Introducing the Queen’s speech, AKA the beginning of the Conservative election campaign, Boris Johnson this week promised a “momentous new environment bill – a lodestar by which we will guide our country towards a cleaner and greener future”. But what is a lodestar, and can it be momentous?
In middle English, “load” or “lode” had the sense of a road or path, or something that guides you down the right path. Hence a “loadstone” or “lodestone” is a stone that shows the way: a magnet, as used in a mariner’s compass. So, too, a “lodestar” is a guiding star, most often (in the northern hemisphere) the Pole or North star.
Sceptics might remember that David Cameron promised to lead “the greenest government ever” before reportedly instructing aides to “get rid of all the green crap” in energy bills. Perhaps by invoking a “lodestar”, Johnson wishes to give the impression of a hitherto unsuspected trustworthiness. “I am constant as the northern star,” says Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, “Of whose true-fixed and resting quality / There is no fellow in the firmament.” To draw a contrast between Caesar and our present leader may be left as an exercise for the reader.
• Steven Poole’s A Word for Every Day of the Year is published by Quercus.
