Lincoln's message to Brown, Cameron and Clegg
A hundred and fifty thousand people over 10 days, packing events and discussions that range through politics, philosophy, economics and high culture.
The Hay festival appears if anything to have benefited from the recession. “Stay at home” Britain has come in its droves. I have never seen the place fuller.
The current meltdown of our parliamentary democracy proved to be more the butt of comedy and satire than of any hope or belief that turkeys would vote for Christmas by parliamentarians reforming themselves.
If the discourse at the Hay festival is anything to go by, there is a complete breakdown in trust and confidence in the political classes and their systems. The prevailing mood is one of real anger, coupled with despair that “nothing will be done”.
Although I confess I had a minor role as her interlocutor, Doris Kearns Goodwin, the American presidential historian seems so far to have stolen the show with her amazing discourse around Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln.
Hers is the book that Barack Obama took with him into the White House. She herself has been a regular caller since, tapped by Obama for her insights into how Lincoln operated.
Kearns Goodwin’s book, rooted in the middle of the 19th century, is very much a book for our times. Lincoln inspires, leads, remains principled, and forges coalitions with people he defeated in the presidential race – and even those from opposing parties.
His was, biologically, a cabinet of hatred, envy, and malice. Yet they ruled with inspiration, cohesion, and humanity in the face of the appalling problems they faced.
Lincoln inherited an America bankrupted and divided by his predecessor James Buchanan (who until recent times held the unchallenged reputation as America’s worst president ever). Lincoln himself had a difficult wife and a 10-year-old son who died whilst he was in the White House.
Yet he managed to rebuild the economy, end the civil war, end slavery, and restore the reputation of politics in America in the five years before he was eventually shot dead in the theatre down the road from the White House.
Kearns Goodwin translates “Yes we can” into “It can be done, and this is how”. She contrasts Obama’s pledges with his actions, and finds his tangible achievements – pragmatism, oratory, leadership, courage and emotional strength – in robust condition nearly six months in.
Not only do I urge you to read Team of Rivals. On this rare occasion I urge you to view my conversation with Doris Kearns Goodwin when it becomes available on the Hay festival website. I am often asked who I have enjoyed interviewing most. It is a rash claim, but in this dark midnight hour in our own politics, this is one extraordinary session.