Earlier this week, I read a remark on Twitter about how long it seems to be taking for the post-election Tory-DUP voting arrangement to be agreed. The poster mused that if we were in the same situation with a proposed deal between Labour and the SNP dragging on and on – leaving the country effectively without a stable government in the meantime – the press would be all over it! I think he's right, and I think the Tories are being given far more leeway on this matter than Labour would be afforded in similar circumstances.
But the implied conclusion – that our media (and our society) harbours an inherent bias towards the Conservatives – doesn't really hold water, for me. What we are seeing here is not an intentional skewing of the playing field, or weighting of the dice, but simply the potency of our own preconceptions.
Reputations are powerful things. The general perception of the Tories is that they are competent and efficient governors, and utterly heartless bastards. You have only to look at the reactions to the Conservative Party manifesto last month to see how this impacts on reporting; by and large, they get away with including no costing details for their policies at all, because it is assumed that they're Tories so they know what they're doing with money – whilst they get hammered in the press for even the slightest hint of heartlessness and bastardness, like the so-called 'dementia tax' (the intentions of which were actually rather more noble than you think – to reduce intergenerational inequality).
On the other side of the coin, Labour have so much farther to go to prove themselves fiscally responsible, thanks to an ingrained reputation for profligacy (which, it can be argued, has not always been entirely deserved). And yet, Labour politicians can get away with some things their Conservative counterparts could never hope to…
I am constantly baffled, for example, how the odious Labour MP John McDonnell has managed to remain in the senior job of Shadow Chancellor for as long as he has. McDonnell is a thug and a bully who not only makes excuses for violence and rioting, but actively praises and encourages it. He is to the left what Tommy Robinson is to the right – and I know beyond doubt that he would not be able to stay in such a high-ranking position within the party if he were Conservative, rather than a Labour MP.
But McDonnell is Labour. They're the nice ones, right? Not great with money, maybe – but they mean well, and at least they care about people… So his inflammatory rhetoric and his incitements to violence – his descriptions of recent riots in London as 'the best of our movement' – are given a pass, when they surely would not be if they came from a right-winger.
McDonnell's recent calls for a 'Day Of Rage' and for 'a million people on the streets' to force out the government are dog whistles to violence and insurrection; the term 'Day Of Rage' is even borrowed from his boss Jeremy Corbyn's 'friends' in Hamas.
Controversial right-wing broadcaster Katie Hopkins (deservedly) lost her job at LBC radio after tweeting about jihadist terrorism using the phrase 'final solution' – an expression synonymous with the atrocities of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. But Labour's Shadow Chancellor can employ the vernacular of an organisation designated on the EU's terrorism blacklist – whose constitution, until earlier this year, explicitly called for jihad and the killing of jews – and not even be asked to apologise.
McDonnell's 'joke' about Esther McVey – 'Why aren't we lynching the bitch?' – during a former election campaign, for which he refused to apologise, was condemned by prominent members of his own party as 'atrocious' 'misogynistic' 'vitriol'. This alone would've been enough to see a Tory MP forced to resign his position; the Shadow Chancellor escapes with barely a scratch, yet again.
By any reasonable assessment, John McDonnell is a truly nasty piece of work. The fact that he is still allowed to retain a high-profile shadow cabinet job – even after all his incitements to rioting and 'lynching', and using the language of terrorists – is testament to the strength of people's perceptions of Labour politicians – even when they get things wrong – as fundamentally good, well-intentioned, kind-hearted people. And that's how he gets away with it.
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Friday, 23 June 2017
Wednesday, 23 November 2016
This Machine Calls Fascists
“Stop using cuddly terms like ‘alt-right’, and call them what they are! They’re Nazis! That’s what they are! Actual Nazis!”
There’s a lot of this around at the moment – referring to the current populist right-wing movement in America, which is partly to thank (or to blame, depending on your perspective) for the recent election of Donald Trump as American President.
“Call things what they are,” goes the argument, “don’t be fooled. Say the name, and you are one step closer to slaying the beast!” Unfortunately, I remain unconvinced; I don’t think it is quite as easy as that. Because, unpleasant as they are, I don’t believe that today’s ‘alt-right’ truly are Nazis, in the traditional sense.
It is absolutely correct to look at Donald Trump and his alt-right followers and see more than just echoes of the European fascist movements of the 1940s. There are big similarities there, it would be totally wrong to deny that. But there are also some interesting differences – which those who claim to prize truth and transparency over kid-gloved euphemising somehow never mention.
In an excellent article for Vox.com, Dylan Matthews interviews five experts on fascism, and explains why the label still doesn’t quite fit Trump and his cadre. Although plenty is ‘borrowed’ from fascism by the exponents of the new alt-right movement, notably absent (so far, at least) has been any desire for palingenetic abolition of society’s democratic institutions (I believe the contempt in which ‘the establishment’ is held in alt-right circles is a nod to this, but certainly nowhere near fascistic enough as to count). Similarly, there is a definite lack of what Matthews describes as a Sorelian "valorization [sic] of violence", in which violence for its own sake is considered virtuous or life-affirming.
I also think there are marked strategic differences. Nazism, in the old sense, had a particular way of doing things; the alt-right have adapted to a world where – thanks to the internet, social media, twenty-four-hour rolling television news, etc. – the media is unrecognisably different from when Hitler’s Nazis were on the march. It is not possible to be an old-style Nazi in a world like this; even when there is a crossover with true Nazis in the beliefs or the aims of today’s alt-right, their approach to realising those aims is very un-fascist.
Roger Griffin, author of The Nature Of Fascism, and professor of history and political theory at Oxford Brookes University, is quoted in Matthews’ article as saying “You can be a total xenophobic racist male chauvinist bastard and still not be a fascist.” This, for me, sums up Donald Trump and the alt-right; they may be appalling far-right populists, but they don’t quite fit the definition of actual Nazis.
What’s interesting to me, however, is how insistent some people seem to be that we do call them Nazis.
There is a compulsion to define everything in our world by what we already know. To look through our history books, and say “See? This is like that! These people are those people. They must be…” But this is not like that; our societies and our understanding have changed beyond all recognition from the fervour of the 1930s and the 1940s in which fascism thrived. And even if they share some of the same aims, these people are not those people. They have a different approach to the world. That is not to say that they are not dangerous people, or that we do not live in turbulent and troubling times – but it is not the same.
If the alt-right movement – despite certain similarities with ‘old-school’ Nazism – is a new phenomenon, then it is right that it should have a new name. Possibly ‘alt-right’ still isn’t the best term to use, since it seems to sanitise and normalise the repugnant attitudes of the sect – but then, neither is an ill-fitting descriptor from seventy or eighty years ago, and half a world away.
Whatever we call the movement, it would help if we could try to define it fairly soon. The alt-right is in the ascension, emboldened by Donald Trump’s electoral triumph, and the accompanying increase in media coverage. Is it not possible that the rise of the alt-right could be at least partly due to the fact that they are looking forwards and forging something new, whilst the rest of us look back, rifling through history texts in the hope of finding the correct nomenclature?
Yes, language does matter. So why make do with an historical term which only sort-of fits, to describe a new political faction which has its own distinctive characteristics? The alt-right isn’t just Nazism with a new haircut; in fact, it isn’t quite like anything we’ve seen before. Personally, I think we need to acknowledge that, if we are going to defeat it.
There’s a lot of this around at the moment – referring to the current populist right-wing movement in America, which is partly to thank (or to blame, depending on your perspective) for the recent election of Donald Trump as American President.
Post-truth = lying— Dan Brown (@brownorama) November 20, 2016
Fake news = propaganda
Alt-right = white supremacy
Prevent double-speak.
Use the correct words.
“Call things what they are,” goes the argument, “don’t be fooled. Say the name, and you are one step closer to slaying the beast!” Unfortunately, I remain unconvinced; I don’t think it is quite as easy as that. Because, unpleasant as they are, I don’t believe that today’s ‘alt-right’ truly are Nazis, in the traditional sense.
It is absolutely correct to look at Donald Trump and his alt-right followers and see more than just echoes of the European fascist movements of the 1940s. There are big similarities there, it would be totally wrong to deny that. But there are also some interesting differences – which those who claim to prize truth and transparency over kid-gloved euphemising somehow never mention.
In an excellent article for Vox.com, Dylan Matthews interviews five experts on fascism, and explains why the label still doesn’t quite fit Trump and his cadre. Although plenty is ‘borrowed’ from fascism by the exponents of the new alt-right movement, notably absent (so far, at least) has been any desire for palingenetic abolition of society’s democratic institutions (I believe the contempt in which ‘the establishment’ is held in alt-right circles is a nod to this, but certainly nowhere near fascistic enough as to count). Similarly, there is a definite lack of what Matthews describes as a Sorelian "valorization [sic] of violence", in which violence for its own sake is considered virtuous or life-affirming.
I also think there are marked strategic differences. Nazism, in the old sense, had a particular way of doing things; the alt-right have adapted to a world where – thanks to the internet, social media, twenty-four-hour rolling television news, etc. – the media is unrecognisably different from when Hitler’s Nazis were on the march. It is not possible to be an old-style Nazi in a world like this; even when there is a crossover with true Nazis in the beliefs or the aims of today’s alt-right, their approach to realising those aims is very un-fascist.
Roger Griffin, author of The Nature Of Fascism, and professor of history and political theory at Oxford Brookes University, is quoted in Matthews’ article as saying “You can be a total xenophobic racist male chauvinist bastard and still not be a fascist.” This, for me, sums up Donald Trump and the alt-right; they may be appalling far-right populists, but they don’t quite fit the definition of actual Nazis.
What’s interesting to me, however, is how insistent some people seem to be that we do call them Nazis.
There is a compulsion to define everything in our world by what we already know. To look through our history books, and say “See? This is like that! These people are those people. They must be…” But this is not like that; our societies and our understanding have changed beyond all recognition from the fervour of the 1930s and the 1940s in which fascism thrived. And even if they share some of the same aims, these people are not those people. They have a different approach to the world. That is not to say that they are not dangerous people, or that we do not live in turbulent and troubling times – but it is not the same.
If the alt-right movement – despite certain similarities with ‘old-school’ Nazism – is a new phenomenon, then it is right that it should have a new name. Possibly ‘alt-right’ still isn’t the best term to use, since it seems to sanitise and normalise the repugnant attitudes of the sect – but then, neither is an ill-fitting descriptor from seventy or eighty years ago, and half a world away.
Whatever we call the movement, it would help if we could try to define it fairly soon. The alt-right is in the ascension, emboldened by Donald Trump’s electoral triumph, and the accompanying increase in media coverage. Is it not possible that the rise of the alt-right could be at least partly due to the fact that they are looking forwards and forging something new, whilst the rest of us look back, rifling through history texts in the hope of finding the correct nomenclature?
Yes, language does matter. So why make do with an historical term which only sort-of fits, to describe a new political faction which has its own distinctive characteristics? The alt-right isn’t just Nazism with a new haircut; in fact, it isn’t quite like anything we’ve seen before. Personally, I think we need to acknowledge that, if we are going to defeat it.
Thursday, 14 July 2016
Disgruntled Liberal Democrats, have a word with yourselves
Theresa May cites same-sex marriage & taking lowest-paid out of tax altogether as Cameron's legacy... pic.twitter.com/rJ46LvwRU5— Rachel (@underthenettle) July 13, 2016
Plenty of this going around at the moment. As David Cameron steps down as Prime Minister after six years at Number 10, his one-time coalition partners are clearly feeling a little left out.
In one sense, of course, this is entirely understandable; these things were Liberal Democrat manifesto promises, which were then delivered in government – they absolutely should take credit for making these policies happen. But so should David Cameron. After all, how far would these policies have got if the Lib Dems had tried to implement them on their own?
I have written before that I think the Lib Dems were very unfairly treated at last year's general election, and that history will generally be a lot kinder to Nick Clegg and his party's time in office than were the confused and angry public who seemingly couldn't get their heads around what 'coalition government' was actually all about. But now, it is those same Lib Dems who seem to want to claim sole credit for government achievements between 2010-15; this is also not how coalition government works.
Ultimately, Cameron was the Prime Minister whose (coalition) government enacted policies like same-sex marriage. It happened under his watch, and with his backing. His actions as the leader of a coalition government will form a part of his legacy as Prime Minister; they will also form a part of Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats' legacy, too – after all, the same thing can appear in more than one legacy. Trying to take credit away from Cameron for a policy like same-sex marriage is as churlish as to try and take credit away from Clegg – it would not, after all, have happened without either of them.
Another 'achievement' of the coalition administration was the Fixed Term Parliament Act of 2011. Another Lib Dem policy enacted by Cameron. Maybe Lib Dem activists and politicians who campaigned for this piece of legislation would like to stop agitating for new Prime Minister Theresa May to call an immediate election to seek her own mandate for a second, and consider that it is their actions (or, at least, their Act) which have made this a whole lot less likely?
Monday, 27 June 2016
Jeremy Corbyn is the oldest 'Angry Young Man' in history
Billy Joel wrote that "There's always a place for the angry young man, with his working class ties and his radical plan, he refuses to bend, he refused to fall, and he's always at home with his back to wall…"
It is a song which could have been written specifically about Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. The leader who will, despite losing two thirds of his Shadow Cabinet in under two days, still refuse to resign in the face of overwhelming criticism from within his own party.
"And there's always a place for the angry young man, with his fist in the air and his head in the sand…"
Corbyn is the embodiment of student politics. He is the 'Occupy' movement made flesh. He comes from a political tradition where people truly believe that change can be enacted simply by refusing to leave until you get what you want, and where negotiation and compromise – those bedrocks of sensible, grown-up politics – constitute 'selling out', treason, betrayal.
The mindset of such politics is that criticism can be defeated by shouting louder, stamping your feet harder, waving your placards higher and refusing to give an inch. After all, why should you consider anyone else's point-of-view, when you truly know in your heart that you are right?
It is this intransigence and hubris which will lead him to cling grimly onto his position. "And he'll go to the grave as an angry old man…"
It is a song which could have been written specifically about Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. The leader who will, despite losing two thirds of his Shadow Cabinet in under two days, still refuse to resign in the face of overwhelming criticism from within his own party.
"And there's always a place for the angry young man, with his fist in the air and his head in the sand…"
Corbyn is the embodiment of student politics. He is the 'Occupy' movement made flesh. He comes from a political tradition where people truly believe that change can be enacted simply by refusing to leave until you get what you want, and where negotiation and compromise – those bedrocks of sensible, grown-up politics – constitute 'selling out', treason, betrayal.
The mindset of such politics is that criticism can be defeated by shouting louder, stamping your feet harder, waving your placards higher and refusing to give an inch. After all, why should you consider anyone else's point-of-view, when you truly know in your heart that you are right?
It is this intransigence and hubris which will lead him to cling grimly onto his position. "And he'll go to the grave as an angry old man…"
Wednesday, 22 June 2016
Choose your bogeyman
The politics of grievance requires a 'bogeyman'. An all-purpose evil on which can be blamed everything that is wrong with life – and the only thing that stands between us and a vague promised utopia.
Bogeyman Politics asks you to believe that there is one simple cure for all of the interconnected problems of messy, complicated, fragile day-to-day life. Can't get a hospital appointment? Blame the Bogeyman. Wages don't stretch far enough? Blame the Bogeyman. Can't get on the housing ladder? Blame the Bogeyman. Marriage breaking up? Blame the Bogeyman. It is a crass oversimplification, peddled by charlatans who want you to think that they alone, in this big scary world, are on your side. It is a con.
For some, the Bogeyman is 'bankers', or 'neoliberalism'. For others, 'Westminster'. For many, it is 'immigration'. For the majority of people who will vote to leave the European Union tomorrow, it is the EU that fills that role; the EU is the Bogeyman, responsible for everything bad about Britain, and the one and only thing that's holding us back from being truly great (or, if you are of a nostalgic bent, 'great again').
Real life is more complex than that. More difficult than that. Anyone selling you the idea you can fix all your problems with one fell swoop is not telling you the truth.
Which is why it is sad to see campaigners for the 'Remain' camp in the EU referendum rebutting the 'Leave' campaign's Bogeyman Politics with a few choice Bogeymen of their own. All day today I have watched a steady stream of smug, supercilious Tweets and Facebook posts along the lines of "Oh, you think single issue x is to blame for everything bad? Ha! You fools! Can't you see that single issue y is to blame for everything bad…?"
No doubt the people posting this stuff think themselves very clever. They aren't fooled by the narrative that the EU is the root cause of all our nation's problems! They can see right through that! They know what the true cause is. But they have allowed themselves to be duped by a different narrative – one which is just as seductively simplistic, and just as destructively wrong.
As with most things, there is no one simple answer. The 'Bogeyman' concept is attractive because it is comforting. It is less frightening to be told you are a basically 'good' person who has been a victim of some malign conspiracy – and that you have it within your power to rise up and take back what is rightfully yours from those who have done you wrong – than that you are adrift on a rolling sea of entropy in the ever-changing, unforgiving, big wide world. Having someone, or something, to blame – giving it a form, a name, a face – makes life easier to cope with. At last, the question "Why do these things always happen to me?!" seems to have an answer.
It is an understandable, human reaction. But political movements based on grievance, where politicians knowingly perpetuate the 'Bogeyman' narrative to mobilise great swathes of the general public, have a long and ugly track record of turning very nasty indeed. And when campaigners for 'Remain' offer up an alternative Bogeyman as a focal point for the mystified anger of 'Leave' voters, they are guilty of it just the same.
The trouble (for both sides) comes afterwards – once the Bogeyman is slain. The Bogeyman may have been defeated, but the problems of ordinary life have not gone away. The hospital waiting times, the tax bills, the energy prices… These things have not disappeared overnight. The sunlit uplands of utopia glibly promised by the politicians who cynically played on people's fear of the Bogeyman to win votes seem as far away as ever.
And so, the search for a new Bogeyman must begin. Something has to fill that void. Something, or someone, has to be to blame. Who do we think that might turn out to be? When Britain votes to leave the European Union, and people's lives are not magically improved overnight, the public anger which did so much to drive the anti-EU movement won't just vanish – we should all be very concerned about what (or who) that ire might end up focused on next.
Bogeyman Politics asks you to believe that there is one simple cure for all of the interconnected problems of messy, complicated, fragile day-to-day life. Can't get a hospital appointment? Blame the Bogeyman. Wages don't stretch far enough? Blame the Bogeyman. Can't get on the housing ladder? Blame the Bogeyman. Marriage breaking up? Blame the Bogeyman. It is a crass oversimplification, peddled by charlatans who want you to think that they alone, in this big scary world, are on your side. It is a con.
For some, the Bogeyman is 'bankers', or 'neoliberalism'. For others, 'Westminster'. For many, it is 'immigration'. For the majority of people who will vote to leave the European Union tomorrow, it is the EU that fills that role; the EU is the Bogeyman, responsible for everything bad about Britain, and the one and only thing that's holding us back from being truly great (or, if you are of a nostalgic bent, 'great again').
Real life is more complex than that. More difficult than that. Anyone selling you the idea you can fix all your problems with one fell swoop is not telling you the truth.
Which is why it is sad to see campaigners for the 'Remain' camp in the EU referendum rebutting the 'Leave' campaign's Bogeyman Politics with a few choice Bogeymen of their own. All day today I have watched a steady stream of smug, supercilious Tweets and Facebook posts along the lines of "Oh, you think single issue x is to blame for everything bad? Ha! You fools! Can't you see that single issue y is to blame for everything bad…?"
No doubt the people posting this stuff think themselves very clever. They aren't fooled by the narrative that the EU is the root cause of all our nation's problems! They can see right through that! They know what the true cause is. But they have allowed themselves to be duped by a different narrative – one which is just as seductively simplistic, and just as destructively wrong.
As with most things, there is no one simple answer. The 'Bogeyman' concept is attractive because it is comforting. It is less frightening to be told you are a basically 'good' person who has been a victim of some malign conspiracy – and that you have it within your power to rise up and take back what is rightfully yours from those who have done you wrong – than that you are adrift on a rolling sea of entropy in the ever-changing, unforgiving, big wide world. Having someone, or something, to blame – giving it a form, a name, a face – makes life easier to cope with. At last, the question "Why do these things always happen to me?!" seems to have an answer.
It is an understandable, human reaction. But political movements based on grievance, where politicians knowingly perpetuate the 'Bogeyman' narrative to mobilise great swathes of the general public, have a long and ugly track record of turning very nasty indeed. And when campaigners for 'Remain' offer up an alternative Bogeyman as a focal point for the mystified anger of 'Leave' voters, they are guilty of it just the same.
The trouble (for both sides) comes afterwards – once the Bogeyman is slain. The Bogeyman may have been defeated, but the problems of ordinary life have not gone away. The hospital waiting times, the tax bills, the energy prices… These things have not disappeared overnight. The sunlit uplands of utopia glibly promised by the politicians who cynically played on people's fear of the Bogeyman to win votes seem as far away as ever.
And so, the search for a new Bogeyman must begin. Something has to fill that void. Something, or someone, has to be to blame. Who do we think that might turn out to be? When Britain votes to leave the European Union, and people's lives are not magically improved overnight, the public anger which did so much to drive the anti-EU movement won't just vanish – we should all be very concerned about what (or who) that ire might end up focused on next.
Saturday, 18 June 2016
#EUref – time to choose
There are now only five days to go until we in the UK vote on our continued membership of the European Union. Frankly, it can't be over soon enough.
Whilst the campaign seems to have gone on forever, and the quality and tone of the debate has often been nothing short of cringeworthy, this is a big and important decision to make. I can honestly say I've not been so conflicted about a political issue for a long, long time – I have been genuinely undecided for the majority of the campaign, and it is only really in the last week that I have begun to marshall my thoughts, and make up my mind.
I am planning to vote to 'Remain in the European Union'. This is not, by any stretch of the imagination, because I feel any ideological attraction to the EU. I am no fan of the European project, and there is much of it that I view with considerable suspicion – I am voting out of pragmatism, rather than any principled commitment to the EU – so I think it is worth explaining how and why I finally decided that I am leaning toward 'Remain'.
There are cogent, sensible, respectable reasons for wanting to leave the EU. There is a very attractive vision of Britain outside the EU. But sadly, I think the chances of a 'Leave' vote resulting in a Britain like that is practically nil. The majority of 'Leave' supporters do not share my vision of post-EU Britain; the majority 'Leave' view is of an insular, curmudgeonly Britain which, liberated from the shackles of EU regulation, is free to be as bitter, intolerant and cantankerous as it pleases.
For me, if voting in the referendum included an opportunity to register my opinion on what direction the country should take post-Brexit, choosing 'Leave' would be much easier. Without that option, I fear that any 'Leave' vote will automatically be taken as an endorsement of what we might term the 'Farageist' vision for the country after leaving. That, I am afraid, is not something I am willing to put my name to.
Writing in the Guardian yesterday, Marina Hyde sums up one of the biggest issues I would have with voting to Leave:
The EU has more than its fair share of faults and foibles. It is certainly not an institution to which I feel any kind of emotional attachment; if I felt there was a good chance things would turn out OK afterwards, leaving it would cause me no pain.
'Remain' is the safer option. 'Remain' is a vote for continuation, not upheaval. Despite what prominent Brexit activists might say, it is not 'scaremongering' to say that voting to 'Leave' is taking a leap into the unknown. None of this means that Britain 'could not survive' outside the European Union, of course; 'Leave' campaigners who take a leaf out of the Scottish Nationalists' playbook by accusing those who point out these risks of 'talking Britain down' as being 'too small, and too poor' to prosper on our own, are tilting at straw men. (And they probably know it, too.)
But just as I wrote last month that Jeremy Corbyn does not get to distance himself from the rest of the 'Remain' campaign and still be 'Remain', neither would I get to specify that my 'Leave' vote were somehow different from most of the people voting the same way. No, my vote to 'Leave' would be lumped in with the votes of people from UKIP and Britain First – and it would be assumed that I had voted for the same thing they did, and that I want Great Britain to be the same the country they want it to be.
I don't. And I don't hold out much hope for the voices of people like me being heard, in the event of a vote to leave the EU. And that is why I think it will be best if I vote 'Remain'.
Of course Britain would prosper outside of the EU. Of course the EU isn't perfect. Of course it isn't racist to acknowledge that. But if you are voting 'Leave' for a more open, inclusive, positive, globalist Britain – as I would be, if I were to vote 'Leave' – you won't get it. We won't get it.
What we will get will be Nigel Farage and his ilk smugly parading around, pointing to the referendum result and declaring "See? We said most people in this country agreed with us! And look…!"
How ever little love I may have for the European Union, I really don't think I am prepared to vote for an option which will empower Farage and those like him to posture and preen and proudly hold my vote aloft as proof that the public shares their vision for Britain.
I don't share it. I don't endorse it. And I don't want – even accidentally – to get mixed up with those who do. I may not like the EU much, but I would rather vote to 'Remain' than see this brilliant nation turn into the type of country UKIP would like it to be, and know that I had had a hand in that.
Whilst the campaign seems to have gone on forever, and the quality and tone of the debate has often been nothing short of cringeworthy, this is a big and important decision to make. I can honestly say I've not been so conflicted about a political issue for a long, long time – I have been genuinely undecided for the majority of the campaign, and it is only really in the last week that I have begun to marshall my thoughts, and make up my mind.
I am planning to vote to 'Remain in the European Union'. This is not, by any stretch of the imagination, because I feel any ideological attraction to the EU. I am no fan of the European project, and there is much of it that I view with considerable suspicion – I am voting out of pragmatism, rather than any principled commitment to the EU – so I think it is worth explaining how and why I finally decided that I am leaning toward 'Remain'.
There are cogent, sensible, respectable reasons for wanting to leave the EU. There is a very attractive vision of Britain outside the EU. But sadly, I think the chances of a 'Leave' vote resulting in a Britain like that is practically nil. The majority of 'Leave' supporters do not share my vision of post-EU Britain; the majority 'Leave' view is of an insular, curmudgeonly Britain which, liberated from the shackles of EU regulation, is free to be as bitter, intolerant and cantankerous as it pleases.
For me, if voting in the referendum included an opportunity to register my opinion on what direction the country should take post-Brexit, choosing 'Leave' would be much easier. Without that option, I fear that any 'Leave' vote will automatically be taken as an endorsement of what we might term the 'Farageist' vision for the country after leaving. That, I am afraid, is not something I am willing to put my name to.
Writing in the Guardian yesterday, Marina Hyde sums up one of the biggest issues I would have with voting to Leave:
There are many people I respect and admire voting leave – there are people in my family voting leave. I understand their reasons. But they must stomach the reality that a vote for leave will be taken by Farage and countless others as a vote for him, a vote for his posters, a vote for his ideas, a vote for his quiet malice, a vote for his smallness in the face of vast horrors. Is it worth it?I'm really not sure that it is.
The EU has more than its fair share of faults and foibles. It is certainly not an institution to which I feel any kind of emotional attachment; if I felt there was a good chance things would turn out OK afterwards, leaving it would cause me no pain.
'Remain' is the safer option. 'Remain' is a vote for continuation, not upheaval. Despite what prominent Brexit activists might say, it is not 'scaremongering' to say that voting to 'Leave' is taking a leap into the unknown. None of this means that Britain 'could not survive' outside the European Union, of course; 'Leave' campaigners who take a leaf out of the Scottish Nationalists' playbook by accusing those who point out these risks of 'talking Britain down' as being 'too small, and too poor' to prosper on our own, are tilting at straw men. (And they probably know it, too.)
But just as I wrote last month that Jeremy Corbyn does not get to distance himself from the rest of the 'Remain' campaign and still be 'Remain', neither would I get to specify that my 'Leave' vote were somehow different from most of the people voting the same way. No, my vote to 'Leave' would be lumped in with the votes of people from UKIP and Britain First – and it would be assumed that I had voted for the same thing they did, and that I want Great Britain to be the same the country they want it to be.
I don't. And I don't hold out much hope for the voices of people like me being heard, in the event of a vote to leave the EU. And that is why I think it will be best if I vote 'Remain'.
Of course Britain would prosper outside of the EU. Of course the EU isn't perfect. Of course it isn't racist to acknowledge that. But if you are voting 'Leave' for a more open, inclusive, positive, globalist Britain – as I would be, if I were to vote 'Leave' – you won't get it. We won't get it.
What we will get will be Nigel Farage and his ilk smugly parading around, pointing to the referendum result and declaring "See? We said most people in this country agreed with us! And look…!"
How ever little love I may have for the European Union, I really don't think I am prepared to vote for an option which will empower Farage and those like him to posture and preen and proudly hold my vote aloft as proof that the public shares their vision for Britain.
I don't share it. I don't endorse it. And I don't want – even accidentally – to get mixed up with those who do. I may not like the EU much, but I would rather vote to 'Remain' than see this brilliant nation turn into the type of country UKIP would like it to be, and know that I had had a hand in that.
Monday, 16 May 2016
#EUref: pick a side
A headline in yesterday's Telegraph that Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn will refuse to 'share a platform' with David Cameron when campaigning for Britain to remain in the European Union will have come as no surprise for anyone who has followed the rise of Corbyn, and seen him to be the lightweight, petulant egotist that he undoubtedly is. However, it was – in my view – indicative of how widespread certain misconceptions about referendum campaigning have become.
In writing before about how the conflation of a national plebiscite with traditional party politics has seeped into the mainstream, I have laid much of the blame for this at the door of the SNP – but this way of thinking is becoming more and more prevalent across the political spectrum, and I think it bears another look.
For the benefit of those who haven't quite grasped this yet, it is worth making very clear that in a referendum, there are only two sides. You do not get your own side, all to yourself. This means that if you are a Labour MP or activist who is campaigning for 'Remain', you are on the same side as David Cameron; you are on the same side as George Osborne; you are on the same side as Theresa May; you are on the same side as Ryanair. You may not like it, but you are – because, on this one issue (even if on nothing else), you want the same outcome as them.
You could avoid that by being a Labour MP or activist who is campaigning to 'Leave' the EU, of course. But then you would be on the same side as Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson, George Galloway and Katie Hopkins. Whether you like it or not.
It is a common obfuscation to claim that even if you agree with the Prime Minister that Britain should stay in the EU, you fundamentally disagree with him about what the EU should look like, and what Britain's role in the union should be – and that this makes your position distinct from his.
The referendum is not about that. This is a single-issue vote; Remain, or Leave. Pick a side. There is no third option where you get to say "I'm basically Remain… But not like he is!" Remain is Remain; it's as simple as that.
This, after all, is surely the point of holding a referendum on the topic at all? It (in theory, at least) allows the campaign to strip away all the other gumf and focus purely on the issue, getting away from the "we are the good people, and that makes us different from those bad people" bloviating that we see so often in day-to-day party politics.
In refusing to put aside his differences with the Prime Minister in order to campaign on their one point of common ground in the run-up to this vote, Corbyn shows us that keeping his image intact is more important to him than the cause he professes to support – and once again makes the conversation about him, rather than about the topic at hand.
In writing before about how the conflation of a national plebiscite with traditional party politics has seeped into the mainstream, I have laid much of the blame for this at the door of the SNP – but this way of thinking is becoming more and more prevalent across the political spectrum, and I think it bears another look.
Spoke with Osborne and Balls supporting Remain. Economic case becoming overwhelming. Happy to put old quarrels aside to support Remain.— Vince Cable (@vincecable) May 16, 2016
He gets it…
For the benefit of those who haven't quite grasped this yet, it is worth making very clear that in a referendum, there are only two sides. You do not get your own side, all to yourself. This means that if you are a Labour MP or activist who is campaigning for 'Remain', you are on the same side as David Cameron; you are on the same side as George Osborne; you are on the same side as Theresa May; you are on the same side as Ryanair. You may not like it, but you are – because, on this one issue (even if on nothing else), you want the same outcome as them.
You could avoid that by being a Labour MP or activist who is campaigning to 'Leave' the EU, of course. But then you would be on the same side as Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson, George Galloway and Katie Hopkins. Whether you like it or not.
It is a common obfuscation to claim that even if you agree with the Prime Minister that Britain should stay in the EU, you fundamentally disagree with him about what the EU should look like, and what Britain's role in the union should be – and that this makes your position distinct from his.
The referendum is not about that. This is a single-issue vote; Remain, or Leave. Pick a side. There is no third option where you get to say "I'm basically Remain… But not like he is!" Remain is Remain; it's as simple as that.
This, after all, is surely the point of holding a referendum on the topic at all? It (in theory, at least) allows the campaign to strip away all the other gumf and focus purely on the issue, getting away from the "we are the good people, and that makes us different from those bad people" bloviating that we see so often in day-to-day party politics.
In refusing to put aside his differences with the Prime Minister in order to campaign on their one point of common ground in the run-up to this vote, Corbyn shows us that keeping his image intact is more important to him than the cause he professes to support – and once again makes the conversation about him, rather than about the topic at hand.
Saturday, 23 April 2016
Both sides of the #Brexit debate are thoroughly winding me up
Yesterday’s fresh new crime fiction, The Incident Of The Churchill Bust, proved to be an illustrative, if irritating, episode in showing just how crass and puerile both side of the EU Referendum debate in this country are becoming.
Keen to discredit Barack Obama’s recent intervention in the referendum campaign – which saw Obama firmly endorse a vote to ‘Remain’ in the EU – and paint the President as embittered and anti-British, the ‘Leave’ side pushed a narrative in which he had ordered a bust of Winston Churchill to be removed from the Oval Office to to cop a snook at the United Kingdom. In response, the ‘Remain’ side put about that this never actually happened, referring to it as a ‘myth’.
The truth of the matter, of course, was neither one thing nor the other. Obama himself seems to have confirmed that he did in fact have one of the two Churchill busts in question removed – but that this was not out of any disrespect for Churchill, or for Britain generally. And yet, both the Leavers and the Remainers have seized upon this completely innocuous, barely relevant story and wrung its neck until it appears to support their case.
With a full two months yet to go in this campaign, it is depressing to see both sides fixating on such a triviality. If every tiny murmur of a story is going to make both camps work themselves into a lather simplifying and twisting each detail to make it appear favourable to their cause, I don't know how much more of this I'll be able to take; far from ‘engaging’ me in a question of national importance, such petty bickering over nothing makes me want to knock all their heads together and call the whole thing off. Oh god, can’t it just end?
Keen to discredit Barack Obama’s recent intervention in the referendum campaign – which saw Obama firmly endorse a vote to ‘Remain’ in the EU – and paint the President as embittered and anti-British, the ‘Leave’ side pushed a narrative in which he had ordered a bust of Winston Churchill to be removed from the Oval Office to to cop a snook at the United Kingdom. In response, the ‘Remain’ side put about that this never actually happened, referring to it as a ‘myth’.
The truth of the matter, of course, was neither one thing nor the other. Obama himself seems to have confirmed that he did in fact have one of the two Churchill busts in question removed – but that this was not out of any disrespect for Churchill, or for Britain generally. And yet, both the Leavers and the Remainers have seized upon this completely innocuous, barely relevant story and wrung its neck until it appears to support their case.
With a full two months yet to go in this campaign, it is depressing to see both sides fixating on such a triviality. If every tiny murmur of a story is going to make both camps work themselves into a lather simplifying and twisting each detail to make it appear favourable to their cause, I don't know how much more of this I'll be able to take; far from ‘engaging’ me in a question of national importance, such petty bickering over nothing makes me want to knock all their heads together and call the whole thing off. Oh god, can’t it just end?
Sunday, 6 March 2016
How the SNP ruined referenda for all of us
As a bit of a politics nerd (yes, I admit it), I have been looking forward to the pageantry around this referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union. There’s something about these political events – whatever they are ultimately about – which thrills and fascinates.
The debates! The interviews! The triumphs! The cock-ups! Staying up all night eating curry and watching David Dimbleby filling time as the results slowly filter in! I love it.
But this excitement has been spoilt somewhat by those killjoys in the SNP. Ever since the Scottish people’s own referendum on their national future in September 2014, those who campaigned for Scotland to leave the UK have made it their business to ruin not just this referendum, but all referenda. Never again can we sip from the cup of a national plebiscite, without tasting the taint of Scottish nationalism.
The simple fact is that the tactics of the SNP and their supporters have changed the way that referenda in this country are fought – and, in my view, not for the better.
But in order to understand how this affects the upcoming referendum on the EU, let us first briefly examine the two key faults at the core of the way the SNP operates.
The first is that the SNP and its party machinery are seemingly unable to view politicians and activists (of any party) as individuals. This is a topic I have touched on before. The SNP is the only party in the UK whose rules actively prohibit its MPs from speaking out against party policy. There can be no ‘rebels’; no dissenters; no brave individuals who put principles before career prospects to defy the party whip. Not in the SNP.
No, the gradually dwindling numbers of SNP MPs in the House Of Commons (we all know it started out as fifty-six, but two have already been suspended by the party…) speak with one voice on every issue. All of the (almost) one-and-a-half million Scottish voters who chose the SNP at the 2015 General Election might just as well be represented in Westminster by one single person, voting on all issues according to Nicola Sturgeon’s orders. (Maybe that’s something they should look into? It might at least save a bit on Parliamentary travel expenses.)
The second is the SNP’s unshakeable belief that the only thing which really matters is Scotland’s independence. Any other political problems are subsumed by this one great issue. Tax? Health? Education? Infrastructure? It doesn’t matter what the challenges facing these policy areas – all will be solved in the blink of an eye, come Independence Day. And, until independence, there is nothing that can be done about any of them, so they may as well go hang.
These two central conceits were underlined for me recently by a conversation I had with an SNP activist while a protest march against the Trident nuclear weapons system was occurring in London. I challenged something that he wrote on Twitter about the future of Trident; his response was, weirdly, about Scotland. Apparently, I was wrong about Trident because “I didn’t understand the Scottish people”; I tried to say that I wasn’t talking about Scotland as a nation, or as a people, but that I was responding to what he had posted on the topic of nuclear missiles – but he was unable to make the distinction.
Within a few Tweets, our Nationalist friend had successfully twisted my disagreeing with one specific thing he had said about Trident into me being somehow anti- the entire country of Scotland and its population. Because no issue, and no policy, can be discussed without it inexorably transforming into The Scottish Matter. And because ‘The Scottish People’ (whose ‘mindset’ I was assured I ‘didn’t understand’) are one homogeneous groupthinking bloc, rather than over five million individuals representing a plurality of opinion across all areas of policy. Such is the SNP mentality: everything is about Scotland, always – and all Scots think alike, on every issue.
So where does this leave our European plebiscite? A referendum in this country has traditionally transcended ordinary party politics. Faced with an issue deemed to be of such burning national importance that it is not enough for our elected representatives simply to vote on our behalves in Parliament, as is normal for most day-to-day political decisions, the usual rules and ways of operating are thrown out of the window. The party whips are suspended, and the campaign is not split along party lines like at a general election. Strange alliances are forged – fractious, often, but motivated. This is not ‘politics as usual’.
The SNP, it appears, cannot understand this. The fact that the ‘Better Together’ campaign – which pushed for, and eventually won, a majority ‘No’ vote in Scotland’s independence referendum in 2014 – was supported by all three of the major UK political parties has become a standard campaigning tool for the Nationalists. That Labour (traditionally the SNP’s main opposition in Scotland) had campaigned on this issue alongside the Conservatives makes them – apparently – ‘no better than the Tories’. (And what worse insult could there possibly be, for anyone whose understanding of politics reaches no further than the end of his own nose?!)
Once again, we see how the importance of the independence debate sweeps aside all other concerns, in the eyes of the SNP faithful – that Labour and the Tories agree on Scotland’s constitutional future makes them politically identical, no matter how many other major policy areas they vehemently disagree on. “Who cares if Labour and the Conservatives disagree on far more policies than they agree on?!”, say the SNP supporters; they agree on the only one which actually matters, so they can be lumped in together for all time.
(Of course this ignores even the basic maths of a referendum. With only two possible outcomes to choose from – ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ – there is bound to be some overlap in campaigning. There are simply not enough answers on the ballot paper for all the political parties involved to have one each, so you will, at some point, inevitably find yourself on the same side as politicians who are normally your opponents. But then, figures aren’t exactly the SNP’s strong point, are they…?)
“Well, what a short-sighted, obstinate, overly simplistic view of party politics!” you might very well be thinking now. Well, yes. Exactly. And yet this pervasive, barely-literate nonsense is now shaping the way our politicians are gearing up for the referendum on the European Union.
Keen not to be tarred with the same brush as their sworn political enemies, simply because they happen to feel the same about one point of policy, MPs now seem reticent to engage in the very cross-party campaigning which makes a referendum campaign different, and worth having at all. The fear of ‘sharing a platform’ with one’s usual political enemies – and the damage this could do to one’s own political image and career in the future – is distracting from the more pressing matter of actually campaigning for the result one believes is best for the country.
If this – or any – matter is of enough significance to be put to the population as a whole to vote on, rather than being left to representatives in the Commons and the Lords, is it not also important enough to put aside party political bickering and campaign alongside whoever happens to want the same outcome as you?
In a referendum such as this, you don’t get to choose your allies – you work with whoever happens to agree with you as to the best path for the country to take. And you should reasonably expect to do so without the threat of this being held up as a stain on your character in years to come, once the referendum is over and political life has gone back to normal.
If some cabinet ministers believe Britain should remain in the EU, while other ministers feel strongly we should leave, they should be free to campaign on whichever side of the argument they wish. It is not ‘weak’ of the Prime Minister to allow his ministers this freedom – and it is not very edifying to see politicians from other parties attempting to portray him as such, choosing petty political points-scoring over the matter at hand.
And if a politician from any party finds himself by some happenstance on the same side of this debate as a politician from another party (which – as I have said – is mathematically certain to happen, given the limited number of options for campaigning), this does not suddenly make the two politicians, or their two parties, indistinguishable from each other on all matters. It would be sheer folly to suppose it did. And yet, that has been the SNP’s take on things for over two years, now – and it is a view starting to permeate the mainstream national consciousness.
I can’t help but feel sad that the SNP’s small-minded, parochial mentality is being allowed to set the agenda for a national question about which many people feel very strongly – and as a result, we are all being denied a proper referendum campaign which truly cuts across, rather than entrenches, party lines.
The debates! The interviews! The triumphs! The cock-ups! Staying up all night eating curry and watching David Dimbleby filling time as the results slowly filter in! I love it.
But this excitement has been spoilt somewhat by those killjoys in the SNP. Ever since the Scottish people’s own referendum on their national future in September 2014, those who campaigned for Scotland to leave the UK have made it their business to ruin not just this referendum, but all referenda. Never again can we sip from the cup of a national plebiscite, without tasting the taint of Scottish nationalism.
The simple fact is that the tactics of the SNP and their supporters have changed the way that referenda in this country are fought – and, in my view, not for the better.
But in order to understand how this affects the upcoming referendum on the EU, let us first briefly examine the two key faults at the core of the way the SNP operates.
The first is that the SNP and its party machinery are seemingly unable to view politicians and activists (of any party) as individuals. This is a topic I have touched on before. The SNP is the only party in the UK whose rules actively prohibit its MPs from speaking out against party policy. There can be no ‘rebels’; no dissenters; no brave individuals who put principles before career prospects to defy the party whip. Not in the SNP.
No, the gradually dwindling numbers of SNP MPs in the House Of Commons (we all know it started out as fifty-six, but two have already been suspended by the party…) speak with one voice on every issue. All of the (almost) one-and-a-half million Scottish voters who chose the SNP at the 2015 General Election might just as well be represented in Westminster by one single person, voting on all issues according to Nicola Sturgeon’s orders. (Maybe that’s something they should look into? It might at least save a bit on Parliamentary travel expenses.)
The second is the SNP’s unshakeable belief that the only thing which really matters is Scotland’s independence. Any other political problems are subsumed by this one great issue. Tax? Health? Education? Infrastructure? It doesn’t matter what the challenges facing these policy areas – all will be solved in the blink of an eye, come Independence Day. And, until independence, there is nothing that can be done about any of them, so they may as well go hang.
These two central conceits were underlined for me recently by a conversation I had with an SNP activist while a protest march against the Trident nuclear weapons system was occurring in London. I challenged something that he wrote on Twitter about the future of Trident; his response was, weirdly, about Scotland. Apparently, I was wrong about Trident because “I didn’t understand the Scottish people”; I tried to say that I wasn’t talking about Scotland as a nation, or as a people, but that I was responding to what he had posted on the topic of nuclear missiles – but he was unable to make the distinction.
Within a few Tweets, our Nationalist friend had successfully twisted my disagreeing with one specific thing he had said about Trident into me being somehow anti- the entire country of Scotland and its population. Because no issue, and no policy, can be discussed without it inexorably transforming into The Scottish Matter. And because ‘The Scottish People’ (whose ‘mindset’ I was assured I ‘didn’t understand’) are one homogeneous groupthinking bloc, rather than over five million individuals representing a plurality of opinion across all areas of policy. Such is the SNP mentality: everything is about Scotland, always – and all Scots think alike, on every issue.
So where does this leave our European plebiscite? A referendum in this country has traditionally transcended ordinary party politics. Faced with an issue deemed to be of such burning national importance that it is not enough for our elected representatives simply to vote on our behalves in Parliament, as is normal for most day-to-day political decisions, the usual rules and ways of operating are thrown out of the window. The party whips are suspended, and the campaign is not split along party lines like at a general election. Strange alliances are forged – fractious, often, but motivated. This is not ‘politics as usual’.
The SNP, it appears, cannot understand this. The fact that the ‘Better Together’ campaign – which pushed for, and eventually won, a majority ‘No’ vote in Scotland’s independence referendum in 2014 – was supported by all three of the major UK political parties has become a standard campaigning tool for the Nationalists. That Labour (traditionally the SNP’s main opposition in Scotland) had campaigned on this issue alongside the Conservatives makes them – apparently – ‘no better than the Tories’. (And what worse insult could there possibly be, for anyone whose understanding of politics reaches no further than the end of his own nose?!)
Once again, we see how the importance of the independence debate sweeps aside all other concerns, in the eyes of the SNP faithful – that Labour and the Tories agree on Scotland’s constitutional future makes them politically identical, no matter how many other major policy areas they vehemently disagree on. “Who cares if Labour and the Conservatives disagree on far more policies than they agree on?!”, say the SNP supporters; they agree on the only one which actually matters, so they can be lumped in together for all time.
(Of course this ignores even the basic maths of a referendum. With only two possible outcomes to choose from – ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ – there is bound to be some overlap in campaigning. There are simply not enough answers on the ballot paper for all the political parties involved to have one each, so you will, at some point, inevitably find yourself on the same side as politicians who are normally your opponents. But then, figures aren’t exactly the SNP’s strong point, are they…?)
“Well, what a short-sighted, obstinate, overly simplistic view of party politics!” you might very well be thinking now. Well, yes. Exactly. And yet this pervasive, barely-literate nonsense is now shaping the way our politicians are gearing up for the referendum on the European Union.
Keen not to be tarred with the same brush as their sworn political enemies, simply because they happen to feel the same about one point of policy, MPs now seem reticent to engage in the very cross-party campaigning which makes a referendum campaign different, and worth having at all. The fear of ‘sharing a platform’ with one’s usual political enemies – and the damage this could do to one’s own political image and career in the future – is distracting from the more pressing matter of actually campaigning for the result one believes is best for the country.
If this – or any – matter is of enough significance to be put to the population as a whole to vote on, rather than being left to representatives in the Commons and the Lords, is it not also important enough to put aside party political bickering and campaign alongside whoever happens to want the same outcome as you?
In a referendum such as this, you don’t get to choose your allies – you work with whoever happens to agree with you as to the best path for the country to take. And you should reasonably expect to do so without the threat of this being held up as a stain on your character in years to come, once the referendum is over and political life has gone back to normal.
If some cabinet ministers believe Britain should remain in the EU, while other ministers feel strongly we should leave, they should be free to campaign on whichever side of the argument they wish. It is not ‘weak’ of the Prime Minister to allow his ministers this freedom – and it is not very edifying to see politicians from other parties attempting to portray him as such, choosing petty political points-scoring over the matter at hand.
And if a politician from any party finds himself by some happenstance on the same side of this debate as a politician from another party (which – as I have said – is mathematically certain to happen, given the limited number of options for campaigning), this does not suddenly make the two politicians, or their two parties, indistinguishable from each other on all matters. It would be sheer folly to suppose it did. And yet, that has been the SNP’s take on things for over two years, now – and it is a view starting to permeate the mainstream national consciousness.
I can’t help but feel sad that the SNP’s small-minded, parochial mentality is being allowed to set the agenda for a national question about which many people feel very strongly – and as a result, we are all being denied a proper referendum campaign which truly cuts across, rather than entrenches, party lines.
Friday, 26 February 2016
Suit up!
Why does it matter how Jeremy Corbyn dresses? Given all the many other things of which one can accuse the leader of the Labour Party, his somewhat scruffy attire is surely one of the least objectionable things about him?
Well, maybe so. But the outrage of Corbyn's supporters over David Cameron's remarks in Parliament during Wednesday's Prime Minister's Questions is still opportunistic, hypocritical opprobrium of the highest order.
Those who say that politics should be about ideas and policies, not about appearance – and that Cameron should be engaging with Corbyn's arguments, rather than making snide remarks about how he dresses – might have a point if they hadn't spent the past six years taking every opportunity to bring up irrelevant personal issues such as which school the Prime Minister went to, along with endless tedious references to the Bullingdon Club, photos of the Prime Minister in formal white tie attire (which are evidently supposed to make us think badly of him, for some reason), and an endless stream of increasingly tiresome 'PigGate' 'jokes' on social media.
The left-wing journalist and commentator Steve Topple wrote in The Independent that Cameron's use of 'personal attacks' against Corbyn proved the Prime Minister had 'lost it'. A quick check through Mr Topple's Twitter account reveals he's not above a few 'personal attacks' himself. It takes a special sort of unscrupulous chain-puller to deploy those kind of tactics against someone for years, then get on your high horse the moment it is returned in kind.
But all of this rather misses the point. Because actually, Corbyn's appearance does matter.
Maybe it doesn't matter very much. Maybe it matters an awful lot less than Trident or Hamas or austerity or housing or anything like that. But it does matter.
Partly, of course, because how you choose to present yourself to the world matters. For anyone. Your clothes, your hair, the way you speak, how you act – all of these things send an instant message to people about what kind of person you are. In politics, where so much of the job is about communicating well, it is foolish to assume these things have no significance. As in any job, if you want people to take you seriously, start by taking yourself seriously – and show up looking like you actually give a damn.
But also because, as Leader of the Opposition, Jeremy Corbyn is lining himself up as a potential next Prime Minister himself. He is asking an electorate to look at him, and choose him to be the person who represents Britain on a global stage. That's not a trivial thing.
Polling has shown us that one of the reasons Labour lost last year's general election is because the public simply didn't see Ed Miliband as a Prime Minister-in-waiting – and nobody could say he wasn't trying. In his ill-fitting, shabby brown jacket that looks like he picked it up in an Oxfam shop, voters don't see Jeremy Corbyn as someone who can go to the United Nations, or the G20, and make people take Great Britain seriously. Facing David Cameron across that dispatch box is an audition to be more than just a backbench MP agitating for fringe causes – to be a statesman. And Corbyn is not coming off well.
Well, maybe so. But the outrage of Corbyn's supporters over David Cameron's remarks in Parliament during Wednesday's Prime Minister's Questions is still opportunistic, hypocritical opprobrium of the highest order.
Those who say that politics should be about ideas and policies, not about appearance – and that Cameron should be engaging with Corbyn's arguments, rather than making snide remarks about how he dresses – might have a point if they hadn't spent the past six years taking every opportunity to bring up irrelevant personal issues such as which school the Prime Minister went to, along with endless tedious references to the Bullingdon Club, photos of the Prime Minister in formal white tie attire (which are evidently supposed to make us think badly of him, for some reason), and an endless stream of increasingly tiresome 'PigGate' 'jokes' on social media.
The left-wing journalist and commentator Steve Topple wrote in The Independent that Cameron's use of 'personal attacks' against Corbyn proved the Prime Minister had 'lost it'. A quick check through Mr Topple's Twitter account reveals he's not above a few 'personal attacks' himself. It takes a special sort of unscrupulous chain-puller to deploy those kind of tactics against someone for years, then get on your high horse the moment it is returned in kind.
But all of this rather misses the point. Because actually, Corbyn's appearance does matter.
Maybe it doesn't matter very much. Maybe it matters an awful lot less than Trident or Hamas or austerity or housing or anything like that. But it does matter.
Partly, of course, because how you choose to present yourself to the world matters. For anyone. Your clothes, your hair, the way you speak, how you act – all of these things send an instant message to people about what kind of person you are. In politics, where so much of the job is about communicating well, it is foolish to assume these things have no significance. As in any job, if you want people to take you seriously, start by taking yourself seriously – and show up looking like you actually give a damn.
But also because, as Leader of the Opposition, Jeremy Corbyn is lining himself up as a potential next Prime Minister himself. He is asking an electorate to look at him, and choose him to be the person who represents Britain on a global stage. That's not a trivial thing.
Polling has shown us that one of the reasons Labour lost last year's general election is because the public simply didn't see Ed Miliband as a Prime Minister-in-waiting – and nobody could say he wasn't trying. In his ill-fitting, shabby brown jacket that looks like he picked it up in an Oxfam shop, voters don't see Jeremy Corbyn as someone who can go to the United Nations, or the G20, and make people take Great Britain seriously. Facing David Cameron across that dispatch box is an audition to be more than just a backbench MP agitating for fringe causes – to be a statesman. And Corbyn is not coming off well.
Sunday, 21 February 2016
What do we gain from #Brexit?
We know, now, the date of Britain's referendum on membership of the European Union – 23rd June. Soon, the campaigning will begin in ernest, as politicians attempt to convince us either to 'Remain' a member, or 'Leave' the EU.
Personally, I am undecided on how I will vote. I can see good arguments on both sides – and I can see wild hysteria and condescension on both sides too. However, it's my view that the burden of proof is on those who wish to 'Leave'.
The lawyer and legal commentator David Allen Green writes on his blog Jack Of Kent that he is 'neutral' about 'Brexit', observing that the referendum's outcome will make little difference to law and policy, on a practical level. Neutral, perhaps – but in reality this is a de facto argument to 'Remain'. If things will be basically the same either way, why would we go through all the hassle of leaving, and all the tremendous upheaval that will entail? Unless we can be fairly sure that getting out of the EU will tangibly improve life for most people in Britain, aren't we better off just staying as we are?
To my mind, 'Brexit' is not a matter of life-and-death. The UK will basically be fine, whatever happens. For all that the zealots on both sides of the argument would have us believe otherwise, neither result will truly be a catastrophe. Maybe I will lose some friends by saying that – but friendship shouldn't be contingent on sharing a particular viewpoint on the European Union, should it?
But as I say, the onus is on the 'Leave' camp to make their case – and unless they can convince me of some very real benefits of leaving the EU (and I am still open to being persuaded), I shall end up as 'Remain' by default.
Maybe this seems uncaring, or half-hearted; a rather uninspiring way to make a decision about the future of the country. But if it would be a touch unfair to say this is a vote about minutiae, it is at least a vote about something which few people really see as the crucial matter of our time.
For those of us who follow politics closely, it's a chance to spend a second year in a row geekishly obsessing over exit polls and sitting up all night eating takeaway food and watching David Dimbleby looking for something to say to fill in time – however, I think the wonks who inhabit the fringes of political society for whom Europe has always been a burning issue seriously overestimate the number of people who hold strong, passionate opinions about the EU.
To large amounts of people, the European Union matters vastly less than those who shout the loudest on either side of the debate could possibly comprehend. Plenty of people are, like me, quite happy muddling along as we are – unless the case emerges that 'Brexit' would leave us decidedly better off. Perhaps the initiative in this referendum campaign will ultimately be seized by whoever is the first to grasp this.
Personally, I am undecided on how I will vote. I can see good arguments on both sides – and I can see wild hysteria and condescension on both sides too. However, it's my view that the burden of proof is on those who wish to 'Leave'.
The lawyer and legal commentator David Allen Green writes on his blog Jack Of Kent that he is 'neutral' about 'Brexit', observing that the referendum's outcome will make little difference to law and policy, on a practical level. Neutral, perhaps – but in reality this is a de facto argument to 'Remain'. If things will be basically the same either way, why would we go through all the hassle of leaving, and all the tremendous upheaval that will entail? Unless we can be fairly sure that getting out of the EU will tangibly improve life for most people in Britain, aren't we better off just staying as we are?
To my mind, 'Brexit' is not a matter of life-and-death. The UK will basically be fine, whatever happens. For all that the zealots on both sides of the argument would have us believe otherwise, neither result will truly be a catastrophe. Maybe I will lose some friends by saying that – but friendship shouldn't be contingent on sharing a particular viewpoint on the European Union, should it?
But as I say, the onus is on the 'Leave' camp to make their case – and unless they can convince me of some very real benefits of leaving the EU (and I am still open to being persuaded), I shall end up as 'Remain' by default.
Maybe this seems uncaring, or half-hearted; a rather uninspiring way to make a decision about the future of the country. But if it would be a touch unfair to say this is a vote about minutiae, it is at least a vote about something which few people really see as the crucial matter of our time.
For those of us who follow politics closely, it's a chance to spend a second year in a row geekishly obsessing over exit polls and sitting up all night eating takeaway food and watching David Dimbleby looking for something to say to fill in time – however, I think the wonks who inhabit the fringes of political society for whom Europe has always been a burning issue seriously overestimate the number of people who hold strong, passionate opinions about the EU.
To large amounts of people, the European Union matters vastly less than those who shout the loudest on either side of the debate could possibly comprehend. Plenty of people are, like me, quite happy muddling along as we are – unless the case emerges that 'Brexit' would leave us decidedly better off. Perhaps the initiative in this referendum campaign will ultimately be seized by whoever is the first to grasp this.
Wednesday, 3 February 2016
No one can have principles except me
A curious trait of many who are politically active is the strange way they seem to think that they (and those who agree with them) alone have a monopoly on 'principles'. This is, of course, an extension of their political outlook generally – these are people, after all, for whom politics is about 'belief' and fervour, not objectivism and reasoned discussion. But it leads to a logical fallacy, which these people can only fail to see due to their commitment to 'the cause' consuming the rational part of their brain.
If it is possible to take a strong, principled stance in favour of something, then it stands to reason that it is possible to be equally strong and principled in opposing that same thing. This is common sense.
It is, however, difficult – almost impossible, in fact – to get anyone (regardless of where on the political spectrum they might sit) who truly believes in their political cause to concede this self-evident fact.
Whether we're talking about hardline UKIP 'Brexit-eers', or committed Corbynites, the attitudes are always the same.
Yes. The reason 'moderate' Labour MPs are criticising their party leader is because they are venal careerists and they are scared; in the mind of a Corbyn loyalist like McPartland, this is the only explanation there can possibly be – he simply cannot comprehend the idea that MPs might hold different ideas from Jeremy Corbyn for genuine reasons, and that they might believe them and fight for them just as passionately as Corbyn himself fights for his own ideals.
It's never occurred to Ian that these cabinet ministers might have weighed up the arguments on both sides very carefully and genuinely concluded that remaining in the European Union might actually be in 'the interests of Brits'. I'm not saying they have, necessarily – maybe Ian is right that some ministers' reasons for not endorsing 'Brexit' owe more to expediency than conviction – but he can't be sure of that, and neither can I. The possibility does exist that some ministers might have chosen not to campaign to leave the EU because they genuinely feel that staying in is the right choice, rather than because they are afraid to lose their salaries.
But fanatics like these cannot allow such impure thoughts to pollute their minds. To admit that the enemy might actually be a relatively decent, normal guy who just happens to have a different outlook on certain issues – rather than an agent of evil itself whose dastardly propaganda racket must be smashed – is to admit defeat.
It is this demagoguery which allows activists to fight for their causes so passionately. The single-minded belief that we are right because we have principles – whilst anyone who disagrees with us is necessarily a scurrilous, treacherous, two-faced, good-for-nothing hypocrite who's only looking out for himself – allows the movement (whatever it may be) to affect an air of moral superiority and rise above the petty objections of 'facts' and 'data'.
Most people, however, are (rightly) sceptical of zealots. For the average person in the street – the very person, often, who needs to be convinced of one point-of-view or another – the ardour of anyone banging the drum too loudly, or too often, will actually be quite off-putting. Such dogma – and such refusal to countenance the idea that the other side might, just occasionally, not be total schmucks – ends up being damaging to the cause.
But for an activist truly to dedicate him- or herself to a cause, he or she must completely believe that those who disagree are not just wrong, but malign. These are people who have convinced themselves that they are fighting the good fight; that they, and they alone, are on the side of righteousness, justice, freedom and truth; and that it therefore follows that anyone opposed to their agenda has a sinister ulterior motive.
In short, they are deluded. And they wonder why the rest of the population views them with such deep suspicion…?!
If it is possible to take a strong, principled stance in favour of something, then it stands to reason that it is possible to be equally strong and principled in opposing that same thing. This is common sense.
It is, however, difficult – almost impossible, in fact – to get anyone (regardless of where on the political spectrum they might sit) who truly believes in their political cause to concede this self-evident fact.
Whether we're talking about hardline UKIP 'Brexit-eers', or committed Corbynites, the attitudes are always the same.
I'm sure. They see their careers terminated or on hold. Instead of turning on Cameron, it's JC who is their enemy. https://t.co/4z93azO3nW— John McPartland (@McPartlandJohn) January 23, 2016
Yes. The reason 'moderate' Labour MPs are criticising their party leader is because they are venal careerists and they are scared; in the mind of a Corbyn loyalist like McPartland, this is the only explanation there can possibly be – he simply cannot comprehend the idea that MPs might hold different ideas from Jeremy Corbyn for genuine reasons, and that they might believe them and fight for them just as passionately as Corbyn himself fights for his own ideals.
Tory cabinet Ministers 2 worried about climbing greasy pole & Ministerial salary, rather than the interests of Brits https://t.co/g5h3SoD3hO— uKipaLotmoreIan (@UkipaLotMoreIan) February 2, 2016
It's never occurred to Ian that these cabinet ministers might have weighed up the arguments on both sides very carefully and genuinely concluded that remaining in the European Union might actually be in 'the interests of Brits'. I'm not saying they have, necessarily – maybe Ian is right that some ministers' reasons for not endorsing 'Brexit' owe more to expediency than conviction – but he can't be sure of that, and neither can I. The possibility does exist that some ministers might have chosen not to campaign to leave the EU because they genuinely feel that staying in is the right choice, rather than because they are afraid to lose their salaries.
But fanatics like these cannot allow such impure thoughts to pollute their minds. To admit that the enemy might actually be a relatively decent, normal guy who just happens to have a different outlook on certain issues – rather than an agent of evil itself whose dastardly propaganda racket must be smashed – is to admit defeat.
It is this demagoguery which allows activists to fight for their causes so passionately. The single-minded belief that we are right because we have principles – whilst anyone who disagrees with us is necessarily a scurrilous, treacherous, two-faced, good-for-nothing hypocrite who's only looking out for himself – allows the movement (whatever it may be) to affect an air of moral superiority and rise above the petty objections of 'facts' and 'data'.
Most people, however, are (rightly) sceptical of zealots. For the average person in the street – the very person, often, who needs to be convinced of one point-of-view or another – the ardour of anyone banging the drum too loudly, or too often, will actually be quite off-putting. Such dogma – and such refusal to countenance the idea that the other side might, just occasionally, not be total schmucks – ends up being damaging to the cause.
But for an activist truly to dedicate him- or herself to a cause, he or she must completely believe that those who disagree are not just wrong, but malign. These are people who have convinced themselves that they are fighting the good fight; that they, and they alone, are on the side of righteousness, justice, freedom and truth; and that it therefore follows that anyone opposed to their agenda has a sinister ulterior motive.
In short, they are deluded. And they wonder why the rest of the population views them with such deep suspicion…?!
Tuesday, 15 September 2015
Jeremy Corbyn's Labour pains
The leader of the Labour party is now a man who describes terrorists and religious fundamentalists as "friends", who wants to "compromise" with murderous fanatics, who shares a platform with antisemites and donates to their causes, who speculates on wild conspiracy theories, and whose new Shadow Chancellor wants to "honour" IRA bombers. His supporters can shout as much as they like that these are "smears" – but it's hard to see things that way, when these are things the man himself has actually said or done. Quoting somebody's own words is not "smearing" them, and these issues will not go away. In spite of all of this, Labour party members and supporters voted for Jeremy Corbyn in droves.
But twenty-four hours into his tenure as Labour leader, it was quickly becoming clear that Corbyn's bungled Shadow Cabinet reshuffle; his absurd decision to "crowd-source" his lines for Prime Minister's Questions (as if Labour still haven't learnt that opening things up to the general public – especially on the internet – is just asking for the system to be abused); his description of journalists' questions as "people bothering him" (as if he expects just to be able to do whatever he likes without any scrutiny, like he did when he was a backbencher – it is the job of the press to hold politicians to account, not simper and genuflect to them as in places like North Korea); and so on were only the tip of the iceberg. Jeremy Corbyn's position as Labour leader is surely completely untenable. I wouldn't be at all surprised if senior figures within the party were already planning how to depose him.
His fans will shout and scream that he was "democratically elected" as leader, and that he "has a mandate" which needs to be respected. They will call for "unity", and expect other Labour MPs to be "loyal" to their leader. But this is all nonsense…
Jeremy Corbyn doesn't give a fig for democracy. Not if it doesn't fit his predetermined agenda, anyway… Corbynites on Twitter are incensed at the idea of Labour MPs not supporting their leader, and rebelling against his "principled" stance on a variety of issues – but this is exactly what Corbyn has been doing for over thirty years, during which time he has rebelled against his party's whip more than five hundred times. It seemingly hasn't occurred to people that disagreeing with Corbyn can also be a "principled" position, and that Labour MPs not toeing the Corbyn line might not be rebelling just to cause trouble, but out of the same high-mindedness which led Corbyn himself to rebel against myriad former Labour leaders. As Helen Lewis pointed out in the New Statesman back in July, Jeremy Corbyn does not have a monopoly on principled belief.
"But Corbyn was democratically elected!" they bleat. Moderate Labour MPs have to respect that! Since when has Corbyn respected the sovereign wishes of an electorate? He certainly doesn't respect the views of the people of the Falklands Islands, who voted overwhelmingly to remain a part of United Kingdom in a 2013 referendum. He doesn't respect the views of the people of Northern Ireland when he hobnobs with the IRA.
No, Jeremy Corbyn is only interested in democracy or party unity when it suits him. I don't see how he can reasonably expect other Labour MPs to show any more loyalty than he would've shown if any of the other candidates had won the leadership contest – or expect people to respect the democratic wishes of his voters any more than he respects the democratic wishes of the voters in the Falklands, or in Northern Ireland. He certainly can't expect to carry on doing whatever he pleases free from media scrutiny and without consequence.
And as a result, his time in charge of the Labour party will be characterised by dissent, attrition and rebellion – all of which fractious in-fighting will cause splits in the party, and distract Labour from being an effective opposition to the Conservative government. So much for the wisdom of people who naïvely greeted Corbyn's election as leader with: "At least we'll have an opposition who actually 'oppose' now!" (or similar). Well, at least Corbyn and his cronies know they can always blame someone else for their failure to hold the government to account.
But twenty-four hours into his tenure as Labour leader, it was quickly becoming clear that Corbyn's bungled Shadow Cabinet reshuffle; his absurd decision to "crowd-source" his lines for Prime Minister's Questions (as if Labour still haven't learnt that opening things up to the general public – especially on the internet – is just asking for the system to be abused); his description of journalists' questions as "people bothering him" (as if he expects just to be able to do whatever he likes without any scrutiny, like he did when he was a backbencher – it is the job of the press to hold politicians to account, not simper and genuflect to them as in places like North Korea); and so on were only the tip of the iceberg. Jeremy Corbyn's position as Labour leader is surely completely untenable. I wouldn't be at all surprised if senior figures within the party were already planning how to depose him.
His fans will shout and scream that he was "democratically elected" as leader, and that he "has a mandate" which needs to be respected. They will call for "unity", and expect other Labour MPs to be "loyal" to their leader. But this is all nonsense…
Jeremy Corbyn doesn't give a fig for democracy. Not if it doesn't fit his predetermined agenda, anyway… Corbynites on Twitter are incensed at the idea of Labour MPs not supporting their leader, and rebelling against his "principled" stance on a variety of issues – but this is exactly what Corbyn has been doing for over thirty years, during which time he has rebelled against his party's whip more than five hundred times. It seemingly hasn't occurred to people that disagreeing with Corbyn can also be a "principled" position, and that Labour MPs not toeing the Corbyn line might not be rebelling just to cause trouble, but out of the same high-mindedness which led Corbyn himself to rebel against myriad former Labour leaders. As Helen Lewis pointed out in the New Statesman back in July, Jeremy Corbyn does not have a monopoly on principled belief.
"But Corbyn was democratically elected!" they bleat. Moderate Labour MPs have to respect that! Since when has Corbyn respected the sovereign wishes of an electorate? He certainly doesn't respect the views of the people of the Falklands Islands, who voted overwhelmingly to remain a part of United Kingdom in a 2013 referendum. He doesn't respect the views of the people of Northern Ireland when he hobnobs with the IRA.
No, Jeremy Corbyn is only interested in democracy or party unity when it suits him. I don't see how he can reasonably expect other Labour MPs to show any more loyalty than he would've shown if any of the other candidates had won the leadership contest – or expect people to respect the democratic wishes of his voters any more than he respects the democratic wishes of the voters in the Falklands, or in Northern Ireland. He certainly can't expect to carry on doing whatever he pleases free from media scrutiny and without consequence.
And as a result, his time in charge of the Labour party will be characterised by dissent, attrition and rebellion – all of which fractious in-fighting will cause splits in the party, and distract Labour from being an effective opposition to the Conservative government. So much for the wisdom of people who naïvely greeted Corbyn's election as leader with: "At least we'll have an opposition who actually 'oppose' now!" (or similar). Well, at least Corbyn and his cronies know they can always blame someone else for their failure to hold the government to account.
Thursday, 3 September 2015
The Syrian refugee crisis is not about you
Isn't it remarkable how practically every large-scale global event always proves just how right you were all along?
People on the internet seem determined to use the Syrian refugee crisis as a means to shore up their own prejudices – whatever they may be.
Conservative supporters on Twitter were busily Tweeting last night that the crisis is all Ed Miliband's fault, for blocking military action against the Assad regime in Syria during 2013 (because bombing a country is a surefire way to ensure nobody wants to leave it and seek asylum elsewhere).
Labour and the Green Party are keen to lay the blame at the door of David Cameron and the 'heartless' Tories (although when Conservatives have shown compassion on this issue, they've just got abuse from the left all the same).
And of course the Scottish Nationalists are quick to point out that if 'Yes' had won the referendum, and Scotland were an independent country, this problem would simply evaporate (just as all other problems would evaporate if Scotland were an independent land of milk and honey).
Is there nothing we won't politicise? Is there nothing we won't use to bash our ideological nemeses over the head? People are dying, and they need our help.
Perhaps if we stopped sniping at each other with vituperations of moralising piety, using strangers' tragic deaths to score cheap points off our political opponents, falling back on the same tired, predictable 'bogey-men' we blame for everything, we might be able to do something to ease the suffering.
Or do we, as a nation, honestly care more about assigning blame than saving those in need?
People on the internet seem determined to use the Syrian refugee crisis as a means to shore up their own prejudices – whatever they may be.
Conservative supporters on Twitter were busily Tweeting last night that the crisis is all Ed Miliband's fault, for blocking military action against the Assad regime in Syria during 2013 (because bombing a country is a surefire way to ensure nobody wants to leave it and seek asylum elsewhere).
Labour and the Green Party are keen to lay the blame at the door of David Cameron and the 'heartless' Tories (although when Conservatives have shown compassion on this issue, they've just got abuse from the left all the same).
And of course the Scottish Nationalists are quick to point out that if 'Yes' had won the referendum, and Scotland were an independent country, this problem would simply evaporate (just as all other problems would evaporate if Scotland were an independent land of milk and honey).
Is there nothing we won't politicise? Is there nothing we won't use to bash our ideological nemeses over the head? People are dying, and they need our help.
Perhaps if we stopped sniping at each other with vituperations of moralising piety, using strangers' tragic deaths to score cheap points off our political opponents, falling back on the same tired, predictable 'bogey-men' we blame for everything, we might be able to do something to ease the suffering.
Or do we, as a nation, honestly care more about assigning blame than saving those in need?
Tuesday, 25 August 2015
Corbyn can't lose – it will be someone else's fault
There is a part of me that is tempted to think Jeremy Corbyn’s imminent victory in the seemingly interminable Labour leadership contest would actually not be such a bad thing. That part of me is not a secret Corbynite, keen to see the renationalisation of industry, the reopening of coal mines, and ‘political compromise’ with the murderous, barbaric Islamic State; no, that part of me hopes that when Corbyn’s agenda is rejected by the electorate in 2020, there will be no further excuses left for the Corbynites.
To many on the left, y’see, the Conservatives didn’t win the general election in May this year – even though they got more seats than any other party, and that is how you win an election – and Ed Miliband’s Labour didn’t suffer the party’s most catastrophic defeat since their infamous 1983 campaign.
No, what really happened (even if you don’t remember it like this) was that the British voters were victims of a con, perpetuated by the ‘smears’ of the ‘Tory media’, and the ‘Westminster elite’ (who were ‘running scared’); or the voters were just too stupid to realise what they really wanted, or what was actually good for them, and so, in their ignorance, they voted Tory – poor deluded souls that they are; or Labour’s manifesto was simply not left-wing enough, not radical enough – millions who voted Tory just a few months back did so with a heavy heart, thinking ‘if I only I didn’t have to do this, if only somebody were offering some genuine Trotskyite socialism!’
With Corbyn in charge, however, no one could say the public weren’t offered a real alternative. And so his defeat would prove once-and-for-all that they don’t actually want his ‘real alternative’.
But that part of me is sadly mistaken. For it underestimates the ability of blinkered ideologues to make any number of tortured excuses rather than admit they got it wrong. When Jeremy Corbyn loses the general election (as he is almost certain to), it will be anyone else’s fault but his.
Corbynites will be quick to blame ‘the Establishment’ for Corbyn’s defeat; it wasn’t that he couldn’t win, or that people didn’t want him to – far from it, people voted for Corbyn in droves, but ‘the Establishment’ wouldn’t let him win! It’s all a stitch-up, y’see!
(It’s worth pointing out that the amorphous cabal of nefarious busybodies which makes up ‘the Establishment’ is rarely, if ever, properly defined by those who claim to be held down by it – it is a term used to describe anybody one doesn’t like, or anybody who doesn’t share ones aims, or even anybody who does share ones aims but disagrees about the means. Essentially, ‘the Establishment’ can cover anybody who is not ‘one of us’. And thus, those who disparage 'the Establishment' paint themselves as maverick outsiders and freedom fighters; 'we' are virtuous, simply because 'we' are not 'them' [regardless of what views we actually hold].)
This was the attitude of the UKIP faithful (remember them?) shortly after the general election earlier this year. Nigel Farage, the Dear Leader, couldn’t possibly have been rejected by the voters of his specially chosen constituency, Thanet South – it must’ve been a fix. The hashtag #ThanetRigged gained some traction on Twitter as angry ‘Kippers hit out at ‘the Establishment’ for not allowing Beloved Nigel the shot at glory he fully deserved; journalists such as Isabel Hardman, who covered the Thanet South story, became the victims of abuse and harassment online – but then, that was no more than those Establishment shills and propagandists deserved.
This will, of course, be familiar territory already for anybody who followed the referendum on Scottish independence this time last year. If you weren’t a Nationalist – a ‘Yes’ voter – you were a traitor to Scotland. Facts and research which backed up the Unionist position were simply dismissed as ‘smears’ – even though they were backed up by cold, hard figures.
And anybody considering voting ‘No’ was not doing so out of his or her own free will. It was ‘project fear’ ‘scaring’ people into voting for something they didn’t really want.
This attitude is dangerous and worrying for two reasons. The first is that when you believe so uncompromisingly in your own unshakeable position, to the extent that any evidence which does not back up your predetermined convictions can simply be dismissed as somehow not valid, you turn your politics into a religion. Your political stance becomes an article of faith; unbending, even in the face of conclusive evidence to the contrary, or overwhelming popular opposition. Everything gets twisted to fit conclusions you have already drawn; facts cease to be facts, but become soft and malleable; you distort everything you see to ensure is allowed to betray ‘the cause’.
The second problem with this way of thinking, however, is how little credit it gives the public. The voters, you end up saying, are incapable of making up their own mind, or of having any thoughts of their own – they are mindless husks, herded by a malevolent media who serve only their masters in ‘the Establishment’, and who disseminate propaganda telling the poor, brainless electorate what to think.
Not only is this terribly insulting – you are telling the very people you need to convince of your argument that they can’t think for themselves – but it makes very little sense. If individuals need to be told what to think, who tells ‘the Establishment’ and their lackeys in the media what to tell people to think? They, after all, are individuals too. How are they able to form their own views, and exercise self-interest, when us ordinary folk apparently cannot?
The remarkable thing is, so far, Corbyn has actually got off relatively lightly in the press when it comes to his links with various racists, religious fundamentalists, and other unpalatable individuals – even though politicians from a party perceived as right-wing, such as UKIP, would likely have been hauled over the coals (from the newly reopened mines, presumably) for similar transgressions. But viewed through a Corbynite prism, this comparative leniency is still tantamount to anti-Corbyn propaganda; anything in the media which isn’t actively cheerleading for Corbyn’s campaign is ‘biased’ against him.
However, pro-Corbyn commentators such as Owen Jones believe that this lack of support from large sections of the media (sorry, the 'Tory media' – we must remember to preface everything we don't like with the descriptor 'Tory', of course) is because 'they' are 'scared'. As I have already demonstrated on Genius, this is a simplistic and fatuous argument – but it is the automatic defensive position of Corbynites like Jones. Any criticism, any derision, any attack, must necessarily be cover for a deep-set and troubling fear. In the Corbynite world view, it is just not possible for anybody genuinely to think Corbyn is a bit rubbish; there are only those who love him, and those who fear his power and what it would mean for their cosy establishment hegemony.
But much as Jones and those like him might wish this to be true, I'm afraid it isn't; as Janan Ganesh points out in the Financial Times, the Tories who are mocking Corbyn don't secretly fear his might – they really do think he would be a laughable Labour leader. But pointing this out makes one anti-Corbyn, and therefore an enemy. Whoever you are.
Even staunch Labour members, councillors, or MPs – people who have dedicated decades of their life to serving the party – becomes 'the enemy' when they voice criticism of Corbyn. Guardian columnist Giles Fraser (whose inanity has featured on this Blog before), writes on Twitter:
Apart from being extremely silly to dismiss criticism of Corbyn based on who is doing the criticising, instead of on the merits of the arguments being made, it is indicative of how the Corbynites are only interested in granting credence to views which already chime with their own. Giles Fraser dismisses the Labour figures who are warning against the shift towards Corbyn's leftism as 'the old guard' – he paints them as has-beens whose advice is not worth heeding. Perhaps their advice isn't worth heeding. But who would Fraser and his ilk listen to?
If somebody very much 'of the left', who agrees with Fraser on many issues, and whom Fraser has always respected and listened to, suddenly said Labour should be wary of electing Corbyn would the response from Fraser (and others in a similar position) be: "OK, I didn't listen to 'the old guard' because I don't respect them, but this guy is someone I have always liked and who has always spoken sense – now that he is saying this too, perhaps I should reconsider my views"…?
No, it wouldn't be anything of the sort. Even if you hadn't been 'the old guard' up until now, disagreeing about Corbyn would suddenly make you 'the old guard'. Put simply, if you are considered 'sound' by the left, voicing criticisms of Corbyn (even well-founded, valid criticisms backed up by plenty of evidence) doesn't mean that those criticisms will finally be taken seriously – it will mean you will be denounced as a traitor, a secret 'Tory'.
This is the default Corbynite perspective – everyone who doesn’t agree with us precisely is a quisling and deserving of being put in the stocks for stopping the people getting what they really want (which is what we tell them they want, even if they haven’t quite realised it yet). The popular revolution, y’see, must not be impeded by it’s complete lack of popularity.
And thus, when the 'revolution' inevitably fails at the ballot box, it won't be the idealists who carried on pushing Corbynism in face of a huge body of evidence against it (because 'evidence' you don't like is just a 'smear' by 'the Establishment', of course) who are to blame. It will be everyone else. And the whole cycle will begin again.
Rafael Behr wrote an excellent and very apposite article in the Guardian quite recently on how so many people have lost the ability to admit when they are wrong. In it, Behr warns of the danger of 'echo chamber' politics, particularly on social media, where people only let themselves read or engage with content which confirms their pre-existing prejudices and reflects their own views. This is especially noticeable with the Jeremy Corbyn phenomenon; no matter how much of a disaster the Corbyn experiment proves to be, nobody who insists they are right about it now will admit later than they got it wrong.
Jeremy Corbyn's almost certain victory, followed by Jeremy Corbyn's almost certain defeat, will prove nothing to those who will not allowed themselves to be swayed by any amount of evidence. There must be some other factor affecting it. They didn't really lose, at all. The fight must go on.
To many on the left, y’see, the Conservatives didn’t win the general election in May this year – even though they got more seats than any other party, and that is how you win an election – and Ed Miliband’s Labour didn’t suffer the party’s most catastrophic defeat since their infamous 1983 campaign.
No, what really happened (even if you don’t remember it like this) was that the British voters were victims of a con, perpetuated by the ‘smears’ of the ‘Tory media’, and the ‘Westminster elite’ (who were ‘running scared’); or the voters were just too stupid to realise what they really wanted, or what was actually good for them, and so, in their ignorance, they voted Tory – poor deluded souls that they are; or Labour’s manifesto was simply not left-wing enough, not radical enough – millions who voted Tory just a few months back did so with a heavy heart, thinking ‘if I only I didn’t have to do this, if only somebody were offering some genuine Trotskyite socialism!’
With Corbyn in charge, however, no one could say the public weren’t offered a real alternative. And so his defeat would prove once-and-for-all that they don’t actually want his ‘real alternative’.
But that part of me is sadly mistaken. For it underestimates the ability of blinkered ideologues to make any number of tortured excuses rather than admit they got it wrong. When Jeremy Corbyn loses the general election (as he is almost certain to), it will be anyone else’s fault but his.
Corbynites will be quick to blame ‘the Establishment’ for Corbyn’s defeat; it wasn’t that he couldn’t win, or that people didn’t want him to – far from it, people voted for Corbyn in droves, but ‘the Establishment’ wouldn’t let him win! It’s all a stitch-up, y’see!
(It’s worth pointing out that the amorphous cabal of nefarious busybodies which makes up ‘the Establishment’ is rarely, if ever, properly defined by those who claim to be held down by it – it is a term used to describe anybody one doesn’t like, or anybody who doesn’t share ones aims, or even anybody who does share ones aims but disagrees about the means. Essentially, ‘the Establishment’ can cover anybody who is not ‘one of us’. And thus, those who disparage 'the Establishment' paint themselves as maverick outsiders and freedom fighters; 'we' are virtuous, simply because 'we' are not 'them' [regardless of what views we actually hold].)
This was the attitude of the UKIP faithful (remember them?) shortly after the general election earlier this year. Nigel Farage, the Dear Leader, couldn’t possibly have been rejected by the voters of his specially chosen constituency, Thanet South – it must’ve been a fix. The hashtag #ThanetRigged gained some traction on Twitter as angry ‘Kippers hit out at ‘the Establishment’ for not allowing Beloved Nigel the shot at glory he fully deserved; journalists such as Isabel Hardman, who covered the Thanet South story, became the victims of abuse and harassment online – but then, that was no more than those Establishment shills and propagandists deserved.
This will, of course, be familiar territory already for anybody who followed the referendum on Scottish independence this time last year. If you weren’t a Nationalist – a ‘Yes’ voter – you were a traitor to Scotland. Facts and research which backed up the Unionist position were simply dismissed as ‘smears’ – even though they were backed up by cold, hard figures.
And anybody considering voting ‘No’ was not doing so out of his or her own free will. It was ‘project fear’ ‘scaring’ people into voting for something they didn’t really want.
This attitude is dangerous and worrying for two reasons. The first is that when you believe so uncompromisingly in your own unshakeable position, to the extent that any evidence which does not back up your predetermined convictions can simply be dismissed as somehow not valid, you turn your politics into a religion. Your political stance becomes an article of faith; unbending, even in the face of conclusive evidence to the contrary, or overwhelming popular opposition. Everything gets twisted to fit conclusions you have already drawn; facts cease to be facts, but become soft and malleable; you distort everything you see to ensure is allowed to betray ‘the cause’.
The second problem with this way of thinking, however, is how little credit it gives the public. The voters, you end up saying, are incapable of making up their own mind, or of having any thoughts of their own – they are mindless husks, herded by a malevolent media who serve only their masters in ‘the Establishment’, and who disseminate propaganda telling the poor, brainless electorate what to think.
@PCollinsTimes And revealing. They cannot believe people form opinions by themselves. Individuals have no agency.
— Janan Ganesh (@JananGanesh) August 21, 2015
Not only is this terribly insulting – you are telling the very people you need to convince of your argument that they can’t think for themselves – but it makes very little sense. If individuals need to be told what to think, who tells ‘the Establishment’ and their lackeys in the media what to tell people to think? They, after all, are individuals too. How are they able to form their own views, and exercise self-interest, when us ordinary folk apparently cannot?
The remarkable thing is, so far, Corbyn has actually got off relatively lightly in the press when it comes to his links with various racists, religious fundamentalists, and other unpalatable individuals – even though politicians from a party perceived as right-wing, such as UKIP, would likely have been hauled over the coals (from the newly reopened mines, presumably) for similar transgressions. But viewed through a Corbynite prism, this comparative leniency is still tantamount to anti-Corbyn propaganda; anything in the media which isn’t actively cheerleading for Corbyn’s campaign is ‘biased’ against him.
However, pro-Corbyn commentators such as Owen Jones believe that this lack of support from large sections of the media (sorry, the 'Tory media' – we must remember to preface everything we don't like with the descriptor 'Tory', of course) is because 'they' are 'scared'. As I have already demonstrated on Genius, this is a simplistic and fatuous argument – but it is the automatic defensive position of Corbynites like Jones. Any criticism, any derision, any attack, must necessarily be cover for a deep-set and troubling fear. In the Corbynite world view, it is just not possible for anybody genuinely to think Corbyn is a bit rubbish; there are only those who love him, and those who fear his power and what it would mean for their cosy establishment hegemony.
But much as Jones and those like him might wish this to be true, I'm afraid it isn't; as Janan Ganesh points out in the Financial Times, the Tories who are mocking Corbyn don't secretly fear his might – they really do think he would be a laughable Labour leader. But pointing this out makes one anti-Corbyn, and therefore an enemy. Whoever you are.
Even staunch Labour members, councillors, or MPs – people who have dedicated decades of their life to serving the party – becomes 'the enemy' when they voice criticism of Corbyn. Guardian columnist Giles Fraser (whose inanity has featured on this Blog before), writes on Twitter:
The more of the old guard they get to trash JC the more emphatic I become in my support for him. No more Labour business-as-usual please.
— Giles Fraser (@giles_fraser) August 19, 2015
Apart from being extremely silly to dismiss criticism of Corbyn based on who is doing the criticising, instead of on the merits of the arguments being made, it is indicative of how the Corbynites are only interested in granting credence to views which already chime with their own. Giles Fraser dismisses the Labour figures who are warning against the shift towards Corbyn's leftism as 'the old guard' – he paints them as has-beens whose advice is not worth heeding. Perhaps their advice isn't worth heeding. But who would Fraser and his ilk listen to?
If somebody very much 'of the left', who agrees with Fraser on many issues, and whom Fraser has always respected and listened to, suddenly said Labour should be wary of electing Corbyn would the response from Fraser (and others in a similar position) be: "OK, I didn't listen to 'the old guard' because I don't respect them, but this guy is someone I have always liked and who has always spoken sense – now that he is saying this too, perhaps I should reconsider my views"…?
No, it wouldn't be anything of the sort. Even if you hadn't been 'the old guard' up until now, disagreeing about Corbyn would suddenly make you 'the old guard'. Put simply, if you are considered 'sound' by the left, voicing criticisms of Corbyn (even well-founded, valid criticisms backed up by plenty of evidence) doesn't mean that those criticisms will finally be taken seriously – it will mean you will be denounced as a traitor, a secret 'Tory'.
This is the default Corbynite perspective – everyone who doesn’t agree with us precisely is a quisling and deserving of being put in the stocks for stopping the people getting what they really want (which is what we tell them they want, even if they haven’t quite realised it yet). The popular revolution, y’see, must not be impeded by it’s complete lack of popularity.
And thus, when the 'revolution' inevitably fails at the ballot box, it won't be the idealists who carried on pushing Corbynism in face of a huge body of evidence against it (because 'evidence' you don't like is just a 'smear' by 'the Establishment', of course) who are to blame. It will be everyone else. And the whole cycle will begin again.
Rafael Behr wrote an excellent and very apposite article in the Guardian quite recently on how so many people have lost the ability to admit when they are wrong. In it, Behr warns of the danger of 'echo chamber' politics, particularly on social media, where people only let themselves read or engage with content which confirms their pre-existing prejudices and reflects their own views. This is especially noticeable with the Jeremy Corbyn phenomenon; no matter how much of a disaster the Corbyn experiment proves to be, nobody who insists they are right about it now will admit later than they got it wrong.
Jeremy Corbyn's almost certain victory, followed by Jeremy Corbyn's almost certain defeat, will prove nothing to those who will not allowed themselves to be swayed by any amount of evidence. There must be some other factor affecting it. They didn't really lose, at all. The fight must go on.
Friday, 7 August 2015
There are better '70s tribute bands than Jeremy Corbyn
If you want to book a nostalgic tribute band for your retro-themed party harking back to the 1970s or the 1980s, I don't suggest you book Jeremy Corbyn. Sure, he plays all the hits – but without feeling. He may look the part, but his performance is jaded and irritable, bordering on contemptuous. Also, his rider was ridiculous, and he was half-an-hour late for soundcheck.
His announcement that he would 'reopen some coal mines' is final proof – if any were needed – that Corbyn doesn't care about serious, grown-up politics at all. He doesn't care about making a difference in other people's lives. He is only interested in posturing gesture politics of the kind most people grow out of by the time they're in their twenties.
Labour leadership contender Jeremy Corbyn has told the BBC he would reopen some coal mines if he was to become Prime Minister.
— BBC Radio Sheffield (@BBCSheffield) August 4, 2015
What, exactly, would reopening coal mines achieve?
I can understand that Corbyn deplores the mine closures of the 1980s, and like many on the left of British politics, sympathises with the miners who came out on strike. But you can look back on those times from a leftist perspective, and still acknowledge that today's world is utterly different.
Both politics and industry have been irreversibly changed in the thirty years or more since the miners' strikes of the early '80s; Corbyn may as well say that he will try to revive the chimney sweep industry, or that he will reopen the wheelwrights' businesses which closed as the motor car superseded the wooden carts and wagons pulled by horses which were once the primary mode of transport for goods and people. After he has reopened the mines, will Corbyn also reopen the cotton mills of the nineteenth century? Presumably, he is incensed that railway companies no longer employ stokers to shovel the coal on the engines?
Corbyn is a quiet, self-effacing man – but in his own way, he is egotistically obsessed with past glories. The announcement about reopening coal mines is worrisome not just because coal mines are a proud part of British industrial history, not a part of Britain's industrial future, but also because it is a window to how someone like Corbyn sees the world.
For Corbyn – and a deeply concerning number of what we must surely now call his 'followers' – the powerless 1980s, when the right wing ran the show and conducted sweeping ideological reforms of so many areas of British life, were actually the halcyon days of the left, and of the British Labour movement. Coal mining, and miners' strikes, have become emblematic of that era, and of the conflict between right and left which defined the Conservatives' time in office during the 1980s; Corbyn, enthralled by the idea of doing ideological battle with the right wing – as if it is some kind of holy war – far more so than he is by the idea of enacting policies and passing legislation, is obsessed with reliving that time, even when everybody else has long since moved on.
The business of government, or enacting ideas, does not interest him; for Corbyn, the glory lies in the struggle. For Corbyn's faction of the Labur left, being powerless and ineffectual, but making an almighty scene about it, is somehow perceived as being more 'noble' or more 'worthy' than actually being in a position to tackle the social issues you claim are the reasons you went into politics. The crusade is more important than the outcome.
Franz Nicolay wrote, in his aptly-titled track 'Do The Struggle':
Like the monkey, Corbyn is more interested in rattling doors than opening them. Maybe he thinks the rattling is more impressive – but I imagine that is little comfort to the people trapped on the opposite side of the door, the people Corbyn claims he wants to help. He would rather be a noisy but impotent protestor – waving his placards and standing on his soapbox, shouting a lot and achieving nothing – than an efficient legislator; the former may provide more thrilling stories to tell your grandchildren, but it is the latter which actually allows you to improve people's jobs, homes and lives.
Reopening the coal mines will help nobody; it will push Britain back, not forwards; it is the rhetoric of somebody who is still obstinately fighting not the last war, but the war before that; it is the fanciful policy of a man who does not live in the real world.
For someone who is so often described as 'progressive', backwards-looking Corbyn conducts his politics in the past. He cannot seem to accept progress, or that the world changes whether he wants it to or not. Coal mines – and the totemic ideological battle they represent for so many people – maybe a part of Britain's rich industrial heritage, but there can't be much place for them in our future now, as things move on. Jeremy Corbyn is King Canute, unable to hold back the inexorable tides of change; unlike Canute, he hasn't the humility to know that he cannot.
Both politics and industry have been irreversibly changed in the thirty years or more since the miners' strikes of the early '80s; Corbyn may as well say that he will try to revive the chimney sweep industry, or that he will reopen the wheelwrights' businesses which closed as the motor car superseded the wooden carts and wagons pulled by horses which were once the primary mode of transport for goods and people. After he has reopened the mines, will Corbyn also reopen the cotton mills of the nineteenth century? Presumably, he is incensed that railway companies no longer employ stokers to shovel the coal on the engines?
Read more: My analysis of Owen Jones' assertion that the Tories fear Corbyn
Corbyn is a quiet, self-effacing man – but in his own way, he is egotistically obsessed with past glories. The announcement about reopening coal mines is worrisome not just because coal mines are a proud part of British industrial history, not a part of Britain's industrial future, but also because it is a window to how someone like Corbyn sees the world.
For Corbyn – and a deeply concerning number of what we must surely now call his 'followers' – the powerless 1980s, when the right wing ran the show and conducted sweeping ideological reforms of so many areas of British life, were actually the halcyon days of the left, and of the British Labour movement. Coal mining, and miners' strikes, have become emblematic of that era, and of the conflict between right and left which defined the Conservatives' time in office during the 1980s; Corbyn, enthralled by the idea of doing ideological battle with the right wing – as if it is some kind of holy war – far more so than he is by the idea of enacting policies and passing legislation, is obsessed with reliving that time, even when everybody else has long since moved on.
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| A masterclass in only seeing what you want to see. |
The business of government, or enacting ideas, does not interest him; for Corbyn, the glory lies in the struggle. For Corbyn's faction of the Labur left, being powerless and ineffectual, but making an almighty scene about it, is somehow perceived as being more 'noble' or more 'worthy' than actually being in a position to tackle the social issues you claim are the reasons you went into politics. The crusade is more important than the outcome.
Franz Nicolay wrote, in his aptly-titled track 'Do The Struggle':
"When the monkey throws himself against the door, he doesn't care if it opens, as long as it rattles…"
Like the monkey, Corbyn is more interested in rattling doors than opening them. Maybe he thinks the rattling is more impressive – but I imagine that is little comfort to the people trapped on the opposite side of the door, the people Corbyn claims he wants to help. He would rather be a noisy but impotent protestor – waving his placards and standing on his soapbox, shouting a lot and achieving nothing – than an efficient legislator; the former may provide more thrilling stories to tell your grandchildren, but it is the latter which actually allows you to improve people's jobs, homes and lives.
Reopening the coal mines will help nobody; it will push Britain back, not forwards; it is the rhetoric of somebody who is still obstinately fighting not the last war, but the war before that; it is the fanciful policy of a man who does not live in the real world.
For someone who is so often described as 'progressive', backwards-looking Corbyn conducts his politics in the past. He cannot seem to accept progress, or that the world changes whether he wants it to or not. Coal mines – and the totemic ideological battle they represent for so many people – maybe a part of Britain's rich industrial heritage, but there can't be much place for them in our future now, as things move on. Jeremy Corbyn is King Canute, unable to hold back the inexorable tides of change; unlike Canute, he hasn't the humility to know that he cannot.
Tuesday, 14 July 2015
Why can't I go shopping when I want to, Giles Fraser?
With the Sunday trading laws in the government's crosshairs following last week's budget, pious moralising chumps like the Guardian's Giles Fraser are falling over themselves to tell us how this move is all part of the Tories' grand plan to turn us all into consumerist drones who worship at the feet of big corporations and simply live from one opportunity to spend money to the next.
Fraser says 'Money is the only god the Tories want you to worship on Sunday' – but this demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of what deregulation is (or, at least, should be!) about. This move is not about pushing people in one direction or another; unlike those who want to keep the strict regulations on Sunday trading, the government is not using this to try and encourage people to make certain lifestyle choices over others. Instead, it is about government stepping back, and letting people make those choices for themselves.
The Tories don't want you to 'worship' money on a Sunday. They don't much care what you do, I expect. What they want is for you to be free to do whatever you please – on a Sunday, or on any other day – rather than having those choices made for you by the government.
Fraser says that Sunday is 'special' to him 'because it is a day when we are not forced to worship the market'. He misses the point that nobody is 'forced' to 'worship' anything, on any day – but that intelligent adults should be allowed to make their own choices about how, and when, to spend their money, rather than being nannied by a government which thinks it knows best.
Perhaps Fraser thinks people are too stupid, or too immoral, to make those choices for themselves? Perhaps he doesn't care that other people might not want their Sundays to be 'special', or that for some people with certain lifestyles or certain jobs, Sunday might be the only time they have available to go shopping? That is a short-sighted, egotistical approach.
Giles Fraser might not want to go shopping on a Sunday – but even with the trading laws relaxed, he still won't have to. Nobody will force him to go shopping on a Sunday, if he doesn't want to; he can still keep Sundays 'special', distinct from the shallow consumerism of the rest of the week, if that is his choice. So why is he so keen to force people who would want to go shopping on a Sunday not to? Fraser and his ilk should stop trying to impose his own morals and views on the rest of us, who may have different priorities, and different lives to lead.
Fraser says 'Money is the only god the Tories want you to worship on Sunday' – but this demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of what deregulation is (or, at least, should be!) about. This move is not about pushing people in one direction or another; unlike those who want to keep the strict regulations on Sunday trading, the government is not using this to try and encourage people to make certain lifestyle choices over others. Instead, it is about government stepping back, and letting people make those choices for themselves.
The Tories don't want you to 'worship' money on a Sunday. They don't much care what you do, I expect. What they want is for you to be free to do whatever you please – on a Sunday, or on any other day – rather than having those choices made for you by the government.
Fraser says that Sunday is 'special' to him 'because it is a day when we are not forced to worship the market'. He misses the point that nobody is 'forced' to 'worship' anything, on any day – but that intelligent adults should be allowed to make their own choices about how, and when, to spend their money, rather than being nannied by a government which thinks it knows best.
Perhaps Fraser thinks people are too stupid, or too immoral, to make those choices for themselves? Perhaps he doesn't care that other people might not want their Sundays to be 'special', or that for some people with certain lifestyles or certain jobs, Sunday might be the only time they have available to go shopping? That is a short-sighted, egotistical approach.
Giles Fraser might not want to go shopping on a Sunday – but even with the trading laws relaxed, he still won't have to. Nobody will force him to go shopping on a Sunday, if he doesn't want to; he can still keep Sundays 'special', distinct from the shallow consumerism of the rest of the week, if that is his choice. So why is he so keen to force people who would want to go shopping on a Sunday not to? Fraser and his ilk should stop trying to impose his own morals and views on the rest of us, who may have different priorities, and different lives to lead.
Tuesday, 9 June 2015
No, you don’t have to nominate Jeremy Corbyn
Jeremy Corbyn, the hard-left Labour MP, wants to stand for the Labour Party leadership. But he’s not doing terribly well, with only eleven nominations from his fellow Labour MPs (leadership hopefuls need to be nominated by at least 35 MPs to make the cut, and be able to stand for leader). Most people, I think, would take this distinct lack of faith from their parliamentary colleagues as a sign that they shouldn’t really be in the contest at all. But in Corbyn’s case, there has been no such realisation – instead, a slightly surreal campaign has sprung up, pushed by supporters of Corbyn both inside and outside the Parliamentary Labour Party, urging Labour MPs to nominate Corbyn even if they don’t agree with him. Which, I think you’ll agree, is a little odd.
What is the point of nominating Corbyn if you don’t think he’d be a good candidate for the leadership? Well, the Corbynites argue, even if you personally don’t agree with our chap, he at least deserves a chance to state his views. His inclusion in the leadership contest will ‘widen the debate’.
Yes, that’s almost certainly true! But if the object is to ‘widen the debate’ by including a bunch of opinions very few people actually agree with – instead of, y’know, actually finding an effective leader who can make Labour electable again – then why not stick Jean-Marie Le Pen in there too?! Sure, nobody in the Labour Party will actually like anything he says – but having him there will ‘widen the debate’, so they should nominate him anyway! (Obviously this is absurd – Jean-Marie Le Pen is not even a Labour MP! – but I think you see the point I’m trying to make…)
By this logic, lots of people should vote at the next election for the nutty authoritarian idealism of the Green Party, or the closed-minded, racist nastiness of the BNP – even if they don’t like any of their policies – because including those parties will ‘widen the debate’. After all, having – say – eight or nine BNP MPs in the House Of Commons would certainly ‘widen the debate’! So we should all vote for them! Would that really be for the best, though?
The irony is that I suspect those pushing for Labour MPs to nominate Corbyn even if they don’t like him are some of the same people who were frothing at the mouth after last month’s General Election, squealing that the result of the vote didn’t accurately reflect the views of the people who had voted. If Labour MPs nominate Corbyn simply to ‘widen the debate’, the same will be true of the leaderships contest – the candidates nominated won’t actually reflect the views of the Parliamentary Labour Party. What is the point of 'widening the debate' to include views that don't actually represent the people the debate is for?
If Jeremy Corbyn wants to be the leader of the Labour Party, then he has every right to put himself forward for it. And good luck to him! But if people don’t buy what he’s selling, there’s no compulsion for his colleagues to nominate him regardless. If Labour MPs don’t want Corbyn to be the leader of their party, it would be foolish of them to nominate him. So, if Corbyn wants in, he needs to offer an agenda which will appeal to enough people to get him elected based on people actually supporting him – just like everybody else on that ballot has had to. Labour's hard left should stop trying to parachute in a candidate if that candidate has no right to be on the ballot on merit.
What is the point of nominating Corbyn if you don’t think he’d be a good candidate for the leadership? Well, the Corbynites argue, even if you personally don’t agree with our chap, he at least deserves a chance to state his views. His inclusion in the leadership contest will ‘widen the debate’.
Yes, that’s almost certainly true! But if the object is to ‘widen the debate’ by including a bunch of opinions very few people actually agree with – instead of, y’know, actually finding an effective leader who can make Labour electable again – then why not stick Jean-Marie Le Pen in there too?! Sure, nobody in the Labour Party will actually like anything he says – but having him there will ‘widen the debate’, so they should nominate him anyway! (Obviously this is absurd – Jean-Marie Le Pen is not even a Labour MP! – but I think you see the point I’m trying to make…)
By this logic, lots of people should vote at the next election for the nutty authoritarian idealism of the Green Party, or the closed-minded, racist nastiness of the BNP – even if they don’t like any of their policies – because including those parties will ‘widen the debate’. After all, having – say – eight or nine BNP MPs in the House Of Commons would certainly ‘widen the debate’! So we should all vote for them! Would that really be for the best, though?
The irony is that I suspect those pushing for Labour MPs to nominate Corbyn even if they don’t like him are some of the same people who were frothing at the mouth after last month’s General Election, squealing that the result of the vote didn’t accurately reflect the views of the people who had voted. If Labour MPs nominate Corbyn simply to ‘widen the debate’, the same will be true of the leaderships contest – the candidates nominated won’t actually reflect the views of the Parliamentary Labour Party. What is the point of 'widening the debate' to include views that don't actually represent the people the debate is for?
If Jeremy Corbyn wants to be the leader of the Labour Party, then he has every right to put himself forward for it. And good luck to him! But if people don’t buy what he’s selling, there’s no compulsion for his colleagues to nominate him regardless. If Labour MPs don’t want Corbyn to be the leader of their party, it would be foolish of them to nominate him. So, if Corbyn wants in, he needs to offer an agenda which will appeal to enough people to get him elected based on people actually supporting him – just like everybody else on that ballot has had to. Labour's hard left should stop trying to parachute in a candidate if that candidate has no right to be on the ballot on merit.
Friday, 5 June 2015
#RedToriesOut and SNP homogeneity
One of the (many) social media slogans of the armies of online Scottish National Party activists – or 'cybernats' – is 'Red Tories Out'. 'Red Tories' is a derogatory reference to the Labour party, implying that they are just the same as – for which, read 'just as bad as' – the Conservatives. It's a nasty, small-minded slur, not least because the claim that Labour and the Conservatives are 'the same' is demonstrably nonsense, as is borne out by the differing attitudes of the SNP leadership towards each – and also because it further legitimises the use of the word 'Tory' as a generic political insult, which is rather disrespectful to people who hold the perfectly legitimate (even if you don't agree with them) political views of the Conservative party.
But what's really intriguing is the '…Out'. Red Tories Out. Out of where? When David Cameron won his second term as Prime Minister last month, protestors gathered in London to shout 'Tories Out Now!' But Labour (the 'Red Tories') are not 'in'. They are in opposition at Westminster – and they are in opposition also in the devolved Scottish Parliament at Holyrood. The only place where Labour hold any power is in the Welsh Assembly; is that what all those SNP supporters on Twitter are getting so hot-under-the-collar about?
I asked one of the SNP-supporting Tweeters you sometimes see – y'know the sort, 'We Are The 45', 'We Are The 56', yellow and black avatar, the referendum isn't over, type of chap – what it all meant. He was perfectly pleasant, actually. But he told me that 'Red Tories Out' meant 'out of Scotland'. I'm sure this isn't true of all SNP activists, or members – but it would seem that there is a school of thought within the Nationalist movement which wants to drive the Labour party and its supporters into the sea.
In other words, they want to establish a one-party state.
With the Liberal Democrats' decimation at the election, and Conservative support in Scotland still very low, Labour are the only effective alternative to the SNP. And some SNP supporters want this dissension quashed. Wiped out. Is that healthy?
In the world of sport, the greatest performances are borne of the greatest rivalries. Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are considered two of the 'greats' of tennis – but neither would've been 'great' without the other to push him. The same is true of Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna in Formula 1. Having a strong rival forces you to raise your game. In politics, just as in sport, competition is healthy and produces better results.
The SNP likes to think of itself as 'progressive' – but a society in which there is only one mainstream political view is a society which stagnates. The ruling party can do as it wills, with no opposition to hold it to account.
When any difference of opinion is crushed as insubordination – or when a culture develops in which disagreement is tantamount to treason – nobody benefits; support for the ruling party is as much an article of faith, with no rational basis for it, as it is rooted in an objective appreciation of their arguments. This is especially true when you consider that party rules prohibit SNP MPs from speaking out against the party line at all; the whole basis of the organisation seems to be to smother and stifle disagreement, instead of confronting and defeating it – and this has resulted, as I wrote in my immediate reactions to the General Election, in SNP politicians and activists believing that they exist to represent the totality of Scottish though, rather than certain specific policies and viewpoints.
In the end, this creates a mentality where, if you are not a 'true believer', you are an outcast. But this is no way to conduct politics. It is only through challenging prevalent ideas, and questioning the status quo, that progress is made, that new ideas can develop, and that a society can grow. That, after all, is how the SNP rose to prominence in the first place – by being an alternative; a different point-of-view; outsiders. Now, however, they are very much the establishment – and their supporters are throwing their weight around more and more.
In contrast, pluralism allows for the open, noisy clash of ideas – as opposed to the suppression of 'bad' ideas – which politics should be all about. He may be the cybernats' favourite hate figure, but I agree with Jim Murphy (the outgoing leader of Scottish Labour) when he says that 'Scotland needs a strong Labour Party'; even when you disagree with what they say, the need for strong opposition parties should be clear to everyone.
But what's really intriguing is the '…Out'. Red Tories Out. Out of where? When David Cameron won his second term as Prime Minister last month, protestors gathered in London to shout 'Tories Out Now!' But Labour (the 'Red Tories') are not 'in'. They are in opposition at Westminster – and they are in opposition also in the devolved Scottish Parliament at Holyrood. The only place where Labour hold any power is in the Welsh Assembly; is that what all those SNP supporters on Twitter are getting so hot-under-the-collar about?
I asked one of the SNP-supporting Tweeters you sometimes see – y'know the sort, 'We Are The 45', 'We Are The 56', yellow and black avatar, the referendum isn't over, type of chap – what it all meant. He was perfectly pleasant, actually. But he told me that 'Red Tories Out' meant 'out of Scotland'. I'm sure this isn't true of all SNP activists, or members – but it would seem that there is a school of thought within the Nationalist movement which wants to drive the Labour party and its supporters into the sea.
In other words, they want to establish a one-party state.
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| 'Traitors to Scotland'. Their crime? To have a different point-of-view. |
With the Liberal Democrats' decimation at the election, and Conservative support in Scotland still very low, Labour are the only effective alternative to the SNP. And some SNP supporters want this dissension quashed. Wiped out. Is that healthy?
In the world of sport, the greatest performances are borne of the greatest rivalries. Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are considered two of the 'greats' of tennis – but neither would've been 'great' without the other to push him. The same is true of Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna in Formula 1. Having a strong rival forces you to raise your game. In politics, just as in sport, competition is healthy and produces better results.
The SNP likes to think of itself as 'progressive' – but a society in which there is only one mainstream political view is a society which stagnates. The ruling party can do as it wills, with no opposition to hold it to account.
When any difference of opinion is crushed as insubordination – or when a culture develops in which disagreement is tantamount to treason – nobody benefits; support for the ruling party is as much an article of faith, with no rational basis for it, as it is rooted in an objective appreciation of their arguments. This is especially true when you consider that party rules prohibit SNP MPs from speaking out against the party line at all; the whole basis of the organisation seems to be to smother and stifle disagreement, instead of confronting and defeating it – and this has resulted, as I wrote in my immediate reactions to the General Election, in SNP politicians and activists believing that they exist to represent the totality of Scottish though, rather than certain specific policies and viewpoints.
In the end, this creates a mentality where, if you are not a 'true believer', you are an outcast. But this is no way to conduct politics. It is only through challenging prevalent ideas, and questioning the status quo, that progress is made, that new ideas can develop, and that a society can grow. That, after all, is how the SNP rose to prominence in the first place – by being an alternative; a different point-of-view; outsiders. Now, however, they are very much the establishment – and their supporters are throwing their weight around more and more.
In contrast, pluralism allows for the open, noisy clash of ideas – as opposed to the suppression of 'bad' ideas – which politics should be all about. He may be the cybernats' favourite hate figure, but I agree with Jim Murphy (the outgoing leader of Scottish Labour) when he says that 'Scotland needs a strong Labour Party'; even when you disagree with what they say, the need for strong opposition parties should be clear to everyone.
Wednesday, 3 June 2015
The furore over MPs' pay shows political campaigning at its worst
The prickly topic of MPs' pay is in the news again. And when I say 'in the news', I also mean that self-righteous social media warriors are shouting through a dense smog of knee-jerk outrage and sharing poorly-researched, inaccurate 'infographics' which look like a nine-year-old created them in Microsoft Paint.
Leaving aside the sheer ignorance of many of these campaigners – I have lost count of how many Tweets I have seen blaming David Cameron for this, when in fact MPs' pay is set by an independent body precisely to stop it becoming such a contentious political issue (and how did that work out for you?!) – it occurs to me there are some very nasty political implications in this vilification of MPs.
One thing which comes up time and time again is the idea that MPs can, or should, 'reject' their pay rise. According to IPSA (the independent body responsible for MPs' pay), actually, they can't – but more to the point, I fail to see why they should. Taking a rise of £7000 would be 'out-of-touch', we are told. (The most pointless, nonsensical, unmeaning insult in politics strikes again!)
But surely what would be really 'out-of-touch' would be not taking a £7000 pay rise! After all, we're always being told that we want politicians who are 'ordinary' people – people who are just like us, with the same priorities and the same experiences as us. How many ordinary people do you know who would turn down an extra £7000 a year?
No, what's really 'out-of-touch' is already being rich enough that you can afford to haughtily wave away the offer of an extra £7000 because you think doing so will make you look good. Because that's all turning down the pay rise would be: a PR stunt. MPs with enough independent wealth that £7000 is neither here nor there to them will make a big show of what good guys they are by ostentatiously not accepting their pay rise, or giving it away to charity – thus putting pressure on MPs from more modest backgrounds, who are not already vastly wealthy, to behave likewise or else be seen to be venal, greedy and self-serving.
I think MPs' pay needs to be enough to attract talented people to do what is actually a very tough and under appreciated job – and I mean talented people from all backgrounds. But so, too, do attitudes towards this sensitive issue.
For bright, capable people who might be considering going into politics, especially people from lower income backgrounds, too low a salary might put them off and they will go into other areas instead. So might the enormous personal costs of even becoming a candidate in the first place (not much is spoken about the fact that MPs have had to invest a lot of their own money and time in being selected as a candidate and winning their seat before they get the rewards of their higher-and-average salary). But from my point-of-view, what would put people off going into politics the most is this furious, incensed obloquy from the public and the press.
I'm not sure I could handle the constant contradictions of having to be an 'ordinary' person to whom the voting public can 'relate', and yet also being expected to behave in ways no 'ordinary' person would, turning down a bit of extra cash when you are offered it. But the fact is that however you conduct yourself in matters like these, people will scream that you are avaricious, lazy, and only looking out for yourself – even thought they often won't have any of the actual facts to hand.
Politicians need to be scrutinised, and they need to be held to account by each other, by the press, and ultimately by the public. But they need to be scrutinised in an informed and rational way. To my mind, one of the biggest barriers to entry is just how uninformed so many of the people who pretend to care about politics are; how quickly outright lies and deceit can spread when they paint the negative image of politicians people are clamouring to see; and how quick and eager people are to believe the very worst about politicians, even when what they're being told is patently not true.
It is a backwards-looking process (as I have already written about in regards to conspiracy theories), working back from a pre-determined conclusion borne of entrenched prejudices rather than a careful consideration of the evidence available. Anti-government campaigners already know that they want to portray politicians in a bad light before they have written a word; they have their conclusion mapped out before they have the facts, so they either twist the facts, or cherry-pick convenient ones to suit the case they are trying to build – or they simply disregard facts entirely.
How many of the 'activists' who are angry about IPSA recommending a pay rise for MPs have actually bothered to look into how parliament works, and what an MP's job really entails? Do they watch the BBC Parliament channel? Do they read Hansard? Do they meet their local MPs and get to know them before meting out aggressive and judgemental online content about what awful, nasty, evil people they are? Do they know how IPSA came to the conclusions they did on the topic of MPs' pay, and the reasoning behind their recommendation that it should be increased?
Or do they – as I suspect – catch a whiff of a controversial issue which can be used to whip up an angry rabble and instantly reach for the Photoshop and the bold, all-caps font without bothering to look into the details any further and find out what it's actually all about? My concern is: should we really be letting such people set the agenda in issues like these?
Leaving aside the sheer ignorance of many of these campaigners – I have lost count of how many Tweets I have seen blaming David Cameron for this, when in fact MPs' pay is set by an independent body precisely to stop it becoming such a contentious political issue (and how did that work out for you?!) – it occurs to me there are some very nasty political implications in this vilification of MPs.
One thing which comes up time and time again is the idea that MPs can, or should, 'reject' their pay rise. According to IPSA (the independent body responsible for MPs' pay), actually, they can't – but more to the point, I fail to see why they should. Taking a rise of £7000 would be 'out-of-touch', we are told. (The most pointless, nonsensical, unmeaning insult in politics strikes again!)
But surely what would be really 'out-of-touch' would be not taking a £7000 pay rise! After all, we're always being told that we want politicians who are 'ordinary' people – people who are just like us, with the same priorities and the same experiences as us. How many ordinary people do you know who would turn down an extra £7000 a year?
No, what's really 'out-of-touch' is already being rich enough that you can afford to haughtily wave away the offer of an extra £7000 because you think doing so will make you look good. Because that's all turning down the pay rise would be: a PR stunt. MPs with enough independent wealth that £7000 is neither here nor there to them will make a big show of what good guys they are by ostentatiously not accepting their pay rise, or giving it away to charity – thus putting pressure on MPs from more modest backgrounds, who are not already vastly wealthy, to behave likewise or else be seen to be venal, greedy and self-serving.
I think MPs' pay needs to be enough to attract talented people to do what is actually a very tough and under appreciated job – and I mean talented people from all backgrounds. But so, too, do attitudes towards this sensitive issue.
For bright, capable people who might be considering going into politics, especially people from lower income backgrounds, too low a salary might put them off and they will go into other areas instead. So might the enormous personal costs of even becoming a candidate in the first place (not much is spoken about the fact that MPs have had to invest a lot of their own money and time in being selected as a candidate and winning their seat before they get the rewards of their higher-and-average salary). But from my point-of-view, what would put people off going into politics the most is this furious, incensed obloquy from the public and the press.
I'm not sure I could handle the constant contradictions of having to be an 'ordinary' person to whom the voting public can 'relate', and yet also being expected to behave in ways no 'ordinary' person would, turning down a bit of extra cash when you are offered it. But the fact is that however you conduct yourself in matters like these, people will scream that you are avaricious, lazy, and only looking out for yourself – even thought they often won't have any of the actual facts to hand.
Politicians need to be scrutinised, and they need to be held to account by each other, by the press, and ultimately by the public. But they need to be scrutinised in an informed and rational way. To my mind, one of the biggest barriers to entry is just how uninformed so many of the people who pretend to care about politics are; how quickly outright lies and deceit can spread when they paint the negative image of politicians people are clamouring to see; and how quick and eager people are to believe the very worst about politicians, even when what they're being told is patently not true.
It is a backwards-looking process (as I have already written about in regards to conspiracy theories), working back from a pre-determined conclusion borne of entrenched prejudices rather than a careful consideration of the evidence available. Anti-government campaigners already know that they want to portray politicians in a bad light before they have written a word; they have their conclusion mapped out before they have the facts, so they either twist the facts, or cherry-pick convenient ones to suit the case they are trying to build – or they simply disregard facts entirely.
How many of the 'activists' who are angry about IPSA recommending a pay rise for MPs have actually bothered to look into how parliament works, and what an MP's job really entails? Do they watch the BBC Parliament channel? Do they read Hansard? Do they meet their local MPs and get to know them before meting out aggressive and judgemental online content about what awful, nasty, evil people they are? Do they know how IPSA came to the conclusions they did on the topic of MPs' pay, and the reasoning behind their recommendation that it should be increased?
Or do they – as I suspect – catch a whiff of a controversial issue which can be used to whip up an angry rabble and instantly reach for the Photoshop and the bold, all-caps font without bothering to look into the details any further and find out what it's actually all about? My concern is: should we really be letting such people set the agenda in issues like these?
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