An Agincourt Carol

Owre Kynge went forth to Normandy

With grace and myght of chyvalry

Ther God for hym wrought mervelusly;

Wherefore Englonde may call and cry

Deo gratias! Deo gratias Anglia redde pro victoria!

He sette sege, forsothe to say,

To Harflu towne with ryal aray;

That toune he wan and made afray

That Fraunce shal rewe tyl domesday.

Deo gratias! Deo gratias Anglia redde pro victoria!

Then went hym forth, owre king comely,

In Agincourt feld he faught manly;

Throw grace of God most marvelsuly,

He had both feld and victory.

Deo gratias! Deo gratias Anglia redde pro victoria!

Ther lordys, erles and barone

Were slayne and taken and that full soon,

Ans summe were broght into Lundone

With joye and blisse and gret renone.

Deo gratias! Deo gratias Anglia redde pro victoria!

Almighty God he keep owre kynge,

His peple, and alle his well-wyllynge,

And give them grace wythoute endyng;

Then may we call and savely syng:

Deo gratias! Deo gratias Anglia redde pro victoria!

Early C15th song, commemorating the victory of the English army over the French at Agincourt, 25th October 1415.

Once again, I am reminded of the words of John O'Farrell:

Different eras are of course of varying historical significance: the English triumphs at Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt are particularly important battles and should be pointed out over and over again; but after that the Hundred Years War becomes far less important, indeed hardly worth bothering about, particularly all the petty little details like who goes on to win at the end. That is why most people in Britain will not have heard much about the battles of Patay, or Formigny, or Castillon. They are not historically significant. England lost them.

The Wit and Wisdom of... Sir Geoffrey Howe

The tragedy is--and it is for me personally, for my party, for our whole people and for my right hon. Friend herself, a very real tragedy--that the Prime Minister's perceived attitude towards Europe is running increasingly serious risks for the future of our nation. It risks minimising our influence and maximising our chances of being once again shut out. We have paid heavily in the past for late starts and squandered opportunities in Europe. We dare not let that happen again. If we detach ourselves completely, as a party or a nation, from the middle ground of Europe, the effects will be incalculable and very hard ever to correct.

In my letter of resignation, which I tendered with the utmost sadness and dismay, I said :

"Cabinet Government is all about trying to persuade one another from within".

That was my commitment to Government by persuasion--persuading colleagues and the nation. I have tried to do that as Foreign Secretary and since, but I realise now that the task has become futile : trying to stretch the meaning of words beyond what was credible, and trying to pretend that there was a common policy when every step forward risked being subverted by some casual comment or impulsive answer.

The conflict of loyalty, of loyalty to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister--and, after all, in two decades together that instinct of loyalty is still very real--and of loyalty to what I perceive to be the true interests of the nation, has become all too great. I no longer believe it possible to resolve that conflict from within this Government. That is why I have resigned. In doing so, I have done what I believe to be right for my party and my country. The time has come for others to consider their own response to the tragic conflict of loyalties with which I have myself wrestled for perhaps too long.

Sir Geoffrey Howe's resignation speech to the House of Commons, 13th November 1990. The loss of her last original Cabinet colleague precipitated the downfall of Margaret Thatcher.

The Prime Minister Who Never Was

It is often said that Denis Healey was the greatest Prime Minister that never was. I would agree. This blog is littered with worlds in which he became Prime Minister at some point in the 1970s or 1980s.

And I genuinely believe that Britain would have been a better place for it.

But instead, history conspired to deprive Denis Healey of the ultimate prize. But the legacy he leaves is of a life lived to the full. A West Yorkshire schoolboy, an Oxford student politician as Europe began the slide to war, an officer in the Royal Engineers during the Second World War, a firebrand leftist who built links with half of Europe's political left, Harold Wilson's defence minister as Britain's commitment East of Suez came to an end, Chancellor of the Exchequer during the 1970s economic storm, the bulwark of the Labour moderates as the party came close to collapse in the 1980s... there are many Denis Healeys.

Outside of politics, he had his famous 'hinterland,' interests ranging from poetry to photography to swimming to music. He appeared on the Morecambe and Wise Show Christmas special, and alongside Dame Edna Everidge. And in the graphic novel Watchmen, he was named as Britain's Prime Minister. Never has a politician defied the stereotype so fully, and demonstrated that the best politicians are those with a real life.

And today he has passed away. A link with the past has gone into the twilight.

Normally I would try and find a single quote to sum up someone. But for Healey this is impossible. He really was too great, and his acid tongue too sharp.

But I can find two:

I am going to negotiate with the IMF on the basis of our existing policies, not changes in policies, and I need your support to do it. [Applause] But when I say "existing policies", I mean things we do not like as well as things we do like. It means sticking to the very painful cuts in public expenditure [shouts from the floor] on which the Government has already decided. It means sticking to a pay policy which enables us, as the TUC resolved a week or two ago, to continue the attack on inflation. [Shout of, "Resign".]

Denis Healey before the Labour conference in 1976, justifying his decision to enter negotiations with the IMF before a hostile Labour party.

And, most tellingly for today:

What almost halved the support for the Labour Party was the feeling that it has lost its traditional common sense and its humanity to a new breed of sectarian extremism

Denis Healey's take on the 1983 general election.

For more brilliant Healeyisms:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/denis-healey-dies-the-best-quotes-and-quips-from-the-labour-giant-a6678361.html

Major Healey addressing the 1945 Labour conference.

Budget Day, 1977

Showing the Labour left exactly where they could go, 1981

America, 2016- 13 Months To Go...

It seems hard to believe, but three years have passed since Barack Obama was re-elected as US President. At the time, I was a severely under-employed recent graduate, and with nothing better to do with my life, I followed the twists and turns of the campaign avidly, including staying up most of election night to watch the results. Despite all his trials and tribulations, Obama pulled the rabbit out of the hat a second time, and managed to hang on to his presidency.

But somehow, here we are, gearing up to go through it all again. And what a race 2016 is shaping up to be.

First, to the Republican party. With the US economy stuttering and struggling, an unpopular incumbent, and a long spell out of office (long enough to forget the previous Republican president), the GOP should be measuring up the curtains and furniture for their return to the White House.

Instead, they are at the beginning of what is looking like the mother of all punch ups. The race has been thrown into chaos by the entry of Donald Trump, businessman, TV personality, political hurricane. The Donald has seemingly turned things on their heads, overtaking more conventional candidates, like Jeb Bush, and your usual bunch of Republican nutters, like Mike Huckabee and Marco Rubio. Although I doubt that Trump will actually win the nomination, he has wreaked havoc with the attempt by the GOP to present itself as a kinder, gentler party. Whoever emerges as the winner of the primaries will be brusied and battered. Never a good start to a national election shot. The division between the party establishment and the grassroots is about to split open. And that's before the issue of the split between Trump and his hair comes into play...

With the Republican party on the brink of tearing itself apart, you'd have thought the Democrat would be laughing. After eight years in office, they've been thrown a lifeline for another shot. But they are not trouble free either. Their choice of candidate has long been obvious. Ever since she was pipped to the post in 2008, Hillary Clinton has been waiting in the wings for 2016. No candidate has ever gone into a primary race with so much support from their party, so much money behind them, so great an experience of government.

And yet... Clinton is starting to look less and less like the formidable election winning machine she once seemed to be. A bizarre, complex scandal that no one really understands is starting to hurt her. As far as I can work out, she used personal emails for work business. Seemingly not a problem, but not when you're the US Secretary of State, handling classified documents. But the problem lies in the twisting and turning to try and pretend she didn't do anything wrong. All the problems Hillary had in 2008 are starting to appear again: she's cold, she's aloof, shes' arrogant, she's married to Bill.

And it is starting to show. Her poll numbers are slipping. Most voters now say she isn't to be trusted. The Democrats are also having their own Trumpesque performance in the form of Bernie Sanders, the 'Independent Socialist' senator from Vermont, who is firing up the Democratic base, and eating into Clinton's support. Although Sanders is a rubbish presidential candidate (older, limited appeal outside of young, white, Northeastern liberals, not even an actual Democrat), he highlights Hillary's central problem. If he can be presented as a realistic challenger, what hope has she got against whoever emerges from the Republican brawl?

But, I think I have a solution. What the Democrats need is a candidate with impeccable leftist credentials. Someone with legislative and executive experience, but who can bill themselves as a Washington outsider. A politician with a proven record of electability, preferably on a national level, but who is not contaminated by recent troubles. A person who can appeal to better times.

I know what you're thinking. And yes, Jimmy Carter's cancer probably does rule him out. But there is another suggestion. If only there was another Democrat from better times, a Nobel Prize to their name, who had been elected nationally* but hasn't been mired in politics recently...

Well, it's just an idea...

*Of course, the suggestion that Al Gore has been elected US President is clearly nonsense. I'm sure that Jeb Bush was just as surprised by the result in Florida in 2000 as the next person... albeit the next person was Dubya...