Cluster bombs, commercial imperative and the conundrum of national pride

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So, one moment Gordon wants us all to salute the union flag and get a warm glow about Britishness, and the next you know he’s flying the St Georges Cross from outside his house in deference to English nationalism. Thing is, ignoring the Prime Minister’s desperate attempt to bat for both sides, whichever symbol or logo or ritual we gather around as a unifying statement of our collective identity, the object of our loyalty must surely first be something we are proud of.

While struggling with this concept, I have often reflected on the good fortune of having been born a Brit and it is true that, in the great scheme of things, we are remarkably prosperous and free and that the vast majority of alternatives are, by a variety of measures, quite shocking. But it is always worth remembering that this is despite, not because of the establishments of the day. It is only people of principle, energy and conscience who over the generations have sought to overcome the conforming pressures of blind patriotism and deference to tradition who have forced social progress and curbed the worst instincts of the powerful.

Various accidents of history, culture and geography have left us largely self-determined, well-fed and safe, but we should guard against trying to take too much credit for this. In response to the objection that Britain is only great off the back of centuries of bullying and exploitation, it could be pointed out that if we had not asserted ourselves in this manner, then somebody else would have instead, a similar argument to the one for selling arms to the Saudis. But while it may be true that we were the first to get the boot in, it doesn’t mean we should celebrate the fact. Defeat of Hitler might be an honourable exception, but then it’s the Russians who deserve the greatest thanks for that.

Perhaps this covert understanding lies beneath a certain reluctance of the English to overindulge in Morris dancing or other similar behaviour, yeomanly bastions of the green and pleasanter places aside, when it’s own national day arrives. Even St Patrick is more indulged than St George on English soil, although this may be more the result of a commercial conspiracy involving Guinness rather than any intrinsic merit or admiration of the Irish. France has its bastille day, and Scotland has its Burns but these countries do have some cause to celebrate an act of defiance here , or a liberation from oppression there without accusations of supremacism or the creepy hint of triumphalism. Certainly, there is a default stability to our lives, and for that we must be thankful, but the small print on each renewal of our contract with the State is always worth studying, lest we sign away too easily what has been centuries in the making. And it is vigilance to this, rather than mutual congratulation on the status quo which I suggest should exercise us most.

The abolition of the 10p taxband, to those who cared to think it through, always seemed unduly harsh on the hard up, and the government is now appearing ingenuous in its “whoops, didn’t really notice that, but look how we are prepared to listen when it is pointed out to us…” approach to an enforced and embarrassing reconsideration. There’s a horrible suspicion that the most likely losers of this tweak in the national housekeeping were not considered electorally significant, besides which they were assumed to be too busy keeping body and soul together, or struggling to understand English, to even notice. Ministers could not have expected their fellow party MPs to champion the cause of the poor with such determination.Not in these days of corporation-friendly New Labour. And now it’s the turn of the nation’s well-heeled financial speculators to feel the pinch. But paying off the banks to soften the rebounding blow of their own headlong avarice with taxpayers money might be even trickier to negotiate with the defenders of fair play.

Then there’s our steadily ebbing justice system. Even a Times correspondent usually more than happy to express his contempt for the berobed peddlers of political Islam was moved to dismay by the recent incarceration of London-born sparky turned ranting apologist for Jihad, Abu Izzadeen. Regarding the latter, anybody who heckles John Reid cant be all bad, and I have considerable sympathy with his indignation about the sacking of Fallujah, among other acts of monumental US heavy-handedness, but the idea of an undemocratically imposed caliphate right here in the UK is a major point of disagreement between myself and the moslem radical formerly known as Trevor Brooks. Still, however distasteful and misguided the man, his only “crimes” were of thought and speech, and for what he said, and for how he said it, he has now been landed with a four and a half year prison sentence.

But just as the law must be dispensed overzealously in order to protect national security, so for the same cause it must also sometimes be suspended, it seems. The Serious Fraud Office, the Attorney General, BAE systems and Prince Bandar should all be tied up together in a large sack, but the full implications of their corruption stramash are grave indeed. If judgements of the highest figures within our judiciary, whose independence from the executive is, after all, an absolute cornerstone of our democracy, are considered dispensable on matters whose legitimacy is finally determined by government, then the wheels are well on their way to coming off the constitutional wagon. Apart from the astonishing deference to blackmail as a means to manipulate the laws and policies of another sovereign country, experts have poured scorn on the notion of Saudi Arabia being in the habit of sharing intelligence with us in any case. If it did, 9/11 should surely not have? Which leaves us with good old commercial interest at the bottom of it all.

And of all the current examples of this country’s venality, its prioritisation of economic interest and its mollification of corporate will, the arms trade is probably the least defensible. Even if you accept the role of modern government as an amoral facilitator of economic growth, a mere rubber-stamper for UK plc, lethal weapons of war, especially the more indiscriminate ones, should be handled with care. And certainly, when a global movement takes wing to phase out, or ban the worst of these, one ought to expect Britain, a country, after all, whose leader exhorts us to be proud of what it represents, to be part of it. Unfortunately this is not the case. A conference in Dublin next month will seek to sign off a treaty banning the use of cluster bombs, and the UK, together with a handful of other western countries is currently seeking to weaken the terms of its application.

Cluster munitions are supposed to be deployed only in combat areas free of civilians but however well intentioned the armies of those that use them might be, the reality is that modern warfare is largely undertaken in civilian environments, and that given the high rate of undetonated bomblets, this is ordinance that effectively amounts to uncontrolled mine laying. As such it continues to kill innocent people long after the end of “legal” hostilities. On this occasion, one can only grimace at the militaristic impulse which continues to define every stitch of the flag, be it the St Georges cross or the butcher’s apron itself, and wish the MoD and its agencies anything but the best of British in seeking exemptions for continued use (and sale) of this awful weapon.

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