Dani Garavelli: Sheroes offer welcome respite from storm

During a week of noise and obfuscation, we had to turn to the likes of Gina Miller and Joanna Cherry to provide calm and rationality, writes Dani Garavelli.
Greta Thunberg speaks at the United Nations (U.N.) where world leaders were holding a summit on climate change. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)Greta Thunberg speaks at the United Nations (U.N.) where world leaders were holding a summit on climate change. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Greta Thunberg speaks at the United Nations (U.N.) where world leaders were holding a summit on climate change. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

There were many potential backing tracks to last week’s Supreme Court victory, but few could better Ivor Cutler’s Women Of The World Take Over (Because If You Don’t The World Will Come To An End).

As Brenda Hale, Gina Miller and Joanna Cherry swooped in, like ageing Angels who had slipped Charlie’s leash, and brought Boris Johnson to heel, it did feel as if super-sheroes had saved democracy; as if – as Lady Hale’s subversive brooch suggested – the female of the species was more deadly than the male.

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Murdered MP Jo Cox. This week Mr Johnson provoked outrage for suggesting the best way to honour her memory was to 'get Brexit done'. Photo: Yui Mok/PA WireMurdered MP Jo Cox. This week Mr Johnson provoked outrage for suggesting the best way to honour her memory was to 'get Brexit done'. Photo: Yui Mok/PA Wire
Murdered MP Jo Cox. This week Mr Johnson provoked outrage for suggesting the best way to honour her memory was to 'get Brexit done'. Photo: Yui Mok/PA Wire
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Miller and Cherry were impressive not merely because they forced the resumption of parliament, but because they fought cleanly and with dignity. While Johnson and his cohorts are waging a dirty war – in which no lie is too outrageous, no weapon too barbaric and no amount of collateral damage too great – Miller and Cherry tooled themselves up with righteousness, legal knowledge and that most underrated of things: a concrete plan of action.

They were not diverted from their purpose by cheap shots or low blows, abuse or death threats; they stuck to their belief that due process rather than duplicity would win the day. And it did: 11-0. As Lady Hale delivered the damning judgement, there was no bluster or braggadocio, just a sober relaying of the facts: that the Prime Minister’s advice to the Queen had been “unlawful, void and of no effect”.

Impeachment

Across the Atlantic, fellow girly swot Nancy Pelosi was swinging into action, ordering an impeachment inquiry into a whistleblower’s claims that Trump used his presidential powers to pressure the Ukrainian government into smearing rival Joe Biden.

There were critics who wanted the speaker of the House of Representatives to intervene earlier. But Pelosi refused to be brow-beaten, biding her time, waiting for compelling evidence of conduct that was not only reprehensible but – like Johnson’s prorogation of parliament – unconstitutional. As she told New Yorker editor David Remnick: “Just impeaching Trump for his bad behaviour isn’t worth it. But if he challenges our system of checks and balances as he is doing, if he undermines our democracy, our electoral system, as he is doing, if he undermines his own oath of office as he is doing, it is a challenge to our Constitution.”

These unexpected turns of event provided brief moments of quiet clarity in a tempest of noise and obfuscation. “Men have had their shot, and look at where we’ve got,” the lugubrious Cutler intoned back in the 1980s, like some sort of bunneted seer; though even he would surely have been aghast at just how badly our band of self-seeking brothers has screwed up.

Johnson made his way back to the despatch box as instructed. But was he chastened? Hardly. He simply took up where he left off – making light of abuse, baiting female MPs, suggesting the best way to honour Jo Cox’s memory was to do the exact opposite of what she wanted, and continuing to use the kind of language that may lead to death threats.

This tactic is the only one he has at his disposal. Like former presenter of the Today programme, John Humphrys, who last week admitted he could never be bothered to read his briefs, Johnson lacks the discipline for rigorous debate. All he can do is to wound, to provoke, to create such a clamour it is impossible to think. And to deflect, deflect, deflect – surrounding himself in a fog of outrage, so the public will focus on his treatment of MP Paula Sherriff, his failure to apologise, his emotive use of the phrase “surrender bill” – anything and everything except what matters most: how to prevent a no-deal Brexit.

Under siege from angry men

This strategy is endemic. The world is under siege from angry men trying to stir up hatred and violence, men such as Spiked editor Brendan O’Neill who, on Politics Live, said “there should be riots” over Brexit.

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That’s the kind of comment that ought to earn you jail time. But these days you can say what you like on the BBC. Unless you are a black female presenter calling out racism. Then you can shut right up or face the consequences.

All this talk of foaming-at-the-mouth white men brings me to last week’s other great shero: Greta Thunberg, above. The 16-year-old climate change activist has taken more abuse in the past few months than most of us experience in a lifetime: mostly from red-faced, right-wingers; all of it from morons unfit to plait her hair.

Thunberg has been targeted over her age, her looks, her Asperger syndrome and her lifestyle. Like many young girls, she has been told to “cheer up, it might never happen”. Though the point of her mission is that it’s happening already.

Then there are those who accuse her of hypocrisy. For these great purists, a 15-day journey across the Atlantic on a zero-carbon yacht is not enough to offset the sin of one vegan salad in a plastic carton.

Having sparked a climate change revolution – bringing millions of youngsters onto the streets – she has enemies in high places. Trump, of course, posted a sarcastic tweet before ignoring her in the UN. But there was criticism, too, from Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, a fossil fuel enthusiast, and French President Emmanuel Macron, who accused her of depressing other teenagers.

You could write a thesis on why Thunberg provokes such an extreme reaction. For some, doubtless, it’s a defence mechanism. Politicians do not want to be reminded of their failings or to be forced to address them. For others, it’s guilt. Thunberg is a constant reminder of the extent to which previous generations have failed hers. She and her followers are being forced to shoulder a responsibility we abdicated long ago. No wonder she asks: “How dare you?”

But it’s also yet more deflection. As long as politicians, commentators and the public are fixating on Thunberg’s personality and manner, they are not fixating on the difficult decisions to be taken if climate change is to be halted.

Thankfully, Thunberg appears to be robust. She is not easily demoralised. Nor is she as po-faced as naysayers would have us believe. She turned Trump’s mockery to her advantage by changing her Twitter bio to: “A very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future”.

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Like Hale, like Pelosi, like Miller, who navigated her way through the firestorm that is BBC Question Time on Thursday with both intelligence and grace, Thunberg is an inspiration, a good angel sitting on the shoulder of the world.

Having started the week singing Ivor Cutler, I ended it thinking of Maya Angelou’s most famous poem:

“You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatred,

But still, like air, I’ll rise.”

The danger of Johnson’s rhetoric should not be underestimated; careless talk can still cost lives.

But, if we’re looking for hope, it’s there, in the many “swots” (girly or otherwise) who transcend today’s grubby populism, and who may yet chart a course away from destruction.