In a recent essay for Plum Lines (“Was Wodehouse a Partisan?”, Winter 2021), I discussed how P. G. Wodehouse hit the Conservative Party with an axe throughout his adult life. While much of this writing is very funny, the humor should not distract from trying to understand the role of politics in his life and writings and its implications for his legacy.
My thesis was not that Wodehouse was a partisan who wanted to advance the Liberal or Labour parties or was “all for the Revolution.” Instead, I argued that Plum was getting his own back on the Globe, his first journalistic employer. According to Norman Murphy, this newspaper had Conservative political views, and Plum was required to write “By the Way” columns in a fashion that criticized the Liberals. Once he quit the paper and reached the literary equivalent of man’s estate, he took lighthearted revenge on the Tories for six decades.
I would not blame some readers for dropping their crumpets upon reading my essay. Wodehouse is often identified with what the journalist and historian Geoffrey Wheatcroft called “Tory England,” a land of country houses, the established church, cricket, empire, and clubs. For Plum to mock the Tories from before the Great War up through the Vietnam War serves to “complicate” (to use trendy scholarly jargon) our understanding of his writing and legacy.
Building on this previous effort, my current essay argues that we should recognize and honor Plum as a political humorist. We all know he was England’s greatest comic writer of the twentieth century, but as I will show, no small part of this humor was turned toward politics. Because we are more likely to associate Wodehouse with an escape from politics and other unpleasant realities, it is easy to overlook how this topic recurs in his writing. We may not choose to chisel “political satirist” into his well-deserved memorial at Westminster Abbey (long overdue, I might add), but his “jolly old fame” should include placement in the pantheon of British political humorists.
This essay will therefore examine the political references in his fiction. One caveat is that Wodehouse wrote about one hundred books and short-story collections, and by no means have I read them all. My findings therefore reflect my own quirky reading, as well as searching online through his out-of-copyright texts, but it does cover what is generally considered to be his most popular works—Blandings Castle, Uncle Fred, Ukridge, Mike and Psmith, the Drones Club, Mr. Mulliner, and, of course, Jeeves and Wooster.
I focus on his fiction, rather than his newspaper writing, because it is clearly his own, so any political characters and plot elements best represent the state of his knowledge and views. Gentle readers will undoubtedly recall additional political references, and I look forward to your letters to the editor rightly pointing out the startling gaps in my knowledge.
Was Wodehouse Aware of Politics?
This raises the broader question of whether Wodehouse was aware of politics. George Orwell was fairly typical when he argued for “Wodehouse’s complete lack—so far as one can judge from his printed works—of political awareness.” This was written to defend Wodehouse in the context of the Berlin radio broadcast controversy. Most fans of Wodehouse agree with Orwell that “the events of 1941 do not convict Wodehouse of anything worse than stupidity.” This is also consistent with a key reason we read Wodehouse— to escape from the real world, which includes politics. While this view of a politically ignorant Plum conveniently side-steps any potential culpability for what the Times (London) would ultimately call his Berlin “indiscretion,” it may not necessarily square with the facts.
In my previous essay, I suggested that Wodehouse knew much about politics, but it was knowledge gained largely from his work on the Globe. He was required to read the daily news and learn about politics, so he did. This did not mean that he enjoyed it, or that he maintained the same level of political awareness throughout his life. Nevertheless, his formative work in journalism undoubtedly familiarized him with the political parties, figures, and controversies of the day. If Wodehouse learned about late Victorian and Edwardian politics, and occasionally incorporated it into his subsequent stories, we should not be surprised. Plum added many elements from his real life into his fiction, so the political elements are just one dimension of this pattern. It does not mean Plum was fundamentally interested in politics, held sophisticated views, or was trying to convey partisan or ideological messages to his readers.
Nevertheless, his writing reveals an accurate understanding of politics and government. Whether a story referenced a parliamentary election, British-Irish relations, or the honours system, he described the world he knew in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While his political references can be out of date, and were written to entertain and not educate, today’s readers can learn quite a bit about the politics of the time.
Plum’s political knowledge is reminiscent of a term from media studies—the “inadvertent audience.” This was developed to describe Americans who watched TV news in the broadcast era not because they wanted to but because nothing else was on in the early evening time slots. They learned about politics, albeit unenthusiastically. In a similar way, Wodehouse learned about politics because his job required it, as well as from the everyday newspaper reading that was typical for people with his background and education. Regardless of his personal interest, he recognized good material when he saw it, and therefore sprinkled politics into his fiction throughout his career. A great writer does not need to love every element of a story, and while Wodehouse was happy to include his beloved cricket in many tales, not all fiction is autobiographical.
While the following examples are from stories set in the U.K., Wodehouse also showed an awareness of American politics, particularly the urban political machines of New York City in the early 1900s. He even wrote what might be called a crusading, anti-corruption novel, Psmith, Journalist. Given the amount of time he spent in New York, we might not be surprised that he took items from the news and used them as the foundation of a plot.
Another source of his political views is his letters, which I have not examined. An online essay by Bengt Malmberg of the Swedish Wodehouse Society discusses political references in his letters as well as examples from his fiction. Malmberg wrote that “my aim with the following analysis is to show how well informed politically Wodehouse kept himself if you read his stories and not the least his letters to his friends. Many letters have been published in Performing Flea (1953) and in Yours, Plum, a collection of letters by Francis Donaldson (1990).” He begins by citing some political references in Plum’s fiction and then argues from a reading of his letters that “during the 1930s, Wodehouse is very clear about his opinion of the political situation in the world and Europe.” Malmberg also notes that “towards the end of 1903, Wodehouse was asked to write daily poems for the front page of the Daily Express, commenting on a topical political controversy,” and he includes several examples of these writings. He also describes two essays Plum contributed to Punch before the war that parodied German leaders.
In my view, these opinions and commentary from Plum on contemporaneous politics are not overly sophisticated and do not reflect uncommon knowledge. They strike me as the reactions we would expect from a man of his background who read the newspapers and became superficially familiar with current events. In that sense, they reflect the Orwell view that “there is nothing in Wodehouse’s writings to suggest that he was better informed, or more interested in politics, than the general run of his readers.” While these letters help to rescue Plum from a one-dimensional portrayal as someone ignorant of all politics, they are consistent with claims of his naiveté in Berlin.
Malmberg ends his essay by citing Auberon Waugh’s view in Homage to P. G. Wodehouse: “Waugh is of the opinion that Wodehouse’s influence politically is his sense of the ridiculous.” He notes that “my conclusion together with Auberon Waugh and many others is that Wodehouse was really politically interested and well aware of what was going on. There are a lot of examples in his books and letters that prove that! But his aim was not to take part in politics, only to amuse.” Both Waugh and Malmberg therefore help to make the case for understanding Plum as a political humorist, a dimension that has otherwise been largely neglected.
The following paragraphs will note multiple examples of political references in Plum’s fiction, including campaigns and elections, the honours system, government, foreign policy, Ireland, fascism, socialism, and empire. In addition, my aforementioned previous Plum Lines essay discusses many of his fictional references to the political parties, which are not repeated here but also indicate his familiarity with politics.
Campaigns and Elections
The members of the Senior Conservative Club in Leave It to Psmith are described as looking like they had “dropped in after conferring with the Prime Minister at Downing Street as to the prospects at the coming by-election in the Little Wabsley Division.” This could not have been written by anyone unaware of politics.
In Pigs Have Wings, we read of “an earnest young man with political ambitions, given . . . to reading white papers and studying social conditions.” A white paper is a government document that discusses possible future legislation, not the sort of thing a politically ignorant writer would slip into a character description. The short story “The Long Arm of Looney Coote” revolves around a parliamentary campaign and shows knowledge of canvassing, political meetings, and parliamentary voting. The clearly autobiographical narrator describes the candidate as “a man who would probably spend his entire Parliamentary career in total silence, voting meekly as the Whip directed.” Wodehouse is clearly knowledgeable about the internal workings of the Westminster world.
We also read the following: “It had not been my intention originally to take any part in the by-election in the Redbridge division. . . . But two things combined to make me change my mind. The first was the fact that it occurred to me—always the keen young journalist— that there might be a couple of guineas of Interesting Bits money in it (‘How a Modern Election is Fought: Humours of the Poll’).” These revealing sentences indicate an interest in politics only as a source of story ideas and fees. Interesting Bits is a thinly-disguised Tit-Bits, the mass-circulation magazine that published Wodehouse’s “Men Who Have Missed Their Own Weddings.”
Also in Leave It to Psmith, we see in the Senior Conservative Club “little groups of serious thinkers who were discussing what Gladstone had said in ’78.” This is a remarkably informed political allusion, a reference to the start of the Midlothian campaign, a set of speeches that historians see as constituting the first modern political campaign. It led to Gladstone’s Liberals defeating Disraeli’s Conservatives in the 1880 election, and therefore to his second premiership.
Across Wodehouse’s writing career, a surprising number of characters run in parliamentary elections or are considering such an effort. These include Sir William Bruce in The White Feather, Mr. Bickersdyke in Psmith in the City, Boko Lawlor in the aforementioned “The Long Arm of Looney Coote,” Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe in Summer Lightning, Sir Gregory again in Heavy Weather, Sir Raymond Bastable in Cocktail Time, the Rev. Aubrey Upjohn in Jeeves in the Offing, and Ginger Winship in Much Obliged, Jeeves (published in the U.S. as Jeeves and the Tie That Binds).
In Jeeves in the Offing, Wodehouse makes an accurate reference to “the Conservative Association” choosing the local Tory candidate, not the sort of detail a politically ignorant writer would get right.
We cannot forget that a parliamentary election is central to the plot of Psmith in the City. Wodehouse is clearly familiar with such elections, describing the political parties, the issues under debate, political meetings, heckling, public speeches, and institutions such as the Tulse Hill Parliament.
Wealth, Politics, and the Honours System
In “Comrade Bingo,” Wodehouse reveals a practical understanding of the realities of the honours system. The title character says the following about his rich uncle, now Lord Bittlesham: “Ever since he married he’s been launching out in every direction and economising on me. I suppose that peerage cost the old devil the deuce of a sum. Even baronetcies have gone up frightfully nowadays.” As Nigel Cawthorne noted, this is a likely reference to the Lloyd George “cash for honours” scandal.
In The Gem Collector, we read of the main character’s Uncle John, who has a career realistically portrayed as “proceeding from strength to strength, now head partner, next chairman of the company into which the business had been converted, and finally a member of Parliament, silent as a wax figure, but a great comfort to the party by virtue of liberal contributions to its funds.”
In “Leave It to Jeeves,” Jeeves brings to our attention a Mr. Digby Thistleton. When his depilatory turned out to grow hair, he changed his marketing and became so rich that “Mr. Thistleton was shortly afterward elevated to the peerage for services to the Liberal party.” This pre-dated the Lloyd George honours scandal, and therefore reveals that Wodehouse was aware of this rather unseemly (but legal at the time) practice before its excesses generated outrage and led to the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act of 1925.
Government
In the anti-cricket story “How’s That, Umpire?” we see the following exchange between the unemployed Conky Biddle, who is dependent on his difficult uncle, and a girl who drove her car into said uncle:
“What sort of jobs have you tried?”
“Practically everything except Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.”
Of all the jobs in all the professions of England, for Wodehouse to slip in this obscure cabinet position (until recently, held by Michael Gove) suggests that he could hardly be ignorant of politics.
Despite such knowledge, or maybe because of it, Wodehouse had a fairly negative view of politics. In Cocktail Time, we read what may be Wodehouse’s own view of the Mother of Parliaments, put into the mouth of Lord Ickenham: “Why do you want a political career? Have you ever been in the House of Commons and taken a good square look at the inmates? As weird a gaggle of freaks and sub-humans as was ever collected in one spot. I wouldn’t mix with them for any money you could offer me.”
Thirteen years later, in Much Obliged, Jeeves, Bertie Wooster gives the following advice: “The great thing in life, Jeeves, if we wish to be happy and prosperous, is to miss as many political debates as possible.” Many of Plum’s readers have undoubtedly agreed with this sentiment.
Foreign Policy
We might also recall Wodehouse’s parodies of the pre-war invasion literature. This lucrative and alarmist genre was designed, depending on your perspective, to warn England about German aggression or to stir up war hysteria. His novellas The Swoop! and The Military Invasion of America are underrated stories that took courage to write in those times.
In the 1958 short story “The Fat of the Land,” an uncle of a Drones Club member is discussing his potential engagement to a woman from Pittsburgh, a city Wodehouse associated with rich, older, single Americans looking for their next spouse. Their relationship had encountered a bump in the road, but the uncle looks forward to the day when “our talks would be resumed in what politicians call an atmosphere of the utmost cordiality.” This phrase was new to me but sounded political, and some Googling reveals that it is from international diplomacy. It appears to be an old-fashioned construction, with most usages from the early and mid-twentieth century. In Jeeves in the Offing, Wodehouse makes mention of “the sort of banana oil that passes between statesmen at conferences conducted in an atmosphere of the utmost cordiality before they tear their whiskers off and get down to cases.”
In 1915, Wodehouse penned a humorous tribute to the thriller writer E. Phillips Oppenheim. It regretted that the onset of WWI would curtail his “International Spy” writing, as nations were no longer engaged in clandestine intrigue but actually fighting. Here is Plum’s description of a typical Oppenheim book:
You know how the Oppenheim novel starts out. As he sups at London’s most expensive and exclusive restaurant, the notice of the hero is attracted by a beautiful girl in company with a distinguished and red-ribbony sort of man. Enquiry elicits the fact that this is the French Ambassador.
Why is he in London? Nobody knows. To those in close touch with international politics his presence there is sinister. The hero returns to his hotel, thinking deeply, and stubs his toe on something soft and squdgy under the bed. It is the body of the French Ambassador. . . . At this moment there is a tap at the window, the beautiful girl enters from the fire-escape, hands the hero a sealed envelope marked “Important papers. Keep dry,” and retires. . . . In the end it turns out that the envelope contains material which, if disclosed, would inevitably plunge Europe into a general conflict.
While Plum’s essay is not fiction and does not reveal any detailed knowledge of foreign policy, it does show he was aware of the spy genre and the pre-war international jockeying for power. (Oppenheim also sounds like “just the stuff to give the troops” and I plan to start reading some of the over one hundred novels that Wikipedia says he published from 1887 to 1943.)
Ireland
Wodehouse was clearly aware of one of the most controversial topics of his time, Irish Home Rule and the British-Irish relationship. In the 1909 first U.S. edition of Love Among the Chickens, we read the following exchange between the narrator and the future son-in-law of an Irish professor:
“I think, if I were you, I should not mention Mr. Tim Healy at lunch.”
I promised that I would try to resist the temptation.
“And if you could manage not to discuss home rule—”
“I will make an effort.”
“On any other topic he will be delighted to hear your views. Chatty remarks on bimetallism would meet with his earnest attention. A lecture on what to do with the cold mutton would be welcomed. But not Ireland, if you don’t mind.”
This reveals knowledge of the overall topic, an Irish nationalist politician, and a political economy question. In the 1921 edition, Mr. Tim Healy was replaced by Sir Edward Carson, home rule was dropped in favor of a general “Ireland,” and bimetallism remains.
If the latter sounds familiar, it also made an appearance in Strand in “The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans” as part of Sherlock Holmes’s description of his brother Mycroft: “We will suppose that a minister needs information as to a point which involves the Navy, India, Canada, and the bimetallic question; he could get his separate advices from various departments upon each, but only Mycroft can focus them all, and say offhand how each factor would affect the other.” The story was republished in His Last Bow in 1917. Plum was a Sherlock Holmes fan, so perhaps he added this term as a tribute to Conan Doyle, though bimetallism was widely discussed at the time.
Fascism
Wodehouse’s most famous venture into politics was his mocking of a thinly disguised Oswald Mosley through the character of Roderick Spode. In The Code of the Woosters, we learn that Spode is an “amateur dictator” who leads a group called the Saviours of Britain, known as the “Black Shorts” because all the shirt colors had been taken by other groups.
The most political speech in all of Wodehouse’s writing is the following, which was given by Bertie Wooster when he was fed up with Spode:
“It is about time,” I proceeded, “that some public-spirited person came along and told you where you got off. The trouble with you, Spode, is that just because you have succeeded in inducing a handful of half-wits to disfigure the London scene by going about in black shorts, you think you’re someone. You hear them shouting ‘Heil, Spode!’ and you imagine it is the Voice of the People. That is where you make your bloomer. What the Voice of the People is saying is: ‘Look at that frightful ass Spode swanking about in footer bags! Did you ever in your puff see such a perfect perisher?’”
Because this episode is so starkly political, readers may see it as the exception that proves the rule. When taken together with his other political and partisan references, we might see it as representing continuity. Spode also makes it difficult to argue that Wodehouse somehow had fascist sympathies that found expression through his Berlin radio broadcasts. As Orwell noted in 1945:
It is nonsense to talk of “Fascist tendencies” in his books. There are no post-1918 tendencies at all. Throughout his work there is a certain uneasy awareness of the problem of class distinctions, and scattered through it at various dates there are ignorant though not unfriendly references to Socialism. In The Heart of a Goof . . . there is a rather silly story about a Russian novelist, which seems to have been inspired by the factional struggle then raging in the U.S.S.R. But the references in it to the Soviet system are entirely frivolous and, considering the date, not markedly hostile. That is about the extent of Wodehouse’s political consciousness, so far as it is discoverable from his writings.
In addition, as I discussed in my previous essay, Spode makes an appearance in one of Plum’s last works, Much Obliged, Jeeves. As noted above, this book features a by-election, although the Tory candidate, Ginger Winship, is more interested in changing fiancées. Roderick Spode is speaking on his behalf and is clearly a member of the House of Lords on the Tory bench. It is remarkable that Plum has turned the former fascist leader into a Tory—still hitting the party with an axe in the Nixon and Heath years.
Socialism
As Orwell indicates, the Wodehouse canon contains many references to socialism. These instances are often unnecessary to the plot, superfluous to the characterizations, and not very well informed. Most prominently, as I discussed in a previous Plum Lines essay (“Psmith, Socialist?”, Spring 2020), Wodehouse makes his sympathetic and much-loved character Rupert Psmith a socialist for no clear reason. From his school days to his young adulthood, Psmith claims to be a socialist not just to his best friend but also to a series of consequential people ranging from a hostile bank boss to a woman he hopes to marry. He does so with humor and perhaps not much understanding of socialism, but his views are a sustained character trait across several novels published from 1909 to 1923. At a time of communist revolutions abroad and socialist agitation at home, this is a remarkable yet superfluous introduction of controversial politics into his comedy.
In Psmith in the City, not only is Psmith a socialist but so is longtime New Asiatic Bank employee Mr. Waller. The latter not only believes in the cause but gives public speeches in Clapham Common, risking the opprobrium and brickbats of the local toughs. Both his ideas and his style are noted, which may have been adapted from real-life speakers Wodehouse saw at Hyde Park Corner, which makes an appearance in “Comrade Bingo.” We learn that Mr. Waller “crouched to denounce the House of Lords. He bounded from side to side while dissecting the methods of the plutocrats. During an impassioned onslaught on the monarchial system he stood on one leg and hopped.”
The plot of “Comrade Bingo” revolves around a socialist revolutionary group, the Heralds of the Red Dawn. They seek to “massacre the bourgeoisie, sack Park Lane, and disembowel the hereditary aristocracy.” It is a remarkably political story, even if readers are tempted to focus on the inappropriate romantic enthusiasms of Bingo Little. He wants to marry the daughter of the group leader, Rowbotham, and to advance this goal, he invites them to lunch at Bertie’s apartment. Rowbotham asks Bertie, “Do you yearn for the Revolution?” Bertie responds, “Well, I don’t know that I exactly yearn. I mean to say, as far as I can make out, the whole nub of the scheme seems to be to massacre coves like me; and I don’t mind owning I’m not frightfully keen on the idea.” A group member who is jealous of Bingo eats heartily at first but afterwards denounces the proceedings: “I wonder the food didn’t turn to ashes in our mouths. Eggs! Muffins! Sardines! All wrung from the bleeding lips of the starving poor!”
Bingo also gives a speech at Hyde Park that includes the following mocking of Bertie and Lord Bittlesham: “There you see two typical members of the class which has downtrodden the poor for centuries. Idlers! Nonproducers! Look at the tall thin one with the face like a motor-mascot. Has he ever done an honest day’s work in his life? No! A prowler, a trifler, and a bloodsucker! And I bet he still owes his tailor for those trousers!”
In The Intrusion of Jimmy (UK title A Gentleman of Leisure), we read that “a burglar is only a practical Socialist. People talk a lot about the redistribution of wealth. The burglar goes out and does it.” In Something Fresh, it appears in the context of discussing how juries are biased in favor of plaintiffs in breach-of-promise cases because of “all this socialism rampant.”
In “Came the Dawn,” we meet the impoverished poet Lancelot Mulliner, who asks Lord Biddlecombe for the hand of his daughter Angela. Before throwing him out, the aristocrat attempts to sell him a miscellany of items, including an “ingenious little mousetrap and pencil sharpener.” Lancelot reflects that “[m]any of the aristocracy . . . had been forced into similar commercial enterprises by recent legislation of a harsh and Socialistic trend.” This likely refers to increases in the income tax (to 30% by the time of writing) and estate tax (to 40%), which may explain why Lord Biddlecombe needed every shilling.
In another story, “Archibald and the Masses,” we read of the temporary socialism of Mr. Mulliner’s nephew Archibald. He is converted by his valet, a member of a socialist group who hopes to hasten the revolution and bring about “massacres and all that.” But socialism makes Archibald gloomy, and he has trouble enjoying a party because “I don’t think a chap ought to be dancing at a time when the fundamental distribution of whatever-it-is is so dashed what-d’you-call-it.” The nephew also mentions that Stalin, James Maxton, and Sidney Webb, three prominent figures of the times, wouldn’t dance either. He then tries to visit the “martyred proletariat” in the East End and give bread to what he thinks is a needy child, but the child, wanting candy, throws the bread back at him and “strikes a vicious blow on the nape of the neck.” After other misunderstandings, Archibald loses his love for the masses.
In A Damsel in Distress, socialism makes two appearances, one upstairs and one downstairs. For the former, we learn that “the hatred which some of his order feel for Socialists and Demagogues Lord Marshmoreton kept for rose-slugs, rose-beetles and the small, yellowish-white insect which is so depraved and sinister a character that it goes through life with an alias—being sometimes called a rose-hopper and sometimes a thrip.” The butler has opposite views, however: “It was, indeed, an open secret among the upper servants at the castle, and a fact hinted at with awe among the lower, that Keggs was at heart a Socialist.” Might this suggest that Blandings’ Beach was likewise a socialist?
In Service with a Smile, pig-man George Wellbeloved and secretary du jour Lavender Briggs both hold views that are “strongly communistic.” We also learn that Wellbeloved gained his broken nose by expounding such views at the Emsworth Arms. Nevertheless, Miss Briggs wishes to become a capitalist entrepreneur by setting up her own typewriting business, which may speak to the vagueness of political ideology in the Wodehouse canon.
Eugenics
I am grateful to members of the P. G. Wodehouse listserv PGWnet for discussing (not at my suggestion) The Coming of Bill / Their Mutual Child, a book I have not read. The thread points out that eugenics is a key part of the plot, and that reviewers of the time noted this aspect. For example, the New York Tribune found that it “pokes a lot of fun at Eugenics” and the Evening Missourian said that “riotous fun is poked at eugenics.”
The story is not considered a comedy classic today. Nevertheless, it made fun of a controversial contemporaneous topic, and we might consider it similar in this way to The Code of the Woosters. Both books took courage to write, although whether this dawned on Plum at the time is unclear. Eugenics is not a funny subject—it was associated with immigration restriction and forced sterilization—but neither is fascism, and Plum mocked both.
Empire
Lastly, we should recall the many ways in which the British Empire plays a role in Wodehouse’s stories. These references seem so natural in the Edwardian context that we pay them little attention, yet they certainly come under the heading of politics and government. To take one example, the opening line of the short story “Ukridge Rounds a Nasty Corner” describes a former colonial governor: “The late Sir Rupert Lakenheath, K.C.M.G., C.B., M.V.O., was one of those men at whom their countries point with pride.” This shows an understanding of the honours system and, specifically, the types of decorations a colonial governor might receive.
Norman Murphy observed that “empire builders occur frequently in Wodehouse because they were part of his world in which he grew up. . . . He was born into an ‘Imperial’ family. . . . Seven of Wodehouse’s immediate family were Colonial civil servants (his father, his brother, five uncles) as were innumerable cousins.” These included everyone from a governor of Bombay to the last British resident commissioner in the Kingdom of Hawaii.
Plum’s father received the CMG, which is the third class of the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George, and just a tier below Sir Rupert’s KCMG. This decoration was primarily for those who served the nation and empire abroad. Another family example is his older cousin Sir Philip Edmond Wodehouse, a colonial administrator who was governor of the Cape Colony and then Bombay. He received the CB (Companion of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath) in 1860, was promoted to KCB (Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath) in 1862, and received the now-defunct GCSI (Knight Grand Commander of the Most Exalted Order of the Star of India) in 1876.
Plum’s knowledge of empire may therefore have derived from this family background rather than an interest in current events. Again, we might see this as knowledge he absorbed from his everyday life rather than actively sought.
Conclusion
These familiar stories not only entertain but also indicate that Plum knew much about politics and government. Taken together with the many references to the political parties discussed in my prior essay, they reveal him to be a political humorist of the first water.
Such references go well beyond the famous episode of Spode and the Black Shorts. Whether the topic was elections, parliament, Ireland, or empire, Wodehouse was not only familiar with many aspects of politics but knew the topic well enough to parody it. It takes knowledge to effectively make fun of something (or someone), and a politically ignorant writer could not have written these passages and created these characters.
An important caveat is that this knowledge is focused on late Victorian and Edwardian politics, which likely reflects his early work in journalism rather than a personal interest in the subject. In addition, while Plum is knowledgeable about many aspects of politics, he would have been a fish out of water in the world of Westminster. Can we imagine him as an MP? Robert McCrum referred to his “innate lack of political awareness,” and I do not see Plum as a “political junkie” with sophisticated views. Had he been one, we might interpret his Berlin radio broadcasts not as “a looney thing to do” but as something far more serious.
In sum, let us thank whatever gods may be that Plum gave us a chance to laugh at politics, that necessary evil of human existence. If we could not laugh, we would cry, and I am grateful that he provides yet one more way for us to endure, and occasionally to enjoy, the shenanigans of our fellow humans.
This essay is reprinted with permission from Plum Lines: The Quarterly Journal of The Wodehouse Society.
References
Cawthorne, Nigel. 2013. A Brief Guide to Jeeves and Wooster. Philadelphia: Running Press.
Leal, David L. 2021. “Was Wodehouse a Partisan?” Plum Lines: The Quarterly Journal of The Wodehouse Society, v42(4): 12-17.
Leal, David L. 2020. “Psmith: Psocialist?” Plum Lines: The Quarterly Journal of The Wodehouse Society, v41(1): 5-8.
Malmberg, Bengt. 2014. “The Political P.G. Wodehouse.” https://wodehouseforskning.weebly.com/uploads/2/5/4/2/25425413/the_political_wodehouse_febr_2014.pdf
McCrum, Robert. 2006. Wodehouse: A Life. New York: Norton.
Wheatcroft, Geoffrey. 2005. The Strange Death of Tory England. London: Allen Lane/Penguin.
