This was not a continent caught up in the celebrity-driven modishness of today’s Britannia, where fatuous hyperbole is king, but one struggling against autocracy. Anarchy was a creed of idealists and zealots seeking a better world, who believed government as then constituted was positively harmful, not of pop stars in pursuit of a headline.
The names of its heroes are half-forgotten now. There was the exiled Russian Mikhail Bakunin who wrote that “the passion for destruction is a creative urge” and whose vision was a collectivist utopia: Communism in that word’s original and soon-abandoned sense. But destruction also meant the destruction of people, and among Bakunin’s disciples was the Italian Enrico Malatesta who believed in the “propaganda of the deed” – what we today call terrorism. Violent anarchism’s heyday came in the closing decades of the 19th century. In 1881 the “Will of the People” revolutionary group murdered the reforming Tsar Alexander II.

Elizabeth, Empress of Austria followed in 1896, the Spanish prime minister a year later. Finally, in 1900, the emigrant Bresci, sent by an Italian anarchist group in the United States, shot dead King Umberto I.The anarchist doctrine had other, more peaceful schools, but as the 20th century progressed, it has faded as a coherent movement. Not his name, Donbert Nobacon, though that is strange enough, nor his garish dress, but the epithet attached to him Mr Nobacon calls himself an “anarchist” If he is, anarchism ain’t what it used to be

For once upon a time, it was a serious matter indeed. Not so much in Britain – although Joseph Conrad based his tale of the attempted bombing of Greenwich Observatory in The Secret Agent on a historical event – but in Europe, where in the 19th century anarchism was a small but noble strand in the turmoil of the age. Glance at the man, too, and you might suspect he’s launched the odd tomato or rotten egg from a picket-line in his time A case, then, you might say, of the eau juste What caught my attention, however, was his assailant. IT IS hard to feel very sorry for even a drenched John Prescott. Sure, no one enjoys having a bucket of cold water poured over them, but Deputy Prime Ministers of a certain age, girth and self-importance have no business attending the celebratory romps of rock stars and expecting to be treated like royalty.

The revelation last week that the US was resisting access to some of its chemical weapons sites, and has denied entry to Iranian and Cuban inspectors, will only fuel more conspiracy theories about its motives and those of its supine ally, Britain.. A black friend rang me, immediately after the Princess’s death, and opened the conversation with the blunt question: “So who do you think killed her?” She is unshakeable in her conviction that MI5, MI6 or some other shadowy intelligence agency would not allow the Princess to marry an Arab, and that the crash was engineered by someone who escaped in the missing Fiat Uno.I don’t believe any of this for a moment, but such rumours flourish against a background of double standards, in an atmosphere of deep cynicism engendered by Britain’s insistence on punishing Iraq for violations of UN resolutions while ignoring serious breaches elsewhere. Mohammed Al-Fayed’s claim that the car carrying his son Dodi and Princess Diana was forced off the road in a conspiracy involving British intelligence has been dismissed by French police. It is as self-serving as Mr Fayed’s assertion that the Princess uttered dying words about the possessions she had left in Dodi’s Paris flat.It is impossible, however, to escape the knowledge that some version of this conspiracy theory is widely believed, right across the Middle East and even in Britain. He once tried to acquire Warner Brothers, the Hollywood studio, but was thwarted by the nimble financial footwork of the Warner chairman, Steven Ross.

The Australian bruiser’s reaction amounted to a succinct statement of the Murdoch philosophy: “Someone can beat you up or run you over, but if you don’t give them a few bruises in return, they can do it to the next person who comes along … These are perfectly legal devices and because he operates in more than 50 countries it is hard for the authorities to keep track of his ploys.Defeats of his ambitions are rare, and they rankle. This kind of activism is out of fashion but new Labour needs to understand that the consequences of war in the Gulf are unpredictable, and may even rebound where it really hurts – on Mr Blair’s personal popularity.AS IT happens, we’ve already been reminded this week of one of the effects of Britain’s partisan policy in the Middle East. It isn’t too late to speak out, to hold meetings and lobby MPs. So it is worth pointing out that war is imminent, but has not yet begun. It may also be that his ministers’ apparent impotence reflects a feeling in the country that the war machine is rolling, and can’t be stopped. An impression is gaining ground that the hallmark of Mr Blair’s administration is factional fighting between ministers, conducted in a sullen atmosphere of leaks and smears, rather than vigorous political debate.It’s a far cry from the relaxed, informal atmosphere Mr Blair was supposed to have encouraged at his first Cabinet meetings.

Bearing in mind the strength of the case against war with Iraq, the fact that no one was prepared to stand up to Mr Blair suggests that he exerts a presidential-style dominance over his Cabinet. This may, incidentally, explain Clare Short’s decision to air her grievance against another, unnamed minister on television this weekend. Force is the only thing that may move Saddam,” a source said afterwards. I’m not clear whether this means that decent people such as Clare Short, Chris Smith and Mo Mowlam actively support bombing raids or whether they feel the decision is out of their hands, taken by Mr Blair and Mr Clinton in Washington 10 days ago.Whatever lies behind their acquiescence, I find it profoundly shocking. Or a sophisticated computer game, with incidental music by Prodigy and The Verve.This certainly seems to be the view of ministers, who devoted most of Thursday’s Cabinet meeting to a discussion of the war – 40 minutes out of a meeting lasting three-quarters of an hour, apparently – and gave Tony Blair their unanimous backing “No one spoke against it.