It would be naive to claim that image management does not matter more than substance in American politics (and British for that matter). Ever since 1960 (brilliantly described in “The Making of the President”) candidates have been primarily brands. But in Trump you have a brand that is an anti-hero – that’s a first. Voters choose him not despite his venality but because of it. The Obama brand was the precise opposite. He was not universally liked but to many he was a hero – a Kennedy figure where Trump is Nixon but without Dicky’s cleverness, vision and intellect.

Is Trump an aberration or can we expect more charismatic populists in America politics? Well not necessarily. Lyndon Johnson had none of his murdered predecessor’s charm but he won in 1964 because he was (then) respected if not greatly liked. Four years later the fatal misjudgments of Vietnam drove him from the race and with Kennedy Mark 2 tragically joining his brother in Arlington Cemetery the public chose Tricky Dicky because he actually seemed more experienced and authoritative than the alternative – which he was.

Post Obama the Democrats have struggled to find anyone of similar electable charisma. Hillary carried too much negative baggage and in 2020 they struggled to find what they needed – a youngish, appealing, decent counterweight to Trump. And so it is a choice between an old populist they know and an even older bland old man who in normal times would be at best an older statesman in a rocking chair.

Sometimes our brand choices are the lesser of two evils. If a flight route we want to travel on is either British Airways and Ryanair you grit your teeth and make a choice. We now know that Donald Trump is certifiable – the evidence is in plain view every day. If he was an anti-hero four year’s ago now he is a demented anti-hero – like a character in a Joseph Heller novel or in “MASH”. In 2016 his populist charisma struck a chord with sufficient Americans to win. In the interim he has been impeached by the House of Representatives and demonstrates every day his unsuitability for high office. And yet the core brand elements that won him the presidency are intact.

In an age of suspicion of the establishment the candidates distanced from the political norms can win. That was the key to Leave’s win in the EU Referendum and to Boris Johnson’s General Election win in 2019. Add in a heavy dose of xenophobia and patriotic symbolism and you may have enough. Can you win an election with extreme nationalism grafted on to your flag-waving populism? Yes you can – especially if you demean foreigners at the same time. Stress that COVID-19 is a Chinese virus and you shift the blame from your incompetence to someone else. When Brexit becomes the disaster it inevitably will be it will be the EU’s fault. Obviously.

I think Joe Biden will struggle (I hope to God I’m wrong). His brand identity is weak. The people that would vote for any Democrat will vote for him, but that’s not enough. Republicans, despite the admirable “Lincoln Project”, will vote pretty much en masse for Trump. Independents are the key. To be against Trump is not enough. To win the floating vote you’ve got to be pro Biden. That’s proving to be difficult.

“It is almost unthinkable that a British army will engage the Russian, Chinese or Iranian armies.” Max Hastings in “The Times” today.

Indeed. Part of Britain’s collective delusion about its place in the world is that we would wish to, or have the capability to, launch significant unilateral military action against anybody – let alone a major power with significant armed forces.

In 1982 a distant corner of the remnants of the British Empire was invaded by a hostile power. Honourably we did not abandon the couple of thousand British subjects who eccentrically chose to live there any more than we would have done had the invasion been of the Isle of Mull. But we couldn’t do it again.

For medium sized western powers the only Defence option is collective. That’s what the tentative moves towards a European Army are about. As Europe moves to ever closer union the logic of including united armed forces in that move is inescapable and, actually, fairly uncontentious. NATO is dominated by the United States – the sole Western state that could engage the “Russian, Chinese or Iranian armies”. But its construct, a post war invention, is archaic. A European Defence Force (EDF) is a much more logical option.

The prospect of an EDF which is part of a military alliance with the United States is entirely logical. Yes it would resemble NATO but it would have a major difference. The accountability of the EDF via political masters in the European Parliament would be clear. The collective accountability of NATO frankly doesn’t exist. There are national accountabilities via individual country Parliaments but that is far too loose and ineffective.

And what of Britain? Well Britannia rules very little these days and would struggle to defend what it has. Whether we have aircraft carriers or submarines or cruise missiles or Trident, or even tanks, if we were attacked anywhere by a major hostile power we could not defend ourselves without help. To pool our military resources as part of NATO makes sense and we should abandon the delusion that we should spend huge amounts of money independent of the NATO alliance. The only case for Trident is if the NATO members collectively decide that they need it and will collectively pay for it.

When Empires fall it is uncomfortable and the celebration of perceived past glories becomes common. To say that as a land we have lost “Hope” and that the celebration of past “Glory” is all we have is perhaps unduly pessimistic – but not by much. In a sane world we would be prime movers in building European unity including a European Defence Force to which we could make a major contribution. The size of our Armed Forces is still significant even though it lacks critical mass for major independent action. As I have said we could not, on our own, defend or recover The Falklands these days.

Its now nearly sixty years since we were told that we had “lost an Empire but not yet found a role”. No amount of jingoistic flag-waving will take away from the truth of that. One of the militarily great powers is our ally – albeit under the Madness of King Donald a shaky one. The remainder are threats. A uniting Europe is potentially more than just a political and economic entity. It has the capability to be strong militarily and this will surely happen. We should get back inside the tent.

The State Pension is means tested. I pay income tax at the marginal rate on mine effectively returning 40% of the pension from whence it came. I do this willingly. I acknowledge that although I am entitled to the Pension I have other income sources and rely on the state less than some others. As for its quantum in Britain we have a slightly different model than some other European countries. The state pays my baby boomer generation less but I have more from my workplace pension which was final salary based, inflation-proofed and secure. I also pay tax on this of course.

The problem for many is that both the state and workplace pensions are inadequately inflation proofed. Even with the triple lock the state pension loses its purchasing power every year. Similarly workplace pensions linked to an inflation index such as RPI or CPI decline in useful value every year. The reason for this rarely-acknowledged fact is that Pensioner inflation always exceeds that of the price indices. Indices are based on baskets of goods and services for the population at large, but what pensioners need to spend their money on is different.

If you search for it you can find an official index of Pensioner inflation, though it’s a bit hidden away! Odd that ! The money we pensioners spend on utilities is higher than that of the wider population. Similarly falling interest rates benefit us little as many of us no longer have mortgages. Poorer pensioners especially are disadvantaged with state pension increases not matching the inflation they actually experience.

The myth of gold-plated baby boomer pensions needs to be busted. And it’s also time we started comparing our total pensions receipts (state plus workplace) internationally and not just our lower state pension. The subject of pensions has always generated more heat than light. Time we started more fact based analysis and commentary.

There has not been a Promenade Concerts season in 2020 and will not be. Whilst the return of live symphony concerts next month is to be welcomed they are emphatically not Proms. You simply cannot have a Promenade Concert without promenaders. It’s a non sequitur.

The relationship between audience and performer, be it in sport or in the Arts, is what makes a live event. The virus affected cricket and football this year has been strange and unreal. The players and others involved have done well and the sport has been as normal as possible – but it has been soulless and cynical. The latter because we know that the only driver has been financial.

To hold a symphony concert with players scraping and plucking and blowing within a few feet of one another in a time of social distancing seems perverse and it is clear that the restrictions will mean there can be no sort of normality. We will see how the orchestras cope – presumably there will be screens? You can hardly play the trombone in a mask.

To even think about holding a “Last Night. Of the Proms” is absurd. Audience participation, especially after the interval, is the key to this event. Without it it it’s not just not worth the bother. It’s also grotesquely disrespectful. The Last Night is a spectacular celebration, very silly and eccentric of course but a bit of a bonkers tradition. To think of putting it on in a year when there is nothing to celebrate defies belief. More than 60,000 British families are still in mourning. The Land we live in is more one of dread than of “Glory” and any “Hope” we may have is dashed almost every day.

The issue of the “patriotic” songs is a separate one. Certainly to have them this gruesome year would be an affront and is unthinkable. For the future a review is called for. As a nation there are signs that the iniquities of Empire are at last beginning to be understood and that we never did create a “green and pleasant land”. That our lonely future can be celebrated as any sort of Jerusalem looks preposterous. You don’t remove Britain’s image as an inward-looking laughing stock by waving flags and pretending that Britannia Rules. But then perhaps delusion is all we’ll have left.

“Johnson the loner will govern as he pleases” says Paul Goodman in The Times today. Mr Goodman and his friends at ConserativeHome have long supported Boris Johnson and wanted him as the Party’s leader. This has never been because Johnson has shared their Hard Right Eurosceptic libertarian philosophy, but because they saw him as a vote winner. His ambition was such that he would do what he was told and if it was Lord Ashcroft and his ConHome website that was doing the telling all the better.

There is no vestige of a political philosophy in Boris Johnson. The terms “Thatcherite” or “Blairite” did actually mean something. What is a “Johnsonite” – there is no such thing ? Like Groucho Marx he has principles, but if you don’t like them he has others.

Tim Montgomerie, a ConHome founder, has said:

“Many [Conservative] MPs are furious at the slump in the opinion polls; at the ways in which their multiple calls for Cummings to go were ignored; and at a succession of unforced policy errors. They no longer believe in the Prime Minister in the way they did.”

It’snot just the Conservative Party realising that Boris Johnson is not up to the job – his defenders in the media and elsewhere are few and Montgomerie is far from the only once supporter who has reneged.

Pragmatic leaders who campaign from the political edge but once in power segue to the centre have been common. Indeed most modern Prime Ministers are in this mould (Thatcher the exception). Johnson campaigned on a single issue – to Get Brexit Done. A weary electorate gave him what he wanted. He has been unlucky that his first year in office has given him a management challenge far beyond his competence to handle. But it was his choice to keep the manipulative and scheming unelected ideologue Dominic Cummings in his job – as Tim Montgomerie pointed out this has been a major cause of policy errors, and still is.

Johnson isn’t an ideologue – he has never had a coherent and consistent political philosophy. His vacillations and U-turns are not a surprise. If you spend some of your youth trashing restaurants your innate respect for common-sense and propriety is unlikely to be substantial.

In times of extreme stress good leaders act decisively and communicate persuasively. I don’t just mean Churchill (though of course he was the great model). The challenges of 2020 are not those of 1940 (though the death toll is greater) but more those of 2008 post Lehman Brothers. Then competence was needed and Gordon Brown exercised it. Brown eschewed faux-charisma and went for hard work and transnational cooperation which he led. It worked and it is his legacy that it did. Oh for that level of competence today – you won’t get it from the man in the tent.

My parents, as they reminded me from time to time, made sacrifices to educate me privately in the 1950s and 1960s. As Max Hastings points out in The Times today this was just about affordable for them then but today, other things being equal, it would not be. Perhaps 5% of the population can enjoy the advantages of the schooling I had.

My old school has magnificent facilities, good teachers, co-education (an advance on my time) and outstanding examination results. Left Wing firebrand and campaigning atheist the late Christopher Hitchens and his brother Peter went there in my day. Curiously Christopher is quite complimentary about the school in his writings (even the then mandatory twice daily chapel services) whereas to mention it to Peter is a red rag to a bull.

If I had had children (which I didn’t ) and if I could have afforded to (unlikely) I would have sent my son or daughter (or both) to The Leys School. My politics have always been strongly anti Conservative so there’s plenty of hypocrisy in this admission. It would have been partly tradition (my father and uncle were both at the school) , partly pride and a rather boastful indulgence. I would have said, of course, that I just wanted to do the best for my child as my father had for me.

In education Britain is now three nations – a change from Disraeli’s two. There’s the 5% at the “top” who can afford independent schools. Then the rest of the middle classes who can afford the high house prices of living in postcodes with good state schools nearby. Then there is the proletariat who have to rely on bog standard comprehensives. Our education problem is not caused by the 5% at the top – elitist though this may be. (Actually the fact that these children place no burden on the state education budget could be seen as a benefit to the taxpayer).

The problem is that there is inconsistency of standards in the state system which reinforces class and regional inequalities. The High School Academy just down the road from me in the London Borough of Richmond has good facilities and good exam results. We live in the heart of middle class privilege which sets an educational standard that far exceeds that of less privileged parts of the country.

Tony Blair was right to prioritise “Education, Education, Education” but neither he nor his successors have cracked the system. There is no equality of opportunity. Most parents pay for educational advantage for their children in a different way from my parents in the Molesworth era. The independent sector is an indulgence for very, very few. The real challenge lies elsewhere.

Danny Finkelstein in The Times today peddles the view that moderation is some sort of third way alternative to Left or Right. If that’s all it is only the indecisive will vote for it. A negative choice. An easy choice. A compromise. If we reject the Spartite absurdities of Corbyn or the one issue narrowness of Johnson (pragmatic but grubby) surely we want an upbeat alternative not some “On the one hand and on the other hand” fudge.

I was in the 1980s in the same political party as Danny – the SDP. I suspect that he joined, as I did, not because of its centrism but because of its radicalism. The Gang of Four weren’t cuddly liberals at all (though they did a deal with them for pragmatic electoral reasons). They wanted to create a new politics.

And that’s what we need today. Not moderation per se but a radical repositioning of the political options that the voters will buy. My short manifesto would be:

▪️Electoral reform. A fair voting system. Smaller House of Commons

▪️Abolition of the House of Lords and an elected Senate to replace it.

▪️Proactive partnerships with other countries, especially in Europe with EU27/EFTA

▪️Defence fully integrated with allies

▪️Far greater devolution of decision-making to the regions.

▪️Unequivocal support for a mixed economy.

▪️Extensive public/private partnerships for all public services.

▪️Abolition of private sector monopolies especially in public services.

▪️Full Integration of Channel Islands, Isle of Man etc. into Britain.

▪️Disposal of all overseas possessions – no more tax havens.

▪️Expansion of direct taxation on an ability to pay basis (inc. Wealth Tax)

▪️Reductions in indirect taxation.

Now don’t commend me if you agree with me because of my moderation but because I am a Radical. Some of these ideas libertarians might like, some moderate members of the Labour Party. Fine. But there is no ideology here just, I pride myself (!) common-sense.

British politics is a shambolic mess and we won’t get out of it with fudge. Let’s start again.

My mother was clear about what a “baby-boomer” was , why the boom happened and that I was part of it. I was born in 1946 at the beginning of a short period of a high birthdate with, according to Mum, a very specific cause. My Dad had returned from the war after being liberated from Japanese imprisonment on VJ Day. When he got back in September 1945 Mum was pleased to see him. I was born a little over a year later.

In the Labour ward where my mother gave birth there were eighteen other births the same week – it was a very busy time. Of the eighteen babies seventeen were boys. My Mum explained – “God” she said (she was a bit religious) “is replacing all the men lost in the war with boy babies. It happened in 1919 as well”. That was the real Baby Boom – it lasted at the most until 1950 and it’s obvious why it happened even if you find my Mum’s gender bias explanation a tad fanciful.

The birthrate in the 1950s and 1960s may have been healthy but it wasn’t the real “Baby Boom” of happy memory. There was a good reason for the spike in births in the late 1940s and those of us who were part of it find it rather moving. The recent horrendous war was over – no better way to celebrate the peace than to have a family. The later breeding patterns in the 1950s and thereafter may have been healthy but the real “Baby Boom” of happy memory was earlier.

Writing in “The Times” yesterday Max Hastings deplored the low quality Of Boris Johnson’s Cabinet. He suggested that Rishi Sunal and Michael Gove were the only members who deserved their places.

Well in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is King. The truth is that there is no way Rishi Sunak would be Chancellor of the Exchequer if times were normal. His potential would no doubt secure him a Junior ministerial job in the Treasury with a “Let’s see how you get on “ brief. A few years down the road he might get promotion to Minister of State. Perhaps. As for Michael Gove this superficially genial (in private) man is a walking cocktail of pride and prejudice. He can fake competence but he’s a nasty bit of work. And these two (I agree) are the best of a gruesomely bad bunch.

British life as Mr Hastings and I know it (we are the same age) has been destroyed by Brexit. The alliances of the past were complex and sure there were disagreements. Blair and Brown was pretty toxic but despite this they were competent – as were many others in their cabinets. It was sad that they fell out having worked so well together in the run up to 1997. Ten years earlier the Blessed Margaret did not demand, and would not have received, blind loyalty. She was in charge and preferred to be with those who were “one of us”. But her cabinet was not stuffed with Yes Men. And other elements in society, like the Civil Service or the Justice system, were not expected to kowtow to her.

The Brexit divide is antithetical to normal British politics. Those opposed to Brexit in the Conservative Party have fallen from a strong majority to barely a lunatic fringe. We are in the times of Henry VIII here. To be in the monarch’s favour and receive his patronage you had to sign a document pledging your allegiance to him. Otherwise you would lose your job or your head. So it is with King Boris – to be in his court you have to be a Brexiteer, or convincingly pretend you are. There is only one true faith and you better declare your belief in it. Whoever you are.

In a political environment so singular and intolerant of dissent those who rise to the top will not be those who challenge orthodoxies. When Theresa May fell those in her cabinet who wavered fell as well, never to return. Some outstanding dissenters on the back benches Like Dominic Grieve and Anna Soubry were, one way or another, kicked out of active politics. Ken Clarke, no doubt in respect for his age and previous service, made it to the Lords rather than the Tower. How he’ll feel in the company of Claire Fox and Kate Hoey and Ian Botham one wonders.

So to be in Boris Johnson’s Cabinet you have to submit to the authority of he who must be obeyed (aka Dominic Cummings) and kiss the feet of the monarch. And that requirement won’t promote the best talent. You won’t get cream at the top of the bottle – just sourness everywhere.

So it’s 75 years after VJ Day and a few days after the anniversaries of the Atomic Bombs being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the early 1960s I became aware, in my early teens, of the fact that atomic weapons had been used to end the Japanese war. And also that, fifteen years, on countries, including Britain, had stockpiles of weapons far deadlier than those used against Japan. I joined the “Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament” (CND) and proudly wore their badge. I still support CND – how could anyone not?

One day in 1960 I returned from boarding school at the end of term wearing my CND badge on my blazer. My father went purple. “Don’t you know that without those Atomic bombs I wouldn’t be here,and nor would you” he said rather dramatically. When he explained I saw that he was almost certainly right.

From the capture of Singapore in February 1942 to his release in August 1945 my father was a Far East Prisoner of War on the Thai/Burma railway. He and other officers had built a radio receiver (Dad kept the earphone in a shoe) and via this they kept in touch with the war. They knew that the war in Europe was over and that Hitler was dead. They also knew that the Americans were making progress, at high cost, in defeating the Japanese.

To beat the Japanese a task force for invasion at least as large as D Day would be necessary. The Japanese defence of their islands was strong and their culture denied the possibility of surrender. A long hard battle was ahead, or so it seemed. The worry for the POWs was that they would be seen as an inconvenience. A few men were needed to repair the Railway which was under constant Allied attack. But Dad and his fellow prisoners were more burden than asset. Their concern that the Japanese would at some point dispose of them was a legitimate one.

For the Americans the prospect of a long drawn out conventional war, including invasion, was unappealing. Tens of thousands would be lost on both sides as had happened after D Day in Europe. The Japanese Government and Armed Forces were at least as fanatical as the Nazis had been. A game changer was needed.

For over five years scientists had been working on the “Manhattan Project” in the US the goal of which was to produce an Atomic Bomb. The first test was successful in July and the decision was taken to use the weapons against Japanese cities, first Hiroshima and then Nagasaki. The rationale was to end the war quickly and to avoid the military and civilian casualties that a conventional war would have involved. Incidentally it was hoped that a very swift end to the war would see the immediate release of allied prisoners and slave labourers from the camps.

A digression. A couple of years ago I visited a German friend in Hamburg and he took me to the top of the St Nicholas Church from which there is a fine view of the modern city. Historic Hamburg had been destroyed by allied bombing in 1943. Over fifty thousand civilians had been killed. In 1945 bombing of a similar intensity had killed 25,000 in Dresden.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended the Japanese War. My father and tens of thousands other FEPOWs were liberated shortly afterwards. It’s difficult to calculate how many deaths the atomic bombs caused – perhaps twice as many as Hamburg and Dresden combined. But this is not about the head counts – Allied lives saved by not having to fight a land war to defeat Japan. Or saved because, like my father, they were liberated from imprisonment rather than being butchered as they might well have been.

When as a child I began to realise the chilling truth that I almost certainly only existed at all because a hundred thousand or more Japanese had been killed by two atomic bombs it reinforced by opposition to nuclear weapons and confirmed my support for CND. I’m conscious of the huge paradox here !

Some years ago now I visited Hiroshima – it is a respectful record of man’s inhumanity to man. But then so is Coventry cathedral and so are the war graves along the Thai/Burma Railway. I have visited Japan quite frequently and made a few good Japanese friends. Some knew of my father’s suffering and I knew of the suffering of innocent people in Hiroshima. We didn’t need to talk about it.

For me VJ Day is more a commemoration than a celebration. Amen.