The hallmarks of genius - by Richard... Sunday, May 15, 2011

The hallmarks of genius - by Richard... Sunday, May 15, 2011

One cannot let pass without some comment the truly breathtaking piece by Peter Oborne in The Sunday Telegraph. But claiming that, "David Cameron has the makings of a truly great prime minister", then talking in terms of a "genuinely heroic status", one has to mark it only because it serves to illustrate the degree to which Oborne has become so completely enclosed in the cloying embrace of the bubble that he has totally lost his ability to think rationally.

Taken with the piece by the clever and sophisticated Tim Montgomerie, the pair of articles offer mute testimony to the thickness of the bubble walls which surround the Westminster village. It also marks a new nadir for a newspaper which has long since ceased to offer any worthwhile political comment.

What is genuinely interesting, though, is how extreme the perceptions have become. Oborne is lauding a man who is of such low calibre that he was unable to lead his party to victory in an election that should not have been possible to lose, and who has since lurched from blunder to blunder, without even addressing the most important issue of the moment – public debt.

But then Oborne has Cameron stand alongside Attlee and Thatcher, a pair whom he deems to be the only two great prime ministers since the Second World War. If one presumes that he is referring to Clem Attlee, the man who managed to turn his landslide victory of 1945 to such a degree of unpopularity by 1951 that even Winston Churchill became electable, then one certainly has to concede a degree of greatness.

The reputation of Thatcher, one suspects, will undergo much revision before it settles – if indeed it ever does – but to put Cameron alongside her under the cover of the word "greatness" would surely be thought a joke if it were not so evident that Mr Oborne was serious.

As to the extrusions of Mr Montgomerie, his real contribution is to the yardstick against which the decline of the newspaper in which he writes can be measured. Any journal which sought to offer sensible and intelligent political comment, would barely trust him with the task of delivering copies – and then only as long as all the houses were on the same street, with all their letter boxes at the same height.

Thus we have two worlds – the bubble and the real world, in which the former can deliver comment of such stunning vapidity that it could not be achieved accidentally. As a work of art, in its profound depth of detachment, it has the hallmarks of genius.

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Smile sweetly - by Richard...

I have searched my own soul long and hard on this, and I still do not know quite what I would have done if a social service apparatchik had stolen my children. It is a question, mercifully, most of us do not have to confront. Thus, we can be level, responsible and "adult" about it, old chap. We wouldn't want to get emotional about such things, would we? It just isn't done.

Thus, I can't even begin to appreciate the sort of hell that this couple are going through, the pair that have their nightmare described by Booker this week. They are better people than I, because if it had been me, I don't think Judge Bellamy would still be breathing.

But what makes this issue the embodiment of evil is that the very issues this idiot judge is now addressing were dealt with, six years ago. They were resolved properly and what should have been finally, but for the stupidity of this judge.

Of course, dealing with stupid people is one of the crosses we have to bear in life, but when stupid people also have very great power, that is especially hard to bear. But then, Bellamy is a judge, so we must not denigrate him. We must not point out that he is stupid.

We must be level, responsible, calm, "rational", even "adult" about him, old chap. And it simply doesn't do to threaten violence, or even imply that violence might be used, or should be used, or anything remotely like that. That is the reserve of the state. And that lives are being destroyed is not our concern. Bite your tongue, smile sweetly, and look the other way.

Then read Booker and weep, for the nation we once thought we knew and know no more.