DR Gerald Morgan deserves our admiration.

Like a voice in the wilderness (or possibly an elderly coach on the touchline in Dublin) he exhorts us to ‘rise up’ in the face of England’s pantomimes (‘When will they ever learn?’ he seems to ask, aptly reminding Foresters of one of the great anti-war songs) to rise up in the face of the country’s corruption at Westminster as much as its incompetence at Twickenham.

 

‘It’s leaders we need,’ cries Dr Morgan, ‘to represent us and our nation.’ Which begs three questions:

Do we still have a nation? In the internet age, doesn’t direct democracy trump representative democracy?

And do we, after decades of disenchantment with a parasitic political class, any longer need, let alone want, a leader? (Answers on a postcard After all, as St Matthew might have said, ‘If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall out the window’).

But before you consider the defenestration of our local MP (that pillar of selfless service to the Forest community) bless him and remember that the world of a politician is always at least 20 years behind the world of the rest of us.

Mr Harper may bleat about the UK being built on ‘shared values of democracy and free speech’, if only he understood.

Because it’s the eradication of corruption and a renaissance in accountability at Westminster (and not the enforcement of a counter- extremism strategy or the penalising of the poor or ‘Hunting’ junior doctors) which will encourage us to dream again, which will re-awaken hope and our so called ‘shared values’. 

Remember we’ve been here before – in those lotus-eating years of the 1930s when patriotism was the very opposite of Conservatism, when Baldwin’s and Chamberlain’s decaying ruling class (like Blair’s and Cameron’s) was busy advancing its own interests at the expense of the country.

If some are inclined to weep at the state of Her Majesty’s Official Opposition, nil desperandum and instead take consolation in Benjamin Disraeli’s observation that ‘no government can be long secure without a formidable opposition.’

And lastly remember that this run-up to our EU referendum is like another Phoney War.

Let us hope and pray that when the real battle starts a genuine leader will finally emerge, as he or she has done in the past.

Because the art of leadership, like most currencies, has been devalued.

And when there is no vision and no dream, there is no hope, and no leadership.

– John Muir, Newnham.