An Albion of yore in The Hay Wain — John Constable (1821)
“We should be realistic, this is our politics now”
This was the take-home message at the end of Newsnight, the flagship late-night current affairs show of the British Broadcasting Corporation. It was sobering.
The subject of conversation was the increasingly fragmented political discourse in the United Kingdom and, in particular, a series of chants which took place outside Parliament which were aimed at Conservative MP Anna Soubry (who, contrary to most of her party, has campaigned against Brexit).
UK Houses of Parliament
As I work in a hospital on the opposite side of the River Thames, I witnessed some of these chants yesterday:
Anyone who is not very worried about what is going on in our country now is burying their heads in the sand more deeply than a psammophile ostrich. This is very frightening indeed.
Just as much of our media have consistently mimicked Völkischer Beobachter and Der Stürmer of 20s Germany, some of the most vicious and thuggish portions of our society are now more empowered than ever, and police and reporters stand by idly whilst the societal, geopolitical and economic futures of this country is their bully’s playground.
This is your future, your childrens’ future. The kind of country we are about to become unless something alters our path drastrically…
Except from Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant — William Blake
Awake! awake O sleeper of the land of shadows, wake! expand!
I am in you and you in me, mutual in love divine
Fibres of love from man to man thro Albions pleasant land.
In all the dark Atlantic vale down from the hills of Surrey
A black water accumulates, return Albion! return!