It is a few years since I read Harold Bloom's The Western Canon but a particular thought that was stimulated by that book, was the observation that most things can be read through the lens of either Freud or Shakespeare.
As I recall it, Bloom described this as a Shakespearean reading of Freud or a Freudian reading of Shakespeare.
This past week watching the two party conferences I found myself remembering this idea.
There is a drama being played out in our public life at the present time which is both Freudian and Shaespearean and it takes an understanding of both to attempt a proper textual criticism.
It reminds me to a certain extent of the old joke about how a husband and wife share responsibility in their marriage.
The Husband makes all the big decisions:
Should we send British war planes to bomb Isis?
Should China surrender to the students in Hong Kong?
Should Warren Buffet have invested in Tesco?
Meanwhile the wife:
Plans the Menu for dinner, decides which friends to invite over for supper, gets the children ready for school and books the family holiday.
At one level what is said at party conferences rarely has any meaningful effect on people's daily lives.
Ed Miliband forgetting the deficit whilst quite prossibly Freudian, is understandable, because the deficit is in fact meaningless, it will make very little difference to the decisions that the imaginary wife in the joke will make, although the imaginary husband might have strong views which he will share with imaginary work colleagues in the imaginary pub, after work which might be imaginary as well.
Equally, David Cameron's proposed tax cuts will have little or no effect either, because a) They don't take effect until 2020 and b) by then inflation will have done most of the work.
So anybody who thinks that they will be worse off because Ed Miliband failed to mention the deficit or better off because of the proposed tax cuts will be disappointed.
None of what has been said or not said will make any difference.
Of course that is not to say that the promised austerity measures as proposed by Messrs Osborne and Duncan Smith will have no impact cutting welfare and the introduction of patronising policies aimed at controlling what reduced welfare payments can be spent on.
For both the Chancellor and Mr Duncan Smith, Shakespeare's warning that the world is a stage on which we are players should be salutary, and if they needed any reminding that their time is limited, then the Mayor of London was there to remind them, as indeed was Mr Farage.
The Tory Party is fast approaching a state where, with nothing left to cut, no more savings to be made they will have to turn to the great Wonga of the Economy and plead that their deficit be forgiven, written off, expunged from the record.
So if the Labour Conference was a bit dispirited, and the job application was understated, the Tory Conference was essentially Freudian or at least the revealing selfie of one minister who seemed to be applying for a completely different sort of job whilst resigning from the one he had before he had heard if his application had been successful.
The party political playwrights of both left and right set out their stall early on the two conferences.
The audience were invited to vote with their cheque books by buying tickets, it was adversarial, which of these two is the most Prime Ministerial, the one who already is or the one applying for his job?
Well, insofar as one sends planes to bomb Isis and flies to Afghanistan and Chairs the Cabinet and the other doesn't, the answer is fairly clear and not really a question that needs answering.
But in 2015 we will have to choose. So what in essence do I want from a Prime Minister? What is the job really?
It is surely:
'To believe thoroughly in the philosophy
Of equality of opportunity' Hugh MacDiarmid from: The Battle Continues
I think that this as good and radical a yardstick as any by which the appointment panel (the electorate) should select its preferred candidate.
As I recall it, Bloom described this as a Shakespearean reading of Freud or a Freudian reading of Shakespeare.
This past week watching the two party conferences I found myself remembering this idea.
There is a drama being played out in our public life at the present time which is both Freudian and Shaespearean and it takes an understanding of both to attempt a proper textual criticism.
It reminds me to a certain extent of the old joke about how a husband and wife share responsibility in their marriage.
The Husband makes all the big decisions:
Should we send British war planes to bomb Isis?
Should China surrender to the students in Hong Kong?
Should Warren Buffet have invested in Tesco?
Meanwhile the wife:
Plans the Menu for dinner, decides which friends to invite over for supper, gets the children ready for school and books the family holiday.
At one level what is said at party conferences rarely has any meaningful effect on people's daily lives.
Ed Miliband forgetting the deficit whilst quite prossibly Freudian, is understandable, because the deficit is in fact meaningless, it will make very little difference to the decisions that the imaginary wife in the joke will make, although the imaginary husband might have strong views which he will share with imaginary work colleagues in the imaginary pub, after work which might be imaginary as well.
Equally, David Cameron's proposed tax cuts will have little or no effect either, because a) They don't take effect until 2020 and b) by then inflation will have done most of the work.
So anybody who thinks that they will be worse off because Ed Miliband failed to mention the deficit or better off because of the proposed tax cuts will be disappointed.
None of what has been said or not said will make any difference.
Of course that is not to say that the promised austerity measures as proposed by Messrs Osborne and Duncan Smith will have no impact cutting welfare and the introduction of patronising policies aimed at controlling what reduced welfare payments can be spent on.
For both the Chancellor and Mr Duncan Smith, Shakespeare's warning that the world is a stage on which we are players should be salutary, and if they needed any reminding that their time is limited, then the Mayor of London was there to remind them, as indeed was Mr Farage.
The Tory Party is fast approaching a state where, with nothing left to cut, no more savings to be made they will have to turn to the great Wonga of the Economy and plead that their deficit be forgiven, written off, expunged from the record.
So if the Labour Conference was a bit dispirited, and the job application was understated, the Tory Conference was essentially Freudian or at least the revealing selfie of one minister who seemed to be applying for a completely different sort of job whilst resigning from the one he had before he had heard if his application had been successful.
The party political playwrights of both left and right set out their stall early on the two conferences.
The audience were invited to vote with their cheque books by buying tickets, it was adversarial, which of these two is the most Prime Ministerial, the one who already is or the one applying for his job?
Well, insofar as one sends planes to bomb Isis and flies to Afghanistan and Chairs the Cabinet and the other doesn't, the answer is fairly clear and not really a question that needs answering.
But in 2015 we will have to choose. So what in essence do I want from a Prime Minister? What is the job really?
It is surely:
'To believe thoroughly in the philosophy
Of equality of opportunity' Hugh MacDiarmid from: The Battle Continues
I think that this as good and radical a yardstick as any by which the appointment panel (the electorate) should select its preferred candidate.
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