No.99 - A Woman for All Seasons - And We Let Her Go!
Dear James,
I have to be honest. I’m not much interested in the flurry of manifestos that have been funnelling out of the party HQs in the last few days. Most are chimera, most will be consigned to the bin within three weeks and what survives will be whittled away by subsequent events. So to while away the time, I’ve been watching something far more interesting across the Atlantic and something with a much deeper message for our own nation than what is happening here. It is called the Public Inquiry into the Impeachment of Donald Trump.
Call me a politics nerd, but I have watched almost every moment of this real life constitutional drama as it has evolved over the last few days. Witness after witness has been interrogated and most have proven to be high-minded career officials who have been serving their country well. Yesterday they swore in the last two witnesses. A man named David Holmes and a woman named Dr. Fiona Hill. Each made an opening statement before the grilling began. As Dr Hill started I noticed that she did not have an American accent. Here was one of the highest officials in the Trump administration speaking in a version of my own national dialect. I listened more carefully. She is from the North East of England. She had a Durham accent. She’s British. Except she’s not. She became a naturalised American in 2002.
As she spoke it soon became clear that this woman - in her early fifties with a square face under black hair giving her a certain Gothic look – has an exceptional brain and a total control of herself and her subject. This lady was clearly a force to be reckoned with. No matter what was thrown at her, she had the answer, and delivered it with such confidence and detail that the Republican naysayers were, for once, silenced. Dr Hill redefined timelines and exposed criminality, insisting that there was, indeed, a secret and illegal channel concerning Ukraine going directly from Trump to Mike Pompeo and to Gordon Sondland, US Ambassador to the European Union. She accused the Republican interrogators of creating a ‘fictional narrative’ of Ukrainian, rather than Russian, involvement in the 2016 elections. Yet she was also humble and willing to admit mistakes. She explained various clashes she had had with Gordon Sondland and then explained that they had both been confused and working on different assumptions and that all was forgiven. It became clear that here was a lady devoted to the pursuit of truth no matter what. She is tough, steely and yet fair. After her interrogation, the Chairman of the panel, Adam Schiff, thanked her and said, ‘You’re not easily deterred Dr Hill, are you?’ She smiled and said, ‘No, I’m not’.
Why am I explaining all this? It is because of what Dr Hill said during her brief biography at the beginning of the hearing. She was born into a family of miners in the north east of England. They were poor. Her father and grandfather fought in both world wars next to the Americans. Her father always saw America as a dream where people’s freedoms were guaranteed by the Constitution and people were judged according to what they could do and not on who they knew. As an eleven year old, a boy behind her in class set fire to her pigtails during an examination. She turned, put out the flames, gave him what for and then calmly continued with her exam. She studied at St Andrews University in Scotland, went to Moscow where she met an American professor who told her about a scholarship that would allow her to study in his country. She won the scholarship and went to Harvard much to her father’s joy. Her father died in 2012 never having made it to the USA but his daughter clearly loves her new country. She said that in her country of birth her accent alone would have been a block on her career. With that one sentence she summed up our problem.
We are a nation stuck in our past. The Brexiteers want to go back to that past. They also present ‘fictional narratives’ concerning EU interference in our sovereign state. They say were are ‘hobbled’ by membership of the EU rather than enabled by such membership. We have in fact hobbled ourselves by allowing the daughters and sons of miners to escape to more enlightened lands. We should all be ashamed. Until we as a country sort out the fundamental injustices in our nation we shall continue to leak talent of this order.
Any ideas James? Before we lose any more such talented individuals?
Kind regards,
BH - Your Concerned Constituent