Wednesday 21 July 2010
Oh Nick... A Foolish Cunt Art Thou.
The Iraq war is an emotive, and important issue. However after Nick Clegg's ludicrous performance at the despatch box today it took on a bizarre hue. He took the time, amidst answering important questions on government policy to declare it illegal. Two things spring to mind, firstly the speciousness of the legallity argument when used in certain contexts and secondly whatthis wasn't government what the fuck? On the first point after declaring the war illegay, most people's next step is to quote the number of civillian dead and to highlight individal cases of suffering. These have little to do with legality and more to do with morality. My own instinct is that the war may well be legal but was quite immoral. Resolution 1441 was interpretable as it was thrashed out between leaders who fundamentally disagreed with each other, to me it was a typical UN fudge in that it allowed both sides to interpret it and make their case. Whether the war was immoral is another question for which politicians quite rightly have to answer for. Secondly what the fuck? PMQs is a forum for asking questions on government policy, not for the expressing of ill informed personal views. Nick Clegg was there to put the case for the government's policy. Unless I'm very much mistaken this wasn't government policy, nor did it have anything to do with Jack Straw's question. In fact by using it to escape from a corner in which he was trapped over lies made by the coalition (the Sheff forgemasters money is a loan, of what is a tiny amount of money, which would be paid back, so 'no money left doesn't cut it as a defence.) he belittled what is a very important issue, it goes to show that Clegg is a mere opportunist prepared to use the most serious issues for political football and trivialities. Tony Blair may be a war criminal, people may have cases to answer, and above all many have perhaps suffered unneccessary. To Nick though they didn't die in vsin, they got him out of a sticky one on PMQs.
Wednesday 14 July 2010
David Cameron's bizarre (but expected) use of language.
It's nothing new to hear politicians use bizarre language, they often seem to inhabhit a realm stalked by dizzying words and expressions such as 'empowerment' and 'choice agendas', not to mention the most terrifying of all: 'reform'. However I was struck by two David Cameron uses of language by their utter concealment of truth a nd how a marketing man may twist language to suit his ends. Firstly their was a seemingly innocuous aside after being asked about the shielding of charities from a VAT rise
'I will certainly have those conversations with the Treasury, and we will want to do everything we can to help what used to be called, rather condescendingly, the third sector but I believe is the first sector: the excellent charities, voluntary organisations and social enterprises that do so much for our country…so often these first sector organisations have the right answers to the social problems in our country.'
Aside from the clunkiness of his turn of phrase it is astonishing how utterly vacuous his point is and misleading its implications are. Firstly the term 'third sector' is not condescending in any way. The turn of phrase simply reflects the fact that the bulk of GDP is spent and earned in the private or public sector. Would Mr Cameron wish otherwise? Of course not as charities are reliant on private and government contributions to make ends meet, they could never be 'the first sector' in any meaningful sense. So how is it the 'first' sector? Because it is the most important to our welfare? Because it 'so often has the right answers...' ?Well even if these were true, the 'first sector' would still be reliant on government or private money to operate. Of course the other two points are nonsense too. Most great advancements or changes have come about either through private endeavour (Cars, advances in computing) or government (NHS, Welfare, universal schooling.) with volunteers sometimes playing an important role in stepping in when there is both state and market failure to provide a service (often where there is no renumeration on offer for private investors, and either for historical, current reasons or because it's seen as frivolous, the state doesn't want to get involved.) The lable 'the third sector' in fact is far from condescending, it places an importance on charity work that places it alongside the public and private sector as a provider of services: one that is certainly greater than the percentage of GDP it takes up. Mr Cameron here is calling an apple an orange, then saying that the apple is a better orange because it's an apple. Only a PR man could do this.
Second of all there was his characterisation of the Labour front bench as 'deficit deniers'. This is a more pernicious rebranding. Firstly of course because it is directed at his opponents. Secondly because it was a pre prepared line trotted out in response to a question about protecting research grants (?!?!) and lastly because of the term itself. Its ludicrousness is most easily seen if compared with the term 'climate change deniers'. People who deny firstly that man made climate change exists, and secondly assert that anything done to combat it is a dreadful (in some cases a tyrranical plot) waste of money. Do the Labour front bench deny that the deficit exists? Nope, they agree broadly on the figures, although they believe that their policies would leave a slightly smaller structural deficit due to increased growth. Do they assert that we should do nothing about the deficit? Nope. They want it cut, but think that a better way to do this is to cut slowly but surely in order to both save pain and avoid a double dip recession which would derail any plans for cutting the deficit anyone might have. So deniers Dave? Really? You could fairly plausibly say we need to go faster in cutting public expenditure but that? One has a feeling that Mr Cameron, were it not for his connections to Tory central office, would be the type of person who thinks he can call a yoghurt 'natural' because it has been dyed the right colour and has a couple of dried fruit bits in. Activia doesn't occur naturally, growing in a lightly swaying hedgerow, nor are Labour 'deficit deniers', nor I would venture is Mr Cameron a man who would even regard the truth as acceptable when a concealed falsehood helps him to market himself and his worse than advertised product.
'I will certainly have those conversations with the Treasury, and we will want to do everything we can to help what used to be called, rather condescendingly, the third sector but I believe is the first sector: the excellent charities, voluntary organisations and social enterprises that do so much for our country…so often these first sector organisations have the right answers to the social problems in our country.'
Aside from the clunkiness of his turn of phrase it is astonishing how utterly vacuous his point is and misleading its implications are. Firstly the term 'third sector' is not condescending in any way. The turn of phrase simply reflects the fact that the bulk of GDP is spent and earned in the private or public sector. Would Mr Cameron wish otherwise? Of course not as charities are reliant on private and government contributions to make ends meet, they could never be 'the first sector' in any meaningful sense. So how is it the 'first' sector? Because it is the most important to our welfare? Because it 'so often has the right answers...' ?Well even if these were true, the 'first sector' would still be reliant on government or private money to operate. Of course the other two points are nonsense too. Most great advancements or changes have come about either through private endeavour (Cars, advances in computing) or government (NHS, Welfare, universal schooling.) with volunteers sometimes playing an important role in stepping in when there is both state and market failure to provide a service (often where there is no renumeration on offer for private investors, and either for historical, current reasons or because it's seen as frivolous, the state doesn't want to get involved.) The lable 'the third sector' in fact is far from condescending, it places an importance on charity work that places it alongside the public and private sector as a provider of services: one that is certainly greater than the percentage of GDP it takes up. Mr Cameron here is calling an apple an orange, then saying that the apple is a better orange because it's an apple. Only a PR man could do this.
Second of all there was his characterisation of the Labour front bench as 'deficit deniers'. This is a more pernicious rebranding. Firstly of course because it is directed at his opponents. Secondly because it was a pre prepared line trotted out in response to a question about protecting research grants (?!?!) and lastly because of the term itself. Its ludicrousness is most easily seen if compared with the term 'climate change deniers'. People who deny firstly that man made climate change exists, and secondly assert that anything done to combat it is a dreadful (in some cases a tyrranical plot) waste of money. Do the Labour front bench deny that the deficit exists? Nope, they agree broadly on the figures, although they believe that their policies would leave a slightly smaller structural deficit due to increased growth. Do they assert that we should do nothing about the deficit? Nope. They want it cut, but think that a better way to do this is to cut slowly but surely in order to both save pain and avoid a double dip recession which would derail any plans for cutting the deficit anyone might have. So deniers Dave? Really? You could fairly plausibly say we need to go faster in cutting public expenditure but that? One has a feeling that Mr Cameron, were it not for his connections to Tory central office, would be the type of person who thinks he can call a yoghurt 'natural' because it has been dyed the right colour and has a couple of dried fruit bits in. Activia doesn't occur naturally, growing in a lightly swaying hedgerow, nor are Labour 'deficit deniers', nor I would venture is Mr Cameron a man who would even regard the truth as acceptable when a concealed falsehood helps him to market himself and his worse than advertised product.
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