June 17, 2009
Bullshit, Bullshit Everywhere
I rather like David Mitchell’s columns. For example, I enjoyed his latest piece about people having opinions – and I particularly admire his forthright statement of his own political loyalties.
I also like his mini-series, David Mitchell’s Soap Box. Mitchell has an impressive ability to be incredibly funny whilst making serious socio-political points.
Take, for example, this video about “man flu”. For the first couple of minutes you’d be forgiven for thinking that Mitchell is churning out some tired old “battle of the sexes” routine. If you watch to the end, you realise he’s making a very important point about gender inequality. And managing to be funny. At the same time.
Yesterday when I was having lunch, I recalled another of Mitchell’s Soap Box episodes: this one about organisations abusing the word “passion” in advertising campaigns. Words which are utterly inappropriate but are employed to try and misrepresent a boring product or service so as to impel consumers to part with their cash.
I recalled this video during lunch because before me was a packet of Walkers’ Thai Sweet Chili crisps emblazoned with the declaration: “Made with real ingredients”
As oppose to those magical, make-believe ingredients, presumably?
I know what Walkers mean. They are implying that their crisps are made out of potatoes instead of chemicals. They do this because in the mind of the average consumer “potato=good, chemicals=bad”.
Regardless, the end result is that the packet is emblazoned with meaningless bullshit. It is meaningless bullshit to declare that your crisps are made with “real” ingredients, because all ingredients are real.
This kind of thing is everywhere. A particularly common example from the food and catering industry is to declare that a product or meal is “Home Cooked”.
The products or meals in question never are. If they were actually cooked in a home, the stringent health and safety requirements for commercial food preparation would not be met, and so their commercial sale would be illegal. “Home Cooked” is just a phrase designed to generate feelings of warm fuzziness in the consumer. Feelings which give rise to an impulse to consume.
These are times of rampant bullshit. I could go on for days, but I’ll just point to one of my favourite examples. Below is a summary of the “corporate objective monitoring” process, which every proposal or scheme undertaken by Sefton Council must be subjected to. (I don’t mean to single out Sefton Council here, by the way, as all local councils now undertake this sort of exercise):
What, exactly, is a “Learning Community”, and how, exactly, does one create such a thing? Similarly, I would like to know what an “Inclusive Community” is, and how to create one of those too.
In truth, the latter phrase is a vague gesture towards social cohesion, implying nice fluffy things like “harmony” and “togetherness”. But that’s exactly what it is: a vague gesture. As for the former - well it’s not even a vague gesture. It’s just meaningless.
I should make clear that a large part of my reason for thinking this is because I agree with Dr Adam Swift in believing that the word “community” has infiltrated all political debate, but ultimately:
“Today, ‘Fraternity’ – literally, ‘brotherliness’ – is quaint and politically incorrect. ‘Solidarity’ – the gender-neutral equivalent – turns the mind towards trade unions and picket lines. But ‘community’ is very much in fashion. It is warm, caring, and nobody knows what it means.”
Community is the ultimate bullshit word in politics. Everyone is ‘for’ communities, nobody is ‘against’ them – yet nobody knows what a community actually is, why it might matter, and how political decisions should be made with relation to one. As for “Learning Communities” and “Inclusive Communities”, such expression takes us off into the realms of hyper-bullshit. And such hyper-bullshit is now the norm.
But does any of this really matter? Does it really matter that so much - from packets of crisps to the local democratic procedure - is now laced with meaningless, misrepresentative or vacuous phraseology?
Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it’s always been this way and my belief that it’s getting worse is unfounded.
But I don’t like it. Even if I’m still trying to work out exactly why.
June 15, 2009
PR, FPTP and the Sword of Reason
In recent weeks opponents of Proportional Representation (PR) have leapt up to offer reasons why it would be disastrous – and why we are better off with a system under which most votes are wasted and most voters never get represented by who they vote for. David Blunkett, Simon Jenkins and every Tory MP getting near the issue have shown themselves vociferous opponents of electoral reform.
There are three arguments in particular which frequently come up against PR. The problem is, these arguments are double-edged swords.
Argument 1: PR Forces Candidates onto Voters, so it is undemocratic (and therefore undesirable)
This is a favourite of the Tories, who use it every time, and Simon Jenkins also endorses it. However, coming from the mouths of FPTP proponents, the pot is calling the kettle black.
Under FPTP, voters are presented with a list of candidates selected by parties. Sometimes local grass-root party members have a say in candidate selection. Sometimes candidates are parachuted into “safe” seats by party central office (think most of the North East for Labour, almost anywhere in the Home Counties for the Tories). In theory, individuals can join a party and attempt to influence the candidate selection process – but even when this is done, there’s no guarantee of being able to defeat the impositions of the party.
Under FPTP voters, the majority of whom are not party members, are presented with a list of candidates which is a fait accompli. In this respect, FPTP is as “undemocratic” as a closed list system of PR (e.g. what you used to elect an MEP last week). Which prompts one to remember that there are many systems of PR. Under an open list system, for example, voters can not only vote for party, but also vote for a particular candidate on the party’s list. Thus, open list PR systems are more democratic than FPTP – on the very grounds put forward by the champions of FPTP.
Argument 2: PR Destroys the constituency link, and so makes it impossible for voters to remove individual representatives
The faults of this argument begin where the flaws of the last left off. Firstly, not all PR systems abolish the constituency link: put “Single Transferable Vote” (STV) into Wikipedia, and read.
Secondly, this argument only works by implying that under FPTP voters can kick-out undesirable MPs and in the process stick it to the party backing them. Examples like Neil Hamilton’s defeat by Martin Bell are probably at the forefront of most people’s minds. Whilst it is true that a closed list system of PR would remove this “power” from voters, it is not true of open list PR or STV.
Thirdly, and most importantly, the argument is disingenuous because it can be levied with equal force at FPTP. Examples like Neil Hamilton are the glaring exception. In most cases, individual voters are not “empowered” under FPTP to remove MPs who are strongly backed by the party for the simple reason that most MPs strongly backed by their party are in safe seats.
Under FPTP, parties reward their favoured candidates by putting them in constituencies where they can only lose if they act so outrageously that even a majority of party loyalists turn against them (cf Hamilton and his brown envelopes), or if the election is a landslide win for the other lot (cf Michael Portillo in 1997). To claim FPTP empowers voters by allowing them to kick-out representatives against the wish of parties only works if you refuse to engage with reality.
Argument 3: PR Leads to Coalitions rather than Strong Government
FPTP proponents like to claim that their winner-takes-all system leads to decisive majorities producing strong Government, whereas PR produces fractured coalitions bogged-down in compromise and indecision.
To continue our theme that the sword of reason cuts both ways, let’s recall that horse-trading, compromise and coalition take place under FPTP. The difference is, it happens within parties rather than between. For all the predominance of New Labour within the Labour Party, compromise and deals were made within: think not only of the presence of John Prescott on the front bench for a decade, but think of the hidden wranglings and deal-cuttings between the Blairites and the Brownites for the past 12 years. The coalition which is now unravelling with such spectacular effect. Hardly a model of firm, decisive Government, is it?
Furthermore, it’s simply untrue that PR necessarily leads to permanent coalitions between parties. Roy Jenkins’ 1998 report on electoral reform proposed the system of Additional Vote Top-up Plus (AV+). When asked by Tony Blair how this system would have altered past election outcomes, Jenkins replied that in 1997 Labour would have won, albeit with a reduced majority, as would Thatcher in 1983 and 1987. (When asked about 1979, Jenkins replied that it would have been a hung parliament. Blair apparently replied: “That’s a pity. The country wanted a change”)[1]. The point is, PR doesn’t necessarily lead to constant coalitions, because not all PR is the same.
Finally, the worst thing about this argument is the brute assumption that “strong Government” not founded on cross-party coalition is desirable. As somebody who works in Parliament, I will attest with great passion that it isn’t. Rousseau famously said that the English are free only once every five years. He was onto something.
At present Governments can and do railroad legislative programmes through Parliament. In general, there’s more chance of my flying to the moon than of the Government accepting even friendly amendments to its proposed legislation. Regardless of party, under FPTP Governments see their majority as a license to dictate. Because it is.
The charge that PR leads to coalitions – which as I’ve argued, isn’t even necessarily true – is only negative if we think that having Governments which dictate for five years is desirable. If we think that legislative programmes arrived at as a compromise between parties reflecting a wider range of electoral opinion (and thereby being arguably more democratic) are rather more in order, then coalition looks like virtue rather than a vice.
Conclusion
The point of this article has not been to argue that PR (in its myriad manifestations) is perfect. No electoral system is perfect. The point has been to show that most of the arguments levelled against PR in favour of FPTP are actually more damaging to FPTP. Where you go from there is up to you.
[1] Andrew Rawnsley – Servants of the People pg. 204
June 12, 2009
Here and There
Blogging will be light this weekend, as I have other engagements.
However, a couple of pieces are up here and there.
Firstly, over at the Guardian’s Comment is Free my little piece about racism in the Oxford University Conservative Association is generating an awful lot of rather nasty comments about me. Somewhat embarrassingly, the trolls my critics have found an old interview I did for some random blog in Pakistan when I was still an undergraduate. The answers I gave were not written with an eye on the future, and I’m certainly paying for it now because I look like a tit. Oh well, live and learn. The answers I gave were obnoxious and idiotic, and I look like a tit because in respect of that article I deserve to look like a tit. Oh well, live and learn.
Secondly, Liberal Conspiracy have a refined version of my piece on ideology and the EU elections. Thanks to “Carrion” who streamlined my thinking on that matter, though I do believe we still disagree.
Until next week, feel free to write viciously personal attacks on me in the comments thread.
June 11, 2009
The BNP is not like the National Black Police Association
When Nick Griffin is challenged over the BNP’s whites-only admissions policy, his reply is simple: “nobody criticises the Black Police Association for not allowing white members”.
Griffin has picked his reply carefully. It fits the BNP’s narrative of sticking up for the “indigenous white population” in the face of a conspiracy which operates in the favour of ethnic minorities at the expense of white people. And on the surface, it will look to many people like a good reply. Griffin seems vindicated in his story about racial hypocrisy, painting himself as the David taking on the institutional Goliath.
So we need a quick and handy retort that can be instantly deployed to knock down Griffin’s reply. Here it is:
“Firstly, the National Black Police Association does not debar people on the basis of colour. Anyone can join the NBPA.
Secondly, the NBPA does not claim that only black people should be in the police force as a whole, nor does it demand that non-blacks should be thrown out of the force. It exists to represent the interests of black officers alongside the interests of other officers.
By contrast, the BNP bans non-white members, and believes that non-whites should not be allowed in Britain and should be forcibly deported if they are here. The two organisations are, therefore, nothing the same.”
That’s the reply. Let’s all learn it and spread it. Let’s have newsreaders and interviewers and voters saying this to Griffin’s face every time he tries to pull his nasty little tricks.
By the Company One Keeps
David Cameron has pledged that the Conservative Party will withdraw from the European People’s Party grouping at the EU Parliament, which includes Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrat Union and Nicholas Sarkozy’s UMP. Instead, the Tories will sit with entities such as the Lativan Fatherland and Freedom Party, several of whose MPs marched in Riga with veterans of the Latvian SS, and the Polish Law and Justice party, who described Barack Obama as the “black messiah of the new left” whose presidency marks the “end of the civilisation of the white man”.
But in reality, this policy of association with racists is nothing new. The Conservative Party has long been associated with an organisation which is mired in racist scandal on a virtually clock-work basis. Indeed, many leading lights of the Tory Party are former members of this organisation, and even more have made guest appearances at its functions.
The organisation in question is not a grouping of marginalised Eastern European fascists, however. It’s much, much closer to home, having been based since 1924 in the Cotswolds: the Oxford University Conservative Association.
The latest racist scandal to engulf OUCA is the revelation that during election hustings for the post of Junior Officer Positions, candidates were asked to tell “the most racist joke they know” and to describe their favourite minority. One candidate answered with a joke about black people hanging in the family tree. Another began “What do you say when you see a television moving around in the dark?” before being interrupted by the returning officer.
An isolated incident? Erm, not exactly. In 2000, four members of OUCA were kicked out of a meeting of Oxford University Student Union for what the student press described as “a deliberate disruption of proceedings, involving Nazi-style salutes, cries of “Viva Pinochet” and alleged drunken behaviour”. In 2004 OUCA’s ex-Treasurer was found guilty of bringing the organisation into disrepute after writing an article claiming that “the problem with India is its culture [which is] stained by two main features which hold the country down continually with little sign of change: democracy and Hinduism”. In late 2007 OUCA members were exposed in the student press for singing drinking songs that went “Dashing through the Reich/In a black Mercedes Benz/Killing lots of kikes/Ra ta ta ta”.
Every time OUCA is exposed, the national Tory Party disowns either the individuals implicated or the organisation as a whole. This time around, the national Conservative line is that the racist jokers in question have been suspended from the party. Previously, the Conservative Party has claimed that it is not affiliated with OUCA: both Conservative Future and Conservative Central Office have claimed to be disaffiliated from OUCA for much of the 1990s and early 2000s.
Yet this official excuse of non-affiliation is hard to square with the Conservative Party’s friendly relations with OUCA. In 2008 five members of the Shadow Cabinet – including David Cameron and George Osborne – spoke at OUCA meetings. This year alone, John Redwood, Michael Gove, Viscount Monckton, newly re-elected Tory MEP Daniel Hannan, Edward Leigh (chair of the uber-rightwing Cornerstone group) and former Tory leader Michael Howard have all spoken at OUCA.
But then, it’s hardly surprising that OUCA and the Conservative Party are on such friendly terms. OUCA’s alumni include Margaret Thatcher, William Hague, Jonathon Aitken, Lord Rees-Mogg and Daniel Hannan.
OUCA is a breeding-ground for future Tory stars. It is not a fringe organisation trying to jump on the establishment bandwagon, it’s the youth wing of the national party. That’s why so many top Tory politicians were members, and why so many still attend OUCA events. Yet time and again OUCA members are exposed as racists.
So it should be no surprise that Cameron wants to move his party to be affiliated with racists in Europe. The Conservatives have long been affiliated with racists in Britain.
June 10, 2009
Free Transactions, Inequality and Higher Education
It is becoming clear that New Labour’s stated aim of having 50% of the population attend university is unworkable.
Firstly, the money isn’t there anymore: the empty state coffers of recession mean less money for universities and students. Secondly, the 50% figure was too high: 50% of the population are not suited to continuing education and would do better pursuing other avenues. Furthermore, increasing numbers of graduates now find that even having worked hard to attain a degree, such qualifications are not the gold-plated passes to better employment and intellectual development they once were.
It seems clear that university numbers will be reduced in future. Given this, it would seem correct that the Government should only provide the funding for a certain percentage of students to go to University – i.e. those who achieve specified minimum grades at A Level – in line with providing for, say, 30% of the population to receive higher education.
This reduction is compatible with subsidising students proportionately to income, as is currently the approach (i.e. children of millionaires pay fees and don’t receive maintenance loans, children with unemployed/low income parents don’t pay fees and do receive maintenance loans of varying size, on a means-tested basis). On this approach, funding will only be made available to those students attaining a specified grade minimum, and will then be adjusted according to existing means. Funding will not be offered to students attaining below the grade minimum.
However, there may arise a situation whereby bright students, whether rich or poor, get to go to university (either the state pays or daddy pay), but as regards dull students, only the rich ones will reach higher education (daddy pays even though the state won’t).
This might be defended on the grounds that it is not for the state to interfere with the transactions of free individuals: if somebody happens to be academically a low-achiever, but is willing and able (or knows somebody willing and able on their behalf) to pay for the service of attaining a degree, then the state should not prevent this.
However, this must be balanced-off against the fact that having a degree will lead to higher wage-earning potential. A situation will thus arise whereby dull but rich children will be set-up for higher wage-earning potential because they can pay to get degrees, whereas dull but poor children will face lower wage-earning potential because they can’t pay to get degrees. The outcome is that to an extent the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor.
It might be thought that this is the bullet which must be bitten; the necessary cost of the state not interfering with the free transactions of individuals.
But there’s more to it than that.
It may be true that some rich-but-dull students can afford to pay full fees and maintenance to attend e.g. a low-standard university without state support (this will likely run into costs of tens of thousands for the individual). Whilst it would be true that the state does not offer this student any direct subsidy, it would be wrong to believe that the place is therefore not subsidised at all.
For there is no university in the country which does not depend, ultimately, upon state money for its existence. An individual student may manage to pay their particular course fees without state support – but the existence of the university itself depends on state money - and that will run into millions.
It is disingenuous to believe therefore that all that is happening is an individual (the student) engaging in a free transaction with a free institution (the university). The institution in question depends on vast amounts of state money, therefore the individual is subsidised (albeit indirectly) even if they pay their own fees. Given that having a degree will lead to higher earning potential, and that even rich students still ultimately depend on state subsidy (albeit indirectly), there is a big question about how relaxed we should be about the state effectively sponsoring social immobility.
As this is not a simple ‘free transactions vs. state interference’ trade off, I would warn against being relaxed towards an “all bright kids, but only rich dull kids, get to go to University” policy. It might actually be right to say that the minimum attainment grade applies regardless of ability to pay. Put more blunty: the state may be right to tell rich-but-dull students that they cannot go to University, no matter how willing and able they or their parents are to pay.
Can this be made politically palatable? Perhaps. Considering that measures of inequality have consistently widened over the past 2 decades, and that during a recession, dissatisfaction with this fact is likely to grow significantly, it may be the case that policies targetting entrenched inequality get a better public airing.
Then again, the wealthy parents of dull children will quickly bemoan the “unfairness” of not allowing them to “choose” to send their stupid children to University.
The question is, does any political party have the stomach for the fight?
Throwing Eggs?
I was going to post about why I think it is unbelievably stupid to throw eggs at Nick Griffin, and why this is more likely to help than harm the BNP.
But it’s already been said very well, over at The F Word.
Cormack for Speaker?
So, Tory MP Sir Patrick Cormack wants to be Speaker.
Here’s the Rt Hon Sir Paddy talking to the old Speaker about the Tamil protesters, just a month ago:
Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. When you have your discussions later this week, will you please discuss with the Metropolitan Police Commissioner the advisability of bringing in an implement that would be used in virtually every other capital city—the water cannon?
Remembering that the Tamil protests consisted of men, women and children demonstrating non-violently (if loudly), we now see that Sir Paddy is the agent of change and modernity we need in this age of rotten, old, out of touch politicians.
June 8, 2009
The Ideological Legacy of Blairism?
Tony Blair built his success on neutralising ideological debate. The New Labour project, which is now in collapse, had two aspects and one purpose: to steal the Conservatives’ clothes, to strip Labour of its ideological commitments, and to do it all in the pursuit of power.
As Blair put it himself: “I have taken from my party everything they thought they believed in, I have stripped them of their core beliefs. What keeps them together is success and power”.
But the New Labour project didn’t just strip Labour of its ideology and wrong-foot the Tories to generate electoral success. It re-defined the nature of political success as occupation of the centre ground via a deliberately non-ideologically appeal to vague notions of a “Third Way”, or “community” or “progressivism”. In the process, New Labour stripped the other main parties of their ideology too.
After all, what do the Tories actually stand for nowadays? What are their policies? What do they believe in? Deducing from Cameron’s performances at Prime Minister’s questions – the only apparent indicator of Conservative policy – the Tories believe in anti-Keynesian spending cuts during recession, calling a general election, the resignation of Brown and…what?
As Premm Sikka has pointedly asked, “Mr Cameron, what exactly are your policies?”. It’s a question we all need an answer to. Because heading into power is a first for British politics: a party which has no policies, no legislative agenda and no identifiable ideology whatsoever.
Sunday’s coverage of the EU elections was, in this respect, highly instructive. All three of the major parties conspicuously failed to state what it is they stand for. Labour were (unsurprisingly) reduced to mutterings about how the EU elections demonstrated a protest vote which they sheepishly promised to heed before the general election.
The Tories used the occasion as an opportunity to call repeatedly for Gordon Brown to stand down. Not once can I remember them articulating what they stood for, and claiming that their EU victories were a corresponding endorsement of those principles. This is of course quite possibly due to the fact that despite their lead in seats, the Tories did not capitalise significantly on Labour’s electoral collapse.
The Lib Dems – supposedly the main pro-European party in the UK – failed once again to make any arguments at all as to why the EU might be a good thing, and to explain why the party is therefore pro-European. Instead, all we heard were mumblings about Labour failings and about how being placed 4th wasn’t really a big deal.
By contrast, the two parties who came out loud and clear with statements of what they stood for were UKIP and the BNP. UKIP’s “ideology” may extend no further than economic isolationism and xenophobic immigration control – the rhetoric of unthinking, racist 19th-Century style nationalism – but compared to the mainstream three, this rhetoric shone as a burning beacon of ideological conviction.
The BNP is a foul political entity, yet it quite obviously has an ideology. If Griffin is to be believed, that ideology is simply “to protect the indigenous white population”. Anyone scratching beneath the surface will quickly discover the vicious racism, anti-Semitism, white-supremacism and thorough-going Fascism that is the true nature of BNP ideology. But it’s an ideology nonetheless – and one which the BNP proudly proclaimed (albeit in muted form) all over national television.
Which leads one to ponder whether this is the ultimate legacy of New Labour. The quest for power without purpose has taken ideology out of the hands of the mainstream and put it into the clutches of extremists. And perhaps – more than anything else – this proves Blair was wrong all along. Ideology matters. Just ask the 13 UKIP and 2 BNP MEPs packing their bags for Brussels.
N.B. Thanks to Will for some of the ideas in this piece.
June 7, 2009
Warnings from the Past
Remaining on the subject of tax havens, it’s worth noting a story in today’s Observer about the Turks & Caicos Islands.
In short, the Government is using a Statutory Instrument to take over control of the Turks & Caicos because it is in a state of rampant chaos. Indeed, at a recent Westminster Hall debate on the Islands, Greg Pope MP had this to say:
One of the things that I found most shocking on Turks and Caicos was that citizens of a British overseas territory were afraid to be seen in public with Members of this House, afraid to give evidence and afraid even to be seen at a reception talking to us. The only other places I have been to on overseas visits where people were in fear of talking to me as a Member of Parliament are places such as the People’s Republic of China.
Today The Observer is reporting that “many of the [Turks & Caicos] luxury developments have provoked allegations that they were the products of corrupt deals between local politicians and foreign businessmen”, going on to say that “It was suggested…that corporate donations bore all the marks of ‘bribery and extortion’”.
Has this all come out of the blue? Did nobody foresee this terrible state of affairs?
Erm, not exactly.
Stark warnings were issued about the Turks & Caicos development path – namely, enticing investors by offering decades-long tax exemptions - nearly 40 years ago.
For example, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office wrote to the Treasury in November 1969 expressing grave concerns at the path the Turks & Caicos Islands were taking:
“We think that this potential boom in private property development requires extremely careful consideration before commitments are entered into. In particular we think it necessary to bear in mind the probable political, social and economic effects of rapid and widespread property development in a group of islands with a population of only about six thousand, not only immediately, but also over the course of the next few years; years which could well be the most formative in the evolution of the islands’ society.”
Similarly, a Foreign and Commonwealth Office memorandum on Caribbean development via tax haven activity, issued the same year, expresses grave concerns:
“A large scale influx of wealthy foreigners into an island community, whilst no doubt conferring economic benefits, is bound to have very significant social consequences. The composition of the population may be radically altered, and race tensions may develop; social tensions can also easily arise as a result of the contrast between the wealth of the settlers and the relative poverty of the local people; and, depending on how developments are planned, tensions can also arise as a result of the exclusion of the local people from large areas of their islands of birth”.
If anybody wants to check my sources, these documents are found in Treasury archive file T 317/1452, and are free to view in the National Archives. Believe me, these are not isolated examples – many more documents can be found expressing the same concerns again and again.
Even allowing for the restrained prose of 1960s Civil Servants, the mess which is the modern Turks & Caicos probably goes beyond what even the gloomiest tax haven opponent would have predicted 40 years ago.
Nonetheless the warnings were there, and they were ignored. Now we – and the most especially the people of the Turks & Caicos – must reap the whirlwind.
