Cassilis

I posted below on what I considered to be an error of judgement on Iain Dale’s part for not commenting on the Derek Conway story. In a post today Iain comes back to this and I joined the debate over there too. In the interests of clarity I want to explain exactly where I stand on this because while I haven’t revised my original view, Iain’s now coming in for some underserved stick and I’m keen to disassociate myself from it.

The charge that Iain’s being hypocritical doesn’t hold water. I’ve no recollection of him ever criticising anyone for refusing to comment on a story about a friend so we can put that one to bed. The other charge – and one I hinted at myself but which I now accept as unfair – is that he’s being partisan. I’ve been in almost daily contact with Iain over the last few months on a separate issue and he’s been unfailingly polite, honest & straightforward. I’m as confident as I can be that if this story had broken about a Labour or Lib Dem MP with whom Iain was friends he would’ve taken the exact same line. And all the tosh about Iain's supposed interest in the seat doesn't even merit a reply.

This is why I think Iain made an error of judgement. Derek Conway didn’t suffer some personal calamity of the sort millions of people experience every year. The story wasn’t about marriage problems or some youthful indiscretion exposed – the sort of story that’s essentially private and only holds an interest for the prurient. In such circumstances friends can rightly be expected to rally round and offer any criticisms they have privately. Party politics aside, most would have sympathy for anyone in this position. This story was about the blatant abuse of public funds and Derek was simply caught out – a career calamity but not a deeply personal one. It’s a story that fits perfectly with the prevailing narrative in UK politics at the moment (finance, funding etc.) – a narrative Iain was actively engaging in days before it broke. There is little, if any cause to have sympathy with Derek Conway over this.

In these circumstances, while it might be understandable (indeed honourable) to temper your remarks in light of personal relationships, to simply say nothing doesn’t strike me as the right thing to do. Nobody expected Iain to assassinate Derek’s character or call for his dismissal, it would’ve been perfectly possible to acknowledge the friendship but still address the story itself. I'm sure Iain's decision not to do so was motivated by noble sentiments alone but I still think it was an error of judgement - no more, no less.

Since the Conway story has neutralised (for now) any capital the Tories were hoping to make over Labour’s funding problems, Gordon Brown probably goes into today’s PMQ’s feeling a little more upbeat than he normally does on these occasions. It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out.

Worth highlighting though the curious editorial decisions in The Sun today. A classic ‘nose in the trough’ story about an MP clearly on the make, from a party that have been berating their opponents over money problems for weeks now and what do the Sun lead with? A front page exclusive on Cameron’s law & order plans.

I share most people’s revulsion at the influence the Sun has on our political culture but I wouldn’t be so rash as to deny that influence exists. Does leading with this positive story instead of the damaging one most of the other tabloids and broadsheets led with suggest the Sun is moving at pace towards endorsing Cameron?

In light of the intemperate exchanges between Bob Piper and me on my post comparing Labour & Tory scandals I should add a few words on how the Derek Conway story impacts that discussion. One of the issues Bob & I locked horns on was whether or not we should only discuss convictions or cases where the parliamentary authorities have passed judgement against someone. I felt, and still do, that that’s too restrictive when you have allegations that go to the very top (as they did over ‘cash for honours’) since it’s not unreasonable to assume that the law or authorities might not get their man in such cases – these are powerful forces they’re up against.

Nonetheless Bob does have a point in stressing how few ‘Labour scandals’ have resulted in the kind of parliamentary censure we’ve seen in the Conway case. As I explained in my post I think most of the Tory outrage at Labour’s behaviour in office is justified but if it’s to be accepted as something more than partisan stone-throwing then the Conservatives need to be equally if not more combative when it comes to dealing with similar issues in their own party. Putting up spokesman to have a pop at Alan Johnson or Peter Hain when the jury’s still out is perhaps understandable in modern politics but when one of your own lot has actually been found guilty of breaking the rules then you’d better make damn sure your reaction is equally high profile and judgemental. I haven’t seen that.

While on the subject I see there’s also some debate around how Iain Dale’s reacted to the Conway story. In essence Iain takes the view that since he’s a friend of Conway’s he’ll say anything he has to say to him to his face and there’s no reason why he should engage on the story on the blog. At various times in the past Iain’s also staunchly defended the fact that his is a partisan blog and makes no apologies for moderating his reaction depending on the story. For reasons that will become apparent shortly I have good blogging relationship with Iain but on this I think he’s getting it wrong. I don’t doubt the sincerity of his friendship with Conway but in these situations context is all and Peter Hain, Alan Johnson etc. all have friends too. Iain and others (myself included) have been happy to have a pop at Labour figures, even before they’ve been found guilty so neglecting to say anything about arguably more important stories because ‘they’re a mate’ wont wash for me. It’s not beyond the gift of a writer of Iain’s calibre to find a way to comment on the Conway story and share his opinions while still protecting his friendship with Derek.

The importance of blogging to the political process is growing by the day, not least because of sites like Iain’s – moderating output like this dents that progress and risks reducing it to little more than overblown social networking.

Labels: Politics

For someone who makes a living with words Martin Amis is peculiarly reckless with them. In his interview with Johan Hari in today’s Independent there’s plenty of ammunition for those inclined to lazily tag Amis as a racist. I have to say though, despite Hari’s obvious affection for the younger, more left-wing Amis his intention here appears to have been simply continuing the Eagleton row rather than getting to any explanation or deeper understanding of Amis’s position.

Hari takes Amis to task for what he describes as his ‘cognitive dissonance’:

“With the right lobe of his brain, Amis tells me he loves our multiracial society, and he says it with vigour and rigour. I don’t for a second think he’s lying. But then, with his left lobe he passionately praises a write who seems to me to be an outright racist, one who damns virtually all Muslims as secret Sharia-carriers and brags that the “white” birth-rate is still higher in the US. It is as though Amis has been fractured by the kerosene blast of September 11 into two people – and they aren’t talking”

If there is any ‘dissonance’ here it’s between Amis’s fairly straightforward attitude to race (which he shares with Hari) and Hari’s rather simplistic and over-the-top characterisation of Mark Steyn (which he doesn’t). The sentiments Hari attributes to Steyn represent his take on the Canadian polemicist and clearly not one that Amis shares - it’s hardly fair then to call this out as an inconsistency on Amis’s part.

As far as I can see there’s nothing dishonourable or particularly complicated about Amis’s position – certainly nothing ‘dissonant’. He has a fairly straightforward liberal attitude to race and culture as aspects of his background touched on by Hari illustrate. But as a thinking man he’s simply trying to acknowledge that there are serious problems that these attitudes don’t address and we should say so. Arguably Hari has a dissonance all his own in that he acknowledges he doesn’t believe Amis to be racist but then seems remarkably hostile to Amis’s attempts to broaden the conversation a little, introduce alternatives and hypotheticals - at this point Hari retreats to his ‘Amis is a racist’ position and seems curiously reluctant to engage him on any of the issues he raises.

Referring back to the quote that Eagleton uncovered and that caused last years row Hari suggests that Amis might be prepared to advocate racial profiling:

“If you make a list of all the people who have committed terrorist acts and see what their provenance is, and if they turn out to be white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, search them. It's not a moral question - its expediency, and something you hate to do, but if this increases, if this goes up a magnitude, these are questions we will face."

The key phrase is ‘questions we will face’ – Amis is highlighting the tensions between a standard liberal outlook on things like profiling and a potential set of circumstances that might cause us to question them at some point. It seems to me that he’s trying to engage Hari in discussion about these things but he (Hari) just stages this as some sort of irreconcilable position and moves on.

Amis himself has a good quote on the dangers of marking some areas off-limits for discussion:

"[Discussing Islamic fundamentalism is] so saturated in revulsions that people can't go near it. But we should go near it... Just because there have been horrible abuses based on this way of thinking doesn't mean that it's not worth considering, or that it's so radioactive that you don't dare go near it. That is the defeat of reason."

Arguably, of course, this was a more general interview rather than a specific attempt to go over the original row but I just wish Hari had been a little braver and more willing to engage with Amis – we might have learned a little more about both men.

Labels: Politics

During the middle of the 20th century Canadian author, playwright & journalist Roberston Davies wrote regular editorials for the Peterborough Examiner, a local paper for the small city in North East Toronto. He wrote under the pseudonym 'Samuel Marchbanks' and as with anything Roberston Davies wrote I strongly recommend him.

Below is a diary entry for summer 1945 and relates Samuel's thought on learning about the election of Clement Attlee (or, more precisely, the 'ejection' of Winston Churchill)

"Hullabaloo today about the results of the British General Election, which is interpreted in some circles as a mighty triumph for the Common Man. I suppose it is, for it has turned out of office Winston Churchill, who certainly ranked high among Uncommon Men of our times. I confess that I find the modern enthusiasm for the Common Man hard to follow. I know a lot of Common Men myself and, as works of God they are admittedly wonderful; their hearts beat, their digestions turn pie and beef into blood and bone and they defy gravity by walking upright instead of going on all fours: these are marvels in themselves, but I have not found they imply an genius for government or any wisdom which is not given to Uncommon Men... In fact, I suspect that the talk about the Common Man is popular cant; in order to get anywhere or be anything a man must still possess some qualities above the ordinary. But talk about the Common Man gives the yahoo element of the population a mighty conceit of itself, which may or may not be a good thing for democracy which, by the way, was the result of some uncommon thinking by some very uncommon men."

And lest anyone mistake my quoting this remark some sort of slight on Clement Attlee it's not - I just liked it and thought his final observation about democracy needing some sort of meritocracy to arrive in the first particularly nice....

In the wake of Peter Hain's resignation a Labour-inclined friend and I were discussing how the funding scandals and problems that Labour have faced over the last few years compare with the mid-90's 'sleaze' forever associated with the dog days of John Major's government. I was shocked when he said, quite seriously, that Labour's scandals still weren't anywhere near as serious as those the Tories faced back then. These things can always be a bit partisan but let me explain why I think Labour's record on 'sleaze' over the last decade is far, far worse than John Major's.

Sleaze, corruption and scandal exist on a continuum - there's no back & white and there'll always be subjective views on how serious each story is. Nonetheless you can still illustrate two extremes on that line. On the one hand there are the distinctly personal scandals - usually involving sex or relatively small sums of money. These stories tend to be about individual gratification - backbenchers or junior ministers simply on the make. Shagging someone they shouldn't, not declaring some hospitality they've received, pocketing a few grand here and there to ask a question in the house. The defining characteristic for me though is that however unappealing these things may be there usually exists a sort of firewall between them and the exercise of political power. Sexual misdemeanours obviously have little bearing on that and even backbenchers pocketing a few grand to raise an issue or ask a question hardly amounts to a significant corruption of the political process because of their relative lack of influence. That's not to excuse any of this behaviour; just to point out there is a distance there that speaks to how seriously we should take the story.

At the other end of this scale is something far more troubling. It might still be shrouded in the same half-truths, evasions or downright lies but the crucial difference at this extreme is that those lies aren't just put in the service of individual self-interest; they're actually serious attempts to influence government policy or get into a position to do so. The politician who gets away with this sort of thing is seriously undermining the democratic process - the guy shagging his secretary is, at worse, undermining his marriage. By any measure this is the more serious sort of scandal and the one that should really trouble us.

So whereabouts on this continuum do Labour's recent troubles fall in comparison to Tory troubles in the 1990's? I don't think there's any argument that they fall towards the more serious end - a Prime Minister interviewed by the police over allegations that his office 'sold' seats in the legislature, individuals trying to donate hundreds of thousands of pounds anonymously to candidates effectively running for Deputy PM (and more police interviews as a result), allegations that intelligence assessments used to justify war were doctored. This isn't to say that both didn't parties have examples of both of course - Aitken was more serious for the Tories and Prescott's dalliances were tabloid fodder - but the names forever associated with 90's Tories sleaze (Hamilton, Mellor, Asby, Yeo etc.) weren't guilty of anything as serious as the charges that Labour have had to deal with in recent years. Regular readers will know that I'm loathed to indulge in straightforward partisan point-scoring and if anything that probably predisposes me to be harsher to politicians on the right than the left. But in this instance it seems beyond doubt to me that Labour's record in terms of serious sleaze and corruption is far more shameful than the Tories record in the 90's - shagging around in a Chelsea strip isn't comparable to selling influence.

p.s. I've just read the remarks from Hain's replacement on this the Today programme this morning - he denies that these scandals have 'tainted' Labour! In his honour and in light of the above I've changed the title of this post....

Labels: Politics

Not sure I have the stomach for the 5 weeks of Parliamentary debate we’re about to embark on over the Lisbon treaty. But in today’s Guardian Simon Jenkins deploys a similar line of thought to me a few months back so I thought it worth paraphrasing my thoughts at the time.

With one or two notable exceptions both sides in this debate are intensely irritating and often wrong-headed. Too often the Europhile agenda seems built on nothing more substantial than an intense self-loathing, distrust of the US and a belief that further integration will help facilitate more social democracy than any Westminster election could deliver. The Europhobe agenda often boils down to an exaggerated fear of that same social democratic ‘creep’, a ridiculously outdated view on ‘Johnny foreigner’ and a geopolitical outlook still rooted in the 19th century.

Regardless of where they stand on the treaty itself, most commentators would accept this characterisation of where the national ‘debate’ is at the moment. The issue then becomes how suitable a background that is for a referendum and at that stage personal preferences start to come back into play. Europhiles reject a referendum on the grounds that the context is disastrous – true but not a remotely credible argument against one. Eurosceptic calls for a referendum are (not always but usually) similarly insincere because they’re more than happy to exploit current electoral ignorance and have no real desire to better inform the electorate in case they change their mind.

If they’re honest most people simply don’t know enough about Europe and the way it’s governed. If they discard everything they’ve ‘learned’ from their favoured politicians or their paper of choice (be it the Mail or the Guardian) and try to come to a judgement based solely on verifiable and independently sourced facts about EU governance they would most likely draw a blank – most of us have nothing but what we read in the MSM or the blogosphere. Whatever fears either side has about opening up this debate (and there are many valid ones, particularly on the ‘pro’ side) it’s been in effective hibernation for the last 50 years and until we remedy that our continued participation in the EU is based on a fiction. This should concern everybody, not least those who champion the EU as a force for good. We need to have the newspaper campaigns, the national road-shows (party-based and otherwise), the TV programmes, pamphlets and books – the whole issue of the part we play in Europe’s future needs to be thrust to the fore and resolved for good or for ill. Whatever degree of integration this country is to have with our European neighbours over the next few decades it has to be based on as wide a democratic mandate as we can possibly achieve and not the shifting fortunes of party politics. Anything less would be a fundamental breach of trust and it’s important to understand that this statement holds true regardless of political outcome (i.e. the breach is in not asking people their views, not the more common ‘surrendering sovereignty’ line favoured by the right) That our political culture over the last 50 years has contrived to load that debate massively in one direction (and so favour a certain outcome) is deeply regrettable but it most definitely isn’t an excuse for not having it.

There should be a referendum because it’s the best shot we have at bringing legitimacy to our future relations with Europe. As Jenkins concludes:

“Faced with a torrent of Euro-directives - some possibly virtuous, on free trade, energy saving, public safety, terrorism, civil rights, building regulations and conservation – [the public] will disregard them, as Mediterranean countries ignore or corrupt any public administration they do not like. I do not want this sort of Britain. It will happen not because voters were cheated of a promised referendum. Most will just shrug and say: "Typical politicians." It will happen because no attempt was made to persuade them of the worth of a substantial transfer of their democracy off-shore, as would have happened in a referendum campaign. This neglect was not oversight. It was because the government thought its persuasion might not work (despite the polls suggesting it might). It was the arrogance of political cowardice.”

Amidst the acres of print dedicated to the market turmoil Tom Freeman has the only guide you really need. A flavour?

"The London Stock Exchange opened at 8.00 a.m. This early start so dismayed the traders that the FTSE promptly dropped over 200 points. Not all of them were even in by then.It then bobbed up and down a bit as they checked their emails and whether they’d made any pretend Facebook friends overnight, and by 8.30, as they were getting some coffee into them, things picked up a bit"

Great stuff...

That's a phrase you hear with distressing regularity when people talk about politics. Call me a woolly old relativist but I always find that sentence very depressing regardless of which of the main parties it ends with. It reeks of blind loyalty and unthinking tribalism, a view of politics that casts parties as no different from football teams - peopled by transient figures but somehow embodying something noble and eternal. For me, at least, this is partisan tosh. When someone attempts a potted history of their favoured political tradition there are a few standard things you'll always find - mistakes will be acknowledged but cast as aberrations and closely associated with individuals rather than the movement (individuals usually described as 'not really one of us'), triumphs might be linked to individuals but they are assumed to speak for the movement as a whole, those things become 'what my party is all about'. I don't believe any serious and objective reading of UK political history over the last couple of hundred years could conclude that either of the main parties were intrinsically bad or mistaken in most of their actions.

Now, I can anticipate the obvious riposte to this - 'that's your opinion, when I look at my lifetime the XXX party has been responsible for most of the ills and the YYY party have introduced most of the good things'. This misses the point though - what I'm objecting to is the suggestion that nothing can change, that either party is irrevocably fixed to certain solutions and outcomes and therefore will never be worthy of support. It might be reasonable to doubt that a party will ever align itself to the things that matter to you but ruling it out altogether just strikes me as lazy. It's a judgement of course and the fact that I'm restricting my point to the 'main parties' (I'd happily say I'll never vote BNP) perhaps undermines it a little but I still think there's something to it. Another riposte that perhaps does hold a little water is that this only holds true now that we've reached Fukyama's liberal democracy / 'end of history' type state. Managerialism is the name of the game now and perhaps pre-universal suffrage, welfare state etc. you could align the parties better with certain vested interests. But not anymore.

...not quite but I am having PC problems which so apologies for the lack of posting - likely to be the case for a few days yet.

But while I'm on - worth bringing to your attention the Centre for Policy Studies 2008 Lexicon - a Guide to Contemporary Newspeak. 12-18 months ago Conservative Home carried a piece entitled 'Lefty Lexicon' addressing many of the same linguistic traits but with the implication that this was a disease of the left. Despite being on the political right the CPS study isn't as blatantly partisan and Jill Kirby's introduction acknowledges that this isn't a problem confined to any particular party. A few personal favourites:

Awareness (need to raise):
- announcement in place of action.

Bandwagon:
- something a political opponent is jumping on when he is closely in tune with public opinion.

Benchmark: used to suggest that measuring a problem is the same as doing something about it. Used interchangeably with target.

Conversation (call for a public): a suggestion used to conceal the fact that a politician has no policy

Cost-benefit analysis (often rigorous): back-of-the-envelope calculation to prove original hypothesis.

Debate (call for a): used to imply that talking about a problem is the same as solving a problem.

...and that's only a selection to 'D', you get the idea. Orwell is spinning as we speak. Read more here...

Anyone who's stuck by this blog for at least a few months (and thanks) will know I'm partial to mucking around with my template. And yes, I'm aware that in the 'idiots guide to blogging' it's probably mistake number one to fiddle too much with the look of your site but hey, I enjoy mucking around with CSS and HTML and it's my blog so if you don't like it...

Down the left hand side I'll be adding a few RSS feeds that I enjoy including a feed from the aggregator that I use (Newsgator) which'll let me share interesting things I find elsewhere. At the top of the sidebar you can listen to Matt Wardman's Daily Roundup of the papers.

If you're fortunate enough your parents will prepare you for many things in life, most of them the sort of things you'd expect parental advice on - love, loss, adversity etc. I've always considered myself just so blessed but reading about the Northern Rock mess I realised that my father's prescience even seems to have extended to cover warnings about the US sub-prime market - he once said:

"If you owe the bank £1,000 and can't pay - you have a problem. If you owe them £100,000 and can't pay - they have the problem"

Thanks Dad. When Ben Bernanke eventually quits or gets pushed I'm forwarding your CV...

The row over Hillary's remarks about Martin Luther King seems to be obscuring a perfectly reasonable and decent observation she made - of course social changes require movements with visionary leaders that create hope and force the issue at the political level but elected officials, and perhaps presidents above all, are needed too in order to turn those hopes into real social changes. From where I'm sitting Hillary wasn't disparaging MLK's contribution to the civil rights movement at all, far less employing any sort of crude calculus to weigh his contribution against that of Lyndon Johnson. She was just pointing out that both individuals were needed to make stuff happen. Surely that was just a valid rebuttal to Obama's simplistic assertions about "hope" and "change" and his implied dismissal that experience has any part to play in the campaign?

My opinion hardly matters of course and I remain undecided between the two but it feels as though Obama's campaign can only really benefit from what I consider a worrying trend in politics - the elevation of wooly platitudes and idealism over clear and practical policy solutions. Being a political nerd I was as thrilled by Obama's Iowa speech as everyone - it was stirring and emotional, I could almost see Josh and Toby standing just off camera. But reading it again now it's remarkably devoid of anything of substance. There's a danger that Obama's candidature will have resonance only with those people who are motivated by single issue pressure politics, who enjoy the 'narrative' about the first black US president and are dripping in wristbands and t-shirts proclaiming their loyalty to this consumer boycott or that campaign group. We need these movement of course but by themselves they are not enough.Most of last century's social advances had their roots in that sort of individual activism but real change only came about when the mantle was picked up by elected representatives and placed at the heart of political discussion. That up-front passion and commitment to a cause had to make way for solutions and these had to emerge from the messy swamp of political compromise. All the evidence suggests that it's this messy process of actually making things happen that then turns people off but it will never go away.

Politics is difficult and that needs to be more widely understood than it is at the moment - we need to challenge the idea that solutions to these problems are there to be simply picked from the shelf by the willing politician (the casual implication being that our elected representatives are simply not bothered). Basically being Bono or Geldof is easy, being Brown (or Bush etc.) is difficult. The growing interest in single issue campaign groups is actually eroding respect for the political process and our senior politician's readiness to embrace 'wristband' politics may hasten rather than halt the process. Hillary's reminder of the balance that must exist here was simply that and a plea that people not be swept along with the Obama story at the expense of what can realistically be achieved from next November.

Labels: Politics

Just a brief post registering my disapproval at all the tosh going around about Labour 'nationalising our bodies' on the back of Gordon Brown's presumed consent proposals. Where Bob Piper & Liberal Conspiracy lead, Polly Toynbee follows today - not a wagon trail I'm naturally predisposed to hitch up to but in this instance absolutely spot on.

Once you're dead, you're dead - there is no 'you' anymore to hold any views on any subject or object (or consent for that matter) to anything. The view in some quarters that your will should somehow remain sovereign even after it has ceased to exist simply makes no sense. What remains - all that remains in fact - is a mass of potentially life-saving tissue and organs so the presumption that this can be used is a necessary and practical one. The case for a system that doesn't even allow opt-outs (by individual or relatives) is actually a very strong one although in this instance the balance has probably been struck right. In today's Times Libby Purves objects from this angle:

"...it must be acknowledged and accepted that some of our compatriots have powerfully superstitious beliefs about bodily parts: we are not historically far from the age of relics, and some of the Alder Hey parents held repeated funerals for recovered microscope slides. You may not think that way, I certainly don't; but nobody has the right to gainsay those who do"

If there's a human dying somewhere as a consequence of that decision - yes we do.

First, a disclaimer - sometimes I get really interested in the big political stories of the day and sometimes I happily let them pass me by. I’ve never really understood why this happens with some stories but it does and the funding scandals over the last few months have been the perfect example. I haven’t followed every statement or analysis, every nuance or comment from the pundits – whether this distance makes for a more enlightened take on the subject you can decide…

I really, really struggle to see why this should be such a big political issue. It reeks of the sort of problem that 100% of the non-political classes could agree on in 5 minutes but politicians are determined to offer a multitude of ifs and buts and pretend it’s more complicated than it is. Everything is seen through the prism of how it’ll affect their own party’s finances rather than how well it sits with any fair and noble approach to politics. Put simply this isn’t anywhere near as difficult or as complicated as we are constantly told. How does this sound:

• Only declared individual donations should be permissible - no organisational donations at all. That means no think-tanks, no businesses, no unions and no research groups.
• Eligibility to donate based on reasonably strict residence criteria – e.g. residence in UK >75% of last three years.
• Route all individual donations via the Electoral Commission (or similar) and every single donation (above a certain level) should be viewable on a website for all to see.
• Cap those individual donations sensibly – no need to register <£100 so tin-rattling can still go on but no reason why we can’t have an upper limit of £40-£50k per-annum.

Now, that may be me displaying the sort of naiveté that comes of not following the story but if you take out naked party advantage (which shouldn’t be a factor anyway) then what possible objections could there be to this system? I know Labour would object to the exclusion of union funds but there’s absolutely no defence for that – every individual who currently contributes via a union levy would be completely free to continue doing so, netting the party an identical income but they’d just have to arrange it themselves. If Labour fears that this would actually mean lower income then that’s tantamount to an admission that the current system exploits those people. The Conservatives would probably cry foul about any stricter eligibility on who can donate but again that’s tough – this is too important an issue to let that sort of self-interest come into play.

The only objection which might carry any weight here is what this might do to the way parties campaign and the nature of politics as a whole – there’s a real prospect that this would dramatically reduce the monies parties have available to them at general election times. This might mean they’d have to have less flashy adverts and billboards, less glossy mail shots and internet campaigns. That in turn might continue the disturbing trend of fewer and fewer people getting engaged in party politics. If that danger is demonstrated to be real then we will have to consider state funding, not something I’m particularly keen on. If the danger isn’t real then the parties will just have to adjust the way they campaign.

See – easy isn’t it? Cassilis for PM……

Update: Tom Freeman endorses much of this in the comments but is too gallant to point out that the idea of routing all donations via the electoral commission was first suggested by him back in November last year and I neglected to credit him - sorry Tom.

Labels: Politics

I'm not entirely sure what to make of this.

Newsweek's European Economics editor Sefan Theil writes in Foreign Policy on the strong anti-capitalist bias in the French & German education system. If you have the time I'd urge you to read the whole thing because there certainly are some alarming examples of the sort of things you find in French & German text books. In a paragraph though, this sums it up particularly well:

"One might expect Europeans to view the world through a slightly left-of-center, social-democratic lens. The surprise is the intensity and depth of the anti-market bias being taught in Europe’s schools. Students learn that private companies destroy jobs while government policy creates them. Employers exploit while the state protects. Free markets offer chaos while government regulation brings order. Globalization is destructive, if not catastrophic. Business is a zero-sum game, the source of a litany of modern social problems. Some enterprising teachers and parents may try to teach an alternative view, and some books are less ideological than others. But given the biases inherent in the curricula, this background is unavoidable. It is the context within which most students develop intellectually. And it’s a belief system that must eventually appear to be the truth"

The thing I find slightly troubling is the automatic assumption that the free-market capitalist system is in fact superior. Don't get me wrong, politically I'm far closer to Theil than the authors he quotes and I agree that some of this indoctrination seems wildly inappropriate in an educational context - I'm just struggling to understand what he's actually advocating in its place if it's not just the promotion of the contrary view? He seems to be adopting the position that classic free-market economics is pure science and devoid of any political judgement - ignoring the fact that it supports the centre-right political outlook.

You author isn't anywhere near as knowledgeable about these things as he sometimes pretends but from the little I have read an increasing number of politicians and economists traditionally happy to associate themselves with the right have started to question if we've reached some sort of zenith in terms of the benefits we can derive from free-market economics. Their superiority may have been self-evident by any fair reading of the last century but that doesn’t necessarily mean ‘t’will always be thus’. Climate Change is the perfect example of the sort if issue that free-markets don’t necessarily offer an immediate solution to.

Now, I don’t believe for a minute that the textbooks Theil has a pop at are sophisticated enough to be adopting this stance – it reads just like the lazy anti-market, anti-American prejudice he alleges. But his refusal to recognise that his alternatives could be seen as equally loaded is strange.

Labels: Politics

The response to David Cameron's 'Work For Welfare' reforms has been interesting. Labour's line of attack has been the proposals are out-of-date or just nicked from plans the government already has in place and, obvious partisans aside, the pundits have given them a cautious welcome. The absence of hysterical claims about the Tories forcing people into servitude is welcome - perhaps we're seeing a more nuanced and accurate understanding of what 'compassion' really means in politics.

Anecdotal evidence is a dangerous thing and under any proposals there'll be people the system fails and there will be those who know how to exploit it. There will always be deserving people falling foul of the rules and work-shy morons pocketing cash with no intention of seeking work so beware the politician who pulls these anecdotal examples from thin air to try and discredit their opponents - they'll always exist and can be used to attack either side. Compassion in a welfare system demands balance - a balance between recognising that most people out of work would rather not be there and will take all reasonable steps to become self-sufficient but recognition that some people don't fit that bill and any monies spent on them is money lost to genuine cases (or health or education etc.) So a system that might ultimately see a very small number of people being denied any support at all is still a compassionate system - arguably more so than those that don't make any such distinction. There's a similar subtlety at play when discussing asylum - offering support to those genuinely fleeing persecution is our moral duty and I'd personally have no truck with any politician who didn't accept this. But support for those genuine cases is contingent upon a reasonably firm approach to those who exploit the system and aren't genuine - bogus asylum seekers for want of a less inflammatory phrase. But that phrase is now so loaded that any politician that utters it immediately casts themselves beyond the pale.

Too often in politics the fair use of language comes second to the desire for narrow (and usually temporary) party advantage. Accusing your opponents of a lack of compassion is a little low because not everyone has the same view of what compassion means in political terms. The reaction to Tory welfare reforms suggests people are beginning to understand this....

Labels: Politics

It takes some going to get me to ride to Gordon Brown's defence but I will this morning. There's a classic non-story brewing on some right wing blogs alleging that Brown misled reporters at his press conference yesterday when questioned about a meeting with David Beckham. Here's the question and his response:

Question:
I think you are meeting David Beckham in the near future. Can you tell us why? Do you want him to have some sort of role in encouraging youngsters to get into sport?

Prime Minister:
David Beckham did a brilliant job helping us win the Olympics. He was one of the team that helped us win the Olympic decision for London for 2012 and I think the whole country was grateful for the work he and others did to make that possible. And if David Beckham could help us in the future on some of the other big national projects, that would be to the benefit of the country as well. But I have got no specific plans to talk to him about them.

The non-story (here, here & here and probably on a million other blogs by tea time) is that Brown denied he was meeting Beckham when he did just that only a few hours later. But he didn't - read that extract above again. I was going to use bold and italics to flag the key points and explain what was being said until I realised how pathetic that would be - it's a 120-odd words that my son isn't a million miles away from being able to understand and he's 18 months old. The questioner suggested a meeting was planned and Brown didn't deny that - the questioner also suggested the likely topic of discussion and Brown corrected him on it. End. Of . Story.

That Brown didn't explicitly acknowledge the meeting is, granted, a little strange. But I'm quite comfortable with the fact a meeting with a footballer isn't to the fore of the Prime Minister's mind, even if it is in the next few hours. There are many, many things to take Gordon Brown to task over and when I think it's justified I'll join the throng doing just that. But trying to whip up a story on this flimsy a premise should be beneath these reasonably august blogs...

Labels: Politics

Danny Finkelstein is in fine form in this morning's Times:

Next, there is the waning appeal of small-government rhetoric. In the 1970s, speeches about government being the problem not the solution resonated. Now this language is much less potent politically. Government remains often inefficient and too large, but winning support to change it is harder. Conservatives need to show that they can run government, providing services, not merely talking about shrinking them...

This is linked to another issue - tax cuts. Always an automatic crowd-pleaser in the past, it isn't working quite as reliably as it used to. John Howard, for instance, lost in Australia despite his promises. In Britain, Conservative pledges have had mixed results. Voters don't believe them.

I'm sure I've heard that line of thinking before somewhere - what I haven't heard suggested but welcome heartily is the idea that the Conservatives should embrace heavier taxes on fossil fuel consumption.

Labels: Politics

I’m starting to wonder if Gordon Brown and his advisers script his speeches and interviews using a special set of those fridge magnet poetry things – lots of apparently random words that can be re-arranged to leave little messages for people. Gordon appears to have a set with the words ‘tough’, ‘long-term’, ‘decisions’, ‘interests’, ‘stability’, ‘difficult’, ‘well-placed’ etc.

Don’t get me wrong – I know few, if any, political speeches or interviews are entirely off-the-cuff and there’s always a deliberate theme or ‘line-to-take’. And yes, you could easily play a similar game with Cameron or any other politician (Obama has apparently lost all but two magnets, ‘hope’ and ‘change’) but the point is gifted politicians are usually able to disguise this a little bit better – at least from all but the most seasoned hacks. There’s a transparency to many of Gordon’s appearances, an almost robotic reliance on these stock phrases. It makes it very clear what his line of attack on Cameron will be - ‘OK bloke but to wimpy for this big job’.

That may be true and perhaps my observation on Gordon is partisan but I never thought this about Blair – he had the knack of making equally (if not more) heavily scripted themes appear conversational and natural. Gordon seems to script his words every morning when he gets the milk for his cornflakes.

Labels: Politics

Worth flagging Anthony Wells assessment of the challenges facing Labour as 2008 dawns. Most worrying part for any Labour readers:

"I think Brown’s character, specifically the lack of charisma or warmth will prevent him being able to bring it back. When problems hit Brown will never be able get away with a winning smile and a “I’m a pretty straight sort of guy” or “well, John is John”, he can’t charm he was out of problems, can’t convince people that, whatever has gone wrong, he is fundamentally a decent chap doing his best. Neither has he yet shown any ability to project a vision or purpose for his government that the public can relate to, perhaps in other circumstances that wouldn’t matter, competence would be enough, but to differentiate himself from Blair he needs to. He also doesn’t seem to have the knack of keeping the press onside - from having Fleet Street at his feet he seems to have alienated them rapidly, without a turnaround in press attitude it will be difficult for Brown to turnaround the government’s position.

So putting my cards on the table, I think Brown is finished."

He goes on to say this doesn't mean Labour is finished and today's assessment of Tory fortunes isn't all plain sailing but there's little doubt that the 'character question' will be a defining one of Brown's premiership...

Labels: Politics

Interesting article on CiF today from Oliver James on the link between what he calls 'selfish capitalism' and rising levels of mental illness. I agree with some of his observations about the harm that comes from the rising inequity (something that took root under Mrs Thatcher but wasn't really checked at all under Blair) but there are some confusions and contradictions in James' piece worth pointing out.

I'm not sure how genuine his use of the term 'selfish capitalism', as distinct from plain old ordinary capitalism, is. He presumably doesn't want his analysis to be dismissed as some sort of pseudo-Marxist proxy piece and the implication is that there is a benign and neutral capitalism at whose door none of these ills can be laid. Being on the soft right I'd agree with that but I don't think the use of that small prefix is enough here. You can legitimately take issue with that nasty strain of capitalism we've over the last 20-odd years (basically Thatcherism) and I'd probably agree with James on the ills that Thatcher is responsible for. But if you're going to risk sullying the name of an entire political philosophy then surely you can't dismiss the advances of the previous 80 years when capitalism of one form or another was also prevalent? As one commenter on CiF illustrates (with apologies to Monty Python):

"I tell you, what has capitalism ever done for the likes of me eh??!??!?

Damn you capitalism. Just over a relatively short century ago I would have enjoyed the fact that most other scumbags my age (30+) would probably be dead by now (on average would have struggled to have reached the nice age of 5). And if they were lucky enough to pass the age of thirty, they would have been all rotten-toothed and illiterate, easy to spot and discriminate from proper people like. And if they weren't controlled with some deadly ailment that neither Dr nor hospital would or could treat - then back breaking toil and low calorie food or a nice bit of warfare would sort them out on a daily basis."

Quite. James then undermines his own case a little by apparently discounting the possibility that any of the rise is attributable to rising detection rates for mental illness which have improved dramatically over the last 30-40 years - not to mention less social stigma attached to the issue (all of which incidentally have taken place while all these nasty capitalists have been running the show). Whatsmore he even points out that the link isn't explicit anyway:

"In itself, this economic inequality does not cause mental illness. WHO studies show that some very inequitable developing nations, like Nigeria and China, also have the lowest prevalence of mental illness. Furthermore, inequity may be much greater in the English-speaking world today, but it is far less than it was at the end of the 19th century. While we have no way of knowing for sure, it is very possible that mental illness was nowhere near as widespread in, for instance, the US or Britain of that time."

That last piece of speculation is critical - it's equally possible than when you adjust for the impact of detection and changes in social attitudes that mental illness was just as prevalent, perhaps more so. If that were the case then the premise for his article begins to crumble.

Finally, James goes on to wish for the emergence of a "passionate, charismatic" leader who advocates his preferred brand of more altruistic and compassionate capitalism. This raises an interesting question - 'is such a person more likely to emerge from the political movement traditionally associated with capitalism or the one which explicitly rejected it for most of it's life'? My answer would be yes which suggests that as soon as David Cameron can appropriate the other attribute James is looking for - being female - then he'll have James' vote.

Labels: Politics