All In the Same Boat?

          Yet again, a copy of Socialist Worker lies unread on our coffee table. It has been there for a week, since it was bought at the last protest demonstration – the impromptu one staged in outrage over the Government’s proposal to prioritise the protection of statues over the safety of actual people, in this case female victims of male violence – yet still I have managed only to flick through the headlines. This happens every time: I buy the paper because I am sympathetic to its cause but am put off reading it by its prolific use of vehement adjectives and the generally strident tone of its journalism, reminiscent of revolutionary-era Russia. It’s a style that may go down well with acolytes but is unlikely to win over converts: stridency is not persuasive. Besides, when it comes to political change, old-fashioned revolution is no longer the accepted English way.

          It was not always thus, as Glenda Jackson reminds us in the BBC’s Elizabeth R, showing again on this, the 50^th anniversary of its first airing. Back in the rough-and-tumble of Tudor politics, power could change hands only through violence, whereas nowadays we can vote for change – in theory, at least, for the dopamine of liberty also delivers long-term side effects such as nonchalance, smugness and complacency. Once freed from tyranny, it is easily forgotten that the ongoing cost of maintaining that freedom is eternal vigilance, as may be deduced from the present government’s sometimes sneaky, sometimes blatant attempts to curtail our civil liberties.

          Yesterday, for example, the Home Secretary effectively pronounced it illegal to travel to British shores on a boat: it isn’t – yet – and in saying so, she has deliberately conflated the issues of immigration, asylum seeking and the alleged “criminal” behaviour of “gangs” that sell boats to would-be migrants. Unpicking her argument is not what I am about to do but, if I were, I might start at questioning the criminality of selling boats to people. And, if she is sincere in her concern that the boats on offer are inadequate or unsafe, she might like to consider setting up a Government-sponsored boat shop at Calais, where good quality boats would be available, at a competitive price, thereby practicing sound Tory capitalism while, at the same time, whipping the carpet from under the feet of the “criminal gangs” who currently hold the monopoly (and from under her own argument). This assumes, of course, that the French would allow us, as ex-Europeans, a licence to set up in business on their soil. If not, perhaps a swift and painless trade deal can be negotiated with them or, alternatively, they might like to take up the idea themselves.

         This was going through my head, yesterday, as I was laying prone in the dentist’s chair. It is just over a year ago that the covid outbreak caused my dentist, then in Manchester, abruptly to cancel my appointment for a repair job. At last, I have connected with a new practitioner here in Plymouth and resumed the treatment but, in the process, something seems to have changed. Whereas dentists’ surgeries always seemed busy, bustling places, with cheery staff trained to make you feel at ease and encourage you to buy merchandise, now they seem deserted and sinister, with an air of covert activity about them and staff who would really rather you didn’t come in at all but, if you must, can provide no comfort, no magazines, no merch and, definitely no toilet – unless it’s an “emergency”. However, in this case, having made it past security and into the surgery, the dentist himself was delightful: kindly, considerate, gentle, reassuring, professional, thorough – and an immigrant. Now that’s the way to win hearts and minds.