I woke up with EM Forster on my mind this morning, probably as a reaction to yesterday's furore over the 42 Days Detention bill. He once wrote, in a passage that to most Conservatives probably serves to illustrate everything they dislike about the man:
I hate the idea of causes, and if I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.
Change "friend" to "party". The Editorial yesterday is a manifestation of the assertion that Forster was wrong. If forced to choose to do what is right for your party or your country, anyone decent would choose the latter over the former.
Change "my country" to "the Conservative Home community", though, and the quotation is an illustration of the pain that lots of CH friends felt yesterday, and (I think) gets closer to an illustration of what Forster was really on about. I thought Tim was wrong (about 42 days). But to attack him personally, as though he was motivated by an egotistical desire to use Conservative Home as a vehicle for ambition that sees the Conservative Party as a problem to be overcome, as many comments to the Editorial implied - this would be laughable, if it weren't clear how much pain it caused him.
If nothing else, yesterday's discussion might serve to remind us - all of us - that words are real things in the Universe. They have impact beyond the intent of the speaker. Too much blog-posting is anonymous spite, and too many blog writers (that is, people who dare to write down what it is that they believe, in their own name) are attacked with a venom unimaginable were the interaction to take place face to face. Forster was neither completely right nor completely wrong in his musing about friend-or-country. He was completely and utterly right in his assertion that we must Only Connect. What you say and how you say it will affect those who read it, sometimes intellectually, sometimes psychologically, sometimes almost physically. As a speaker on Thought for the Day might say: and isn't there a lesson there, for all of us?
The strain of caring about a big issue has overcome me. Keep reading if you want an inconsequential report of Village Life from Hackney. Not a lot of politics in it, I promise.
Monday evening
So, I'm sat at a trestle table outside The Cat and Mutton, watching the sun-kissed burghers of London Fields wander by, feeling guilty about my glass of cold white wine (well done, Dawn Primarolo!), listening to the bubbles of conversation that burst on my ear. At the next table sits a very attractive young woman, frizzy mid-length hair, freckles on her coffee shoulders, giggling conspiratorially with the superskinny bloke who accompanies her. Even Hackney looks beautiful in the sunshine. All is good, all is good.
Mad Jane splats past. Indeterminately aged between twenty-five and fifty, brutally aged by a lifetime of neglect, her own neglect of self and nearly everyone else's of her. Her arrival brings the split-second decision-making that tells you who you are: eyes down to The Standard? Pretend you've seen nobody? (Ah, how Freudian: of course you've seen "nobody".) Or eyes up to meet her skewed grimace of a smile? And the risk of a never-ending "conversation" about f*** all, endless gyrations of anti-syntactical gibberish, that, while garbled, is easily translatable: I'm lonely, oh I'm so, so lonely.
I'm a coward, a tired coward, a justifiably tired coward, but a coward nevertheless. The gap between catching sight of Jane and deciding how to respond – no longer than a second, spent trying to justify my cowardly selfishness – oh bloody hell, but why me, but I had such a rotten day, all I wanted was to chill out for an hour, oh God she's seen my drink, oh bloody hell – is enough for her to pick on another target: the young woman next to me.
'Ere! You'se famous, you'se that, you, I know you, you're that woman, I was telling 'em over there, you'se that woman, you'se off the telly! The last phrase uttered triumphantly – it is, of course, a trump card. If someone's "off the telly", how on earth could they disdain to be tugged at by their public? Naturally, the young woman's not off the telly, but how insightful, I thought, of Jane, to pick on the defining characteristic of our culture, the one which provides carte blanche to begin a conversation with the non-stranger stranger. I allow myself a smile at Jane's demonstration of savant-like –
Yes, I am! How clever of you to remember! I was in the first series of Big Brother! Fancy you remembering that.
I can't help it, I have to look. Jane is beside herself with glee, and starts shouting Can I have you autograph then, what you doing now, oh I told them I knew you – almost normal, apart from the volume. The young woman readily agrees to an autograph. The hunt is on for a pen. Thank God I don't have a pen. The barman arrives (initially to move Jane on, I guess) and provides a pen. Thank God someone's got a pen. We learn that since Big Brother, the young woman's just been doing "bits and pieces". Her poise never leaves her, she is truly impressive as she handsomely asks Jane about herself, demonstrating an interest in Jane's provenance and in her timetable for the day, with every question providing ammunition to preserve poor Jane's oh-so-fragile sense of worth, helping shore up this identity that teeters on the brink of disintegration, and she does it with a charm, an easy charm, a charm which must have flagged itself to Big Brother's producers way back in the day (when decency wasn't the shortest route to obscurity), and I'm touched, I'm humbled, I wonder Is this how people feel when the Queen chats to them at Garden Parties? and Why can't I do that? and What a truly beautiful woman and Look at Jane's face. Because it's wreathed in smiles. She's not fifty, I see clearly, she's still young.
Jane suddenly shambles off, remembering she has to catch a bus. I smile shyly at the young woman and tell her how impressive she was. She shrugs. All in a day's? All in a day's, she agrees.
Well, and how many strands here to be worked into a piece about politics. The maltreatment of the mentally ill. The lengths we go to avoid the human contact we know we should offer. The startling power of celebrity, no matter how derided or devalued, to cast some sunshine into the darkest corner. The misplay of expectation and experience which is epiphany. And of course, how beautiful Hackney looks in the sunshine. All is good, all is good.
