by Stuart Butler
When even a Tory traditionalist
Such as Edmund Burke could assert that,
“the number of estates, country-houses,
castles, forest lands and the like which
the Russells had wrested away from
the English people was quite incredible”,
You have to sit up, take notice, and begin to question
The hagiographical way in which
That ‘most docile mediocrity’
Lord John Russell has been written about,
In Stroud and on history websites:
So let’s take a walk up Russell Street in Stroud,
To reflect on some of Russell’s achievements
Listed by Karl Marx in 1855,
And, then have a counter-heritage pint:
He supported transportation
For radical, critical, political journalists;
He supported a ‘Great Reform Act’,
Which systematically excluded
The working class from voting,
While enfranchising the middle class,
And yet preserving aristocratic dominance;
He opposed the secret ballot;
He opposed ‘short parliaments’;
He inveterately opposed Chartism;
He impotently observed the progress
Of the Irish Potato Famine,
Trumpeting laissez-faire -
So, in today’s terminology,
He was a racist, imperialist,
Inhumane, free market anti-democrat,
And we have a pub and a street named after him.
So let’s visit the Lord John and remember Karl Marx,
Who wrote some withering pieces on our lord,
In the Neue Oder-Zeitung in 1855,
For example:
‘His whole life can be viewed … either as a systematic sham
or as an uninterrupted blunder’;
‘Lord John Russell’s entire life has been lived on false pretences’,
With ‘absence of all the qualities which generally fit a person
to rule over others’,
And with ‘egoistic narrow mindedness’,
‘he has not produced a single idea
worth mentioning, not one profound maxim,
no penetrating observation,
no impressive description,
no beautiful thought,
no poignant allusion,
no humorous portrait,
no true emotion’.
His speech, ‘drawling and monotonous’,
With a ‘pose of affected arrogance and self-satisfaction’;
‘The whole man is one false pretence, his whole life a lie, all his activity a continuous chain of petty intrigues for the achievement of shabby ends-the devouring of public money and the usurpation of the mere semblance of power. No one has ever illustrated more strikingly the truth of the biblical words that no man can add one cubit unto his stature.’ Placed by birth, connections, and social accidents on a colossal pedestal, he always remained the same homunculus — a dwarf dancing on the tip of a pyramid. History has, perhaps, never exhibited any other man — so great in pettiness.’
When you’ve had a pint and a chin-wag,
Take a walk up to Selsley Hill
and remember the Chartist meeting,
Up there in 1839,
When Lord John Russell’s name
Was greeted with hisses and boos,
And drink a toast to the future in The Bell,
Have a look at the links below,
Remember our collective counter-heritage,
And then plan a pop-up public house,
And design your inn sign for
The Racist, Imperialist, Inhumane,
Free Market, Anti-Democrat Arms,
Aka the Lord John Russell.
That would be no small beer.
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