There are, as you know, Pyramids in Egypt. You may have been to them. There are, as you know, Pyramids in Mexico. You may have been to them too. What should we conclude from this?
Perhaps instead of putting their feet up after dealing with Giza, the Egyptians popped over to Central America and offered to sort out the chaps over there with what they had just built in Africa, like a modern-day builder offering the neighbours the same conservatory they’ve just put in for Number 9. Perhaps it was the other way round, the Egyptians deciding to move vast hunks of rock around the desert to keep up with the Olmecs. Perhaps there is some group of intergalactic builders who got jobs on either side of the Atlantic, their brochure being the mcguffin for the next Indiana Jones movie.
Or perhaps there is a limited number of stable solids, and over time different civilisations hit on the same answer to the same problem – constructing the tallest building possible using the technology of the time.
If the latter seems more plausible to you, welcome to the reality-based community. If you prefer the notion of aliens in high-vis and hard hats, well, you’re going to love the internet…
The Chair of the Conservative Party, Kevin Hollinrake, seems, sad to say, to be a bit “online”, replying to a tweet by Nigel Farage showing a gold Reform badge with the goggle eyes emoji and a link to the Wikipedia entry for Golden Party Badge of the Nazis. Yes, both are round and yes both are gold, but once more, there is a limited number of shapes one could make a badge out of, and a limited number of colours one can make them in.
Would it be reasonable to assume that Reform have chosen to pay homage to one of the few political leaders less popular than Keir Starmer, or is it more likely that, out of the limited set of opportunities, they have randomly hit upon one which was also used by the Voldemort of European history? Take your time.
Let us go with Mr Hollinrake for a moment, however. It has probably not escaped his attention, given his job, that Reform are leading in the polls. He probably also remembers that Leave won the Brexit referendum. He must also have noticed that a common thread between these two is Nigel Farage. As a politician, he should, therefore, have some respect for Mr Farage’s political abilities. Yet, despite this, he seems to be implying that his opponent is deliberately giving a shout-out to one of the most reviled figures in history; a figure whose support has not, for many decades, been much of a vote-winner. And he has done this publicly, not in some private forum which then got leaked to a hungry journalist. Our Nige, hero of Brexit, leader in the polls, expected next Prime Minister, has just decided to out himself as a Nazi. Really?
These things do happen. In films. Every James Bond baddie is an eminent man who has been able to orchestrate money, resources and people to the very tip of success before he feels a strange compulsion to spill the beans to His Majesty’s house-trained psychopath. But in reality, the combination of titanic genius and amoeba-like stupidity is rarer than many appear to think.
Be that as it may, it is an assumption we are too often willing to make. Our opponents are both weapons-grade morons (that they disagree with us is sufficient proof of this hypothesis), and so hyper-competent that everything they do turns out exactly as they planned and fulfils their deepest desires. Labour are both a bunch of out-of-touch Islington intellectuals who never set foot outside the M25, and so knowledgeable about farming that they designed the Farm Tax specifically to achieve their aim of destroying British agriculture. The Conservatives were both a group of poshos cosseted by private medical insurance who had no experience of the public sector, and an evil group of profiteers readying the NHS for sale to their American venture capitalist chums.
Still, why be fair when you can be clever? For what the Idiot/Mastermind approach lacks in its relationship with reality, it more than makes up for in the halo it casts around the proposer. You may have seen Reform’s badge and thought nothing more of it. Mr Hollinrake, by contrast, knows an obscure-ish piece of Nazi history. He can see what you, poor, benighted, undereducated voter cannot. Similarly, you may have ascribed the farm tax to the fact the government is generally a bit hopeless and was desperate for cash, but that’s just because you haven’t Done The Work. You need someone Moses-like to come down from the mountain and walk you through it. The true value of the theory is not what it says about reality, but what it says about the theorist.
There is, of course, a paradox here. A writer who tries to impress is a writer who wants to impress, and there is little less impressive than that. We claim status when we feel we don’t have status, thereby confirming this fact to the reader. By weaving a complex chain of causality where others do not, the Idiot/Mastermind theorist may feel like a mastermind, but by ignoring the consequences of their assumptions, and leaving no role for fate/chance/coincidence they just show themselves to be a bit of an idiot.
Intelligence is in the ability to join the dots, wisdom is knowing when not to…
Stewart Slater works in Finance. He invites you to join him at his website.
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Or NF could have had his bages printed on poppy shapes and watched Kevin Hollinrake’s head explode. I know which I’d prefer (despite never having heard of KH, but having vaguely heard of NF).
Like Nathaniel, I’d never heard of The Chair of the Conservative Party, Kevin Hollinrake, until I read Stewart Slater’s interesting article. That speaks volumes (for those misfortunate enough to know me) because not all that long ago I would have been able to recite the names and party affiliations of every MP in Westminster. Since light well and truly dawned – lockdowns – I’ve not taken quite the same interest, to put it mildly.
But I do notice the phenomenon of which Stewart speaks, which falls into the category of “a little knowledge is a very dangerous thing” – where someone with an inch of information about one thing, makes it into a mile to fit another agenda. As here with the badge/Nazi (non) link.
Kemi is, apparently, refusing to apologise or criticise Hollinrake for his scurrilous attempt to paint Farage as a Nazi sympathiser or whatever his aim was, so that does seem to point to Slater’s suggestion that they are genuinely afraid of Nigel Farage moving into No. 10 after the next election. Personally, I doubt it (and don’t think it would matter – he’s an establishment politician now) but it isn’t looking good that the Tories are resorting to such below-the-belt personal attacks.
Stewart Slater – re his penultimate paragraph – he should take comfort in the fact that he is a writer who DOES impress!
Symptomatic of our times that we and our ilk now don’t know or care who these politicos are.
BTW do you like me, for inexplicable reasons, have forner MPs names and positions indelibly ingrained on your mind? Weirdly for me it’s Fred Peart, Minister of Agriculture!
See yesterday’s article for my comedy recommendation to you
I’m having one of those days so can’t think off the top of my head about former MPs. I will, however, check out your comedy recommendation for me before I go offline shortly.
I feel that Hollingrake must have some kind of death wish for his party, to do something that stupid. Kemi said she wasn’t going to apologise for something ‘said in jest’, although I don’t believe it was ‘said in jest’. I hope that behind the scenes, she reads him the riot act. The right has to stick together to get rid of this heinous Labour Government, not say things that will antagonise Reform supporters and send those ‘undecided’ into Farage’s arms.
I realise it is practically a hanging offence these days to say anything good about Kemi, but I like her, and feel she has shown promise lately. She does NOT need distractions like having to defend fools like Hollingrake.
I thought the media would be all over this, but funnily enough this article is the only piece I’ve seen that makes a big thing of it. Unless I’ve missed something. Nigel himself seemed more concerned with refuting an article in the Guardian which concentrated on something he is supposed to have said when he was fourteen. Maybe he thinks the opinions expressed in the Guardian will be more influential than comments made by Hollingrake – he’s probably right about that.
Or maybe he didn’t want anybody to retaliate with a mention of the Welsh Reform Councillor who has just gone down for ten years for fraud. I suppose that’s all right, and we mustn’t say anything about it.
Oh dear! The Kemi supporters group won’t have enough members to merit a badge, you’ll have to provide your own. Prepare to be disappointed.