One of the most famous though pernicious political phrases is 'the U-Turn'. It is pernicious because it generalises where one shouldn't, ad famous because it happes so bloody often. Commonly the word 'U-turn' carries with it negative connotations. It doesn't have to but often should. A u-turn is an admission that you were wrong because of the inevitable and, in some cases correct, chorus of 'Well if you're wrog about this the what else are you wrog about?. Governments struggle to do this, yet they are made up of humans who make these mistakes. So here it is; a brief guide to the U-Turn.
1. A Promise U-Turn: Not a U-Turn in the strict sense but more often known as a 'broken promise'. Not a disaster so long as its managed well. Politicians break manifesto pledges and 'aspirations' all the time and there are many good reasons for this, the most oft cited being variations on 'changed circumstances'. Oppositions will attack you for these but it only is a huge problem if a) You break a totemic promise or b) The broken promises become so many that your untrustworthiness becomes a theme. a) Is currently a problem for the Lib Dems and b) became a problem for New Labour and seems to be becoming one for the coalition.
2.The Implementation U-Turn: Soon to be known as a 'Govian Not'. This will likely be on a small element of a wider policy. Take saving money from schools or the NHS, or implementing a new law. In the rush to save money/solve a social problem bad decisions will inevitably be made which hurt specific groups or whose wider implications create worse publicity or results than expected. The government will state that they have 'listened to concerns' and have reconsidered. More damaging to the individual minister involved who looks a bit of a fool having defended the policy then apologising than the government. A clever PM can even overrule a minister and gain kudos from this. Beware using these too often however as too many lave you looking indecisive, and involves you admitting you were wrong in the first place, however virtue is probably on the side of the turner here.
3.The Destruction Derby: In this amusing 1990s playstation game you gained points by winning races and smashing up cars. If you were losing by a long way it became more profitable to reverse your direction and smash up all the other cars, at the cost of your own. This is the worst type of U-Turn that can wreck a government. Gordon Brown had 2, the election that never was and the 10p tax band. John Major's government had Black Wednesday and the Poll Tax (shared with Thatcher). This occurs when a government's policy is such a failure that it is forced to destroy its own credibility by reversing a flagship policy already implemented as the alternative is even worse. For the current government this would be the reversal of their deficit reduction plan, or a breakdown in social cohesion on such a grand scale that it forced them to change tack (think huge crime increases, more in poverty, NHS struggling to cope.). Difficult but not impossible to recover from: if you can salvage enough points from wrecking the opposition you could still squeak in a la 1992.
Monday 27 December 2010
Tuesday 14 December 2010
Don't Think of A Sycophant.
I am currently reading the excellent 'Don't think of an elephant!' by George Lakoff, a brilliant book on how successful conservatives have been in America at 'framing' political debate. One of the books central messages, understandably stems from its title. This is the old thought experiment in which if you command someone to not think of an elephant, they without fail will. In relation to politics its central premise is that in America those with progressive values often lose the debate because they choose to fight it on the conservatives terms. It is obvious to see how this has ended up in America. Obama's attempts at a centre left presidency which conservatives ought to be able to accept if not agree with is hamstrung on every side by conservatives moving the goal posts further and further to the right, only for Democrats to follow and attempt to squeeze in the left hand corner.
For us in the UK it is a little more complex, on some issues progressives* have succeeded in 'framing' the debate since Thatcher's time. We live in a socially more tolerant country than before, many of the coalition's more right-wing policies have had to be described as a 'reform' or performed under the cover of deficit reduction. (many are cuts that save little but hurt some profoundly.) The likes of Norman Tebbitt sabre rattle from the right about pet issues, impotent because the debate has moved on. Yet in other areas the frame never changed. On welfare, tax, crime, the marketisation of services and regulation, right-wing ways of thinking hold sway. It would be easy to blame this on the Tory Press (and in some ways right). However the reasons for it lie in one of the central tenets of New Labour, its original sin if you will: triangulation.
The best example is perhaps tax. Lakoff uses the example of 'tax relief' in his book of a way in which progressives accept a right-wing way of thinking even when arguing against it as the word 'relief' implies that somehow tax is an affliction to be alleviated rather than the price to be paid for the upkeep of a civil society in which businesses and individuals can prosper. Why is it now that in our country that people on benefits are vilified routinely but tax avoiders lauded and asked to provide advice to government? Because New Labour accepted the terms of the debate that tax and government spending are both inherently bad in many cases. The two New Labour positions on the issue were 1.) To not waste any opportunity to 'go after' benefit cheats and constantly talk up initiatives to 'get the feckless off benefits'** and 2.) To be 'intensely relaxed' about the richest having tax arrangements that led to them paying very little in tax. For the public then it's not a huge step to see the Tory position of 1.) Regarding all those on benefits as fair game for raids and 2.) Actively encouraging tax avoidance or trying to cut rates of corporate tax to ones not worth avoiding as reasonable. Under New Labour 'reform' came to become a byword for increased marketisation of public services, now 'reform' is happening at breakneck speed, without the furore this would have created in the past, and crime became a childish debate between those who 'locked up' criminals and those 'soft' on crime.
Even the Lib Dems, for so long the only party to not accept these frames of debate (except in that now notorious tome The Orange Book) now do. Having in the past chosen to champion public spending as a real force for good, they now seem to see their main objective to be to somehow squeeze their own progressive ideals into the goal posts which the Tories have moved miles to the right. Marketise education? Fine so long as our pupil premium might mitigate its effects a little bit. Raise VAT? Cut services the poorest rely on? That's ok, some will pay a bit less income tax. These Lib Dems haven't necessarily lost their ideals but they now must try and achieve them within a Tory framework. They should learn from New Labour's failures that this leads to poverty of ambition and ultimately failure. Putting wheels on a tortoise doesn't make it a limousine.
Ed Milliband then did exactly the right thing in appealing to disaffected Lib Dems to help Labour. This is vital for both progressive Labour and Lib Dem supporters. Labour because it doesn't have the monopoly on wisdom and needs help in escaping its tired New Labour ways of thinking. Lib Dems because they are being drawn into the same trap, winning the odd victory, trying to do the right thing but failing because they are accepting premises that should be an anathema to them. Tim Farron's response to Ed Milliband's offer was telling. In its first line it rebuked Labour for sucking up to Rupert Murdoch and George Bush (2003 called, it wants its political insults back.) then went on to list Lib Dem 'achievements' in the coalition government, such as the pupil premium and income tax plan. Putting aside arguments over the merits of those policies (see here and here.) if he's throwing his lot in with the coalition because of the odd sop to progressive policies he's doing exactly what New Labour did by buying Conservative arguments on the nature of tax and public spending then trying to mitigate their effects. A Labour Party reaching out to Lib Dems and offering them the chance to shape progressive policy for the future offers them a choice: not to become the true heirs to New Labour's worst mistakes.
*Progressive is a clumsy term, for a general definition Lakoff p14. seems about the bst I've come across.
** The point here is not that there shouldn't be fewer people on benefits but how you portray them: victims needing help or wastrels needing a shove?
For us in the UK it is a little more complex, on some issues progressives* have succeeded in 'framing' the debate since Thatcher's time. We live in a socially more tolerant country than before, many of the coalition's more right-wing policies have had to be described as a 'reform' or performed under the cover of deficit reduction. (many are cuts that save little but hurt some profoundly.) The likes of Norman Tebbitt sabre rattle from the right about pet issues, impotent because the debate has moved on. Yet in other areas the frame never changed. On welfare, tax, crime, the marketisation of services and regulation, right-wing ways of thinking hold sway. It would be easy to blame this on the Tory Press (and in some ways right). However the reasons for it lie in one of the central tenets of New Labour, its original sin if you will: triangulation.
The best example is perhaps tax. Lakoff uses the example of 'tax relief' in his book of a way in which progressives accept a right-wing way of thinking even when arguing against it as the word 'relief' implies that somehow tax is an affliction to be alleviated rather than the price to be paid for the upkeep of a civil society in which businesses and individuals can prosper. Why is it now that in our country that people on benefits are vilified routinely but tax avoiders lauded and asked to provide advice to government? Because New Labour accepted the terms of the debate that tax and government spending are both inherently bad in many cases. The two New Labour positions on the issue were 1.) To not waste any opportunity to 'go after' benefit cheats and constantly talk up initiatives to 'get the feckless off benefits'** and 2.) To be 'intensely relaxed' about the richest having tax arrangements that led to them paying very little in tax. For the public then it's not a huge step to see the Tory position of 1.) Regarding all those on benefits as fair game for raids and 2.) Actively encouraging tax avoidance or trying to cut rates of corporate tax to ones not worth avoiding as reasonable. Under New Labour 'reform' came to become a byword for increased marketisation of public services, now 'reform' is happening at breakneck speed, without the furore this would have created in the past, and crime became a childish debate between those who 'locked up' criminals and those 'soft' on crime.
Even the Lib Dems, for so long the only party to not accept these frames of debate (except in that now notorious tome The Orange Book) now do. Having in the past chosen to champion public spending as a real force for good, they now seem to see their main objective to be to somehow squeeze their own progressive ideals into the goal posts which the Tories have moved miles to the right. Marketise education? Fine so long as our pupil premium might mitigate its effects a little bit. Raise VAT? Cut services the poorest rely on? That's ok, some will pay a bit less income tax. These Lib Dems haven't necessarily lost their ideals but they now must try and achieve them within a Tory framework. They should learn from New Labour's failures that this leads to poverty of ambition and ultimately failure. Putting wheels on a tortoise doesn't make it a limousine.
Ed Milliband then did exactly the right thing in appealing to disaffected Lib Dems to help Labour. This is vital for both progressive Labour and Lib Dem supporters. Labour because it doesn't have the monopoly on wisdom and needs help in escaping its tired New Labour ways of thinking. Lib Dems because they are being drawn into the same trap, winning the odd victory, trying to do the right thing but failing because they are accepting premises that should be an anathema to them. Tim Farron's response to Ed Milliband's offer was telling. In its first line it rebuked Labour for sucking up to Rupert Murdoch and George Bush (2003 called, it wants its political insults back.) then went on to list Lib Dem 'achievements' in the coalition government, such as the pupil premium and income tax plan. Putting aside arguments over the merits of those policies (see here and here.) if he's throwing his lot in with the coalition because of the odd sop to progressive policies he's doing exactly what New Labour did by buying Conservative arguments on the nature of tax and public spending then trying to mitigate their effects. A Labour Party reaching out to Lib Dems and offering them the chance to shape progressive policy for the future offers them a choice: not to become the true heirs to New Labour's worst mistakes.
*Progressive is a clumsy term, for a general definition Lakoff p14. seems about the bst I've come across.
** The point here is not that there shouldn't be fewer people on benefits but how you portray them: victims needing help or wastrels needing a shove?
Friday 10 December 2010
Misfits and Apprentii
I love the Apprentice, where else could you find such choice one liners as 'I'm not a one trick pony, I'm a whole field of ponies.' (Intelectual featherweight Stuart Baggs 'the brand.') and 'Everything I touch turns to sold.' (Baggs again)? Faintly ridiculous people who manage to get on in life with pure pigheaded drive and inflated ego will always make good television, purely for arse over tittery alone. Another viewing pleasure is Channel 4's excellent MisFits, the superhero ASBO drama based around 5 minor miscreants given superpowers by a passing storm. It is difficult to say which of these two shows should be considered less outlandish, but it is certainly the MisFits who have more fun.
The two sets of people couldn't be more different, thrusting business types who will do anything to 'get on' and those left behind, ASBO or no where they in the words of one J. Cocker 'Dance and drink and screw, because there's nothing else to do.' Those who are left behind by dreams of avarice and have an imposed ceiling as to what they can achieve and the quality of life that they can lead and those who may, if they can convince enough German people that goulash crisps are 'traditionally German' earn money beyond most of our dreams. The tuition fees debate has been a loud one but the voice that hasn't been heard as often as the one chanting epithets at Nick Clegg is one taking a real stand against the marketisation of our society. University graduates are to be encouraged by their huge fees to become a thrusting army of young Apprentii, marketing their skills to the highest bidder and 'getting on', making money with no real regard for what makes a good society for all. Every graduate competing with other ones to get full value for their fees with the rewards for becoming a banker or a marketing director far outweighing those of becoming a social worker or a teaching professional. No middle ground of being a well-educated graduate with a decent job who works hard but doesn't have a need to strive to earn more and more money for and from the Lord Sugarlumps and Sir Phillip 'tax efficient' Greens of this world. Fewer services in the future have the same effect, with no local library, free childcare or cheap leisure facilities life for those in the lower middle becomes worse, meaning in order to live a life in good conditions you continually need to be more like an Apprentii, not do a job you wanted to do but get into sales, eventually you may become a director and be able to squirrel away money yourself. Those who miss the boat or who don't want to catch it had better get used to a lower standard of living because the Apprentii and their masters earned their money and don't want it taxed, that would be 'anti-aspiration'.
With the marketisation of everything we are becoming a society of Misfits and Apprentii. In its most extreme example it is the contrast between those who if they are working are on a wage that barely pays for the cost of living compared to the denizens of big business. Things will get worse for the poorest but a new ceiling on quality of life is now being imposed on those who earn more but live with the same worries of watching their standard of living disappear. Cameron says that to tax the richest more is 'anti-aspiration', however by not asking the richest in our society to pay he is shutting off the aspirations of many to get on in life without wild dreams of avarice but to live a comfortable life in a good society. Forcing students to pay £40,000 in fees throughout their life is anti the aspirations of the majority to do a decent worthwhile job and not have to worry about the continuing erosion of services on which they may rely, or a huge debt burden which they will never pay off. As provision is shrunk, services disappear and the next generation are forced to pay for the mistakes of the last one, the chances for graduates and non graduates alike to merely 'get on' by doing a job whose worth isn't completely measured by the weight of its paycheck will become fewer and fewer, many more of us will be Misfits in our own society, trapped by a ceiling of increased outgoings and fewer services. It's a shame none of us will have superpowers though, nor fields of ponies.
Friday 3 December 2010
Fuck FIFA (Gently)
Whilst I sympathise with all the siren calls to withdraw from FIFA after the loss of the world cup it does leave one with a moral conundrum. As one of those who has called on us to withdraw from FIFA or at least stick a hand up and say 'please Sepp can we stop the pillaging of relatively poor countries?' before any sort of bidding how does one associate with those who wholeheartedly 'backed the bid' and were prepared to do anything to get it because it's football and we love football?
It's not a difficult conundrum but one every real football fan comes across every day. Say you're a Villa or a Sunderland fan, how do you reconcile your love and undying support for your team with the fact that it is effectively a corporate entity? (I'm Wednesdayite so these dillemmas are but a dream.) Answer it's a mortgage of the soul one makes every day. You do it for love. The answer lies in the fact tht these teams can, as can Wednesday get close to 20,000 watching them play in the paintstripper premier. This is the point, we almost don't support a team, we support a culture. Kinks fans still go and see Ray Davies, for Sunderland memories of Bob Stokoe are confined to Football Focus, but we are all still inescapebly in love.
This is our strength, we can call out FIFA on their corruption tomorrow because there will still be 3,000 to see Chester FC, close to 10,000 to see Bradford and 40,000 for a Sheffield derby even if it was played in the dogshit shield. My point is that our game will survive whatever and that our FA should build bridges, work hard and make friends, undermine FIFA wherever possible sort out corruption and be for the good of the fans because we will support football, have its best interests in our heart World Cup or no, we've got nothing to lose. I'm not sure Qatar or Russia can say that. I back the bid to rid the game of corruption.
It's not a difficult conundrum but one every real football fan comes across every day. Say you're a Villa or a Sunderland fan, how do you reconcile your love and undying support for your team with the fact that it is effectively a corporate entity? (I'm Wednesdayite so these dillemmas are but a dream.) Answer it's a mortgage of the soul one makes every day. You do it for love. The answer lies in the fact tht these teams can, as can Wednesday get close to 20,000 watching them play in the paintstripper premier. This is the point, we almost don't support a team, we support a culture. Kinks fans still go and see Ray Davies, for Sunderland memories of Bob Stokoe are confined to Football Focus, but we are all still inescapebly in love.
This is our strength, we can call out FIFA on their corruption tomorrow because there will still be 3,000 to see Chester FC, close to 10,000 to see Bradford and 40,000 for a Sheffield derby even if it was played in the dogshit shield. My point is that our game will survive whatever and that our FA should build bridges, work hard and make friends, undermine FIFA wherever possible sort out corruption and be for the good of the fans because we will support football, have its best interests in our heart World Cup or no, we've got nothing to lose. I'm not sure Qatar or Russia can say that. I back the bid to rid the game of corruption.
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