According to mounting reports, Samantha Cameron affects Britain’s policy by using her hubby-wubby Dave as a conduit.
Perhaps it would be useful to remind the happy couple that she is neither elected nor qualified to act in that capacity. Dave, at least, meets one of these requirements.
In fact, it’s far from certain that she is intellectually superior to the creature tattooed on her ankle. After all, the dolphin’s intelligence has been established by extensive tests, and it has the demonstrable advantage of not having the likeness of Samantha tattooed on its fin.
By all accounts, it was Sam who pushed Dave towards his untenable positions on climate change, homomarriage and aid for variously unsavoury groups.
Specifically, she’s believed to have persuaded Dave that any attempt to protect marriage may lose him votes among groups that are hostile to the institution either ideologically or physiologically.
Now Sam has visited a few refugee camps in Syria and discovered that they don’t even remotely resemble the manor in which she grew up. That had a revelatory effect on Sam, similar to what Saul of Tarsus once experienced in the same region.
Upon return home she used her feminine wiles to push Dave towards supporting the very groups whose bellicosity had brought the camps into existence.
“As a mother,” she said, “it is horrifying to hear the harrowing stories from the children I met today. No child should ever experience what they have.” The grammar is questionable, but the sentiment is unassailable.
The trick, however, is to translate sentiment into policy, and this requires a certain set of qualities of which our sensitive mother is singularly bereft. So, for that matter, is Dave, but at least he is able to consult competent advisors.
Hence our senior military commanders told him in no uncertain terms that, unless he’s prepared to declare war on Syria, he should muzzle his wife. Put out or shut up, was the gist, although I’m sure the actual language was more refined.
And speaking of translating sentiment into policy, Sam isn’t the only one who has a problem in that area. His Holiness Pope Francis seems to find it hard too.
Last week the Pope visited Lampedusa, a tiny island off the coast of Sicily. The island is a popular destination for refugee ships sailing from Tunisia and Lybia. A couple of those have sunk along the way, with many escapees dying.
His Holiness delivered a stirring sermon on the subject of such fundamental Christian virtues as charity, compassion and solidarity.
He gave “a thought, too, to the dear Muslim immigrants that are beginning the fast of Ramadan” and accused the world of “globalised indifference” to their plight.
One wonders if all those prone Muslims being called to prayer by our Radio 4 reciprocate by giving a thought to the thousands of Christians robbed and murdered throughout the Islamic world. Then of course a true Christian doesn’t believe that there must be a tit for every tat.
As to such Christian virtues as compassion, are we also allowed to feel it for the 4,500 inhabitants of Lampedusa who’ve seen their bucolic little island turned into a giant refugee camp? The Lampedusans are, after all, communicants in the same Church of which Pope Francis is the leader. Surely His Holiness’s first job is to ‘give a thought’ to them, before going all multi-culti?
All Christians must pray for those persecuted, dying horrific deaths, driven out of their homes. The Pope is entirely within his remit to remind us sinners of compassion and charity – in fact, he can’t do so too often.
Similarly, any normal person visiting a refugee camp will be overwhelmed with pity and empathy. Having visited a Chechen refugee camp in 1995, I can testify to this from personal experience.
Yet the next question ought to be the one always asked at the end of political get-togethers: “So what are we going to do about it?”
Here both sentimental mothers and celibate prelates can find themselves on shaky grounds. For neither sentiment nor especially sentimentality is a reliable guide to policy making in the secular realm.
How does His Holiness see the policies required to overcome our “global indifference”? How are we supposed to prevent an exodus of desperate people risking their lives on the way to our welfare offices?
Two possibilities come to mind. One, driven by Christian compassion and charity, we extend a warm welcome to the entire population of Africa and the Middle East.
Within a year or two, the population of Europe would triple, making it indistinguishable from the lands of the refugees’ origin. Europe’s predominantly Muslim population would starve, and all our radio stations, not just the BBC, will be airing muezzins’ calls to prayer.
Assuming this isn’t the end His Holiness sees in his mind’s eye, one can think of only one alternative – that of repeating something John Quincy Adams said about America in his 1825 inauguration speech: “She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.”
Our thoughts and prayers should go to the Africans and Asians suffering poverty and oppression. Our policy should be to tell them that Europe has run out of even standing room. If they don’t like it where they are, they should do something about it – and joining our welfare rolls is no longer an available option.
We should also undertake not to provoke refugee-spinning conflicts in places like Syria – or stay out of them if they conflagrate spontaneously.
Perhaps Sam should seek an audience with His Holiness. They may have a most enjoyable chat – provided she remembers to wear opaque stockings.