The attempt by the Pope to pronounce his Easter blessing on Sunday and his failure in that attempt were so moving. On the day which, of all days, affirms life, John Paul II must particularly have longed to speak. As he struggled to do so, he looked like a strong man drowning, in sight of the shore yet unable to reach it. Some say that such a sick man should abdicate. But surely the Pope is fulfilling the vows which he made when he became a priest. He is trying to stand in the place of Christ, not usurping Him, but imitating Him. Against the humiliations which Christ endured, those which accompany the approach of natural death must seem minor, and the Pope wants to be seen to bear them for the sake of his Master. His example must be particularly inspiring to other old people. Despite the huge increase in longevity, we are less and less led by the old, and they tend to disappear from our sight some time before they die. When you see the Pope, you think, ‘When I am weak, then am I strong.’
‘The greatest conservative Prime Minister has died,’ a friend rang to say, and I knew that he did not mean Margaret Thatcher. Every detail of Jim Callaghan’s life was conservative: his long, happy marriage to Audrey (there’s a conservative name), whom he met through a Nonconformist church, his work in the navy and in the Inland Revenue, the sailor’s tattoo on his arm and his desire to conceal it, his belief in respectable trade unionism, his Old Labour combination of decency and ruthlessness, his instinctive distance from continental Europe, his avuncular demeanour, his patriotism, his graduation from rented rooms in Portsmouth to a small Sussex farm, everything. He has the honour of having almost no reforms associated with his name, apart from the introduction of zebra crossings.
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