On the brink of war

by Ben Soton

Precipice: Robert Harris, Penguin, London 2024, 464 pp, Hbk £22:00;Pbk £9.99

In late Edwardian London there were twelve postal deliveries a day; I learnt this from reading Precipice, Robert Harris’ latest thriller. It focuses on the affair between the Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, and the aristocratic socialite Venetia Stanley.  It also provides an insight on the belle époque of a ruling class heading for Armageddon.  
The relationship between “Squiffy” Asquith and Venetia is by no means a Donald Trump; Stormy Daniels affair.  It consists of little more than afternoon drives and the occasional touching of hands.  However the affair soon arouses suspicion when it is discovered that Asquith has been sharing sensitive government documents with Ms Stanley.  As a result the Security Services send Detective Sergeant Paul Deemer to investigate.  Deemer plays the role of the honest everyman obtaining a glimpse into a highly elite world and it eventually transpires that the motives of his superiors are far from honest.  
 Asquith is depicted as a man out of his depth, as well as being in a loveless marriage with his wife Margot.  As a result he seeks advice on matters of state from a twenty-seven-year-old socialite, with almost no knowledge of matters of state.  As his government stumbles from one crisis to another, Asquith faces numerous plots and squabbles from those around him.  The novel starts with the inability of the Asquith government to deal the reactionary Ulster Unionists who were blocking Home-Rule in Ireland; meanwhile as Europe drifts to war new problems emerge, putting the ‘Irish Question’ on the back burner.  
As Britain enters the European conflict, something that it had avoided for a century, new problems emerge.  The Government faces problems resulting from the shortage of munitions as well as the mess caused by Churchill’s disastrous Gallipoli campaign.  The leader of the last totally Liberal Government Asquith was forced to enter into a coalition with the Tories in 1915 and later replaced by Lloyd-George as Prime Minister in 1916. 
Meanwhile Precipice is as much a coming-of-age novel for Ms Stanley.  In Edwardian Britain it was seen as unusual for a woman to be unmarried at twenty-seven.  Although nothing sexual takes place between her and Asquith she soon comes to the conclusion that she is being used as a crux for his personal issues and failings as a politician; in other words a one-sided relationship.  It is often said that power is an aphrodisiac but in this book Asquith seems to lose what little power he had and he seems as a man reacting to events rather than shaping them.    
The author, Robert Harris, has long had a sympathy for elite politicians of the liberal or conservative kind. Notably the Roman Senator Cicero; whom he wrote a trilogy (Lustrum, Imperium and Dictator) about.  But Precipice shows the failings of liberalism as an ideology, least of all its inability to deal with crises...and that’s just for starters.