Max Hastings

The 1919 Versailles peace conference that followed the end of the first world war became the most famous, or notorious, diplomatic negotiation in history. Much influenced by John Maynard Keynes, an impassioned sympathiser for the German predicament, it was branded for the rest of the twentieth century as a failure, the injustice of which bore heavy responsibility for the rise of Hitler. Scholarly historical opinion about Versailles has moved MacMillan’s way, since the publication of Peacemakers Then, in 2001, along came Canadian historian Margaret MacMillan, comparatively unknown outside the academic world, and her book Peacemakers.

History is the march of folly and far too many of my countrymen are hearkening to a drumbeat which would lead us to disaster. On Tuesday several of our newspapers led with variations of the same headline: ‘Trump: cut tax to beat Farage.’ This is idiotic counsel, given the state of Britain’s public finances. I would have thought the way to beat populism was not by emulating its idiocies but by prudent, cautious, sensible management of a nation tired of liars. If Donald Trump teaches us anything, it is how to ruin a great nation. Far more useful than parroting the US President’s delusions would be telling the British people more than they are currently permitted to read about his manic conduct of office.

I am besieged by media folk asking when I shall make good on a four-year-old threat to flee to Buenos Aires should Boris Johnson become prime minister. How can I get on to a flight, I ask, when so many other voters are already waitlisted? In truth, however, we are being served successive courses in a national banquet of self-harm, too grisly to merit jokes. Nobody should blame Johnson for wanting to be prime minister: many unsuitable people do. But there will be infinite historical curiosity about how the Tory parliamentary party could scramble to deliver Britain into the custody of a man whom few of its members would entrust with their wallet, handbag or spouse, save to secure a cabinet seat.

I am besieged by media folk asking when I shall make good on a four-year-old threat to flee to Buenos Aires should Boris Johnson become prime minister. How can I get on to a flight, I ask, when so many other voters are already wait-listed? In truth, however, we are being served successive courses in a national banquet of self-harm, too grisly to merit jokes. Nobody should blame Johnson for wanting to be prime minister: many unsuitable people do. But there will be infinite historical curiosity about how the Tory parliamentary party could scramble to deliver Britain into the custody of a man whom few of its members would entrust with their wallet, handbag or spouse, save to secure a cabinet seat.

On Monday, we held a dinner party in the Cavendish Room at Brooks’s, one of the most beautiful spaces in London. Our guest list started with Matthew Parris, whom my wife was panting to meet, observing that she agrees with him about absolutely everything except that she is reluctant to become gay. After that, it was merely a matter of ensuring that we included nobody who might profess enthusiasm for Trump, Brexit or — following their treatment of Dwin Bramall, Edward Heath and now Damian Green — policemen. We discussed the problem that scarcely anyone active in British politics dares to tell voters important truths, foremost among these that Brexit will make them poorer.

One entirely foreseeable consequence of Brexit is that although it is irrelevant to the gravest problems facing the nation, the government talks about nothing else. There is a black hole in the defence budget: instead of reshaping policy to address this, starting by mothballing the Royal Navy’s absurd new aircraftless-carrier, ministers merely scrabble to keep the crisis away from the Commons and front pages. My wife Penny says, with her accustomed good sense: ‘People only really care about terrorism and cyber-attacks. They are not interested in the Russian threat to the Baltic states.’ Yet real political leaders, as distinct from placemen, would aspire to inform voters, rather than merely chortle because they can scrap soldiers without losing by-elections.

It has been a summer of tears, both of joy and sorrow. The latter first: how could stones not weep at the spectacle of this Gadarene government leading us towards the cliff edge with a show of insouciance on the part of Fox, Davis, Johnson that would be thought excessive at a wedding, never mind a funeral? At Daily Telegraph leader conferences 25 years ago, our young turks bewailed John Major’s government as the worst in history. Bill Deedes justly rebuked such hyperbole: ‘Are we really saying that Samuel Hoare was a better foreign secretary than Malcolm Rifkind?’ Today, however, it is hard to name a senior minister, with the possible exception of Philip Hammond, who seems to compare favourably with Hoare.

Last week’s events in London raised a recurrent dilemma for journalists, including me. It is a huge story when a terrorist kills four people then is shot down in Palace Yard, Westminster. Yet dare we say how fortunate we are that since 9/11 Muslim terrorists have proved incapable of mounting an attack remotely as lethal as that on the Twin Towers? An intelligence officer told me recently that he worries far more about Russia than about Muslim suicidalists, and this must be the rational assessment. The public needs awakening to the menace posed by Vladimir Putin’s adventurism. Meanwhile, Khalid Masood’s dreadful deed reflects the flailings of a death cult.