On the trappings of power
Peter Saunders, 2 July 2013
Last week, for the first time in my life, I attended the Wimbledon tennis championships. My wife entered the ballot for tickets last year (the closing date was in December) and she hit the jackpot: Centre Court, three rows from the front. We had a memorable day.
Glancing up at the Royal Box, there was Camilla (Duchess of Cornwall), and Prince Michael of Kent… and sitting just along from them in the front row, Labour’s Deputy Leader, Harriet Harman.
I was surprised to see Harriet up there with the royals, peering down at me, for she is a passionate egalitarian, architect of the 2010 Equalities Act. Perhaps, like everyone else, she entered the ballot for tickets last year and ended up winning the chance to buy even better seats than we did – but I doubt it. A seat in the Royal Box at Wimbledon on a day of your choosing is just one of those perks top politicians come to expect, even those who say they hate privilege. I hope she didn’t have to queue too long for her strawberries.
A few days later, we spent a weekend in Bruges, the picture postcard medieval town in Belgium. In the Groeningemuseum, we were confronted by Gerard David’s gruesome The Flaying of Sisamnes, painted in 1498.
Sisamnes was a judge in Persia in the fifth century BC. When the King discovered he had accepted a bribe, he was punished by being skinned alive. His son was then appointed to the judicial bench in his place, where his chair was covered in his father’s skin.
David’s painting depicts the judge sprawled naked across a table to which he is bound by his wrists and ankles. Five flayers go about their task methodically with knives and scissors as the King and his court (dressed in fifteenth century Flemish clothing) watch impassively. It is a deeply disturbing painting.
It was commissioned to hang in the Aldermen’s chambers in Bruges Town Hall, as a daily reminder to the town’s leaders of what happens to those who abuse the privileges of office.
Just for a moment, gazing at that picture, I fantasised that we too might commission such works to hang, say, in the Palace of Westminster where they might prompt our politicians next time they are filling in their expenses claims, or voting to award themselves another pay rise.
Or perhaps, like the Romans, we could employ someone of the lowest rank to stand behind our leaders, whispering into their ear at their moments of greatest triumph: ‘You are not a god, just a mortal human being’.
These whisperers could accompany our political leaders when they go on jaunts to places like Wimbledon. They could sit in the row behind them in the Royal Box whispering into their ear: ‘Remember everyone else paid for their tickets.’ Or: ‘Remember you imposed the Equalities Act on all those people down there.’ Or even: ‘I think I hear the flaying team sharpening their scissors.’
Peter Saunders’ latest work for Civitas, ‘Social Mobility Delusions: Why so much of what politicians say about social mobility in Britain is wrong, misleading or unreliable’, can be read here.