As war approaches, Brits keep too calm and carry on

During lockdown, I read La Peste. I know, unoriginal, but it was sort of the rules. I have to say, reading it was akin to developing a quite unpleasant illness. But, rather like fever, it has moments of great lucidity. 

Damned if I can find the quote but, as the good citizens of Oran labour between the deadening horizons of an overheated hinterland and a becalmed blue sea, the rubbery rat corpses begin to fill the stairwells and the first cases of plague appear, narrator Dr Brieux says something that struck then as it strikes now. 

“Life carries on as normal right until the moment of catastrophe.” Some such anyway.

The restaurants were full, love affairs continued, newspapermen reported. And so on. 

It resonated during Covid but resonates more now because La Peste is, famously, rooted in war as an allegory for the German occupation of France. 

Appropriately then, “NATO warns of all-out war with Russia in next 20 years” leads The Telegraph. Notably, widespread panic has not ensued, despite the fact that Sweden has warned its citizens similarly and Grant Schapps warns that we live in “pre-war” times.

In The Times, I can read about someone finally tasting Britain’s best roast after a four-year wait. The Brighton and Hove News reports an Extinction Rebellion protest outside a local defence manufacturer. I know because my local car mechanic got held up by it this morning, driving from his partner’s house. Another newspaper has Penelope Cruz looking as only Penelope Cruz can.

All normal. Right until the moment of catastrophe. 

All this begs questions. Are we apathetic? Is British sang-froid alive and well even in our emotionally incontinent times? Is there little choice but to keep calm and carry on? Or are we eye-rollingly bored of the endless predictions of imminent disaster to which the permanent hysteria of the internet age so easily lends itself? It’s the wolf! Yeah, whatevs.

Probably all of the above. But, of course, other explanations might apply. We get such counter signals. We have an army that could fit inside Wembley stadium and stretch out a bit too. We turn down highly capable pilots for being the wrong sex and colour. Not that we have sufficient aircraft to train them. Two years before you can get a fast jet spot at RAF Valley. The Navy builds ships it can’t man, or woman, nor, apparently, escort and supply. 

We’ll allow the closure of refineries and steel works, restrict farming and cut ourselves off from energy supplies. 

We’re not alone in this and variant madness. The US can’t recruit for love nor money, France gets cross if Germany pledges weaponry to Ukraine and chunks of Europe have a defence budget that will just about cover a nice staff car, some gold braid and a catapult. 

We have, apparently, shot our munitions all over Ukraine but can, evidently, still find enough left to squirt at the Houthis. 

Our “special relationship” allies blocked the appointment of a genuinely capable Defence Secretary in Ben Wallace to NATO and came up with the blinding idea that Ursula Van Der Leyen, a woman who left the once mighty Wehrmacht armed with broomsticks in her spell as German defence minister, might be the very gal.

The regiments of former officers contributing newspaper columns veer between telling us that we’re down to our last Spitfire or praising the can-do professionalism of our brave men and women of the Armed Forces. 

All that has saved us, it seems, is the fact that the once-feared Red Army is still driving T.34s in an armoured charge with the ammunition stashed in the turret and Iran has inexplicably pooped off Pakistan.

Now, apparently, the citizenry is expected to strap on a tin helmet and gaze stoically skyward while the wife joins the ration queue. 

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, nobody’s buying. The azure heavens hold no Heinkels. And haven’t done in many a long year. And we’ve rather got used to that as being the norm, always overlooking that nothing lasts forever and the Roman wisdom that he who desires peace should be prepared for war.

It is too much for politicians to expect us to take all this seriously now. For so many years they have forgotten to do so themselves. A salami slice here, a “peace dividend” there and settle down with Francis Fukuyama come eventide.

So things carry on as normal. Right up until the moment of catastrophe. A plague on all their houses. 

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