If you are an historian, you'll know, there are a lot or reasons for the fall of the Roman Empire but you might agree, there are six, principle ones;
Falling out with the neighbours
Economic troubles and the reliance on slave labour
Corruption and instability
Migration
The loss of traditional values
Inability to recruit to the military
Wars… the Germanic uprising. Overspending lead to oppressive taxation, the supply of slaves dried up.
Twenty men took-up the throne in 75 years and the Roman Senate was unable to control the excesses of the emperors because they were all, largely, incompetent.
Mass migration from Europe was managed badly and cruelly.
The Empire lost its focus and the army was eventually comprised, mainly, of mercenaries.
Contrary to the trope, ‘history repeats itself’, it doesn’t.
What history does is show us the same problems, with different context, arise over and over again and we make the same mistakes in dealing with them:
Brexit has lead to a falling out with the neighbours and the economy is already suffering.
A poorly managed economy has lead to reliance on overseas labour, to work in a low-wage economy. Covid has left us in-debt, up to our eye-balls.
Corruption? Look no further than the PPE contracts, dodgy loans, wallpaper and parties at No10. Instability in leadership hasn’t helped, 4 PMs in 10 years.
Population shift, poverty and wars has given us rubber boats, full of migrants, floating across the Channel. Seemingly, unstoppable, to the irritation of a large part of the population, a rabid press and the exasperation of the political classes who have no idea how to control it.
Traditional values ebb away and the man in No10 thinks he’s Churchill. To hide the flagrant disregard of political norms, Ministers on the telly prop a Union Flag against the wall.
Recruit to the military? In Roman times the military ran the public services. Today, we can’t recruit enough people to the public services; the NHS, teaching and other key jobs.
Is all this a bit far fetched? All I’m saying is, history points the direction of travel. I’ll leave you to be the judge.
Here’s a paragraph you might like;
‘… some of those now pushing him off the ice are sitting right there with him [BoJo], in the bunker as the plaster is knocked off the ceiling, giving him advice about how to deal with things leaking.’
It’s from Dominic Cummings’ latest email.
More Berchtesgaden than Carthage but the metaphor is the same.
Each day we live through history. Some of it more memorable than others. Are we are seeing the final days of BoJo’s Party, Party?
Just as feast days were a popular and cheap way for the Romans to keep the great unwashed happy, BoJo has been busy unpicking restrictions that most of us find sensible but Brexit-Hard-Man Steve Baker and his mates, and parts of the media, are unhappy with.
The silence from the Chief Medical Officer is deafening.
BoJo’s motives? Obvious. Clinging-on.
Some of it we can work around. I’m still not going to pubs and restaurants, I’m wearing a mask and buying my stuff on line.
What we can’t work around, if it is true, is the proposal to drop the legislation to dump the Lansley reforms and get back to some sort of recognisable, management normality.
Neither, the suggestion that NHS vaccination laws will be kicked into the long-grass.
I don’t have the word count to be able to explore either of these issues in detail other than to say, you know the implications and you can make your own mind up.
What worries me and I hope will worry you, is the ease with which a wounded, boxed-in leader can change laws, guidance and governance, to buy the favours of a minority, for their support, to stay in the job.
In ancient Roman law, ‘ambitus’ was a crime of political corruption; a candidate's attempt to influence the outcome or direction, of an election, or to stay in power, through bribery or other forms of soft power.
Hence the word we use today, ambition.
We can each define ambition, for ourselves but our collective ambition is surely, a world where expectations come from learning from history and trying to do better.
