My 2021 awards: wine and cheese winner, benefits of Brexit and most puritanical Scottish Nationalist
This is Iain Martin’s newsletter for members of Reaction. Become a member of Reaction here.
It’s that time of the year. The time of the year when I say in this weekly newsletter for the members of Reaction that no-one wants a long analysis at Christmas Eve on political shenanigans, pandemics, economic problems and foreign policy turmoil that may be leading us to war.
I could pen another 1200 words on the Russia situation. Short version, it’s bad and the West has put itself in a weak position to respond. Or the China situation. That’s also bad, though maybe quite good too. While China’s technological advance continues, the economic model is teetering, growth is slowing and the demographics are dire. Xi the Marxist needs to keep an ever tighter grip to disguise difficulties or block any internal challenge. Hold on, that could be bad because a totalitarian regime in a corner may need to create a diversion by lashing out, leading to a war. Or there’s the need for the Democrats to find a credible, mainstream replacement for Biden to run in 2024 and stop the re-emergence of… you know who. Not even going to mention his name.
Wait, we’ve all had more than enough of that sort of stuff for one year. It can wait. It’s Christmas, they’re playing carols on BBC Radio 3 and everyone deserves a rest. Even Boris Johnson.
There remain only three things for me to do, other than my Christmas shopping.
First, I want to thank the members of Reaction. Many of you have been with us for years and your continued support via subscription is what makes Reaction possible. We expanded our coverage in 2021 and there’s more to come. We think of Reaction as boutique media, a small and growing band born of the idea that in this crazy and sometimes hysterical digital climate, sensible, intelligent people like you want proper analysis and commentary, and entertainment.
Secondly, thank you to the Reaction team of writers, editors, management and board. Reaction is great fun to produce because they’re a wonderful bunch who believe in what we do. Thank you also to our supporters, those generous individuals who have supported the dinners we host to fund our Young Journalists Programme, training the next generation of journalists.
Thirdly, or Fourthly, as the struggling speaker losing his audience says when trying desperately to give some shape to turgid remarks…
Finally! It’s time to reveal the winners of my annual awards. They’re much shorter than normal this year on account of me needing to run around doing some Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve.
So, here are the three award winners for 2021…
The wine and cheese award
The great wine critic Michael Broadbent used to say that one of the modern world’s most baffling developments was the mass delusion, it started in the 1960s, that wine and cheese somehow go together. They don’t. Cheese overpowers the taste of wine. Yet people persist in wasting decent red wine by drinking it when they get out the cheese. At a push, a bone dry German Riesling or something Austrian can cut through the cheese taste and offer a sensation akin to pleasure. I appreciate that with all of the many problems facing the country, and our world, this sounds like an incidental issue. But it has contemporary resonance, thanks to the one man campaign (or 19 men in the Downing Street garden, Carrie and a baby) being run by the Prime Minister to pair as much cheese as possible with large quantities of red wine. For his persistence, the winner is Boris Johnson.
The making Scotland look joyless and puritanical award.
A lot of contenders here, and most of them prominent figures in the SNP. Anyone visiting Scotland cannot fail to be struck by what fourteen years of Nationalist rule have done to the place. Turn on the news from the state broadcaster in my homeland and it’s about as much fun as listening to a Church of Scotland sermon delivered by the gloomy Reverend I.M. Jolly on a cold Sunday in January in 1953. At least in England there’s some fight – the government is constantly poked and prodded, there are rebellions in the governing party, and a noisy debate. Scotland under Sturgeon looks down-trodden and joyless. The disputatious, funny Scotland of Billy Connolly seems to have been squashed. There’s rebellion brewing under the surface though. A friend, a member of Reaction, drove 50 miles to watch St Mirren play Celtic earlier this week just to annoy Deputy First Minister John Swinney after hearing him issue another dreary warning on the radio. St Mirren ignored the Scottish government and the game went ahead with a crowd. The appearance of Omicron has given the Nationalists fresh opportunities to contrast “safety first” political Scottishness with the chaos in Number 10, although Boris seems to have got this one right. We’ll see. Swinney was a strong contender in this category, but the winner of the making Scotland look joyless and puritanical award goes to First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. Just before more data showing Omicron to be mild appeared, Sturgeon nipped in to cancel Hogmanay (the traditional Scottish celebration of New Year’s Eve usually centred around parties small and large). There was just too high a risk of people enjoying themselves.
The benefits of Brexit award
A tough one this and the judging panel ended up split (52-48). Several of the judges who are most pro-Brexit claimed that not being in the EU is the main benefit of Brexit, along with not having to see much of Ursula von der Leyen on the TV. Critics on the panel countered that this is a cheap “get out”, a circular argument and a deliberately vague debating tool designed to evade scrutiny of the obstacles put up to importing and exporting. Several of the pro-Brexit members of the judging panel nodded and admitted, somewhat shame-facedly, that this was a fair point, but that this was Boris’s fault. The implementation of a great idea – Brexit – had been botched. One of the most anti-Brexit members of the judging panel said that this made Brexit sound like revolutionary Marxism – when it goes wrong its advocates say it has never been tried properly. Attempting to bring the judging panel to order, I said that it was time for a drink. A case of champagne was brought in. Luckily, we were able to try the new “pint-sized” bottles that are being introduced for the British market thanks to Brexit. The Brussels bureaucrats, presumably crazed on super-strength Belgian beer, dictate that champagne must be sold at retail in either in a 70cl full bottle or a 35cl half bottle.
I don’t know about you, but a bottle of champagne is generally too much, especially if you’ve got a meal (with cheeses) to follow. A half bottle is useless if there are two of you.
Before Britain joined the EEC and started all this trouble in the first place, pint bottles of champagne were produced for the British market. The UK is the largest export market for champagne, bigger than the US, Japan and Germany. French producers love Britain. We champagne drinkers love France, and it’s sad to see a lot of non-champagne drinkers, teetotal types drunk on anti-French sentiments, trash the concept of the return of the pint bottle of fizz.
One of the anti-Brexit members of our judging panel said that he had read it wouldn’t really be a pint this time, but 50cl, in line with EU rules on wine and wasn’t this another example of Brexiteers trying to create a diversion because 50cl would have been allowed without Brexit? His question was drowned out by a long series of toasts to the Queen, and to the scientists and medics who so speedily invented the Covid vaccines.
Churchill is supposed to have said that a pint of champagne is ideal for two people at lunch and one at dinner, but as Andrew Roberts explains in his magnificent Churchill biography, WSC is credited with saying quite a few things he didn’t say. So, who knows?
What I do know is that the Daily Telegraph, which on Friday revealed the return of the pint bottle for the UK, has been reporting the return of the pint (50cl) bottle of champagne for perhaps five years. Now, it’s happening…
On that note, Happy Brexit, sorry, I meant Happy Christmas!
Enjoy the festive rest. Reaction is taking a break, with a light service between Christmas and New Year and then the daily evening email briefing returns on 4 January. I’ll be back with this newsletter in mid-January.