It's been a frenetic week in the Scottish Independence Referendum campaign (or Indyref as it is generally called now in the political blogosphere). After last weekend's poll showing YES with a narrow lead, the supporters of NO have rallied and NO now seems to have taken a small but decisive lead but there's a very long way to go before the end of polling next Thursday evening.
The panic which the very prospect of a YES vote triggered was extraordinary - financial institutions and think tanks of all shapes and sizes were wheeled out to tell everyone (and especially the Scots) just how bad breaking up "the Union" would be (and especially for the Scots).
Now, I'm not one of those who goes all dewy-eyed over "the Union" but this week has revealed the political and economic reality of the United Kingdom as a centralised authoritarian sham predicated not on helping the people but on the needs of business and politicians.
The Union is held together by a combination of mawkish sentimentality, economic fear and the centralising authoritarianism of Westminster and London.
When the prospect of YES sent politicians scurrying like rats to Scotland promising all sorts of powers to the Scottish parliament, the federal genie was let loose. The correspondence columns of London newspapers were asking the same questions - if Scotland can be allowed to set its own taxes and cities like New York and Stockholm already do, then why not London or Birmingham or Manchester ? These questions cut to the heart of the centralising control of Whitehall, Westminster and Parliament. Successive Conservative and Labour Governments paid lip service to localism but in truth emasculated local Councils and took more power unto themselves.
If Scotland, by voting NO, gains major new powers, then why not Wales, London or Cornwall ? Why not emasculate the House of Commons to a federal Parliament and have local Councils (NOT Regional Assemblies) decide on planning and tax ? If an area wants to build new houses, let them. If a city wants to raise tax to fund improvements, then, if its inhabitants agree, let them.
The second part of the NO campaign has been fear - the use of financial institutions and think tanks to spread a wholly negative message about independence has been despicable but not surprising. Fear has always been a big part of political campaigning but it leaves a poisoned legacy as we are already seeing in both Scotland and England. A wholly repellent anti-Scottish backlash has been allowed to fester in the guise of emergent English nationalism and as for Scotland, how are the two sides to live together in the aftermath of the vote ?
I fear not outright civil war though that happened in Ireland after partition but terrorism and intimidation and it's also clear that while the cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh support YES, the borders are strongly NO. How will communities like Hawick, Jedburgh and Selkirk live with a Scottish State they didn't vote for and didn't want ? Will the flight of capital be followed by a flight of people ?
None of this doom-laden nonsense would be necessary but for the tone of the NO campaign. There's absolutely no reason why an independent Scotland shouldn't enjoy strong and positive relations with the rest of the United Kingdom and absolutely no reason why any financial institutions should leave. Indeed, some have gone further and argued that far from becoming a left-wing basket case, an independent Scotland might in time become an economic powerhouse.
Yet fear has dictated the terms of the debate this week - NO has failed to provide a positive case for the Union apart from sentimentality. The YES side has important economic questions to answer but on issues such as a currency, there's no reason why, with goodwill, an independent Scotland couldn't come to an arrangement with the rest of the United Kingdom or indeed the rest of Europe.
Frightening people into voting for your side is as old as the hills yet it solves nothing and achieves less. IF NO prevails narrowly on Thursday, it will be a grubby little win which will do nothing to resolve the question and leave plenty of anger and resentment for the years ahead.
Saturday, 13 September 2014
Sunday, 7 September 2014
The World won't end if Scotland votes YES on September 18th
The publication overnight of a YouGov poll showing those in favour of Scottish independence leading those opposed by 51 to 49 triggered a paroxysm of panic and hyperbole on politicalbetting and other Internet blogs and forums.
The emotion and passion are understandable but among those claiming a YES vote would lead to financial meltdown, panic and armed guards at Gretna Green and Carter Bar it appeared that reason had gone off for a little holiday.
So what will happen if Scotland votes YES on September 18th - will the world, as we know it, come to an end ?
In short, no.
There may be some short-term upheaval and some people (apart from those who already have) will say some things they will come to regret in the cold light of day. The recent debate has been clouded by what I've called "the assumption of antagonism" predicated on some half-baked notion that an independent Scotland and the rest of the UK will be as close as they can be to enemies without having armed soldiers confronting each other.
Plenty of those commenting in the heat of overcooked passion argue for an immediate and complete separation - this is based as much on the expectation that the rest of the United Kingdom will elect a Conservative (or should that be non-Labour) Government in perpetuity.
The truth of course is that the vote on September 18th is simply the start of a process of negotiation between officials leading to Scotland's independence in the spring of 2016. The negotiation process will be complex and Alex Salmond won't get everything he wants. Indeed, what comes out the other side of the process may not be a million miles away from Devomax or the additional powers currently being promised by Westminster politicians.
The other side of the coin is that for all the talk of independence and separation there will remain a strong relationship between an independent Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom. On the thorny issue of currency, for all the talk of no currency union and cutting the newly-independent Scotland adrift, that won't happen.
It suits no one to have an economically damaged partner on one's border - the rest of the UK will suffer if Scotland is in economic trouble and don't assume that England (or Westminster) has no history of economic intervention. After southern Ireland broke away and formed the Irish Free State in 1922, the new country continued to use the pound (albeit called the punt but essentially the English pound as the two currencies existed at parity for decades).
The drawback for the Irish was that in tying their currency to sterling and using the Bank of England as guarantor, they effectively ceded financial sovereignty to London. Interest rate policy for Ireland wasn't set in Dublin but London. Irish politicians realised the infirmity of their situation but were powerless until the coming of the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) which began the path to the Euro and effectively meant that Irish economic policy stopped being made in London and was made in Frankfurt instead.
Despite all this, in 2010, Chancellor George Osborne wrote a cheque for £3.5 BILLION as Britain's contribution to the bailout of Ireland's banks. We didn't have to contribute as we weren't part of the Euro but the British Government recognised the social and economic consequences of an Irish economic collapse in terms of a possible influx of refugees and the risk to law and order. In addition, it's likely Britain contributed up to £10 BILLION to rescue Ulster Bank as part of the Royal Bank of Scotland.
I've no doubt that any British Government would be compelled to intervene to help a financially beleaguered Scotland because the social and economic consequences of a Scottish economic collapse would be profound for England (and especially the north of England).
Yes, Scotland might in time join the Euro but in the short term, sterling would be retained and some form of currency union would be created - of that, I've no doubt. Scotland will also join NATO sooner rather than later - the practicalities of its geopolitical situation dictate no other course.
As for an independent Scotland's domestic financial policies, it's clear that it will need to establish its own financial order and that will mean some or a lot of pain. As others have suggested, I suspect the Scottish National Party (SNP) will schism sooner rather than later and Scottish politics will settle into a fairly conventional centre-left, centre-right scenario which would be recognisable to anyone anywhere. Scotland was the birthplace of Adam Smith and Kier Hardie so there could be a sharper divide in Scottish politics in a decade or so but that might be no bad thing and the Scottish Liberal tradition might re-emerge.
All of this, of course, is predicated on a YES victory in twelve days - it's entirely conceivable that NO will prevail but a narrow victory for NO won't end the debate though the arrival of Devomax probably will in the short term. IF Labour wins in next year's General Election, I suspect Scotland will retreat to the margins but a Conservative majority (especially if there are very few Scottish Tory MPs) will allow Salmond or his successor to keep the independence fire burning and await a second chance...
The emotion and passion are understandable but among those claiming a YES vote would lead to financial meltdown, panic and armed guards at Gretna Green and Carter Bar it appeared that reason had gone off for a little holiday.
So what will happen if Scotland votes YES on September 18th - will the world, as we know it, come to an end ?
In short, no.
There may be some short-term upheaval and some people (apart from those who already have) will say some things they will come to regret in the cold light of day. The recent debate has been clouded by what I've called "the assumption of antagonism" predicated on some half-baked notion that an independent Scotland and the rest of the UK will be as close as they can be to enemies without having armed soldiers confronting each other.
Plenty of those commenting in the heat of overcooked passion argue for an immediate and complete separation - this is based as much on the expectation that the rest of the United Kingdom will elect a Conservative (or should that be non-Labour) Government in perpetuity.
The truth of course is that the vote on September 18th is simply the start of a process of negotiation between officials leading to Scotland's independence in the spring of 2016. The negotiation process will be complex and Alex Salmond won't get everything he wants. Indeed, what comes out the other side of the process may not be a million miles away from Devomax or the additional powers currently being promised by Westminster politicians.
The other side of the coin is that for all the talk of independence and separation there will remain a strong relationship between an independent Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom. On the thorny issue of currency, for all the talk of no currency union and cutting the newly-independent Scotland adrift, that won't happen.
It suits no one to have an economically damaged partner on one's border - the rest of the UK will suffer if Scotland is in economic trouble and don't assume that England (or Westminster) has no history of economic intervention. After southern Ireland broke away and formed the Irish Free State in 1922, the new country continued to use the pound (albeit called the punt but essentially the English pound as the two currencies existed at parity for decades).
The drawback for the Irish was that in tying their currency to sterling and using the Bank of England as guarantor, they effectively ceded financial sovereignty to London. Interest rate policy for Ireland wasn't set in Dublin but London. Irish politicians realised the infirmity of their situation but were powerless until the coming of the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) which began the path to the Euro and effectively meant that Irish economic policy stopped being made in London and was made in Frankfurt instead.
Despite all this, in 2010, Chancellor George Osborne wrote a cheque for £3.5 BILLION as Britain's contribution to the bailout of Ireland's banks. We didn't have to contribute as we weren't part of the Euro but the British Government recognised the social and economic consequences of an Irish economic collapse in terms of a possible influx of refugees and the risk to law and order. In addition, it's likely Britain contributed up to £10 BILLION to rescue Ulster Bank as part of the Royal Bank of Scotland.
I've no doubt that any British Government would be compelled to intervene to help a financially beleaguered Scotland because the social and economic consequences of a Scottish economic collapse would be profound for England (and especially the north of England).
Yes, Scotland might in time join the Euro but in the short term, sterling would be retained and some form of currency union would be created - of that, I've no doubt. Scotland will also join NATO sooner rather than later - the practicalities of its geopolitical situation dictate no other course.
As for an independent Scotland's domestic financial policies, it's clear that it will need to establish its own financial order and that will mean some or a lot of pain. As others have suggested, I suspect the Scottish National Party (SNP) will schism sooner rather than later and Scottish politics will settle into a fairly conventional centre-left, centre-right scenario which would be recognisable to anyone anywhere. Scotland was the birthplace of Adam Smith and Kier Hardie so there could be a sharper divide in Scottish politics in a decade or so but that might be no bad thing and the Scottish Liberal tradition might re-emerge.
All of this, of course, is predicated on a YES victory in twelve days - it's entirely conceivable that NO will prevail but a narrow victory for NO won't end the debate though the arrival of Devomax probably will in the short term. IF Labour wins in next year's General Election, I suspect Scotland will retreat to the margins but a Conservative majority (especially if there are very few Scottish Tory MPs) will allow Salmond or his successor to keep the independence fire burning and await a second chance...
Tuesday, 2 September 2014
Listen to Spock...
If you want to comment on Scottish Independence and the forthcoming referendum on September 18th, there are plenty of forums, blogs and chat rooms where such discourse can be found.
Obviously, the issues of the virtues or otherwise of Scotland voting for Independence won't be available for discussion as the debate has long since devolved into a slanging match between those who loathe Alex Salmond and want to give him a good kicking and those who loathe David Cameron and want to give him a good kicking.
The increasingly mutually antagonistic atmosphere has allowed the doom-sayers and provocateurs on the Right to use their blogs to conjure up all manner of apocalyptic scenarios for an independent Scotland whether it be one of a dystopic Britain conjured up by the Right's favourite counterfactual historian, Dominic Sandbrook or the "promised land" of an eternal Conservative England.
The truth, as someone needs to tell these half-witted Cassandras, is that life isn't like soap and we don't lurch from crisis to crisis (or at least we shouldn't). The priority for all sides should be to tone down the rhetoric because even if Scotland votes YES on September 18th, the world isn't going to come to an end - in fact, very little is going to happen at all.
The vote is the start of what will be a lengthy process of a negotiated separation and the creation of a new independent Scottish State by some time in 2016. This won't be easy but the wrangling will be the work of officials behind the scenes who will be more interested in compromise then the activists on both sides of the current Referendum campaign.
Yet, I come back to the central question - what will independence really mean for Scotland ? In a globalised world, the ability of any state to have freedom of action over its domestic, foreign and economic policies is extremely limited. Yet, that seems to this observer to be the central definition and tenet of an independent state - a state with control over its finances, its society and its defences. In truth, most countries aren't independent - economic and defence sovereignty is widely pooled - Britain does this through its membership of NATO and the European Union while also being a signatory to a raft of international treaties promoting collaborative action on a range of issues.
Britain has not run its own foreign policy since, arguably, 1914 and our economic policy has been effectively controlled by others since at least 1945 and arguably before that. Britain's attempts at an independent economic policy were checked in 1967 and 1992 respectively by the financial markets and in 1956 our attempt (with the French) to carve out a separate foreign policy was blocked by Washington.
In truth, there is no pot of Independence at the end of the Referendum rainbow since, whether as part of a currency union with the rest of the United Kingdom or as part of the Euro, an independent Scotland would have key levers of its economic policy decided and determined outside its borders. In terms of foreign policy, Scotland can either join NATO or stay completely neutral (like Ireland) but effectively it would still be considered part of Britain and as vulnerable to attack as the rest of the UK.
Of course, domestically, there's much to be said for devolving power and accountability from Westminster to Holyrood and beyond but a lot of that has already happened and with the promised Devomax (agreed by three of the British political parties) Scotland would have more control over its internal domestic policy than ever before and would, in a sense, operate as an autonomous region of the United Kingdom raising its taxes and spending its money as it chose and rightly so.
In essence, clearing away the undergrowth of vitriol, abuse and personal rancour which has polluted the debate, we are left with two visions of the future Scotland - one is of a politically autonomous (certainly in domestic terms) part of the United Kingdom (and with defence and economic policy controlled as such from Westminster) and the other has a politically autonomous Scotland possibly as part of the European Union (and with defence and economic policy controlled as such from Brussels and Frankfurt).
In the end, it's like the prisoner getting to vote for his or her jailer - at the end of the day the chains are still locked but it might be done with a smile rather than a scowl. That's why this vote is and should be considered to be far less important than some of the provocateurs would assert - talk of capital flights, checkpoints at Castle Bar and the Queen firing David Cameron is profoundly unhelpful though perhaps symptomatic of an argument which has nowhere else to go but fear.
On the other side, however, clarity has been replaced by confusion. It's still unclear how an independent Scotland would work and its relationship to the UK and Europe remains perilously undefined. The one hope the YES campaign has is the inate reasonableness which will flow once the vote has been decided. It is no one's interests for instability to reign supreme - both the political rhetoric and the economic reality will dictate a reasonable route.
To paraphrase a certain Mr Nimoy - "It's Independence, Alex, but not as we know it"
Obviously, the issues of the virtues or otherwise of Scotland voting for Independence won't be available for discussion as the debate has long since devolved into a slanging match between those who loathe Alex Salmond and want to give him a good kicking and those who loathe David Cameron and want to give him a good kicking.
The increasingly mutually antagonistic atmosphere has allowed the doom-sayers and provocateurs on the Right to use their blogs to conjure up all manner of apocalyptic scenarios for an independent Scotland whether it be one of a dystopic Britain conjured up by the Right's favourite counterfactual historian, Dominic Sandbrook or the "promised land" of an eternal Conservative England.
The truth, as someone needs to tell these half-witted Cassandras, is that life isn't like soap and we don't lurch from crisis to crisis (or at least we shouldn't). The priority for all sides should be to tone down the rhetoric because even if Scotland votes YES on September 18th, the world isn't going to come to an end - in fact, very little is going to happen at all.
The vote is the start of what will be a lengthy process of a negotiated separation and the creation of a new independent Scottish State by some time in 2016. This won't be easy but the wrangling will be the work of officials behind the scenes who will be more interested in compromise then the activists on both sides of the current Referendum campaign.
Yet, I come back to the central question - what will independence really mean for Scotland ? In a globalised world, the ability of any state to have freedom of action over its domestic, foreign and economic policies is extremely limited. Yet, that seems to this observer to be the central definition and tenet of an independent state - a state with control over its finances, its society and its defences. In truth, most countries aren't independent - economic and defence sovereignty is widely pooled - Britain does this through its membership of NATO and the European Union while also being a signatory to a raft of international treaties promoting collaborative action on a range of issues.
Britain has not run its own foreign policy since, arguably, 1914 and our economic policy has been effectively controlled by others since at least 1945 and arguably before that. Britain's attempts at an independent economic policy were checked in 1967 and 1992 respectively by the financial markets and in 1956 our attempt (with the French) to carve out a separate foreign policy was blocked by Washington.
In truth, there is no pot of Independence at the end of the Referendum rainbow since, whether as part of a currency union with the rest of the United Kingdom or as part of the Euro, an independent Scotland would have key levers of its economic policy decided and determined outside its borders. In terms of foreign policy, Scotland can either join NATO or stay completely neutral (like Ireland) but effectively it would still be considered part of Britain and as vulnerable to attack as the rest of the UK.
Of course, domestically, there's much to be said for devolving power and accountability from Westminster to Holyrood and beyond but a lot of that has already happened and with the promised Devomax (agreed by three of the British political parties) Scotland would have more control over its internal domestic policy than ever before and would, in a sense, operate as an autonomous region of the United Kingdom raising its taxes and spending its money as it chose and rightly so.
In essence, clearing away the undergrowth of vitriol, abuse and personal rancour which has polluted the debate, we are left with two visions of the future Scotland - one is of a politically autonomous (certainly in domestic terms) part of the United Kingdom (and with defence and economic policy controlled as such from Westminster) and the other has a politically autonomous Scotland possibly as part of the European Union (and with defence and economic policy controlled as such from Brussels and Frankfurt).
In the end, it's like the prisoner getting to vote for his or her jailer - at the end of the day the chains are still locked but it might be done with a smile rather than a scowl. That's why this vote is and should be considered to be far less important than some of the provocateurs would assert - talk of capital flights, checkpoints at Castle Bar and the Queen firing David Cameron is profoundly unhelpful though perhaps symptomatic of an argument which has nowhere else to go but fear.
On the other side, however, clarity has been replaced by confusion. It's still unclear how an independent Scotland would work and its relationship to the UK and Europe remains perilously undefined. The one hope the YES campaign has is the inate reasonableness which will flow once the vote has been decided. It is no one's interests for instability to reign supreme - both the political rhetoric and the economic reality will dictate a reasonable route.
To paraphrase a certain Mr Nimoy - "It's Independence, Alex, but not as we know it"
Tuesday, 12 August 2014
IS there an answer ?
The rise of the militant Sunni group Islamic State (IS - formerly ISIS) has thrown western policymakers, political bloggers and pundits into a frenzy. Deeply distressing scenes of IS atrocities against opponents in cities like Mosul and the wholesale flight of the Yazidi people into the inhospitable mountains has finally galvanised American and British leaders into some sort of humanitarian action.
Despite the catastrophic intervention in Iraq in 2003 and the on going disasters of Afghanistan and Somalia, there are plenty of people wanting us to get involved militarily again. Plenty of bloggers on sites like politicalbetting are advocating ,military action against IS claiming (rather spuriously) that if we don't stop IS in Iraq, they'll be marching down Piccadilly next week.
Do we have a moral responsibility to intervene ? It seems a peculiarly Anglo-American response - I don't see the Europeans, the Russians or the Chinese sending aid flights or striking IS targets. Is it as fundamental as how different societies perceive or value human life ? The Americans of course may feel they have some responsibility for the current position having destabilised Iraq up to and including the invasion of 2003 which brought down Saddam Hussein but which has left destruction and anarchy in its wake.
From the 1950s to the 1990s the West could only play the policeman role in a limited way - indeed, we often supported odious dictators like Mobutu, Marcos and Thieu in South Vietnam simply because they were opposed to Communism. Cold War military and diplomatic policy was predicated on the use of proxies - Castro was another and so was Israel whose creation in 1948 epitomised Cold War polarisation. As victorious Israel clung to America and the West, so the vengeful Arabs looked to Moscow for support and politically Arab socialism (or Ba'athism) took its cue from Moscow which begat both Assad in Damascus and Saddam Hussein in Baghdad.
These secular dictators were often bankrolled militarily by Moscow but when the Cold War ended with the fall of the USSR in 1989, everything changed. Saddam overplayed his hand disastrously in Kuwait while Assad kept his head down until his death after which his son seemed to be the voice of sweet reason but soon became his father's boy.
The new forces for change were not pro-western democrats but Islamists who took their cue from the Iranian Revolution in 1979. The dictators found themselves pressed by people as vicious as themselves. Saddam was weakened by Gulf War 1 and finished by Gulf War 2 but it seemed the Americans, as in Afghanistan after 2001, would establish a friendly Government and a bulwark in the region but it was not to be.
In Afghanistan and Iraq, those who cheered the fall of the dictator didn't then cheer the puppets of the invader - the dictator's fall gave the Islamists a chance - in Iraq the result has been civil anarchy with a Shia Prime Minister leaving the way clear for a militant Sunni revolt with said Sunnis joining and taking over the revolt in Syria.
Thus does a not insignificant part of the world stand on the cusp of anarchy - we have little or no political influence on the ground in the region so we have no one to help set a pro-western agenda. Instead, we face a myriad of conflicting evils - either a repellent Sunni hegemony or a radical Shia hegemony led by Teheran. The problem for us is that the nature of the internecine conflict within Islam runs the risk of spreading into the British Muslim community.
What then should we do ? I begin to suspect nothing is the best option. We have allowed humanity to suffer and genocides to occur in other parts of the world - Rwanda and Bosnia in the 1990s being two good examples. We can offer our services as mediators but it would be the height of foolishness, having extricated ourselves from the quagmire once, to walk back in again.
Despite the catastrophic intervention in Iraq in 2003 and the on going disasters of Afghanistan and Somalia, there are plenty of people wanting us to get involved militarily again. Plenty of bloggers on sites like politicalbetting are advocating ,military action against IS claiming (rather spuriously) that if we don't stop IS in Iraq, they'll be marching down Piccadilly next week.
Do we have a moral responsibility to intervene ? It seems a peculiarly Anglo-American response - I don't see the Europeans, the Russians or the Chinese sending aid flights or striking IS targets. Is it as fundamental as how different societies perceive or value human life ? The Americans of course may feel they have some responsibility for the current position having destabilised Iraq up to and including the invasion of 2003 which brought down Saddam Hussein but which has left destruction and anarchy in its wake.
From the 1950s to the 1990s the West could only play the policeman role in a limited way - indeed, we often supported odious dictators like Mobutu, Marcos and Thieu in South Vietnam simply because they were opposed to Communism. Cold War military and diplomatic policy was predicated on the use of proxies - Castro was another and so was Israel whose creation in 1948 epitomised Cold War polarisation. As victorious Israel clung to America and the West, so the vengeful Arabs looked to Moscow for support and politically Arab socialism (or Ba'athism) took its cue from Moscow which begat both Assad in Damascus and Saddam Hussein in Baghdad.
These secular dictators were often bankrolled militarily by Moscow but when the Cold War ended with the fall of the USSR in 1989, everything changed. Saddam overplayed his hand disastrously in Kuwait while Assad kept his head down until his death after which his son seemed to be the voice of sweet reason but soon became his father's boy.
The new forces for change were not pro-western democrats but Islamists who took their cue from the Iranian Revolution in 1979. The dictators found themselves pressed by people as vicious as themselves. Saddam was weakened by Gulf War 1 and finished by Gulf War 2 but it seemed the Americans, as in Afghanistan after 2001, would establish a friendly Government and a bulwark in the region but it was not to be.
In Afghanistan and Iraq, those who cheered the fall of the dictator didn't then cheer the puppets of the invader - the dictator's fall gave the Islamists a chance - in Iraq the result has been civil anarchy with a Shia Prime Minister leaving the way clear for a militant Sunni revolt with said Sunnis joining and taking over the revolt in Syria.
Thus does a not insignificant part of the world stand on the cusp of anarchy - we have little or no political influence on the ground in the region so we have no one to help set a pro-western agenda. Instead, we face a myriad of conflicting evils - either a repellent Sunni hegemony or a radical Shia hegemony led by Teheran. The problem for us is that the nature of the internecine conflict within Islam runs the risk of spreading into the British Muslim community.
What then should we do ? I begin to suspect nothing is the best option. We have allowed humanity to suffer and genocides to occur in other parts of the world - Rwanda and Bosnia in the 1990s being two good examples. We can offer our services as mediators but it would be the height of foolishness, having extricated ourselves from the quagmire once, to walk back in again.
Friday, 13 June 2014
The Flag, The Sun and The Subliminal Message
I got home from work tonight to find a copy of The Sun on the Stodge Towers doormat. This is of course the "Special Edition" which has been reportedly delivered to 22 million homes across the country.
Looking at it, it's a curious mixture of patriotic fervour, jingoistic tub-thumping, celebrity endorsement of the football team and an exhortation (of sorts) to "get behind our boys" as they start their improbable journey to World Cup glory in Manaus tomorrow evening.
Let's be honest - The Sun is an odious newspaper which purports to "be on the side of the people" even though its actions and editorial policy are governed by some of the richest people on the planet. Every four years, there is an attempt to raise some notion of patriotic fervour around the World Cup only for reality to set in when it transpires our national "treasures" aren't as good as the national treasures of several other countries.
Yet behind what may appear to be jingoistic flag-waving is a more sinister message - The Sun is trying to define what it is to be British. That means celebrity gossip, following the football team with uncritical adulation and worshipping the Cross of St George as some semi-religious icon but there's more to it even than that - the undercurrent message that if you do NOT follow England with uncritical adulation, you are somehow "unBritish".
I will be damned if I allow The Sun, David Cameron, Ed Miliband or even Nick Clegg to tell me how to be British or to define what it is to be British. There is no definition of national identity - each individual should create their own and that might involve flags and symbols or it might not. Just as with personal morality, the journey to a defined cultural, national and social identity is different for each individual but is a personal journey and needs no referencing or coercion from the media or indeed from religion.
One of the many reasons I am not a Conservative is that beneath all the free-market façade, the Tories are itching to tell people how to live their lives. While Socialists are open about using the State as a method of social and cultural conformity, the Conservatives are more subtle but the net effect is the same. John Major's journey to the electoral abyss began when he tried to use the Prime Minister's office as a "bully pulpit" on the issue of personal morality.
Though I'm a fan of Nick Clegg, his nonsense about "alarm-clock Britain" was unnecessarily patronising and divisive. David Cameron, the heir to John Major, is another condescending Conservative who uses every opportunity to voice his opinion on any and every triviality. I don't recall Margaret Thatcher wasting her time like that but David Cameron is so desperate to be liked he feels he has to be "with the people" on everything. This distasteful populism identifies him as a politician utterly lacking in conviction or principle. For that alone, he deserves to lose and lose big last year and let's hope that happens.
Regrettably, of course, Ed Miliband would be no better and neither would the ultimate populist, Nigel Farage.
The Sun claims to unite but divides - it claims to speak for "the ordinary man and woman" but we know it is trying to speak to the white working class (wwc) and is trying to get them back on the Conservative side for next year's election.
It is to be hoped that the vast majority of ordinary people will place The Sun's offering in the nearest recycling bin where it can be of some modest benefit. It deserves nothing more.
Looking at it, it's a curious mixture of patriotic fervour, jingoistic tub-thumping, celebrity endorsement of the football team and an exhortation (of sorts) to "get behind our boys" as they start their improbable journey to World Cup glory in Manaus tomorrow evening.
Let's be honest - The Sun is an odious newspaper which purports to "be on the side of the people" even though its actions and editorial policy are governed by some of the richest people on the planet. Every four years, there is an attempt to raise some notion of patriotic fervour around the World Cup only for reality to set in when it transpires our national "treasures" aren't as good as the national treasures of several other countries.
Yet behind what may appear to be jingoistic flag-waving is a more sinister message - The Sun is trying to define what it is to be British. That means celebrity gossip, following the football team with uncritical adulation and worshipping the Cross of St George as some semi-religious icon but there's more to it even than that - the undercurrent message that if you do NOT follow England with uncritical adulation, you are somehow "unBritish".
I will be damned if I allow The Sun, David Cameron, Ed Miliband or even Nick Clegg to tell me how to be British or to define what it is to be British. There is no definition of national identity - each individual should create their own and that might involve flags and symbols or it might not. Just as with personal morality, the journey to a defined cultural, national and social identity is different for each individual but is a personal journey and needs no referencing or coercion from the media or indeed from religion.
One of the many reasons I am not a Conservative is that beneath all the free-market façade, the Tories are itching to tell people how to live their lives. While Socialists are open about using the State as a method of social and cultural conformity, the Conservatives are more subtle but the net effect is the same. John Major's journey to the electoral abyss began when he tried to use the Prime Minister's office as a "bully pulpit" on the issue of personal morality.
Though I'm a fan of Nick Clegg, his nonsense about "alarm-clock Britain" was unnecessarily patronising and divisive. David Cameron, the heir to John Major, is another condescending Conservative who uses every opportunity to voice his opinion on any and every triviality. I don't recall Margaret Thatcher wasting her time like that but David Cameron is so desperate to be liked he feels he has to be "with the people" on everything. This distasteful populism identifies him as a politician utterly lacking in conviction or principle. For that alone, he deserves to lose and lose big last year and let's hope that happens.
Regrettably, of course, Ed Miliband would be no better and neither would the ultimate populist, Nigel Farage.
The Sun claims to unite but divides - it claims to speak for "the ordinary man and woman" but we know it is trying to speak to the white working class (wwc) and is trying to get them back on the Conservative side for next year's election.
It is to be hoped that the vast majority of ordinary people will place The Sun's offering in the nearest recycling bin where it can be of some modest benefit. It deserves nothing more.
Saturday, 7 June 2014
Newark was Hardwork for the Conservatives
Going on to politicalbetting on Friday morning and you'd be mistaken for winning the Conservatives had just won the General Election by a landslide - indeed, one numpty predicted the very same. Of course, all that had happened was that the Party had retained the Newark seat in a by-election.
Nonetheless, the sense of relief among the Conservative majority which now dominates pb was palpable and laughable. To hold on to a seat which was won at a General Election with a majority of 16,000 seems the measure by which Tories value success these days. It seems they have fallen a long way but still have much further to fall.
By-elections are strange animals and no two are the same - broadly speaking, they fall into categories, the expected and the unexpected. Newark was one of the "expected" - the sitting MP, Patrick Mercer, who had taken the seat with the same name but different boundaries from Labour in 2001, had made it clear he would resign his seat if found guilty by the House of Commons Standard Committee. On that basis, the local Conservatives (with outside help doubtless) had been active in the seat for months leafleting, canvassing, selecting a young if flawed candidate etc. while the other parties had done nothing.
The "expected" by-election (which can be due to criminal or medical issues) is an opportunity for both the incumbent Party and the principal Opposition to be active before the gun is fired and establish their credentials within the seat. In Newark, the main Opposition (based on the 2010 General Election result) was Labour but it seems they did nothing in advance of the by-election being called. This could be either because of a paucity of local resources or because Labour recognised that the effort of winning Newark in a by-election (and then trying to hold it in the General Election less than a year later) could not be justified while other far more marginal and likely seats needed the time and effort.
Such a vacuum would in the past have drawn in the Liberal Democrats who polled 20% in the seat in 2010 and might have been expected in times past to have ramped up the activity but the Party is not what it was and the need to defend Council seats and concentrate effort in Parliamentary seats held meant Newark was not fought - to my knowledge, no Lib Dem MP even visited the seat.
Enter then UKIP, the new insurgent Party. Unfortunately, they had no local base to work with and didn't even start working the seat effectively until the by-election was called leaving them at a huge disadvantage. Yet, buoyed by their win in the European parliamentary elections and strong local elections, it began to appear possible around the Bank Holiday weekend, that UKIP might pull of a huge shock and capture Newark and a couple of polls putting the Party within spitting distance of the Conservatives seem to have caused panic at Conservative HQ.
The Conservatives were forced to throw the kind of effort and resources into defending a safe seat that I haven't seen in over thirty years of active politics. David Cameron visited the seat FOUR times - before Tony Blair went to Uxbridge in June 1997, it had been the convention that Prime Ministers did not campaign in by-elections.
In addition, the Conservatives press-ganged every MP and selected candidate into visiting the seat - they had (reportedly) 600 activists there the weekend before polling and 1,000 on Polling Day itself - all this to defend a seat with a 16,000 majority in a by-election long planned and prepared for.
In the end, the Tories were forced to resort to desperate anti-UKIP tactical voting to try and head off the challenge from the fairly useless Roger Helmer and his Party who were comprehensively outgunned and outspent in the final week. It's been estimated the Conservatives spent £250,000 in Newark - all this to defend a seat with a 16,000 majority.
Defeat to UKIP would have been cataclysmic for the Conservatives - instead, they threw the kitchen sink and most of the kitchen at a safe seat and squeezed out a 7,000 majority.
Labour ducked the fight - probably wisely - and won't be too bothered by a small drop in share and third place. Indeed, the Labour result looks pretty good in a seat far removed from those of relevance to winning the General Election and despite the siren call of anti-UKIP tactical voting.
For the Liberal Democrats, the result was predictably poor - hopes of keeping the deposit were cruelly snuffed out but, as with Labour, Newark doesn't feature in the Liberal Democrat General Election strategy.
UKIP can draw some positives from the result - 26% from nowhere is pretty good and though their political machine couldn't mean the Conservatives in the final few days they should learn some valuable lessons. One huge problem is trying to repulse the tactical voting argument deployed by the Conservatives. There are a lot of people who see UKIP as the ultimate "nasty" party and that's something Nigel Farage and his team are going to have to recognise.
So, one cheer perhaps for the Conservatives but the polls still show Labour in front and the Tories will not be able to put into every constituency the effort they put into Newark in the past week. Labour are doubtless working their key marginals and the real battle will be fought in 100 or so seats next year of which Newark will not be one.
Nonetheless, the sense of relief among the Conservative majority which now dominates pb was palpable and laughable. To hold on to a seat which was won at a General Election with a majority of 16,000 seems the measure by which Tories value success these days. It seems they have fallen a long way but still have much further to fall.
By-elections are strange animals and no two are the same - broadly speaking, they fall into categories, the expected and the unexpected. Newark was one of the "expected" - the sitting MP, Patrick Mercer, who had taken the seat with the same name but different boundaries from Labour in 2001, had made it clear he would resign his seat if found guilty by the House of Commons Standard Committee. On that basis, the local Conservatives (with outside help doubtless) had been active in the seat for months leafleting, canvassing, selecting a young if flawed candidate etc. while the other parties had done nothing.
The "expected" by-election (which can be due to criminal or medical issues) is an opportunity for both the incumbent Party and the principal Opposition to be active before the gun is fired and establish their credentials within the seat. In Newark, the main Opposition (based on the 2010 General Election result) was Labour but it seems they did nothing in advance of the by-election being called. This could be either because of a paucity of local resources or because Labour recognised that the effort of winning Newark in a by-election (and then trying to hold it in the General Election less than a year later) could not be justified while other far more marginal and likely seats needed the time and effort.
Such a vacuum would in the past have drawn in the Liberal Democrats who polled 20% in the seat in 2010 and might have been expected in times past to have ramped up the activity but the Party is not what it was and the need to defend Council seats and concentrate effort in Parliamentary seats held meant Newark was not fought - to my knowledge, no Lib Dem MP even visited the seat.
Enter then UKIP, the new insurgent Party. Unfortunately, they had no local base to work with and didn't even start working the seat effectively until the by-election was called leaving them at a huge disadvantage. Yet, buoyed by their win in the European parliamentary elections and strong local elections, it began to appear possible around the Bank Holiday weekend, that UKIP might pull of a huge shock and capture Newark and a couple of polls putting the Party within spitting distance of the Conservatives seem to have caused panic at Conservative HQ.
The Conservatives were forced to throw the kind of effort and resources into defending a safe seat that I haven't seen in over thirty years of active politics. David Cameron visited the seat FOUR times - before Tony Blair went to Uxbridge in June 1997, it had been the convention that Prime Ministers did not campaign in by-elections.
In addition, the Conservatives press-ganged every MP and selected candidate into visiting the seat - they had (reportedly) 600 activists there the weekend before polling and 1,000 on Polling Day itself - all this to defend a seat with a 16,000 majority in a by-election long planned and prepared for.
In the end, the Tories were forced to resort to desperate anti-UKIP tactical voting to try and head off the challenge from the fairly useless Roger Helmer and his Party who were comprehensively outgunned and outspent in the final week. It's been estimated the Conservatives spent £250,000 in Newark - all this to defend a seat with a 16,000 majority.
Defeat to UKIP would have been cataclysmic for the Conservatives - instead, they threw the kitchen sink and most of the kitchen at a safe seat and squeezed out a 7,000 majority.
Labour ducked the fight - probably wisely - and won't be too bothered by a small drop in share and third place. Indeed, the Labour result looks pretty good in a seat far removed from those of relevance to winning the General Election and despite the siren call of anti-UKIP tactical voting.
For the Liberal Democrats, the result was predictably poor - hopes of keeping the deposit were cruelly snuffed out but, as with Labour, Newark doesn't feature in the Liberal Democrat General Election strategy.
UKIP can draw some positives from the result - 26% from nowhere is pretty good and though their political machine couldn't mean the Conservatives in the final few days they should learn some valuable lessons. One huge problem is trying to repulse the tactical voting argument deployed by the Conservatives. There are a lot of people who see UKIP as the ultimate "nasty" party and that's something Nigel Farage and his team are going to have to recognise.
So, one cheer perhaps for the Conservatives but the polls still show Labour in front and the Tories will not be able to put into every constituency the effort they put into Newark in the past week. Labour are doubtless working their key marginals and the real battle will be fought in 100 or so seats next year of which Newark will not be one.
Monday, 26 May 2014
Is This the End for Nick Clegg ?
After what can only be described as a poor set of local election results and a catastrophic set of European Parliamentary Election results, the febrile Press are already seething with the possible intrigue of the fall of a Party leader and the question as to whether a Party leader can survive.
Now, I could be talking about David Cameron who presided over the Conservative Party finishing third in a national election for the first time and a poor set of local election results or even Labour party leader Ed Miliband for whom an excellent performance in London masked a thoroughly modest effort in the rest of England but I'm not.
Nick Clegg is the man on the spot, the rabbit in the headlights at the moment and the question is whether he can survive.
He doesn't sound like a man ready to walk away and there are still plenty of Liberal Democrat elders and senior Party officials who seem willing to rush to his defence but among some activists (especially those smarting after defeat) the mood is mutinous.
I'll be honest - I've always liked Nick Clegg. I didn't know much about him before he stood for the Party leadership and he impressed me at the London Hustings and I was happy to vote for him over Chris Huhne (and that was a bullet dodged by the Party).
In May 2010 he outpointed David Cameron in the first televised debate and for a brief instant was the man in the sun. However, as anyone who becomes an existential threat to the Conservative Party soon discovers, the pro-Tory Press are nothing if not vicious when such threats become manifest. Clegg was reviled and brutally criticised by the Mail and other papers and that, combined with a more assured Cameron performance in the final debate, saw the party lose seats and votes from 2005.
Nonetheless, with 57 seats, the Liberal Democrats held the balance of power and, thanks to David Cameron, the Coalition came into being. For many Liberal Democrats voters, members and activists, the very act of co-operating with the hated Conservatives was an act of unforgiveable treachery though no one has, since May 2010, offered a cohesive and credible alternative to what happened and why it happened.
Unfortunately, Nick Clegg then made two disastrous mistakes from which neither he nor the Party has ever recovered - first, tuition fees. The problem was that during the 2010 election campaign, some Liberal Democrat candidates had publicly supported an NUS-backed pledge to oppose any rise in tuition fees. This seemed to become Party policy even though I don't recall it being Party policy.
In the post-election negotiations, the Liberal Democrats won the option to abstain on any future vote over tuition fees but this was seen as a betrayal by students and worse, it seemed that Nick Clegg went out of his way to support the rise in fees. In politics, among the many cardinal rules is the one about saying one thing to get elected and doing the opposite once elected.
The U-turn on tuition fees destroyed Nick Clegg's credibility at a stroke. Had he resigned then and there, it might have saved the Party years of angst and anguish. The justification for the U-turn was the severe national economic situation which made the phasing out of fees impractical but that wasn't the point. Nick had said one thing in Opposition and done the other in power - he wasn't and won't be the only politician in that situation but the personal and political consequence of what seemed to be rank duplicity was and would be considerable.
The first part of that payment was compounded by the second mistake - the AV Referendum. AV has never been Liberal Democrat policy - party policy supports the Single Transferrable Vote (STV). The problem was, I suspect, that Nick Clegg believed he couldn't sell the idea of Coalition to the Party without some kind of possibility of electoral reform. The Conservatives would never voluntarily give up FPTP - after all, they benefit hugely from it - and they wouldn't offer even a referendum on STV which would destroy them as a cohesive force.
Thus the Conservatives offered a referendum on AV but whether Clegg believed or was promised neutrality from David Cameron, he didn't get it. With many Liberal Democrats unenthused, an active Conservative-led campaign to keep FPTP and his own personal credibility destroyed by the tuition fees debacle, the AV Referendum was soundly lost and few tears were shed.
Since May 2011, Nick Clegg, who often talks a lot of good sense, has found himself the most derided politician in Britain. What he does say is immediately undermined by the memory of the tuition fees U-turn and the widely-held belief (disastrous for any politician) that he cannot be trusted or believed.
The Liberal Democrats have suffered the backlash of all this and now have just over 2,250 Councillors, having lost around 40% of their number through defection and defeat and now have just one MEP as they had in the 80s with Sir Russell Johnston of blessed memory.
Yet for those who call publicly and privately for Nick Clegg to go, the truth is he has one more kicking, the final kicking, to face. Next year, at the General Election, it won't be Councillors who will take the hit vicariously for Nick Clegg but the MPs and perhaps Clegg himself and it is important his happens for as both John Major discovered in 1997 and Gordon Brown (to a lesser extent) four years later, the Leader of a Party has to personalise the anger toward the party and only when the Leader himself is torn down is the public fury spent and the Party able to move on and rebuild.
So I see no benefit in cheating the gallows - Nick Clegg has to go into the 2015 election as Party Leader and be the scapegoat on whom all the sins are placed and sent into the political; wilderness not by the Party but by the public.
Yet the Party must learn from this experience - talking about Coalition and working with other parties is laudable and a plural political system is desirable if not essential for a healthy democracy but working with parties requires thought and management. Policy cannot be made on the hoof, uncosted and poorly thought through. Sometimes it may not be popular but it can be right not to cave in to the group shouting the loudest - populism is easy until you try and govern on that basis.
The Liberal Democrats face a mauling next year but it won't be the end and I'm absolutely certain the experience of Government won't be wasted or lost. The Party will emerge from the Coalition more astute and more careful and more professional. That in itself will be welcome but the time in the fire is not yet over.
Now, I could be talking about David Cameron who presided over the Conservative Party finishing third in a national election for the first time and a poor set of local election results or even Labour party leader Ed Miliband for whom an excellent performance in London masked a thoroughly modest effort in the rest of England but I'm not.
Nick Clegg is the man on the spot, the rabbit in the headlights at the moment and the question is whether he can survive.
He doesn't sound like a man ready to walk away and there are still plenty of Liberal Democrat elders and senior Party officials who seem willing to rush to his defence but among some activists (especially those smarting after defeat) the mood is mutinous.
I'll be honest - I've always liked Nick Clegg. I didn't know much about him before he stood for the Party leadership and he impressed me at the London Hustings and I was happy to vote for him over Chris Huhne (and that was a bullet dodged by the Party).
In May 2010 he outpointed David Cameron in the first televised debate and for a brief instant was the man in the sun. However, as anyone who becomes an existential threat to the Conservative Party soon discovers, the pro-Tory Press are nothing if not vicious when such threats become manifest. Clegg was reviled and brutally criticised by the Mail and other papers and that, combined with a more assured Cameron performance in the final debate, saw the party lose seats and votes from 2005.
Nonetheless, with 57 seats, the Liberal Democrats held the balance of power and, thanks to David Cameron, the Coalition came into being. For many Liberal Democrats voters, members and activists, the very act of co-operating with the hated Conservatives was an act of unforgiveable treachery though no one has, since May 2010, offered a cohesive and credible alternative to what happened and why it happened.
Unfortunately, Nick Clegg then made two disastrous mistakes from which neither he nor the Party has ever recovered - first, tuition fees. The problem was that during the 2010 election campaign, some Liberal Democrat candidates had publicly supported an NUS-backed pledge to oppose any rise in tuition fees. This seemed to become Party policy even though I don't recall it being Party policy.
In the post-election negotiations, the Liberal Democrats won the option to abstain on any future vote over tuition fees but this was seen as a betrayal by students and worse, it seemed that Nick Clegg went out of his way to support the rise in fees. In politics, among the many cardinal rules is the one about saying one thing to get elected and doing the opposite once elected.
The U-turn on tuition fees destroyed Nick Clegg's credibility at a stroke. Had he resigned then and there, it might have saved the Party years of angst and anguish. The justification for the U-turn was the severe national economic situation which made the phasing out of fees impractical but that wasn't the point. Nick had said one thing in Opposition and done the other in power - he wasn't and won't be the only politician in that situation but the personal and political consequence of what seemed to be rank duplicity was and would be considerable.
The first part of that payment was compounded by the second mistake - the AV Referendum. AV has never been Liberal Democrat policy - party policy supports the Single Transferrable Vote (STV). The problem was, I suspect, that Nick Clegg believed he couldn't sell the idea of Coalition to the Party without some kind of possibility of electoral reform. The Conservatives would never voluntarily give up FPTP - after all, they benefit hugely from it - and they wouldn't offer even a referendum on STV which would destroy them as a cohesive force.
Thus the Conservatives offered a referendum on AV but whether Clegg believed or was promised neutrality from David Cameron, he didn't get it. With many Liberal Democrats unenthused, an active Conservative-led campaign to keep FPTP and his own personal credibility destroyed by the tuition fees debacle, the AV Referendum was soundly lost and few tears were shed.
Since May 2011, Nick Clegg, who often talks a lot of good sense, has found himself the most derided politician in Britain. What he does say is immediately undermined by the memory of the tuition fees U-turn and the widely-held belief (disastrous for any politician) that he cannot be trusted or believed.
The Liberal Democrats have suffered the backlash of all this and now have just over 2,250 Councillors, having lost around 40% of their number through defection and defeat and now have just one MEP as they had in the 80s with Sir Russell Johnston of blessed memory.
Yet for those who call publicly and privately for Nick Clegg to go, the truth is he has one more kicking, the final kicking, to face. Next year, at the General Election, it won't be Councillors who will take the hit vicariously for Nick Clegg but the MPs and perhaps Clegg himself and it is important his happens for as both John Major discovered in 1997 and Gordon Brown (to a lesser extent) four years later, the Leader of a Party has to personalise the anger toward the party and only when the Leader himself is torn down is the public fury spent and the Party able to move on and rebuild.
So I see no benefit in cheating the gallows - Nick Clegg has to go into the 2015 election as Party Leader and be the scapegoat on whom all the sins are placed and sent into the political; wilderness not by the Party but by the public.
Yet the Party must learn from this experience - talking about Coalition and working with other parties is laudable and a plural political system is desirable if not essential for a healthy democracy but working with parties requires thought and management. Policy cannot be made on the hoof, uncosted and poorly thought through. Sometimes it may not be popular but it can be right not to cave in to the group shouting the loudest - populism is easy until you try and govern on that basis.
The Liberal Democrats face a mauling next year but it won't be the end and I'm absolutely certain the experience of Government won't be wasted or lost. The Party will emerge from the Coalition more astute and more careful and more professional. That in itself will be welcome but the time in the fire is not yet over.
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