The ancient Chinese had an idea, considered by many to have been originated by the Duke of Zhou, of the necessity of a ruler to enjoy the Mandate of Heaven to rule. Explaining to a people who had only ever known rule by the Shang dynasty the rulers who overthrew them explained to the people of Shang, that if their king had not misused his power, his Mandate would not have been taken away. Eventually, as Chinese political ideas developed further, the Mandate was linked to the notion of the dynastic cycle. Disasters, severe floods or famines were considered evidence of divine repeal of the Mandate of Heaven.
The idea was important in a world where rulers were unelected, and held power dynastically. The Shang had legitimized their rule by family connections to divine power. The Shang believed that their founders were deities, and their descendants went to join them in Heaven. Heaven was thought to be very active and interfered in mysterious ways with earthly rule. The Mandate of Heaven changed the right to rule from divine legitimization to one based on just rule.
This kind of superstition, of course, may not have been something that sophisticated people in the political elite took particularly seriously, though they certainly observed all the ritual as if they held such beiefs strongly and they believed the ordinary people felt the influence of Heaven very strongly indeed. Fear that the ordinary people would rebel was an important factor in ensuring the official maintenance of this system pf beliefs, and philosphers such as Mencius, concerned with how to ensure good governance in an age of absolute, unaccountable rule, certainly endorsed these ideas.
In Britain, we do not officially adhere to a state philospohy or religion as such. However, some forms of rationalism and utilitarianism are popular in the civil service and we do have an established church, with the Queen at its head. She has never been seen as divine, nor traditonally, in a culture which did not worship ancestors, has an English king ever been considered as legitimizing his or his family's rule by family connections to divine power. Well, other than Charles I, who had his head chopped off as a result.
The rise and fall of powerful figures in the state is not seen in superstitous terms and there is no sense that divine approval is needed for say, a prime minister (who is the nearest thing we have to a traditional king in the bourgeoise republic with a hereditary figurehead that our constitutional monarchy really is) to hold power. What is required is the mandate of Parliament, which in theory reflects the will of the electorate, and hence the people as a whole.
So what, is he to make of the indistinct murmers just out of earshot, the fleeting gestures out of the corner of his prime minister's eye, when the completely powerless Queen, a mere cypher in our constitution, seems to have withrawn their complete support for the man at the helm of it all? What does it matter when a prime minister has lost the full approval of his sovereign, for whom he is the First Lord of her Treasury and this, through the subtlest of indications, gradually becomes known.
The approval of the Queen, after all, is not like the Mandate of Heaven, it is not actually required. And he may well hope and believe, or tell himself to, that the withdrawal of trust has not occurred. No, he can tell himself her support is not required. Not while a prime minster has the approval of the people, or of his party's MPs. But what if the Prime Minster is unpopular and has never faced the public at the polls - has never led his party in an election, never faced a vote to be leader of the party he leads? What does that do to his confidence in the continuation of his power and the legitimacy to rule? What does it matter when his Queen, for instance, gives his own exclusive access to her confidence to someone else.
I do not claim to know the answer to this. I am not a superstitious man. I do not know if Gordon Brown the son of the Manse, as he never stops telling us, is like that at all. He may not reflect on himself and his positon in the world. Like the Duke of Zhou, Brown does not need to believe in a concept though to use it; and as a populist politician with vestigal left/liberal credentials he may have chosen to be more interested in Obama's reflected glory for the aura of power. But what if the people think it is necessary for the Queen to have retained her trust in him. How does it affect things if some of them, for whom this may matter, feel he has lost the approval of their Queen? And how would they be told of such a thing? The Mandate of Heaven was a mysterious thing - searched for by studying auguries, casting bones, observing the skies. In England, knowing the Queen's mind is also a hard thing to do.
How would the public know that their sovereign had felt a Prime Ministers time was at an end? She would have to do something unusual, break from all the patterns of the past. Like consulting another King, a man in an office never before met in all the 57 years of her reign?
As he sits staring past his reflection on yet another long and lonely plane trip, looking out the window at the heavens in the dead of the night, contemplating the snubs, the laughter, the arguments lost, the disobedience punished, the lies told, the betrayals made, the policies adapted, the secrets guarded, the dreams that have died, recalling long forgotten disappointment, ignoring gnawing doubts, fighting, as he has for day after day the battle to stop his confidence sapping away, I wonder what it feels like for him, on his way home. To all this.
