Showing posts with label Tories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tories. Show all posts
Monday, 2 November 2015
Tuesday, 6 October 2015
Sorry but I think I would have thrown that egg myself*
The problem with an old-fashioned egging is that it lacks political nuance. Last Sunday's assault on Young Conservatives in Manchester has quite rightly been greeted with universal disapproval by the media and it doesn't really matter that 60,000 people didn't hurl eggs. One chose to vent their anger in yolk form and it was wrong, not least because this act of free-range stupidity gave the Tory party the perfect story against which to define themselves at the start of their annual conference. They can now claim to be the party that doesn't hurl eggs, or, at least, not outside the context of a dining club hazing.
Conflict is hardly new when the Tories come north. Political debate in this part of the country is a snarling business but that emanating from the left often seems more snarl than substance. Jeremy Corbyn can ask for gentler politics and Topman himself from collar to cuff but the crowd at protests will usually attract some braid-wearing pert-nippled class warriors with a good arm, lucky aim and a misguided notion of free speech.
Yet amid the sham outrage and sham counter outrage, I noticed something very familiar about the video titled ‘A Tory just got EGGED!!’ when it popped up on Youtube. I recognised the scene of the 'crime'. I spent years working in an office just around that corner on the edge of Chinatown. I've stood where the Tories stood and know how tempers run hot in a city that often feels like it has more Bez tribute acts than it has Tory voters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZB8_RMwFfI
Because I know the corner so well, I wonder how those Young Conservatives found themselves standing at that junction of Portland Street and Oxford Road. It's the latter road that channels protest marches that routinely run out of the university precinct to the south. That corner is the closest point that protesters get to the security barriers protecting Tory attendees. You'd have to walk a few minutes back towards Central Library in order to reach the Midland Hotel and further still to reach the conference venue.
It makes it hard not to question the motives of those Young Conservatives when they picked that spot to openly wear their conference passes (against the advice of event organizers) and to wave copies of The Telegraph, conference brochures, and pictures of Margaret Thatcher. These are perfectly legal things to do, of course, but perhaps not wise in the middle of an anti-austerity march unless your intention is to provoke the other lot into proving what a despicable bunch they can be. And, as usual, somebody in that other lot was only too happy to oblige.
The result is online sniping between the hard left and hard right. The left justifiably feel they have statistics on their side because it was only one among 60,000 who committed the terrible deed. The right justifiably feel that they have morality on their side because they claim the right to dress how they like and walk the streets unmolested by egg yolk. Yet it's hardly partisan to point out that the Young Conservatives seemed delighted to have provoked that response.
Manchester has many virtues but bow ties are rare and the v-necked sweater with old-school tie is not a look that wins many friends. Seen through my eyes, at least, the Young Conservatives looked just that: very young and very Conservative. I would also argue that you don't need to be on the political left to have a visceral reaction to the smugness of youths flaunting their privilege in a context in which others are protesting genuine poverty and government policies that are leading to the deaths of vulnerable people. Given the anger, the noise, the passion of the moment, I'd have been hard pressed not to lob an egg myself. Except, sitting here coolly and rationally, I also know that I wouldn't. Or perhaps I would. That's the problem with passion. It makes reasonable people do things they would regret and often those things are far worse than throwing an egg. The bigger question is why people attend a political march carrying eggs in their pockets and it's in the premeditation that my sympathy for the protesters ends.
The difference between passion and premeditation is, I suppose, at the heart of my argument. It's the premeditation of protestors looking to hurl eggs and the premeditation of the Young Tories looking to stoke the anger of the crowds. Yet the story also expresses a deeper reality about the Tories annual pilgrimage to Manchester. That they tend to hold their annual conferences in Labour heartlands makes as much sense as Blackpool’s Tower Ballroom hosting the Last Night of the Proms. The whole thing feels like a premeditated provocation on a scale grander than either the Young Conservatives or Dim Eggthrowers could ever hope to organize. It implies a reach into cities and regions that simply doesn't exist or is overstated. In the north, the Tories are largely successful in areas of affluence, the suburbs on the outskirts of major conurbations where gardens are large and every shadow cast by leaf or Range Rover. Elsewhere they are the second, third or even fourth choice party. For a few days, they might fortify themselves inside a heavily protected compound in central Manchester but the security only highlights how removed they are from ordinary Mancunians and how much effort they need to expend to truly understand the city, the people and its culture.
And that's what the story highlights to me. Throwing an egg was unconscionable but what the Young Conservatives were throwing back was cheap, snide, and self defeating. It was a militant distain about the cares of average people who will never know or enjoy their privilege. It was a lack of compassion, consideration, or conscience that only encourages more people to take to the streets and make the divides in our society feel deeper and more wilful than we've ever known them in our lives.
Whilst the Left need to identify the anarchists and trouble makers polluting their message through violence, the Tories need to rethink their own strategy and stop countenancing the fetishism of cruelty sometimes displayed so overtly by their youth.
* The title of this article was obviously intended as 'clickbait' but that doesn't actually stop some people from thinking that I would throw an egg or I'm defending the people that do throw eggs. I wouldn't throw an egg. I've never thrown an egg and I can't conceive of a context in which I would throw an egg. I'm not saying that I'm incapable of throwing an egg. If the conditions were perfect and I lost my temper and happened to have an egg in my hand, I can't be entirely certain about my actions. But, generally, I disapprove of all egg throwing and general misbehaviour with eggs.
Conflict is hardly new when the Tories come north. Political debate in this part of the country is a snarling business but that emanating from the left often seems more snarl than substance. Jeremy Corbyn can ask for gentler politics and Topman himself from collar to cuff but the crowd at protests will usually attract some braid-wearing pert-nippled class warriors with a good arm, lucky aim and a misguided notion of free speech.
Yet amid the sham outrage and sham counter outrage, I noticed something very familiar about the video titled ‘A Tory just got EGGED!!’ when it popped up on Youtube. I recognised the scene of the 'crime'. I spent years working in an office just around that corner on the edge of Chinatown. I've stood where the Tories stood and know how tempers run hot in a city that often feels like it has more Bez tribute acts than it has Tory voters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZB8_RMwFfI
Because I know the corner so well, I wonder how those Young Conservatives found themselves standing at that junction of Portland Street and Oxford Road. It's the latter road that channels protest marches that routinely run out of the university precinct to the south. That corner is the closest point that protesters get to the security barriers protecting Tory attendees. You'd have to walk a few minutes back towards Central Library in order to reach the Midland Hotel and further still to reach the conference venue.
It makes it hard not to question the motives of those Young Conservatives when they picked that spot to openly wear their conference passes (against the advice of event organizers) and to wave copies of The Telegraph, conference brochures, and pictures of Margaret Thatcher. These are perfectly legal things to do, of course, but perhaps not wise in the middle of an anti-austerity march unless your intention is to provoke the other lot into proving what a despicable bunch they can be. And, as usual, somebody in that other lot was only too happy to oblige.
The result is online sniping between the hard left and hard right. The left justifiably feel they have statistics on their side because it was only one among 60,000 who committed the terrible deed. The right justifiably feel that they have morality on their side because they claim the right to dress how they like and walk the streets unmolested by egg yolk. Yet it's hardly partisan to point out that the Young Conservatives seemed delighted to have provoked that response.
Manchester has many virtues but bow ties are rare and the v-necked sweater with old-school tie is not a look that wins many friends. Seen through my eyes, at least, the Young Conservatives looked just that: very young and very Conservative. I would also argue that you don't need to be on the political left to have a visceral reaction to the smugness of youths flaunting their privilege in a context in which others are protesting genuine poverty and government policies that are leading to the deaths of vulnerable people. Given the anger, the noise, the passion of the moment, I'd have been hard pressed not to lob an egg myself. Except, sitting here coolly and rationally, I also know that I wouldn't. Or perhaps I would. That's the problem with passion. It makes reasonable people do things they would regret and often those things are far worse than throwing an egg. The bigger question is why people attend a political march carrying eggs in their pockets and it's in the premeditation that my sympathy for the protesters ends.
The difference between passion and premeditation is, I suppose, at the heart of my argument. It's the premeditation of protestors looking to hurl eggs and the premeditation of the Young Tories looking to stoke the anger of the crowds. Yet the story also expresses a deeper reality about the Tories annual pilgrimage to Manchester. That they tend to hold their annual conferences in Labour heartlands makes as much sense as Blackpool’s Tower Ballroom hosting the Last Night of the Proms. The whole thing feels like a premeditated provocation on a scale grander than either the Young Conservatives or Dim Eggthrowers could ever hope to organize. It implies a reach into cities and regions that simply doesn't exist or is overstated. In the north, the Tories are largely successful in areas of affluence, the suburbs on the outskirts of major conurbations where gardens are large and every shadow cast by leaf or Range Rover. Elsewhere they are the second, third or even fourth choice party. For a few days, they might fortify themselves inside a heavily protected compound in central Manchester but the security only highlights how removed they are from ordinary Mancunians and how much effort they need to expend to truly understand the city, the people and its culture.
And that's what the story highlights to me. Throwing an egg was unconscionable but what the Young Conservatives were throwing back was cheap, snide, and self defeating. It was a militant distain about the cares of average people who will never know or enjoy their privilege. It was a lack of compassion, consideration, or conscience that only encourages more people to take to the streets and make the divides in our society feel deeper and more wilful than we've ever known them in our lives.
Whilst the Left need to identify the anarchists and trouble makers polluting their message through violence, the Tories need to rethink their own strategy and stop countenancing the fetishism of cruelty sometimes displayed so overtly by their youth.
* The title of this article was obviously intended as 'clickbait' but that doesn't actually stop some people from thinking that I would throw an egg or I'm defending the people that do throw eggs. I wouldn't throw an egg. I've never thrown an egg and I can't conceive of a context in which I would throw an egg. I'm not saying that I'm incapable of throwing an egg. If the conditions were perfect and I lost my temper and happened to have an egg in my hand, I can't be entirely certain about my actions. But, generally, I disapprove of all egg throwing and general misbehaviour with eggs.
Tuesday, 12 May 2015
Friday, 8 May 2015
The Old FE College
'I voted Labour,' said the woman at the bus stop. I was riding past and despite the weeping rain encouraging me to hurry home, I squeezed the brakes a touch so I might catch what she said next. 'I always vote Labour. We all vote Labour but we rarely get Labour.'
'Locally we do,' piped up another.
'Oh, yes, locally... But we never voted for Tories and look what they do.'
Momentum was my enemy. Even with my brakes slowing me down, I was soon beyond earshot. Yet I didn't need to know the rest. I know what 'they do'. Everybody knows what they do. They take away hope.
Hope used to exist in the form of the town's further education college. Nearly all of the locals had passed through its doors at one time or another. It was a much loved building and reassuringly solid, crafted from red brick and the local sandstone artfully arranged in a style of the late nineteenth century. Buildings of the same kind dot the North West, the last reminder of the patronage of industrialists who lived among their workers rather than across the globe. The buildings usually have impressively old dates and reassuringly down-to-earth names inscribed on various slabs. Ours was the kind of old municipal building that was built when people took pride in their town. I'd never studied there but I'd used its library often. It was full of the kind of technical books missing from the local library next door. It also had the only quiet study room in miles.
The college had been there over a century before cuts turned it into a smashed derelict. Developers then arrived and offered to turn it into flats and they assured locals that they'd respect the much loved facade. Protests were started but the council allowed the sale to go through. Then there was an announcement that the much loved facade was providing difficult to respect. It wouldn't fit into designs. There was a request to demolish it but then the protests turned more serious. People amassed outside our much loved college. It was something they cared about.
I can't emphasise that enough. The town has never had that many buildings to help distinguish from any other. We had a beautiful art deco cinema which (handily) succumbed to fire after developers couldn't get permission to demolish it. We have a town hall that stands empty and I have no doubt will eventually go the same way, despite it being the town's chief landmark and one of the venues where the Beatles played before they became famous.
Yet no building felt quite as important as the college. It was the place where many relationships and marriages began, careers were formed, and opportunities taken. It was the place where new mothers went to learn the skills of motherhood. My own mother went there to learn dressmaking, which accounted for all the home made trousers I wore as a child back when 'austerity' wasn't a political catchphrase but a grim reality. Fathers went there to learn skills such as plumbing or plastering. It even had a small sense of academic credibility. You could study for 'O' levels at night in subjects such as French and Maths. After it closed, it was replaced by a local community centre where you can study subjects ranging from 'crystal reading' to 'Zumba' or whatever weird new fitness craze is currently popular. If I weren't so depressed, I'd have written that line better. It would have been funny.
The old college was part of what made this sad little working class town different to all the other sad little working class towns. Then, one morning, not so long ago, the town woke up to discover that the old college had been completely flattened overnight. It's now a bloody big hole in the ground. There were protests but nobody really fights too much about a pile of rubble. I don't know why I care or I choose to write about it on this wet pleading Friday at the barrel end of another five year Tory government. Around here, very few people voted for the government and the government will know it. I guess things will get worse before they get better. And complaining about it does so very little.
Like everything I write on this blog, this post enters the void of internet banalities which all ultimately mean so little. Read this or look at a cat meme. It all means nothing. Is there even any meaning behind a load of red bricks piled up a certain sensible way a hundred or so years ago? The Tories would probably say there isn't. The bricks of the old college have now been sold on to provide the authentic Northern working class look to some town houses in one of the more fashionable middle class zones in Manchester, Liverpool or beyond where the bankers and footballers live.
Those of us who used to cherish having a local college now just have a hole in the ground and, coming soon, some bland jumble of the modish and the mod con.
And I don't really know what I'm trying to say other than it was very grey in town this morning and I got very wet.
'Locally we do,' piped up another.
'Oh, yes, locally... But we never voted for Tories and look what they do.'
Momentum was my enemy. Even with my brakes slowing me down, I was soon beyond earshot. Yet I didn't need to know the rest. I know what 'they do'. Everybody knows what they do. They take away hope.
Hope used to exist in the form of the town's further education college. Nearly all of the locals had passed through its doors at one time or another. It was a much loved building and reassuringly solid, crafted from red brick and the local sandstone artfully arranged in a style of the late nineteenth century. Buildings of the same kind dot the North West, the last reminder of the patronage of industrialists who lived among their workers rather than across the globe. The buildings usually have impressively old dates and reassuringly down-to-earth names inscribed on various slabs. Ours was the kind of old municipal building that was built when people took pride in their town. I'd never studied there but I'd used its library often. It was full of the kind of technical books missing from the local library next door. It also had the only quiet study room in miles.
The college had been there over a century before cuts turned it into a smashed derelict. Developers then arrived and offered to turn it into flats and they assured locals that they'd respect the much loved facade. Protests were started but the council allowed the sale to go through. Then there was an announcement that the much loved facade was providing difficult to respect. It wouldn't fit into designs. There was a request to demolish it but then the protests turned more serious. People amassed outside our much loved college. It was something they cared about.
I can't emphasise that enough. The town has never had that many buildings to help distinguish from any other. We had a beautiful art deco cinema which (handily) succumbed to fire after developers couldn't get permission to demolish it. We have a town hall that stands empty and I have no doubt will eventually go the same way, despite it being the town's chief landmark and one of the venues where the Beatles played before they became famous.
Yet no building felt quite as important as the college. It was the place where many relationships and marriages began, careers were formed, and opportunities taken. It was the place where new mothers went to learn the skills of motherhood. My own mother went there to learn dressmaking, which accounted for all the home made trousers I wore as a child back when 'austerity' wasn't a political catchphrase but a grim reality. Fathers went there to learn skills such as plumbing or plastering. It even had a small sense of academic credibility. You could study for 'O' levels at night in subjects such as French and Maths. After it closed, it was replaced by a local community centre where you can study subjects ranging from 'crystal reading' to 'Zumba' or whatever weird new fitness craze is currently popular. If I weren't so depressed, I'd have written that line better. It would have been funny.
The old college was part of what made this sad little working class town different to all the other sad little working class towns. Then, one morning, not so long ago, the town woke up to discover that the old college had been completely flattened overnight. It's now a bloody big hole in the ground. There were protests but nobody really fights too much about a pile of rubble. I don't know why I care or I choose to write about it on this wet pleading Friday at the barrel end of another five year Tory government. Around here, very few people voted for the government and the government will know it. I guess things will get worse before they get better. And complaining about it does so very little.
Like everything I write on this blog, this post enters the void of internet banalities which all ultimately mean so little. Read this or look at a cat meme. It all means nothing. Is there even any meaning behind a load of red bricks piled up a certain sensible way a hundred or so years ago? The Tories would probably say there isn't. The bricks of the old college have now been sold on to provide the authentic Northern working class look to some town houses in one of the more fashionable middle class zones in Manchester, Liverpool or beyond where the bankers and footballers live.
Those of us who used to cherish having a local college now just have a hole in the ground and, coming soon, some bland jumble of the modish and the mod con.
And I don't really know what I'm trying to say other than it was very grey in town this morning and I got very wet.
Saturday, 25 April 2015
Why the hell Aston Villa?
The list of things that count as a 'brain fade' is pretty long. Forgetting the dates of battles, wars, victories, births, deaths, exams and appointments are just the beginning. It would be understandable if you forget your mother's noodle recipe or the contents of that brown cardboard box on the top shelf in your shed. You might forget your National Insurance number or ever your car number plate. It's easy to forget the name of films or books, even though you might claim they're a favourite. It's easier still to forget the name of that actor you like who only plays bit parts in films but always does with a certain manly swagger. In that case, you're probably forgetting the name Ed Harris or Scott Glenn. Really, the list of things it's okay to forget is extremely long and varied. But nowhere on it does it include the name of your football team.
I mean nobody, not even the recently lobotomised, forgets the name of their football team. It just doesn't happen. Not even as a verbal slip. You don't suddenly say 'Manchester United' if you mean Liverpool, 'Everton' if you support Leeds. It's not simply a trick of a tired brain. You don't have one thing in mind and accidentally say it, like you might say to somebody, ' pass me the knife' when you meant spoon but you just happened to be holding a knife when you reached for the word. Those things are understandable. Forgetting your football team is about as likely as forgetting your own name. Never is my life have I introduced myself 'Eric' or 'Bruce' or 'Norma'. I'm certain about that. 100% of the time I say that my name is David.
I wouldn't image that David Cameron would ever introduce himself as Eric, Bruce or Norma Cameron either, which makes it so hard to believe that today told an audience in Croydon that his favourite team is West Ham. For years he's been telling us that it's Aston Villa and how he is the nephew of a former Villa chairman who took him to his first match when he was 13.
The significance of the story is bigger than the details. What I love about this gaff is that it's an apparently trivial mistake which might have big consequences. It's the kind of story that will click with large portions of the electorate. It's hard to judge a man based on economic predictions or the well practised spiel of a campaign speech. It's much easier to judge what you think about a man who suddenly forgets which team he supports. Had this happened in any pub across the land, the victim of the 'brain fade' would be ribbed about it for months, years, perhaps even the rest of his life.
So, why did it happen?
It happened, I think, because of the character of the man. It is a small point but I think it reveals so much about Cameron and his convictions or, more precisely, lack of convictions. I've never seen him as a true conviction politician. Thatcher was deeply ideological. Blair less so but still in a large part driven by convictions. Brown was deeply rooted in his convictions that came through his Presbyterian upbringing. Cameron, I think, is almost completely lacking in deep political thought. To put it in slightly wet terms: politics seems to be a convenient point on his life journey. It was easy for him to go from Eton to Oxford and then into the world of Conservative politics. Leadership came just as easily. David Davies was tipped as the next leader and then Cameron gave a speech behind closed doors which turned everything around. And with typical Cameron luck, he rose to the leadership at a time when the Labour Party had exhausted the ideas of one generation and a world economic collapse compounded their problems, meaning that a change in government was always likely to happen. I can't think of any party leader who went quite so quickly from obscurity to Number 10 via the ballot box.
His current 'brain fade' makes me think of Libya and the fall of Gaddafi. As revolutions go, it was a fairly easy one for a Prime Minister to cope with. It was easier still to head to Benghazi and take some of the credit and make some vague promises and we know how that turned out. We should only be lucky as he made that speech that he didn't praise the people of Syria or Liberia or even West Ham.
The gaff happened because I doubt if Cameron is invested in following Aston Villa with the passion of a true football fan. 'Aston Villa' is just the convenient tag that he can scrawl in that blank box whenever he has to answer the 'Favourite football team' question on his regular Q&As with the readers of Heat magazine.
Yet one question remains. Why the hell did he pick Aston Villa?
I can't get over the feeling that it's just a shrewd political calculation. If I were a politician who was particularly prone to taking the popular angle and always wanting to be seen on the side of the majority, who would I claim to support?
According to a recent Guardian article, the biggest three teams in the UK are Liverpool (15.21%), Arsenal (15.03%) and Manchester United (14.6%). However, at least two of those teams are great rivals. To support United or Liverpool would stain your character for supporters of the rival team. You might gain respect in the eyes of one 15% but you'd lost it in the eyes of another 15%. Chelsea, Tottenham, and Arsenal all have strong rivalries, as do teams such as Everton, Manchester City, and Leeds.
I suspect that a wily politician would choose a team that's well known but not so successful that it has bred much resentment. Does Aston Villa fit that profile? It has the fifth highest in terms of major honours among English clubs but hasn't won the top division since the 1980-81 season. Is it vanilla enough to be the team that breeds the most apathy in the league? I suspect it might. Choosing Aston Villa means that Cameron is only alienating the supporters of West Brom and Birmingham City in a heavily Labour supporting part of the country. Hostility towards Aston Villa doesn't reach across the country in the same way as you find deep resentments about other major teams. In political terms, it's as neutral a choice as it's possible to find in the top division. The votes he would potentially lose are votes which would probably be Labour in the first place.
Well, that's my theory. I have no way of knowing if it's real or not. I just expect the Tory party's media unit to now go into overdrive to prove that Cameron is a true Aston Villa fan. Expect to see the buttock tattoo before the end of the campaign. In the case of any other politician, I would have written that line thinking it a good joke to end. In Cameron's case, I'm not so sure it's a joke.
I mean nobody, not even the recently lobotomised, forgets the name of their football team. It just doesn't happen. Not even as a verbal slip. You don't suddenly say 'Manchester United' if you mean Liverpool, 'Everton' if you support Leeds. It's not simply a trick of a tired brain. You don't have one thing in mind and accidentally say it, like you might say to somebody, ' pass me the knife' when you meant spoon but you just happened to be holding a knife when you reached for the word. Those things are understandable. Forgetting your football team is about as likely as forgetting your own name. Never is my life have I introduced myself 'Eric' or 'Bruce' or 'Norma'. I'm certain about that. 100% of the time I say that my name is David.
I wouldn't image that David Cameron would ever introduce himself as Eric, Bruce or Norma Cameron either, which makes it so hard to believe that today told an audience in Croydon that his favourite team is West Ham. For years he's been telling us that it's Aston Villa and how he is the nephew of a former Villa chairman who took him to his first match when he was 13.
The significance of the story is bigger than the details. What I love about this gaff is that it's an apparently trivial mistake which might have big consequences. It's the kind of story that will click with large portions of the electorate. It's hard to judge a man based on economic predictions or the well practised spiel of a campaign speech. It's much easier to judge what you think about a man who suddenly forgets which team he supports. Had this happened in any pub across the land, the victim of the 'brain fade' would be ribbed about it for months, years, perhaps even the rest of his life.
So, why did it happen?
It happened, I think, because of the character of the man. It is a small point but I think it reveals so much about Cameron and his convictions or, more precisely, lack of convictions. I've never seen him as a true conviction politician. Thatcher was deeply ideological. Blair less so but still in a large part driven by convictions. Brown was deeply rooted in his convictions that came through his Presbyterian upbringing. Cameron, I think, is almost completely lacking in deep political thought. To put it in slightly wet terms: politics seems to be a convenient point on his life journey. It was easy for him to go from Eton to Oxford and then into the world of Conservative politics. Leadership came just as easily. David Davies was tipped as the next leader and then Cameron gave a speech behind closed doors which turned everything around. And with typical Cameron luck, he rose to the leadership at a time when the Labour Party had exhausted the ideas of one generation and a world economic collapse compounded their problems, meaning that a change in government was always likely to happen. I can't think of any party leader who went quite so quickly from obscurity to Number 10 via the ballot box.
His current 'brain fade' makes me think of Libya and the fall of Gaddafi. As revolutions go, it was a fairly easy one for a Prime Minister to cope with. It was easier still to head to Benghazi and take some of the credit and make some vague promises and we know how that turned out. We should only be lucky as he made that speech that he didn't praise the people of Syria or Liberia or even West Ham.
The gaff happened because I doubt if Cameron is invested in following Aston Villa with the passion of a true football fan. 'Aston Villa' is just the convenient tag that he can scrawl in that blank box whenever he has to answer the 'Favourite football team' question on his regular Q&As with the readers of Heat magazine.
Yet one question remains. Why the hell did he pick Aston Villa?
I can't get over the feeling that it's just a shrewd political calculation. If I were a politician who was particularly prone to taking the popular angle and always wanting to be seen on the side of the majority, who would I claim to support?
According to a recent Guardian article, the biggest three teams in the UK are Liverpool (15.21%), Arsenal (15.03%) and Manchester United (14.6%). However, at least two of those teams are great rivals. To support United or Liverpool would stain your character for supporters of the rival team. You might gain respect in the eyes of one 15% but you'd lost it in the eyes of another 15%. Chelsea, Tottenham, and Arsenal all have strong rivalries, as do teams such as Everton, Manchester City, and Leeds.
I suspect that a wily politician would choose a team that's well known but not so successful that it has bred much resentment. Does Aston Villa fit that profile? It has the fifth highest in terms of major honours among English clubs but hasn't won the top division since the 1980-81 season. Is it vanilla enough to be the team that breeds the most apathy in the league? I suspect it might. Choosing Aston Villa means that Cameron is only alienating the supporters of West Brom and Birmingham City in a heavily Labour supporting part of the country. Hostility towards Aston Villa doesn't reach across the country in the same way as you find deep resentments about other major teams. In political terms, it's as neutral a choice as it's possible to find in the top division. The votes he would potentially lose are votes which would probably be Labour in the first place.
Well, that's my theory. I have no way of knowing if it's real or not. I just expect the Tory party's media unit to now go into overdrive to prove that Cameron is a true Aston Villa fan. Expect to see the buttock tattoo before the end of the campaign. In the case of any other politician, I would have written that line thinking it a good joke to end. In Cameron's case, I'm not so sure it's a joke.
Saturday, 28 March 2015
How Ed Miliband Would Win The Election
My fevers, aches and coughing fits finally eased last night so I finally had the energy and concentration to sit down and watch the Sky News/Channel 4 interviews with the leaders of the two main parties.
The first thing to say is that I thought David Cameron won on the night but it was a hollow victory. All the interesting things that need to be said are about Miliband. Miliband might have come second but that's purely a political score. If it were a football match, Cameron was Stoke City parking eleven players in front of the net and going through on away goals. Miliband was on the losing side but he played the better football. If you were to follow a team based on just this performance, glory seekers might support Cameron. Fans of good football would want to follow the red team.
But let's begin with Cameron. Even if the novelty wore off years ago, I'm often surprised at how personable David Cameron can be. He says warm friendly things with such a practised conviction that you'd be forgiven for forgetting that he's been in charge of the government for the past five years. Over that time, the Tories have lost none of their 'Nasty Party' vibe and, in fact, they seem to have enhanced it. In a sense, it's an amazing skill to develop. I'm not quite sure how Cameron, the Prime Minister, managed to somehow distance himself from the government of Michael Gove, Iain Duncan Smith and George Osborne. He is, I suppose, the velvet glove disguising the iron fist. I read recently that he considers himself a One Nation Tory yet his idol was Baroness Thatcher. That is a big clue to the man and perhaps explains what has happened to the nation under his watch.
On screen, he's the smiling face, well groomed hair, with compassionate answers which you know he's practised ad nauseum in the mirror. He's one of those politicians trained never to point but to use that strange thumb to knuckle gesture that irritates you once you spot it being used. He's another politician who believes that his family shouldn't be used to make political points yet he's another who happily uses his family to make political points. He also plays the One Nation Tory so well. He's the Etonian toff who wants to dedicate a few years to the national service of 'saving the nation' before he goes off to make his fortune. The reality is that he's a Thatcherite at heart; the leader of a deeply radical government that believes that the market is the best arbiter for government as well as business. He is the merciless opponent of real standards and that 'closed shop' mentality brought about by such 'outmoded' concepts as professional qualifications or experience. His government repeatedly helps the rich and uses the poor as the red meat to feed their braying constituency. Paxman's question about zero hour contacts was the best of the night but the consequences of that weren't taken to their logical conclusions, exploding the reality of the 'them' and 'us' culture of government and (I suppose) the media. Miliband is regularly attacked because of the proposed 'Mansion Tax' that might hit the super wealthy but Cameron rarely has to defend the real 'Bedroom Tax' which is already hurting poor people. Instead, the charm of the man carried him through the evening. He laughed and smiled and said we're all in this together and let's jolly well get the chuffing job finished! At the end of the hour, the audience knew no more about him or what the next five years might truly entail.
One of the only things to really note about the first half of the show was that Kay Burley was too sycophantic to the PM. She has a track record, of course. Her career at Sky News has been marked by repeated examples of her allowing her impartiality to slip. She often gives authorities an easy ride, her saccharin interviewing technique landing many one-on-ones with people in power. Yet, to anybody disadvantaged or protesting against the status quo, it's a quite different style that emerges: she becomes combinative, bullying, hectoring, her interviews laced with tart asides and last word quips, usually all followed by a knowing look to camera once the interview is over. She channels the Fox News spirit into a British sphere and it's wholly unwelcome. Given her past history, there wasn't a presenter I thought less suited to this debate and so it proved as she punctuated the Miliband session with editorial judgements such as 'that's a politician's answer' and the moment she interjected 'let's not talk about the conservatives, let's talk about what you do. I'm sure members of the audience remember about [...] the note that was left behind'. Why Sky chose Burley just baffles me when they also have the wonderful Anna Jones.
By the time Miliband appeared on stage, my feeling was that Cameron had set the bar pretty low. Miliband only needed to turn up to win an easy victory. Only, it didn't turn out like that.
His preparation was Miliband's undoing. He had a deliberate strategy, which was clearly the product of whatever awful 'people' people the Labour HQ are currently employing. He's clearly gone through the media friendly drills: ask the audience member their name and preface every answer with little lead in phrases such as 'let me explain why'. It made for a polished performance but, really, it stripped him of his personality. He was attempting to play the game by Cameron's rules and highlighted the strange dichotomy that exists between what we want of our politicians and what we probably deserve.
There's a phenomenon in current British politics that's barely been explained. The rise of the New Right is not simply a seismic shift of political allegiance. UKIP membership is not simply the far right of the Tory party. If it were, they wouldn't command 20% in the polls. Instead, they've eaten into Labour and Lib Dems support. The shifts are fluid, of course, and go many ways. Some Lib Dems might have moved to Labour but a surprising number of old Labour supporters now throwing their votes towards UKIP.
UKIP's success, I would argue, isn't merely about a current concern with immigration. It's surprising to see many people professing their support for UKIP when previously they'd have been staunchly Labour. The explanation is that it's not simply about policy. UKIP are more Tory than the Tories and many of their votes would never have voted Tory in their lives. Instead, it's about language and the nature of British political debate which started with Tony Blair. Iraq might be the legacy that most people associate with Blair but, for me, it was the neutering of the political arena. Blair's government were master manipulators of the message. They used the techniques of PR to convince people that they were right. Ministers were told to remove beards and use key phrases. It led to a bastardized politics that remains to this day. It's the politics of the coming election when argument will be replaced by billboards, sound bites and cheap smears. We already hear the key phrases such as 'long term economic plan' and 'for hardworking people'. It's Pavlovian politics, whereby you repeat an untruth enough times that it takes on the permanence of a truth.
It's a political strategy that suits Cameron immensely and he plays it supremely well. David Miliband would have also played it well but brother Ed is not suited to the game. In fact, not only should he not play it but not playing that game might be his greatest strength.
I contest that UKIP's success is primarily down to the figure of Nigel Farage, an odd looking man, often seen standing in a pub his huge ugly teeth on show as he laughs open mouthed. He's graceless, without much sense of fashion. He's exactly the opposite of Cameron and, here's the important part, people love him because of that. His virtue is that he's not cut from the same cloth as David Cameron or Tony Blair. He's a throwback not just to a bygone England but to a former political style. He appeals to many people who simply feel that politicians talk over them, in cleverly rehearsed rhetoric which never answers a single question. Farage is popular because he's one of the few alternatives to vanilla party politics. Yet on the basis of last night's performance, Ed Miliband is about 90% of the way towards having a similar common touch. It's just that 10% of polish which gets in the way.
For example, at one point, Paxman demanded that Miliband set a figure for the potential population of the UK in the coming years. 70 million? 75 million? 80 million? Miliband tried to play the game. He refused to provide a number and instead tried to move the debate on to the question about our membership of the EU. 'I haven't mentioned the European Union,' waited Paxman. 'You're making up questions yourself'.
It was the lowest point of the evening as the audience sniggered. Having been the subject of enough schoolyard bullying in my life, I recognised it for what it was. Somebody asks you to name your favourite band and no matter what you answer, you become a laughing stock to a crowd all too ready to follow the example set by bully. I've always liked Paxman but I thought he went too far. Perhaps he knew that himself given that we could faintly hear him ask 'Are you okay, Ed?' as the credit's rolled.
Yet oddly it was the bulling that seemed to break Miliband's nerve. His temper frayed and Miliband rose to another level. The last five minutes of his interview had more conviction than the rest of the show. Had he been that passionate and informal in the preceding mannered minutes, the night would have been his.
What struck me about the debate was that perhaps Miliband's greatest virtue might be that he's nothing like Cameron. Large portions of the electorate are turned off politics because politicians don't answer straight questions with straight answers. Miliband could turn that to his advantage. John Major did exactly that when he deployed his stupid crate of oranges that everybody thought a ridiculous ploy until it connected with the nation in an odd but meaningful way.
I'm not sure if Miliband need a crate of oranges but I think he simply needs to find that edge. He needs to stop listening to his 'people' people and stop being so damn nice. He's not going to out-nice Cameron. What he could do is galvanise an electorate who are sick of political sock puppetry. He could talk to a nation largely unrepresented by an Etonian elite running the country from the heart of a city that feels ever more remote to the rest of the nation. He should turn the debate from the questions the media want to ask to the questions that the rest of the country want to hear answered. You do not win the country simply by winning London. The only question is how Labour go about doing that. If they play the election on Cameron's terms, they won't been seen as a viable alternative. They should instead play the game as Farage plays it: with self-deprecating humour, spontaneous moments of genuine character, off the cuff encounters with common people even if that means having those 'media' moments with dissenters. I caught just a hint of it last night but for the first time I realised that Miliband's lack of polish and willingness to engage the electorate might be the very thing that just might win him the forthcoming election. It's only a matter of whether Labour have the wits to realise this.
The first thing to say is that I thought David Cameron won on the night but it was a hollow victory. All the interesting things that need to be said are about Miliband. Miliband might have come second but that's purely a political score. If it were a football match, Cameron was Stoke City parking eleven players in front of the net and going through on away goals. Miliband was on the losing side but he played the better football. If you were to follow a team based on just this performance, glory seekers might support Cameron. Fans of good football would want to follow the red team.
But let's begin with Cameron. Even if the novelty wore off years ago, I'm often surprised at how personable David Cameron can be. He says warm friendly things with such a practised conviction that you'd be forgiven for forgetting that he's been in charge of the government for the past five years. Over that time, the Tories have lost none of their 'Nasty Party' vibe and, in fact, they seem to have enhanced it. In a sense, it's an amazing skill to develop. I'm not quite sure how Cameron, the Prime Minister, managed to somehow distance himself from the government of Michael Gove, Iain Duncan Smith and George Osborne. He is, I suppose, the velvet glove disguising the iron fist. I read recently that he considers himself a One Nation Tory yet his idol was Baroness Thatcher. That is a big clue to the man and perhaps explains what has happened to the nation under his watch.
On screen, he's the smiling face, well groomed hair, with compassionate answers which you know he's practised ad nauseum in the mirror. He's one of those politicians trained never to point but to use that strange thumb to knuckle gesture that irritates you once you spot it being used. He's another politician who believes that his family shouldn't be used to make political points yet he's another who happily uses his family to make political points. He also plays the One Nation Tory so well. He's the Etonian toff who wants to dedicate a few years to the national service of 'saving the nation' before he goes off to make his fortune. The reality is that he's a Thatcherite at heart; the leader of a deeply radical government that believes that the market is the best arbiter for government as well as business. He is the merciless opponent of real standards and that 'closed shop' mentality brought about by such 'outmoded' concepts as professional qualifications or experience. His government repeatedly helps the rich and uses the poor as the red meat to feed their braying constituency. Paxman's question about zero hour contacts was the best of the night but the consequences of that weren't taken to their logical conclusions, exploding the reality of the 'them' and 'us' culture of government and (I suppose) the media. Miliband is regularly attacked because of the proposed 'Mansion Tax' that might hit the super wealthy but Cameron rarely has to defend the real 'Bedroom Tax' which is already hurting poor people. Instead, the charm of the man carried him through the evening. He laughed and smiled and said we're all in this together and let's jolly well get the chuffing job finished! At the end of the hour, the audience knew no more about him or what the next five years might truly entail.
One of the only things to really note about the first half of the show was that Kay Burley was too sycophantic to the PM. She has a track record, of course. Her career at Sky News has been marked by repeated examples of her allowing her impartiality to slip. She often gives authorities an easy ride, her saccharin interviewing technique landing many one-on-ones with people in power. Yet, to anybody disadvantaged or protesting against the status quo, it's a quite different style that emerges: she becomes combinative, bullying, hectoring, her interviews laced with tart asides and last word quips, usually all followed by a knowing look to camera once the interview is over. She channels the Fox News spirit into a British sphere and it's wholly unwelcome. Given her past history, there wasn't a presenter I thought less suited to this debate and so it proved as she punctuated the Miliband session with editorial judgements such as 'that's a politician's answer' and the moment she interjected 'let's not talk about the conservatives, let's talk about what you do. I'm sure members of the audience remember about [...] the note that was left behind'. Why Sky chose Burley just baffles me when they also have the wonderful Anna Jones.
By the time Miliband appeared on stage, my feeling was that Cameron had set the bar pretty low. Miliband only needed to turn up to win an easy victory. Only, it didn't turn out like that.
His preparation was Miliband's undoing. He had a deliberate strategy, which was clearly the product of whatever awful 'people' people the Labour HQ are currently employing. He's clearly gone through the media friendly drills: ask the audience member their name and preface every answer with little lead in phrases such as 'let me explain why'. It made for a polished performance but, really, it stripped him of his personality. He was attempting to play the game by Cameron's rules and highlighted the strange dichotomy that exists between what we want of our politicians and what we probably deserve.
There's a phenomenon in current British politics that's barely been explained. The rise of the New Right is not simply a seismic shift of political allegiance. UKIP membership is not simply the far right of the Tory party. If it were, they wouldn't command 20% in the polls. Instead, they've eaten into Labour and Lib Dems support. The shifts are fluid, of course, and go many ways. Some Lib Dems might have moved to Labour but a surprising number of old Labour supporters now throwing their votes towards UKIP.
UKIP's success, I would argue, isn't merely about a current concern with immigration. It's surprising to see many people professing their support for UKIP when previously they'd have been staunchly Labour. The explanation is that it's not simply about policy. UKIP are more Tory than the Tories and many of their votes would never have voted Tory in their lives. Instead, it's about language and the nature of British political debate which started with Tony Blair. Iraq might be the legacy that most people associate with Blair but, for me, it was the neutering of the political arena. Blair's government were master manipulators of the message. They used the techniques of PR to convince people that they were right. Ministers were told to remove beards and use key phrases. It led to a bastardized politics that remains to this day. It's the politics of the coming election when argument will be replaced by billboards, sound bites and cheap smears. We already hear the key phrases such as 'long term economic plan' and 'for hardworking people'. It's Pavlovian politics, whereby you repeat an untruth enough times that it takes on the permanence of a truth.
It's a political strategy that suits Cameron immensely and he plays it supremely well. David Miliband would have also played it well but brother Ed is not suited to the game. In fact, not only should he not play it but not playing that game might be his greatest strength.
I contest that UKIP's success is primarily down to the figure of Nigel Farage, an odd looking man, often seen standing in a pub his huge ugly teeth on show as he laughs open mouthed. He's graceless, without much sense of fashion. He's exactly the opposite of Cameron and, here's the important part, people love him because of that. His virtue is that he's not cut from the same cloth as David Cameron or Tony Blair. He's a throwback not just to a bygone England but to a former political style. He appeals to many people who simply feel that politicians talk over them, in cleverly rehearsed rhetoric which never answers a single question. Farage is popular because he's one of the few alternatives to vanilla party politics. Yet on the basis of last night's performance, Ed Miliband is about 90% of the way towards having a similar common touch. It's just that 10% of polish which gets in the way.
For example, at one point, Paxman demanded that Miliband set a figure for the potential population of the UK in the coming years. 70 million? 75 million? 80 million? Miliband tried to play the game. He refused to provide a number and instead tried to move the debate on to the question about our membership of the EU. 'I haven't mentioned the European Union,' waited Paxman. 'You're making up questions yourself'.
It was the lowest point of the evening as the audience sniggered. Having been the subject of enough schoolyard bullying in my life, I recognised it for what it was. Somebody asks you to name your favourite band and no matter what you answer, you become a laughing stock to a crowd all too ready to follow the example set by bully. I've always liked Paxman but I thought he went too far. Perhaps he knew that himself given that we could faintly hear him ask 'Are you okay, Ed?' as the credit's rolled.
Yet oddly it was the bulling that seemed to break Miliband's nerve. His temper frayed and Miliband rose to another level. The last five minutes of his interview had more conviction than the rest of the show. Had he been that passionate and informal in the preceding mannered minutes, the night would have been his.
What struck me about the debate was that perhaps Miliband's greatest virtue might be that he's nothing like Cameron. Large portions of the electorate are turned off politics because politicians don't answer straight questions with straight answers. Miliband could turn that to his advantage. John Major did exactly that when he deployed his stupid crate of oranges that everybody thought a ridiculous ploy until it connected with the nation in an odd but meaningful way.
I'm not sure if Miliband need a crate of oranges but I think he simply needs to find that edge. He needs to stop listening to his 'people' people and stop being so damn nice. He's not going to out-nice Cameron. What he could do is galvanise an electorate who are sick of political sock puppetry. He could talk to a nation largely unrepresented by an Etonian elite running the country from the heart of a city that feels ever more remote to the rest of the nation. He should turn the debate from the questions the media want to ask to the questions that the rest of the country want to hear answered. You do not win the country simply by winning London. The only question is how Labour go about doing that. If they play the election on Cameron's terms, they won't been seen as a viable alternative. They should instead play the game as Farage plays it: with self-deprecating humour, spontaneous moments of genuine character, off the cuff encounters with common people even if that means having those 'media' moments with dissenters. I caught just a hint of it last night but for the first time I realised that Miliband's lack of polish and willingness to engage the electorate might be the very thing that just might win him the forthcoming election. It's only a matter of whether Labour have the wits to realise this.
Tuesday, 24 February 2015
Why I'll Miss Malcolm Rifkind
Most political careers end, in the words of the poet, 'not with a bang but a whimper'. Malcolm Rifkind's has ended with a deafening thud and, like so many deafening thuds before it, this has been followed by a moment of stunned silence before our senses clear and we begin to see what kind of new world we're emerging into.
I suspect it is a world unchanged except for the loss of one respected voice inside the Commons and the anticipated gain of another cuff-heavy champagne-snorting Cameron-lite, in the form of Olympic celebrity rower, James Cracknell. At the moment, I fail to see how parliament has emerged victorious.
Having said that: Rifkind was probably right to go. I watched Despatches last night and he struck me as a man bored with politics; his spirit possibly having drifted out of the game a long time ago but his body not really quite ready to let go of the reigns. He was charming, funny, and personable but, according to the people who count these things, the votes he's attended recently is well below average despite his constituency being one of the closest to Westminster. Watching the programme, I felt a pang of disappointment because Rifkind had always struck me as one of the better Tories and probably even my favourite on the government benches. When Rifkind spoke, I'd always listen, not always in agreement but with serious intent to catch his nuanced words. He seemed like a man at home inside his own brain, which is a rare quality in politicos these days, too many of whom seem divorced from the practicalities of thinking and over-practised in the practicalities of repeating party mantra or dogmatic nonsense.
The speed of Rifkind's departure is perhaps indicative of his heart being no longer in the fight. He claims to have wanted one more term but people who want just one more term are probably already too far gone to be part of the game. It's a shame. Despatches didn't, even to my jaded eyes, present a case that shamed him any more than many other politicians should be shamed. That's not to say that Rifkind's behaviour wasn't turdish but, in the context of the Westminster sewer, even he might have emerged smelling relatively sweet. Jack Straw (another politician for whom I've always had a great deal of time) seemed more immersed in the grime because he was more boastful of the influence he'd had. Yet none of that seemed surprising. It was just the greasy things politicians do when they've played around the greasy pole long enough.
Michel Cockerell's excellent series 'Inside the Commons' concludes tonight so perhaps I'm still suffering from a mild dose of having some renewed faith in the political system when I say that not all politicians are in it for money. However, I know politics can be one of the few get rich quick schemes that actually work. The Independent this morning charts the MPs earning the most from second jobs. Gordon Brown tops the poll which is unsurprisingly given he's the only ex-Prime Minister who is still a sitting MP. Rifkind doesn't even make the top 10, whilst the most surprising and telling entry is that man of the people, George Galloway, who allegedly earned an additional £303,350 in 2014.
Not that other people's excesses should excuse Rifkind. The evidence is still pretty damning if profit is the crime. I see from his Wikipedia page that although Rifkind is/was a sitting MP, he also earned £85,992 from Unilever as a Non-executive Director. He took another £35,000 as Non-executive Director of Adam Smith International and a mere £25,000 from L.E.K. Consulting where he was a member of the Advisory Board. So, on top of earning more money than most as an MP, each of his additional jobs was also earning him more than most. For the record, I'd happily join the Advisory Board of L.E.K. Consulting and I'd do his job for half the salary and twice the hours.
Not as if that is likely to happen. They would rightly argue that I couldn't do his job, whatever that job was. I lack his experience inside Westminster and government. He'd bring to the table the shrewd brain that made him a QC and Foreign Minister whilst I'd bring the shrewd brain that makes me a second rate blogger and third rate cartoonist. So, I'm not going to deny that sometimes businesses are right to pay huge money to people with very specific and unique skills. Nor am I deny the right of those people to make money. Yet what does gall me is how this way of running business goes against everything the current government seems to represent.
A failure of the Thatcherite model of conservatism is that it introduces competition into every avenue of our lives. As soon as you introduce competition, the whole thing quickly untangles and you're in a race to undercut your rival. In business, that often means undercutting your rival simply to stop them getting business and (eventually) forcing them out of business, even if undercutting your rival damages your own business. It's a ethos that insists that the cheapest option is always the best option. Companies move departments to India or China to exploit cheap labour markets, often resulting in a drop in quality. The government wants teachers, doctors, and consultants to qualify more quickly. They want roles usually given to 'professionals' taken up by cheaper assistants or even volunteers.
Yet the only people who seem immune to these competitive pressures are the very people who champion those pressures the most. The Tories champion zero hour contracts and talk about a 'booming economy' despite it booming because our government care nothing about worker's rights. The coming election is being defined by which party is 'business friendly' and not which party cares for the poor sod on minimum wage or worse. At the same time, the Tories are also playing dog whistle politics, using that deeply odorous phrase 'For Hardworking People' to stir the passions of their traditional voters who persist in the misguided notion that the nation is full of workshy layabouts. All this in a climate in which a politician with three extra 'jobs' can claim to have a surprising amount of free time.
Has Britain ever been more divided?
There is no competition at the top where 'safe seats' are exchanged as pawns in a political game and favours turn into name-on-the-letterhead directorships. How much real competition in their in that world where Rifkind is the father of The Times columnist Hugo and, according to Wikipedia, related to Leon Brittan as well as being second cousin once removed of DJ Mark Ronson. What are the chances of that? Nobody I know (or I'm guessing you know) is once, twice, or even thrice removed from DJ Mark Ronson or, for that matter, MP Malcolm Rifkind.
And that is the sad reality that belies the talk of cleaning out the Commons and making politics honest. If there's a stink, it's not the stink of Rifkind's perceived greed. It's not even the stink of a system in which men like George Galloway claim to be there for the people but the evidence suggests he's really in it for himself. Frankly, I don't blame him. The stink is of a system in which an establishment treats the rest of the nation as minimum wage fodder. It's a nation where the highest office in the land is occupied by the 5th cousin, twice removed of the monarch. It's where life has so much potential but only to a potential few. Malcolm Rifkind was the very least of our problems.
I suspect it is a world unchanged except for the loss of one respected voice inside the Commons and the anticipated gain of another cuff-heavy champagne-snorting Cameron-lite, in the form of Olympic celebrity rower, James Cracknell. At the moment, I fail to see how parliament has emerged victorious.
Having said that: Rifkind was probably right to go. I watched Despatches last night and he struck me as a man bored with politics; his spirit possibly having drifted out of the game a long time ago but his body not really quite ready to let go of the reigns. He was charming, funny, and personable but, according to the people who count these things, the votes he's attended recently is well below average despite his constituency being one of the closest to Westminster. Watching the programme, I felt a pang of disappointment because Rifkind had always struck me as one of the better Tories and probably even my favourite on the government benches. When Rifkind spoke, I'd always listen, not always in agreement but with serious intent to catch his nuanced words. He seemed like a man at home inside his own brain, which is a rare quality in politicos these days, too many of whom seem divorced from the practicalities of thinking and over-practised in the practicalities of repeating party mantra or dogmatic nonsense.
The speed of Rifkind's departure is perhaps indicative of his heart being no longer in the fight. He claims to have wanted one more term but people who want just one more term are probably already too far gone to be part of the game. It's a shame. Despatches didn't, even to my jaded eyes, present a case that shamed him any more than many other politicians should be shamed. That's not to say that Rifkind's behaviour wasn't turdish but, in the context of the Westminster sewer, even he might have emerged smelling relatively sweet. Jack Straw (another politician for whom I've always had a great deal of time) seemed more immersed in the grime because he was more boastful of the influence he'd had. Yet none of that seemed surprising. It was just the greasy things politicians do when they've played around the greasy pole long enough.
Michel Cockerell's excellent series 'Inside the Commons' concludes tonight so perhaps I'm still suffering from a mild dose of having some renewed faith in the political system when I say that not all politicians are in it for money. However, I know politics can be one of the few get rich quick schemes that actually work. The Independent this morning charts the MPs earning the most from second jobs. Gordon Brown tops the poll which is unsurprisingly given he's the only ex-Prime Minister who is still a sitting MP. Rifkind doesn't even make the top 10, whilst the most surprising and telling entry is that man of the people, George Galloway, who allegedly earned an additional £303,350 in 2014.
Not that other people's excesses should excuse Rifkind. The evidence is still pretty damning if profit is the crime. I see from his Wikipedia page that although Rifkind is/was a sitting MP, he also earned £85,992 from Unilever as a Non-executive Director. He took another £35,000 as Non-executive Director of Adam Smith International and a mere £25,000 from L.E.K. Consulting where he was a member of the Advisory Board. So, on top of earning more money than most as an MP, each of his additional jobs was also earning him more than most. For the record, I'd happily join the Advisory Board of L.E.K. Consulting and I'd do his job for half the salary and twice the hours.
Not as if that is likely to happen. They would rightly argue that I couldn't do his job, whatever that job was. I lack his experience inside Westminster and government. He'd bring to the table the shrewd brain that made him a QC and Foreign Minister whilst I'd bring the shrewd brain that makes me a second rate blogger and third rate cartoonist. So, I'm not going to deny that sometimes businesses are right to pay huge money to people with very specific and unique skills. Nor am I deny the right of those people to make money. Yet what does gall me is how this way of running business goes against everything the current government seems to represent.
A failure of the Thatcherite model of conservatism is that it introduces competition into every avenue of our lives. As soon as you introduce competition, the whole thing quickly untangles and you're in a race to undercut your rival. In business, that often means undercutting your rival simply to stop them getting business and (eventually) forcing them out of business, even if undercutting your rival damages your own business. It's a ethos that insists that the cheapest option is always the best option. Companies move departments to India or China to exploit cheap labour markets, often resulting in a drop in quality. The government wants teachers, doctors, and consultants to qualify more quickly. They want roles usually given to 'professionals' taken up by cheaper assistants or even volunteers.
Yet the only people who seem immune to these competitive pressures are the very people who champion those pressures the most. The Tories champion zero hour contracts and talk about a 'booming economy' despite it booming because our government care nothing about worker's rights. The coming election is being defined by which party is 'business friendly' and not which party cares for the poor sod on minimum wage or worse. At the same time, the Tories are also playing dog whistle politics, using that deeply odorous phrase 'For Hardworking People' to stir the passions of their traditional voters who persist in the misguided notion that the nation is full of workshy layabouts. All this in a climate in which a politician with three extra 'jobs' can claim to have a surprising amount of free time.
Has Britain ever been more divided?
There is no competition at the top where 'safe seats' are exchanged as pawns in a political game and favours turn into name-on-the-letterhead directorships. How much real competition in their in that world where Rifkind is the father of The Times columnist Hugo and, according to Wikipedia, related to Leon Brittan as well as being second cousin once removed of DJ Mark Ronson. What are the chances of that? Nobody I know (or I'm guessing you know) is once, twice, or even thrice removed from DJ Mark Ronson or, for that matter, MP Malcolm Rifkind.
And that is the sad reality that belies the talk of cleaning out the Commons and making politics honest. If there's a stink, it's not the stink of Rifkind's perceived greed. It's not even the stink of a system in which men like George Galloway claim to be there for the people but the evidence suggests he's really in it for himself. Frankly, I don't blame him. The stink is of a system in which an establishment treats the rest of the nation as minimum wage fodder. It's a nation where the highest office in the land is occupied by the 5th cousin, twice removed of the monarch. It's where life has so much potential but only to a potential few. Malcolm Rifkind was the very least of our problems.
Monday, 23 February 2015
Wednesday, 26 November 2014
Sunday, 16 February 2014
Great Figures of State: George Osborne
I drew a quick Nixon caricature for yesterday’s blog post but I was so underwhelmed with the result that I decided not to publish it. It would have looked woeful at the head of a post where I was also going to reproduce Nixon caricatures by Gerald Scarfe and Ralph Steadman. The reason my caricature was weak was probably because I just feel no particular vehemence towards Richard Nixon. So many great movies and books have been made and written about Nixon that I’m fascinated by him, even if I wouldn’t have liked his policies had I been born by the time he came into power.After yesterday’s failure, I thought I’d try to draw somebody I dislike and having read Martin Rowson’s brilliantly scathing piece about George Osborne in The Tribune, I realise that there was only really once obvious candidate.
I don’t think of myself as being ‘of the Left’ but neither do I think myself any ally with the Right. I’ve been interested in satire for so long that I tend to feel that it’s not really my place to belong to any side. I’m somewhere in the middle but my allegiances aren’t strong. When Labour was in power, I saw things I disliked about them and I longed for a change in government. Now the Tories are in charge, I see things wrong and I long for a change in government. The fact is: I probably just question the lot of them. Politics has many fine people working for our good but there are too many charlatans and careerist politicians happy to tie down a safe seat on a good wage.
It’s the careerists who I despise the most and Osborne is the ugliest toad in the pond. I suppose we are always tempted to think of our Chancellors as being nasty but Osborne has managed to out-nasty every Chancellor I can remember. It’s not that there hasn’t been a political argument for austerity but austerity too closely fit with an ideological narrative that the Tories were ready to unleash on the nation. Rather than give us austerity with a certain reluctance, they were gleeful in the way they talked about cuts and tightening our belts. Austerity is an easy thing to preach when you’re the son or daughter of wealthy parents and when you emerged from your private education primed to pick whatever course you might want to take through life. Osborne chose politics with the same kind of detachment that other people choose to become doctors or lawyers. There’s no real life bearing down on his decision. No need to take that job stacking shelves in Tesco ‘until somebody better comes along’. For most of us, nothing better ever does come along. Life is no fairy tale and the good guys rarely win.
Wednesday, 12 February 2014
Monday, 8 October 2012
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