The Case for a Liberal Empire? Niall Ferguson’s “Colossus”

Provocative.

Let’s be honest. To an Irishman, the word “Empire” is up there with “Paedophile”. We’re genetically hardwired to rail up against imperialism, and don’t even get us started on the British Empire unless you want a load of smashed Guinness bottles and broken pub furniture. It was with this mindset that I approched Niall Ferguson’s 2004 bestseller “Colossus: The rise and fall of the American Empire”.

Ferguson is Scottish, a Harvard professor and had given the left a good sandpapering with his previous (And very readable) book “Empire”, where he sets out the case that the British Empire did more good than harm. So it’s fair to say that he has a firm opinion on the issue, and isn’t afraid to show it.

“Colossus” sets out a certain argument, which is this:

” Unlike the majority of European writers who have written on this subject, I am fundamentally in favour of Empire. Indeed, I believe that empire is more necessary in the 21st century than ever before.” 

Put that in your pipe and smoke it! Actually, Ferguson isn’t some sort of old Tory golf club bore harking back to an imaginary golden age. Instead, he makes a compelling case that in a world where our technology allows for disease and terrorism to travel rapidly, many of the old systems of sovreign states just cannot respond adequately to these threats. He points out that the mismanagement of one country can effect another, maybe even geographically distant (Afghanistan as an Al Quaeda staging post for 9/11, for example.) and that the rest of the responsible global community has a right to act both in its own defence but also the defence of the people in those failed or rogue states.

” What is required is an agency capable of intervening in the affairs of such states (Where the writ of the International Community does not run.) to contain epidemics, depose tyrants, end local wars and eradicate terrorist organisations.”   Sounds like a job for Jack Bauer, if you ask me.

One of his core points is that the standard argument of the left, that this is all about building a neocon run American Empire is not actually true. Ferguson, who has advised John McCain on foriegn policy, regards this as a great failure in that if America was willing to take up that role, and be willing to pay the “Blood and treasure” to stay in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places for 100 years or however long it took them to bring them around to western liberal values, the world would be a better place. Sadly, in his view, ordinary Americans, contrary to what the rest of the world thinks, absolutely balk at the idea of running the planet.  

It’s a book guarnteed to start a fight at a respectable liberal dinner party, but is thoughtfully put together and well worth the read.

A book I really enjoyed: Dark Horse.

Thoughtful and entertaining.

As I’ve written previously on the blog, I’ve a taste for second-hand political fiction or thrillers from the 1960s and 1970s. I recently read “Dark Horse” by Fletcher Knebel, who was a well-known novelist of the time (He wrote the bestseller “Seven Days in May”, which became an excellent movie starring Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas).

The novel is set weeks before a US presidential election, where the Republican nominee dies suddenly. Party bigwigs meet to anoint a new candidate, and select a minor transportation official from New Jersey, Eddie Quinn, as a placeholder candidate. Quinn then proceeds to cause a political sensation by talking honestly.

It’s an enjoyable tale, but what really is interesting is the way Knebel, who was also a political correspondent, paints a picture of a Republican party which although to the right of centre, was light years from the party it has become today.

On top of that, the book goes into detail on the political issues of the day and Quinn’s left-of-field solutions to them, including a fascinating suggestion to require prisoner officers to secretly spend time every year in another prison as a prisoner, on the basis that they’d treat prisoners better if they knew that some of them could be POs themselves.

It is, of course, dated, but that’s part of its appeal. This is politics before the marketing consultants took over, and all the more fun for it.

Great books: Things can only get better.

I can’t say enough about this book!

If you ever spent any time in British or Irish politics at branch and street level, you’ll love “Things can only get better” by John O’Farrell. In fact, it is, along with Joe Klein’s “Politics Lost” and Mark Steel’s “Reasons to be cheerful”, one of my all time favourite political books.

Managing to be thoughtful, touching and laugh out loud funny, O’Farrell describes his time in Labour, starting out as a young idealistic left wing activist in 1979, and ending up a middle class middle aged Blairite on the eve of Labour’s 1997 landslide. He tells of how the Labour left, with the best of intentions, put ideological purity ahead of winning support in the country, and of how even left wingers like him came around to the fact that all political activists come to realise: That you have to change to suit the voters, not the other way around. But what really makes the book so enjoyable are the stories of canvassing and branch meetings which can translate to any party.

Featured is the branch meeting where you’re terrified that a new member will meet the resident nutcase and leg it, never to be seen again, or the fact that the committee writes to the same 100 members only to get the same six committee members at the next meeting, or the member who is obsessed with a single issue which they shoehorn into every debate. They’re all here, and they’re all familiar to hacks from wherever on the political spectrum you come from. Great fun. 

Books you should read: The Dying Light.

Both exciting and disturbing in equal measure.

“The Dying Light” by Observer journalist Henry Porter is terrifying because it is so humdrum in its approach to the creation of a very modern form of tyranny. The story follows a young British lawyer (And former SIS operative) who is investigating the death of a friend and former head of the Joint Intelligence Committee. Downing Street doesn’t like that, and deploys the subtle but suffocating tools of the  state against her and her allies.

What is genuinely troubling about the book is its believability, and how the “If you have nothing to hide, you’ve nothing to fear.”  argument has been used to equip the state with a frightening array of powers open to misuse by unprincipled people in power, or worse still, people who think they know what’s best for the rest of us. The scariest thing of all is that the arguments made by the chief baddy in the book are the exact same arguments I’ve heard a well-meaning political aspirant make to me about the need for the Irish government to have these powers!

Also worth noting is the difference between the role of the British Parliament in the book, and how the Oireachtas would respond to the same challenges. Suffice to say it’s hard to see the Dail acting as a bulwark of individual freedom.

A lot of the powers used by the government in the book are already in law in the UK. Just look up the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 which is practically a police-state-in-a-box.

I found “The Dying Light” to be pretty much unputdownable. 

A book worth reading: The Last Sherlock Holmes Story

Amongst other things, I’m a big Sherlock Holmes fan, and just happened to come across this in Hodge Figgis. I then promptly went to buy it as an audiobook off audible.co.uk, which says an awful lot about the future of book stores in high rent locations.

It’s a good thriller written by the late Michael Dibdin (who went on to write the Aurelio Zen crime novels) about Holmes investigating the Jack the Ripper killings, and is particularly of relevence to Sherlock Holmes fans who will get the references to the original stories, etc. In fact, given the twists and revelations in it, and threading very carefully so as to avoid spoilers, I’d say it’s a must-read for Sherlockians (yes, there’s a word for us). As it was published in 1978, however, I suspect I’m coming somewhat late to the party.

The BBC audio version here is read by Robert Glenister, who plays “Ash” in BBC’s “Hustle” TV series. There’s a certain snootiness about audiobooks for some reason, as if it’s a lazy way of enjoying a book. I travel a lot with work, and whether it’s a CD in the car or downloading onto my iPod and listening on my treadmill, it’s an excellent way of utilising time to enjoy books that I otherwise would not have time to read.

A good book worth reading: Alpha Dogs

Another one for the political junkies, “Alpha Dogs” details the rise and fall of Sawyer-Miller, one of the first political consultancy firms, and a firm that played a major role in bringing down both Marcos and Pinochet. Full of little nuggets of political wisdom, including their polling which told Listerine that as their consumers were the sort of people who obey instructions on products, they could increase their sales of Listerine by 25%, by increasing the cap size by 25%. They also proved, in getting Boston Mayor Kevin White reelected in the 1970s, that voters will vote for a candidate they don’t actually like if they can be convinced that he is a) competant, and b) will use competancy to pursue the interests of people like them.

It also highlighted for me how different Irish politics is from most other western countries, in that whilst politics is dominated by professional politicians everywhere, it is remarkable how in Ireland political issues play such a minor role in elections, something Frank Luntz talked about when he was in Ireland. Irish politicians are far more sophisticated in knowing what makes their constituents tick than any pollster can tell them, yet that knowledge seems to paralyse them into policy inactivity. It isn’t that issues like taxes or spending or immigration don’t exist in Ireland, it’s that an entire political class has managed to pull off the most brilliant political three card trick ever, and convinced voters voting to elect members of a national parliament that those issues have nothing to do with them!

A very entertaining read, and the sort of book that political anoraks will need to read with a pen in one hand for marking passages. Or is that just me?    

Good books worth reading: Afterlight

Disturbing in its credibility.

“Afterlight” by Alex Scarrow is the sequel to the deeply troubling “Last Light” (Which I reviewed here) although it should be stressed that it isn’t really necessary to have to read “Last Light” to understand or enjoy the sequel. I say deeply troubling, but that probably says more about how disturbing I find the concept of total social breakdown.

The novel tells the story of a group of  survivors of the complete collapse of civilisation following the sudden and terminal interruption of the global oil supply. Where Scarrow really puts the frighteners in is in his description of how fragile western society is, and how many things (clean water, heat, light, law and order) we take for granted. In particular, the picture he paints of gangs of roaming teenage gangs raping and murdering without remorse, or of religion being used as a means of manipulating desperate mobs of ordinary people is quite thought provoking because it rings true. Certain images, like those of families who choose to collectively commit suicide with sleeping tablets, huddled together in beds, stayed with me well after I finished the novel. As I said, Scarrow delivers because the world he creates has upsetting credibility.

It’s an absolute page-turner. I’m a leisurely enough reader, but I finished this in two days. I sincerely hope he writes another sequel, because the story of recovery is just as interesting as the initial story of collapse.

Good books worth reading: The Prime Ministers who never were.

Good fun!

It’s no secret that I’m a lover of counterfactual/alternative history, and so a book like this gets snapped up by me. “The Prime Ministers who never were” by Francis Beckett is very much for the British politics junkie, as some of the “What ifs” are a bit obscure to a modern audience. Having said that, it’s great fun, and one or two of the short pieces, about, for example, Oswald Mosley leading Labour to victory in 1945 and creating a United States of Europe, or Norman Tebbit arranging the assassination of the IRA Army Council (including a current member of the Dail) is entertaining. It’s also, in its format, very much a dipper into rather than a read from start to end.

Of course, it got me thinking abaout Irish politics. Are there stories to be told about Michael Collins, and or maybe Sean Lemass becoming Taoiseach earlier (Something I have speculated on here) or what if George Colley had defeated Haughey in 1979? How radically different would Irish history have been then?

One final point about the book’s publishers, Biteback, who are creating for themselves a superb niche in putting out political without being boring books. A very savvy operation indeed.

Great DVDs/Books you should have: A Very British Coup.

Excellent drama.

” A Very British Coup”, is both a book and a television series, now available on DVD, and is the granddaddy of great British political drama. The book, by Labour MP Chris Mullin, of Birmingham Six fame, is a very lively, quite short but enjoyable read. Written in 1981, what’s fascinating about it is how radically the political landscape has changed, in that the politics and issues raised in the novel are almost quaint now, not as much in their relevency (Who runs the country, and indeed society?) but in the fact that they are no longer debated in mainstream British politics.

The basic story, in both the book and the television series is the tale of how Harry Perkins, a left wing former miner, leads the Labour Party to victory on an avowedly hard left manifesto. He then finds that winning the election was actually the relatively less stressful bit, as the establishment, the press barons, the US, the EEC and NATO all move against him, in subtle and not so subtle ways

The Television series, made in 1988, stars Irish actor Ray McAnally as Perkins, and is an absolute treat, so much so that some thieving bastard stole it from my house.

This is all back in the day when political drama involved overweight men making hard decisions, not sleekly racing down corridors in pedi-conferences. Good article by Chris Mullin here in the Guardian (Where else?) about the context of the book.

An Interesting Audiobook: Tony Blair, A Journey

Blair. In his own words. Literally.

I’m currently listening to Tony Blair narrate his autobiography “A Journey“. It’s interesting, all the more because I recently finished Robert Harris’s “The Ghost”, which tells the fictional account of a man ghost-writing the autobiography of  controversial former British Prime Minister. It hasn’t reached Iraq yet, but already I’m fascinated by how he describes how he came to hold the political values that he holds, and it got me thinking about how I don’t ever recall an Irish politician putting such an effort into explaining how he arrived at his or her values. Sure, there have been Irish political autobiographies, but they tend to arrive at a cookie cutter “which is why I believe that every child should have an opportunity”  stance that is so inoffensive as to be meaningless.

That’s always been the interesting thing to me about Blair, the fact that people forget. He not only chose a policy that was unpopular, but he knew it was unpopular, yet stuck with it. Other leaders, like Chirac and Schroeder, decided to oppose the policy from the beginning, and their countries did not really suffer from it as a result, in terms of their relationship with the United States. Blair could easily have said to Bush that Britain would not participate in Iraq for logistical reasons (which were quite valid) and instead focussed on Afganistan. But he didn’t, because he believed, wrongly as it turned out, that it was the right policy. Blair did what we always say we want politicians to do: lead from conviction. The sad part is when they get it so wrong.

Listening to him tell his story in his own words is quite insightful, in its own way, in that you are reminded what a good communicator he was, probably the greatest British political communicator of the late 20th Century, even more than Thatcher. People forget: There was a time when many people actually liked Tony Blair, whereas they respected Thatcher but few actually liked her.

Having said that, I think quite a few people still like Blair. Only these days we keep it to ourselves, posting it on obscure political blogs, etc.