Etiolate

Etiolate (pronounced ee-tee-uh-leyt)

(1) In botany, to cause a plant to whiten or grow pale by excluding light.

(2) To cause to become weakened or sickly; to remove vigor.

(3) To drain of color; to make pale and sickly-looking; to become pale or blanched.

(4) In literary theory (usually as “etiolated verse” or etiolated text”), to revise a text to remove fanciful or pretentious forms.

1791: The past participle of the seventeenth century French étioler (to blanch) and used to mean “to make pale, to remove a light source from plants during growth to induce them to form in a lighter hue”, presumed to be a derivative of a Norman French dialect form of with the appended -ate suffix.  The suffix -ate was a word-forming element used in forming nouns from Latin words ending in -ātus, -āta, & -ātum (such as estate, primate & senate).  Those that came to English via French often began with -at, but an -e was added in the fifteenth century or later to indicate the long vowel.  It can also mark adjectives formed from Latin perfect passive participle suffixes of first conjugation verbs -ātus, -āta, & -ātum (such as desolate, moderate & separate).  Again, often they were adopted in Middle English with an –at suffix, the -e appended after circa 1400; a doublet of –ee.  The idea in French may have been derived from the notion of “to make the color of straw” or even literally “to become like straw” and it was used in a branch of horticulture to “turn a plant white by growing it in darkness”, the attraction of white being the association with “delicacy; purity” and it was a commercial approach in market gardens to create “high priced vegetables” and was from étiolé, past participle of the seventeenth century étioler (to blanch), probably from the Norman dialect étule (a stalk) and the Old French esteule (straw, field of stubble) from the Latin stupla from stipula (straw; stubble).  Etiolate is a verb & adjective, etiolation is a noun, etiolative is a noun & adjective, etiolated is a verb & adjective, etiolating is a verb and etiolatively is an adverb; the noun plural is etiolations.

In literary theory, “to etiolate” a text is to remove or revise the “purple passages” (known just as alliteratively also as “purple prose”).  In literature, purple passages are those sections of a text which are overly elaborate, flowery, or extravagant in style, often prioritizing ornate or decorative language and the use of needlessly long words, the meaning of which is often obscure.  Such writing is thought a literary self-indulgence or a mere pretentious display of knowledge; grandiose execution at the expense of clarity, the usual critique being “style over substance”.  The phrase is almost certainly derived from the historic use of the once rare and expensive purple dye being restricted (actually by statute or edict in some places) to royalty and even when availability became wider, the association with luxury & wealth continued.  The idea has long been a tool of critics, Roman lyric poet Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus, 65-8 BC) in his Ars Poetica (The Art of Poetry, 19 BC) referring disapprovingly to the purpureus… pannus (a purple piece of cloth), the irrelevant insertion of a grandiloquent or melodramatic passage into a work.  Horace thought this disruptive at best and absurd at worst and “purple passages” continues to be used to describe writing which is needlessly ornate, florid and usually discordantly incongruous.  Used almost always pejoratively (although there do seem to be some admirers), comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) might have called such flourishes “formalism”.  Amusingly, in an example of how idiomatic use in English must baffle those learning the language, “purple patch”, also once applied to such tortured text, would come to be used to describes any particular good period or performance (in any context), the use always wholly positive.

Pencil sketch (circa 1845) of Anne Brontë (1820–1849) by her sister Charlotte (1816–1855).

What is a purple passage is a cultural construct and in literature fashions change, some works regarded still regarded as “literary classics” written in a style which if release now would be thought absurd or a parody.  That’s because such judgments tend now to be made on the basis of the manner in which people “actually talk” and although that is highly variable and influenced by social class and regional traditions, in the age of modern media there is probably a broad (if not at the margins wholly accurate) understanding of the range and it’s to this literature need to adhere.  So, consider what Anne Brontë has the Reverend Michael Millward say in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848):

“But I have heard that, with some persons, temperance—that is, moderation—is almost impossible; and if abstinence be an evil (which some have doubted), no one will deny that excess is a greater. Some parents have entirely prohibited their children from tasting intoxicating liquors; but a parent’s authority cannot last for ever; children are naturally prone to hanker after forbidden things; and a child, in such a case, would be likely to have a strong curiosity to taste, and try the effect of what has been so lauded and enjoyed by others, so strictly forbidden to himself—which curiosity would generally be gratified on the first convenient opportunity; and the restraint once broken, serious consequences might ensue. I don’t pretend to be a judge of such matters, but it seems to me, that this plan of Mrs. Graham’s, as you describe it, Mrs. Markham, extraordinary as it may be, is not without its advantages; for here you see the child is delivered at once from temptation; he has no secret curiosity, no hankering desire; he is as well acquainted with the tempting liquors as he ever wishes to be; and is thoroughly disgusted with them, without having suffered from their effects.”

Once that text is etiolated, the parson is suggesting if one’s children are introduced to strong drink under parental supervision, they’ll be less likely to grow up as drunken philanders and sluts.  Did, in general discourse, even the most loquacious Church of England clergy of the 1840s talk in the way the author would have us believe or did novelists write in an elaborated, formalized style because that’s what their readers wanted?  It can’t be certain because there are only letters and no audio recordings; such transcripts as we have are from formal, set piece events like public addresses or debates in parliament which are hardly representative but on the basis of what was reported as the way “educated folk” spoke in court proceedings, it was with nothing like the prolixity of Ms Brontë’s reverend gentleman.  But that was the way fiction so often was written and the works of some who have contributed much to the canon must strike the modern reader as “artificially ornate” including John Milton (1608–1674), Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864), Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849), Herman Melville (1819–1891) and Thomas Hardy (1840–1928).  Write now as they did now and expect to be accused of writing purple passages.

Beans, etiolated (left) and not (right).

For most of human history, the purpose in agriculture was to cultivate plants for optimal growth and productivity but in the eighteenth century the technique of deliberate etiolation emerged as a niche industry with specific goals.  What the gardeners did was at certain point in a plant’s development to deprive it of light while continuing to supply water and fertilizer.  What this cause was for the foliage to lose its natural color and tend towards being white, manifested usually in a “straw-like” coloring although some outcomes truly were white.  Additionally, many plants would grow with long, weak & slender stems, the elongation thought elegant compared with the thick, robust structures of those which remained exposed to natural light.  In biological terms, what the plants were doing was devoting all available energy to grow longer in the search for light, that essential element of photosynthesis, the process with which plants convert the energy from light (historically sunlight) into the chemical energy (notably sugars) used by their metabolism.

Delightfully etiolated: A stunningly pale Lindsay Lohan leaving the Byron & Tracey salon, Beverly Hills, California, September 2011.

Although the technique was used of seedlings which were started indoors or in a sheltered spot, encouraging early growth before being transplanted outside in the spring, etiolated plants were valued most for their aesthetic appeal, the association of white with not only delicacy & purity but also wealth because the pale complexion of the rich was a symbol of a privileged existence not spent toiling in the fields under the harsh sun which so darkened the skin of peasants.  Thus, etiolated plants, with their long, slender stems were prized for their visual appeal in gardens and floral arrangements while small, leafed vegetables in an unusually pale hue were prized by the chefs of the rich because they were so useful in making food into “plate art” a thing then as now and that such produce invariably lacked taste was just a price to be paid for the effect.  Of course etiolation tended to weaken plants so it was only ever a niche product for a high-priced market segment but, in controlled conditions, it did prove a useful technique in selective breeding for specific traits and it’s believed some of the long-stemmed plants still cultivated today are varieties which date for the era.

Natural selection means plants do tend to grow towards the light but many like also to grow vertically, something Albert Speer (1905–1981; Nazi court architect 1934-1942; Nazi minister of armaments and war production 1942-1945) had plenty of time to observe while serving in Berlin’s Spandau prison the twenty year sentence he was lucky to have been handed by the IMT (International Military Tribunal) in the first Nuremberg Trial (1945-1946) for war crimes (Count three of the indictment) and crimes against humanity (Count 4).  In his clandestine prison diary (Spandauer Tagebücher (Spandau: The Secret Diaries) (1975)) he noted the mixed behaviour of the seeds he planted:

June 25, 1951: A month ago I planted peas, in groups of three, at depths of seven, fifteen, twenty-five, and forty centimeters, and watered them plentifully.  Today I undertake a cautious excavation. Even when the eye was down, the shoot turned in a sharp arc and grew vertically upward. None of the many shoots left the vertical by so much as a few degrees, not even those that germinated at a depth of forty centimeters.  Only one pea at a depth of twenty-five centimeters lost its sense of direction and grew into a confused snarl of thick threads.  In greenhouses, heating cables often keep the temperatures under the roots higher than on the surface.  So it cannot be the sun’s warmth.  A pine tree twenty meters tall growing by a shady cliff in the Black Forest does not grow toward the light, but vertically upward. Gravity, then?  It is particularly important for technology, which tries to achieve reactions similar to that of the pea, to investigate such guidance mechanisms.  New experiment.  I have dug a pit forty centimeters in depth.  At the bottom of it I lay out a row of alternating beans and peas. I close off the side toward the south with a pane of glass.  Then I fill in the pit with topsoil.  The arrangement is such that the surface of the soil is just as far from the seeds as the pane of glass.  Consequently warmth and light operate with equal intensity on both sides.  If growth is determined by one of these influences, the peas would have to grow toward the glass.  But I am still assuming that the plants have a tendency to oppose the pull of gravity.

August 22, 1951: Once again the peas have grown upward with amazing directional impulse, without reacting to the sunlight offered from the side.  Out of thirty peas, eleven have found the long way, forty centimeters, to the surface. Two peas gave up after they had grown twenty centimeters, and several others became impatient with this long distance for growing.  About eight centimeters under the surface of the soil they sent out side shoots with formed leaves.  But these peas, too, were disciplined enough to abandon these energy-consuming shoots after half a centimeter. What vital energy is displayed in these physical achievements, elaborating from a tiny round pea a tube one to one and a half millimeters in thickness and forty centimeters in length.  As I suspected, no such strong biological “instinct” can be ascribed to the beans. Out of six beans, only a single one tried to make its way to the surface, and it too gave up several centimeters before it reached its goal, while the others, obviously confused, sent shoots out in various directions from the seed.  What brings about such different behavior in such closely related plants?

Misocapnic

Misocapnic (pronounced miss-oh-kap-nick or migh-soh-kap-nick)

Hating tobacco smoke (the more recent extensions in meaning including “hating those who smoke tobacco” and “hating the tobacco industry”).

1855: A linguistic mongrel, misocapnic was borrowed from Greek and combined with English elements, modelled on a Latin lexical item, the construct being miso- (a combining form of Ancient Greek μῑσέω (mīséō) (to hate) from μῖσος (mîsos) (hatred) which was used to create forms conveying the notion of a “hatred, dislike or aversion” of or to something) + the stem of the Ancient Greek καπνός (kapnós) (smoke) + ‑ic.  The -ic suffix was from the Middle English -ik, from the Old French -ique, from the Latin -icus, from the primitive Indo-European -kos & -ḱos, formed with the i-stem suffix -i- and the adjectival suffix -kos & -ḱos.  The form existed also in the Ancient Greek as -ικός (-ikós), in Sanskrit as -इक (-ika) and the Old Church Slavonic as -ъкъ (-ŭkŭ); A doublet of -y.  In European languages, adding -kos to noun stems carried the meaning "characteristic of, like, typical, pertaining to" while on adjectival stems it acted emphatically; in English it's always been used to form adjectives from nouns with the meaning “of or pertaining to”.  A precise technical use exists in physical chemistry where it's used to denote certain chemical compounds in which a specified chemical element has a higher oxidation number than in the equivalent compound whose name ends in the suffix -ous; (eg sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) has more oxygen atoms per molecule than sulphurous acid (H₂SO₃)).  Misocapnic is an adjective and misocapnist & misocapnism are nouns; the noun plural is misocapnists.  A person who hates tobacco smoke or smoking (and often smokers) is a misocapnist and if it becomes a calling (noted in “reformed” smokers) they become practitioners of misocapnism.  Misocapnists range from the merely disapproving to the rabid activists, the comparative “more misocapnic”, the superlative “most misocapnic”.

The earliest known use of misocapnic was in the book: A Paper, Of Tobacco: Treating Of The Rise, Progress, Pleasures, And Advantages Of Smoking, With Anecdotes Of Distinguished Smokers (1839) by Joseph Fume (a pseudonym of English writer William Andrew Chatto (1799–1864) (who also published as Stephen Oliver (Junior))).  Noted by scholars as work of genuine interest and now in the public domain (still available in re-print), “Of Tobacco” explored the history, chemistry, and cultural significance of smoking discussing the ceremonial use of tobacco by Native Americans and its introduction to Europe.  It includes also the word “mundungus” (used usually to mean “offal; waste animal product; organic matter unfit for consumption”, it came also to be slang for “poor-quality tobacco with a foul, rancid, or putrid smell”) which was from the Spanish mondongo (tripe, entrails).  The earliest known use of the adjectival form misocapnic was in an 1855 pamphlet by Church of England (broad faction) priest & historian Charles Kingsley (1819–1875), a notorious controversialist.

In the West, anti-smoking measures began seriously to be imposed in the 1980s, displeasing those accustomed to enjoying cigarettes at their desk or while flying on airliners.  That was consequent upon a legal and medical saga which dates from the mid-century, the US Surgeon-General first issuing warnings in the 1960s, trigging the campaign (fought tooth and nail by the tobacco industry) which saw multi-billion dollar settlements imposed.  Opposition to smoking however wasn’t something new, one of the most celebrated of the unimpressed being noted amateur theologian James I (1566–1625) King of Scotland as James VI (1567-1625) & King of England and Ireland as James I (1603-1625) who in 1604 issued his A Counterblaste to Tobacco, one of the earliest diatribes against the habit:

“Have you not reason then to bee ashamed, and to forbeare this filthie noveltie, so basely grounded, so foolishly received and so grossely mistaken in the right use thereof? In your abuse thereof sinning against God, harming your selves both in persons and goods, and raking also thereby the markes and notes of vanitie upon you: by the custome thereof making your selves to be wondered at by all forraine civil Nations, and by all strangers that come among you, to be scorned and contemned. A custome lothsome to the eye, hatefull to the Nose, harmefull to the braine, dangerous to the Lungs, and in the blacke stinking fume thereof, neerest resembling the horrible Stigian smoke of the pit that is bottomelesse…”

Such was the king’s disdain for "the noxious plante" he imposed a heavy excise tax on tobacco imported from the North American colonies (an approach now favoured by Western governments as a public health measure) but within two decades-odd, politics & economics had triumphed, the population’s ever-growing demand for tobacco compelling him to instead create a royal monopoly for the crop.  Over the ensuing centuries, the plant would prove a mainstay of the economy and, via the trade routes secured by the Royal Navy, Great Britain would emerge as tobacco merchant to the world.  The combination of the royal imprimatur and his subjects’ embrace of the addictive habit lent tobacco a respectability which would extend to all classes of society, including (until well into the twentieth century), much of the medical establishment and the alleged medical efficacy had a long history, smoking a pipe at breakfast made compulsory for the schoolboys at London’s Eton College during The Great Plague of 1665, something widely advocated as a defence against “bad air”.

Mid-century cigarette advertising.  Even in the 1950s the public's suspicion that tobacco was a dangerous product was rising and the industry's advertising switched from the traditional "lifestyle" model to one which relied on endorsements by celebrities and scientists and much quoting of research and statistics, much of which would later be wholly debunked.  The tactics and techniques similar to those later adopted by the fossil fuel lobby in their long campaign to discredit the science of human-activity induced climate change. 

One attempt at social engineering began in earnest in the 1980s: Pressure was applied on film & television studios, advertisers and publishers to stop depicting smoking as "attractive, sexy and cool".  Because cigarette smoke is known to be carcinogenic and sustained use typically reduced the human lifespan by about a decade, it was an admirable part of the public health programme but the difficult thing was that images of smoking undeniably could be sexy.  Lindsay Lohan demonstrates.    

The industry learned early the value of celebrity endorsement & association, “Prince Albert” tobacco introduced by the RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company in 1907 and named after the prince who would become King Edward VII (1841–1910; King of the UK & Emperor of India 1901-1910) although the myth it was named after heavy smoker Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1819-1861; consort of Victoria (1819–1901; Queen of the UK 1837-1901)) persists.  Prince Albert tobacco is rated as “high quality” and Albert Speer (1905–1981; Nazi court architect 1934-1942; Nazi minister of armaments and war production 1942-1945), on 3 October 1947 (two years into the 20 year sentence he was lucky to receive for war crimes and crimes against humanity) noted with approval in his clandestine prison diary (Spandauer Tagebücher (Spandau: The Secret Diaries) (1975)): “After breakfast my first pipe.  No matter which nation is on duty we receive a tin of American Prince Albert as our weekly ration.”  High quality the Prince Albert may have been but some seven months later he observed “I nearly made myself sick to my stomach breaking in my pipe.”  Still, he kept smoking although it’s not clear if he’d quit the habit when, aged 76, he died in a London hotel room in the company of a woman some decades younger and not his wife.

Although later the industry would use their sponsorship of sport to turn the sporting organizations into “tobacco industry lobbyists”, even before the political pressures appeared, the usefulness of sport as a promotional tool was understood, the Gallaher (to become best known for the “Benson & Hedges” brand) company in 1966 gaining the “naming rights” to the annual 500 mile (805 km) endurance race for what then genuinely were “production cars”, run on the 3.9 mile (6.2 km) Mount Panorama Circuit at Bathurst in Australia.  It’s the race which in 1973 became the Bathurst 1000 (625 miles), the country that year switching to the metric system.  Gallaher took up the event sponsorship to promote their brand but the sales numbers hadn’t much improved after the well-publicized 1966 race so they decided to leverage their money, “suggesting” certain changes to the race rules.

Changing of the guard: Mini Coopers (1275 cm³), Bathurst, 1966 and Ford Falcon GTs (4482 cm³), Bathurst, 1967.

The Bathurst race then was unusual in that it was a true stand-alone event, neither part of any series nor governed by rules set by the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS) or the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (the FIA; the International Automobile Federation (world sport’s dopiest regulatory body)) and in 1966 there was no rule requiring a minimum number of pit stops.  Taking advantage of this were the “giant-killing” 1.3 litre (78 cubic inch) Morris Mini Cooper 1275 S, able to run the 500 miles without needing tyre changes and, at most, only one stop for fuel.  Accordingly, although not the fastest machines in a straight line, the Minis filled the first nine places, the only other car in the top ten a 273 cubic inch (4.5 litre) Chrysler Valiant V8 which finished tenth, six laps down on the winner.  Timed at a then impressive 120 mph (193 km/h) down the long Conrod Straight, the Valiant posted competitive lap times but the frequent stops for tyres and fuel (more time-consuming tasks then than now) lent the Minis a significant advantage.

Clockwise from top left: The eight “Gallaher GT” Falcon GTs in corporate livery outside the corporation's Rydalmere facility in Sydney, September 1967; a packet of “Gallaher GTs 20s”; one of the surviving cars after restoration and an image from the 1967 advertising campaign (note the "driving glove" an affectation from the days of open roadsters, sweaty palms & teak-rim steering wheels).

No documents have ever been sighted which prove it was Gallaher which “suggested” mandating a minimum number of pit-stops but few have doubts and once implemented for the 1967 event, the advantage enjoyed by the small, light, economical cars was negated and not for another 20 years would a four-cylinder car win the race and the Mini remains the only front wheel drive (FWD) vehicle to enjoy a victory.  With a little nudge, the planets were thus aligned for Gallaher and their “Gallaher GT” cigarette brand.  As a promotional tie-in, eight of the new 289 cubic inch (4.7 litre) XR Ford Falcon GTs were painted silver to match the cigarette’s packaging and, adorned with corporate livery, issued to the travelling salesmen (and they were then all men) who went forth and promoted.  Other than the paint, the cars were standard except for an alarm system fitted to the boot (trunk) lid; even at 50c a packet, the Falcon could be holding over Aus$3000 in stock (as late as the early 1980s, the agents would visit places like sports grounds or shopping centres, handing out free samples of cigarettes).  So the plan was to use the Falcon GT’s victory at Bathurst to promote sales of Gallaher GT cigarettes and part of the plan worked in that the Fords finished first and second but the success didn’t rub off on the fags, the Gallaher GT quietly withdrawn in March 1968, some six months after the chequered flag had been waved at Bathurst, Gallaher leaving to others (like Benson & Hedges, Gallaher holding the UK but not Australian rights to the trademark) the task of getting Australians addicted.  Tobacco advertising finally vanished from Australian race-tracks in 1996 when the federal government imposed a ban.

Sydney Morning Herald “souvenir” front page, 14 March 1983 (left), Benson & Hedges packet with royal warrant (1877-1999, centre) and packet with “B&H coat of arms”, used after the warrant was withdrawn (right).

Gallaher took advantage of the 1983 royal tour of Australia to promote its Benson & Hedges brand, a packet embossed with the royal warrant (indicated by a coat of arms and the title “By appointment to…”) appearing on a “souvenir” front page, Sydney Morning Herald, 14 March 1983.  In 1999, the UK papers reported it was the advocacy of the most misocapnic Prince of Wales (now Charles III (b 1948; King of the United Kingdom since 2022)) which persuaded Elizabeth II (1926-2022; queen of the UK and other places, 1952-2022) to withdraw the royal warrant.

Bench

Bench (pronounced bench)

(1) A long seat (without arm or back-rest) for two or more people:

(2) A seat occupied by an official, especially a judge in a courtroom.

(3) Such a seat as a symbol of the office of an individual judge or the judiciary.

(4) The office or dignity of various other officials, or the officials themselves.

(5) In certain team sports, the seat (literally or figuratively) on which the reserve (substitute) players sit during a game while not playing and on which “starting side” players sit while substituted.

(6) The quality and number of the players named as substitutes.

(7) By extension, the quality and number of professionals or experts in reserve, to be called upon as needed:

(8) As a clipping of workbench, the worktable of those engaged in trades.

(9) In interior design, certain fixed flat surfaces (kitchen bench, bathroom bench etc).

(10) A platform on which animals or objects are placed for exhibition.

(11) In farming, a hollow on a hillside formed by sheep.

(12) In surveying, a bracket used to mount land surveying equipment onto a stone or a wall.

(13) In certain legislatures, as “front bench” (the office-holding members of a government or opposition who sit on the bench at the front of their side of the assembly), “back bench” (those elected members not appointed to an office who sit on benches behind) and “cross-bench” (those not members of the party in government or formal opposition who sit on other benches).  The terms are sometimes literal but depending on an assembly’s architecture or the size of a government’s majority, others can sometimes “overflow” to the physical “cross benches”.  Thus there are “front benchers”, “back benchers” & “cross benchers” (sometimes hyphenated).

(14) In geography, a shelf-like area of rock with steep slopes above and below, especially one marking a former shoreline.

(15) In extractive mining, a step or working elevation in a mine.

(16) In science (usually as “at the bench”), to distinguish between being engaged actively in research and concurrent or subsequent administrative functions.

(17) To furnish with benches (now rare).

(18) To seat on a bench or on the bench (now rare).

(19) In extractive mining, to cut away the working faces of benches.

(20) In certain team sports, to substitute or remove a player from a game or relegate them to the reserve squad.

Pre 1000: From the Middle English bench, benk & bynk, from the Old English benc (bench; long seat (especially if backless)), from then Proto-West Germanic banki, from the Proto-Germanic bankon & bankiz (bench), from the primitive Indo-European bheg.  It was cognate with the Scots benk & bink, the West Frisian bank, the Dutch bank, the Old High German Bank, the Old Norse bekkr, the Old Frisian benk, the Danish bænk, the Swedish bänk and the Icelandic bekkur, all from a Germanic source and all of which meant “bench”.  In the Old English there were the verbs bencian (to make benches) and bencsittend (one who sits on a bench).  The dialectal spellings benk & bink are both long obsolete.  Bench & benching are nouns & verbs, bencher is a noun, benched is a verb & adjective and benchy & benchlike are adjectives; the noun plural is benches.

The source of the idea of the “bench as a type of long seat” is thought to come from a riparian imagery (natural earthen incline beside a body of water) and etymologists speculate the original notion was of a “man-made earthwork used as a seat”.  Bench was from the late fourteenth century used of the tables on which merchants displayed their wares and that may have been a borrowing from the reference to the seat the judge would occupy in a court of law, that use emerging early in the 1300s and coming soon to mean “judges collectively, office of a judge, the judiciary”.  Whether it was actually an allusion to customers “judging the goods displayed” is speculative.  The use in team sports of “the bench” being the “reserve or substitute team members” was drawn from the actual physical bench on the sideline on which those players would sit while not on the field.  The earliest known reference to the existence of furniture used for this purpose is from the US in 1899 but extending this generally to the “reserve of players” in baseball, football etc seems not to have begun until 1909.  In sport, the idiomatic forms include “bench player” (one habitually selected only in the reserves and not the “starting side”), “benched” (a player substituted during play and “sent to the bench”, either because of poor performance or as part of a planned rotation, “injury bench” (players substituted due to injury), “bench warmer (or “bench sitter”, or “bench jockey”) (one whose career has plateaued as a “bench player”, “warming the bench”) 

Bench has attracted many modifiers describing use including “bench grinder”, “bench saw”, “bench drill”, “sawbench”, “kitchen bench”, “deacon's bench”, “friendship bench”, “bench easel”, “mourners' bench”, “piano bench” (a “piano stool” for two), “preacher’s bench” et al.  The noun & verb “benchmark” refers to the optimal results obtained when testing something or someone on a “test bench” although the use is often conceptual, a physical “test bench” not necessarily part of the processes and even some structures in engineering referred to as a “test bench” may bear no relationship to any actual “bench” however described.

Bench seats ranged from the austerely functional to the luxurious: 1971 Holden HQ Belmont Station Sedan (station wagon or estate-car) in vinyl (turquoise) (left) and 1974 Imperial LeBaron four-door hardtop in “fine Corinthian leather” (chestnut) (right), the tufted “pillowed” upholstery a signature of the US luxury cars during an era in which they were forced to abandon high-performance.  Imperial's advertising copy noted of the brochure’s photograph: “...while the passenger restraint system with starter interlock is not shown, it is standard on all Imperials.”  The marketing types didn't like seat-belts messing up their photos.

Bench seat for four: the improbable 1948 Davis Divan.  The blue car (one of a dozen survivors of the 17 built) was restored by the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles where it is on display.

In cars and such, a “bench seat” differs from a “bucket” or “individual” seat in that comfortably it can accommodate two or more occupants, the comparison with furniture being the difference between a “chair” and a “sofa”.  In commercial vehicles, bench seats commonly can seat four but in cars the recommended (and eventually legal) limit was typically three although the truly bizarre Davis Divan (1948) featured a bench allowing four abreast seating for four adults, something which would have been an interesting experience for the quartet because a quirk of the suspension system was the long, pointed nose of the thing actually rose under braking.  The three-wheeled Divan was the brainchild of “automotive entrepreneur” (some historians are less kind) Glen Gordon “Gary” Davis (1904-1973) who put some effort into building the prototypes, not enough into preparation for actual production but much into raising funds from “investors”, a goodly chunk of which apparently was spent on real estate, entertaining and mink coats for “friends” (with all that implies).  He had a flair for slogans so many investors were attracted but the project proved chimeric, Davis tried and convicted of fraud & grand theft, spending two years in prison.  The name Divan was used as an allusion to the car's wide bench seat.  It was from the French divan, from the Ottoman Turkish دیوان (divan), from the Iranian Persian دیوان (divân), from the Classical Persian دیوان (dēwān), from Middle Persian dpywʾn' or dywʾn' (dēwān) (archive, collected writings, compilation of works”), from the Sumerian dub.  The sense was of a sofa-like piece of furniture comprising a mattress lying against the wall and on either the floor or an elevated structure.  Part of the tradition of interior decorating in the Middle East, in the West divans are sometimes called “ottomans”; those with an internal storage compartment: “box ottomans”.

In courts of the common law traditions the terms “bench” & “bar” date from the medieval age and remain part of courtroom terminology.  “The bench” was originally the seat on which judges at while presiding, the early furniture apparently a simple wooden bench as one would find at many long dining tables and in the manner typical of the way English evolves, “bench” came to be used of judges collectively and of the institution of the judiciary itself.  The “bar” was the physical barrier separating the spectators and participants of a trial from the area where the lawyers and judges conducted the proceedings, thus the “bar table” being that at which the advocates sat and the right to practice law before the bench being “passing the bar”, familiar in the modern US phrase “passing the bar exam” or the English form “called to the bar”.  As “bench” became a synecdoche for the judiciary, “bar” came to be used of the lawyers although in jurisdictions where there is a separation between those who appear in court (barristers) and those who do not (solicitors) “bar” was applied only to the former and even after reforms in some abolished the distinctions between certain branches of the law, specialist practitioners continue often to be referred to as the “equity bar” & “common law bar”.  There’s thus the apparent anomaly of the use of “bencher” (recorded in the 1580s) being used to mean “senior member of an inn of court”, all of whom would have been members of “the bar”.  Presumably the idea was one of “approaching the bench” or (more mischievously) “aspiring to the bench”.  The bench-warrant (one issued by a judge, as opposed to one issued by a magistrate or justice of the peace (JP) dates from the 1690s. 

An illuminated manuscript (circa 1460) which is the earliest known depiction of the Court of King's Bench in session.

In England, the Court of King’s Bench (KB) (or Queen’s Bench (QB) depending on who was on the throne) began in the twelfth century as a court at which the monarch literally presided; it was a circuit court which would, from time-to-time, travel around the counties hearing cases.  The Court of KB was thus in some sense “virtual”, whatever wooden bench upon which he sat becoming the KB for the duration of the trial.  Kings would cease to sit as judges and the KB later was interpolated into the system of courts (there would be many internecine squabbles over the years) until (as the Court of Queen’s Bench), under the Supreme Court of Judicature Act (1873), it, along with the Court of Common Pleas, the Court of Exchequer and Court of Chancery were merged to become the High Court of Justice, each of the absorbed institutions becoming a division.  The Common Pleas and Exchequer Division were abolished in 1880 when the High Court was re-organized into the Chancery Division, Queen's Bench Division and the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division (the latter memorably known as “wills, wives & wrecks” in legal slang).  The origin of the KB is a hint of why a king or queen can’t appear before a court in the UK or other places in which they remain head of state: Although it is in a practical sense now a legal fiction, all courts of law are “their courts” of which they remain the highest judge.

Benches afforced with foreign judges, the Chinese Communist Party and Hong Kong’s national security law

Multi-national benches are not uncommon.  There have been courts operating under the auspices of the League of Nations (LoN; 1920-1946) & United Nations (UN; since 1945) such as the International Criminal Court (ICC), the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the various ad-hoc bodies set up to handle prosecutions related to crimes in specific locations (Rwandan, the former Yugoslavia et al) and the UK had the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) which included senior judges from the Commonwealth.  The JCPC functioned not only as a final court of appeal for Commonwealth nations (a role for a handful it still fulfils) but also as the appellate tribunal for a number of domestic bodies including some ecclesiastical bodies, admiralty matters and even matters from the usually obscure Disciplinary Committee of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons.  There were also the International Military Tribunals (IMT) which tried matters arising from the conduct of German & Japanese defendants from World War II (1939-1945), the bench of the latter Tokyo Tribunal notably diverse although those of the subsequent dozen trials in Nuremberg were staffed exclusively by US judges.  A number of former colonies also use foreign judges (and not always from the former colonial power).

However, what remains unusual is the matter of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) deciding to have foreign judges serve on Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal (HKCFA), established in 1997 when the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) was created upon Beijing regaining sovereignty (under the “one country, two systems” (1C2S)) principle, with the end of British colonial rule.  At that point, the HKCFA became the territory’s highest judicial institution, replacing the JCPC in London.  On the HKCFA’s bench sits the Chief Justice (a Hong Kong national), several “Permanent Judges” and some two-dozen odd “Non-permanent Judges” who may be recruited from Hong Kong or from among lawyers of the requisite background from any overseas common law jurisdiction.  As non-permanent judges, appointments have been drawn (from bar & bench) from Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK.

Lindsay Lohan, foreign judge on the bench of The Masked Singer (2019), a singing competition, the Australian franchise of a format which began in the ROK (Republic of Korea (South Korea)) as King of Mask Singer.

While it may seem strange a developed country like the People’s Republic of China (The PRC, the world’s second largest economy, a permanent member of the UN Security Council and since 1965 the final member of the original “Club of Five” declared nuclear powers) would have foreign judges sitting in one of its superior courts, on the mainland the PRC operates under a civil law system which, like the tradition in continental European, is based primarily on written statutes and codes, unlike common law systems, which rely heavily on case law and judicial precedent.  As a British colony, Hong Kong had used common law and under that system had become a major regional and international presence, something in part due to its judicial system being perceived as fair an uncorrupted; it was a “rule of law” state.  In the PRC there simply wasn’t a body of judges or lawyers with the necessary background in common law to staff the territory’s highest appellate court and significantly, at the time of the handover from the Raj, Hong Kong was of great importance to the PRC’s economy and the CCP understood it would be critical to maintain confidence in the rule of law, investors and overseas corporations with Hong Kong resident interests needing to be assured matters such as contracts would continue as before to be enforceable.

So it was, literally, “business as usual”, whatever may have been the fears about the political undercurrent.  The growth of the mainland economy since 1997 has been such that the HKSAR now constitutes only a small fraction of the national economy but analysts (some of whom provide advice to the CCP) understand the linkages running through the territory remain highly useful for Beijing and some long-standing conduits are still used for back-channel communications about this and that.  As far as business is concerned, the operation of the legal system has remained satisfactory, even though the CCP ensured that Beijing retained a reserved power to overturn the HKCFA’s decisions.

The colonial era building where now sits the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal.  Formally opened in 1912, it was built with granite in the neo-classical style and between 1985-2011 was the seat of the Legislative Council (LegCo).

However, in 2020, a “National Security Law” (technically the Law of the People's Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and thus usually written in English as the “NSL”) was imposed.  While not aimed at the regulation of business or economic matters, it was wide in its scope and claims of application (the extraterritoriality extending worldwide), essentially extending to the territory many of the laws of the mainland regarding “political activities” and matters of “free speech”, the latter widely interpreted by the CCP.  Citing the “political situation”, two British judges in June 2024 resigned from the HKCFA, prompted by Beijing’s recent crackdown on dissent in the city, something made possible by the NSL.  In his published letter, one judge, his rationale for departure notwithstanding, did say he continued “…to have full confidence in the court and the total independence of its members.”  As early as 2020, one Australian judge had already resigned, followed by two others from the UK, both saying the Hong Kong government had “…departed from values of political freedom and freedom of expression.”  The CCP may have anticipated some objection from the overseas judges because, since the passage of the NSL, no overseas judge has been allocated to hear the “security-related” cases.  The judicial disquiet seemed not to trouble the territory’s chief executive, former police officer John Lee (Ka-chiu) (b 1957) who said the overseas appointments would continue to help “…maintain confidence in the judicial system and… strong ties with other common law jurisdictions.”  In response to the departing judge’s comment, he claimed the NSL had “no effect” on judicial independence and the only difference was that “…national security is now better safeguarded.”

Early in June, the Hong Kong authorities arrested two men and one woman attending a FIFA World Cup qualification match against Iran, their offence being “turning their backs to the pitch and not standing during the performance of the national anthem”, a police spokesman adding that anybody “…who publicly and intentionally insults the national anthem in any way in committing a crime.”  Before the NSL was imposed, bolshie Hongkongers were known to boo the anthem to express discontent with their rulers; that definitely will no longer be tolerated.  The match ended Iran 4: Hong Kong 2 but despite that, more than ever the HKSAR and the Islamic Republic have much in common.

Sycophancy

Sycophancy (pronounced sik-uh-fuhn-see)

(1) The usually self-seeking, servile flattery or fawning behavior of a sycophant.

(2) The character or conduct of a sycophant.

(3) An informer, a bearer of tales (obsolete).

1537: From the Latin sȳcophanta (informer, trickster), from the Ancient Greek sykophantia (false accusation, slander; conduct of a sȳcophanta) from συκοφάντης (sykophántēs), the construct being sûkon (fig) + phaínō (I show).  The gesture of "showing the fig" was an “obscene gesture of phallic significance”, made by sticking the thumb between two fingers, a display which vaguely resembles a fig and was symbolic of a vagina (sûkon also meant “vulva”), the gesture understood in many cultures in many places.  Technically, it was a way of expressing one’s thoughts without actually speaking an obscenity.  The politicians in Ancient Greece were said not to use this vulgar gesture but urged their followers to deploy it in the taunting of opponents, a tactic familiar to observers of modern politicians who like to delegate the dirty work to others.  It was cognate with Italian sicofante and the Spanish sicofanta and the later Greek form was sykophantia, from sykophantes.  Sycophancy, sycophantism & sycophant are nouns, sycophantize is a verb, sycophantic & sycophantish are adjectives and sycophantishly is an adverb; the noun plural is plural sycophancies (sycophants is more commonly used).

When young, Lindsay Lohan had her troubles and in a 2012 interview blamed them on loneliness, “sycophants and bad influences”, adding “be careful who you surround yourself with”.

As late as the sixteenth century, sycophancy was still used in the now long obsolete sense of “informer, talebearer, slanderer” which was from the French sycophante and directly from Latin sȳcophanta.  Such was the influence of the often fanciful notions of Medieval scholars whose writings were copied with such frequency that by virtue of sheer volume they assume authority that it wasn’t until the twentieth century the old tale that a sycophant was “one who informed the authorities against someone unlawfully exporting figs” was universally discredited.  The general sense of “a parasite; mean, servile flatterer” (especially of those in power) was in use in English by the 1570s.  The phrase “yes-man” (a man who agrees from self-interest or fear with everything put to him by a superior) was first used in 1912, a creation of American English, the male-centric wording indicative of the predominance at the time of men in corporate structures but there's no exclusivity of gender, women too can be “yes-men” although “yes-women” doesn't as easily roll from the tongue and nor does the collective “yes people”.  To even suggest someone is a “yes man” or “yes woman” may be at least a micro aggression so to avoid compounding the offence with another “yes person” is recommended.

The sexy fig.

The modern meaning is that of the "insincere flatterer", the "yes man", the motive presumed usually to be personal gain.  Historians from antiquity suggest the origin of the word lies in agricultural policy, Plutarch (46–circa 120) writing that the source was in laws forbidding the export of figs, and that those who made accusations against others of illegally exporting figs were therefore called sycophants.  Plutarch was citing "Solon's Laws" which included regulations which stipulated also: “(1) trees should not be planted within five feet of a neighbour’s property, except in the case of olives and fig-trees, which were not to be planted within nine feet (for these trees spread out their roots farther than others, and spoil the growth of any others by taking away their nourishment and by giving off hurtful juices), (2) Trenches and pits must be dug as far away from another man’s property as they were deep and (3) no hive of bees was to be placed within three hundred feet of those already established by another man.”  Because the laws permitted only the export of oil, the export of figs was forbidden and the men who informed against those who had done so were therefore called sycophants (fig-shower).

Later, Sir William Blackstone's (1723–1780) Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–1770) noted there were laws making it a capital offense to break into a garden and steal figs, and that law was thought so odious that informers were given the name sycophants.   Another variant in the fig jam was that a sycophant was a shaker of trees: before the court, the sycophant's false accusations makes the accused yield up the truth; in the fig grove, sycophant's shaking forces the tree to yield up its fruit.  Certainly, the fig linkage runs strong in the language, the making of false accusations held to be such an insult to the accused it was said to be "showing the fig", an obscene gesture “of phallic significance" and that false charges were often so flimsy as to be worth “not a fig".

Modern historians enjoy the explanations but tend to be dismissive of their veracity though all seem to agree the original sense is of a word used to disparage one who, by the levelling of unjustified accusations, has perverted the legal system beyond a mere abuse of process.  Pervading all is the suggestion the term was thought always at least slightly obscene, the linkage presumably because of the symbolism of the fig in ancient Greek culture in that sense.  The attachment to legal process in Athenian culture, separate from any hint of obscenity, did grow and the net was cast wide, sycophants not only vexatious litigants but also those who issued writs merely to try to induce defendants to make a payment in exchange for dropping the case or third parties otherwise unconnected to the sometime ancient matters before the court, appearing only to seek an undeserved profit.  In time, to accuse a litigant of sycophancy became a serious thing, such was the opprobrium society had come to direct towards the conduct and there are surviving texts written by those defending themselves from the charge.  Athenian law responded, imposing fines on litigants whose matters were found vexatious or which were clearly an abuse of process and there are echoes still of these acts in modern Greek domestic law where, as in France, sycophant is used still in the original sense.    The phenomenon attracted the playwrights too, explored by Aristophanes (circa 446 BC-circa 386 BC) in his satires.

Impact Of Wealth (1563) by Philips Galle (1537–1612) & Hadrianus Junius (1511–1575).

In the English-speaking world, the meaning shift seems to have happened during the Renaissance, meanings old and new running in parallel until the sense of the "insincere flatterer" came to prevail.  It was an organic linguistic morphing, not something induce by some event or individual, the common thread probably that both behaviors were perceived parasitic and insincere. 

Notable Sycophants in History and Literature

Dr Joseph Goebbels (1897-1975; Nazi propaganda minister 1933-1945) had been an early critic of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) so to redeem himself, spent the rest of his career in fawning devotion, initiating the Heil Hitler salute and insisting on the use of Der Führer (the leader, originally just a party title) as an official title. His letters and diaries are full of groveling praise and his propaganda campaigns created the modern personality cult.  In fairness to Goebbels, his work was inspired and sometimes brilliant and when the fortunes of war turned there was even the hint of criticism (his acute sense of things picking up the difference between a "leadership crisis" and a "leader crisis") but other sycophants in the Third Reich were less impressive.  While Goebbels’ work sparkled, youth leader, Baldur von Schirach (1907-1974; party functionary 1931-1945), wrote verse after verse of dreary poetry in praise of Hitler though there’s no suggestion the Führer much troubled himself to read his oeuvre.  At least Goebbels and Schirach stayed loyal to the end (though the latter would recant when on trial for his life in Nuremberg (1945-1946) and avoid the hanging he deserved.  Sycophant number one and head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler (1900-1945; head of the SS 1929-1945), called himself “the truest of the true” and Hitler agreed, often referring to the Reichführer-SS as “der treue Heinrich" (the faithful Heinrich), and, although never part of the inner circle, was much valued for his sycophancy and unconditional obedience.  Himmler though, by 1944 and perhaps earlier, worked out things weren’t going too well and eventually, in negotiating with the enemy and planning ways to ingratiate himself to General Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969; US president 1953-1961), delivered the Führer a final stab in the back and the one which seems to have hurt the Führer the most.  By then it was already too late and Hitler has long concluded none of his sycophants were worthy enough to be his successor, deciding Rudolf Hess (1894–1987; Deputy Führer 1933-1941) had gone mad and Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1922-1945) had lost the sympathy of the German people.  Both judgements were fair enough but his reason for rejecting Himmler made sense only in Hitler's bizarre world view: He thought the Reichführer-SS "unartistic".

Julia Gillard looking at Penny Wong.

Appointed to cabinet by Prime Minister Julia Gillard (b 1961; Australian prime minister 2010-2013), Australian politician Penny Wong (b 1968) Australian minister for Foreign Affairs since 2022 (and one of the Australian Senate's three "mean girls")) was never reticent in praising Gillard’s fine judgment and feminist solidarity.  That was until she finally worked out things weren’t going too well and so voted to back-stab Gillard and resuscitate the previously knifed Dr Kevin Rudd (b 1957; Australian prime-minister 2007-2010 & 2013).  Modern identity politics helpfully provides Wong with handy cover; any criticism, however justified, she can condemn as misogyny, homophobia or racism.  Centuries before, early in the reign of Caligula (Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, 12–41; Roman emperor 37-41), he fell ill, inspiring one Roman to offer to sacrifice own life if the emperor recovered. This kind, if extravagant, vow was declared publicly, in the hope his show his deep loyalty would elicit some generous award.  Caligula did recover but the sycophant’s tactic backfired; the dutiful emperor decided to accept the chap’s offer and ordered his execution.

Secretary of State Dr Henry Kissinger and President Richard Nixon, East Room, White House, 22 September 1973.  

There are many who list former US National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, Dr Henry Kissinger (1923-2023; US national security advisor 1969-1975 & secretary of state 1937-1977) as among the famous sycophants, a reasonable achievement in Washington DC, a city full of the breed, but it’s probably unfair although, in his fascinating relationship with President Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US president 1969-1974), he certainly aimed to please.  Kissinger met with Israeli prime-minister Golda Meir (1898–1978; prime-minister of Israel 1969-1974) in 1973 and she asked him to pressure Moscow to allow more Soviet Jews to emigrate to avoid persecution.  Nixon, intent on détente with the USSR, sought to avoid the request. Kissinger, himself Jewish, responded “…the emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy and if they put Jews into gas chambers in Russia, it’s not an American concern… maybe it’s a humanitarian concern”.  Not for nothing was Dr Kissinger thought dean of the school of power-realists.

Plácido Domingo (b 1941) in Giuseppe Verdi’s (1813–1901) Otello (1993), a studio recording from Paris noted for its technical perfection.  It featured Cheryl Studer (b 1955) as Desdemona and in Act IV she delivered perhaps the loveliest version of the Willow Song available on disc.

In David Copperfield (1849-1850), Charles Dickens (1812–1870) created one of literature’s most repulsive sycophants, the reptilian Uriah Heep.  Dickens, never one to understate his characters, ensures readers will revile Heep by emphasizing his physical creepiness: cadaverous and lanky, with clammy hands and sleepless eyes.  Trained in being “umble” by his father, Heep is always quick to affirm his lowly station and abase himself.  Chaplain to the Bishop of Barchester, the duplicitous Obadiah Slope in Anthony Trollope’s (1815-1882) Barchester Towers (1857), epitomizes the "lick up-kick down" sycophant,  fawning before the powerful, tyrannical towards subordinates.  For Australians, one of the real pleasures in reading Barchester Towers is imagining Bronwyn Bishop (b 1942; speaker of the Australian House of Representatives 2013-2015) when picturing the bishop’s wife (both deserving the memorable phrase "that ghastly woman").  Nobody however did it better than William Shakespeare (1564–1616) in Othello (1603).  The play is a roll-call of strategies for ingratiation, subversion, and destruction, as Iago corrupts the mind of the noble Othello. No work in English better shows the devastating personal consequences of sycophancy or so starkly renders its intricate ties to other vices for Shakespeare knew the sycophant is capable of every fraud, every hypocrisy, every deceit.

Mr Dutton in one of his happier moments.  Interestingly, despite many opportunities, Mr Dutton has never denied being a Freemason.

In politics, the word sycophantic seems surprising rare, probably because punchier forms like “arse-kisser”, “arse-licker”, “brown noser”, “suck-up”, “lap-dog”, “flunky” & “lackey” are preferred, at least behind closed doors because all these would probably be ruled “unparliamentary”.  Of course it’s behind closed doors the more amusing stuff happens, the internecine party squabbles and factional battles more intense and pursued with more passion than the often confected sturm und drang between actual opponents.  Still words like “obsequious” and “sycophantic” have the advantage they can be used on the floor or parliament and in May 2024, in the Australian House of Representatives, sycophantic made a rare appearance when Peter Dutton (b 1970; leader of the opposition and leader of the Australian Liberal Party since May 2022) spoke: “Why did this weak and incompetent prime minister [Anthony Albanese (b 1963; prime-minister of Australia since 2022)] put his close and sycophantic relationship with Jacinda Ardern ahead of the safety of Australians?”

The context of Mr Dutton’s waspish attack was the matter of Ministerial Directive 99 (MD-99) of 23 March 2023, issued by Andrew Giles (b 1973; Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs since 2022), an instruction to his department which required the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (the AAT, a statutory authority soon to be replaced by the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART) & Administrative Review Council (ARC)) to consider the cases of non-citizens facing deportation pursuant to section 501 (as revised in 2014) of the Migration Act (1958) by applying a number of criteria including “Strength, nature and duration of ties to Australia”.  Previously, the law required mandatory visa cancellations for any non-citizens sentenced to jail for twelve months or more, or those convicted of a child sex offence.  The way MD-99 was applied by the tribunal resulted in a number of serious offenders not being deported, some of whom subsequently re-offended, one currently awaiting trial for murder.

Two Fabians: Jacinda Ardern and Anthony Albanese, press conference, Sydney, July 2022.  It has been confirmed the man taking the photograph is not Mr Dutton.

The origin of MD-99 was in a dinner in July 2022 between Mr Albanese and Jacinda Ardern (b 1980; Prime Minister of New Zealand 2017-2023).  The matter of criminals who hadn’t lived in New Zealand for decades, sometimes having left as infants, had been a matter of concern to successive New Zealand Governments but until 2023 no Australian government had been prepared to alter the policy.  However, Ms Ardern was at the time something of a political pin-up of the left and a role model to social democrats around the planet and their admiration for her progressive policies and general “wokeness” at least verged on the sycophantic.  Mr Albanese and Mr Giles are both members of the Australian Labor Party’s (ALP) Socialist Left (or Progressive Left) faction, a label which means less than once it did and shouldn’t be taken too literally but the tribal aspect of the factionalism is as strong as ever.

The idea of dozens (literally) of violent criminals being released into the community whereas prior to MD-99 they would have been deported created a furore and not even the usual suspects felt it wise to leap to a defence of the policy.  Following the manual, Mr Giles for a few toughed it out with the usual obfuscation but seldom has the tactic sounded so unconvincing.  He was defended (at least to the extent of not being sacked) by the prime minister which really he was compelled to do because it would have been his instruction to Mr Giles which resulted in MD-99.  Mr Albanese also stuck to the manual, having the department trawl the archives so he could quote instances of criminals being released into the community a decade-odd earlier when Mr Dutton was immigration minister.  Unlike the Nuremberg trial (1945-1946), there was no International Military Tribunal (IMT) to deny use of the tu quoque defense.

Andrew Giles, House of Representatives, Canberra, Australia, May 2024.

However, after a few days it became obvious deniability was never going to become plausible and the issue couldn’t be spun out of the media cycle.  Mr Albanese announced MD-99 would be dumped, replaced by the overriding direction that “…community safety must be considered the top priority in deciding whether to allow someone to remain in Australia”.  Mr Giles said the new direction would “…ensure the protection of the community outweighs any other consideration", adding this had always been the government's “highest priority”.  Neither Mr Albanese nor Mr Giles have commented on the tone of their discussions behind closed doors and it’s assumed an account is unlikely to appear in any memoir either may write.