25-10-2009, 02:33 PM
I can’t stress enough how routine is the creation by “the other level of government” – in Peter Shore’s felicitous phrase – of straw men (and women – look at Palin), pseudo-oppositions etc. These projects range from the utterly catastrophic (Hitler) to the humorous (Noam Chomsky, who’s so painfully unconvincing as to invite laughter), from the creation of intellectual secret policemen (the latter) to fully fledged exterminatory monsters (the former). Only very occasionally do we get a glimpse in public prints of this process at work, both overseas and domestically. Here’s one such rare example:
Smallweed’s column, untitled, The Guardian, Saturday, 22 June 1996, p.24:
How prophetic and accurate this piece proved, though I can’t help observing that four days later, the FO succeeded in placing a long, characteristically childish piece from one John Redwood in the pages of …The Guardian (“The Crowning Glory,” 26 June 1996, p.19).
Smallweed’s column, untitled, The Guardian, Saturday, 22 June 1996, p.24:
Quote:By way of contrast, morale has never been higher round at the offices of Conservative 2000, John Redwood’s mildly anti-European brains trust, although we detect the hand of the Foreign Office in the recent events that have helped buoy the Vulcans. All those ambassadors and emissaries lining up to pay their respects – Argentina has called, Australia and France are expected – look suspiciously like part of that classic FO shuffle known as building up a moderate, acceptable version of the enemy. There was the SDLP in Northern Ireland and there was, famously, Bishop Abel Muzorewa, PM of Rhodesia’s transitional government and Britain’s great black anti-Marxist hope. In News From Nowhere (Hamish Hamilton, 1986), David Caute’s hero Richard Stern covers the Zimbabwe elections in early 1980 for the Times. His bosses are assured that Stern’s despatches are off track, tipping Robert Mugabe as election favourite; “the bishop” is the main man. The Times resolves to sack Stern. At last glance, RM was still i/c in Zim, and the bishop, presumably, has returned to bishoping. Not an encouraging long-term career outlook for JR.
How prophetic and accurate this piece proved, though I can’t help observing that four days later, the FO succeeded in placing a long, characteristically childish piece from one John Redwood in the pages of …The Guardian (“The Crowning Glory,” 26 June 1996, p.19).