Courage Under Fire

 

When Sir Humphrey Appleby praised Jim Hacker’s policy as “courageous” he meant that the Minister was proceeding without regard to the political consequences of his actions. Not the present danger of going over the top against a hail of opposition bullets but rather the enemies his actions would make amongst his own ranks, his rivals ever eager to exploit a political aberration. Perhaps that is what President Biden had in mind when he praised the Duchess of Sussex's “courage" in her interview with Oprah Winfrey, the nearest thing to divine sovereignty in the USA. After all, there is nothing brave in stabbing an unarmed old lady in the back.