Many years ago, I attended a performance of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony at the Royal Festival Hall in London. In those days, I could only afford the cheap seats at the back of the auditorium, and on this occasion, I was in the very last row, far from the stage on which the orchestra sat. Just before the concert started, the man sitting next to me took a large book out of his bag, which I could see was the score of the symphony. I was impressed that he planned to follow the music, page by page, during the performance. Then he produced a small white baton and, as the audience quietened and the dramatic opening notes were played, he started to keep time with his right hand while turning the pages of the score with his left. Unseen by the musicians and unnoticed by almost all the audience, for the next thirty minutes he conducted the symphony all the way through to the end. Bravo!
I had not thought about this unusual musical experience for a long time, but it came to mind at the end of last year, listening to certain British politicians debating immigration, which has recently risen to levels which they describe as “out of control”. Various policy proposals are being introduced to try to limit the numbers of incoming migrants. This was the great prize that many British people thought they had secured when they voted to leave the EU a few years back, that we would now be free to control our borders and to reduce the number of people who can enter Britain to live and work. These voters have discovered in the subsequent period that meaningful control of our borders is elusive, and that the so-called Brexit dividend is really an invoice. Those politicians who have not understood this, and who continue to demand policies to reduce immigration, remind me of the man who conducted the orchestra from the back row: they wave their hands around with energy and passion but to no real effect, for the migrants like the musicians are moving to a different beat.
Continue reading “Out of control”