Jaw dropping

It is not just the United States

In college, a guidance counselor noted he had never met anyone as cynical as me especially at the tender age of 17. (I hope I have mellowed) I do remain pretty unfazed by what I see humans do.

This is context for admitting my jaw dropped Monday morning to hear that the British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak appointed his predecessor several times removed (and we will examine that phrase) David Cameron as Foreign Minister.

WHAT? No, wait, I must have misheard. David….Cameron?

I previously thought Britain still had adults in charge, albeit fractous ones, but see they are joining us in the ‘you have got to be kidding prize’. I was sure we owned that one.

I know at least one, probably many more, reader of Actions Create Consequences disagrees with me on U.S. politics. I respect anyone’s right to choose any candidate or party as long as violence does not entail to impose one view over another. I truly oppose violence as heartily as I can to resolve political differences. Other than that, I accept that others have political preferences diverging from mine. I hope our goals converge but that is something I cannot nor should control. People need be involved in the country where they live so they are free to pursue whatever philosophical views they want. I am simply relieved people will engage with me on actions which create effects—thank you.

I see the far too common childlike actions in our politics as tragic, diversionary from addressing tough solutions, and inexplicable. Capitol Hill yesterday, with both a shoving match in the House hallways and a proposed fight in a Senate hearing, is a case in point. This is as we are within four days of the government shutting down, two active conflicts around the world where our support matters greatly, spikes in anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim hate crimes/speech, and purported concerns about countless other issues which were less important than two members of the same political party (including the former Speaker??) shoving and name calling in plain sight. A Senator arise from his seat during a hearing to take on the union member testifying before the committee for a fight as if that were normal. These are not serious actions, friends, but performances for the never-ending reality show millions thrive on these days. I increasingly find it wearying to accept these actions by our elected officials.

These are our elected leaders but I guess I understand they are performing to keep their base entertained, thus engaged??? I have no idea but suppose I see it in a convoluted way.

But, in Westminster, what on earth is Rishi Sunak thinking? I ask my British readers to indulge me here (better answer me to put me out of misery) as I don’t mean to insult a country I visit frequently and love a great deal. But, David Cameron? SERIOUSLY?

Can we please rewind the tape?

The British Conservative Party has governed Britain for much of the past forty-four years, with the Blair-Brown interlude of 1997-2010 an exception. Whatever one thought of Margaret Thatcher, she was iron fisted in policy disputes with the unions, the Argies in 1982, and Saddam Hussein invading Kuwait in August 1990 when she pushed President George H.W. Bush not to ‘wobble’. Her premiership was unique in so many ways but could hardly have been more serious, dignified, and policy driven. Her successor, after she ruled between 1979 and 1990, John Major wasn’t as dominating but did still serve in the highest position in British government for seven years in a period of great change around our world.

David Cameron won the Prime Ministership from the Labourites in 2010, resulting in a peculiar shared arrangement with the British Liberal Democratic Party until Cameron ousted the Lib Dem leader five years later. Cameron clearly led the Tories through the clean up from the global financial crisis and during the 2012 London Olympic games. He introduced major health care reform from which Britain is still recovering, and was in charge as his country assumed a closer relationship wtih a more confident People’s Republic of China. He was not always popular (especially with massive budget cuts which are now still relevant and devastating) or collaborative but he seemed to have a solid goal.

Each thorny issue has its detractors and supporters but Cameron will forever remain the Prime Minister who offered voters the choice of whether to stay in the European Union or return to an isolated status within Europe. Britain always had aloof ties with the EU, not joining the 1950s organisation until 1974 but I can testify that the Britain I left as a student in 1980 was fundamentally different, utterly so, by the time he suggested a referendum to allow British citizens to answer those who found Brussels too remote to serve their interests. Britain benefitted from the EU link unquestionably, even if nationalist pride suffered. But pride is fudgy here.

By all indications, Cameron flippantly assumed there was no danger for EU membership in holding the vote. He underestimated ‘Leave’ advocate Nigel Farage and overestimated the ability to explain the danger. He certainly had never served in the U.S. Pentagon where the modus operandi is never, ever, ever ask a question unless you are sure you know the answer. If he thought he knew the answer, he needed double check his assumptions, then recheck them.

The ‘Leave vote’ won narrowly in a volatile contest in 2016. The lead up to the election was violent with a ‘Remain’ M.P. Jo Cox assassinated the week preceding the vote, although the cause for that event may have been something else. Political parties and component regions of Britain split dramatically. Others of you might disagree but it strikes me as collossal a mistake as Neville Chamberlain’s ‘peace in our times’ for the United Kingdom, although not as tragic as the horror resulting from several single miscalculations leading to World War I. Cameron resigned, of course, as the U.K. parliamentary system still has accountability for actions more responsive than the election process in a republic.

Cameron bounced around in the private sector, made oodles of money by many accounts, and managed to irritate many people on many issues. He largely was unseen by most of the public post-2016.

The Tories, on the other hand, have been in constant chaos. Theresa May became PM as the nation struggled to recognise the implications (actions create consequences, people) of BREXIT following the Leave Vote. She also had to confront the reality of a Trump government in Washington sending completely contradictory messages about its relationship with Britain.

May unhappily surrender No. 10 to Boris Johnson, a clownish figure from Cameron’s crowd at Oxford, in 2019. BoJo never met a camera he did not pose for nor a controversy he would not embrace, again replicating Donald Trump’s unconventional political style to a striking degree. He was in power during the pandemic but lived by his own rules rather than those Her Majesty’s government strictly forced on citizens across the Isles. Johnson also was in charge as the sun set on Britain’s EU membership as Brexit fell on 31 January 2020. Johnson’s government was as chaotic as so much of his life, bleeding Tory support by the summer of 2022. In typical style, he continuing angling for survival for months before Liz Truss assumed Downing Street in early September, two days before Queen Elizabeth II died.

If Truss’s timing wasn’t bad, her forty days in office were downright disastrous. She ultimately lost Conservatives’ confidence by October, followed into leading the government by Rishi Sunak who, last time I checked, still serves as Prime Minister. But, his Party clings to power only because of Labour and the exhaustion it hath wrought.

It’s a tribute to how utterly broken the British Labour Party was under Jeremy Corbyn, the Opposition Leader between 2015 and 2020. Labour suffered through scandal over Corbyn’s anti-Semitism and the effects of the leader’s positions on renationalising utilities and engaging less militarily overseas. Labour’s lot was so low when Sir Keir Starmer, a more traditionalist barrister, assumed the mantle of Opposition Leader that they were unable to defeat the Tories in the 2021 general election.

The next general election must occur by 2025 but the Tories are deeply hated in Britain today. I asked a friend in Birmingham months ago how Sunak survives. She said the Labour is so far ahead but no election must occur unless either Sunak loses support or we reach 2025. Conservatives continue battling unions across the country, Sunak receives vitriolic criticisms from erstwhile cabinet ministers such as the recently fired Suella Braverman (who hopes to succeed him but has her own problems over the politice and Palestinians), and the Chancellor of the Exchequer discusses never-ending budget challenges—of a declining power with overseas aspirations. Sunak (and by extension the new Foreign Minister Cameron) hope to continue London’s splendid role in the AUKUS triumverate with Washington and Canberra but I frankly cannot understand the source for the phenomenal money this submarine project will cost all three governments.

Britain is still sorting through the BREXIT bombshell. So many aspects of British life had become integrated with those on the continent but now require renegotiation across the board. The effects on the cost of living, the foodstuffs available to consumers, travel, and the panoply of regulatory steps for now less-than-free trade are mindboggling. And David Cameron was the guy who thought a referendum was the right idea. The Foreign Minister is important for these discussions now—oops.

Please do not misunderstand: if 51.9% of the people of Britain voted happily and unabashedly for BREXIT, then Britain ought to have gone. I would see this as beneficial for the country nor making sense but not that big a deal as it’s none of my business except as an Anglophone. Nations make choices that strike me as odd all of the time. But the Leave Vote, by many indicators, ocurred as far too few people bothered to examine the probable consequences. Nationalism is a peculiar idea in today’s world. So much of the world participates via bigger blocks of states because those entities are more cost effective and fit with the idea of establishing economic units with complementarity at work. This means that Austria’s beer industry is better (hypothetically) than Sweden’s so cars are made in Sweden but beer in Austria. Britain now has to do it all and that won’t go well nor cheaply. Econ 101 makes this a bad deal even if Brits are no longer beholden to the Brussels’ bureaucrats.

David Cameron’s run as Foreign Minister may be quite brief. Some Tories are as shocked as I am but their views matter. It is a peculiar choice in any manner because his was hardly the most effective foreign policy when he was PM. His own credentials, and the doubts his behaviours engender, fuel questions about why he was chosen as the Tories are clinging to power. What was Sunak’s motivation? This matters to us because we do still hold the ties to Britan as important even if they are not our unique partners overseas as we once portrayed them.

I know this is an educated crowd of readers so I look forward to your thoughts. Please do give us those thoughts. Also, thank for your reading this column. Please consider a paid subscription if it’s of value to you. Feel free to circulate to others who might enjoy it.

Today’s pictures mark the longest colour as a sunrise that I recall, followed by the afternoon views.

Be well and safe. FIN