Plotting a path from memory
We should of course be able to put things behind us, but that doesn't mean forgetting, especially if we haven't asked for forgiveness first...
The Week
… featured a by-election in Dublin that saw a Labour candidate returned, and it got me thinking about our relationship to our past, and the part it plays in plotting the path to our future.
The Irish Labour Party is not like other European social democratic movements, in that, although it has its roots in the workers’ movement, it’s barely left-wing at all.
Its major claims to fame are as a mud-guard for larger parties in neoliberal coalitions, in which it acted as the attack dog when it came to dealing with the most vulnerable, most recently in the aftermath of the financial crash of 2008/2009.
This week, all that was forgotten as their candidate Ivana Bacik was elected ahead of a Fine Gael carpet-bagger who had come back with his tail between his legs from the far-right political clown car that is Renua.
Bacik is by all reports a decent person, but this begs a question - what do we expect of good people in politics?
Call me old-fashioned or naive, but I expect them to actually do what they say they are going to do - or at least to not do the exact opposite with the mandate they have been given.
It doesn’t matter to me that Bacik is a nice person. After decades of betrayal, nice people don’t belong in the Labour Party. Or the Green Party. Or Fianna Fáil.
But Ivana gets to be nice, and she gets to be voted in, because there are neither political nor social consequences in Ireland for political betrayal of the most vulnerable.
There are consequences of the most extreme kind for right-wing parties - if you don’t serve your masters in the manner they require, your snout is swiftly removed from the trough and your spot on the post-political gravy train is gone forever.
But the left? Nah. You have decent principles - you were just misguided. You’re a nice person, after all. Here you go, have another crack at it. You don’t even have to apologise for what you did first time around.
There was a recent incident where an English cricketer was suspended for off-colour tweets form several years ago, which is more than happened to most Labour politicians.
Should we really be holding sportspeople to account for things they did years ago, while letting people off the hook?
Yes and no. Something someone did in their youth and never got around to deleting or apologising for is serious, but not that serious. Provided they see the error of their ways and apologised for the hurt they have caused, I see no problem - and if they still hold the same views, then they’ll get what they deserve in the court of public opinion.
But politicians who lie and lie and lie again, and then just shrug their shoulders? No.
Not only do they not deserve your votes, they do not deserve your attention or respect.
They don’t get to be called “nice” - not when they have slashed and burned and attacked the very people they promised to protect.
If there are no political consequences - and there are none - then there must be social consequences for what is done in politics.
This is, after all, about trust. And there are too many in politics all over the world whose only achievement of note is to prove that they are singularly unworthy of that trust.
The End
At the time of writing, there is one game to go at Euro 2020, with Italy taking on England in the final at Wembley on Sunday night.
It’s interesting to see England publicly wrestle with its past, without having any real understanding of why a lot of people don’t like them.
Some countries - many of them former colonies or fellow monarchies - love them and tug their forelocks furiously, taking part in the “it’s coming home” hype and hubris.
For the rest, an England victory would be, as Barry Glendenning so succinctly put it on the Guardian’s football podcast, one of the top ten worst things to happen in their lives.
I’m firmly in the latter camp. It’s not because I don’t like the team or the players or the coach, because I do.
It’s because they have a section of fans - the racist, xenophobic constituency so well-known to other fans around the world for booing anthems and taking the knee and taking over city centres during away trips - that I would hate to see happy, even for a single moment.
Danish fans reported being spat at, punched and abused during Wednesday’s semi-final, and any mention of this on the internet was quickly met with the “not all England fans” response, which, though true, also says more than they would care to admit.
The psychology of crowds only allows for such behaviour if the silent majority tolerates it, and England fans do, and always have done. Why do they do that? I’m sure it’s a variety of reasons - fear of being singled out themselves, or being seen as a bore, or a killjoy, or not patriotic enough.
The vast majority of soccer fans around the world, even the most passionate supporters of international teams, can go to games without spitting at opposing fans, or hitting them.
They are self-policing - drinking and banter are encouraged, but intimidating others is frowned upon.
England fans could end this overnight by acting en masse to eradicate the boo boys and the “Ten German Bombers” and the rest, but they won’t because they don’t want to. They tolerate it as something that is part of being an England fan.
On Sunday night they could well win a major tournament for the first time in 55 years thanks to the lessons they have learned on the pitch.
It’s just a shame that nothing has been learned off the pitch in all that time.
The Podcast
… this week featured the return of Petesy Carroll, an Irish journalist who writes about mixed martial arts and who covered the rise of Conor McGregor (and indeed was signed up to be McGregor’s biographer).
The podcast is not really about the sport - it’s about being a journalist in a pandemic-hit year, losing everything and grimly hanging on until things turned around again.
He’s one of the warmest, funniest and most genuine people I know, and his partner Elaine is equally brilliant - two young people trying to make a life for themselves that should be so much easier, but it isn’t always.
Next week’s podcast is already recorded, and I might be biased but I think it’s one of the best interviews I’ve done - it’s nothing to do with me and all to do with the person I spoke to. Hit the subscribe button for the “Our Man In Stockholm” podcast on Spotify, SoundCloud or wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you don’t miss it.
The Week Ahead
I don’t know what got into me, but I somehow thought that I would have a few weeks’ holiday this summer, but that is now unlikely to be happening. The Euros finishes on July 11, I travel to Tokyo for the Olympics on July 19 and in the meantime there’s a bunch of tests to be done, so I can’t do much or go anywhere.
We have our little summer cottage that we are still renovating, and I popped down there for 24 hours to do some painting from Friday to Saturday. As I pulled up and got out and heard the birds singing, I felt the weight lift a little. My breathing got a little easier and I relaxed just a bit.
Right now I’m looking forward to the Olympics, even if it promises to be a very restricted affair with quarantine all over the place. It’s a privilege to know that the little cottage will be waiting for me when I get back, and maybe then I’ll get to breathe a little easier again.
Have a great week, wherever you may be in the world.