If nothing else, the human race is consistently gullible

Over on Twitter at the moment, the world and his mother are demanding to know why the lickspittle BBC isn’t covering Israel’s evil and unprovoked attack on Gaza. Over at the Daily Telegraph, two bloggers and two editorials are asking when the West will wise up to Vladimir Putin’s diabolical motives in shooting down the Malaysian airlines flight.

For those who always depict Putin as a power-crazed lunatic and Israel as an imperialist aggressor, there is no doubt…..ever. Unfortunately, there are few if any facts to back them up either. More to the point, motives are pretty thin on the ground too. Why would Netanyahu – himself the subject of criticism among liberal Israelis – launch an offensive against Hamas in Gaza now unless he was certain there is a real and present danger? In case nobody had noticed, the Egyptian Government has dumped Hamas too; I wonder why? Putin, meanwhile, would like nothing better than to usher in a period of calm in order to restore the working relationship he now so badly needs with the West. Yet we’re told this atrocity is all the work of his followers, who did it with his knowledge. Putin himself, I’m told, weeks ago advised his aides to avoid boarding any flights going into or near Ukrainian airspace; I wonder why?

I wonder why most of the time, but round 80% of the species simply believes without recourse to means, motive or logic. Down on Animal Farm 2014 plc, Hamas good, Israel bad; West good, Putin bad; Erdogan good, Assad bad; Rolf Harris bad, NSPCC good; Boris Johnson good, Ken Livingstone bad; Rebekah Brooks innocent, Andy Coulson guilty. Nothing in this world is that clear-cut.

As a historian, I would ask people to consider the twenty years 1936-56. By 1936, it was obvious to open-minded, well-informed people that Hitler was a headcase, and only the harder European Left was prepared to stand up to him. Among the harder Left, young men went off to fight the Fascists in Spain, confident that Comrade Stalin would be right behind them. But in 1939, Joe Stalin signed the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact. Lots of blokes burned their Party cards, and lots of blokes didn’t. The ones that didn’t were, on the whole, public school/Varsity intellectuals: they knew only too well that many from their social class were Nazi sympathisers only too keen to see Hitler destroy Stalin and the Jews.

These chaps remained loyal to Moscow, and formed the core group of Cambridge scholars dedicated to the idea of Communist victory throughout the world. They included Burgess, Maclean, Philby and Blunt. There were others too, but they can’t be named – even today.

After 1956 (when the USSR brutally put down the Hungarian revolt, and the Anglo-French scam in Suez came to light) the vast majority of Moscow-line Communists in Britain rejoined the Labour Party. Britain had a welfare State, a far more level playing field, a seemingly democratic system and, after 1964, a Labour Government.

It is notable that the Establishment protected all four of the Cambridge spies for many years. It is also notable that the British press has always referred to them as traitors, although that issue is far from clear: traitors to what…a class-riddled system based on privilege happy to do a deal with the Nazis in June 1940? A monarchy whose recently departed King was passing secrets to the Sicherheits Dienst?

The Cabinet papers still absent from 26th May 1940 centre around a 20-25 minute blank when, it seems, the Cabinet Secretary “was delayed” – and thus no record remains. Only when Churchill rallied the Outer Cabinet to his side two days later did Halifax and Chamberlain give up their plan for a negotiated peace with Hitler using Mussolini as the go-between.

1940 remains in the history books as “our finest hour”, although it was really that of the RAF’s fighter pilots: among the real Estabilshment (of which neither Churchill nor Attlee were really members) it was actually their lowest low of craven appeasement of – and secret admiration for – the German Führer.

Over that twenty-year period, some villains turned out to be heroes, and other villains turned out to be perhaps misguided idealists. Communists turned out to be no more than brave naifs, and lots of Tories changed their view of the Welfare State substantially. Men who were confidantes of the Queen got away with murder, but demonised spies seem (to me anyway) to have had far more principles than some members of Churchill’s War Cabinet. What began in the mid 1930s as a crusade against fascism had, by the mid 1950s, become the usual dark shades of grey between the opposing cynicisms of Hungary and Suez.

Yet here we are – a mere half century later – as wiling as ever to accept the simplistic explanations without so much as a thought for the agendas, be they ulterior or hidden.

You always know where you are with the species Homo sapiens: it never learns.