Lincoln

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal...that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth”.

The Gettysburg Address was only 272 words in length, yet its historical rhetoric and significance is secure. Abraham Lincoln is a hugely revered figure; even most people in Britain have surely at least an inclination of what he was about. In Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln, this legacy is brought to the big screen in evocative passion.

Before watching the film, I had a rough idea about Lincoln. I knew that he was the first Republican President, and that through the American Civil War he abolished slavery and reunited the seceded South with the Union. This background knowledge and less is more than enough preparation for the film. The factual contexts in the film are displayed quickly and simply, and are not mixed up within a complicated script. Despite the Civil War being one of the bloodiest in history, Spielberg’s intelligent focus on the trials of passage for the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution allows not only for a gripping film, but it also proves that films don’t need to be padded out with hours of battle gore and violence to be interesting; conflict and gunfire are fleeting moments in Lincoln.

What was so evocative about the film was the sense of history. Lincoln presents the issue of slavery which the Founding Fathers did not address, and highlights the tribulations of race in American history. The politician in me also focused on the intriguing paradigm shift in American history; in Lincoln, the Republicans (albeit with a mixture of conservatives and radicals) are the party pushing for progress and reform, whilst the Democrats are the obstructionists defending the racist status quo. However, throughout the 20th century it was the Democrats who forever changed the role of the state, and they used direct government power to legally enshrine more rights for African Americans, something which Republicans fought long and hard to resist in this era. The Solid South, which was a bastion of Democratic support, is now unmoving in its Republican strength.

Whilst the description of Abraham Lincoln as a heroic leader and great President is an accurate one, he was not originally an abolitionist. He initially wanted to preserve the Union and resist further expansion of slavery, but not abolition. However, Lincoln gloriously expands on Lincoln’s perseverance and integrity; he could easily have had peace had he admitted the South back into the Union with slaves, yet he soldiered on pushing for the 13th amendment full in the knowledge that it could tear apart the nation. Daniel Day-Lewis acts brilliantly in this film; to portray a historical figure is one task, to do it in another accent (he is British) is quite another.

The other element which makes Lincoln such an engaging film is its focus on the other players within the story; it is not exclusive to Lincoln. The domineering personalities of the likes of Thaddeus Stevens are presented brilliantly, along with the turmoil of their moral fights. General Ulysses S Grant is interestingly a bit-part player in the film, but the dramatic tension is built early on; Lincoln’s Secretary of State William Seward bluntly tells the President that even if every Republican was to vote ‘yes’ to the 13th Amendment (with the odd one abstaining), 20 Democrats would still be required to vote ‘yes’ too. Even with prior knowledge of the eventual outcome, this still displays the potential hopelessness of the situation, something which Lincoln in the film and poignantly in real life overcomes.

It is the great Presidents of progress such as Lincoln that encapsulate American greatness. Washington created a republic, Lincoln abolished slavery, FDR created the New Deal and LBJ fully enfranchised African Americans with the basic right to vote. Lincoln wasn’t on my list of favourite Presidents before the film (although I of course acknowledged this greatness), but Lincoln the film secures his presence in my list. Spielberg makes the film evocative enough to reflect the context of history, but does not make it overly dramatic; John Williams’ score is subtle yet noticeable, without any ostentatious chimes.

In shining a good light on the Republican Party of the 19th century, a negative tone is shone on the Republican Party of the 21st century. Huge generations have passed since Lincoln’s time, and it could be debated forever what he would have thought about the expansion of the Federal Government and its role in society. However, I’m quite confident in ascertaining that he would not abide by the Republicans’ current intransigence over the debt ceiling; a party prepared to tip the country over the brink for the sake of rigid and self-serving ideologies. He would not view Barack Obama as the “single greatest threat to the American way of life”, as one bigoted conservative activist noted (I believe bigoted is justified here; he listed the Civil War, the two World Wars, Communism and 9/11 as threats to the American way of life that have been overcome, yet he views Obama as worse than all of them?!), and he certainly could have stomached compromise and working together with Democrats (which was crucial to passing the 13th Amendment), rather than the current impasse at such a thought within the current GOP.

Films such as Lincoln enable historical figures to be brought to the fore again, not lest we forget them, but lest their significance is diminished. It is important to get such works of cinema right, and Steven Spielberg does this. The resources of American cinema, along with the patriotic clamour for certain Presidents, also allows for such work to be carried out. Spielberg does the enduring legacy of Abraham Lincoln justice. On a personal level, I would love cinematic representation of the lives of William Gladstone, David Lloyd-George, Winston Churchill and Clement Attlee. However, I don’t think they can compare to this:

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the fight as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations”

A case for the railways

The 1993 Railways Act was brought in with the intention of ending state monopolies on railways, improving competition and (possibly the overriding reason) raising money for a cash-stricken Government. Rail privatisation, a path that even Margaret Thatcher dared not tread, could be noted by its singularity. Privatisation will always be a heavily divisive topic, but it could be said that the effects of it, specifically the 1980s crusade, had suitably neutral-enough results for both sides of the argument to make reasoned claims. British Rail is different.  If efficiency was the aim, then why are train fares in Britain the most expensive in Europe, and our train system one of the most inefficient?

There’s little doubt that most commentators on the Right would argue that railway privatisation was a “tough but necessary” measure; another ‘sensible’ sign of the Thatcherite times. Yet Mrs Thatcher wouldn’t abide by it. To quote Simon Jenkins, author of Thatcher & Sons, “her political instinct was not even to discuss them...it was a privatisation that Thatcher always refused to countenance”. Thatcher wasn’t dubbed ‘The Iron Lady’ for her social compassion, but she nevertheless viewed the railways as “too close to popular emotion, too sensitive and too complicated to succeed”. To John Major, on the other hand, it was “simply the next item on the list...as if to prove he was in earnest, Major immediately authorised three new privatisations which Thatcher had expressly forbidden, of the railways, coal and the Post Office”. For all of her divisiveness, Thatcher was a conviction politician; if she viewed a tough policy as right and necessary, she wouldn’t have hesitated for a second in delivering it. Thatcher not only hesitated on this particular policy; she never wanted it to happen. The arguments of the Right lose credence here; their very own emblem was fervently against railway privatisation.

To quote Jenkins further, “BR (British Rail) was the cheapest and most cost-efficient rail network in Europe. Had it been able to predict the rise in rail demand over the 1990s, planners would certainly have been forecasting a profitable network in the public sector”. Jenkins is no socialist tribune. He writes for the Guardian but as a Centrist alternative (similar to the former Communist David Aaronovitch writing for the Centre-Right Times), and worked on the Boards of the British Rail from 1979-1990. Once again, this is evidence that the arguments of the Right, no doubt of a ‘costly and inefficient rail network’, fail to bear fruit. Had British Rail been a consistent drain on public finances, and privatisation brought down train costs and raised standards, then calls for renationalisation would have been hollow and purely ideological. However, privatised rail receives a public subsidy of around £1.2 billion a year, and the West Coast Mainline fiasco has done little to reassure us that we’re in good hands. Season tickets have risen this year by an average of 4.2%, and according to the ‘Campain for Better Transport’ statistics on the BBC website, since 2003 average season ticket costs in London have risen by £1,300, and commuters between Worcester and Birmingham have seen an increase of 52% since 2003. Increasing costs of this kind would not be justifiable if we had a start of the art train services, but we don’t!

We know who is to blame, but what about solving the issue? Tony Blair, part of Thatcher’s “greatest legacy” (in her own words), lacked integrity and conviction in this area. New Labour exhibited a rare moment of social democracy by committing to renationalising British Rail in their 1997 manifesto, yet Tony Blair didn’t go through with it: “I never had much faith in this particular privatisation of the Tories and felt it would lead to a hugely complex and possibly uncompetitive system; but on the other hand, I wasn’t going to waste money renationalising it”. Paddy Ashdown’s verdict on Blair is very evident here; whilst he said Thatcher would ask if a proposal was consistent with her creed and then ask “will it work?” Blair would only ask “will it work?” I’m not a transport expert, and I confess that I’m writing this blog piece with the luxury of a Student Railcard whose main uses are for trips from Manchester to Buxton and from Matlock to Derby. However, there are thousands of commuters out there taking what is often the most practical form of transport for them, and paying exorbitant costs for it.

The solution? I am in favour of renationalising British Rail, and not for ideological or dogmatic reasons; it is a practical measure. Germany and France have state-run railways which work and are efficient, and if polls are to be believed 75% of people (MSN poll) are in favour of public ownership, or 70% of people according to a GfK NOP poll. Only the Beveridge wing of the Liberal Democrats would support this measure, but the Labour Party is apparently considering it too as part of their policy reviews. Whilst this is a welcome move, the cynic in me believes that they would drop such a measure once the big business vote is needed in 2015, along with a yearning for trust on economic competence. However, £1.2 billion a year could be saved for a start by nationalisation; it would undoubtedly be a costly measure initially, but in the long term prices would be kept under control and reduced, allowing for (ironically) more competitiveness. Railway transport is popular, and it is not right that this should be exploited at any time, let alone austerity Britain, by ever rising costs. Conversely, this popularity is a key reason why nationalisation would work; it can be a “profitable network in the public sector” as Simon Jenkins had forecast. Nationalisation per se does not have to be the whole answer, either. A state run network alongside a privately run franchise would maintain the choice element of the market, whilst enlisting competition that is for the benefit of the consumer.

If Ed Miliband unambiguously declared his support for renationalisation of the railways, I would praise him, and I am not his biggest fan. I would praise him for his courage and conviction, and for being in twine with public opinion. Such a policy could, perversely, attract the London vote; in such a populous and crowded city, commuting by train is a frequent choice. Social democracy calls for a mixed economy, but my call for renationalisation here is not out of longing for a return to the post-war consensus. Money is tight, and must be spent carefully, and on worthwhile causes. I believe this is a worthwhile cause, and my view on it is borne out of pragmatism.

Mrs Thatcher was said to have come round to privatisation of the railways, but this was from the comfort of the House of Lords; she would never have changed her mind in office. She told her Transport Secretary Nicholas Ridley that "railway privatisation will be the Waterloo of this government. Please never mention the railways to me again". For a change, I agree with Margaret.

Reference: Simon Jenkins (2007), Thatcher and Sons