Tom Nairn

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): My good friend Tom Nairn is back from his regular sojourn in Melbourne but has come down with the flu, whose symptoms this winter seem to be particularly vicious and lasting. Gasping down the phone he promised to write a piece about what he thinks Brown will do next. He is convinced that he will seek to win power without a proper election, by creating a government of national unity. If you will excuse the pun, this will cash in on the crisis. The inclusion of Vince Cable seems to be critical to the success of such a master-stroke, to be orchestrated by Mandelson, aka "Bobby". I was meditating this scenario when, blow me down, Vince wrote his pitch for just such a stitch-up in the Mail on Sunday. After he attacked David Cameron by name for "moral indignation several years too late", but sent a signal by not criticising Gordon Brown.

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): This surely must be in the lead for the least interesting headline of the 21st century:

Professor calls for update in attitudes to Scottish independence

There was no need to add "not many dead"! For a' that, it is a good short summary by the Glasgow Herald's political editor Douglas Fraser of the Tom Nairn lecture I blogged yesterday,

Anthony Barnett (Edinburgh, OK): I'm up in Edinburgh where I went to hear Tom Nairn deliver last night's 16th Edinburgh Lecture Globalization and Nationalism: The New Deal? (Republished in openDemocracy.) He was introduced by the government's First Minister Alex Salmond who hosted a reception afterwards. Here is a picture of the two of them, the First Minister is just sitting down after lauding the speaker. I think I need a new camera but it is the only picture there is.

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): The storm over Iraq now gripping Washington has profound consequences for the politics of the United Kingdom. With General Petraeus claming that the surge is working, Democrats finally speaking out for a “pivot” towards Tehran while the administration speaks darkly of Iran waging a “proxy war”, we can expect the worst of a wasteful, bullying and, for all its legalism and lawyers (and sometimes thanks to them!) an often criminal political system. I want to return in another post to Gordon Brown’s relationship to it, his Iraq withdrawal policy and his remarkable visit to Camp David. But first, to Washington itself.

Guy Aitchison (Bristol, OK): Brown has been accused by leading historians of glorifying the Empire as part of a strategy to foster unity in the British Isles and legitimise current imperial adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. The criticisms, reported by yesterday's Sunday Herald, were made by Scottish author William Darlymple and Oxford's Maria Misra as events across the country mark the 60th anniversary of Indian independence and the 150th anniversary of the Indian Uprising . Visiting Africa in 2005 Brown said "We should celebrate much of our past rather than apologise for it. And we should talk about British values that are enduring because they stand for some of the greatest ideas in history: tolerance, liberty, civic virtue, that grew in Britain and influenced the rest of the world. Our strong traditions of fair play, of openness, of internationalism, these are great British values." According to Misra this is misguided as an attempt to foster British identity since it alienates those descended from colonial subjects and lends ideological support to the idea of empire. The challenge seems to be one of engaging honestly with Britain's imperial past without glossing over the more unsavoury details (Vron Ware suggested on OK that Commonwealth Day might provide an opportunity to do so). But is this kind of historical engagement really possible when the stated aim is as ambitious and politicised as that of Brown's, namely to engender a stronger sense of British national pride?

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): On Friday Tom Nairn decided he has to raise a yet another glass to the modern world and start a blog. In it he turns to Brown in a post called 'Their Kingdom" (ouch!) What Gordon is looking for, Nairn argues, is "A new National Government: the principal 20th century palliative for crises and emergencies. Some cross-partyism is  required again, to save Britishness. This is why he has lurched so suddenly towards the Lib-Dems, and in effect invited them into informal coalition. He was indicating that higher necessities must now take over — higher even than those of the Party, his normal modus operandi".

Anthony Barnett (London, OK):  This morning's Today programme discussed whether we should have a written constitution. It took as its peg the attempt by Vernon Bogdanor's students to write down what we already have in the Smith Institute publication (OK'd here). Listeners are now emailing in their views on the programme's excellent bulletin board. Its a healthy exercise but too technical. The spirit of a constitution matters as much as its formal content. Filling in the dots won't do much for democracy - see the important exchange between David Marquand and Tom Nairn - just look below.

Moderator : Tom Nairn has published a strong warning against a Gordon Brown constitution which codifies in writing the strong, centralised and ill-liberal all-British state. His article, Not on your Life, is published in the OurKingdom section of openDemocracy. Any comments and responses should be posted here.