People embody a nation but institutions make it. Some British institutions are so ancient and unchanging that many people give little to no thought as to their creation and evolution and even less to their future. They were there when they were born and they assume they will be there when they die. For that reason it will be a psychological shock to many when Prince Charles ascends the throne because the Queen is, uniquely in British terms, a person and an institution.
Optimists slip easily into complacency and cynics into fatalism. When it comes to the safeguarding and preservation of institutions both types can cause a lot of damage. Optimists assume that all will be well because all was well and cynics assume all will be awful because all always was.
There are many countries in the world that know either no meaningful institutions or such institutions that exist totter on the shakiest of foundations or are riven with corruption. When the Soviet Union ceased to be so too did the institutions of Communism. We in the West, so relieved at its extinction, failed to pay much heed to what succeeded them.
Indeed, Britain’s move to a service economy left us sitting pretty to offer our venerable and incorruptible institutions to newly rich Russians looking for a reliable place to conduct their business and litigate their disputes. Many commercial lawyers have had their second homes and children’s school fees paid for in this way.
The reason why rich Russians used our courts and our banks and had their homes here was not our concern. And now it is. The events of the last few days could not more clearly illustrate how utterly extraordinary it is that we permit foreign political donations. How was this allowed? Why was this tolerated? What was expected in return?
Russia is not like here. It’s not necessary to have been there to know that. But the extent to which its citizens can become the arbitrary victims of the state is something that alarmingly few British people understand, it being so far outside their experience and comprehension.
Institutions require unceasing support and vigilance. Those peopling them must understand their history and their processes and commit to their renewal. They do not exist by chance nor by goodwill. Money represents the biggest threat to institutions. Too little of it and the functioning of institutions deteriorates until they fall into chronic dysfunction. Existing in name only. Too much money from the wrong sources and institutions also start to fail but they fail in a different way. They succumb to a cancer of impropriety and vested interest which eventually leads to a stripping of legitimacy.
Sadly, there’s nothing we can do at the moment to improve Russia’s institutions but there’s everything we can do to improve ours. That will require not accepting money from the wrong places and ensuring that we spend enough in the right places. Otherwise my institution, the Criminal Justice System, will lose any claim to justice and what would be left behind would be just criminal.
