Unnecessary sneering from the Economist

You may have heard that the UK has introduced its own 'Magnitsky' sanctions, i.e. sanctions targetted at named individuals alleged by the UK government to have been complicit in serious wrongdoing. The UK's list includes 20 Saudi Arabian officials said to be involved in the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, for example. People on the list can have their assets frozen and be barred from entering the country.

I was interested to see how The Economist covered this story. This is what it said:

"Magnitsky legislation is a fulfilment of a manifesto pledge and Mr Raab, who has been calling for such an act since 2012, has achieved a rare political feat: delivering something he genuinely believes in."

Come on. This is cynical, sneery and unworthy of the paper, and I don't need to say why.

But what I thought was particularly strange about the comment was the context. As the article itself says, there is an EU/Brexit angle on this:

"Britain’s sanctions regime has until now worked through the UN or EU. Brexit allows the country to fashion its own rules. Indeed, the first piece of Brexit-related legislation passed by Parliament was the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act ... "

One might have thought that the biggest British political fact of recent years - Brexit - is a good example of the political feat of delivering something that many politicians genuinely believe in. And one might have thought that this story of the Magnitsky sanctions would be an example of why some politicians do believe in Brexit - the power of Britain to fashion its own future, to make its own way in the world, etc etc. But The Economist continues to be incapable of seeing Brexit this way. 

I appreciate that the thinking and writing classes consider Brexit to be a Bad Idea. But I do find it odd that they can bring up the value of sticking to one's beliefs and delivering on them, and do so in a Brexit-related context, and not see the connection.

Sam Kriss continues

Sam Kriss has carried on being Sam Kriss-y, i.e. an astonishing mixture of annoying and insightful and wrong and right. He is well-aware that he is both clever and left-wing. Is he as clever as he thinks? Is he as left-wing as he thinks? I leave that to the reader.

Here he is on Black Lives Matter and similar: "There’s no nice way to say this: a certain subset of (mostly) white people have lost their minds online. ... See, for instance, the form letters: How To Talk To Your Black Friends Right Now. Because I refuse to be told I can’t ever empathise with a black person, I try to imagine what it would be like to receive one of these. Say there’s been a synagogue shooting, or a bunch of swastikas spraypainted in Willesden Jewish Cemetery. Say someone set off a bomb inside Panzer’s in St John’s Wood – and then one of my goy friends sends me something like this:

'Hey Sam – I can never understand how you feel right now, but I’m committed to doing the work both personally and in my community to make this world safer for you and for Jewish people everywhere. From the Babylonian Captivity to the Holocaust to today, my people have done reprehensible things to yours – and while my privilege will never let me share your experience, I want you to know that you’re supported right now. I see you. I hear you. I stand with the Jewish community, because you matter. Please give me your PayPal so I can buy you a bagel or some schamltz herring, or some of those little twisty pastries you people like.'

How would I respond? I think I would never want to see or hear from this person again. If I saw them in the street, I would spit in their face, covid be damned. I would curse their descendants with an ancient cackling Yiddish curse."

And here he is on Bernie Sanders and other failed left-wing causes. You know who the "we" is in what follows: "Give us our due, though: we’re passionate, and committed, and we’re strivers. In a few short weeks, we had the Bernie campaign speaking our language and broadcasting our concerns. We turned ourselves into its faces and figureheads. Just in time to thoroughly alienate everyone who wasn’t already onside.

I don’t think socialism is always, by necessity, a bourgeois idea. On both sides of the Atlantic, left-populism did briefly enjoy a broad base of support. But we need to be smarter: we need to understand that ordinary people simply do not like us, and they’re not wrong to feel that way. We’re basically obnoxious, and to overcome that we need to meet the people where they are." And from that uncontroversial starting point, he spirals off into the void. An acquired taste.

Volunteers

"I got involved with the best of intentions and a desire to play my part in contributing to a democratic debate around Brexit. I ask you, having read this story, would any of you now volunteer to do the same?" So asks Alan Halsall.

The Brexit story gives this a certain piquancy, but Halsall's story goes wider than that. If you have recently volunteered for almost anything then there is a good chance that you will have found yourself faced with a thicket of rules and regulations, guarded by threats of awful consequences. GDPR, for example, or health and safety rules.

If you are involved in recruiting or training people, quite likely having volunteered to do this in addition to your normal job and with the best of intentions, then you will have been subjected to training and warned of the risks of illegal discrimination.

Do you remember all those school governors facing the threat of competition law proceedings? Still happening (discussing discounts! during covid! How very dare you!)

If you have had tangential contact with a school then your criminal records will be checked. Have you carried out a risk assessment for the communal parts of a shared building recently? Organised a village fete?

Here's one example: "... if your group or organisation want to use a community kitchen you will need to know if your particular food operation will need to be registered as a ‘Food Business’ with [X] Council ... For example ... volunteers serving hot soup and sandwiches on a regular basis to homeless and potentially vulnerable people. ... It is recommended that at least one person within a group/organisation will have a ‘Level 2 Food Safety in Catering’ Hygiene Certificate so that they can be available to supervise at events and/or pass on their knowledge to others where appropriate." So you decide, out of the kindess of your heart, to set up a kitchen to help homeless people. One moment you are thinking of feeding some home-cooked food, the same food you would give your own children, to less fortunate members of society - and then all of a sudden you are revising for your advanced food safety certificate.

All of this is probably well-intentioned. Or at least understandable given the outrage that can happen when something goes wrong. But it creates a series of burdens that fall on the public spirited. And it is slowly squashing that spirit. Why do I bother?, asks Mr Halsall - and so many other people across the country, muttering to themselves that no good deed goes unpunished.