Murky Waters

Two months into this Government's term of office, what might be called the Sabisky Affair has, perhaps fortuitously, brought to light the darker side of some of the influences that shape thinking going on behind the scenes at Downing Street. And very dark it is too. Who would have guessed, even a year ago, that large chunks of the British media would be having conversations about the rights and wrongs of eugenics and the merits (or otherwise) of research into relative IQ levels reported among different races? More alarmingly, who would have foreseen conversations about whether highly questionable research into such subjects is now shaping Her Majesty's Government's policy formation? For the last forty eight hours I have been pinching myself. This is the British Government we are talking about?

Having not woken up and found it's all a bad dream, I've turned to reflecting on the nature of any signs that this was coming. We know we have elected a right-wing, authoritarian Government that wants to overthrow or radically reshape the institutions that hold the balances of power in our democracy. We've observed their increasingly cavalier attitude toward honesty, transparency and shame. It doesn't seem to matter any longer if you are dishonest or even if you are caught out being dishonest: the thing, if you have enough power, is to soldier on in the knowledge nothing can be done to stop you. Last autumn, we saw attempts at holding the Government to account crumble, become relatively meaningless and, more significantly, fail to prevent their re-election. All in all, we appear to be witnessing a slow, determined power grab, aided by parts of the press, over a population that is relatively unaware (for complex reasons that intersect in potent ways) of what is really happening.

Perhaps what has happened to Sabisky (appointed an adviser to Number Ten then quickly resigning following an outcry about his alleged opinions) has done us a favour.

Firstly, it has brought to light the quality of thinking among the Prime Ministers' advisers. It appears inventive, scattered, at times driven by rationality, at others by emotion or intuitive leaps. This makes for flexibility and ingeniousness but also renders it difficult to identify underlying motivations. Motivation becomes an important question because arguments appear to rely on somewhat capriciously chosen research, inadequately, even uncritically, digested by thinkers who do not grasp the full implications of the disciplines they are engaging with. (In the Sabisky case, this has been effectively pointed out online by Adam Rutherford, a geneticist and author of Creation: the Origin of Life and Creation: the Future of Life). There are some interesting historical parallels with the attitudes and working style of Winston Churchill's wartime adviser, the physicist Frederick Lindemann (quite well summarised on Wikipedia here). 

Secondly, the Sabisky episode has confirmed publicly what many have suspected, namely that some of the attitudes taken seriously by people influential in Number Ten circles are beyond the scope of conventional morality, or at least any kind of morality that is based on common understandings of virtue and common 'goods' for society. (I think, for example, of the kinds of approaches to ethics taken by philosophers like Alasdair MacIntyre or, more popularly, writers such as Iris Murdoch.*) This poses a significant problem. Much of public life is still predicated on assumptions about fairness, decency and honesty and the ultimate subjugation of personal or party ambition to the exercise of these virtues. Yet we are dealing with a group of Government ministers and advisers who do not share such assumptions and do not play by the rules that might be expected to flow from them. Sabisky's appointment may be the wake up call we all needed to realise what is going on. I'm encouraged that just about every part of the press did indeed grasp the outrageous nature of some of the statements he is reported as having made.** Sabisky's resignation may also be the wake up call Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings and the cabinet need to realise that there are limits to what the electorate, the press and even their own MPs will tolerate.

I don't often find myself quoting Margaret Thatcher but she notably said, 'Being democratic is not enough, a majority cannot turn what is wrong into right.'  She went on to talk about 'the deep love of liberty' and the rule of law which are certainly things this government might ponder long and hard. But I think she was, in fact, on to something deeper than the question of how we protect our democracy. She recognised that there are some values that pervade our humanity and others that destroy it. Protecting ourselves from those that destroy it is the highest calling. Though I am not a Conservative or even, by inclination, a conservative, I recognise some truth in her words. 

When it comes to this government planning, discussing or implementing policies influenced by notions of

• superiority by dint of race
• the subjugation or objectivisation of women
• enforced mass control of the bodies and choices of citizens
• people as 'underclass' groups

I refuse to tolerate what they are doing. The only reasonable response is to question and expose their intentions and overthrow their actions, if necessary, by every legal means possible. 

As a child, the first 'grown up' book I read was Anne Frank's Diary. It alerted me to the fact that liberty is very, very fragile. It also showed me how thin can be the veneer of civilisation that keeps us all humane. In Britain, our education system has been poor at helping the past two generations understand what happened across Europe in the 1930's. What we are witnessing with the UK government today worries me greatly because it manifests the same creeping approach to dismantling institutions that need reform. Outwardly this is planned and achieved in the service of the common good, but covertly it is done in the service of undeclared ends that help those with power and wealth accrue much greater power. If you put this alongside bland propaganda and engagement with ideologies of superiority and control, this becomes dangerous.

While preparing this article, I've come across writing by people connected to Number Ten that is frankly shocking. Indeed some of the press articles I've looked at about attitudes to women have contained warnings about the 'upsetting' nature of the content. I have no intention of giving such ideas the oxygen of publicity by reproducing what was written here. I've been careful to check out sources and contexts. My research has led me to the conclusion that, if we are to resist attempts to control people on grounds of gender, race or questionably measured characteristics like ability and intelligence, the whole electorate must be far more vigilant and politically active than we are used to being in the UK. We can no longer leave it to opposition politicians, the judiciary and the press to hold this Government to account or to keep them within past bounds of decency and honesty. We must all be aware and active. If you are black, or a woman, or have uncertain status as regards nationality, if you are unwaged or on a low income, the impact of factors that are being considered with seriousness and attitudes that are coming to be accepted as normal is somewhere between anxiety-provoking and scary. 

* Some really interesting work has been done on the less discussed virtues of civility, decency, truthfulness and ambition which seems especially relevant to the kind of politics we are seeing in the UK - e.g. Pettigrove 2007 Ambition in Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 10 (1) p.53ff. Colhoun 2000 The Virtue of Civility in Philosophy and Public Affairs 29 (3) p.251ff 

**I'm aware of the debate about the context of some of Sabisky's remarks and that it may be the impact of the remarks as reported rather than the original intention that has caused offence. I think Tom Chivers, in his article "'Eugenics is possible' is not the same as 'eugenics is good'" sums the dilemma up well here. He says, 'I don’t think, as some people do, that these remarks have been “taken out of context”, as such. I think that even with the context, lots of people would still assume that when he says “FGM isn’t a major risk” he means “we don’t need to care about FGM”.It’s a translation problem: some people think they’re having a cold, rational discussion; other people are alive to the implications; there will be frequent occasions when the two groups will hear the same words and yet understand totally different things by them.'