If Ringo Starr thought politicians were dawdling about Brexit back in 2017, think how frustrated he must be now as the effort to liberate Britain from the European Union drags on and on.
It was two years ago that the one-time drummer for the popular and well-regarded band known as The Beatles gave an interview to a TV program called BBC Newsnight. A clip from that show recently turned up online. It consists of Ringo expressing his support for Brexit. It includes this concise bit of political philosophy: “I think it’s a great move. I think, you know, to be in control of your own country is a good move.”
Some phony outrage was expressed in that hotbed of phony outrage, social media. But Ringo’s detractors found it challenging to manufacture a relentless online hate against someone who spends most days cheerfully repeating the words, “Peace and love.”
Adding a degree of difficulty to those trying to rile up an electronic mob was the audacious simplicity of Ringo’s argument: “The people voted, and they have to get on with it. Suddenly it’s like, ‘Oh, well we don’t like that vote.’ What do you mean you didn’t like that vote? You had the vote, this is what won, let’s get on with it.”
Ringo has always been an instinctual conservative, though he likely wouldn’t describe himself that way. Indeed, he once declared, “All governments are the same, Labour or Tory. Neither of them offers me anything.” But no superannuated anarchist is Richard Starkey. He just doesn’t trust the government to do anything that isn’t an essential government function. And even then he’s dubious.
Here’s Ringo on public transportation, as told to Beatles biographer Hunter Davies: “I was in the car yesterday going to town, and I passed five Number 7 buses, one lined up behind the other, all with just two people on. Why couldn’t they all be on one bus?”
Here’s Ringo on the nationalization of Britain’s railroad system: “The railways made profits when the were private firms, didn’t they?”
And here’s Ringo bringing the themes together: “Buses, trains. None of them work. Everything the government does turns to crap, not gold.” Milton Friedman couldn’t have put it better.
Ringo had reason to be bitter. Those comments were from before he went looking for a tax haven, which was a search necessitated by British taxes that were north of 90%. “The Government takes too much in taxes,” Starr complained. “There’s no initiative, you get taxed right through life. When they’ve left nobody rich, no one will have any money to give the government.” That’s as profound an analysis of the economics of entitlements as you’re ever likely to get.
I was thinking of Ringo and buses the other day. I wished there were five buses all lined up, but actually, I was hoping for just a single, solitary D6 bus so I could get home from downtown. Now and then, a 16Y came by. There was a steady stream of empty buses plying an express route labeled “Out of Service.” But no D6. Nonetheless, I count myself lucky. The temperature had fallen from 91 to 90. And the D6 did finally turn up, only a half an hour late.
I somehow doubt that the D6 will run any closer to schedule on sweltering afternoons after Bernie Sanders has overhauled the fleet with electric buses. The Vermont senator proposes spending some $400 billion on battery-powered conveyances should he get elected president.
If Bernie wins, that will pose a conundrum for those of us drawn to Ringoism. On the one hand, we will have the vote of the people to just get on with; and on the other, we will have the ruinous prospect of taxes so high that there won’t be anyone rich left to tax. We’ll see. Because as in one of those left-handed phrases Ringo has been famous for, tomorrow never knows.
Eric Felten is the James Beard Award-winning author of How’s Your Drink?
