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.

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?

Campaign getting shirty

It shouldn't matter what politicians wear, should it?  Sadly, in the modern age, such image-related issues have become the main focus of election coverage; the politics of personality – of identity – has superseded the politics of ideas in a quite alarming fashion.  Which is why the BBC News website today is running a story about what shirts David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg have been wearing on the campaign trail.

It shouldn't matter.  And yet, for some reason, it does.  It matters because the strangely homogenous garb of political leaders (all three leaders have favoured a dark blue V-neck jumper over a light blue shirt, with dark jeans or trousers) is indicative of the 'no-win' situation many politicians find themselves in.  What I mean by that is that politicians are always being told that we (the electorate) want to see politicians who are 'normal', and who act just like 'ordinary people' (whatever that means); they can't go out and about campaigning in a suit and tie, because 'normal people' don't go out in a suit and tie, and they need to look like they're 'one of us'.  And yet when they try to look like 'one of us', we lambast them for trying to look 'normal'.  Which is pretty mean of us, really.

It's also pretty stupid.  This shallow vapidity distracts from the serious side of politics, and while everyone's busy laughing at the Prime Minister trying to be one of 'the kids', or the leader of the Opposition looking silly while eating a bacon sandwich, their policies – which may well be pretty ghastly – go unnoticed.

'How the leaders would dress if they weren't tied to focus groups' would be an interesting feature. I reckon Ed would untuck his shirt.

— Jeremy Duns (@jeremyduns) April 5, 2015

The fetishisation of 'normal' is not good for British politics.  The more we force politicians to behave in the way they think we want them to, ever fearful of putting a toe wrong lest they be laughed out of office by the court of public opinion, the more homogenous and consensual politics becomes, and the less choice there is (or, at least, appears to be) between the different parties and their different leaders.  And then we have the temerity to complain that all politicians are 'the same'!  Maybe you think politicians are all the same – but as I have remarked before, the incessant whining of the electorate has made politics that way.

Nun shall pass

Labour's Shadow Education Secretary Tristram Hunt found himself in a spot of bother over some comments he made on last night's Question Time, in relation to fellow panellist Cristina Odone's Catholic Schooling.

The remarks have been interpreted as disparaging nuns, or Catholic schools in general – which has, in turn, resulted in the tediously inevitable calls for Hunt to resign.  Times columnist Hugo Rifkind presents a good case for construing Hunt's remarks as actually being deferential to nuns, not critical – but this is not the point.

@timothy_stanley No no. Watch it again. She says, "blah blah unqualified teachers", he says, "but NUNS". As in far BETTER than most. Really.

— Hugo Rifkind (@hugorifkind) February 6, 2015

I'm no fan of the Shadow Education Secretary.  He seems to think 'unqualified teachers' is synonymous with 'bad teachers', and he managed to conflate QTS* and safeguarding protocol quite alarmingly during yesterday's programme.  However, I don't think he should be forced to resign over this.

I think it is a bit rich to complain (as so many people often do) that politicians are 'all the same', and 'out-of-touch', when every time a politician says anything which isn't strictly prescribed orthodoxy we are clamouring for him or her to be sacked.

And as politics becomes less about the frank exchange of ideas, and more about watching what you say, ever fearful that somebody may take offence – or that somebody may take offence on someone else's behalf – we open the door ever wider for parties like UKIP (whose education policy is actually shocking sensible, by the way – but of course that's not enough to make up for the rest of their poisonous, divisive nuttiness), who thrive on distinguishing themselves from a perception of mainstream 'professional politicians' who daren't speak their mind and can't 'connect' with 'ordinary people'.

It is small wonder that people are increasingly turned off the 'traditional' mainstream political parties when they seem to care more about maintaining a squeaky-clean image than about actual policies – and when they are so quick to expunge anyone who actually expresses an opinion, and apologise 'for any offence caused'.  But we have created that culture for ourselves, by demanding the head of any politician who says something we don't agree with.  When we complain that political parties are 'all the same', maybe we should consider what we have done to make them that way.

* Qualified Teacher Status

The political Richter Scale

UKIP are keen to tell us that there is a 'political earthquake' underway.  That the party is gathering momentum is not in doubt – but is it really an 'earthquake'?  No.

Last night saw Mark Reckless (re)elected as the MP for Rochester Strood, to become the second MP to be elected under the UKIP name.  His majority of close to three thousand over the Conservatives was comfortable, but not insurmountable for the Tories at a General Election, where polls show voters do tend to approach things slightly differently.  Nevertheless, it was a good victory for UKIP and they are quite understandably celebrating the result.

However, I don't believe this result is quite as momentous as the UKIP types on the news and on social media would have us believe.  Sure, it's a good result for them – but how earth-shattering really is it?

As in last month's by-election in Clacton, UKIP's candidate was a defector to the party from the Conservatives, and the incumbent MP in that seat.  Incumbency brings with it certain benefits, and when we look at other recent by-elections in Heywood & Middleton and in Newark – where UKIP have not been 'helped along' by the defection of a local MP already known to the people in the constituency – UKIP have polled fairly well, but not won the seat.  Really winning a seat is a different proposition from holding a seat (even under different party colours), and that is something UKIP are still yet to do.

the people of #RochesterAndStrood have spoken. They have said: “we told you before that we wanted this guy, why are you asking us again?!”

— Kit Marsden (@manek43509) November 21, 2014

What is certain, though, is that the General Election next year is looking set to be very interesting indeed!  It will be fascinating to see how UKIP fare with their 'homegrown' (for want of a better word) candidates – those dyed-in-the-wool 'Kippers who haven't crossed over from another party, taking with them a certain level of local support and a preexisting record of achievement in parliament which they can use on the campaign trail.

Personally, I think it's quite unlikely that we'll see any further defections to UKIP before the General Election.  So, when we come to May next year, UKIP candidates will stand or fall on their own merits – and although the party is on the rise, I don't think we will see the huge numbers of UKIP MPs some of their activists are hoping for.

My personal feeling is that they'll be extremely lucky to get into double figures with the number of seats they win.  That's a tremor, but is it truly an earthquake?  Not really.

Your right not to vote

It's Polling Day!  The most magical day of the year!  Children awake at the crack of dawn, to find the stockings they had hung up beside the fireplace, so empty and unfulfilled the night before, stuffed full of shiny new polling cards and campaign literature; the whole family gathers to exchange election gifts, and then sit down so a sumptuous home-cooked Polling Day dinner; we sing election carols, which tell and retell the glorious tale of that first election, all those many years ago - it is a story everyone knows, but which never gets old.

I have voted in every election since I turned eighteen.  I consider voting to be an important part of citizenship.  However, I also fully support the right of those who don't wish to vote - for whatever reason - not to do so.  It's a shame not everyone feels like this.

In the past few weeks - as in the run-up to every election - politicians, activists, celebrities (whose own feeling of self-importance won't allow them not to stick their oar in) and ordinary people have been reminding everyone to vote.  "Remember to vote!" they say, in a patronising, mothering tone - as if those who don't are simply forgetful, careless, or plain lazy.

Campaigns like Never Forget To Vote use powerful, emotive rhetoric about "Nazis" and "protests" to encourage people to go out and vote on Polling Day.  We are told time and time again that people "fought and died" for our right to vote - not to use that right is an insult to the brave men and women who fought for freedom and democracy.  We are told that, in many countries around the world, the right to vote is still very much in peril - if we don't vote in our own elections, we are insulting those who don't have have the same democratic rights we in the UK enjoy.  For women, especially, the emotive spectre of the Suffragettes, and their struggle to extend the franchise to women, hangs over anyone who dares not visit the polling station.

It's all a load of hyperbolic rubbish, really, isn't it?

We in Britain are fortunate to live in a democratic country.  We are not hapless subjects writhing beneath the heel of some despotic tyrant.  But democracy is, above all else, about choice; those wars we fought so long ago to preserve our freedoms were not waged so that we should have the right to vote, but so that we could choose to vote.

I know (or know of) many people who are choosing not to vote in today's European Elections.  These are not people who do not care, or who have simply "forgotten" to vote - they are interested, intelligent, politically-active people, many of whom have, in the past, been members of political parties, or even stood for election themselves.  Their choice not to vote today is exactly that - a conscious, informed decision to abstain from voting.  That is as valid a choice as any.

There are many good reasons to vote today.  But there are also good reasons not to.  And in the end, it is each individual's choice whether or not to exercise the right to vote.  Not to do so in no way diminishes the struggles or accomplishments of those who put their lives on the line in the name of democracy or freedom - indeed, that is a big part of what those people were fighting for.  A conscientious abstainer is as much a part of the democratic process as anyone.

Let's drop the pretence that anyone who doesn't vote today will have blood on their hands once the cyborgs rise up and enslave all of the free peoples of Europe (or whatever).

Campaignful

Don't believe the UKIP lies.  The idea that all politicians are the same, or that all 'mainstream' political parties are the same (or however you want to phrase) is one of the most ludicrous concepts to have permeated the public consciousness in recent times - as even the most cursory glance at a manifesto will tell you.  However, there is one way in which all politicians are very much alike; they are all universally adored by the people in their local area - at least, according to their own Tweets, they are!

With the European Elections coming up in less than a week, now, politicians and activists of all parties are feverishly taking to Twitter to try and create a good impression.  The good impression they all want to make goes as follows:

They have been out-and-about in the local area (wherever that is - some of them don't even know themselves!), meeting the local people "on the doorstep" (which always sounds very draughty, to me).  It is hard, physical work because it involves a lot of walking, not to mention carrying pieces of paper - but it's all worth it, because for the local candidate and his or her team of enthusiastic volunteers, engaging with the voters at this personal level is such an invigorating and life-affirming experience.

Personally, I suspect that a healthy proportion of people who answer their front doors to find an out-of-breath gaggle of political zealots armed with shiny leaflets standing there just tell them to sod off again.  But these respondents are carefully filtered out of the picture painted on social media, and the stories we read on Twitter are all of local residents who are not only keen to lay all their concerns (about "local issues" - like parking outside the school, and the planned closure of the duck pond) at the feet of the politicians whom they trust explicitly to deal with such matters, but are eager to make it clear just how delighted they are by all the hard work the party has done so far on their behalf.

No matter which party a candidate or activist represents, or the area in which he or she is campaigning, his or her canvassing activities only ever elicit "a very positive response from locals" - or, at least, appear to.

Frankly, it's getting a little tedious.  Yes, we know there are elections around the corner - but do you honestly think that telling everyone on Twitter how many local people you have spoken to (as if that's supposed to impress us?!), and how much all of them liked and respected you (as if we're going to believe that?!) is going to get you any more votes?  Maybe you should Tweet about your policies instead…