While driving back from the life-drawing class in Ilkley last night I fell to thinking about the attempt I made at a self-portrait while on holiday.* Suddenly an explanation came into my head as to why there was a disparity in the proportions of different parts of the head. It was crashing obvious in retrospect. One of the two mirrors I had used in order to ensure that my head could be seen in the correct orientation was a shaving mirror….and they are curved. The different parts of my head, reflected in different areas of the mirror, would obviously be subjected to different degrees of magnification. What a perfectly stupid error! Of course I ought to have thought about that. It was specially silly because the mirror in question had two sides, and if only I had had the foresight to turn it over there would have been no problem. Ah well! I’ll know better next time.
The theme of errors that really ought to have been foreseen has been at the centre of my thoughts throughout the day, for quite different reasons. Even if you do not live in the UK you might well be aware that our country is locked in acrimonious debate at the moment about the proposed withdrawal from the European Union. As time goes by it becomes more and more obvious that this will be a disaster. This afternoon, drinking my very English cup of tea, I was reading an article in the current edition of the London Review of Books. Two well-qualified economists were reviewing the economic harm that will befall the country as a consequence of withdrawal if our parliament does not accept the proposals currently on the table, and we simply crash out of the system. (Most of these problems will be experienced even if we do leave in an orderly fashion.) None of this is new, and exactly the same points were made at the time of the referendum, two years ago. Why, however, despite the fact that these consequences have been clearly foreseen, do our politicians persist in repeating ideologically motivated fantasies that ignore the obvious?
A good part of the problem, I believe, lies in a sad defect of our democracy. Although it is believed that a clear majority of the Members of Parliament are personally opposed to leaving the EU, they spend their time looking over their shoulders at their constituencies, in which a majority of the voters elected to leave the Union. They are simply afraid that at the next election they might well loose their seats.
The future of the country, for this reason, is entirely obscure at the moment, as there is no direct correspondence between what politicians say and what they believe, or between what they say they will do and the way in which they will act. As a consequence we live in a climate of complete unreality. The image of myself I saw in the mirror the other day might have been distorted, but it was a darned sight clearer and more accurate than the prognostications of our future currently on offer by our political leaders. Like mine, their errors could and should have been foreseen. The difference is, of course, that nothing much hangs on a dodgy self-portrait.
*Mentioned in this blog a few days ago.