A Warning from Harry Potter

I have been reading the Harry Potter series to my nephew over the last few months. Famously, JK Rowling was always seen as being on the “left”. Recent trans debates have had people posing her as far right, but this is nonsense: she voted for the Communist Party in the last election, supported Labour in the past, and has always championed traditional left-wing causes.

Her novels display a contempt for the rich. The side of the good tends to be represented by characters from poor backgrounds. The Weasley family live in a “ramble down house” and has no money. Lily (Harry’s mother) and Snape grew up in a clearly working-class town: “He lives here, in this Muggle dung hill” is Bellatrix’s swipe when visiting Snape’s house.

While the antiheros are represented by the rich, the monied Malfoys live in a mansion, Cormac McLaggen is a posh boy with many influential friends, and Tom Riddle (Voldemort), although he grew up in an orphanage, comes from a well-to-do muggle family.

“Nobody wasted their breath pretending to feel very sad about the Riddles, for they had been most unpopular. Elderly Mr. and Mrs. Riddle had been rich, snobbish, and rude, and their grown-up son, Tom, had been, if anything, worse.”

The left remains insistent that “big government” is the answer to society ills. However, has Rowling, unwittingly perhaps, given us a warning against big government and its proclivity to descend into tyranny? The Ministry of Magic is a behemoth, governing every function of the wizarding world. It approves what spells may be used rather than what spells may not be used. It tracks anyone doing magic who is underage, regulates magical creature breeding, controls methods of travel, and records every prophecy ever made. They lack an impartial media, and their judicial process is shaky. I dread to think of the tax burden for poor witches and wizards; the only saving grace appears to be an independent banking sector and a stable currency.

During the benign years, the ministry was held in reasonable regard. Molly Weasley was keen for her sons to go and work there. But as time passed, Cornelius Fudge was quick to weaponise all levers of government to quash dissent when Dumbledore warned of Voldemort coming back. He further regulated the school, turned the judiciary against his enemies, used government officials to track innocent people, and banned the press from printing unfavourable stories.

“All right, Fudge is leaning on the Prophet, but it comes to the same thing. They won’t print a story that shows Harry in a good light. Nobody wants to read it.”

It didn’t get much better when Rufus Scrimgeour took over. He locked up people without a trial all while further upping regulation and control. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and apply the old lockdown principle to their actions – they were just doing it to keep everyone “safe”: of course you need big government control; there’s an evil despot on the loose.

But once in control, that despot used all those existing levers of government to enact his tyranny: “The cue has been so swift, nobody has noticed”. Once in power, he didn’t have to enact many new laws. He had all the laws he needed. Time to use them against opponents.

Big government, overregulation, a surveillance state, and unnecessary laws are bad at the best of times, but once in place make the life of a tyrant easy. Sir Keir has already used many of the existing levers of power to enact his tyranny over the British population. He has imprisoned people for innocuous speech, hindered the ability of MP’s to communicate with their constituents, and his judges actively thwart the will of the people. Let me remind you, he has done all this with existing laws – thanks so-called “Conservatives”.

This idea that elites know better than individuals is a pernicious ideology. Even in times of “emergency” it is best that individuals know what is best for their lives. So, whoever makes up the next government, they must heed Rowling’s hidden warnings.