Back in the 1980s, I seem to remember the Militant newspaper often quoting from the Financial Times. The thinking of the Trotskyist editors was that the title represented the authentic voice of the bosses. If you wanted to have a true insight into the devious and calculating minds of the capitalist enemy, you needed to read the FT.
David Cameron should try reading it too. The letters page has recently been full of people explaining why leaving the EU is a bad idea. The arguments are various. One contributor explains the damage that an exit would do to the UK’s non-EU exports. (That’s because we currently benefit from dozens of trade treaties, which we’d have to renegotiate single-handed. ) Another talks of the improbability of our being able to negotiate a bilateral trade agreement with the EU when we exit. A third points out the madness of threatening Scotland with potential isolation outside the European bloc if it votes for independence, while planning for the whole UK to withdraw.
Of course, all this is just scratching the surface. But it’s indicative of the mood of folk who actually think about these things. People who tend to be significant executives or proprietors of major businesses, economists and so on.
Clearly, it’s not an auspicious time for politicians to embrace a pro-European line. The majority of the population is highly sceptical of the EU and the UK Independence Party is riding high in the polls. The Daily Express, grandma’s journalistic comfort blanket, is currently running a ‘crusade’ – not a campaign, a crusade – for British withdrawal. The problems with the EU are pretty easy to outline. The broader picture discussed by the readers of the FT is rather esoteric and technical in comparison.
It’s going to very difficult to avoid a referendum. The Labour Party can’t be seen to oppose a public vote on this vexed question. So how are the pro-European elements in the political and business world going to make their case? Surely they are heading for a catastrophic defeat?
I’m actually not so sure. Observing the recent debate, I see two lights shining at the end of the Channel Tunnel. The first concerns the personalities who are lining up to demand the UK’s exit from the EU. And the second is the self-defeating arguments they seem inclined to advance.
Notice how excited the Tory backbenchers became when they discovered that Norman Lamont and Nigel Lawson had both declared themselves in favour of withdrawal. These ‘heavyweight’ endorsements were supposed to show that the bandwagon was on a roll. The reality, of course, is that these Tory grandees carry no weight with anyone apart from Eurosceptic Conservatives.
Those old enough to remember Baron Lawson of Blaby will recall that he presided over the late 80s bubble, which was followed by high inflation and rising interest rates. His personal position was constantly undermined by Margaret Thatcher’s retention of her own economic adviser, Sir Alan Walters. Baron Lamont of Lerwick has even less credibility, as he’s forever associated with the UK’s exit from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism during his own tenure as Chancellor under John Major.
The fact that Michael Gove and Philip Hammond are prepared to go part of the way to endorsing the former finance ministers is hardly cause for concern. Gove is another character whose beauty only exists in the eye of the geriatric beholders in the Tory shires. Defence Secretary Hammond is someone who looks as if he’s had his charisma bulldozed by a Challenger tank.
So far, so good. But we’ve also had a glimpse of the way in which this rather motley crew intends to frame its arguments. When Nigel Lawson made his intervention, one of his major points was that the European Union is far too restrictive and interventionist when it comes to the UK’s financial sector. ‘Hands off our bankers!’ he rails. Well, I think we know exactly how popular the banking community is since the debacle in 2008. The idea that people will be voting to leave the EU so that bankers are given free rein is so wildly off target that one wonders if Lawson is a secret agent for the pro-European cause.
There’s plenty of water to flow under the Bridge of Sighs before the UK votes whether it wants to distance itself from its continental partners. But those of us who understand and value the political and economic importance of European integration must make sure to present the anti-EU campaign for the high-risk, free-market strategy that it is.
Another piece of good news is that younger people are decidedly more pro-European than the older generations. In a recent Fabian Policy Report, sponsored by the German political foundation Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Peter Kellner of YouGov shows data suggesting that 18-34 year-olds are noticeably more favourable to co-operation than the over 60s.
I say this is good news, but we know that the over 60s are probably much more likely to vote in a referendum. That’s why the pro-EU lobby must relentlessly target younger people and talk to them about the things that really matter to them. The ability to move and work freely across borders. The entrenchment of rights in the workplace. And, of course, the need for collective action to protect the environment.
Although it’s a game that some of us would rather not play, everything is now up for grabs. British isolationism would be so disastrous that the political stakes in the UK are now higher than at any time in 30 years. Let’s make sure we get it right.
Thursday, 16 May 2013
Monday, 8 April 2013
Reflections on the Thatcher era
I sat through the extended BBC news bulletin on the death of Margaret Thatcher and can’t say I really learnt anything much I didn’t already know. One of the problems with such huge figures is that their lives have already been so analysed and picked over that there is nothing much left to say when they finally pop their clogs.
For me, the announcement of the Iron Lady’s demise actually provokes surprisingly little emotion. If I do feel anything, it’s probably at a personal, sentimental level. It’s about the people I knew and the places I visited as a left-wing teenage activist in the 1980s. Memories of a time in which in which Thatcher was dominant and omnipresent. A malign force which banded us together. There was a great camaraderie among activists involved in organisations such as CND and Anti-Apartheid, although on occasions it seemed like the camaraderie of the damned. Maggie really did go on and on and those years passed excruciatingly slowly.
The first demonstration I ever went on was against the war in the Falklands. A friend and I came back from Trafalgar Square clutching a placard, having listened to worthy speeches from the likes of Tony Benn and Dame Judith Hart, who’d been ministers under Harold Wilson. I remember the turn-out being pretty dismal and the fact that people were shouting the slogan “Falklands, Malvinas... they are Argentina’s!” Even as a 14-year-old, I realised this kind of pro-Argentinian posturing would get the campaign nowhere and I certainly didn’t join in. But I had been outraged by the jingoistic fervour stirred up by the tabloid press in favour of the war and was glad to be able to protest.
Within a year, I was actively involved in CND and took charge of running a street stall for the campaign in a south-western suburb of London. This involved stocking up on endless supplies of badges. If you didn’t wear a badge or two at that time, you weren’t a committed activist. I guess the modern-day equivalent is adding some kind of ribbon to your Twitter profile.
It’s important to remember what those years were actually like. People would literally spit at me in the street for selling those CND badges. 1983 was the year Peter Tatchell unsuccessfully fought a by-election in Bermondsey and was subjected to an outrageous campaign of intimidation and abuse, simply because he was gay and left-wing. In fact, the climate was poisonous. And by the time another year had rolled by, the miners were on strike.
My personal view is that this period was an epic low point for the UK. Probably the lowest point since the days of the Blitz. We were a nation in flux, caught between the stifling collectivism and union domination of the 60s and 70s and the brutal free-market philosophy of the new right. When these tectonic plates crashed against each other, all hell broke loose.
As Thatcher worked to destroy the National Union of Mineworkers, she simultaneously pursued a campaign to abolish the democratically elected Greater London Council. Although Ken Livingstone had a much better understanding of the way in which the world was changing than Arthur Scargill – and managed to fight a much more sophisticated campaign against Thatcher – he still ultimately lost the battle. Britain’s first woman Prime Minister seemed to be all-powerful. Perhaps even superhuman, given her remarkable ability to step out of the Grand Hotel in Brighton alive after the IRA bombed it in October 1984. (I was in Brighton a week later and saw the hole they blasted in that building. To this day, I find it hard to understand how she survived.)
And the conflict went on. Riots in 1985 on Broadwater Farm in Tottenham and a number of other locations around the UK. The print dispute at Wapping a year later. I remember going down to the picket lines on a couple of occasions and pushing against lines of riot police in the dark. I think there was some vague idea of stopping ‘scab’ lorries driving in and out of Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper plant, but it shows you just what a crazy time this really was. Here was a middle-class boy from the suburbs, travelling across London with fellow students from his further education college and risking getting hit over the head with a police baton in support of a completely doomed cause.
That was the 80s in a nutshell for me. Lots of very good, well-meaning people doing their best to stop the bad guys prevailing. But losing. Time after time after time.
It wasn’t until the late 80s that the tide started to turn for the left. There were two major issues on which they were more in tune with the public mood than Thatcher. The first – a warm-up, if you like, because it was international rather than domestic – was Apartheid. Thatcher’s support for the bankrupt racist regime in Pretoria ran counter to most people’s ideas of basic justice. There’s no doubt that popular campaigns to boycott companies which invested in the South African regime helped to play a part in its ultimate downfall. By the time Botha resigned in 1989 and De Klerk took over as leader, the writing was on the wall. Thatcher had invested a lot of time and political capital defending the indefensible. But she looked more and more isolated and out of touch on this key international issue as the years rolled on.
Then came the poll tax. Don’t be fooled when people tell you that Europe finally finished Thatcher. Europe was the rift that was starting to tear the Tory Party apart, but it was the popular anger surrounding her local government ‘community charge’ that really acted as the trigger for her downfall. It gave those people such as Heseltine, who opposed her views on Europe, an opportunity to attack. At last, the Iron Lady could be shown to be seriously out of touch. Someone who was no longer a winner, but a liability.
Perhaps one day I’ll be an old man and people will talk to me about the 80s as a period of long-distant history. My own memories will probably not be as sharp as they are today. But my over-riding image will, I think, be of a nation at war with itself. Driven apart by ideology and locked into a cycle of endless, unproductive battles.
We can argue until we’re blue in the face about how far Thatcher’s policies were necessary and inevitable. But the manner in which she pursued those policies was brutal. So when she’s given her ceremonial send-off, I won’t be yelling through a megaphone from the side of the street, but forgive me if I don’t get my flag out.
For me, the announcement of the Iron Lady’s demise actually provokes surprisingly little emotion. If I do feel anything, it’s probably at a personal, sentimental level. It’s about the people I knew and the places I visited as a left-wing teenage activist in the 1980s. Memories of a time in which in which Thatcher was dominant and omnipresent. A malign force which banded us together. There was a great camaraderie among activists involved in organisations such as CND and Anti-Apartheid, although on occasions it seemed like the camaraderie of the damned. Maggie really did go on and on and those years passed excruciatingly slowly.
The first demonstration I ever went on was against the war in the Falklands. A friend and I came back from Trafalgar Square clutching a placard, having listened to worthy speeches from the likes of Tony Benn and Dame Judith Hart, who’d been ministers under Harold Wilson. I remember the turn-out being pretty dismal and the fact that people were shouting the slogan “Falklands, Malvinas... they are Argentina’s!” Even as a 14-year-old, I realised this kind of pro-Argentinian posturing would get the campaign nowhere and I certainly didn’t join in. But I had been outraged by the jingoistic fervour stirred up by the tabloid press in favour of the war and was glad to be able to protest.
Within a year, I was actively involved in CND and took charge of running a street stall for the campaign in a south-western suburb of London. This involved stocking up on endless supplies of badges. If you didn’t wear a badge or two at that time, you weren’t a committed activist. I guess the modern-day equivalent is adding some kind of ribbon to your Twitter profile.
It’s important to remember what those years were actually like. People would literally spit at me in the street for selling those CND badges. 1983 was the year Peter Tatchell unsuccessfully fought a by-election in Bermondsey and was subjected to an outrageous campaign of intimidation and abuse, simply because he was gay and left-wing. In fact, the climate was poisonous. And by the time another year had rolled by, the miners were on strike.
My personal view is that this period was an epic low point for the UK. Probably the lowest point since the days of the Blitz. We were a nation in flux, caught between the stifling collectivism and union domination of the 60s and 70s and the brutal free-market philosophy of the new right. When these tectonic plates crashed against each other, all hell broke loose.
As Thatcher worked to destroy the National Union of Mineworkers, she simultaneously pursued a campaign to abolish the democratically elected Greater London Council. Although Ken Livingstone had a much better understanding of the way in which the world was changing than Arthur Scargill – and managed to fight a much more sophisticated campaign against Thatcher – he still ultimately lost the battle. Britain’s first woman Prime Minister seemed to be all-powerful. Perhaps even superhuman, given her remarkable ability to step out of the Grand Hotel in Brighton alive after the IRA bombed it in October 1984. (I was in Brighton a week later and saw the hole they blasted in that building. To this day, I find it hard to understand how she survived.)
And the conflict went on. Riots in 1985 on Broadwater Farm in Tottenham and a number of other locations around the UK. The print dispute at Wapping a year later. I remember going down to the picket lines on a couple of occasions and pushing against lines of riot police in the dark. I think there was some vague idea of stopping ‘scab’ lorries driving in and out of Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper plant, but it shows you just what a crazy time this really was. Here was a middle-class boy from the suburbs, travelling across London with fellow students from his further education college and risking getting hit over the head with a police baton in support of a completely doomed cause.
That was the 80s in a nutshell for me. Lots of very good, well-meaning people doing their best to stop the bad guys prevailing. But losing. Time after time after time.
It wasn’t until the late 80s that the tide started to turn for the left. There were two major issues on which they were more in tune with the public mood than Thatcher. The first – a warm-up, if you like, because it was international rather than domestic – was Apartheid. Thatcher’s support for the bankrupt racist regime in Pretoria ran counter to most people’s ideas of basic justice. There’s no doubt that popular campaigns to boycott companies which invested in the South African regime helped to play a part in its ultimate downfall. By the time Botha resigned in 1989 and De Klerk took over as leader, the writing was on the wall. Thatcher had invested a lot of time and political capital defending the indefensible. But she looked more and more isolated and out of touch on this key international issue as the years rolled on.
Then came the poll tax. Don’t be fooled when people tell you that Europe finally finished Thatcher. Europe was the rift that was starting to tear the Tory Party apart, but it was the popular anger surrounding her local government ‘community charge’ that really acted as the trigger for her downfall. It gave those people such as Heseltine, who opposed her views on Europe, an opportunity to attack. At last, the Iron Lady could be shown to be seriously out of touch. Someone who was no longer a winner, but a liability.
Perhaps one day I’ll be an old man and people will talk to me about the 80s as a period of long-distant history. My own memories will probably not be as sharp as they are today. But my over-riding image will, I think, be of a nation at war with itself. Driven apart by ideology and locked into a cycle of endless, unproductive battles.
We can argue until we’re blue in the face about how far Thatcher’s policies were necessary and inevitable. But the manner in which she pursued those policies was brutal. So when she’s given her ceremonial send-off, I won’t be yelling through a megaphone from the side of the street, but forgive me if I don’t get my flag out.
Saturday, 6 April 2013
Welfare, Philpott and the dangers for Labour
I remember going on a media training course well over 20 years ago, run by a lady who was a hard-bitten Fleet Street hack of the old school. The kind of person who could type 40 wpm with two fingers, while chain-smoking Silk Cut. She started by explaining that there were only three things that qualified a story as news: sex, death and conflict. How salient her observation seems to be in the light of the extraordinary case of Mick Philpott – ‘Shameless Mick’ as he’s branded by The Daily Mail – whose conviction for the manslaughter has thrown up a generous helping of all her three criteria.
Philpott would have been big news at the best of times. But these aren’t the best of times in the UK. On the week his trial concluded, the government introduced cuts in welfare benefits which are going to leave a lot of people poorer. Amid the polarised debate, the trial set another sinister fire raging in pubs, workplaces and social networking sites. Just how far was Philpott’s lifestyle symptomatic of a wider malaise? To what extent was his life a morality tale which underlined the bankruptcy of the welfare state?
When George Osborne and David Cameron joined sections of the right-wing press in suggesting the Philpott case raised serious questions, the left reacted vehemently. They correctly pointed out that one violent, misogynistic man with 17 children is hardly typical of most welfare recipients. The vast majority of people on benefits and tax credits are everyday folk, who happen to be poorer than others. They are us. There but for the grace of God. If any one of us happens to lose our jobs or fall sick, we then become the ones reliant on support.
Actual levels of recorded benefit fraud are pretty low. And for every extreme example of someone milking the system, there will be countless examples of others playing by the rules.
I don’t disagree with any of this. Indeed, I’ve seen at first hand the wider effect of government austerity measures, as my wife – who works in the voluntary sector helping the elderly and people with disabilities – is currently in a dispute with her employer about the erosion of her terms and conditions of employment. It’s not only people on benefits who are suffering, but many of the lower-paid workers (often women) who are there to support them. They are victims of squeezed budgets, outsourced contracts, redundancies and wage cuts.
Where the left has to very careful is in being seen as a defender of the status quo. In other words, there’s a massive trap into which Eds Miliband and Balls might all too easily walk: saying that there is nothing wrong with the structure of the current benefits system, that no improvements can be made and that we can learn nothing from extreme cases. Owen Jones, for instance, who is one of the most visible and articulate defenders of the current system, has drawn an analogy with Harold Shipman. We don’t blame doctors as a whole for the crazy antics of one mass murderer, so why should we draw general conclusions about the welfare system from the state-subsidised life of one outlandish and terrible individual?
This sounds a superficially plausible argument, but once you start to pick it apart, it’s riddled with holes. The Shipman Inquiry made a number of recommendations for improvements in the light of the case. Better training for coroners. More control over access to controlled drugs by doctors and pharmacists. It even drew wider conclusions about the role of the General Medical Council and the way in which medics are overseen. It is possible to recognise that the vast majority of doctors are not like Harold Shipman while realising there was a system in place which had allowed Harold Shipman to exist. Perhaps we shouldn’t care about phone hacking? After all, it’s only the extreme actions of a few rogue tabloid journalists and it would be wrong to tar anyone else with the same brush? It’s an argument which goes absolutely nowhere intellectually.
God knows Philpott’s motives for having so many kids. (Or – given his reported personal hygiene habits – the willingness of so many different women to accommodate his desires.) Some people have speculated it was about controlling further the women whose lives he dominated and although I’m not a psychologist, that seems pretty plausible. Perhaps his motives were not – as the right-wing press likes to suggests – to bring in more money. But the left cannot shy away from the fact that more money did flow into the household with every child. And given the man’s violent history and conviction for attempted murder, doesn’t society have a right to draw the line somewhere?
Owen Jones says there are fewer than 200 families in the system like this. But this is a little disingenuous. He’s taking 10 children as the benchmark. There are actually 40,000 families in receipt of benefits who have over five kids. So is it a taboo subject to ask whether the state should support people so far, but no further?
This is the profound danger for the left. Dismissing every question as an attack on the welfare state or part of some right-wing ideological agenda. Of course, the Coalition government is ideological. They do intend to do real harm to the poorest in society, while disgracefully supporting tax cuts for the super rich, including members of the Cabinet. We should feel rightly angry about this. But anger alone and defence of the status quo will lead to disaster, just as surely as it did in the Thatcher era.
I spent the whole of the 1980s marching for causes that failed to resonate with the majority of the population. Meanwhile, the Conservatives won large majorities in the 1983 and the 1987 elections. It was only when the left was better in tune with the views of the public that it managed to score victories. Apartheid was one example. Perhaps the most obvious one though was the poll tax, which led to Thatcher’s downfall. She misjudged the public mood very badly and paid the price.
Are politicians there to lead or to follow? The truth is they need to do both. This is what makes politics such a difficult balancing act. Labour can lead the debate on welfare and help to defend the most vulnerable in society. But not if it fails to recognise where most ordinary people are right now. Not if it fails to read the polls which show support for the welfare state in steady decline since the early 1990s. It can only succeed if it creates its own positive vision for change that resonates more strongly with the electorate. At the moment, there is no sign of this happening. And that’s the worst possible news for the people who rely on the welfare state the most.
Philpott would have been big news at the best of times. But these aren’t the best of times in the UK. On the week his trial concluded, the government introduced cuts in welfare benefits which are going to leave a lot of people poorer. Amid the polarised debate, the trial set another sinister fire raging in pubs, workplaces and social networking sites. Just how far was Philpott’s lifestyle symptomatic of a wider malaise? To what extent was his life a morality tale which underlined the bankruptcy of the welfare state?
When George Osborne and David Cameron joined sections of the right-wing press in suggesting the Philpott case raised serious questions, the left reacted vehemently. They correctly pointed out that one violent, misogynistic man with 17 children is hardly typical of most welfare recipients. The vast majority of people on benefits and tax credits are everyday folk, who happen to be poorer than others. They are us. There but for the grace of God. If any one of us happens to lose our jobs or fall sick, we then become the ones reliant on support.
Actual levels of recorded benefit fraud are pretty low. And for every extreme example of someone milking the system, there will be countless examples of others playing by the rules.
I don’t disagree with any of this. Indeed, I’ve seen at first hand the wider effect of government austerity measures, as my wife – who works in the voluntary sector helping the elderly and people with disabilities – is currently in a dispute with her employer about the erosion of her terms and conditions of employment. It’s not only people on benefits who are suffering, but many of the lower-paid workers (often women) who are there to support them. They are victims of squeezed budgets, outsourced contracts, redundancies and wage cuts.
Where the left has to very careful is in being seen as a defender of the status quo. In other words, there’s a massive trap into which Eds Miliband and Balls might all too easily walk: saying that there is nothing wrong with the structure of the current benefits system, that no improvements can be made and that we can learn nothing from extreme cases. Owen Jones, for instance, who is one of the most visible and articulate defenders of the current system, has drawn an analogy with Harold Shipman. We don’t blame doctors as a whole for the crazy antics of one mass murderer, so why should we draw general conclusions about the welfare system from the state-subsidised life of one outlandish and terrible individual?
This sounds a superficially plausible argument, but once you start to pick it apart, it’s riddled with holes. The Shipman Inquiry made a number of recommendations for improvements in the light of the case. Better training for coroners. More control over access to controlled drugs by doctors and pharmacists. It even drew wider conclusions about the role of the General Medical Council and the way in which medics are overseen. It is possible to recognise that the vast majority of doctors are not like Harold Shipman while realising there was a system in place which had allowed Harold Shipman to exist. Perhaps we shouldn’t care about phone hacking? After all, it’s only the extreme actions of a few rogue tabloid journalists and it would be wrong to tar anyone else with the same brush? It’s an argument which goes absolutely nowhere intellectually.
God knows Philpott’s motives for having so many kids. (Or – given his reported personal hygiene habits – the willingness of so many different women to accommodate his desires.) Some people have speculated it was about controlling further the women whose lives he dominated and although I’m not a psychologist, that seems pretty plausible. Perhaps his motives were not – as the right-wing press likes to suggests – to bring in more money. But the left cannot shy away from the fact that more money did flow into the household with every child. And given the man’s violent history and conviction for attempted murder, doesn’t society have a right to draw the line somewhere?
Owen Jones says there are fewer than 200 families in the system like this. But this is a little disingenuous. He’s taking 10 children as the benchmark. There are actually 40,000 families in receipt of benefits who have over five kids. So is it a taboo subject to ask whether the state should support people so far, but no further?
This is the profound danger for the left. Dismissing every question as an attack on the welfare state or part of some right-wing ideological agenda. Of course, the Coalition government is ideological. They do intend to do real harm to the poorest in society, while disgracefully supporting tax cuts for the super rich, including members of the Cabinet. We should feel rightly angry about this. But anger alone and defence of the status quo will lead to disaster, just as surely as it did in the Thatcher era.
I spent the whole of the 1980s marching for causes that failed to resonate with the majority of the population. Meanwhile, the Conservatives won large majorities in the 1983 and the 1987 elections. It was only when the left was better in tune with the views of the public that it managed to score victories. Apartheid was one example. Perhaps the most obvious one though was the poll tax, which led to Thatcher’s downfall. She misjudged the public mood very badly and paid the price.
Are politicians there to lead or to follow? The truth is they need to do both. This is what makes politics such a difficult balancing act. Labour can lead the debate on welfare and help to defend the most vulnerable in society. But not if it fails to recognise where most ordinary people are right now. Not if it fails to read the polls which show support for the welfare state in steady decline since the early 1990s. It can only succeed if it creates its own positive vision for change that resonates more strongly with the electorate. At the moment, there is no sign of this happening. And that’s the worst possible news for the people who rely on the welfare state the most.
Saturday, 8 September 2012
Clinton tells it like it is
Bill Clinton summed it up perfectly when he described the forthcoming election in the USA as a choice between ‘we’re all in this together’ or ‘you’re on your own’. Co-operation or dog-eat-dog. A role for government or the tyranny of the unbridled market. Barack Obama or Mitt Romney.
Of course, to British ears, the perfectly decent idea of being ‘all in it together’ has been devalued somewhat through its disingenuous adoption by George Osborne and David Cameron. But on the lips of Mr Clinton it has slightly more credibility.
He’s a rare beast, Clinton. An intellectual with a folksy, down-at-home style of delivery. As he engages with the arguments, we somehow forget that he’s William Jefferson Blythe III, the Rhodes Scholar. He’s the guy down at the local bar, who’s been around the block a few times and seen a thing or two. (Contrast this with the incumbent President, who can never disguise his intellectualism. A lot of people do like Obama, but in a way that they might have fond feelings for a former teacher or perhaps a boss at work who let them go home early on a Friday sometimes.)
But leaving aside the delivery, Clinton gets right to the heart of the election. In fact, he gets to the heart of political debate in most modern, developed societies. Having moved beyond the simplistic ideologies of the early-mid 20th century, the choices we now face are always over the extent to which we regulate the market and control the interests of the powerful. It’s not one system versus an alternative system. It’s a tap of the barometer and a swing in one direction or another.
What’s very interesting is the way in which electorates in many countries are completely split down the middle in this debate. The battle between Sarkozy and Hollande in France, for instance, was – in reality – pretty evenly poised. The rhetoric may be couched in language that seems old-fashioned by the standards of the UK and US, but ultimately the choice is the same. Do we believe that people achieve more when they compete or do we maintain that we reach our true potential when we co-operate?
Another society where this 50/50 split is very evident is Israel. Although, superficially, there are other, more important fault lines (hawks against doves, secularists against religious devotees), the country is ultimately divided by two different philosophies. Co-operation on the one hand, conflict on the other.
Without getting too philosophical about it all, the choice which Bill Clinton describes is one which reflects the fundamental conflicts we all face as humans. How far do we let selfishness dominate our actions? How far do we demonstrate altruism? Biologists believe that everything’s determined by our genes and that pure altruism is a myth. Sociologists counter that we’re shaped by our environment and are capable of overcoming our biological programming. We constantly try to resolve these tensions as individuals. We also try to reconcile them at a societal level.
So, which side is going to triumph in America this November? Once again, the forces are pretty evenly matched. Remember the knife-edge contest between Al Gore and George W Bush in 2000? The latest polls suggest we could be experiencing déjà-vu all over again.
As in the British system, a lot of people’s votes really count for diddly squat. With the profoundly undemocratic electoral college, the presidential candidates can afford to ignore a large portion of the country and focus on so-called ‘swing’ states. These may be leaning slightly more to the Democrats, but there’s a lot of jiggery-pokery going on. Republicans have been busily trying to change the regulations regarding voter entitlement in many states, in a process Ari Berman of Rolling Stone magazine described as “a centrally coordinated campaign to suppress the elements of the Democratic vote that elected Barack Obama in 2008.”
Some of the entitlement issues are still playing out in the US courts, so it’s difficult to know the impact they will have. There’s no question, however, that Obama has a real fight on his hands.
What are the Republican weaknesses? Romney’s record at the cut-throat end of capitalism has already been a big issue. His selection, as running mate, of Paul Ryan – a Wisconsin Congressman influenced by the eccentric philosophy of novelist Ayn Rand – is another point of attack. A hidden issue, which for reasons of political correctness goes largely unspoken, is Romney’s Mormonism. How many of the natural Republican supporters in the evangelical heartland will sit on their hands come election day? Much as they may dislike Obama, can they bring themselves to endorse the Church of the Latter-day Saints?
If I had to put money on the result, I think Obama will win re-election by a whisker. If he does, he may owe something quite considerable to Bill Clinton. More people tuned in to see the former president than watched the New York Giants take on the Dallas Cowboys in the opening game of the NFL season.
Of course, to British ears, the perfectly decent idea of being ‘all in it together’ has been devalued somewhat through its disingenuous adoption by George Osborne and David Cameron. But on the lips of Mr Clinton it has slightly more credibility.
He’s a rare beast, Clinton. An intellectual with a folksy, down-at-home style of delivery. As he engages with the arguments, we somehow forget that he’s William Jefferson Blythe III, the Rhodes Scholar. He’s the guy down at the local bar, who’s been around the block a few times and seen a thing or two. (Contrast this with the incumbent President, who can never disguise his intellectualism. A lot of people do like Obama, but in a way that they might have fond feelings for a former teacher or perhaps a boss at work who let them go home early on a Friday sometimes.)
But leaving aside the delivery, Clinton gets right to the heart of the election. In fact, he gets to the heart of political debate in most modern, developed societies. Having moved beyond the simplistic ideologies of the early-mid 20th century, the choices we now face are always over the extent to which we regulate the market and control the interests of the powerful. It’s not one system versus an alternative system. It’s a tap of the barometer and a swing in one direction or another.
What’s very interesting is the way in which electorates in many countries are completely split down the middle in this debate. The battle between Sarkozy and Hollande in France, for instance, was – in reality – pretty evenly poised. The rhetoric may be couched in language that seems old-fashioned by the standards of the UK and US, but ultimately the choice is the same. Do we believe that people achieve more when they compete or do we maintain that we reach our true potential when we co-operate?
Another society where this 50/50 split is very evident is Israel. Although, superficially, there are other, more important fault lines (hawks against doves, secularists against religious devotees), the country is ultimately divided by two different philosophies. Co-operation on the one hand, conflict on the other.
Without getting too philosophical about it all, the choice which Bill Clinton describes is one which reflects the fundamental conflicts we all face as humans. How far do we let selfishness dominate our actions? How far do we demonstrate altruism? Biologists believe that everything’s determined by our genes and that pure altruism is a myth. Sociologists counter that we’re shaped by our environment and are capable of overcoming our biological programming. We constantly try to resolve these tensions as individuals. We also try to reconcile them at a societal level.
So, which side is going to triumph in America this November? Once again, the forces are pretty evenly matched. Remember the knife-edge contest between Al Gore and George W Bush in 2000? The latest polls suggest we could be experiencing déjà-vu all over again.
As in the British system, a lot of people’s votes really count for diddly squat. With the profoundly undemocratic electoral college, the presidential candidates can afford to ignore a large portion of the country and focus on so-called ‘swing’ states. These may be leaning slightly more to the Democrats, but there’s a lot of jiggery-pokery going on. Republicans have been busily trying to change the regulations regarding voter entitlement in many states, in a process Ari Berman of Rolling Stone magazine described as “a centrally coordinated campaign to suppress the elements of the Democratic vote that elected Barack Obama in 2008.”
Some of the entitlement issues are still playing out in the US courts, so it’s difficult to know the impact they will have. There’s no question, however, that Obama has a real fight on his hands.
What are the Republican weaknesses? Romney’s record at the cut-throat end of capitalism has already been a big issue. His selection, as running mate, of Paul Ryan – a Wisconsin Congressman influenced by the eccentric philosophy of novelist Ayn Rand – is another point of attack. A hidden issue, which for reasons of political correctness goes largely unspoken, is Romney’s Mormonism. How many of the natural Republican supporters in the evangelical heartland will sit on their hands come election day? Much as they may dislike Obama, can they bring themselves to endorse the Church of the Latter-day Saints?
If I had to put money on the result, I think Obama will win re-election by a whisker. If he does, he may owe something quite considerable to Bill Clinton. More people tuned in to see the former president than watched the New York Giants take on the Dallas Cowboys in the opening game of the NFL season.
Friday, 18 November 2011
London deserves better than this
The balance of power around the globe may well be shifting dramatically from the old capitals of the west towards the economic powerhouses of China and India, but it would be a churlish person who denied London’s continuing status as one of the world’s great cities. It seems astonishing, therefore, that the choice facing voters in the 2012 mayoral election is between an eccentric toff, an uncharismatic former police commander and a leftist relic.
The relic in question, one Kenneth Robert Livingstone, was quoted today in the London Evening Standard as encouraging members of the public to bring a ‘private prosecution’ against former premier Tony Blair for ‘war crimes’. I don’t want to get into a full-scale debate of the rights and wrongs of the war in Iraq, as they’ve been rehearsed too many times before. What interests me about Livingstone’s outburst is that there is surely no one else of prominence in the Labour Party – even those who disagreed vehemently with Blair – who would endorse such an extreme point of view.
What does Ed Miliband think of these opinions? Privately, I’m sure he is angered by Livingstone’s position on this – and a host of other - issues. The Labour Leader almost certainly sees the potential for continual embarrassment in the run-up to Red Ken’s defeat at the hands of Boris Johnson next year. But does he have the gumption to do what actually needs to be done? Can he establish his authority and replace Livingstone with a candidate that ordinary Londoners will actually want to support?
Of course, Livingstone did come through a democratic process, defeating the altogether more progressive Oona King in a vote among Labour members. The former mayor’s mandate does not, however, give him carte blanche to express any view he wishes. He either represents the Labour Party or he can choose to stand again as an independent, which would probably be the best course of action for all concerned.
My worry about Miliband is that he is a weak leader who is already being seen as some kind of caretaker by those members of the electorate who actually recognise him. The London elections really matter, because as things stand, the Tories are likely to come out of the contest looking good. Isn’t it preposterous that in a climate of austerity, with Cameron, Osborne and their Liberal Democrat pals plunging us back towards recession, that Labour should be on the back foot in the capital city? And preparing us for four more years of bumbling Boris?
I imagine the off-the-record response would be that Ken was elected and we don’t much like it, but there’s nothing we can do about it. Digging further, however, Miliband probably feels there’s simply no alternative candidate. He’ll remember the fiasco of Frank Dobson’s doomed mayoral campaign and perhaps imagine that there’s no one better around.
David’s not free by any chance, is he?
The relic in question, one Kenneth Robert Livingstone, was quoted today in the London Evening Standard as encouraging members of the public to bring a ‘private prosecution’ against former premier Tony Blair for ‘war crimes’. I don’t want to get into a full-scale debate of the rights and wrongs of the war in Iraq, as they’ve been rehearsed too many times before. What interests me about Livingstone’s outburst is that there is surely no one else of prominence in the Labour Party – even those who disagreed vehemently with Blair – who would endorse such an extreme point of view.
What does Ed Miliband think of these opinions? Privately, I’m sure he is angered by Livingstone’s position on this – and a host of other - issues. The Labour Leader almost certainly sees the potential for continual embarrassment in the run-up to Red Ken’s defeat at the hands of Boris Johnson next year. But does he have the gumption to do what actually needs to be done? Can he establish his authority and replace Livingstone with a candidate that ordinary Londoners will actually want to support?
Of course, Livingstone did come through a democratic process, defeating the altogether more progressive Oona King in a vote among Labour members. The former mayor’s mandate does not, however, give him carte blanche to express any view he wishes. He either represents the Labour Party or he can choose to stand again as an independent, which would probably be the best course of action for all concerned.
My worry about Miliband is that he is a weak leader who is already being seen as some kind of caretaker by those members of the electorate who actually recognise him. The London elections really matter, because as things stand, the Tories are likely to come out of the contest looking good. Isn’t it preposterous that in a climate of austerity, with Cameron, Osborne and their Liberal Democrat pals plunging us back towards recession, that Labour should be on the back foot in the capital city? And preparing us for four more years of bumbling Boris?
I imagine the off-the-record response would be that Ken was elected and we don’t much like it, but there’s nothing we can do about it. Digging further, however, Miliband probably feels there’s simply no alternative candidate. He’ll remember the fiasco of Frank Dobson’s doomed mayoral campaign and perhaps imagine that there’s no one better around.
David’s not free by any chance, is he?
Thursday, 27 October 2011
Isn't it time the Lib Dems saw a shrink?
Chutzpah is a great Yiddish word. It describes the kind of bare-faced cheek that takes your breath away and leaves you scratching your head in amused bewilderment. It’s always good to have a word like this at your disposal when the Liberal Democrats are in your neighbourhood delivering their propaganda sheets.
The latest edition of “Twickenham & Richmond News” (sic) arrived on my doormat in the past few days, thankfully proclaiming that it is ‘paid for by individual donations at NO cost to local taxpayers’. It shows the Liberal Democrats to be stalwart campaigners for local services, sworn enemies of the Conservatives and valiant crusaders against government cuts.
Let’s just take a pause at this point while we slap ourselves vigorously, stick our heads in a bucket of ice-cold water and check that we’re actually awake.
CUTS TOO FAR screams the splash on the front page of the tawdry tabloid, which is packed with endless snaps of Munira Wilson, a Lib Dem candidate in next year’s Greater London Assembly election. Tory-run Richmond Council is supposedly hoarding millions of pounds while ‘needlessly’ cutting services.
This is the politics of the madhouse. The Lib Dems seriously believe that they can form a government with the Tories and help them to implement a nationwide austerity programme, while at the same time pretending in local constituencies that the cuts are all the fault of the Conservative Party.
Note the weasel words. Conservative-controlled Richmond has taken the cuts ‘too far’ and is slashing services ‘needlessly’. Presumably, the Lib Dems are happy with a lot of cutting, but become a little concerned if it passes some completely arbitrary threshold. What shameless hypocrites. If their Tory pals are indeed taking things to excess in south-west London and are sitting on some hidden surplus, then why doesn’t Nick Clegg have a quiet word with David Cameron? Or, better still, make a public announcement condemning the Tories?
Let’s be clear what’s going on here. The Lib Dems believe in coalition with the Conservatives, but know that this is poison for them in certain constituencies. Business Secretary Vince Cable MP goes into every election in Twickenham, for instance, explaining that he is the only viable anti-Tory candidate and that Labour supporters should rally to his cause.
This long-standing claim is now exposed as complete bunkum, but Vince and his band of two-faced followers return to the theme, because they have absolutely nowhere else to go. Even now, they say ‘elections in Richmond and Twickenham are always between the Lib Dems and the Conservatives’.
Wow. What a great choice. Which Chuckle Brother would you rather have deliberating over the hard economic choices? Paul or Barry?
I have no doubt the Lib Dems would make a great psychoanalytical case study. They have forged a marriage of convenience with someone they previously told all their friends they hated. When their domineering partner is away, they slag him off to anyone who will listen, but are all nicey-nicey to him in public when he’s back. Friends feel sorry for their former mate, but start to drift away. There’s only so much sickening hypocrisy they can stand, after all.
The latest edition of “Twickenham & Richmond News” (sic) arrived on my doormat in the past few days, thankfully proclaiming that it is ‘paid for by individual donations at NO cost to local taxpayers’. It shows the Liberal Democrats to be stalwart campaigners for local services, sworn enemies of the Conservatives and valiant crusaders against government cuts.
Let’s just take a pause at this point while we slap ourselves vigorously, stick our heads in a bucket of ice-cold water and check that we’re actually awake.
CUTS TOO FAR screams the splash on the front page of the tawdry tabloid, which is packed with endless snaps of Munira Wilson, a Lib Dem candidate in next year’s Greater London Assembly election. Tory-run Richmond Council is supposedly hoarding millions of pounds while ‘needlessly’ cutting services.
This is the politics of the madhouse. The Lib Dems seriously believe that they can form a government with the Tories and help them to implement a nationwide austerity programme, while at the same time pretending in local constituencies that the cuts are all the fault of the Conservative Party.
Note the weasel words. Conservative-controlled Richmond has taken the cuts ‘too far’ and is slashing services ‘needlessly’. Presumably, the Lib Dems are happy with a lot of cutting, but become a little concerned if it passes some completely arbitrary threshold. What shameless hypocrites. If their Tory pals are indeed taking things to excess in south-west London and are sitting on some hidden surplus, then why doesn’t Nick Clegg have a quiet word with David Cameron? Or, better still, make a public announcement condemning the Tories?
Let’s be clear what’s going on here. The Lib Dems believe in coalition with the Conservatives, but know that this is poison for them in certain constituencies. Business Secretary Vince Cable MP goes into every election in Twickenham, for instance, explaining that he is the only viable anti-Tory candidate and that Labour supporters should rally to his cause.
This long-standing claim is now exposed as complete bunkum, but Vince and his band of two-faced followers return to the theme, because they have absolutely nowhere else to go. Even now, they say ‘elections in Richmond and Twickenham are always between the Lib Dems and the Conservatives’.
Wow. What a great choice. Which Chuckle Brother would you rather have deliberating over the hard economic choices? Paul or Barry?
I have no doubt the Lib Dems would make a great psychoanalytical case study. They have forged a marriage of convenience with someone they previously told all their friends they hated. When their domineering partner is away, they slag him off to anyone who will listen, but are all nicey-nicey to him in public when he’s back. Friends feel sorry for their former mate, but start to drift away. There’s only so much sickening hypocrisy they can stand, after all.
Thursday, 20 October 2011
If the Euro goes down, democracy may fall with it.
It’s impossible to tell exactly how the Eurozone crisis will play out, but there’s a danger the political dimension to the ongoing drama is often overlooked amid the economic tumult. When we talk of worst-case scenarios, involving Greek default, countries withdrawing from the single currency or maybe even the collapse of the Euro itself, the financial consequences are almost too big to contemplate. Bank exposures to sovereign debt may lead to a complete unravelling of global markets and a worldwide depression. But what of the politics? Can we be positive that the democratic certainties of modern Europe aren’t in danger of collapsing into the Mediterranean?
One thing that’s easy to forget for those of us born from the late 1960s onwards is that there is not a strong history of democracy in southern Europe. Up until 1975, General Franco ruled the roost in Spain – a fact which didn’t deter the growth of package tourism, as Brits and many other northern Europeans are notorious for putting a spot of sun ahead of any human rights considerations. While students were getting battered by the police in Spanish universities in the late 60s and early 70s, working-class families abandoned Clacton for the Costas.
Greece is another favourite holiday destination with an ugly past. After various constitutional crises and red scares, a military junta brought tanks onto the streets of Athens in 1967 and seized power for a seven-year period. And what about Portugal? The small, western European nation doesn’t tend to get a lot of pages in the history books, but their military actually did its people a favour back in the 1970s. Around the time the Greek Colonels were being forced out of power, Portuguese junior officers brought to an end the Estado Novo (New State) of Antonio de Oliveiro Salazar – a stifling, authoritarian Catholic regime that certainly wasn’t very ‘novo’ by the time it met its demise.
Of all the southern European nations currently in the Eurozone firing line, only Italy really has a claim to sustained democracy since the end of the Second World War. Weak government, corruption, terrorism and organised crime have, however, been a terrible blight on Italian political life. And the cult of personality surrounding Silvio Berlusconi is hardly a model that many democrats would embrace with open arms.
Does all this political baggage actually matter? My feeling is that it matters a great deal. In times of huge economic turmoil, austerity and social unrest, there is every possibility that the ‘normality’ we’ve known for the past few decades could be turned on its head. Greece is the obvious candidate, perhaps, because of its disastrous financial predicament and volatile street protests heavily infiltrated by anarchists.
Let’s imagine we head towards a disorderly exit from the Euro and the creation of, say, a ‘new’ Drachma which is worth very little. People who have already taken pay cuts, lost their jobs or seen their standard of living decline may end up finding half their life savings disappearing too. A whiff of the Weimar Republic would be in the air. At that stage, there’s a danger that any political or military force with a populist agenda might have a strong appeal or be able to fill a vacuum created by the failure of the democratically elected politicians.
Could a country such as Spain really abandon democracy 35 years after Franco? The chances are probably small, but I would hesitate to say they are non-existent. It’s important to remember that there’s a strong strand of conservative sentiment that runs very deep in the country. While Falangist parties get virtually no support in elections today, there’s undoubtedly an older segment of the population that has a nostalgia for the days of authoritarian rule. More worryingly though, almost half of the young population of Spain is currently unemployed – a situation which is pretty incompatible in the long term with a healthy, functioning democracy.
We are used to dictatorships falling. Just in the past year, we’ve seen the obliteration of the regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and, of course, Libya. It’s important to remember that democracies can fall too. The decadence, liberalism and economic growth of the Goldene Zwanziger in Germany gave way to the Great Depression, hyperinflation, instability, mass unemployment and – ultimately – the brutal oppression of the Nazis.
Europe comes with a lot of history. Merkel, Sarkozy and the others who are dawdling over economic solutions need to remember the potential political costs.
One thing that’s easy to forget for those of us born from the late 1960s onwards is that there is not a strong history of democracy in southern Europe. Up until 1975, General Franco ruled the roost in Spain – a fact which didn’t deter the growth of package tourism, as Brits and many other northern Europeans are notorious for putting a spot of sun ahead of any human rights considerations. While students were getting battered by the police in Spanish universities in the late 60s and early 70s, working-class families abandoned Clacton for the Costas.
Greece is another favourite holiday destination with an ugly past. After various constitutional crises and red scares, a military junta brought tanks onto the streets of Athens in 1967 and seized power for a seven-year period. And what about Portugal? The small, western European nation doesn’t tend to get a lot of pages in the history books, but their military actually did its people a favour back in the 1970s. Around the time the Greek Colonels were being forced out of power, Portuguese junior officers brought to an end the Estado Novo (New State) of Antonio de Oliveiro Salazar – a stifling, authoritarian Catholic regime that certainly wasn’t very ‘novo’ by the time it met its demise.
Of all the southern European nations currently in the Eurozone firing line, only Italy really has a claim to sustained democracy since the end of the Second World War. Weak government, corruption, terrorism and organised crime have, however, been a terrible blight on Italian political life. And the cult of personality surrounding Silvio Berlusconi is hardly a model that many democrats would embrace with open arms.
Does all this political baggage actually matter? My feeling is that it matters a great deal. In times of huge economic turmoil, austerity and social unrest, there is every possibility that the ‘normality’ we’ve known for the past few decades could be turned on its head. Greece is the obvious candidate, perhaps, because of its disastrous financial predicament and volatile street protests heavily infiltrated by anarchists.
Let’s imagine we head towards a disorderly exit from the Euro and the creation of, say, a ‘new’ Drachma which is worth very little. People who have already taken pay cuts, lost their jobs or seen their standard of living decline may end up finding half their life savings disappearing too. A whiff of the Weimar Republic would be in the air. At that stage, there’s a danger that any political or military force with a populist agenda might have a strong appeal or be able to fill a vacuum created by the failure of the democratically elected politicians.
Could a country such as Spain really abandon democracy 35 years after Franco? The chances are probably small, but I would hesitate to say they are non-existent. It’s important to remember that there’s a strong strand of conservative sentiment that runs very deep in the country. While Falangist parties get virtually no support in elections today, there’s undoubtedly an older segment of the population that has a nostalgia for the days of authoritarian rule. More worryingly though, almost half of the young population of Spain is currently unemployed – a situation which is pretty incompatible in the long term with a healthy, functioning democracy.
We are used to dictatorships falling. Just in the past year, we’ve seen the obliteration of the regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and, of course, Libya. It’s important to remember that democracies can fall too. The decadence, liberalism and economic growth of the Goldene Zwanziger in Germany gave way to the Great Depression, hyperinflation, instability, mass unemployment and – ultimately – the brutal oppression of the Nazis.
Europe comes with a lot of history. Merkel, Sarkozy and the others who are dawdling over economic solutions need to remember the potential political costs.
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