Nobody does it better…
From Saturday's Daily Telegraph
The Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, is my least favourite MP, a title he inherited when Chris Huhne was sent where he belongs. But when I caught a glimpse of him on telly, decked out in full rigging for the Queen’s Speech, I briefly warmed to him. True, it wasn’t a pretty sight: Bercow was puffed up like Mr Toad, hands folded on his paunch as he acknowledged the respectful smiles of officials. But for once his vanity didn’t matter. Paradoxically, his ceremonial robes cut him down to size.
Bercow is celebrated for refusing to wear traditional costume when he sits in the Speaker’s chair: instead, he sports a natty suit and ill-chosen tie topped off with a prefect’s gown. This has absolutely nothing to do with modesty. On the contrary, it’s an ego trip. “Look at me!” it shrieks. “I’m the Great Reforming Speaker™ who swept away the flummery.” But on Wednesday he was overruled by protocol. He had to do the same as everyone else – wear what tradition demands.
Our ceremonial is funny like that. Though magnificent to behold, it puts people in their place. Tourists don’t grasp this. As they squint through their Ray-Bans at the scarlet tunics on Horse Guards Parade, they see quaint pageantry. And, admittedly, some of our “ancient” traditions were invented in the 19th century to keep the masses happy. But at the core of our ceremonial lies a distinctively British combination of grandeur and reticence that predates Victorian vulgarity.
This combination explains why we do ceremonies better than anyone else in Europe. I’m sorry if that sounds rude, but look at the competition. Last month King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands was sworn in, not enthroned, in a decommissioned church; he doesn’t wear his crown – just as well, perhaps, since it looks as if it was nicked from a Medieval Banquet laid on for estate agents in Droitwich. As for the republics of southern Europe, it’s no wonder that people who celebrate “national days” by dressing traffic policemen in turquoise Ruritarian plumes have problems with fiscal discipline.
The superiority of our ceremonies is easily explained. Although most foreign countries rely on soldiers for state occasions, no army in the world can match the choreography of the British Armed Forces. Trooping the Colour, for example, requires the massed bands to execute a manoeuvre called the spin-wheel “whose complexity defies description”, according to a former director of music of the Grenadier Guards.
This split-second precision creates a glorious spectacle but no space for showing off – or for political grandstanding. At Lady Thatcher’s funeral, the presence of the Armed Forces restrained protesters and Tory triumphalists alike. Likewise, even today’s tiresome career politicians (of whom Speaker Bercow is a specimen) acquire a smattering of dignity when they are listening to a Monarch who has only ever worn her crown jewels as symbols of her office.
It’s significant that some of the greediest denizens of Westminster are “constitutional reformers”. Dismantle tradition, and with it goes the precious near-anonymity of office-holders whose authority is rooted in service to the country. They will be replaced by politicians who will subvert democracy by trousering public money with a shamelessness not seen since the heyday of the rotten boroughs. If you don’t believe me, look at the institutionally corrupt Commissioners and MEPs of Brussels. Many of them come from countries where the notion of dignified ceremonial is as alien as human sacrifice or space flight. That’s no coincidence.
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