Category Archives: Politics

Tommy the Cork

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This wasn’t meant to be such a long piece but it just kept growing!

Back in 1991-96 I took a second degree in Business and Computer Studies as a part-time student. First-year students had to take two non-cognate modules to broaden their education. One of mine was ‘American History 101’ and then, though it would not count towards my degree, after this I enrolled for ‘Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal’. Enthused by the subject, I saved all my 22 textbooks with the aim of re-reading them at some point. 30+ years later I’ve finally done this: speed reading though and the books are set for the academic bookshop so don’t ask me questions! Comments welcome though.

'Tommy the Cork' book cover

‘Tommy the Cork’ book cover

One book though wasn’t in my original collection; I bought it recently wanting to know about its subject. David McKean’s ‘Tommy the Cork – Washington’s Ultimate Insider from Roosevelt to Reagan’ tells the story of Thomas Gardiner Corcoran (1900-1981), one of the New Deal’s top lawyers and adviser and speechwriter to FDR, then a successful lobbyist.

It’s a life which promised so much but ended up laced with a fair degree of sadness. Here, I’ve tried to focus on the man himself; for lots more on his political and lobbying activities, see McKean’s book or this page on the Spartacus Educational website.

Early life

Corcoran was born in Pawtucket, Rhode Island to middle-class Irish immigrant parents. He was his high school’s ‘prize scholar’ then, following in his father’s footsteps, studied law at Brown University where he was a top student. At Harvard Law School Professor Felix Frankfurter noted his exceptional ability and arranged for him to clerk for Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes (1841-1935) during 1926-27. Holmes had fought in the Civil War and served as a Supreme Court justice from 1902 to 1932. Corcoran continued as a friend and caregiver to Justice Holmes until Holmes’ death, especially after the death of Mrs Holmes in 1929, and was at his bedside when he died. As McKean’s book tells, Corcoran was a complicated person: ruthlessly ambitious, ever keen to make money, yet capable of extreme kindness and generosity. Countless young lawyers benefitted from his support and encouragement.

Following his clerkship year Corcoran joined Wall Street law firm Cotton and Franklin where he learned the finer points of corporate law, mergers and acquisitions. He reputedly made a quarter of a million dollars in the late 1920s (nearly $5m 2025) only to lose nearly all of it in the Wall Street crash.

The New Deal Years

In 1932 Corcoran moved to Washington DC, joining the Reconstruction Finance Corporation as Special Counsel. Over time he would find his way into the White House, becoming a speechwriter, political adviser and friend to FDR. It was during this time that he teamed up with Benjamin Cohen, another gifted lawyer. Temperamentally the two were total opposite: Corcoran was an extrovert who loved to entertain; on occasions he’d take his accordion to the White House and lead a singalong. In contrast Cohen was quiet, sensitive, described by Joseph Lash as ‘the parfit gentil knight’ of the New Deal1. The two of them, described by ‘Time’, 1938, as ‘The gold dust twins’ would help draft some of the key New Deal legislation.

By the time FDR assumed office on 4th March 1933 the USA was on the verge of collapse. FDR asked Felix Frankfurter to assemble a team of lawyers to rewrite the nation’s security laws to minimise the risk of another Wall Street crash. Among those nominated were Corcoran and Cohen. Corcoran had his Wall Street experience; Cohen was a brilliant legal draftsman. His deep knowledge of British company legislation acquired while working in London would influence their thinking. Also appointed to the team was Jim Landis, Harvard’s first professor of legislation, who had the best understanding of markets. The fourth member of the team was 22-year-old Peggy Dowd, previously Corcoran’s PA at the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), of whom more later.

By March 1934 the bill that would establish the Securities and Exchange Commission was ready. Vested interests whipped up a huge campaign against it. Corcoran was chosen to defend it before the House Committee. After a bitter debate it passed. Legislation controlling utilities would follow, again the subject of a big fight.

After the New Deal

As the 1930s progressed Corcoran got involved in all sorts of political adventures. FDR’s son Elliott ventured “Apart from my father, Tom was the single most influential person in the country.” Alva Johnson of the Saturday Evening Post claimed that Corcoran held “a position of power vaguely resembling that which the Duke of Buckingham held under James I”2.

After FDR’s 1936 landslide victory, Corcoran’s influence began to decline. To FDR’s frustration, the Supreme Court increasingly took a critical view of New Deal legislation. During his first term not one justice had died or retired and a majority of the nine justices he’d inherited owed him no loyalty. The solution put forward was to appoint additional justices. This drew outrage from various quarters and the plan was dropped. Then the dam broke and FDR was able to appoint nine justices before his death in 1945. The first, Hugo Black, appointed 1937, served on the bench until 1971; Felix Frankfurter was another notable appointment, serving from 1939 to 1962.

With his marriage in 1940 Corcoran needed more money. He thought of returning to Cotton and Franklin, but only if Ben could come with him. The firm would not take Cohen on account of him being Jewish so Corcoran decided to stay in Washington and use his legal skills and political and personal contacts as a lobbyist.

WW2 saw Corcoran involved with the Chinese Flying Tigers who were attacking Japan well before Pearl Harbour. This brought him into contact with General Claire Chennault (1893-1958). This part of his life is marked by his name appearing in the Rhode Island Aviation Hall of Fame.

In 1941 the post of Solicitor General became vacant. Corcoran desperately wanted the job. He asked various people to recommend him. Four justices wrote in on his behalf. He needed one more to have a majority of the Supreme Court on his side. He went to see his old mentor Felix Frankfurter. Frankfurter said that he was sorry, but he couldn’t oblige. Corcoran reportedly then said, “I put you here, now produce”3. Frankfurter wouldn’t! Later he said that if he’d thought that Corcoran would devote himself to the post, he would have been happy to recommend him, but he felt that he would use the post as a political platform.

With this door closed, Corcoran redoubled his lobbying work which he would pursue for the rest of his life. Here are several of the many examples cited by McKean:

  • In 1941 Corcoran was approached by Henry Kaiser who was after a loan from RFC to build a magnesium plant. Using his contacts Corcoran secured the loan and sent Kaiser a bill for $135,000, also asking for a 15% stake in the enterprise. Kaiser hadn’t got rich by being free with his money so Corcoran had to make do with ‘just’ $65,000 (at this time a WW2 US Private was paid $50 a month).
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  • At congressional hearing in December 1941 Corcoran was asked about his lobbying. He admitted to making more than $100,000 during the year for his defence-related work and was quizzed on various assignments. He’d helped the Savannah shipbuilding company to get a contract (subsequently rescinded) to build twelve cargo ships for twenty million dollars; they had no relevant experience of such work. Corcoran had collected a $5,000 fee. To avoid public scandal, the company was then awarded $1,285,000 compensation!
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  • One of Corcoran’s key clients was the American-owned United Fruit Company which had substantial interests in Guatemala. In 1951 a democratically-elected government led by Jacobo Arbenz took charge and reformed education and healthcare in the country. It also instituted a new labour code that improved worker’s rights. UFC owned 42% of Guatemalan land yet only utilized a small part of it. Arbenz’s aim was to redistribute these huge tracts of unused land to the landless poor.
    In 1953, with Eisenhower installed as US President, Corcoran started urging the US government to undermine and overthrow the Arbenz government. With the help of the CIA, the United Fruit Company began a massive disinformation campaign in the USA, labelling Arbenz and his administration as being under communist influence. In June 1954 the Arbenz government was overthrown, Corcoran having acted as a liaison between the CIA and UFC. When the full story came out, “for those who had served with Corcoran in the New Deal it was an inexplicable betrayal”4.

Lots more on the influence of the United Fruit Company in Guatemala here.

The women in Tom’s life

Tom’s mother, Mary O’Keefe was a strong and intelligent woman. McKean quotes him as saying: “Mother had given me an abiding discomfort about women”5. She wanted her son to achieve great things and didn’t wanted him being distracted. Away from her influence in New York, Isabel Cotton, his boss’s daughter, caught his eye and in due course their engagement was announced. She, though, broke it off. Tom later recorded that she had “decided I was too busy to pay the attention to her that an aristocratic girl deserved”6.

In 1932 Peggy Dowd enters the story, joining the RFC as a PA. Her parents were immigrants: her father worked for the post office. She was stunningly attractive – FDR later referred to her as ‘Our gorgeous hussy’, not of course the sort of language a present-day president would use of a junior female employee. She’d never attended college, only taken a typing course, but impressed Tom’s RFC colleague Frank Watson: “My secretary at that time was Peggy Dowd, who later became Mrs Tom Corcoran She was a brilliant individual and a very beautiful girl. She could type so fast you could hardly see the keys move, and at the same time carry on a conversation or ask a question. During this period, l would be up on the Hill all morning, going over the act with the committees. Then I’d come back and Peggy and I would work until midnight, running off copies for the next day’s meetings7.”

Her ability and work ethic did not go unnoticed: “To help with the typing Corcoran asked the RFC to send over a young secretary named Peggy Dowd. … She was only twenty-two years old. She had met Corcoran a few weeks earlier when she had been sent to his office by the chief of the secretarial pool. “You’re Irish. Maybe you can handle him,” she was told. During their first encounter Corcoran sat behind his desk chomping on a cigar and barking orders when Peggy interrupted him and said coolly, “Take the cigar out of your mouth or I won’t take dictation from you.” Corcoran, looking stunned but amused, obliged.”8.

Over the next few years the two grew increasingly close. Tom loved Peggy whilst wanting to maintain his bachelor freedom; Peggy loved him but was getting impatient. “I bore no ill will towards your mother”, she told him, “but it’s a long time since I knew that I was in love with you, that your mother died [she died in 1936]. But I understand being Irish — you’re the oldest son and the oldest son, I don’t know when it began, can never marry till his mother dies. So his mother will never believe that any other woman came before her“9.

Still Tom didn’t rush things. In early 1940 he finally asked Peggy to marry him. Not everyone was supportive. His mother had referred to Peggy as “your warmed over French fried potato of a secretary.” FDR thought that Corcoran could do better than marry a working girl whose father was a mailman. Frankfurter wanted him to marry someone with money so that he would be free to continue in public service10. Marion Frankfurter told Tom that in Britain it was the accepted practice for bright young lawyers to marry into the English gentry – though we can note that her husband married the solidly middle-class daughter of a Congregational minister. But all to no avail. Once engaged, Tom made an appointment to formally introduce his intended to FDR. Peggy bought a new dress and hat. On the day FDR sent a message that he was too busy to see them. Tom viewed this as a snub for many years after.

The couple married on March 4th 1940. Not long afterwards Peggy was expecting the first of their six children. The couple moved to a larger house where they often entertained. Peggy seemed to be happy, but this was an illusion. Sadly she’d began to drink, not just at social events but at home. In 1957 she died of a cerebral haemorrhage, aged just forty-four.

Left a widower, Tom tried to be a good father, pushing all his children to achieve, especially daughter Margaret. She studied law, possibly not by choice, and, although not an exceptional student, through her father she got a clerkship with Justice Black. The pressure was getting to her. In January 1970, aged twenty-eight, she died from an overdose of sleeping pills.

'The Education of Anna' book cover

‘The Education of Anna’ book cover

Following Peggy’s death, Tom had acquired a number of female friends. Most prominent was Peking-born Anna Chennault (1923-2018). At 21 as a junior journalist she was sent to interview General Claire Chennault, then head of the US China-based 14th air force. In 1946 he divorced his wife (leaving her with eight children!), marrying Anna a year later. He died in 1958 of lung cancer. She moved into the world of politics, campaigning for Richard Nixon among Chinese-Americans in 1960, then began a career as a society hostess in Washington, living in a Watergate penthouse at the time of the notorious burglaries.

Anna’s 1980 memoir, ‘The Education of Anna’ is dedicated “to all my teachers, and to the best teacher of them all, Thomas G. Corcoran”. In it she tells us: “… my parties were never very large. With rare exception they were limited to three tables of twelve each …”. Eight courses were the norm. How the other half live! Anna claimed that Tommy wanted to marry her, but she’d vowed never to marry again.

In later years a second female friend and regular escort was Lindy Boggs (1916-2013). Like Tasmania’s own Enid Lyons, she started life as a political wife and then built her own political career: her husband Hale was majority leader of the US House of Representatives. In 1972 he was in a plane that went missing over Alaska and was declared dead. In the ensuing special election Lindy was elected to succeed him. She was elected to a full term in 1974 with 82% of the vote and was re-elected seven times thereafter until she vacated her office in January 1991. After her district was redrawn in 1984 she became the only white member of Congress representing a majority-African-American constituency. In 1997 President Bill Clinton appointed her official U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, a position she held until 2001.

McKean tells us that “Corcoran, however, told one friend that he would not marry Lindy or Anna or anyone else for that matter, because, “once you marry, they’re not nice to you””11

Later years

One might have hoped that age would bring increasing wisdom but McKean tells a number of stories that sadly suggest otherwise:

  • In 1969 the Supreme Court initially declined a petition to re-hear the El Paso Natural Gas case. El Paso wasn’t a Corcoran client but the suggestion is that he may have been providing informal advice. Totally disregarding legal rules, Tom went up to see Justice Hugo Black in his Supreme Court chambers to petition him to think again. Shocked, Black threw Tom out but not wishing to humiliate an old friend, he decided to say nothing. A few days later Tom made a similar visit to Justice Brennan, with a similar result.
    At the weekly justices meeting, Brennan told them what had happened. A number of justices were sympathetic to reopening the case but knew if this happened, Tom might have then started boasting about his achievement in bending the court’s will. So the application to re-hear was denied. To quote McKean, “Had Douglas’s dissent been made public, Tommy Corcoran, one of the most distinguished and successful lawyers in Washington for more than forty years, would surely have been disbarred.”12  Ten years later the District of Columbia Bar was asked to examine Corcoran’s conduct. Thankfully for him, Justice Black was dead (d.1971) and Justice Brennan conveniently couldn’t remember the conversation13. A lucky escape!
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  • In 1971 a number of Washington’s legal elite gathered for a black-tie dinner to mark Tom’s 70th birthday. In his speech Ben Cohen remarked that “I think we may count the New Deal years among the best years of his life. ….. There has never been a better spirit de corps in government than that inspired by Tom in the New Deal years.” Then it was Tom’s turn and to the dismay of many listening he began by noting that he represented one of the largest pipeline companies in the USA. Close friend Joe Rauh later said that seeing this once brilliant, crusading lawyer now bragging about his corporate clients “made me sick”14.
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  • Ten months later Tom attended the funeral of Peggy’s cousin, Michael Dowd. After the ceremony he offered a lift to Michael’s 19-year-old daughter, Maureen. While driving back to the family home Tom told her that he would like to adopt her. She would have the best education possible and a credit card and sports car like the ones Margaret had had. Daughter and newly-widowed mother were, not surprisingly, horrified by the suggestion.15

While most of his contemporaries were long retired, Corcoran worked almost to the end. In late 1981 he went into hospital for a gall bladder operation. On December 5th he told visiting son Tim that when he got out of hospital he was going to make lots more money. The next day he was dead, from an embolism. At his funeral fellow lawyer James Rowe spoke, quoting Justice Holmes: “Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire.”16 If only this sentiment had underlaid Tom’s 70th birthday speech.

References (to ‘Tommy the Cork’ unless otherwise stated)

• 1. p.452; 2. p.91; 3. p.152; 4. p.227; 5. p.13; 6. p.28; 7. Louchheim, p.109; 8. p.39; 9. Lash p.445; 10.p.126; 11. p.310; 12. p.272; 13. pp.306-8; 14. p.298; 15. p.299; 16. p.316

Key books (links are to AbeBooks):

For a detailed account of Tommy Corcoran’s political and lobbying career, check out this Spartacus Educational article.

 

Ickes’ People’s Peace

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The Autobiography of a Curmudgeon

The Autobiography of a Curmudgeon

Last time I wrote about Harold Ickes, FDR’s Interior Secretary. The last chapter of Ickes’ 1943 ‘Autobiography of a Curmudgeon’ is titled ‘A People’s Peace’. He yearns for a peace that comes from the ground up rather than being imposed from above and suggests the following principles:

 First : The right to think and speak and print freely.

Second: the right to worship according to the dictates of one’s own conscience.

Third: the right of freedom from discrimination on account of race or creed or colour.

Fourth: The right of adult citizenship which means the right to vote on terms of equality with all others.

Fifth: The right to work at a fair wage that will provide a living, with something over for leisure and modest luxuries.

Sixth: The right to an education up to one’s ability to absorb and use that education.

Seventh: The right to create for oneself such happiness as maybe within one’s capacity.

Eighth: The right to move freely and to act independently, consistent with the same rights in others.

Ninth: The right to security — to financial security and to physical security including the right of preventative and of curative medicine.

Tenth: The right to justice without fear or favour and at the lowest possible cost.

Eleventh: The right to free government of one’s own choosing.

Twelfth: The right to freedom from servitude to unfair and undemocratic special privilege.

Thirteenth: The right to be taxed fairly for the support of the government on an equitable basis as between the richest and the poorest.

Fourteenth: The right to an equal opportunity under the law.

Fifteenth: The right to bring international criminals before the bar of an international court.

Sixteenth: The right to live while recognizing the obligation to let live.

 

Election Reflections – Now What?

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'Victory secured', The Age, 28 Nov 2022

‘Victory secured’, The Age, 28 Nov 2022

So now we look forward to another four years of Labor government. Covid was hugely divisive – Dan Andrews attracting a lot of support for what many saw as his decisive if unpopular leadership in an effort to keep us safe whilst the opposition and the usual media suspects were doing their best to undermine him and the measures he implemented. His strategy has been vindicated. As a regular correspondent put it in a letter to The Age:

Daniel Andrews won because he builds things you can see: roads, railways, hospitals. When COVID-19 arrived he ignored the complaining and did that “making the hard decisions” thing people talk about. He got on my nerves but he got on with the job.  PJ Bear, Mitcham

On the other side – from the Herald Sun and Sky News journos – there was lots of noise. But arguably all they were doing was talking to the converted whilst repelling those they should have been converting to their cause. When yet another letter gets printed in the HS saying “I don’t know anyone who would vote for Dan Andrews“, all the writer is doing is displaying the limited circles in which they move.

As the Age observes, “Victory secured, now the hard part“. We are currently facing major issues arising from Covid, the Ukraine war, a possible slump in the housing market and/or recession. The only certainty is that in four years’ time things will be very different. Although Dan Andrews says that he will serve a full term (which would be unwise IMO: too many politicians fall into the trap of failing to quit whilst they’re ahead) I suspect that he will step down once the metro tunnel opens in 2025, rightly seeing this as his legacy and the culmination of his government’s massive investment in infrastructure.

Should Dan stand down, his likely replacement, Jacinta Allen, would then be up against the Libs newly-elected leader, John Pesutto who, unlike his predecessor, comes across well in the media. In the meantime Labor needs to note the large swings against them in some areas and address well-founded concerns re poor governance. During the election it was reported that the Labor administration employs 250+ special advisors, political appointments. What’s happened to the independent civil servants who gave unbiased advice to ministers, then implementing the agreed policy? If our ministers are open to frank and fearless advice from public servants who have long experience of their subject area we might get better decisions.

Election Reflections – The Media

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Election prediction, Herald Sun letters, 19 Feb 2021

Election prediction, Herald Sun letters, 19 Feb 2021

Compulsory voting arguably makes for a more democratic result. In the 2018 Victoria state election just over 90% of those on the roll voted (it will never be 100% since people die, move away etc as well as failing to vote), compared with 67.3% in the UK’s 2019 General Election. The downside of compulsory voting is that as everyone has (in theory) to vote, if you can get mud to stick on your opponent you may reap the benefit.

Plenty of mud was thrown in our recent election; thankfully it didn’t stick. Sky News and the Murdoch press carried on a relentless vendetta against Premier Dan Andrews, the Herald Sun reportedly carrying 150+ anti-Dan stories during the campaign. Will they ever learn that such mudslinging achieves nothing? I doubt it.

Back in February 2021, in the middle of Covid lockdowns and other restrictions, Herald Sun reader John Moore of Wangaratta forecast that “in the 2022 state election, I believe that the ALP [Labor] will be lucky to win one lower house seat”. He’d better stick to his day job: in Dan Andrews’ 2018 ‘unrepeatable’ landslide victory, Labor won 55 of the 88 lower house seats. In 2022, 56!

The Daniel Andrews paradox: the enduring appeal of Australia’s most divisive premier (the Guardian)

'Guy closing gap', The Age, 22 Nov 2022

‘Guy closing gap’, The Age, 22 Nov 2022

In the lead up to 2022’s vote the press was claiming that a minority government was a real possibility. Check out this nonsense published by Sky News:

“… a survey by bi-partisan RedBridge Group earlier this week that suggested Mr Andrews will be forced to form a minority government. The analysis had implied that Labor will fall two seats short of the 45 needed to form a majority government on its own. Labor currently holds 55 seats to the Liberals’ 27 – but aside from the opposition it is also under threat from various Greens, teal and regional independent candidates. There is also a suggestion Mr Andrews could lose his seat of Mulgrave, where he is being challenged by independent Ian Cook.”

The actual result: Labor increased its lower house representation to 56. As for Mr Cook, he got a respectable 18%, but Dan Andrews’ 51% saw him re-elected on an absolute majority.

Opposition leader Matthew Guy was well and truly humiliated, his concession speech claim that “What we can see is that with a swing of around four per cent to us and many pre-poll votes to come, we will finish … with more seats in the parliament in both the lower house and the upper house,” proving to be untrue. The next day he resigned, having led his party to two disastrous defeats.

What next?

Election Reflections – The Count

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The UK’s first past the post (FPTP) voting system has several key problems. It can be ‘dangerous’ to vote for your most favoured candidate you since by doing so you may hand victory to a candidate you really don’t like. For example, in the UK if you vote for a UKIP candidate, your vote might let a Labour candidate win whilst you’d rather be represented by a Conservative. With preference voting, as used to elect Victoria’s lower house, you could vote UKIP:1, Con:2, your vote going to a candidate you can live with, if not the one you prefer. Informed voters understand this and so may change the way they vote (tactical voting), thus the number of votes cast for each party is not necessarily a true reflection of popular opinion. FPTP may mean that a third or less of those voting voted for the successful candidate.

FPTP vote counting is quick and easy. In UK each constituency’s count is done in one place behind locked doors. After a few hours (in most cases) a moment of theatre follows where the Returning Officer and candidates mount the stage to hear “I, John Smith, being the Returning Officer for xxxx do hereby declare that the number of votes cast for each candidate was ….”, speeches from the victor and other candidates following.

Here interim results are released as the count progresses, from which TV pundits predict the result. At some point Antony Green, the ABC’s election guru, will often ‘call’ a seat/the election for a particular candidate/party even though many votes remain uncounted. Unlike UK, postal votes only need to be posted by the close of poll and will be counted if received with six days, so in a few closely contested seats it took more than a week for the result to be finalised.

Election Reflections – Background

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Saturday November 26th 2022, 17 days ago, was state election day here in Victoria. Australia’s system of government borrows from the UK and USA as well as being influenced by our own history – we have federal (national) and state governments and local councils. State government responsibilities include schools, hospitals, roads, railways and public transport.

The Victorian parliament, comprising two houses, is elected for fixed four-year terms. The upper house (Legislative Council) consists of 40 members, five each from eight large electoral areas, elected by proportional representation. It’s rare for any one party to have a majority in the Council so to get legislation passed the government of the day must get the agreement of the opposition or a certain number of cross benchers.

The lower house, the Legislative Assembly, consists of 88 members, each representing one constituency. Unlike the UK which uses first past the post voting, members are elected using alternative voting. The ballot paper lists all the candidates and their party affiliations. For the vote to be valid the voter needs to preference all candidates: 1 for the most favoured candidate, 2 for the next and so on. Failure to number all the candidates renders the vote invalid. Virtually everyone on the electoral roll is required to turn up and vote (or be fined) but there’s nothing to stop anyone putting a spoiled paper in the ballot box, alternatively making a ‘donkey vote’ – numbering the candidates 1, 2, 3 … regardless of who they represent.

At the polling stations party workers hand out ‘how to vote’ cards, obviously each one showing their candidate as number one. When I first moved here I was naïve enough to think that the list order was determined by candidate merit but it’s all down to pure self-interest: at this election the Libs (Conservative in UK parlance) were second preferencing the Greens with whom they have next to nothing in common whilst advocating ‘put Labor last’, even behind some very unsavoury right-wing candidates. Pure cynicism.

At count time all the first preferences are counted. If one candidate has more than 50% they are elected, no further counting being necessary. Otherwise the candidate with the lowest number of first preferences is eliminated and the second preferences replace the discarded first preferences. If a recount now produces a candidate with more than 50%, they are elected. If not, the elimination and recount procedure is repeated until a successful candidate emerges. A better system?

War :(

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For two years our news and lives have been dominated by Covid. Not so in the last week or so. Firstly the question was “Will he, won’t he?” as the Russian troop numbers on Ukraine’s border grew. We got the answer, followed by first reports of buildings being destroyed, civilians killed and injured and now huge numbers of women and children trying to escape across Ukraine’s western borders. What next? Who knows?

Today’s UK Daily Telegraph reports Boris Johnson saying that the War in Ukraine ‘is not going Vladimir Putin’s way’. The Ukrainians are certainly putting up a fight. Meanwhile, also quoting the DT, the war in Ukraine is “not going to be over quickly,” Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has said. …. She added that “this could be a number of years, because what we do know is Russia has strong forces,” and said that “we need to be prepared for a very long haul“.

For the sake of all Ukrainians let us hope that an end to this conflict is found sooner rather than later. The alternative, history teaches us, is not one we want.

 

On falls

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At the start of last week the headline news here in Victoria was that our Premier, Dan Andrews, had taken a tumble on some slippery steps and was in intensive care with broken ribs and a fractured vertebra. Most people were full of sympathy, myself because of my own experience in 2018 – unlike Dan I sustained a knock to the head which could have been very serious, and unlike him was free from pain and discomfort within a few days.

Sky News: Daniel Andrews is in intensive care

Daniel Andrews is in intensive care

Sky News managed a non-partisan headline on Facebook, but then opened their reports to comments. I think they knew (and looked forward to?) what would follow.

Some said what you might expect decent people to say, expressing sympathy and wishing him a quick recovery. Most comments – reflecting those who watch Sky? – were of another mind. I could have found hundreds more expressing sentiments like the ones quoted here.

Sky News comment: I hope Dan Andrews never walks agains

I hope Dan Andrews never walks agains

Demis Papillon: “I hope he never walks again”. Really?

Sky News comment: Shame there wasn't a noose around Dan Andrew's neck when he fell

Shame there wasn’t a noose around his neck

John Pikos: “Shame there wasn’t a noose round his neck at the time”. Not a Labor voter perhaps?

Sky News comment: Pity Dan Andrews isn't in the morgue

Pity it isn’t the morgue

Di Ward: “Pity it isn’t the morgue”. I hope she’s not first on the scene should I ever have an accident.

The real mystery to me is why people post such comments. Do they think we’ll be impressed? Does doing so make them feel good? Don’t they realise that every such comment reinforces the impression of Vic Liberals as the Nasty Party (TM Teresa May)? As I noted last October “You’re either with Dan (Daniel Andrews, our state Premier) or, spurred on by the LNP (conservative) opposition and the Murdoch press, have what might described as a vicious hatred of him”. As per the comments above the latter is certainly true. Sad, isn’t it. And if last weekend’s Western Australia election is any guide, the Victorian Liberals will be punished yet again at our next state election.

 

Covid-19: Disappointment day

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It’s nine weeks since I wrote my last Covid-19 piece. Thanks to mistakes and bad practice by various parties our daily Victorian positive number hit a peak of 725 in early August and by then (Sep 21) had dropped to 11, a figure that people in Europe and USA would think miraculous. As someone whose family is all in UK, I’m all too well aware of the result of failure to take hard measures when required. Look at this graph: Victoria is the red line, the UK the blue one. As our fight against the second wave was taking effect, the UK sadly lost control. How it (France, USA etc) can recover, I don’t know.

One of the sad things about the pandemic here in Victoria is how it has split society. You’re either with Dan (Daniel Andrews, our state Premier) or, spurred on by the LNP (conservative) opposition and the Murdoch press, have what might described as a vicious hatred of him. Tim Smith LNP deputy leader posted “a series of playing cards graphics of Labor MPs that appear to be inspired from the ‘kill or capture’ campaign waged by the US against Iraq’s Saddam Hussein“. Murdoch journalists turn up at the daily press conferences more intent on pursuing an agenda than asking the questions most people would like answered. A photographer from The Australian turned up on CHO Brett Sutton’s doorstep – one might see the subtext as being “we know where you live; we know where your wife and children live” – as Dan observed, it wasn’t as if they were short of photos of him.

Michael O’Brien, LNP leader, endlessly negative, has sought publicity by encouraging lawsuits against our state government. Win or lose, the cost of defending them will come out of the pockets of ordinary people. One of his causes was café owner, Michelle Loielo, who claimed to have lost 99 per cent of business under the state’s lockdown – my local café is no doubt down on business but take-away business still keeps three people busy. A look at her website doesn’t inspire confidence in her business sense: its ‘News’ page is still (as I write this) advertising Fathers Day specials starting with Seafood Bonanza for 2 $138.00; Fathers Day was September 6th, seven weeks ago. I hope the food isn’t that old!

After the 725 case scare, Daniel Andrews declared that our (very hard) lockdown restrictions would be lifted only when it was safe to do so. Not unreasonably this drew a lot of criticism for its vagueness, and so some hard numbers were substituted, the one for today being that the threshold for lifting a whole swathe of restrictions was subject to a 14-day new case average of 5 cases or less, with the caveat that this was subject to circumstance (e.g. 11 days at 3, followed by 5,10,20 would give an average of 4.8 but the upkick would be worrying and justification for delay). Needless to say, our LNP opposition were still unhappy. To quote Jason Wood LNP MP’s Facebook post of two weeks ago:

If NSW could manage with around twenty cases per day, then why does the Victorian Labor Party and our stubborn Premier want to reach this ridiculously unrealistic target of a 5 case average over 14 days?!

What’s turned out to be ridiculous was the assertion that this was an unattainable target. We have reached it! So why have I titled this piece, ‘Disappointment Day’? Sadly we have reached it but – not unlike my example above – have had a sudden outbreak of school-connected cases in the last few days. So, not unreasonably in my view, the hoped for relaxations (opening of non-food retail and hospitality etc) expected today have been deferred for a few days to see whether this outbreak develops or comes to nothing. For everyone’s sake we all hope the latter. But these two representative comments from The Age website show how polarised a society we have become:

  • We have all been through so much to drive numbers down. It would be tragic if all our hard work and forbearance was in vain and we went into a third wave, just because we couldn’t wait a few more days. Patience and persistence, Melburnians! We’re almost there! Anonymous
  • This incompetent government continues to lead us to destruction, until we change the leadership we are destined for failure ! Drew

Hopefully tomorrow and Tuesday’s numbers won’t show anything to worry about and the changes we hoped to see today can be implemented. But whatever happens, the damage this virus has done is not just to health, not just to livelihoods, but to the understanding that people of diverse political views can maintain those views with a respect for those who differ.

And then …. (Tuesday update)

It was a long 24 hours but what a result! Zero new cases and zero deaths (repeated today!). And so mid-afternoon Monday Premier Dan was able to announce that from midnight tonight retailers would be free to reopen as would – subject to occupancy limits – restaurants and cafes, with many other restrictions being eased or removed either now or in two weeks.
In other news, a poll gave Dan a 52% satisfaction rating – pretty good considering the way certain sections of the media have hammered him. In contrast, ‘Mr Negative’, opposition leader Michael O’Brien’s satisfaction rating was a derisory 15%; even amongst LNP supporters he could only manage 27%. It’s gratifying to see his style of politics so resoundingly rejected, and a welcome remind that the popular press holds much less sway over its readers than it might like to think.