pumpkinstrokemarrow

Collected two books on Friday from the unofficial libraries of Tooting.

The first was a short book written by Roy Jenkins about fifty years ago about the passage of the first Parliament Act about 100 years ago, in 1911. This being the act which makes it possible, if not easy, for the Commons to override the Lords. An interesting tale of the nuts and bolts of achieving almost revolutionary change without actually getting as far as revolutionary action.

It seems that for the second half of the 19th century the Tories had a large, antiquated and obstructive majority in the Lords which in the early part of the 20th century was being used to block Liberal reform measures, notably the Home Rule bill for Ireland but also Welsh Church Disestablishment, something else which raised the temperatures of the day. Being the party of the lords of the land, they were also very keen on putting tariffs on imported food, a measure which as well as increasing the price of grub to the toiling masses would have done wonders for their rent rolls.

After a torrid battle which Jenkins recounts in loving detail, in temperatures which apparently rose to 100F in parts of London, the Lords achieved what turned out to be a strategic retreat. That is to say, by agreeing to a cumbersome procedure by which they could be overruled by the Commons, they avoided being swamped by hundreds of new creations and they avoided reform of the upper house. Which last some Tories had thought to be the lesser evil and reform was discussed with more seriousness than New Labour managed near 100 years later. So they lived to fight another day and managed to block Home Rule until there really was a revolution.

I also learned that Mrs Asquith interfered in the affairs of her Prime Ministerial husband even more than our own Cherry or Bill's Hilary and that the battle resulted in a step down in the standards of political behaviour. The old-fashioned courtesy of the Commons of the turn of the century was cast into the dustbin of history.

The second was a much longer book about Tolstoy by Henri Troyat, whom I had thought French but was actually a Russian by birth. Not got very far yet, but he writes the biography with a most impressive knowledge of his subject. Or perhaps he has been filling in the gaps in the evidence available using his considerable skills as a novelist. I am surprised, but should not have been, to find that Prince Andrew's family (in 'War and Peace') was largely based on Tolstoy's own, even down to the names.

And reminded that Tolstoy's celebrated but obnoxious 'Kreutzer Sonata' was written at almost exactly the same time as 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'. Both, perhaps, a product of the unease which followed the abolition of the deity among the chattering classes. They had lost their rudder and had yet to find a new one. The search for which continues.