Best Of

I spent a little while yesterday trying to come up with a better play on "Don't Cry For Me Argentina", than the thread header

I remembered a joke from Frasier, when they're considering Tina and Archie as guests to a dinner party and Frasier says "Don't cry for me Arch and Tina". I found a song by and Tina Turner from her 3rd solo album written by an Archie (Jones, i think), but couldn't develop it into either an amusing or even interesting play on words

I persisted on the Archibald searches, and stumbled on an Archibald Butt. He was a probably gay American soldier who became military aide to Presidents Taft and Roosevelt. He died on the Titanic, with his his supposed partner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archibald_Butt

More interesting than him though, was the note that Australian born Scot and future British diplomat extraordinaire Archibald Clark Kerr, Baron Inverchapel, had stayed with him on his first visit to DC

Kerr is probably best known for his infamous 1943 missive to a friend while stationed in Moscow:

"My Dear Reggie,

In these dark days man tends to look for little shafts of light that spill from Heaven. My days are probably darker than yours, and I need, my God I do, all the light I can get. But I am a decent fellow, and I do not want to be mean and selfish about what little brightness is shed upon me from time to time. So I propose to share with you a tiny flash that has illuminated my sombre life and tell you that God has given me a new Turkish colleague whose card tells me that he is called Mustapha Kunt.

We all feel like that, Reggie, now and then, especially when Spring is upon us, but few of us would care to put it on our cards. It takes a Turk to do that.

Sir Archibald Clerk Kerr,

H.M. Ambassador"


1/2

Just penning this would be sufficient to be worthy of mention, but this guy was truly extraordinary

He was apparently almost romantically involved with the Queen Mum, before she became Queen. He was Ambassador to China from 1938 to 42, whilst it was invaded by Japan and the consulate was destroyed. He stayed on after the rest of the staff were evacuated to keep the British flag flying

He was then moved to Moscow, where he developed a very close relationship with Stalin - often involving mammoth drinking sessions - and following Churchill's order: "You want a directive? All right. I don't mind kissing Stalin's bum, but I'm damned if I'll lick his arse!"

After the war he was appointed Ambassador to the USA, where his career was pretty much ended by his friendship with the superior of Burgess and Maclean. He then worked on the Committee for the Study of European Unity which drew up the blueprint for the Council of Europe

During his early diplomatic career he had postings around Central and South America, including time in Buenos Aires, and a job in Chile. While in Santiago he met his wife, the daughter of a millionaire, Maria Theresa Diaz Salas. She was known as Tita

So I kind of got there - Arch and Tita - but so glad I found his story. I've ordered the book about him "Radical Diplomat" by Donald Gillies

https://www.waterstones.com/book/radical-diplomat/donald-gillies/9781350182455

https://www.scottishbanner.com/2024/11/22/the-scot-who-changed-the-world/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archibald_Clark_Kerr,_1st_Baron_Inverchapel

Of course you're right, Ms Cyclefree. But the apparently impossible question is... how to fix it?

We are in a society that likes penny-pinching, because it assumes that frees up pennies for sweeties now. As for future us, they're in the future, so serves them right.

How far would a serious restriction in jury trials help? The Anglosphere is I think unusual in the scope of jury trials, which is only defensible if we actually provide enough jury trial facilities,

It wouldn't help in the slightest. It just creates yet more problems and finishes the destruction of a system worth cherishing.

Surely jury trials take longer than non-jury trials? You have to instruct people and stuff like that. Doesn't that slow things down...

Do you really think it wont have any benefit on the backlog, or is it just that you'd rather keep jury trials?

Without jury trials you wouldn't have defence barristers throwing out a load of chaff for hours on end in an attempt to befuddle the jury into an incorrect Not Guilty verdict.

The big advantage of jury trials surely is that they can deliver 'perverse' verdicts in the view of the 'great and good' but just in the view of ordinary people.

Exactly this. They are a form of real democracy in action and in relation to a very important function - the power of the state to deprive someone of their liberty.

Judges like Leveson and Co always want to get rid of pesky ordinary people. But the law is not there for the benefit of lawyers: innocence until proven guilty, trial by our peers, the burden and standard of proof, the involvement of ordinary people are there for the benefit of us - to make sure that an absolutely vital function has our buy in, our support, our very real involvement by us actually making the decisions. It is one of the very few ways left in which the voice of the people really are heard and they have actual power. Not the pretend "we're listening to you /focus group " illusory nonsense.

It is one of the few ways in which ordinary people can say Fuck You to the powers in charge when they feel those powers in charge are behaving stupidly or oppressively: see Clive Ponting or the Colston statues, for instance. It is all the more valuable for that.

It is not juries which are the blockage in the system. Beware of those who are using the blockages that do exist as an excuse for getting rid of juries. People in power would prefer it if they could ignore ordinary people altogether

I have written about juries too - here: https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2020/06/24/12-good-men/