George Osborne. What can I say?

So as the year comes to an end we move inexorably towards a future that sees Great Britain isolated from Europe, estranged from the USA (who quite frankly never gave a damn anyway), reneging on promises to be the ‘greenest government ever’ as George Osborne, that most grotesque of Tory self-parodies – if he didn’t exist someone would have invented him – as the liberties of common people are eroded palpably and cynically by a government that is now setting out plans to shoot demonstrators, should the need arise, a plea already put forward by Jeremy Clarkson in respect of strikers.  And as a sad afternote, rather than reprimanding their star boy racer (apparently Clarkson’s boyish frolics in motor cars are so remunerative that the BBC considers him an asset of greater importance to them than their own integrity) he was let off the hook completely, as he was, after all, ‘joking’ about shooting people in front of their families. Actually Clarkson and Osborne represent for me two examples of manhood that will do very nicely for today’s blog, two facets of the hideous tragedy of our culture at the start of the second decade of the new millennium.

Jeremy Clarkson driving a car jolly fast

But fear not. “Potentially the use of firearms” will be justified at demos, but only “as a last resort”. The use of firearms with live ammunition could be justified against arsonists when life is being endangered given the “immediacy of the risk and the gravity of the consequences” as the legal annexe to the police riots report phrases it.

All of this connects in my mind with the talk that Helena Kennedy delivered at Cardiff University last month, in which she spoke articulately and without sensationalism about the gradual erosion of democracy in our society and the shadowy forces that continue to underpin politics in the UK.

But none of this should come as any surprise. Needless to say the British government has extensive practice at shooting its own citizens. We executed 306 ‘cowards’ in World War One, shot 13 in Derry on Bloody Sunday, and if I had time and was not about to visit Grandpa I’m sure I could furnish a much fuller list, so the odd ‘demonstrator’ (or striker) isn’t going to count for much. Though it does raise the question of how precisely police are going to identify and isolate a single dangerous individual in a crowd of demonstrators and ‘neutralise’ him when, on current form they cannot identify and isolate a single ‘terrorist suspect’ correctly, as evidenced by the unlawful killing (shamefully recorded as an ‘open verdict’) in 2005 of the Brazilian, Jean Charles de Menezes.

Again, Clarkson provides rather a good spokesperson for the Big Society espoused by the Old Etonians in charge of us now. A man-child, who, along with his two sidekicks, like to strike a quasi-macho front as they engage in feats of motorised derring-do (how close we came to death on that escapade, chaps) while remaining a reactionary in the traditional mould, one of whose defining characteristics is the notion (shared by the worst aspect of the ruling classes, along with venture capitalists and psychopaths) that a chap should be allowed to do what he wants, and anyone who decides to stop him is a sissy. How Big is that?

Clarkson is an obnoxious boor, but the butt of my greatest loathing remains, and will remain, George Osborne. Having been forced to attend an English Public School in my early teens, I know this kind of fuckwit very well. I carry an indelible memory of the type around with me, which reminds me of everything I most despise about Britain; its odious class system, its hideous hierarchies, its smarmy and pervasive xenophobia and, clambering onto its upper crusts, phalanxes of snooty locker-room bully-boys with daddies in the city. Osborne’s disdainful behaviour – surely indicative of the kind of government he stands for, and indeed the kind of social attitudes which the electorate sanctioned, more or less, in last year’s elections – is perhaps best encapsulated by this story, written by Candida Jones and published in The Guardian newspaper – not, incidentally my favourite read – which describes Osborne’s behaviour on holiday in Corfu in the summer of 2008, when the Tories were still in opposition:

Kalamaki beach, Corfu

How George Osborne ruined my day at the beach in Corfu

It was mid-afternoon on August 14 and we were on Kalamaki beach – a glorious bay on the north-east coast of Corfu where the intensely blue sea was so still it resembled oil rather than water. Barely a wave lapped the shore as I relaxed with my husband, brother and children. There were families throwing balls, people chatting in warm, shallow water and children with snorkels dragging small fishing nets. The scene was idyllic. The focus for most of those playing in the sea was a long, rickety, wooden pier. Children were jumping from it, dangling their feet in the water and playing tag. My three-year-old daughter was learning how to dive off the end when a motor boat appeared.

I was alarmed by the speed at which it approached. Parents stopped and watched, and I began to collect our little ones around me as I could sense danger. The boat kept coming and I began to worry. Surely no one would drive a boat through crowded water and, anyway, where was it going? Couldn’t those on board see that there was nowhere to moor as the pier was packed with children playing? Several parents, in several languages, complained loudly that this was an inappropriate place to bring a motorboat. It carried on without any apology from those on board and the bathers made way – the diving games stopped and children were hurriedly helped down from the pier and sent to the beach to play.

A very smartly dressed family disembarked and marched towards the shore. Leading the way was a man in blue shorts and white polo shirt, wearing deck shoes, which he clearly didn’t intend to get wet, followed by a couple of children, also dressed smartly and not for the beach, a woman, whom we assumed was their mother and was carrying a picnic basket, and a nanny, who brought up the rear and was carrying the bulk of the bags. I could tell immediately these people were English, by the way they were dressed and their seemingly superior manner. I felt embarrassed that a typically informal, relaxed and inclusive Greek afternoon was being so rudely interrupted by one small, well-turned-out, organised, English family.

I recognised George Osborne as he led the way. Shouts continued from the parents, which made the Osborne family hurry, but none of them looked back or exuded the air of bashful apology one would expect. Osborne, hearing the protests, simply said, addressing everyone, “It’s a pier, that’s what it’s for.” He said it loudly, angrily, without looking at any of those whose afternoon he had spoiled.

Of course he was right. It was a pier, and that is what they are for, but that day it was full of families having fun and the boat brought the fun to an end. But what galled people most – lots of us discussed it afterwards – was the way it had happened. No backwards glance, no apology, no hint of embarrassment. It wasn’t very Greek at all; indeed it was extremely English in that old imperial way. The Osbornes had to be somewhere, quickly. Perhaps Oleg Deripaska was waiting to talk about money?

The pier at Kalamaki beach