The Chancellor, the Black Watch, and the Edinburgh Fringe
The Times - The war for Gordon’s ear, by Magnus Linklater
When the Black Watch marched past, heads held high, they had a message for the Chancellor
I WONDER WHAT was going through Gordon Brown’s mind as he watched the 3rd Battalion of the Black Watch swinging past him through the streets of Kirkcaldy on Saturday, pipes playing, boots thudding, eyes left. … It is just possible that Mr Brown may have experienced the merest twinge of guilt as he watched the youth of his constituency marching past him. Not just because of the defence cuts that have deprived them of their identity; not just because an overstretched Army means they are having to return to Iraq far sooner than expected; nor because their pay is derisory, they are short of essential equipment and their wounded men are still not being treated in the dedicated hospital wing they have been promised for so long. The guilt, if it crossed the Chancellor’s mind at all, would have been about the weight of expectation that he and his Government have placed on the shoulders of these young men. And the near certainty that those expectations simply cannot be fulfilled.
I don’t know how much guilt that man can take. He might be suffocated by his jowls.
Rarely, if ever, can British troops have been involved in an enterprise in which their own leaders have so little faith. Their Foreign Secretary admits that the military operation, of which they will be a part, may one day be seen as “a foreign policy disaster”. The Prime Minister’s closest former adviser on Iraq, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, describes the invasion as “a failure” and “a mess”. In America a senior State Department official speaks of the “arrogance” and “stupidity” of his Administration’s strategy. And, closer to home, their own commander, the head of the Army, General Sir Richard Dannatt, says that the presence of troops “exacerbates the security problems”, not only in Iraq but throughout the world.
I suppose they “support the troops” over there as well?
I have no doubt that remarks such as this have done wonders for the morale of the insurgents. What I wanted to know, however, was what effect they had had on the men who were about to return to face the danger. What I found when I talked to some of them after the parade will not surprise those who know the Army well — it was that familiar blend of phlegmatic cynicism that has so often characterised the attitude of the British soldier. A shrug of the shoulders, a few references to “ doing the job” and one aside about the general saying out loud what a lot of them thought anyway. Not one expressed the slightest doubt about going back.
Last month, in Northern Ireland, where the regiment is currently based, they asked for volunteers for Iraq. More than twice the number came forward than there were slots to fill. I asked one of the soldiers, who had joined up at the age of 16 and who had already served in Iraq, whether he had ever regretted it. “No,” he said. “It’s my life. If I hadn’t been in the Army I’d have been in jail.”
Their attitude was much the same as the one more robustly put in the play Black Watch, by Gregory Burke, which was a smash hit at the Edinburgh Fringe and is about to tour the country. At one point a Black Watch sergeant explains to his men why they are in Iraq: “You’re here because Her Majesty’s Government has decided that there’s no way we can sit down in Basra brushing up on our Arabic and topping up our tans when our allies are getting ten types ay shite knocked out ay them by the Mujahidin. It’s our turn tay be in the shite. We’ve had three hundred years ay being in the shite. If you dinnay like shite, then you shouldnay have bothered f*****g joining.”
That’s wonderful.
Whether General Dannatt was right to speak out or not, one thing he said will resonate with every soldier out on patrol in Basra or Afghanistan: “Twenty-nine per cent of government spending is on social security. Five per cent is on defence. Others can take a view on whether that proportion is right.” Perhaps that was what went through Mr Brown’s mind in Kirkcaldy on Saturday.
…Though everyone doubts it.
October 26th, 2006 at 3:29 am
I was talking to a group of Royal Scots at the Highland Show this year. They displayed precisely the same attitude, with the additional comment that they’d hate their mates to be out there and not be there themselves. They had in 6 months seen one journalist - but they hadn’t had much chance to speak to him because he had an entire platoon guarding him.
October 26th, 2006 at 4:40 am
I’m sure that you would be happy to learn, Red, that I just returned from a lecture at (Lachlan) Macquarie University given by one Arthur Herman, Professor of History at George Mason University. He was talking on “History as the story of Liberty”. Really excellent lecture, and nice to see an academic who is alive to the importance of the martial spirit (as were David Hume and Adam Smith, of course).
His latest book is: “How the Scots invented the Modern World: The True Story of how Western Europe’s Poorest Nation created Our World and Everything in it“.
Shall I reserve you a copy?
October 26th, 2006 at 5:31 am
It’s sitting on my book-case as I write this - I reviewed it when it came out over here.
It’s very good in lots of ways, but he really does over-egg it when it comes to Scottish influence in the founding of the USA. He traces various Scottish individuals as having played important if subsidiary roles, but he forgets that these were essentially English colonies, and that most the various disputes were with the English proprietors.
Above all he underestimates the importance of the English Common Law and the experience of the English Civil War in shaping the thinking of the colonials. The Law was the distinctive English institution to which they all subscribed - still is in lots of ways - and the English Civil War had unleahed a rich stream of constitutional thought that antedated the Scottish end of the Enlightenment by several decades. Bernard Bailyn at Princeton’s done a lot of excellent work investigating the intellectual origins of the American Revolution (or Unfortunate Unpleasantness as I prefer to call it) and they’re English, not Scottish.
The book was a deserved success here, though, and it at least offered the benefit of having some Scots politicians realise that there’s more to history than running around in kilts waving swords. The only drawback is that some of them now think they have the right to lecture the USA because it wouldn’t have existed but for them - a mistake the French made in the 1790s, incidentally.
But thanks for the offer, Brett! (I could send you the review via ninme should you wish>)
October 26th, 2006 at 6:18 am
Oh yes, that would be good! Thanks, Red.
Here is the lecture he gave this evening. He brought out the Scots book because of a joke told by the guy introducing him.
October 26th, 2006 at 6:56 am
So of course I can’t find the damn thing! Will look again.
Thanks for the AH piece, will read at leisure.
October 26th, 2006 at 9:16 am
(Good grief.)
I’m, ah, familiar with that book.
Well, at any rate, I’ll quote the same thing I quoted in an email to Red a couple weeks ago, a passage from a Rebus I had out of the library:
He walked back into the body of the library, Siobhan following. A few retired people were peering at newspapers and magazines, seated at a large circular table. In the kids’ corner, a mother lay on a beanbag chair, apparently dozing, while her toddler, pacifier in mouth, pulled books off the shelves and piled them on the carpet. Rebus found himself in the history aisle.
“Les, eh?” he said in an undertone.
“He’s a good guy,” Siobhan whispered back.
“You’re a quick judge of character.” Rebus picked a book off the shelf. It seemed to be saying that the Scots had invented the modern world. He looked around to make sure they weren’t in the fiction section.
October 26th, 2006 at 9:31 am
Of course you could argue that the Scots do in fact have a lot to answer for. Blair, Brown, Campbell (Alistair or Naomi) for starters. Whereas the English/Irish combination of Howard and Costello seems to play pretty well antipodes-wise.
October 26th, 2006 at 7:13 pm
Red, your remark regarding the Unfortunate Unpleasantness reminds me of a British Air ad I used to love when I was a kid. It ended with Robert Morley saying, “Come back! All is forgiven!”