Aggravation for the sake of the nation
July 30, 2009 13:12ByJulia Neuberger, Julia Neuberger
By Stephen Pollard
Simon & Schuster, £10.99
Reading Ten days that Changed the Nation by the editor of this august journal reminded me of when he and I were panellists on Radio 4’s Any Questions a couple of summers ago. Just as I argued then, I read this book saying: “But you’ve forgotten…” “It’s more complex than you suggest…” “Life is rarely so black and white”. This is a hard-hitting polemic, questioning the liberal status quo as Pollard sees it, and cries out to be challenged, which is a stimulating and enjoyable experience.
Would, indeed, that life were as simple as he sometimes implies. Immigration into Britain was not completely transformed by the arrival of the Windrush in 1948, significant though it was. Waves of immigrants had come — as he rightly states — over the centuries, including his ancestors and mine. Withdrawing benefits other than emergency healthcare and school education from new immigrants — as, with approval, he cites the Danes as having done — would not work. Most come to escape persecution or to seek a better life from a very low base.
That there is a real moral and political obligation to genuine asylum seekers, such as my mother was, is a fact he conveniently ignores. Yet what should our attitude be to members of the opposition party in Zimbabwe or Darfuri refugees from the Sudan? Is it right to refuse them healthcare, other than emergency intervention, when some of them are terrifyingly traumatised? Pollard suggests we should allow them to work — as we undoubtedly should. But what about providing further training to make that possible?
Examining the influence upon family collapse of Germaine Greer’s publication of The Female Eunuch in 1970, Pollard does not suggest Greer was entirely to blame for the self centredness of the baby-boomer generation. But he chooses not to ascribe much blame to men who regarded it as acceptable to father children and wander off in search of younger, prettier partners. Which, of course, left women caring for children on their own. This was not feminism, it was an abdication of — male — responsibility.
But the real failure came from our religious, political and other leaders who failed to argue strongly enough that children have a right to two parents, gay or straight, married or cohabiting, to love and cherish them. And that failure came about partly because they themselves were implicated in leaving young families with only the mother to cope.
Another target is the Arts Council, a body that does sometimes make decisions with which we do not all agree. But arguing that it goes only for minority and highbrow tastes when there are heaving masses of young people of all classes, backgrounds and ethnic origins around the Tate Modern any day of the week seems absurd.
So I loved and hated this book. Partial, tendentious and provocative, it would lead anyone to clarify their own views. So read it, be ready for a fight, and then thank Stephen Pollard for giving you the best couple of hours of aggravation you’ve had in years.
Julia Neuberger is a Liberal Democrat peer, rabbi, author, broadcaster and social commentator