Martin Kettle's Blog, page 49
May 30, 2018
Threatened by Italy and Brexit, the EU must turn the tide | Martin Kettle
George Soros is not exactly an insurgent leader from central casting, but you certainly can’t fault the billionaire philanthropist for his frankness. “The EU is in an existential crisis,” Soros said in a speech in Paris this week, before adding: “Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong.”
With Italy compounding Europe’s woes in the wake of the Brexit vote and the rise of rightwing populism more generally, it takes nerve to choose this of all moments to launch a fightback for Europe. Yet this is precisely what Soros proposes. There’s an audacity about his approach that echoes the French general Ferdinand Foch’s message to his commander-in-chief: “My centre is giving way, my right is retreating, situation excellent, I am attacking.”
Related: Italy can't blame Brussels for its descent into the abyss | Phillip Inman
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May 24, 2018
A century on, why are we forgetting the deaths of 100 million? | Martin Kettle
The 1918 Spanish flu outbreak killed more people than both world wars. Don’t imagine such a thing could never happen again
This year marks a century since some women got the vote; a century since the end of the first world war; 50 years since the 1968 revolts; 70 since the founding of Israel and the NHS. All have been well marked. So it is striking that the centenary of one of the most devastating events in human history has been allowed to pass thus far with almost no public reflection of any kind.
This year is the 100th anniversary of the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918. Estimates about its impact vary. But when you read that a third of the entire global population probably caught the Spanish flu and that it killed between 50 and 100 million people in all corners of the globe – up to 5% of all human beings on the planet at the time – you get an inkling of its scale.
Related: The 1918 flu pandemic remembered
Continue reading...May 16, 2018
Where are all the revolutionaries of 1968? They’re long gone | Martin Kettle
Fifty years ago, hundreds of thousands marched in Paris. But the political and economic changes they called for never came
At the weekend, I sat in a Parisian cafe, sipping a coffee and reading the reminiscences in Libération about the events of May 1968. Fifty years ago to the day, more than 300,000 people had marched through these streets demanding the resignation of President Charles de Gaulle, one of the high points of the rebellion. One of the banners held high in the crowd announced: “Those in power are in retreat! Now they must fall!”
Today, the thing that needs saying about 1968 is that it was indeed a liberation, but that it was also a failure. In 1968 it felt as if the European world had come alive again after a long hibernation. Society, ideas and culture changed for the liberal better afterwards. Above all, women’s equality flourished. But political and economic power did not change. Those in power may have been in retreat in 1968, certainly so in De Gaulle’s case. But they did not fall. Mostly they were soon re-elected.
Related: France's 1968 uprising, 50 years on: 'It's harder for the youth today'
Related: Protests in Paris, May 1968 – photographs then and now
Continue reading...May 9, 2018
Suddenly, soft Brexit can happen. Thank the Lords | Martin Kettle
The assault on the Brexit bill – inspired by the Duke of Wellington – has emboldened Tory moderates. This could be their moment
Next week the EU withdrawal bill finally emerges from the House of Lords. The bill is now a very different piece of legislation to the one launched in the Commons by David Davis last September. It was significantly amended in the Commons just before Christmas. Now the Lords have fundamentally transformed it. MPs must therefore decide what to do with the many changes that the Lords have made. It will be the most important few months of parliamentary activity in a generation, perhaps more.
It was not always clear, when the withdrawal bill was launched, that such a great moment of decision would ever be reached. If the government and Labour leadership had had their way, the soft Brexit opportunities that now face MPs this summer would probably not have existed at all, or in very constrained ways. Both parties had their own reasons for wanting the bill to go through. But a combination of doggedness, craftiness and, above all, the size of the opposition in both houses to a hard Brexit has changed the political agenda through a series of hugely important amendments, often opposed by both the government and the Labour leadership.
Related: EU withdrawal bill: what happens next after Lords votes?
Related: As a Labour Brexiter I say we should stay in the customs union | Nigel Willmott
Continue reading...Opera's roads not taken: two rarities in Italy
Opera houses must produce plenty of Carmens and Toscas to stay afloat, but bold progamming in northern Italy this season means you can catch an early Verdi and electrifying Zandonai
Opera houses are increasingly loth to take artistic risks these days, for frustrating but wholly understandable reasons. With financial subsidies tight, familiar works and famous singers will shift tickets in a way that neglected repertoire and relative unknowns do not. Hence all those Traviatas, Toscas and Carmens in the recently announced 2018-19 Covent Garden season.
One of the continuing casualties of this era of caution is opera’s vast but fascinating neglected repertoire. There are lots of these overlooked operatic pieces, many of them by household-name composers, as a glance in any opera dictionary or guide will show. But with the exception of festivals such as Buxton and Wexford, which specialise in the rarity end of the operatic canon, there are very few chances to see them.
Milan went for broke, bringing in David Pountney to mount the first production of Francesca di Rimini there since 1959
Related: ROH's Oliver Mears: 'Our job is to generate an emotional reaction'
Continue reading...May 2, 2018
We won’t have a hard Brexit. There aren’t enough MPs to back it | Martin Kettle
With the wonderful benefit of hindsight, the great moments of political choice can take on a deceptive inevitability. Yet in real time, these moments that make or break governments – such as Sir Robert Peel’s repeal of the corn laws, which split the Tories for a generation – are more typically the hard-fought climax of processes that follow a circuitous and up-and-down path, with the key decision put off until it is inescapable.
The moment of decision for Theresa May over Brexit is following this pattern too. The route has meandered for nearly two years through negotiations, summits, law-making and elections; this week’s English elections will be part of the context too. The climax has been long predicted and frequently postponed. To judge by what Downing Street said this week, as ministers prepared for Wednesday’s cabinet committee on customs arrangements with the EU, it may well be pushed back yet again by a few weeks. Yet the moment is nearing all the same.
Related: The Guardian view on Brexit and the Irish border: alchemy fails again | Editorial
EU members (plus Turkey, Andorra, Monaco and San Marino) trade without customs duties, taxes or tariffs between themselves, and charge the same tariffs on imports from outside the EU. Customs union members cannot negotiate their own trade deals outside the EU, which is why leaving it – while hopefully negotiating a bespoke arrangement – has been one of the government’s Brexit goals. See our full Brexit phrasebook.
Continue reading...April 25, 2018
Millicent Fawcett’s great. But enough – Britain has too many statues | Martin Kettle
The last thing we need is a 21st-century statuary race: it doesn’t reflect the pluralistic view we need of our culture
It would have required a heart of stone not to be delighted by the mood at Tuesday’s unveiling in Parliament Square. Never before has there been a statue of a woman in the square that sits at the heart of British government. Now there is one, and of an indisputably suitable candidate, the 19th- and 20th-century women’s suffrage campaigner Millicent Fawcett.
The formal unveiling was a celebratory occasion, and for good reason. Everyone present was in politically ecumenical good humour. Songs were sung and poems were read. Theresa May spoke about the path that Fawcett – who lived to see votes for women become the law of the land when she was in her 80s – had cleared with her campaigning. Jeremy Corbyn sang along to the words of Ethel Smyth’s March of the Women. Women MPs of all parties queued to have their photos taken in front of the statue. It was a privilege to be there.
The Donald Trump Memorial, anyone? The Tony Blair statue?
Continue reading...April 14, 2018
The Syria strikes show the west is serious about chemical weapons | Martin Kettle
The allies sought to deter their use without drawing in Russia and Iran – but the risks of escalation remain high
Enough to show they are serious. Not enough for it to get out of control. That, in essence, seems to be the initial lesson of the missile attacks launched on Syria this morning by the US, France and Britain. This judgment may of course prove premature, as so much else that has been said about the Syrian conflict has been. There may be further western strikes within hours and days. There may be retaliation in some form. The western allies’ version of events on the ground may prove over-simplified – it is already being contested in Syria.
Related: Syria latest: British defence secretary says attack 'highly successful' – live updates
Trump came to power wanting to keep out of Syria. Now he has followed Pentagon advice
Continue reading...April 11, 2018
Labour can’t assume that Theresa May will fail. That’s far too risky | Martin Kettle
The prime minister seems to be shedding her weak and feeble image – and now her popularity is on the rise among the Tories
Ever since June 2017, the political world has written off Theresa May. It is easy to see why. She called an unnecessary election, she ran a terrible campaign and she threw away her majority. Then things got worse. Her party conference speech was a shambles. A feeble cabinet reshuffle underlined her weakness. Brexit remains divisive and dangerous. Labour thinks she is there for the taking.
May’s faults as a leader are now painfully familiar. Her public style is mechanical. She lacks easy empathy. She isn’t quick on her feet in parliament or in interviews. She can’t inspire. She shows no ability to change or even any desire to do so. She is remote, a cultural throwback. She is very home counties. All these limits were ruthlessly exposed in the election and after the Grenfell Tower fire.
Related: MPs caution May against Syria action without Commons vote
This week, YouGov reported that the public sees May more favourably than Corbyn by a margin of 10 points
Related: The Guardian view on the 2018 local elections: speaking for England? | Editorial
Continue reading...April 9, 2018
The Ethiopian treasures in the V&A may have to return home | Martin Kettle
A group of Ethiopian treasures, now on special display at the Victoria and Albert Museum, have rekindled an old debate about whether such artefacts should be returned to their country of origin. Ethiopia would like them back. The V&A’s director, Tristram Hunt, has suggested a long-term loan. The Ethiopian government has welcomed Hunt’s offer. And there, for now, the matter rests.
The treasures, which include an 18th-century gold crown and a royal wedding dress, are part of a fascinating and beautiful collection with a tragic and little-known history. They were seized by the British in 1868 and have been in the V&A ever since. But the circumstances of their seizure, and the consequences, deserve to be much better known.
Related: Looted Ethiopian treasures in UK could be returned on loan
Tewodros was unquestionably a tragic victim of British imperial might
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