Polynesian mariners explored the Pacific by imagining their vessels stayed put while the cosmos moved above them. In my head I have remained stationary while the world has moved wildly beneath me. Without moving an inch I find myself routinely categorised as right-wing. Right and left are meaningless terms now. Having come into use during the French Revolution — when revolutionaries sat to the left of the presiding officer of the national assembly while royalists gathered on his right — both are little more than insults to be flung at whomever a person dislikes for any reason.
My tendencies are apparently underscored by my insistence on my right to freedom. This is an unexpected tectonic shift as well. I remember when demanding freedom, standing up to authoritarian legislation, was regarded as behaviour of those on the left. Now I have stood still long enough and find myself standing on that self-same battlefield, crying freedom, but apparently from the right. Demanding freedom is now a right-wing quirk.
In 2018 I wrote a book about my love of 100 places in the British Isles. My inspirations for the project were many but, with hand on heart, I can say that I sensed the archipelago was about to go through a great disruption. I could not have said then precisely how I thought that change would manifest itself — although Brexit and demands, from some, for Scottish independence both had a bearing on it — just that I felt in my bones that great change was afoot.
I wrote the book because, more than anything else, I wanted to go on record declaring my love for the place as it had been, that had been my home for all of my life. As well as places I included some documents, namely Magna Carta and the Declaration of Arbroath, and I pointed out the influence both have had on the shaping of democracies around the world.
Magna Carta hardly mattered in its own 13th-century world, being swiftly disregarded by the king who put his seal on it and also by the pope. Likewise the impact of the Declaration of Arbroath was negligible in the years after its composition in 1320. Only centuries later was it dusted off and hackles raised by its blatant insistence on the rights of the people in the face of the king.
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I grew up believing both documents were unmistakably revolutionary in their deepest meaning. Magna Carta has had no legal standing for the longest time, having been overtaken by subsequent legislation, and it was clear to anyone half awake that when the declaration mentioned “people” it meant a self-interested handful of King Robert’s rich and powerful nobles and not the rank and file at all. But both documents stood for something fundamental about the importance of people remembering — and knowing without a shadow of a doubt — that rulers were not above the law and that the rights of people mattered, however lowly those people happened to be. In lockdown a Bradford hairdresser invoked Magna Carta in defence of opening her salon — and the loudest condemnation came from the left.
During a radio interview this week I was asked whether I had ever spent time visiting any oppressive, totalitarian regimes. I talked about my time in China a few years ago. Among much else, the TV crew and I were fascinated by the way life there revolved around an app called WeChat. By now more than a billion Chinese people depend upon it for all transactions, messaging and social media: every train or bus journey taken, every commodity purchased, every restaurant booked. The Chinese authorities have full access to all the data and use it as part of the mass surveillance of the population.
In restaurants we watched in amazement as our Chinese fixer held her phone over a barcode on our table. No waiting staff came to take an order. She ordered via the app, and the food came promptly. When we were finished we walked out, payment having been deducted automatically from our fixer’s bank account. Everywhere we went, we watched young couples sitting in silence, always on their phones. We asked our fixer why they weren’t talking to each other and she replied that they were — just via WeChat.
Now all of that is here, or nearly. Vaccine passports are the doorway. I have not moved but the world has, under my unsuspecting feet. I knew Britain was on the brink of change — just not how much, or how fast.