Substack diary no.142: Sunday, 3rd. May 2026

I occasionally find myself recalling an excellent TV documentary series from my teen years that had a significant impact on me: Connections by James Burke. I bought the book at the time and I still have it. I shan’t go into details of the book here – this is a diary not an essay – but I see connections, not on the grand scale of the Burke films, but in my everyday life and thinking.

These ‘Morning Thoughts’ often start with a single notion that somehow triggers a series of other thoughts that, on the face of it, appear unrelated. That initial thought creates a stream that meanders and splits into tributaries and which can either end in a bog or a giant unwieldy delta formed of hundreds of rivulets. I must stop writing before the stream reaches this point – before a diary entry becomes an essay.

Anyway, yesterday I mentioned the British Establishment and during the day I found an old DVD that I thought I would digitise before consigning it to the bin. It was a set of five discs with every episode of Cadfael (1994-98) and I really enjoyed it. I watched the second film – they are each about 1hr 15m – entitled The Sanctuary Sparrow – and in the first 15 minutes or so is the most excellent lesson in the brutality of the said Establishment back in the 1130’s; the same Establishment that is with us today, albeit lurking – on the whole – in the background. If you get a chance, watch those 15 minutes and think about the jongleur (working class musician) as he is accused of a murder he did not commit. He is beaten and chased by his ‘betters’ to the Abbey church where he claims sanctuary. Had he not he would almost certainly have been beaten to death. Perhaps even worse than the Lords and Ladies is the baying sycophantic mob of working-class hangers-on who gladly join their betters in the melee to kill one of their own. That is the power of the British Establishment: how to exercise control over the masses to keep them from killing you.

I was reminded of a modern-day Establishment figure, albeit a minor one – Nigel Farage – and how he has duped so many of the masses into thinking he is on their side and to keep them at bay by creating hate and fear so they fight each other rather than his beloved pals and chums further up the food chain. I was also reminded of a quotation from Tony Benn:

“I don’t think people realise how the establishment became established. They simply stole land and property from the poor, surrounded themselves with weak minded sycophants for protection, gave themselves titles and have been wielding power ever since!”