Mosley

In a case of serendipity, I find myself watching an interview of Sir Oswald Mosley by David Frost back in 1967.

The most remarkable feature of the interview is so unusual these days, that it took me a while to work out what was going on. And then it dawned on me. Sir Oswald was actually answering the questions that were put to him. That is not what politicians do these days. They regard questions as mere opportunities to say what they want to say.

And there was something else unusual these days: David Frost was asking questions to which he was interested in the answer. These days, the standard practice for interviewers in the political field is to ask questions designed to make the interviewee look bad.

The net result was, I thought, that Sir Oswald Mosley came out of the interview rather better than I thought he would. Not all of his answers were convincing, of course, but some were persuasive, at least in part. He was asked, for example, about his use of the raised right arm, Nazi style. Sir Oswald’s answer was that, back in those days, this form of salute was recognised as an ancient Roman gesture, and was widely in Europe.

On the whole, hindsight is useful. But history can also play tricks. Things get stigmatised if they become associated with bad actors. Roman salutes would probably be regarded as absolutely fine these days, if it had not been for the German Nazis. In large measure, it seems, the German Nazis were copying the Italian fascists in the matter of the Roman salute, but if it had not been for the Nazis, Mussolini might well have gone down in history as no more evil than, say, General Franco.

On the English political stage, it is probably Nigel Farage who comes closest to a politician who answers the questions that are put to him. The technique has worked very well for him. In the US, it might well be JD Vance. He was asked about Trump’s assertion that Haitian migrants were stealing and then eating people’s cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio. Not very plausible. In some parts of the world, people do eat dogs. But cats? Surely, a cat would taste terrible? Anyway, JD Vance’s answer was interesting. He said it was a meme. He was not asserting that it was certainly true, but rather intended to direct the attention of the media where he thought it should be. Which is probably geese. It is more likely that the migrants have been tucking into the town’s geese, as reported to the police.

We do not care about the geese as much as the cats and the dogs, of course. But it is still a thing.