In the aftermath of the Jeremy Clarkson affair (another one?) in which the Top Gear presenter called British Prime Minister Gordon Brown “a one-eyed Scottish idiot”, I’ve reached for a word from Old English to say more or less the same thing.

“Puddled” means “to occupy oneself in a disorganized or unproductive way” (OED). In common parlance that translates as, batty, off ‘is ‘ead, loony, daft as a brush.

Mind you, a few months ago I pioneered the Clarkson approach by quoting Rudyard Kipling: “There’s a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Khatmandu …”

Well, Downing Street is north of Khatmandu.

So is Gordon puddled? He’s obviously quite clever, and has some abilities, none of them of a personable nature. His problem is that he carries a series of assumptions that most of us find totally barmy.

Each age has its set of assumed truths around which it frames its policies and actions. Future ages usually look back in horror at what their ancestors thought, while imagining their own assumptions to be the height of sense and modernity.

Their children and grandchildren will think otherwise.

Just read contemporary accounts of medieval witchcraft trials or the very detailed archives of the Cathar Inquisition, and you’ll visit another planet.

But that’s the point. Historical records are a kind of time machine allowing us to escape the pin-down effect of the assumptions of our age. Great figures in history are usually Time Lords who roam freely over the past and project themselves into the future with ideas ahead of the game.

Bad Prime Ministers and Presidents are stuck in the rut of “modern” thinking on a range of issues. They are so much of their time, they become ridiculous in less than a decade.

When the baby boomers came to power in the 1990s, something changed radically. Bill Clinton and Tony Blair brought the 1960s with them into office. It was all informality, “Call me Tony”, and that most typical cry from the era, by Danny Cohn-Bendit, “We have no policies, only demands, and when they are met, we will have more demands” — the wail of spoilt children everywhere.

In the spirit of the age (1960s), nobody must be offended, even if they are highly offensive. Under Blair and Clinton, society was divided into small segments. Some were chosen for special treatment, especially members of the tribe and those who could be counted on to vote for the new settlement. The rest were demonized.

The prevailing Marxism of that former era was enshrined in law as the Equality Agenda — no-one was allowed to stride ahead of the crowd on merit or effort. Every area of life was dumbed down, and continues to be in Britain under Gauleiter Harriet Harman.

Gordon Brown fits into the pattern. A baby boomer to his armpits, he devotes a great deal of time and thought to the Trotskyism and Soviet tractor plans of his youth, and runs the country accordingly. Moreover, his Scottish accountant’s mentality contributes heavily to his dour, pernickety personality.

A new generation of politicians is already taking over. They reflect society in general by rejecting baby-boomer thinking with contempt, especially as it has brought the entire planet to its knees in under a decade.

Brown’s espousal of “global solutions”, by which he means the shabby superstructure created after World War II: the UN, EU, World Bank and other doddery examples of the model, is completely counter-productive in an age of the internet and face to facebook communications.

Much looser arrangements, with greater freedom for individuals, where genuinely democratic units, like Nation States, will regain their purpose, are just around the corner. The wired age will not be pushed about by people like Brown, and the roaming political sherpas of another era. They will be seen for what they are, a branch of liberal-left fascism.

Global “solutions” will shatter into a mosaic of bilateral agreements that satisfy each party involved. The world will become a more interesting, diverse and complex place to live.

And that’s exactly how most of us like it.

So is Gordon Brown puddled? Remember the definition: “to occupy oneself in a disorganized or unproductive way” (OED).

Or in common parlance: batty, off ‘is ‘ead, loony, daft as a brush.

I rest my case, M’lud, and ask for the Court’s indulgence for my client, Jeremy Clarkson.

John Evans

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