Quiet Time

Since my exams ended, Andrew and I have been enjoying quiet time.

For the last two weeks, I have been home by myself on weekdays. I have used that time to read and perform household chores, relieving Andrew of responsibilities and allowing both of us to enjoy our evenings and weekends.

We caught a ballet performance last weekend. This weekend we suffered through a tired production of Noel Coward’s “Blithe Spirit”. Next weekend we will travel to Cleveland to hear the Cleveland Orchestra and to visit the Cleveland Museum Of Art.

Next week I will begin my summer job.

A year from now, we will be back home.

Marching

The Seventh Regiment marching on Fifth Avenue on November 28, 1916.

America was to enter the war on April 6, 1917.

And This Is Being Kind . . .

At the end, the manner of his parting spoke volumes about this most paradoxical of men. For Gordon Brown was a man of massive contradictions: a Christian idealist who was also a political street fighter capable of the most venal behavior.

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This ugly side of Gordon Brown's character has been an open secret at Westminster for years.

Brown bore grudges, and sustained them across decades. He brooded. Driven half-mad by ambition, he would automatically seek to destroy anyone he viewed, however remotely, as a rival.

And some of the means he used demeaned both him and the office he held.

Indeed, Gordon Brown tolerated in his inner circle some of the nastiest political operators in recent Westminster history.

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It is wholly in character that over the past few days Gordon Brown has been unable to utter a single generous word about David Cameron's electoral achievement last Thursday, or publicly acknowledge that he himself has been defeated.

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Thirteen years ago, when Brown arrived at the Treasury [as Chancellor Of The Exchequer], government spending accounted for 37 per cent of the gross national product. This year, it will account for a massive 52 per cent: a transfer of wealth and power from the private sector to central government that is unprecedented in peacetime.

For Brown the socialist, that may be a huge achievement. Ultimately, however, he did great damage to the British economy, creating a vast and debilitating client state of public sector workers, and a terrifying culture of welfare dependency among the feckless and unemployed.

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The most lethal charge against Gordon Brown is that at no point did he set aside money to guard Britain against the inevitable economic downturn—meaning that the nation was caught unawares when recession finally struck in 2007.

He genuinely seemed to believe that Britain's relative prosperity under his Chancellorship was down entirely to his shrewd management. Repeatedly he would claim the sole personal credit for the powerful performance of this economy, and he will long be ridiculed for his claim to have abolished boom and bust.

But the moment when the downturn came, Prime Minister Brown refused—as always—to accept any of the blame, saying that international financial markets alone were at fault.

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The great tragedy for Brown is that, despite a lifelong ambition for the top job, he was not a natural leader, and never quite up to being Prime Minister.


Peter Oborne
11 May 2010

Two-Thirds Through

I am now two-thirds completed with law school.

Second-year exams wrapped up last week, and I am free until the beginning of June, when I will start a summer job.

I think I will do some non-legal reading for the rest of the month of May. It will be welcome to take a break from casebooks and read from European history.

Andrew and I have been busy trying to organize our summer, attempting to find time for weekend trips to Oklahoma and Minnesota. As of today, it looks like we will spend Memorial Day Weekend in Cleveland, Independence Day Weekend in Oklahoma, and Labor Day Weekend in Minnesota.

Because of my summer job, there will be no summer vacation for us this year.

Trying To Suppress A Smile

Chin tucked in, lips tightly pressed together, trying to suppress a smile (and not very successfully).

My All-American guy.

Robbing Peter To Pay Paul

A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.

George Bernard Shaw

"Bear Yourselves As Huns Of Attila"

Kaiser Wilhelm inspecting his troops in 1914.

Dutiful And Attentive

My exams start in another ten days.

I am prepared. I have been dutiful and attentive all term.

For the last month, I have been studying and Andrew has been working. We have done little else, although we did attend a performance of Boston Ballet’s “Coppelia” last night.

Andrew and I will remain in Boston this summer. We were able to escape for six weeks last summer, but that will not be possible this year. We do not even know whether we shall be able to go to Minnesota for the first week of July, when Andrew’s family traditionally gathers for a week at the lake.

Nonetheless, we intend to make it through the summer somehow. Happily, this will be our only summer in Boston.

We have invited my sister and brother to visit us this summer, but neither has yet accepted our invitations. I suspect they will be in positions to make firm plans once their school terms are over.

It is possible my parents will make a trip East this summer, too.

Caution

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.

Thomas Jefferson

Dumdum Rounds

This World War I photograph of a wounded German soldier shows the horrifying effects of the expanding bullet (the “dumdum” bullet).

The expanding bullet, designed by the British in the 19th Century, was created so as to expand on impact, deliberately producing a much larger wound than standard bullets.

The British made extensive use of the expanding bullet in The Boer Wars, but international protests—led by Germany—resulted in a ban on expanding bullets under the terms of the The Hague Convention Of 1899.

Belgium, nevertheless, used the expanding bullet against Germany in 1914, justifying its use on the grounds that Germany, the aggressor, had attacked Belgium, a neutral state.

Belgium never publicly admitted to its use of dumdum rounds in 1914.

Germany’s attempts to create an international outcry over the issue, not surprisingly, fell on deaf ears.