The Game of Historical Allusions
By Will Barber Taylor
As Boris blusters through the political milieu of Brexit, we are once again reminded of how history is as politicised now as it ever was. For, history is not simply a means of recalling past events but for the politician a tool. And a very useful tool — whether to compare an event with another or to compare yourself with a famous political leader of the past, it is a means for the modern politician to exult their own self-worth. What American politician, regardless of political shade has not been desperate to compare themselves to John F Kennedy? President Trump has gone so far as to compare his wife to Jackie Kennedy, a comparison that is to say the least erroneous.
Boris himself, of course, loves the overtones of Churchillian bluster that regularly accompanies his appearances and whilst there are some similarities, such as their shared journalistic endeavour there are also vast differences. Does this matter though to the likes of such august publications as The Daily Telegraph that seem to love boosting their reader’s pride by allowing these supposed similarities oxygen? It does because it then gives their man Boris the ability to cloak himself in the achievements of Churchill and thus imply that he, like the great war leader will be able to lead Britain out from a dark hour into the sunlit upper fields of some McGonagllian paradise.
We have seen it not simply on the right but the left as well. Jeremy Corbyn’s initial leadership campaign had a strong undercurrent of him being the anti-Blair, at least in terms of policy. Countless images of Corbyn that are circulated go to painful lengths to making clear that he is not Tony Blair, reinforcing support from him within his own ranks and helping to spin the narrative that unlike Blair he is a return to the “traditional” values of the Labour Party, those advocated by the likes of Clement Attlee.
As well as the countless negative reflections on Blair as a means of contrasting him with Corbyn, the current Labour Leader has equally received many more positive comparisons with Clement Attlee. Comments abound on Twitter and throughout the press that allow Corbyn to, like Boris with Attlee’s processor in Number 10, use the achievements of their historical “counterpart” to give them a sense of not only place in history but apparent promise; that they will live up to their past reflection and have similar achievements to them. It is, in many ways, a get out clause because it allows the politicians to rely on nostalgia for a past and revered leader to gain support that they might have not otherwise got.
But the game of historical allusions does not simply apply to individuals but events as well. From across the political spectrum, Brexit has been equating to everything from the Reformation to the Second World War. Not only is this disingenuous in the extreme, it is also dangerous.
Words have power and so does history. To invoke a brutal and devastating conflict which cost the lives of millions of people to stop one of the most vicious and evil forces that has ever existed on the face of this Earth to one nation leaving a wider trading block is frankly bizarre and somewhat crude. It not only inflates the seriousness of the situation we face with Brexit to such absurd levels to make people who should be worried feel blasé about it all but also trivialises a horrific chapter in the human story.
Yet these allusions have existed for centuries. George Canning was known as the Cicero of the British Senate for his rhetorical abilities; Margaret Thatcher famously invoked St Francis on the steps of Downing Street; John F Kennedy would compare his battle with Richard Nixon to the election of Abraham Lincoln a hundred years prior and took inspiration from Franklin Roosevelt and Julius Caesar made sure that he was not compared with his predecessor as Dictator of Rome, Sulla. So, is there any way to limit or stop them? No, for as long as there are politicians who wish to please the public there will be a desire to remind them of a successful leader of old and say, “well I am just like him!”
But we have a duty in an age of greater connectivity to ensure that we do not fall into the trap of, simply because it is convenient, making erroneous comparisons between events and people who are remarkably different not simply because of the context they exist in but also of the differing personalities of the individuals.
Whilst it might be easy to make a comparison between Boris and his great hero Pericles, one cannot but hope that the former does not suffer the fate of the latter who died of the plague, hated by his people and barricaded in his homeland by his enemies because of his own incompetence. It may be fun to make these satirical comparisons, but they belie and defeat the point of serious political discussion — to move forward to a brighter future and not look back and wish that the paradise that could once have been was not postponed.
