BOOK OF THE DAY: PATRICK SKENE CATLINGreviews The Country Formerly Known as Great BritainBy Ian Jack, Cape 325pp. £18.99
IAN JACK is daring. What British politician would dare to remove the “Great” from Great Britain? Instead of identifying their origin as GB, British cars abroad would show that they came from B, which could be confused with Bolivia, Belarus and several other places that few Britons are able to find on the map.
The first page of a British passport gives the holder’s country as the “United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”. Ah, United Kingdom! That name is coming into vogue. But UK is non-specific; besides, the K has never been less U. Nationalistic aspirations to devolve have already caused cultural fragmentation. The most fervent loyalties are antagonistically tribal, in support of rival soccer teams.
These are some of the thoughts provoked by the title of this downbeat collection of newspaper articles, written from 1989 to 2009, by Ian Jack, a distinguished Scottish journalist, who gravitated from Fife to London by way of Lancashire. The articles were evidently not composed to illuminate the title; the title has been imposed on them to suggest a common theme. At least they have a common mood. It is generally lugubrious, for, as PG Wodehouse cogently pointed out, “It is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine.”
Some credence must be accorded to the Australians' unkind characterisation of Britons as "whingeing Poms." It is undeniably true that the British public seems to relish a daily whinge, as demonstrated by the national press. London newspaper editors and circulation managers have long been aware that bad news sells more papers than good news; national self-criticism and self-pity are read more avidly than self-glorification. Jack has learned this lesson well. His newspaper career began in Scotland. Since then, he has been a reporter, feature writer, foreign correspondent and editor on the Sunday Timesand a co-founder and editor of the Independent on Sunday, and now writes for the Guardian. The thoroughness of his reports of institutional malfeasance and inefficiency and social decadence have catered generously to connoisseurs of defeatism of both the political right and left.
In this well-written, almost entirely gloomy collection of articles, his publisher promises, “Ian Jack takes us to a place of which there are now only memories and ruins.” In contrast with the Great Britain of imperial might and Croesan prosperity for a privileged few, Britain now, his publisher goes on, is a country of “national disasters, football matches, obesity. . . .” The book’s journalistically outstanding chapter is a “magnificent report on the Hatfield rail crash.” Since privatisation, Jack explains, the disintegrated railway network is run by too many competing businessmen and not enough engineers to guarantee mechanical safety. The railways have become “a lethal muddle.”
“The English are not a steady people,” Jack complains. “Britain is an unsound country.” “This country has become brilliant at apology.” He debunks the “Blitz Spirit”: “What most remains is a folk memory of that time, the stoicism that has been so beautifully enshrined in films and literature.”
I hope Ian Jack never has to depend on (Great) Britain’s welfare system and National Health Service. He would probable hate to admit that they are helpful.
Patrick Skene Catling has written a dozen novels and nine stories for children