Save the Date [Corrected]

Chatham House Zoom chat planned for Saturday 21st February

We will be hosting a paid subscribers only Chatham House rules chat on Saturday 21st February at 10 am GMT (morning in the UK, evening in Australia). Among other things, we’ll be discussing Lorenzo’s two pieces (here and here) on what happens when policy regimes decay.

The Zoom link paid subscribers require is below the fold.

Helen has also been commissioned to write a piece on Epstein, Mandelson, Starmer, and Blair—and UK politics. Of necessity, that means drawing out the implications of this earlier piece on the Epstein Files. We want input from our readers, but we’re both also still baffled by and curious about Australian absences from Epstein—even hugely wealthy and influential ones, like Rupert Murdoch.

The few Australians that do appear do so in what are odd contexts (see Kevin Rudd, for example). There’s even a serious case to be made that British-Australian microbiologist Melanie Thomson has managed to emerge from a place in the Epstein Files with her reputation enhanced.

Rupert’s only mention

Because we haven’t done one of these since December, we’re offering a 20 per cent discount on an annual subscription until midnight on Saturday February 21st. That said, given many of you are new, if you’re only willing to put your hand in your pocket for a month’s paid subscription to “suck it and see,” we fully understand!

And, an apology from Helen

It’s become fashionable, these days, to celebrate what goes by the name of “neurodiversity,” and to argue that society should be re-ordered to make life easier for people like me. Sometimes, a specific learning disability or neurodevelopmental disorder is even reimagined as advantageous to the people who have it.

Well, I’m here to tell you this is cobblers. If I could wish my dyslexia away I would do so in a heartbeat. It is why I sent out a Substack email with an appointment in it that was utterly wrong (and actually dated last year).

Parental life lessons formed part of a childhood I’ve often drawn on my writing, particularly the literary non-fiction I’ve published over many years for The Australian and Law & Liberty. It was my parents, for example, who worked out how to manage a dyslexia diagnosis when I was seven. This was the 1970s; few people had heard of dyslexia then, much less understood it. That I was the youngest of four talented and verbally fluent children made the problem especially acute. Until I learnt to read, I was a cuckoo chick in the family nest.

My problems were identified in the usual way for dyslexics—I was good at maths but couldn’t read. This, I assure you, was no sort of superpower. It took me until I was nine to learn to read, and my parents had to hire a phonics tutor to help me over the barrier to learning thrown up by the then-fashionable “look-say” method of reading instruction. I’ve written about this experience for Law & Liberty.

Even now—with excellent if somewhat slow reading skills—dyslexia means I do not process calendrical information accurately. I’ve had a lifetime of double-booked meetings, missed sporting fixtures, and stood-up clients. I once failed to appear at a literary event a Brisbane bookshop had gone to some trouble to organise. 150+ people waited for an hour-and-a-half at what they expected would be a talk, reading, and book-signing from the Miles Franklin Award winner. Said winner was in a pub (having written down the wrong date) roughly 20 miles from the venue.

I apologised, explaining dyslexia’s effects, but did not expect forgiveness. Nor did I receive it. I have never been invited back to that outlet again. The rest of society does not need to reorganise itself around folk who can’t keep appointments. I have always given people the option of rejecting me for what is rude and unprofessional behaviour. I have also had one relationship come to an end because I cannot remember anniversaries or birthdays, something important to my then partner. She was upset when I forgot her birthday, and “I can’t help it” along with an apology wasn’t good enough.

One problem the UK is facing to an extraordinary and expensive degree—and Australia is encountering a bit of the same phenomenon in the NDIS—is the way many disabled people routinely expect total accommodation of what in any other circumstance would be unacceptable behaviour. This is particularly notable among the mentally ill, the “neurodivergent” or people with specific learning disabilities (like mine).

You seldom see this kind of entitlement from blind people, deaf people, or paraplegics (although it does exist). Entitled behaviour from people with what are in fact more minor disabilities costs both the state and employers an absolute fortune and diverts funds both from people with far more serious “neurodivergence” problems (like non-verbal autism) and, ahem, people who can’t see, hear, or walk.

Those of you who’ve dealt with me when I was in practice—there are a few here who go back decades—may be surprised by this, but remember, in the past I’ve always had a secretary or chambers’ clerk to handle this part of my professional life for me. When you dealt with me, you were also dealing with her (and at one firm, him).

A couple of people have already cancelled their paid subscriptions overnight because of this unprofessionalism, and all I can say is that I’m sorry, and that I will try my best to make sure it doesn’t happen again. However, as I’ve had to explain multiple times over the years, the “dis” in disability means the word and concept other people have to get used to is CAN’T. I CAN’T. No amount of trying harder or rechecking dates/times more carefully will make me any better. No amount of self-help and positive thinking will make any difference.

I hope to see you all on Saturday 21st at 10 am GMT. Please ignore the previous email; I will delete the post that goes with it after this email has gone out.