norman moved to semi-fiction for the work on Bacon? Perhaps the reason is that much of “The Winding Stair” deals with the rivalry between Bacon and Edward Coke (pronounced cook, as opposed to coke, the drug rumoured to fuel some contemporary Parliamentary debate). Norman presents many events from the perspective of Coke.
Norman covers a lot of ground, at a good pace – with the 460 pages being divided into 105 short chapters – but there is little mystery, or narrative tension, in the novel. There is a lot of antiquated dialogue, in both speech and quotes from correspondence between characters. There are also a lot of characters, well actually real people, mentioned in the book. It is difficult to keep track of the many rising stars, or fringe figures, at the royal court, and in the various courts of law. Norman obviously has a lot of knowledge of the subjects he covers but, it appeared to me in reading, some of the detail is there to show his skill, rather than help the reader understand the basic plot. There is a lot of plotting against each other by various people here! I think I have a fair grasp of the history and politics of the era, but wonder what sort of readership the book is aimed at, given that most people probably have little enthusiasm for the detail of a legal system that was in place about four hundred years ago.
Francis Bacon is shown by the author of the novel to have many abilities, but he is consumed by ambition, rather vain, and increasingly corrupt. His main aim is the advancement of himself, although Bacon convinces himself that the motive is to serve the reigning monarch, in the wise government of the nation. Bacon has a long term plan for power. Bacon uses a lot of Latin, and classical allusion, leading me to believe that Norman sees him as a model for Boris Johnson, the boy who wanted to be “world king”, but became the most dishonest Prime Minister Britain has ever endured. Coke exceeds Bacon in legal esteem, while matching him for ruthless self-serving, dressed up as veneration for Magna Carta. Coke is in thrall to the often imaginary traditions of the English legal system, devised by a tiny proportion of men, who had influence in the centuries before there was even a pretence of democracy.
If this is a satire, in which Bacon is Johnson, I do not know who (if anyone) Coke is supposed to represent. Edward Coke, as rendered by Jesse Norman, seems too logical to be Dominic Cummings, and too charismatic to be Keir Starmer!
Nearly every character in Jesse Norman’s book is a wealthy and powerful man. The few women here, apart from Queen Elizabeth, are either the mothers, wives, or daughters of these men. Several daughters are coerced into marriage, sometimes at an early age. There are no ordinary men and women here.
As the book progresses, Parliament increasingly seeks to assert its role. Some MPs even challenge corruption in government circles, tackling ministers who pocket fees from the offices they hold. What would they make of the current day VIP Lane, for Covid contracts, ruled unlawful by the High Court last year, or the Supreme Court’s 2019 judgement over-turning Johnson’s decision to advise Elizabeth II to prorogue Parliament for several weeks?
There is no sign in Norman’s book that Bacon, and his circle, imagine that supporting the increasingly autocratic rule of James I – with the excesses of the royal prerogative justified by the divine right of kings – will encourage such tendencies in his son, Charles I, the latter of whom became king in 1625. Charles’ conflict with Parliamentarians, in the 1640s, led to civil war, and a radical politics that challenged, and temporarily abolished, the English monarchy.
Despite reservations, I did actually find Jesse Norman’s “The Winding Stair” an interesting, even impressive, read. This is a Tory novel in the learned tradition of Benjamin Disraeli, rather than the sensationalism of Jeffrey Archer. Norman’s narrative certainly prompted me to consider anew the links between our political past and present. Time now to stand back, and wait for the author to join the handful of Tory MPs who have blocked this satirical commentator on Twitter!
As I start to write this piece, on February 4 2023, appears I am experiencing a clear battle with writer’s block. I have been struggling to focus on writing books in recent months. The problem is not a lack of ideas. It may be a surfeit of ideas, combined with indecision about which of them to concentrate on. Running (or dawdling) alongside this there is a lack of confidence in my writing, driven by the reality that relatively few of my ideas for books have been completed, and published. Once one of my books is published, anxiety leads to an inability to successfully promote it, which in turn leaves me with few reviews, and limited sales. I also struggle with depression, and wonder whether this might be part of the cause of writer’s block, for myself and other people?
I suppose attempting to write about writer’s block is illogical, but here is an attempt to convey the feeling. Day after day, I feel overwhelmed at the thought of writing anything that flows, or makes sense to anybody else – or even makes sense to myself as something I can potentially complete, and successfully publish. On most days, I do not even attempt to write anything until late evening, by which time I lack the time and energy to get much done. Enjoyment at visiting bookshops is offset by a feeling of inadequacy. How did thousands of authors, whose books fill the shelves surrounding me, complete the writing of works that publishers and readers agree are worth buying? How did they arrive at ideas far more obviously interesting, and worthwhile, than mine?
Sometimes I wonder whether it is time to give up writing, or at least abandon the writing of full-length books, aimed at commercial success. Should I just settle for putting together short Blog posts, or just put book and record reviews on Amazon? Does my daily sharing of thoughts on Twitter, to an audience of nearly 32,000 followers, count as a form of writing? Perhaps I can take a step back, and just think of writing as a hobby, rather than a potential career alongside my day job. Will this reduce the pressure, and bring relaxation? On the other hand, after 37 years as a writer, should I just plough on, seeking to rekindle the occasional success of the past? Is this a positive approach, rather than just feeling I am accepting the effort has ended on a note of failure? Well, after a bit of work on three successive days, think I should conclude this piece has gone as far as it is worth taking it.
andrewgodsell 