In Times of Petrol Bombs and Patriotism
All everyone keeps talking about is ... You guessed it.
“You never find an Englishman among the underdogs,” wrote Evelyn Waugh, “except in England, of course.”
My journey out of Ukraine, through Bukarest with a divorce thrown in, and finally, after 33 long days, to Turnington Wells in Kent, is now complete. That is all the account I will give here. At a time of great upheaval, we all join in to make some of our own.
I am astonished to report that the mad English are still at it. They still drive at the wrong side of the road. They still offer me distances in miles. And they still struggle to understand just how they are supposed to move about, having sawed off their own limbs to flee that ever-closer Union. Did I only imagine, being walked through the City of London the other day, that there are far more British flags everywhere – and far more patriotic noise in advertisement and campaign posters – than there used to be? Who knows. My eyes follow my mind, I’m afraid.
A new Prime Minister has been appointed by a new King. Not even the Economist seems happy, other than for having got rid of the last one and the one before that. Mr Sunak’s unique allure seems to be that he is neither a scoundrel nor an idiot. He is, then, a candidate of absent intolerables. The same goes for his opponent across the benches. The non-Truss against the non-Corbyn: yes, the next general election will be a thrilling affair, but no thanks to the leaders of the two major political parties.
The Bank of England has just raised the interest rates by 0.75 percentage points, the biggest increase since 1989, to 3 percent. The country is in a recession that apparently will last for a good while: not until the summer of 2024 will things, in the Banks projection, start to look up. This comes of course amid the cost-of-living crisis, including rising energy prices, that has already started to effect all households.
What does it all mean for the new Prime Minister? Your guess is as good as mine, because all everyone keeps talking about is … immigration. Former Home Secretary Priti Patel promised to “fix it”, as did the other day her successor at the post, the scandal-ridden Suella Braverman (who was fired by Liz Truss, but then reinstated by Mr Sunak as a token of goodwill towards the party’s hard right). It was never entirely clear to me in what way immigration to Britain was broken in the first place, but evidently it is.
The debate as such, I’ll admit, could do with some repairing. Less than a week ago, a lunatic attacked a refugee camp in Dover with petrol bombs, before killing himself – this by tying a rope around his neck, attaching the other end to his car and then driving off. In normal times, such incident would be discussed in dire terms by politicians from left to right. But no such luck. The times, as we all know, are fucked.
Waugh was right, you know. Only in England dwell the English underdogs. But I wonder if he knew they would one day start throwing home-made bombs at people, just for someone to hear them bark.
I think it was a pity that you felt it necessary to leave Ukraine. I have so much enjoyed reading your updates.
So what are your plans now? Will you continue to cover Ukraine but from UK instead?