15 October 2015
Right on, Right Hon
by J.R.Thomas
A branch tapping on the window, the dancing of flames from a decaying fire on the wall, the creaking of an unlatched door in the wind. Children see and hear things that scare them; but the grown-ups know that it is nothing.
So where are the grown-ups now? If you believe what you read in much of the press, or from the utterings of Tory ministers, there is a monster stalking the land and his name is Corbyn. But if this is a monster, it is one that has been with us before. In 1945, in 1964, in 1974, Mr Corbyn would not have frightened anybody. They might have disagreed with him, by 1974 they might have thought him a touch old fashioned, but his views of society and the body politic, and his political advocacy as to how to make the world a better place, would have been thought pretty mainstream.
But Jeremy has at least one essential difference to Clement Atlee, to Harold Wilson, to Michael Foot, to Neil Kinnock. He is a republican. In their hearts, those previous Labour leaders probably were as well, but they knew that abolition of the monarchy could only play badly with the electorate, would divide British society, and that so long as the incumbent behaved herself – it has been Her Majesty who has occupied the throne and public affections for all of those leaderships other than Atlee – then there was not much point embarking on the thankless task of trying to think of something better. So they kept very quiet on the subject (and all except Foot took peerages soon after retirement; Atlee, an earldom, no less).
–until Mr Corbyn suddenly stepped out of the autumn shadows with a brand of politics so new, and yet so old, that many political commentator’s brains seem have turned to mush, unable to place him into a context of over a hundred years of leftie politics. He is an old fashioned, politically unsophisticated socialist; one cornerstone of his creed is that he is straightforwardly and without reservation a republican. He has not said, though one suspects it is only prudence that restrains him, that Oliver Cromwell might well be his role model in matters constitutional. One cannot imagine that a Corbyn administration will create many honours; if so, they will be simple awards for working people and for those conspicuous for their bravery or their extraordinary efforts for some cause. Not only the House of Lords would go, certainly in the form which we know it, but also titles themselves. The twice yearly handing out of gongs for political service, to civil servants, and to the military would shrink or vanish. Those hoping to amend their credit cards to Sir This or Dame That would not need to trouble Mastercard. Lord This and Baroness That would cease to rent ermine robes for new Parliamentary sessions. As in France and Germany, it might well become illegal to use titles.
And when the fountains of honours stop flowing, then can the fountainhead be far behind? It is hard to see that a Labour Administration would in the short term abolish the monarchy; for the foreseeable future it would be extraordinarily unpopular and a Corbyn government with a working majority would probably have too much else to do in a five year term.
But letting the monarchy slowly wither, removing its few formal functions and eroding its dignified and ceremonial ones, attacking its wealth and standing would be easy; and so making it look pointless and out of touch with the new Corbyn age would do most of the job that a government might fear to attack head-on.
Which is surely why Mr Corbyn is entirely laid back about his membership of the Privy Council; why he has not bothered to be sworn in and take the oath of office, why his recent mistaken elevation to “Right Honourable” (a designation borne only by Privy Councillors and earls) and then de-elevation are unlikely to have bothered him one whit. These baubles and symbols are of no great concern to a man who wishes to remodel British society. Indeed, the Privy Council must be one of those strange bits of establishment Britain that especially irritates left wing dinner parties in the smarter bits of North London.
Not many people know what the Privy Council is or does. They probably know that it advises the sovereign; they may know that it is a vital bit of our present constitutional arrangements in that it is responsible for Orders in Council – which implement legislation passed by the House of Commons and the House of Lords. It also makes Orders-in-Council (keep up at the back please) which is essentially legislation introduced by Ministers (and also the Welsh Assembly) without needing formal approval by Parliament. It has existed in some shape or form since the Middle Ages, though abolished by Cromwell, along with the monarchy and the House of Lords. Oliver did though introduce a Council of State, remarkably similar in function to the Privy Council, which returned with the Merry Monarch in 1660 .
The Privy Council now has over 650 members, the great and good, if you regard serving and ex politicians with a sprinkling of bishops and senior hereditary peers as such, though few are called to attend. The Duke of Edinburgh is the most senior and the only one appointed by the previous monarch. The members, you may be relieved to learn, are unpaid. But as every newspaper reader and television viewer must now know, every member is prefixed Right Honourable.
But one or two other conventions have grown up, and one is putting Mr Corbyn in a bit of a fix. (Whether or not he bows and kisses the royal hand is capable of easy solution.)
It is conventional to only allow the highest level of security briefings to persons who are sworn to membership of the Council; ostensibly because of the solemnity of the oath of membership – even revealing the words of the oath was regarded as an offence and possibly high treason until 1998. So Jeremy cannot be fully briefed on things he may need to know for Commons debates and votes unless he is a member. He suggested that he could be briefed by a colleague who is a member, but that of course would break the terms of the oath of that member. With a possible emergency debate on Syria coming up, the problem has become rather immediate. No doubt, in the way of our mostly unwritten and endlessly fluid constitution, some way of dealing with this issue will soon be found – Her Majesty often been rather more flexible in such things than her ministers.
So expect the red bicycle to be glimpsed late one evening in the Mall shortly. But even when the formalities that might replace the kneeling and brushing of lips against glove have been resolved to the satisfaction of easy going monarch and rather prickly socialist, and he is formally as Right and as Honourable as they come, that particular addition seems unlikely to be appearing on Mr Corbyn’s email address.
