The Amateur

There are a number of ways to account for political mendacity - ideologue, charlatan, fool, evil and so on, but there is another familiar explanation worth adding to the mix. A good example comes from E. F. Benson’s crime mystery novel of 1908 - The Blotting Book.

In Benson’s novel, a solicitor uses money from his wealthy client’s investment fund to make amateurishly unsound investments of his own. He hopes to become modestly wealthy enough for a comfortable retirement.

The investments fail and although the solicitor is habitually honest and strongly approves of honesty in an abstract sense, it comes a distant second when his personal interests are threatened.


It is a fact nevertheless that his was a nature capable of great things, it is also a fact that he had long ago been deeply and bitterly contrite for the original dishonesty of using the money of his client. But by aid of those strange perversities of nature, he had by this time honestly and sincerely got to regard all their subsequent employments of it merely as efforts on his part to make right an original wrong.

…he wanted to repair the original wrong, to hand back to Morris his fortune unimpaired, and also to save himself. But of these two wants, the second, it must be confessed, was infinitely the stronger.

E. F. Benson - The Blotting Book (1908)

The comparison with Ed Miliband may or may not be sound politically, but it is striking. Miliband is dabbling with sustainable energy investment using other people’s money. Not for personal gain of course, but the government investments he signs off have turned out to be as unsound as less amateurish observers always knew they would.

Another significant similarity with Benson’s character is that Miliband is still signing off yet more futile government investment in the forlorn hope that some imaginary upturn will mitigate his foolishness. It is Miliband’s amateurish confidence which is so striking when compared to Benson’s solicitor. The self-preservation motive seems to be much the same too.

Why not now?

The feat required thought: it required a faith so childlike as to verge on the imbecile.

E. F. Benson - Miss Mapp (1922)

Merely a casual Sunday evening observation this one, but there is something grimly childish about Net Zero. It’s the familiar cry of the child who wants something so desperately but horrible adults say no.

In this case, some of the more horrible adults are physics, chemistry, engineering, economics and the most horrible of all, common sense. But still the call goes on – why not now?

And still they don’t see it.

New Year resolution

Strange gaunt females used to come down from London, with small parcels full of tough food that tasted of travelling-bags and contained so much nutrition that a portmanteau full of it would furnish the daily rations of an army.

E. F. Benson – Queen Lucia (1920)

Hmm - perhaps this quote suggests a New Year resolution –

Be wary of strange females from London with indigestible offerings.

Be wary of faddish diets too I suppose - so that's two resolutions from one quote. Must be a good start to the year. 

If Nemesis licks her lips

And it is probable that Nemesis at that precise moment licked her dry lips. "Fun!" thought Nemesis.

E. F. Benson - Lucia In London (1927)

As well as the flattened foot, the leak of the Labour party draft manifesto is another strand of political embarrassment in a tangle of embarrassments. Apart from the revealing nature of the manifesto itself, another factor comes to mind and that is the issue of luck.

So far Theresa May is a lucky Prime Minister. She was an unremarkable Home Secretary but thanks to a series of unforeseen events she finds herself in a situation where her only serious political opponent is hopelessly incompetent and those around him are little better. Obviously not a situation she could ever have engineered herself.

Not only that, but May's difficulties in and around Brexit negotiations must have been eased politically by the boorish behaviour of prominent EU functionaries. Jean-Claude Juncker comes across as a spiteful old soak, which may be unfair but he certainly does May no harm here in the UK. Again, May’s calm and decidedly reticent public temperament seems suited to these turbulent times and that too is not her doing. Much more luck than judgement.

One might widen this issue of luck to include Donald Trump, who in the presidential election could surely have faced a more likeable and trustworthy Democrat candidate than Hillary Clinton. These things matter even when they should not and in Trump’s case Clinton's candidacy was a lucky break. He didn’t arrange it as far as we know.

How many successful CEOs are at least as lucky as they are competent? How many slip into their predecessor’s shoes at just the right time, when markets are turning in their favour? How many economic forecasters are selected by their luck, by a few lucky hits in an ocean of missed predictions?

In which case, and in spite of Jeremy Corbyn’s incompetence, we might wonder if Theresa May’s luck will hold until June 8^th. Corbyn has loaded the dice heavily in her favour, but that was her lucky break too. It may not last.

Not that I’d bet against her.