R D Kernohan

What did you find most encouraging?
I take comfort from imperfect improvements, avoidance of greater evils. Some hopes were dupes, but some fears liars. South Africa avoided the misery of Zimbabwe and the ANC's dubious leaders are far better than Mugabe. At home I could heap the same faint praise on the SNP's. Devolution hasn't always worked well. I still fear it may be unworkable in the form Donald Dewar gave it, especially if (as I hope for other reasons) there's a Tory government again. But it has survived the trials of minority rule at Holyrood and control of Scottish administration by fanatics determined to wreck the system but obliged to work it. They have so far accepted reality, with about the same mixture of success, trial, and error as their predecessors. I am relieved. Even relief can be encouraging.

What did you find most discouraging?
I was last in Bethlehem when Millennium declarations of goodwill were still up in Manger Square. They were incongruous then but things have got worse since. There's an ugly wall and uglier barriers of obstinacy and hate. The quarrel of Israelis with Palestinian and other neighbouring Arabs has become an Iranian and wider Islamic cause, an incitement to holy war. It also adds to pressures on the sadly diminished Christian population. There are atomic weapons under holy ground and fanatics with nuclear know-how. The world may have moved beyond the situation where an American concordat with Russia might impose and enforce compromise. At best it's a miserably discouraging outlook, at worst a monstrously disastrous one.

Which public figure did you most admire?
The short list isn't long. Most of those I admire are dead. Those in whom I rest some hopes remain ill-tested, even when much praised. I fall back on what smart media consider dull, undistinguished, and anachronistic. Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer, I'll fly the royal standard here. The Queen embodies much that's out of fashion: faith, duty, restraint, serene acceptance of disappointments and unwelcome change, including old age. In despondent moments I worry about the future of our British crown. I revive when I assess the penalties imposed when a Clinton, G W Bush, Mitterrand, Chirac, or Sarkozy are heads of state as well as chief politicians in otherwise tolerably well-ordered countries.  

Which public figure did you least admire?
As the decade began I grudgingly admired Tony Blair, though grieved by frenzied speeches in which he wanted to banish every kind of conservatism from national life. I thought he was a Tory reformer gone astray who had served his country by moderating and modernising the Labour party. I welcomed his solidarity with the USA. I even wondered if after some great shake-up he might eventually lead a coalition. But I conclude now he was egocentric beyond even the normal calls of politics and a stranger to truth, even as loosely defined in politics. He was not straight about the Iraq war, nor prepared for its aftermath. He didn't secure our vital relationship with the USA but endangered it by bringing it into ill-repute.
     Like me he professes Christianity and therefore confesses himself a repentant sinner. But his government 'didn't do God'. I don't recall from his days of power a word or deed to encourage the sector of the church to which he then belonged – or the wider church.  I'm not sure how much help he gives another section to which, for unexplained reasons, he lifted his lines and 'made his submission'. He now seems to quibble over its clearly stated, if widely challenged, views on moral issues.
     I once thought he fooled his party for the public good, but now I fear he fooled most of us, if only for some of the time.