Antonym Alert: Chief Agitator Turns Spectator

Darth Vader reports for duty as new Leader of the Rebel Alliance

“What must happen for evil to get a grip on a person, or on a country, and what does it take to defeat it?

JK Rowling, July 2020

“Freedom? Oi, Gove, I can hear some readers cry. Weren’t you the Torquemada of lockdown, the Covid Cromwell who bound this country in a web of restrictions during the pandemic that reduced the British public to the status of compliant sheeple? Well, I shan’t attempt to re-litigate now the painful compromises of that time. Good men and women can differ on what was right. But I was involved in decision-making then as a politician. I am now relieved of that responsibility, to the relief of many. I am, once more, a journalist. And it is the role of journalists, particularly Spectator editors, to challenge authority, champion liberty and above all, defend free speech. That freedom must extend to knowing the editor’s opinion is only one of many and his past as a minister is of only historical interest and certainly no sort of ideological guide. Writers in this magazine should never and will never follow any party line”.

 Michael Gove, 10 October 2024

Over many years of writing, the HART editorial team has attempted to unpick the ‘shell game’ of the 2020s. We want to unravel the litany of charades, distractions, ruses, outrages and statistical monstrosities in an effort to construct a rational explanation for the societal short circuit that we have just lived through.  What is done is done, of course, but the hope has been that we might help shed light on the despicable acts that were perpetrated, and perhaps provide our children – and children’s children – with documentary evidence to counteract the inevitable whitewashing of past misdeeds as the powerful and (newly) rich rewrite history. 

We have covered the obvious topics. We have cried out in rage; we have irreverently ridiculed po-faced promoters of pseudoscience; we have taken regulators to task; we have attempted to highlight the plight of those that stood up to tyrannical bullying; we have weighed in when we could; we have digressed into allegorical language and have viewed the past deeds of others through the prism of our current predicament via book reviews.  We wish we had done more, and we wish we had had more impact.  We wish we had come to some of the conclusions that we have now come to sooner, and we wish we had been braver and even more forthright. 

Rarely, however, has one of our more meandering parabular pieces landed with more apposite timing.  Well you might wonder what a quote from JK Rowling is doing atop this article, a repeat of only a few days ago in our examination of her 2020 fable, The Ickabog.  It seems to us a particular pertinent query that bears repetition in the light of a recent managerial change.  Mainstream commentators might shrug about establishment revolving doors, but for those of us whose close associates didn’t benefit from PPE procurement VIP lanes to the tune of £164m, it somewhat sticks in the craw that a certain Michael Gove has been appointed to be the new editor of The Spectator.

Michael “two different people” Gove. Where to start? What are we allowed to write? No snorting at the back, thank you, and absolutely no Scottish Pipe dancing.  You can read about his achievements elsewhere, and it is possible (albeit joining a minority of the chattering commentariat) to welcome his pugilistic attempts to haul the educational ‘blob’ (his description) into the 21^st century during his tenure as Education Minister from 2010-2014.  It was during this episode that the mainstream liberal mind confirmed its bias that he must be the devil incarnate.  Some of the authors of this piece have – in the past – defended his attempts to raise the standard of state schooling in this country. It certainly seems possible that the drive and determination he showed during that period indicates that educational reform was something that he genuinely believed in, especially given his background.   

What is impossible to overlook, though, is that since then he has managed to find himself – however improbable – parachuted into the thick of the action in the nick of time, almost inevitably in order to be able to push some absolute policy howlers. Brexit aside, these critical interventions seem to have been either absurdly at odds with his stated beliefs (i.e. in fundamental freedoms and individual agency) or just blatant favouring of vested interests to the detriment of the general populace.

Lockdowns should never have happened.  But there was Gove, Parliament sidelined, one of a quartet of front men running the country for two years. “When Michael Gove claimed on 27 March 2020 that “we are all at risk… the virus does not discriminate”, he was either guilty of gross incompetence or untruthfulness. It is hard to believe the former – divisive as he might be, Gove is no idiot”.

There he is again, knocking on the window, later in 2020, as the deadly farce of the damaging second and catastrophic third lockdowns play out, as detailed in no less than The Spectator itself.  Gove is then on hand to inform us that turning down a Covid injection was a selfish thing to do, surely one of the most absurd tropes of recent years (unless you are a shareholder of or service provider to a pharmaceutical company, in which case such a statement make complete sense).  And there was still time in freedom-loving Gove’s schedule to redefine extremism in such as way as to simultaneously highlight the absurdity of his actions in previous years and introduce a totally unnecessary statutory instrument that arguably makes it easier for a future governments to censor opposing views via increasingly ‘creative’ methods.  Putting the Covid debacle to one side for a minute, note also he was outgoing Theresa May’s right hand man when she rammed through a last-gasp ‘buzzer shot’ idiotic amendment to the Climate Change Act 2008 to ratchet the decarbonisation drive to levels that are incompatible with even the maintenance of current living standards – worth remembering when your children are revising by candlelight and Granny is freezing in her home. 

Phew.  What a burden to carry. But he’s moved on; he was “involved in decision-making then as a politician” but is “now relieved of that responsibility, to the relief of many”. Well, that was easy! By comparison, even Pontius Pilate had to actually engage in a physical act to find metaphorical absolution. 

It is instructive to remind ourselves of the words of Dominic Cummins – one of Michael Gove’s ‘Vote Leave’ Brexit colleagues – about the theatrical aspect of UK politics that cloaks actual goings-on within the corridors of power: “ministers are almost never live players, they’re the fake players while the permanent government of officials actually runs the show — but explaining this would break kayfabe”.  Who writes the script for these actors?

To many sceptics, with writers such as Melissa Kite staunchly presenting the case against risky injections and the injected Lionel Shriver (now co-incidentally struck down with Guillain-Barré syndrome) ridiculing the absurdity of recent unscientific policies and celebrating dissident voices, The Spectator has been thought of as one of the routes to win over middle-England thinkers, i.e. those who have not fallen foul of the brutal leftoid thought policing and double standards of the activist left.  Spectator Australia managed to publish some punchy articles.  Following the purchase of the magazine by GB News investor Paul Marshall, sceptics might have hoped for more, especially with Freddie Sayers – a vocal critic of injection mandates – in executive charge of the holding company making the acquisition.  Yet, somewhat perplexingly, Michael Gove (a lockdown henchman) now replaces Fraser Nelson (an anti-lockdowner who nevertheless published excruciating ‘lockdown centrist’ baloney and cheered ‘salvation by injection’). 

Well riddle us this.  What is going on? Don’t ask us.  We are just a group of individuals that state-funded actors see fit to smear and bully.  For a much more in-depth and politically astute analysis of what is going on, Dr James Alexander has artfully woven these current affairs into a rich historical tapestry that even we can follow.

Gove’s attempts to draw a veil over past deeds by highlighting his new role as being to champion liberty and free speech are clumsy, not least because they imply that – as a politician – he did not have this responsibility. CS Lewis – writing during the dark days of the Second World War (c.f. The Abolition of Man and That Hideous Strength) – predicted an even darker future for mankind if pseudoscientific bunkum (however N.I.C.E. it might be) replaces the ultimately human sense of being able to differentiate between right and wrong. And as Dr Alexander points out, some of us care less about The Spectator pandering to the masses and more about it being on the right side of history, and – just for the avoidance of any doubt – we are not talking about the political right (or left) side per se, but the correct side, i.e. the one that would be written by humans who possess a heart, a soul and a conscience.

This appointment of Gove is a painful reminder of Thomas Jefferson’s apothegm: the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.  And we should note that it is not just novels by JK Rowling that include villains of varying category: pantomime, imagined or real.

Stay Alert. Question The Official Narrative. Save Lives.