It is time to draw Excalibur. Not the “cut steel” of legend but the 1981 film directed by John Boorman. A film of which I have total recall. A clarity, I hasten to add, which has little to do with Helen Mirren going through her “refusal to do any role that didn’t involve nudity” phase.
Anyway, “The Dark Ages. The land was divided and without a King.” A situation resolved after much Wagner by Arthur and much trickery by Merlin, the supernatural architect of a situation whereby an unknowing woman receives the seed of a future saviour from a man who isn’t her husband. Well, it is nearly Christmas.
Naturally, this is a situation that cannot pertain. And, come the end, we are presented with a beautifully framed shot of a dying Arthur, pierced with a spear, ordering Percival to hurl Excalibur into a lake. Behind the king, the setting sun forms a bloodied halo.
It’s stirring stuff. Not least because, as the ancient knitting of Arthur and Christ demands, there is the promise of return. And return when the night is darkest and the kingdom’s need is greatest.
And, as a nation with a bit of history behind us, we’ve rather taken that notion to heart. From Elizabeth at Tilbury to Margaret from the Winter of Discontent, from “a little touch of Harry in the night” to Winston in “our darkest hour”, a leader has come and with them, salvation.
One can take things too far though. And I can’t help but feel, though times are indeed bleak, that imbuing Nigel Farage with the spirit of Arthur might be a good example.
To the right, a new hope. An Aslan to strike down witchery, wokery and wettery. To the Left what rather looks like panic. A metropolitan shudder nowhere more evident than in The Times which this week wheeled out, count ‘em, two columnists to say unpleasant things about the would-be King of the Westminster jungle.
“There is, and was yesterday evening, an awfulness about Farage.” says Andrew Billen. Mordant stuff indeed but quite how that differentiates him from much of the rest of the political population remains unclear.
“How did Farage triumph in 2016? It was not much more than luck.” Quoth Will Lloyd, hurling his bat into the corner of the changing room and pausing only to compare the maitre d’ of kangaroo anus to “a grossly overpaid headwaiter”.
It is the sort of stuff that feeds the Farage faithful. To sniff at him is to sniff at them. They get tired of it and vote Brexit. Like another Arthur figure: “Striking him down will only make him more powerful than you can ever imagine,” as Alison Rose discovered.
Nor, however, is he quite the miracle that the Right imagine. He is being placed in the impossible position of the caricature substitute. Three down, five minutes of extra time just added and summoned from the bench with the gaffer’s instruction to “Get out there and win it for us, son.”
One can’t help but feel that, should Nigel trot out – and as yet he’s signed no transfer fee, declared for no club, posed for no new strip photograph – he has his mind very much on next season. Because the truth is, from here, only relegation can beckon.
True, much aligns for him. Immigration is now a mainstream issue from Stockholm to Southern Italy; no longer beyond the pale. True too that it’s long been hard to trace where the centre of the Labour party ends and the centre of the Tories begins. “You can hardly see the join!” As Eric used to quip of Ernie’s toupé. And what that means is not much of the electorate is covered.
All of which leads the disenfranchised to the way of Reform. Polling at 10 per cent and – despite the tired Tory cry of “you’ll split the vote” – supported by folk who no longer care because they no longer see the Conservatives as either conservative, competent or credible. Who cares who wins?
Blighted as the Tories are by those three c’s, why would Farage want to lead the Conservative Party? Captain joins sinking ship to lead mutinous crew! Far better, one would have thought, to let Reform lead it to a long overdue mercy killing then transplant the organs that still perform Tory functions.
In the meantime, the electorate will get a chance to look at a Labour Party they scarcely love beyond Hobson’s Choice. Which one will it be? The identity obsessed version that has a problem with Jews, does class hatred stuff like taxing private schooling and snogs Europe behind the bike sheds? Or the Wes Streeting/Rachel Reeves version that lurks in the corner office with the CEO and roughs up the NHS? Like Keir Starmer or party views on gender, much is fluid.
And where does that leave our Arthur? The stuff of myth and legend or clear and present danger to an increasingly clapped out political order?
Probably a bit of both. But for us poor peasants, the song remains the same: “The Dark Ages. The land was divided and without a King.”
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