Luke Upward: Atheist Style God
Within his favourite charity, Thinking Dogs For The Stupid, Luke Upward maintained a special section of Atheist Dogs For The Credulous. These were specially trained to bite Mormon missionaries and all other representatives of religious groups which leech on their adherents.
Upward’s atheism was described by his jealous rival Walter Downer as stylistic rather than principled, but in his case those adjectives were virtual synonyms. Like all atheists he admired the Book of Common Prayer and the King James Bible, but when briefly incarcerated in Salt Lake City he rashly began to skim the Book of Mormon. He hurled the volume at his gaolers, shouting “No God could
write this badly!” Having been expelled from three English public schools (for incidents later used in Lindsay Anderson’s cult classic film If) Upward had an expert knowledge of Hymns Ancient And Modern. When attending traditional Church of England services for social reasons, Upward enjoyed leading the congregation, and often the organist, in classic hymns in his expressive voice which his friend Ricky Rubato described as a Barrimanilotone. If he blundered into a happy-clappy church and was confronted by one of their soggy-white-bread hymns, he would do the same, with great fervour, only deliberately off-key.
In his own words, Luke Upward had no objection to religion in private between consenting adults. He asked religions to conduct themselves with good manners and good taste (he was secretly pleased
to bear the name of the best-written Gospel), and considered it vulgar and impertinent for any religion to evangelize or to tell anyone how to live. One Christian sect particularly annoyed him by preaching loudly and without warning in his local bus. Upward tried to retaliate by forming a chapter of atheist missionaries, to call on the sect’s headquarters with the wonderful news that there is no God and that no one has to read the Bible except for pleasure, but not even his loyal disciple Ted Level could be induced to support this enterprise.
Speaking of buses, Upward in his youth followed an unshakeable rule: “you must never been seen on a London bus with a three-figure number, other than the 137 between Peter Jones and Harrods.” In
those days, central London buses generally bore low numbers and high numbers were mostly confined to the suburbs. Upward would sometimes stand for hours in drenching rain rather than board a 159 and be suspected of journeying to Streatham. But Upward was never a snob. “I have nothing against Streatham,” he once told me. “Streatham is all very well in its place.”
In spite of his atheism, Luke Upward had friendships with clergy of many faiths who met his standards of style and deportment. He was particularly close to the Reverend Franklin Cense (and his wife Myrtle), whom he encountered as the vicar of Little Parvum. Not much had happened in Little Parvum since the plague years, although Ricky Rubato once performed there on Pensioners Night at the Pie and Gerbil, before he was engaged as accompanist to Beppo The Wonder Dog. Upward described it as “the village where time goes to sleep”.
Upward had bestowed his presence on Little Parvum to attend the wedding of one of his cricketing friends in the parish church of Saint Simon the Querulous (an early Christian martyr who complained about the poor changing facilities in the arena, the coarse sand on the combat floor, and, with his last breath, the grubby paws of the opposing lion.) With singular carelessness, this wedding had coincided with the Saturday of the Test match at Lords against Australia, then at a particularly gripping stage. The groom’s chums including Upward watched play for as long as possible on the flickering television screen in the Pie and Gerbil. They then listened to a sputtering transistor radio in the church yard as Henry Blofeld described an 82 bus on Test Match Special. Finally Upward heard the first strains of the Wedding March and led all the other chums into the church just ahead of the bride and her father. Fortunately the Reverend Franklin Cense was aware of the situation. He had arranged a relay of parishioners to put up the score on the hymn board at the end of each over: thus, Hymn 246 followed by Hymn 5 meant England 246 for 5 wickets. The vicar also obligingly preached an appropriate but minimalist sermon, in scarcely more time than an over by the great Dennis Lillie in which he had been snicked to the boundary (estimated 4 minutes for deliveries, 2 minutes for return of ball, further 4 minutes for epithets).
Upward was so taken with the Reverend Franklin Cense’s approach that he devised a poster for him. “This church offers you a MOMENT of PEACE, an HOUR of BEAUTY, a LIFETIME of HOPE, an ETERNITY of JOY.” Upward the atheist considered this a very decent stab at a USP for the Church of England, but he removed the poster when St Simon the Querulous fell into the hands of a happy-clappy.
After the cricketer’s wedding at St Simon the Querulous, Little Parvum, Luke Upward continued to stay in contact with its sporting vicar, the Revd Franklin Cense (and his wife Myrtle). He was
delighted when Cense was promoted Rural Dean of Welwyngood, and furious when he was passed over for the sudden vacancy for the Metropolitan at Amersham. Upward had several serious discussions with the Censes and explained to them why he was committed to atheism. “I want to play the cards life deals me without feeling that God might have stacked the deck,” he declared, as he dealt Franklin and Myrtle a flush apiece and himself a full house.
Persistent atheism did not prevent Luke Upward from being a popular visitor at the vicarage in Little Parvum during its occupation by the Revd Franklin Cense (and his wife Myrtle). They did tire,
ever so slightly, of Upward’s repeated phrase on departure: “I must be taking leave of my Censes.” Upward tried to make his visits coincide with the vicar’s whist drives. His performances at the tables, with his beautifully manicured fingers dealing his equally well manicured packs of cards, raised sufficient funds to restore the organ at St Simon the Querulous. Upward also managed discreetly to redistribute income from the wealthiest parishoners to those identified by the vicar as the neediest.
The Censes were nothing if not ecumenical and Upward was honoured to be asked to serve as there-is-no-godfather to their infant daughter. He persuaded them to name her Marigold, thus creating an appropriate Biblical trio of Marigold, Franklin Cense and Myrtle. In place of the usual boring silver mug, Upward gave her an anti-christening present of a rare and valuable miniature zither from his
collection, made by the Cornish master, Pixie Catto. In place of the usual vows on her behalf, Upward was asked to supply some wisdom which might be useful to her in later life. He thought hard and said “Marigold, if an American ever asks you to bet that you know the easternmost state in the United States, the answer is not Maine but Alaska, because Alaska contains the Aleutian islands which cross the 180-degree meridian into the eastern hemisphere and therefore contain the easternmost point in the United States.”
All the assembled Chases looked a shade disappointed by this advice, which seemed unduly contingent on Marigold’s meeting an American hustler with an atlas. England’s premier man-of-letters
reflected again for a few moments and came up with some excellent advice of much wider application. Drawing on his universally unfortunate career on the turf, he said “Marigold, never, ever, bet on a horse with four legs.”
In gratitude for years of hospitality at the vicarage in Little Parvum and later the rural deanery at Welwyngood, Upward allowed his host, the Very Reverend Franklin Cense to attempt to convert him to Anglican Christianity. He knew that the baptism of Britain’s pre-eminent atheist man of letters would be a serious boost for Cense’s career and assist his ambition to become the Metropolitan at Amersham. He promised to approach the subject with an open mind, although he warned his friend in a memorable “app” that “an open mind does not imply a vacant one.”
Cense had the wit to use only the King James Version of the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer and reinforced his literary appeal by quoting liberally from the sermons of Upward’s favourite
John Donne. Upward was also impressed with the language of the Thirty Nine Articles although he thought their number excessive. Cense said that Upward could take them on the instalment plan, once a week, over a period of nine months.
Upward put up his faultlessly manicured hands. “It’s a handsome offer, my dear very reverend thing. But the truth is, I prefer an easy life. As an atheist I don’t have to worry about Thirty Nine Articles or even Ten Commandments. I have a credo of six words: act for others, think for yourself. I admit I am much better at the second part than the first” (at which point he polished off the last of the chocolate digestives, leaving the three Censes with only the misnamed Rich Teas), “but that is all the guidance I need. As an atheist, I do not have to wrestle with some holy book, and edit bits out because God didn’t really mean that or wouldn’t say that today, or say ‘that didn’t really happen, it was just allegory.’ I don’t have to worry about all sorts of strange stories, Elisha setting bears onto children because they made fun of his bald head, or the Gadarene swine. Why couldn’t Jesus just cure the man called Legion, why did He have to wipe out those poor pigs? They may have been Gadarene swine to my namesake the evangelist but one of them might have been the Empress of Blandings to her owner.
“As an atheist I never have to fret about an awful Archbishop or a pitiful Pope or a rancid rabbi or an impossible imam and wonder why on earth God chose him (or her). If my old chum Richard
Dawkins gets an issue totally wrong I don’t have to think for a second that God might have got it wrong too or that God might not be keeping an eye on the hired help. I can say ‘Dawkers, old bean, you’ve made the most frightful floater,’ and he can say ‘Uppers, old chap, what on earth do you mean?’” (Dawkins and Henry Blofeld of Test Match Special were the only people allowed to call him Uppers. The nickname reminded Upward too much of his financial condition.) “We’ll have an argument and then he’ll agree with me.
“As an atheist, I don’t have to worry how life began, or why. It began because stuff happens. All sorts of things happen, like the novels of Walter Downer, without any apparent reason. I don’t have to believe that anything or anyone in the universe has a purpose, which I have to discover. As an atheist, I don’t look for the keys to all mysteries, like poor Mr Casaubon. The universe to me is not some vast horserace to me, with a celestial handicapper who does not even tell me the runners and riders or the length of the course.
“Atheism saves me time and worry. And if I’m wrong I will have all the time in the next world to discover why. Is your God going to send me to Hell for not believing in Him? Stalin behaved that way, but surely not God?” At this point Upward absent-mindedly finished off the last of the Rich Teas as well. He won back the rural deanery’s biscuit money with interest at the next whist drive.
Top of Form 1
nd a consortium of
London bookmakers. It sits in the “Escrow Warehouse” of the London law firm of
Smallgood and Long, unplayed and untuned, its value far exceeded by accumulated
administration charges, sundry disbursements and engrossments.
Level gave Upward’s good friend Ricky Rubato an
unusual item from the collection. This was not a zither but a miniature
guitarlike instrument carved from an exotic native resonant wood and presented
to Upward by a Hawaiian admirer. It was named in his honour the Lukelele.
Sadly, this was wrecked beyond repair when Rubato tried to teach it to Beppo
the Wonder Dog.nd a consortium of London bookmakers. It sits in the “Escrow
Warehouse” of the London law firm of Smallgood and Long, unplayed and untuned,
its value far exceeded by accumulated administration charges, sundry
disbursements and engrossments.
Level gave Upward’s good friend Ricky Rubato an
unusual item from the collection. This was not a zither but a miniature
guitarlike instrument carved from an exotic native resonant wood and presented
to Upward by a Hawaiian admirer. It was named in his honour the Lukelele.
Sadly, this was wrecked beyond repair when Rubato tried to teach it to Beppo the
Wonder Dog.nd a consortium of London bookmakers. It sits in the “Escrow
Warehouse” of the London law firm of Smallgood and Long, unplayed and untuned,
its value far exceeded by accumulated administration charges, sundry
disbursements and engrossments.
Level gave Upward’s good friend Ricky Rubato an
unusual item from the collection. This was not a zither but a miniature
guitarlike instrument carved from an exotic native resonant wood and presented
to Upward by a Hawaiian admirer. It was named in his honour the Lukelele.
Sadly, this was wrecked beyond repair when Rubato tried to teach it to Beppo
the Wonder Dog.
More gleanings from the Obituary section of
Upward’s Great Lies of Modern Times: “although his administration was
short-lived, he was an important transitional figure after the fall of the
dictatorship” (stole what was left in the Treasury and successfully resisted
extradition); “flamboyant”, of male (screaming queen), of female (harpie); “an
attractive presence in European cinema of the 1950s and 1960s” (a dead duck in
Hollywood); “his controversial decision to… divides opinion years later” (was
he mad, bad or really, really stupid?)
YP Cricket… the sport that age cannot wither
published in the Yorkshire Post 11 May 2013
As I write these lines, Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow may not play again for Yorkshire this summer as county cricket continues to be marginalized by international games and a fixture list arranged by a demented computer.
In the lower reaches of cricket, which I inhabit, there is the same confusion and loss of rhythm. Matches against familiar opponents have disappeared from their accustomed dates, displaced by pressures from competitions or representative fixtures which rob teams of the young and talented. Blank patches in the fixture list alternate with frenetic bursts of activity.
As this turbulent season opens, only one thing can be predicted with certainty. Despite public promises of retirement last year, thousands of superannuated, incompetent cricketers will turn out for another summer.
I know because I am one of them, in the sunset of a career on which the sun never in the fullest and truest sense actually rose. I am a slow-medium bowler who moves the ball both ways off the bat. I am asked to bowl less and less often, but am sometimes called up when the opposition send their ten-year-old to the crease. After a few deliveries, he often asks if he can remove his helmet: at the opposite end, his mother generally agrees. In batting, a place above number 9 gives me a nosebleed. In fielding I get hidden in the slips.
[omitted from published version At this point, I should say that I have never had the privilege of playing cricket in Yorkshire, where cricket is taken seriously. Yorkshire has produced many players with very long careers, especially George Hirst, who had 27 county seasons and Wilfred Rhodes, with 29. They did not get picked out of sentiment, but as performers. In his last match for Yorkshire, Wilfred Rhodes dismissed five of the powerful 1930 Australian side and had Don Bradman missed at 0 by a dozy mid-off. Maybe in Yorkshire my playing career, even in the lower depths, would have been terminated years ago when it should have been. But I continue to play in the soft South – and so do many other players who are actually worse. omission ends]
Why does cricket allow us to maintain our illusions so much longer than other sports? I think there are two reasons, one negative, one positive.
First, cricket offers more excuses for failure than any other sport, or indeed any other human endeavour. As a footballer you know that you have become too slow to win the ball from the opposing winger (or even get within fouling distance). As a tennis player, you know why you cannot return the opposing serve. As a bridge player, you know that you should have led a spade not a heart, and your partner will make that clear if you have failed to work it out for yourself. But when you get bowled at cricket, there are myriad possible reasons which do not reflect on your ability – a bad pitch, sudden movement behind the bowler’s arm, and of course, the tricky light, whether too dim or intolerably glaring. These days you can also claim that the bowler delivered a “doosra” or made the ball “reverse” impossibly late – even when he is the opposition’s ten-year-old.
As a bowler when you are hit for six, you can always murmur “just tempting him” as Captain Mainwaring did in the Dad’s Army episode when Fred Trueman made a guest appearance.
As for misfielding and dropped catches, the batsman’s excuses of pitch, crowd disturbance, dimness or glare are usually serviceable. If the light is perfect, you can usually invoke the background, whether it is immemorial elms or a distant nuclear reactor.
But conversely, I believe that cricket gives even mediocre performers occasional moments of excellence, when they actually do something as good as any of the legends of the game – one boundary like Sobers, one leg-break like Warne, one stop in the field like Jonty Rhodes. It is irrelevant that Sobers and company produced their achievements routinely and deliberately, while the no-hopers produce theirs exceptionally and usually inexplicably. The fact is that they happen, and they allow the no-hopers to feed their self-image for a long time. Of course, other sports offer these moments too, but I believe that cricket produces more of them because it involves a series of discrete individual actions – somebody bowls, somebody bats, somebody fields. It is a statistical certainty that however badly somebody performs each of these actions on average, once in a blue moon he or she will perform them brilliantly.
Denying failure and clinging to memories of brilliance, however rare and dim, thousands of superannuated cricketers like me will take the field again this year. We take inspiration from the elderly female cricketer we know from Test Match Special, who could easily play the featured bowling or dismiss the featured batsman.
I refer of course to Geoff Boycott’s granny.
Luke Upward on Thatcher (and other politicians he did not believe or serve)
As Britain’s premier man of letters, Luke Upward was asked, at times begged, to write speeches for its latter-day Prime Ministers. Anthony den was particularly importunate, and his disappointed rage at the youthful Upward’s refusal contributed significantly to his disastrous decision to invade Egypt. Upward turned down all such requests on a completely non-partisan basis. With a rare touch of melodrama, he informed his disciple, the loyal Level: “words are my children and I will not send them out to work for thieves.”
Margaret Thatcher approached Upward early in her Premiership, and when he refused her she turned to the playwright Ronald Millar. Upward watched her on television delivering Millar’s famous zinger. Of course he recognized its origins and murmured “the lady’s not for burning but she is for frying.” He then commented “In Mrs Thatcher’s hands a joke has the same chance as a hedgehog on a motorway.” This found its way into certain media, and for some time Upward was harassed by protests on behalf of our spiky chums.
During Luke Upward’s final days, his disciple, the loyal Level, asked him to comment on all the Prime Ministers for whom he had refused to write. The frail man-of-letters rallied to deliver a string of mordant “apps”, which Level struggled to record on the back of Upward’s discarded betting-slips.
Anthony Eden: a beautiful hat, with too little underneath it.
Harold Macmillan: reinvented satire and became his own best caricaturist.
Sir Alec Douglas-Home: the “Magic Circle” reached into the top hat and pulled out – a handkerchief.
Harold Wilson: a Micawber for whom nothing ever indubitably turned up. Began with great expectations, created a few household words, returned in hard times and ended as the haunted man.
Ted Heath: pompous, pedestrian, petulant plodder. Even a three-day week of Ted Heath was too long for the British people.
Jim Callaghan: supposes he’s Moses – erroneously.
Margaret Thatcher: her high heels trod a nation underfoot.
John Major: a man with an intermission.
When it came to Tony Blair, Luke Upward for only the second time in his life was at a loss for words. He choked out a rush of epithets but Level could make out only the phrase “simpering shit-kicking sanctimony”. Finally, Upward calmed down but was still unable to find words of his own, and turned to the King James Bible. “Blair is the whited sepulchre of British politics”. Level eventually found the reference in Matthew 23:27.
After delivering this verdict on Blair, Upward sank back exhausted onto his silk-encased pillows, but for the sake of completeness Level invited him to say something about Brown and Cameron. England’s premier man-of-letters sighed deeply, as when Michelangelo was asked if he did whitewashing.
Gordon Brown: turned complacency into Britain’s biggest growth industry. Took the economy into a multiple car crash and blamed all the other drivers.
David Cameron: a gnat smeared on the windscreen of history.
Luke Upward’s jealous rival Walter Downer described his disdain for politics as a literary affectation. As always, Downer was wrong. Upward was an anarchist by conviction. He believed that as soon as government grew big enough to require professional politicians it would inevitably become a vehicle for special interest groups. He professed admiration for American politics “because people there know what they are paying for” and quoted the comment of a Texas legislator who had allowed his campaign backers to pollute the air his constituents had to breathe: “you dance with the folks that brought you.” He informed his shocked disciple, Ted Level, that “a country with unbribed politicians has lost all faith in its government.” Upward assumed that all politicians of any party were prompted primarily by payment or preferment. When objected “you must accept that there are some conviction politicians,” Upward replied instantly “Certainly – Jeffrey Archer and Jonathan Aitken.”
YP Margaret Thatcher: My Part In Her Downfall
published in the Yorkshire Post 15 April 2013
When Margaret Thatcher lost her party’s leadership in 1990, the fatal blow to her was a poll in The Mail On Sunday. I know, because I devised it.
Under its ebullient and independent-minded editor, Stewart Steven, the newspaper had become a vocal supporter of Michael Heseltine. When Heseltine finally challenged Thatcher, he naturally commissioned an opinion poll to establish how much difference his leadership would make to his party’s ratings with voters. At my suggestion, we did not commission our pollsters, MORI, to do a national poll. Instead, it was confined to the fifty-or-so Conservative marginal constituencies which provided its then Commons majority.
I admit now that this was a distinction without a difference. These selected battleground seats (excluding safe seats on either side) could be expected to show much the same response as a national poll. At that time, the Conservatives and Margaret Thatcher personally were at a very low ebb in national polls. Labour had held double-digit leads for most of the year (over 20 per cent at the peak of protests against poll tax), and in October 1990 Thatcher was trailing Neil Kinnock by around 12 or 13 percentage points. During that month the Liberal Democrats seized the normally safe Tory seat of Eastbourne. More important, the economic news that month was all bad: falling output, rising unemployment and inflation edging up.
This was the context for Mrs Thatcher’s calamitous month of party strife in November, triggered by the resignation of Sir Geoffrey Howe, and the challenge of Heseltine.
The Mail on Sunday poll of Tory marginals produced the predictable but gratifying suggestion that all of them would be retained if Heseltine took over and all would be lost if Thatcher remained leader. Page 3 of the newspaper (on Sunday 18 November 1990) was devoted to mugshots of the Tory MPs whose seats would be saved by Heseltine. The following Tuesday, in the leadership ballot of Tory MPs, Thatcher fell just short of the majority she needed to avoid a second round. She won a disappointing 204 votes out of a possible 372. A number of loyalists are known to have deserted her to save their political necks. After two days of melodrama, Thatcher abandoned her resolve to “fight to win” and resigned.
In the second round of the contest, with Heseltine now facing John Major and Douglas Hurd, Stewart Steven was eager to repeat the poll in Tory marginals. I urged him not to (for his candidate’s sake) – with Thatcher removed and new choices offered to voters, anything might happen. However, the poll went ahead, and sure enough, it gave a faint lead to John Major over Michael Heseltine, who thereby lost his greatest asset among wavering Tory MPs. Major won the second ballot by 185 to Heseltine’s 131: Hurd trailed with 56 votes. Heseltine could have insisted on a run-off ballot against Major: wisely he did not, settling for a recall to government with the task of replacing the toxic poll tax.
Thatcher at the time commented, with some point, that she had won 19 more votes than Major but been forced to step aside. Major justified his supporters’ faith in him, when the Tories won more votes in the 1992 General Election than any other political party before or since, although it was not reflected in his Parliamentary majority.
I think that Margaret Thatcher might have survived but for that marginal poll and that dramatic page 3. If so, I believe that she would have won the general election of 1991 or 1992, especially if it had been held in the wake of the first Gulf War. She would still have enjoyed the advantages of a split opposition and a Labour party which was still distrusted over the economy and over its general competence to run the country.
If my suggestion played a part in the downfall of Margaret Thatcher, I accept neither credit nor blame. It was a sign of the nerves in her party that such an exercise could induce MPs to desert the leader who had redefined it and reshaped British politics.
One footnote to this episode. After Margaret Thatcher’s departure, The Mail On Sunday asked me to find out why the Conservatives had introduced the curious rule which had allowed Major and Hurd to become candidates in the second round. I telephoned Lord Home of the Hirsel, who as Sir Alec-Douglas Hume, had presided in 1965 over the creation of the election system which was to choose his successor. His telephone number (as I remember) was Coldstream 1234. His lordship answered the instrument in person and listened politely as I introduced myself and put my question. After a short pause he gave me a delightful answer: “I think it was felt at the time that some of the chaps might find it inconvenient to come to London at short notice.” I still treasure that memory of a vanished era of grouse-moor leadership.
Luke Upward Composes An Honest Company Mission Statement
Luke Upward detested all company mission statements, put out (in his words) by “Uriah Heep companies trying to pretend they are the Cheeryble Brothers.” He composed spontaneously the following honest mission statement, which no company has yet had the courage to use:
“Our mission is to make money. For this reason, we buy at the lowest prices and sell at the highest prices which we can extort from our markets. If we do anything different, it is because we are required to by law or because it might harm our competitors or to induce customers to pay more for our products by experiencing a cosy glow of virtue.
“In pursuit of our mission we will, as necessary or convenient to us, and unless restrained by statute, regulation or the fear of litigation:
1) demonstrate extreme recklessness towards the environment or cause actual damage thereto, consume trees or plants without renewing them, use packaging which will not be bio-degradable, and if burnt, emit noxious fumes which will travel to the upper atmosphere and do there such things, what they are we know not, yet they shall be the terrors of the Earth;
2) demonstrate extreme recklessness towards human or animal health or actual damage thereto;
3) produce in the lowest-cost, least-regulated labour markets, and use the labour of children or unpaid prisoners;
4) test products on animals (including cute, furry ones with big eyes) because we don’t have to pay them and they cannot sue us;
5) make spurious claims for our products;
6) use the smallest permitted print and the least descriptive wording in warning labels or exclusion clauses;
7) promote and sell products in any market which will receive them even if they have been banned in other markets;
eight not unwanted smiley face) suborn academic researchers and journalists to promote our products or suppress evidence of the harm they cause, and suffocate those who are critical;
9) suborn legislators and regulators in any country or international body who might threaten the sale of our products;
10) eliminate competitors.”
YP Miliband Should Keep Party Away From Priests
Published in the Yorkshire Post 3 April 2013
Amid his spectacular enthronement, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, managed to say something spectacularly wrong. “There can be no final justice or security or love or hope in our society if it is not finally based on rootedness in Christ.” People have been seeking security, love, hope in society since long before Christ, and millions do so today without His guidance. Ideas of a good society unite or divide people in their own terms. People can and do decide what makes a good society – and whether they have reached it – without reference to any religious or spiritual doctrine.
The Labour party has always appealed to universal human values, and asked people to work for a “good society” which is derived from them. For many members the journey into the party may start from religious faith – but the subsequent journey and the final destination have different signposts.
Unfortunately, instead of challenging the new Archbishop’s egregious statement, the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, asked for an encore. He invited him to get more involved in political debates. “I said he should intervene” (he told The Times on 23 March). “The Church has a closeness” (a curious expression: did he mean a cloister?) “and a sense of what is happening in the community. It’s good that he cares about injustice, it’s good that he stands up and talks about poverty and disadvantage.”
Archbishop Welby (the first in our history with significant business experience) is undoubtedly too astute to turn the Church into the Labour party at prayer. Nonetheless, Ed Miliband’s invitation was a mistake and a wrong turning in British politics. In Ernest Bevin’s words, it opens a Pandora’s Box of Trojan horses.
For centuries, our country – at least the English part of it – has been blessedly free of religious politics. Faith-based parties have made no headway. Very few major political issues have been influenced by faith groups (although they have, almost without notice, taken control of around a third of our publicly-funded schools). Very few voters take guidance or direction from faith leaders. We need to keep things that way. They make it easier for our democracy to handle contentious issues, because our political divisions do not become articles of religion.
The coalition government has already threatened this precious legacy by appointing the first-ever Minister for Faith, Baroness Warsi. Its motives were murky but it established Faith is an organ of government. Her official job description includes the promotion of faith and she has a budget (tiny but specified) for activities by people of faith. She told the House of Lords on 17 January that her specific role “is to ensure that the voice of people of faith is heard [in the formulation and implementation of policy], which has not always been the case.”
The Labour party has not challenged this position or its declared purposes, and now its leader wants to see more involvement of religion in British politics. His invitation to the Archbishop must logically extend to leaders of all other faith groups. If they accept it he will have an invidious task for which he is neither paid nor qualified: deciding what constitutes a religion (as opposed to a sect or a cult) and deciding whether any particular leader is truly representative of the community in question. Even churches with defined hierarchies regularly defy their leaders, particularly when they speak contentious social and political issues, and it is never profitable in any country for secular politicians to become embroiled in arguments within faith groups.
Ed Miliband’s invitation to the new Archbishop was peculiar since he remarked, in the very same interview on 23 March, that religion is “an incredibly vexed political issue” in the United States. Indeed. Organized American religious groups believe that they have a special right to influence the law and public policy at state and Federal level, and thereby to force non-believers to comply with religious values they reject. They seek public subsidies or tax concessions for their views and practices. They try to punish politicians who oppose them. The American elections last year suggested that the influence of organized religion is waning: voters, particularly younger ones, did not take their church’s agenda to the ballot box and they did not vote with a secondhand conscience.
Just when America is breaking free of the thrall of religious politics, our political parties seem determined to bring it to Britain.
Ed Miliband should (politely) withdraw his invitation to the Archbishop and the implied one to other religious leaders. He should announce that his party will not solicit votes, members or money on religious grounds, nor give religious groups any special access to policy making. In government, he should commit Labour to protect all religious beliefs but promote none, while also making clear that religious belief will always yield to the law and to basic human rights, particularly those of women and children and the right of expression.
It would be “the right thing to do” and politically profitable.
YP No Funny Business – Let Us Vote No To Them All
Published 28 Feb 2013 in the Yorkshire Post
It really should not be necessary: voting for a clown in a general election because you do not rate any of the other parties on offer. The Italian people have just sent their mainstream politicians a rousing raspberry (the Italian “lampone” sounds even better) with a massive vote for a new protest party led by the bushy-haired satirist Beppe Grillo.
Our country has found a different way to signal its disenchantment with conventional politics, with a sweeping advance for the Apathy Party. Last year Manchester Central seized from Leeds Central the long-standing record for lowest turnout in a contested Parliamentary election: more than 80 per cent of voters stayed away.
Both political systems, ours and the Italians’, have failed to give their voters what they deserve in a true democracy – the right to say “I do not believe in any of these candidates, or parties, or the assembly for which they are standing.”
At the last General Election, a few candidates unselfishly offered themselves for this task, changing their names by deed poll to some variant of “None of the above.” The best known was the boxer, Terry Marsh, who stood in South Basildon and East Thurrock, Essex, as Mr None Of The Above X. He and the other Messrs Above promised not to take their seats as MPs if elected. This of course entailed not claiming any salary or expenses, but in spite of this attractive offer, they all lost their deposits.
Antipathetic voters should not have to rely on a few gallant volunteers with £500 to spare (plus £33 for the deed poll). In every British in every constituency, the ballot paper should include a choice of None of the Above.
Several countries have done this already, or offered some equivalent facility to their voters. In Canada, they can formally “Decline to Vote”: such choices are counted and put on record. Spain offers a Blank ballot and a party has formed to make such votes count in their proportional voting system. Blank candidates have won three seats in village council elections, and carried out their promise not to fill them. Greece has a “none” ballot paper but so far, surprisingly, none of the none candidates has made an electoral non-breakthrough. Bangladesh recently introduced a none option and there is a pro-none campaign in India, the world’s largest democracy.
Communist countries generally offered a none option in their election lists of all-Communist candidates. In Poland in 1989, and in Russia in 1991, a high none vote accelerated the end of Communism.
In the recent American elections, the state of Nevada maintained its unique none option. The state authorities beat down a legal challenge against it by the Republicans, who feared that None voters would do most harm to Mitt Romney and their senate candidate, Dean Heller (no relation). My namesake may have had a point. In 1998 over 8000 Nevadans voted None in a Senate race which the Democrat, Harry Reid, won by just 428 votes. In 2012 None won 5,770 votes, 0.57 per cent of those cast. They were not enough to affect the Presidential race (a handy win for Barack Obama) or to oust Mr Heller. But None voters had the satisfaction of beating a “serious” Presidential candidate, from the far-Right Independent America party founded by the emetic Ezra Taft Benson. Note for lawyers: Mr Benson is dead.
A None-of-the-Above option is worth having simply as a means of democratic expression, but it could and should be given some practical impact. In a list system, such as the European Parliament elections, None would count as an equal vote to one to a party or a candidate. None would fill, or rather not-fill, all the seats to which it would be entitled under the quota system.
In elimination systems (such as elected mayors) None would stay in the ballot until elimination or victory. In first-past-the-post None would win by topping the poll. If None wins as a mayor or as an MP, the contest might be re-run with new candidates to see if voters like them any better. If None wins again, the office would be left unfilled.
Of course a None-of-the-Above option might result in no national government. Belgium managed perfectly well without one for around two years. Belgium still has compulsory voting. If the Belgians end up with no government after being forced to vote for one, should they not be allowed to choose this option from the beginning and not have to endure months of futile manoeuvring from their politicians?
A None-of-the-Above option would lift the quality of British politics. All parties would be under pressure to field better candidates. They would gain far less from negative campaigning and have to find reasons to make electors vote for them instead of keeping out a party they like even less. Parties would cease to prosper as an outlet for protest votes (as the Liberals used to do and UKIP may be doing now). Any party would have to offer more than rage against the system.
A None option would be a good safety valve for a disillusioned electorate. Voting for None could stop people voting for something worse.
R v Upward Day 9: Justice And Tears
The trial of Luke Upward on charges of criminal damage (in defence of the night sky) to a neon sign advertising the Polo Lounge nightclub resumed after proceedings on whether an adjournment granted indefinitely by Cocklecarrot J was void or voidable because it should have been granted sine die. Upward could sense that the jury remained hostile to him both qua counsel and qua defendant, as representative of an idle and inert upper class. He was still paying for his error in inviting his witness Dr Strabismus (Whom God Hath Preserved In Utrecht) to describe neon as a “noble gas.”
He tried to repair his image. For the first time in his adult life he wore something made of artificial fibre. In place of his perfectly polished periods, he tried to speak in the stubby staccato sentences of the prosecuting counsel, Hardy Prodnose. He even split an infinitive, an event normally as improbable as his splitting the atom or splitting his trousers. All these efforts were fruitless. He could not detect a single friendly face among the jury. The dealer in aggregates glared at him as if he were an unwanted bag of nails and even the timid tailor looked down on him as on a dangling button. Most worrying of all was the contemptuous response to any of his dramatic gestures from the foreman of the jury, followed almost instantly by the identical response from the newest juror, Mr Leo Pard.
At a recess, Upward gave a gloomy assessment of his prospects to his loyal disciple, Ted Level, who had followed every day of the trial. “We’re going to get nothing out of this jury unless the judge orders them to acquit – and that won’t happen unless he’s spellbound by Susan Sarandon.” He confessed himself gravely alarmed by the delayed response to her subpoena as a witness. He gave Level some instructions for a stratagem. It would be expensive and exhaust all the funds raised by well-wishers for his defence. He might even have to pawn his unique collection of zithers. Its chances were little better than those of his selections on the racetrack. But it gave the anxious Level something to do.
To allow more time for the appearance of Susan Sarandon Upward called more uninteresting witnesses who added little to the court’s understanding of the stars. As often happened to his friend, the cocktail pianist Ricky Rubato, he had been forced to “vamp till ready.”
While Upward was cross-examining yet another infants school teacher on her use of stars as a reward, Cocklecarrot J received a message and rent the stagnant air of the courtroom with a mighty epithet, which Mr Reporter by name and by profession prudently bowdlerized. “Approach the bench, Mr Upward.” The self-represented man-of-letters made every effort to glide towards the judge with his usual nonchalance, but an unaccustomed loose lace in his faultless brogues suggested his unease. “She’s not coming,” hissed the judge. “Miss Sarandon. Look at this letter from her lawyers, Messrs Gumby, Pokey and Prickle from some place called Beverley Hills. Declining service of my subpoena on the grounds that she has no knowledge of the facts of the case, or the parties or the matters at issue. What difference does that make? They haven’t even sent a signed photograph. Look here, Upward, you’ve had a good run. How about a change of plea to guilty? I’ll do a serious discount.”
Upward walked back to consult himself in the dock. “M’lud, my client is a freeborn Englishman who places his trust in that most English of inventions, the jury of twelve good men, women and wild cats.”
“This boy’s a fool,” said the judge, reprising his successful “turn” as Mr Eric Morecambe. “Members of the jury,” he intoned in his normal unfunny voice. “You have heard enough. Further witnesses would be otiose, redundant, unnecessary, needless and even supererogatory. It is time to hurry this petty matter to a conclusion. I will accept a majority verdict. I will accept a minority verdict. I will accept a coin-toss verdict. I will accept any coherent response from you which is capable of being transcribed by our reporter, whom I compliment on his punctuation through all the rolling periods of defence counsel. Now go to it!”
The jury retired. But they were back barely five minutes later. Upward remained outwardly imperturbable, but his inner turmoil was betrayed by a handkerchief misaligned beyond the 15 degrees allowed by the International Cricket Council.
“Have you reached a verdict?”
“We have,” said the foreman, whose stern gaze was perfectly matched by the newest juror, Mr Leo Pard.
“And is it the verdict of you all, not that I care?”
“It is.”
“Well, spill it.”
“Guilty.” Upward was still for a moment, and then calmly adjusted his handkerchief back to the permitted angle. “Well, Mr Upward, have you anything to say before I pronounce sentence?”
There was a sudden commotion: the loyal Level had burst back into the courtroom. His momentum took him past a thicket of ushers and he pressed a message into Upward’s hands. The s-r m-of-l bestowed on his disciple a brief private smile. “By leave of your Lordship, I would put one question to the newest juror. Mr Pard, were you ever known as Lenny the Talking Leopard, star performer among the Carnival Carnivores? And to the foreman, Mr…” He consulted the message. “Mr Samuel Ossa. Were you ever known as the Great Zamboni, trainer of the said Carnivores?”
However, the latter question was clearly otiose, redundant, etc, because the foreman had clasped the newest juror in a gigantic hug, murmuring “Lenny, is it you, is it really you?”
“Can a leopard change his spots, even with the aid of Snibbo which removes all household stains and warts?” was the soft assent of the newest juror.
“The circus was never the same after you ran away. There was no one to talk to any more. I retired from the ring. I’ve missed you so.” The reunited artistes dissolved into happy tears.
“M’lud, I could not help noticing in the trial that Mr Pard followed with remarkable promptness the cues given by the foreman of the jury, which suggested some intense previous relationship. I wondered at first if they were identical twins, but on rejecting that explanation I could only assume that they had met in the circus ring. I had inquiries made by the legendary detective, Mr Saul Panzer of New York, under the direction of the even more legendary Mr Nero Wolfe. These established that Lenny the Talking Leopard had deserted the circus at a private performance for a petroleum convention, and had subsequently established himself as a ‘wild cat’ in the oil industry. It is intriguing, perhaps that a leopard should be exposed by a panther and a wolf?”
But this sally, and the whole of Upward’s exposition, passed unnoticed. The whole court, even including the stony Prodnose, was now blubbering away like Fanny Burney. Mr Reporter by name and profession made an emphatic entry for [TEARS].
At last Cocklecarrot J was able to stifle his sobs. “Mr Upward, this new information has serious consequences. It is a cardinal rule that each juror must make up his or her mind independently. A verdict is vitiated if two jurors are linked by the lifetime circus bond between a leopard and his tamer. The previous verdict must be quashed. Mr Upward, you are discharged without a stain on your character.”
And that was almost that. In admiration for his talent and his cause, Messrs Panzer and Wolfe dispensed with their usual fees and Upward was not obliged to hock his zithers. Mr Farley Cheese of the Polo Lounge nightclub had his neon sign repaired. The job was botched and the sign when lit had a missing letter, indicating the Polo Lunge. The reopened establishment failed to prosper and was sold to the dealer in aggregates who had served on the jury. He had no use for neon and in the absence of its putrid purple glare it became possible (very occasionally) for Upward and his neighbours to see the planets skating gracefully across their dark vaulted rink.
Reviewing the trial in their usual salon, Ted Level suggested to Upward that legal procedures were absurd, abstruse and affected.
“Not at all,” replied the s-r m-of-l. “Justice must not only be seen to be done, it must be seen to be overdone.”
R v Upward: Day 8 The Surprising Appeal of Hardy Prodnose
But for the fear of scuffing his faultless brogues, Luke Upward might have kicked himself for his line of questioning of Dr Strabismus (Whom God Hath Preserved In Utrecht) when defending himself against a charge of criminal damage to a neon sign advertising the Polo Lounge nightclub to the detriment of the super-adjacent night sky. Far from impressing the jury, the sage’s description of neon as a “noble gas” had enabled the normally lacklustre opposing counsel, Hardy Prodnose, to rouse the resentment of the jury as members of the underclass.
Hastily, Upward dismissed Dr Strabismus from the witness box. The sage made a joyful reunion with the confiscated dogfishes he had carried with him under the mistaken impression that he was addressing a conference on marine conservation. Upward now had no option but to play for time until the arrival of his (literally) star witness, Susan Sarandon. She had yet to answer the summons sent to her ex parte the eager Cocklecarrot J. As Upward plodded through his next set of witnesses (a group of infants school teachers) with the speed of one of the racehorses he routinely backed in a betting career which was a stranger even to place money he could sense the impatience of the presiding judge.
Upward heard nothing from Susan Sarandon but suddenly he received dramatic news of another witness. “M’lud, I have just learnt of an accident to Mr Roger Rabbit, who was due to testify to the court on the importance of seeing stars in his profession. He has been hit over the head by an anvil, and his head has assumed the shape of the said anvil.”
“Well, what of it, Mr Upward? I understand that this is a normal occurrence in that profession.”
“Indeed, m’lud, and the character so affected normally sees a number of rotating stars before remoulding (‘popping’ is the technical term) his or her head back into its original shape. But on this occasion, Mr Rabbit has proved powerless to ‘pop’. The finest animated surgeons have proved helpless in the case. Mr Rabbit’s head remains, most distressingly, an anvil. Unless and until it ‘pops’ spontaneously he will remain unable to give his essential evidence to the court.”
Cocklecarrot pondered. “Approach the bench, Mr Upward.” The two had one of their now familiar whispered conferences outwith the recording range of Mr Reporter by name and profession. “This accident may be timely. We have yet to hear from Miss Sarandon.” He raised his voice to full declaratory volume. “This is a tragic development. The court extends its wishes for a speedy restoration of Mr Rabbit’s head. But in these circumstances I am compelled to grant the defence’s implied request for an interlocutory viaticum. The case is adjourned.”
Prodnose was on his feet. His cheap clothing and accessories emitted their customary cacophony but this could not be heard against the force of his expostulation. “M’lud. This is most irregular. I must ask your Lordship for how long the case is adjourned.”
“Indefinitely.”
“Indefinitely? With respect, m’lud, in all my years at the bar I have never heard this expression in connexion with an adjournment. The usual expression…”
“It means what it says, Mr Prodnose, and be damn’d with the usual expression. The case is now adjourned.” Taking their cue from their foreman, the jury rose as one. Or rather, almost as one. For the keen-eyed Upward noticed that the new juror, Mr Leo Pard, responded fractionally quicker than all the other ten.
Seeing a rare chance of legal glory, the pernickety Prodnose appealed against the adjournment. He argued that it was out of order, void, vacant and vitiated, because Cocklecarrot J had used the unrecognized term of “indefinitely” rather than the proper legal formula of “sine die.” This was such an important legal point that the Court of Appeal gave immediate notice of an appeal to the House of Lords in anticipation of any judgment it might make.
The subsequent proceedings in Britain’s highest court were unusual in that the Attorney General appeared on both sides of the argument wearing a different hat. For Prodnose he wore his hat as the minister in charge of the prosecution service and for Cocklecarrot he wore his hat as a Law Officer of the Crown. Mrs Attorney General then discovered that she liked her husband in hats and at her request he tried on a third hat by appearing as an amicus curiae. Many of England’s most distinguished barristers found a way of attaching themselves to the proceedings, on refreshers. The rustle of silks turned the normally drab Lords chamber into one of the pavilions of Xanadu.
While the law Lords considered detailed arguments for and against the legality of the adjournment, the actual trial began again, or rather, re-commenced, at the request of the jury, several of whom were anxious to regain their right to watch television. The case would continue, after all.
R v Upward Day 7: Animal Magic, Mad Science and Class Warfare
The trial of Luke Upward on charges of criminal damage to a neon sign in defence of his right to starlight proceeded more slowly than Queen Victoria’s funeral cortège, as the plodding Prodnose cross-examined his remaining wearisome witnesses. His dreary delivery claimed another member of the jury as a victim. Although inured in his former occupation to somnolent vapours, the retired steam-presser fell fast asleep in his seat and had to be replaced from the substitute’s bench. With rare animation, Prodnose protested. “Objection, m’lud. The new juror is a leopard.”
“M’lud.” The new juror cut through the pompous prosecutor in tones almost as silken as those of Mr Reporter by name and profession or even Upward himself. “With respect to learned counsel, he may not have noticed the spacing in my name. It is not Mr Leopard but Mr Leo Pard. One of the Shropshire Pards. In earlier times I was a ‘wild cat’ in the oil industry, but I have made a very different life since then as the operator of a garden centre in Much Wenlock. To serve on an English jury is a mark of acceptance in English society. Must my past and my face condemn me to be a perpetual outcast?” Two small tears glided across the juror’s spotted but distinguished features.
“Objection over-ruled.” Cocklecarrot J made a landmark ruling. “We’ll have no speciesism in my court. Pray take your place, Mr Pard, and try to keep awake.”
Luke Upward rattled through his expert witnesses with the efficiency and grace of the finest Japanese “bullet trains”. Beginning with his friend Patrick Moore, each offered unassailable testimony on the importance of seeing stars. They were not in the least disconcerted by Prodnose’s clumsy attempts to discredit them, nor even by the battery of noise which accompanied him when he stood up to cross-examine: to the squeal of cheap shoes, the electrostatic cackle of cheap artificially-fibred suiting and the snap of perished cheap replacement sock-suspenders, he added the rattle of cheap dentures and the scrape of cheaply manicured fingernails across the cheap veneer of the court rail.
For all Upward’s success in this phase of the trial, he could sense a certain restiveness from the bench. Before he could call Dr Strabismus (Whom God Hath Preserved inUtrecht) Cocklecarrot J asked him point-blank: “Is this witness really necessary, Mr Upward? And all those teachers afterwards? And that Roger Rabbit person?”
“M’lud. Dr Strabismus is an inventor and the defence is one of necessity of which all inventors are children.” Once again, the self-represented man-of-letters could see a wheel turning in the judge’s mind, even more slowly than when he had struggled to remember the name of Charles Dickens, as if propelled no longer by an arthritic hamster but by a heavily sedated gerbil. He realized that the elliptical use of an unattributed proverb would be lost on Cocklecarrot and that he needed an argument more ad rem and ad hominem. “May I approach the bench, m’lud?” In response to the judge’s nod, the s-r m-of-l glided across on his habitual faultless and soundless brogues. To elude the aural ambiance of Mr Reporter by name and profession, he whispered “M’lud, there has been no response to the witness summons on Miss Susan Sarandon. Without Dr Strabismus and the other witnesses, there is a grave danger that the trial could collapse before your Lordship has a chance to meet her in chambers, that is to say, hear her vital evidence.”
“Call Dr Strabismus!” said the judge at his most imperious.
To Upward’s relief his witness had turned up at the appointed time, although under the mistaken impression that he was addressing a conference on conservation of dogfishes. The usher had to remove several samples from the sage’s pockets before he could administer the oath.
“Dr Strabismus, might you accurately be described as an inventor of international stature?”
“There is a statue of me in my native Utrecht but I am not aware of any others.” Considerable {laughter} greeted this response but Mr Reporter by name and profession thought it unseemly to record the mockery of a distinguished man of science for a trifling mistake in a language not his own.
“Dr Strabismus, would you describe the most recent of the 8457 inventions which have earned you the renown of an astonished world, up to a maximum of three?”
“I have patented a cud softener for cows with weak jaws, inflatable string for marine parcels and a cream for the removal of unwanted bismuth.” As Upward hoped, this brought the jury to the edge of their seats, especially the dealer in aggregates.
“You have worked frequently and successfully with gases, have you not?”
“I have developed an infallible anti-laughing gas, which people can inhale in situations where laughter would be inappropriate.”
“Such as a state funeral or the Long Room at Lord’s cricket ground?”
“Possibly.”
“And how was this gas tested?”
“Subjects inhaled the gas and then listened to a reading of the death of Little Nell”.
“And there was not even a smile?”
“That is not a scientific term, but accurate enough. There was a reading of only 0.12 on the Rictus Scale, which might have been an instrument error.”
Upward could see that the jury were spellbound. The leopard’s mouth fell open, revealing still-mighty jaws, but none of his colleagues noticed, not even the timid tailor. He decided to press home his advantage. “So, as an authority on gas, would you inform the jury what family of gases neon belongs to?”
“It is one of the noble gases.”
“Indeed. And do you think it right for a noble gas to be put to such an ignoble use as promoting a dismal nightclub and extinguishing the sight of all the burning gases in the night sky?”
Before Dr Strabismus could answer that leading question, or be directed by Cocklecarrot J not to answer it, Prodnose was on his feet. For once, he achieved this elegantly and noiselessly. “M’lud.” For once, his normally grinding tones had the suavity of the s-r m-of-l. “May I suggest that in modern times it is now usual for the nobility to have a job of work? Neon is more nobly employed in a tube, promoting commerce, than lounging about in the atmosphere, idle and inert.”
The jury was visibly impressed. Upward realized too late that his defence had put him on the wrong side of the class struggle. Everything might now turn on the impact of Susan Sarandon – if and when she answered her witness summons. The case would continue.
