October 21, 2009
Tories in a Tizzy
David Cameron has dropped his opposition to all-women shortlists when selecting Tory candidates for Parliament, and sections of his grass roots have gone predictably cuckoo.
Tim Montgomerie of ConservativeHome complained that this was “an unacceptable departure from Conservative concepts of meritocracy and trusting people. It would be unfair and unmeritocratic for associations to be denied to choose male candidates who have given so much to the Conservative party over the years and have great talents to offer the country in the future.”
Iain Dale has followed suit, calling the move “unmeritocratic”.
It’s a wonderful demonstration of the simple, simple world these sorts of Tories choose to live in, where a deeply complicated issue like the under representation of women in Parliament – and in turn, the complex nature of “merit” and what that might actually mean – can, through Kafkaesque logic and intellectual myopia, be reduced to soundbites about offences against “meritocracy”.
Perhaps in Dale and Montgomerie Land the reason that only 19.5% of MPs are female is that only 19.5% of women are good enough to be MPs. That, at present, becoming an MP is wholly due to individual merit, completely irrelevant of gender, and that it’s just a fact that for every female MP with enough merit to have gained the position, there are 4 male ones.
Which has the interesting implication that Dale and Montgomerie apparently believe that women are, on average, simply less merituous than men when it comes to being MPs (on a ratio of about 4-1).Would they like to come out and say that?
Obviously there’s a get-out from this less-than-acceptable position, assuming the two would rather not declare themselves raving misogynists. Dale and Montgomerie could accept that perhaps there are structural factors which disadvantage women from becoming MPs, and which also work to dissuade more women than men from even considering becoming MPs in the first place. That is, they might agree – as any sensible person who looks at the distribution of power, wealth and influence in the UK would – that becoming an MP is not simply about who has “merit” (however defined) at the selection stage, but a whole host of other factors, such as what is counted by selectors as “merit” in the first place, and prior to that, the opportunities open to people of different genders to acquire that “merit”.
So we might want to start thinking about factors such as how PPC-selectors, and in turn voters, perceive candidates against the background of a society with deeply gendered perceptions; what candidates’ socio-political expectations of themselves are in a gendered society; how being a member of the sex expected to bear and raise children in favour of career advancement is likely to affect career paths and the acquisition of “merit” in a world where bearing and raising children is not valued as regards the skills deemed necessary for a career in politics, and so on.
But as soon as one recognises the basic fact that the world is incredibly complicated, and in turn, so are the concepts of “merit” and “meritocracy” within that complicated world (and I suggest, that to avoid the charge of rampant misogyny, Dale and Montgomerie do recognise that) it becomes patently clear that to claim that all-women shortlists are “unmeritocratic” is at best disingenuous, and at worst pretty stupid.
Let me be clear: I am not saying that all women shortlists are definitely the right thing to do. There may be good arguments against them (that they are insulting to women, cause resentment inside and outside parties, and so on). But what I am saying is that to simply dismiss them as “unmeritocratic” is laughably naive. It is to hold that with regards to the deeply complex issue of female under-representation in Parliament, the debate could possibly be so simple as for a measure designed to address this to be “unmeritocratic”, and that be the simple end of it. In the words of the wise Ben Goldacre: I think you’ll find it’s a bit more complicated than that.
October 20, 2009
Revolution for Dummies
New Nerd Post: Revolution for Dummies – a diagramatic guide to the process of revolution which arises from the necessity of materialism as the driving force of world history.
October 19, 2009
Peter Hain’s Bad Idea
Peter Hain apparently thinks it’s a good idea to try and pressure the BBC into dis-inviting Nick Griffin from appearing on Question Time, by threatening legal action on the tenuous grounds that the BNP is an “unlawful body”.
This is not a good idea. The BNP thrives on its status as outsider under-dog, fighting the liberal elites that exist solely to suppress the rights of British whites. (Quite why the “left fascist” elites do this, nobody is sure. But it has something to do with “political correctness gone mad”, and that old bogeyman, “multiculturalism”).
If the government were to prevent Griffin appearing on QT, this would be a BNP-boon. Griffin would get even more media coverage than he will just from appearing on QT, and would appear to have genuine evidence for his claims about conspiracy. The BNP already alleges that the BBC is part of a “far left” plot against them. If adopted, Hain’s suggestions would only add fuel to the fire.
Hain’s strategy would also be an enormous snub to the just-under-a-million people who voted BNP last June in free, fair, democratic elections. Hardly a way to endear those people to mainstream politics. And it would also put the BBC in something of a dilemma (and I’m not sure how easily it could be solved): if the BNP are banned for being “unlawful”, but have two MEPs and many councillors, what does that mean for the BBC’s constitutional impartiality? I predict that if put in such a situation, the BBC would either stick by impartiality and be accused of aiding and abetting an illegal fascist organisation, or choose to abandon impartiality. Either way, it’s free ammunition for the Beeb’s enemies at the Daily Mail and the Murdoch empire. Who, we might all remember, like to push news and comment which – whilst officially denouncing the BNP – has frequently been pro-BNP in all but name.
Sadly, this government already thinks that the BNP can be tackled by legal harrasment: that’s why they are taking the BNP to court over its whites-only membership policy. As though forcing the BNP to legally accept non-whites will somehow stop it being a racist organisation (and one questions the brainpower of any politician who thinks a de jure change in the BNP constitution will affect any sort of de facto one). The other argument for this – that it will put public pressure on the BNP and expose their racism – is a bad one too: all it will achieve is bucket loads of media coverage for Griffin that he wouldn’t previously have had, and lots of opportunities for him to claim his party stands up for the “indigenous white population” whilst telling lies about the National Black Police Officers’ Association. And let’s not live in the fantasy land that Griffin’s lies will be necessarily challenged and refuted, after the pathetic performances by the likes of Andrew Marr and Jeremy Paxman.
The facts on the ground are these: the BBC has to invite somebody from the BNP to appear on Question Time due to its constitutional requirement of impartiality. Question Time is a terrible format for exposing Griffin. Nonetheless, given that Griffin will appear, the best thing to do is offer as strenuous and powerful a condemnation of his views on air possible (though given the QT panel, that’s probably not going to happen). Apart from that, the most sensible thing to do is give the BNP as little attention as possible. Legal threats to the BBC will only generate media coverage for the BNP it wouldn’t otherwise have had, which means more opportunities for Griffin to spout lies and conspiracy. In short: gifting oxygen to a small fire, only to make it needlessly bigger.
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In other news, it looks like we need to add Step 6 to the dummies’ guide to making excuses for your nasty friends: editing wikipedia to try and cover-up about their horrible neo-nazi pasts, whilst painting your former MEPs’ as extremist Europhiles!
Oh, and David Mitchell remains one of the best political commentators in the nation.
October 16, 2009
Truth in Politics
In an elliptical sort of way, this blog periodically touches on the question of truth in politics. Well it’s my birthday today, and i’m going away so won’t be blogging for a few days. Given those two things, I thought it would be fitting for me to let everyone in on a little secret i’ve been keeping under my hat. For as it turns out, the question of truth in politics – nay, in Civilization – has long been settled. Here is French “Utopian Socialist” Charles Fourier on the hieroglyph of truth: the Giraffe…
“I shall not say much about the peacock here, since this hieroglyph is difficult to interpret without knowing the laws of Social Movement. Let us turn instead to a figure which is easier to understand, that of truth and its effects in Civilisation. Let us examine whether God has faithfully depicted the sad fate of truth in our social state.
The hieroglyph of truth in the animal kingdom is the giraffe. Since the characteristic of truth is to surmount error, the animal that represents it must be able to raise his head higher than all the others: this the giraffe can do, as it browses on branches 18 feet above the ground. It is, in the words of one ancient author, a most fine animal, gentle and agreeable to the eye. Truth is also most fine, but as it is incapable of harmonising with our customs, its hieroglyph, the giraffe, must be incapable of helping humans in their work; thus God has reduced it to insignificance by giving it an irregular gait which shakes up and damages any burden it might be called upon to bear.
As a result we prefer to leave it to inaction, just as nobody will employ a truthful man, whose character runs counter to all accepted customs and desires. Truth is only beautiful in our society when it is inactive, and the giraffe, by analogy, is only admirable when it is at rest: when it walks or runs it provokes jeers, as truth provokes jeers when it takes a practical form. If a man were to go to a party in high society and speak out openly and truthfully about the escapades of the fine ladies there, or about the shady dealings of the businessmen or other men in the salon, there would be an outburst of indignation, and all present would agree in remaining silent about it and reviling the speaker. Matters are much worse in politics, where truth has even less play: thus, to represent the way truth is repressed, God has cut the giraffe’s horns down to their roots, so that they are no more than sprouts, permanently unable to branch up into antlers; God’s chisel has cut them off at their base, in the same way as, in our society, the chisel of authority and public opinion has cut down truth to its mere emergence, forbidding it to develop further. Yet even the most deceitful among us still want to seem truthful, and although we are enemies of truth, we want to deck ourselves out in its dress: by analogy, the only thing we want from the giraffe is its dress, its skin, which is extremely beautiful; so when we catch one we treat it rather as we treat truth. We say to it, Poor beast, you are good for nothing but to remain in the desert, far form the society of man; we may admire you for a little while, but in the end we must kill you and keep only your skin, just as we stifle truth and keep only its outward appearance.
From this explanation we can see that God has created nothing without a purpose, even the giraffe which is supremely useless, but as God was obliged to represent all aspects of our passions, he had to use this animal to depict the complete uselessness of truth in Civilisation. If you wish to know what purposes truth will serve in societies other than Civilisation, study this problem in the counter-giraffe, which we call the reindeer, an animal which provides us with every service imaginable: you will see that God has excluded it from these social climates, from which truth will also be excluded for as long as Civilisation lasts.
And when the societary order has enabled us to become adept at the use of truth and the virtues which are excluded from our lives at present, a new creation will provide us, in the anti-giraffe, with a great and magnificent servant whose qualities will far surpass the good qualities of the reindeer, which so excites our envy and arouses our anger at nature for having deprived us of it.”
- Theory of the Four Movements
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Normal service to resume whenever it does.
Who will reform the PCC?
A parable, which my esteemed readers may wish to consult after viewing this televisual feature.
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Once upon a time there was a chicken, who wanted to reform the Press Complaints Commission. Being an intelligent sort of chicken, Mrs Chicken (for it was she) wanted to reform the PCC for some very good reasons. For a start, she could see that watchdogs without teeth are not particularly useful. Especially when the Watchdogs are the editors of the newspapers they are supposed to be watching (or perhaps, in some cases, dogging). For example Mr Paul Dacre of the, er, Daily Mail. She could also see that it was quite obvious that something was going very wrong at PCC HQ: how else to explain a watchdog that rejects over 90% of complaints on technical grounds, before even assessing the content of the complaint?
Mrs Chicken was also aware that something must be wrong with the PCC due to the fact that it lacked any power to actually hold media organisations to account. She shook her head in sorrow when a journalist was secretly filmed laughing about how newspapers could print whatever they wanted, and that if the PCC objected, the paper simply got a “slap on the wrist”, and had to print nothing more than a tiny apology buried in the back pages.
But most of all, Mrs Chicken realised that a media which is able to lie and distort and smear and attack without compunction or restraint is very bad for the health of the democratic society which relies upon an active free press for its continued valued existence. She took very seriously Joseph Pulitzer’s remark that: “A cynical, mercenary, demagogic, corrupt press will produce in time a people as base as itself”.
So Mrs Chicken decided to try and do something about it. First, she went to visit Angry Gordon.
“Angry Gordon”, said Mrs Chicken, “will you help me reform the PCC?”
Angry Gordon shuffled awkwardly and looked at the ground. “Och” he mumbled, smiling in a bizarre, slightly inhuman fashion, “Ah’d love te help ye, but ‘am afrhaid a cannae.”
“But why ever not?” queried Mrs Chicken, “after all, Nasty Rupert has already promised to make the idiots vote for Dave Snooty, so that one is lost. If you’re not prepared to take him on directly, then why not at least impose some sort of meaningful regulation on the industry he, Paul Dacre, Richard Desmond and rest pollute so badly? Surely there’s nothing to lose now?”
But Angry Gordon just looked away and mumbled something about the City, CEOs, and a word that Mrs Chicken didn’t quite hear, but sounded worryingly like “Horatio”. It was then that Mrs Chicken realised with great sadness that Angry Gordon was a truly lost cause. So many years had he and his friends spent fawning at the feet of the media moguls that they could not even see the golden opportunity before them, that might never come again.
Mrs Chicken cried a little tear.
Not one to give up easily, however, Mrs Chicken next went to visit Dave Snooty. It took her a while to track him down – he’d said to visit him at home, but he’d forgotten which one – but eventually she found him. Yet Mrs Chicken was rather shocked when, upon being shown into Snooty Mansion, she found Dave – with his friends Boris and Boy George – destroying what looked for all the world like an imitation restaurant. Furthermore, they were all dressed in bow-tie and tails, which seemed rather inappropriate attire for demolition work. However, Dave Snooty quickly explained:
“Never fear, Mrs Chicken! We are simply re-living the jolly good old days! We have to do this sort of thing in private now, i’m sorry to say. What’s the world coming to old girl, eh? Be with you in a jiffy!”
Mrs Chicken watched as Dave Snooty and Pals smashed everything to pieces, before throwing £50 notes at distressed looking man.
“Don’t worry, Mrs Chicken!” laughed Dave, “he’s just an actor. Sadly, you can’t get the real thing any more because apparently the oiks don’t like it. Anyway, what can I do for you?”
Recovering her composure somewhat, Mrs Chicken replied: “I’d like you to reform the PCC.”
Dave Snooty cast a glance at Boris and Boy George, and slowly all three began to titter, hands-over mouths, as though somebody had said a dirty word.
“Oh really Mrs Chicken”, Dave Snooty snickered, “you can’t honestly be serious!?”
“Well, yes” replied Mrs Chicken, “a healthy and functioning free press is one that can be held accountable for lies, smears and untruth. Self-regulation doesn’t work – just as it didn’t for the banks and MPs. And you’re in favour of regulating those, aren’t you?”
At this point all three burst into uncontrollable laughter. “Wait till we tell Andy C about this one!” roared Dave Snooty. “Oh yes, yes!” chimed in Boy George with his usual sycophancy, “but we better not let him know by mobile telephone – you never know who else might be joining in! Ha ha ha!”
Mrs Chicken looked to Boris in desperation – nice, dependable, friendly Boris, who was only sacked from journalism for making up quotes once, and who vanquished Wicked Ken of the Newts in defence of the people. Boris looked back, swivel-eyed, hesitated for a moment, then convulsed into a mirth-filled roar of “rah rah rah, well blimey, er, rah rah rah” which continued for several incoherent minutes.
Forlorn, Mrs Chicken left to the sound of uncontrolled hysteria. What was she to do?
Trudging back to her apartment that night, dejected and feeling defeated, Mrs Chicken pleaded into the darkness, “will nobody help me reform the PCC?!” – and to her surprise came a reply: “I will!”
Slowly there began to emerge from the shadows a man Mrs Chicken thought she’d seen before. She couldn’t believe her eyes. No, it couldn’t be! But, yes, perhaps it was…Dave Snooty! He’d come to meet her in clandestine manner, away from the evil eyes of his Nasty Party! Oh, what happiness, what rejoicing! She’d always known that deep down he meant what he said about change and progress and fluff and kittens and stuff!
But then Mrs Chicken realised her tragic mistake, and was crestfallen once more. “Oh”, she sighed, “it’s you, Feeble Nick.”
“Hurrah! Tis I, Feeble Nick!” came forth a thunderous reply.
“Yes”, observed Mrs Chicken, “with your hair that way I thought you were Dave Snooty. Oh well, what do you want?”
“I am the leader of the True Progressives; the Party on the cusp of Britain’s glorious Liberal Moment! Tis I who shall help you reform the PCC!”
But it had been a long day, and Mrs Chicken was tired. “Thank you, Feeble Nick”, she yawned, “but I’m really looking for somebody with a serious chance of helping me achieve these reforms. I appreciate your kindness, but we both know you’re not the man for the job”.
Feeble Nick hesitated for a moment, nodded in sad agreement, and wrapped his orange cloak around his shoulders before shuffling off back into the long night.
That evening, the Daily Mail, The Sun and the Daily Express received wind of Mrs Chicken’s attempts to reform the PCC. Though she had already come to failure, they decided not to let that stop them having their fun. So they launched a vicious smear campaign alleging that Mrs Chicken was an Al Qaeda agent planning to blow up Alan Sugar, and paid various cockerels (none of whom she had ever met, of course) to allege a range of sexual slurs. Mrs Chicken decided to sue for libel – but then discovered that in the UK there is no legal aid for libel, and so justice is reserved only for the wealthy. Like newspapers. And the editors who sit on the PCC.
Due to the stress and personal angst that ensued from being publicly vilified and unable to clear her name, Mrs Chicken committed suicide.
A few months later, Dave Snooty became Prime Minister.
Nobody lived happily ever after.
The End.
October 14, 2009
One Easy Reform
Yesterday I wrote a post complaining that the Legg proposals on MPs’ expenses leave a lot to be desired. Implicit in that was the suggestion that there must be better ways to both reform – and be seen to reform – Westminster.
So here’s one easy suggestion: abandon, or at the very least reform, the absolute farce of Prime Minister’s Question Time.
There are standard and well rehearsed grounds for doing this already: PMQs is a joke because the PM is already incredibly well-briefed and so is rarely (if ever) actually held to account or scrutinised; most of the time for questions is taken up by sycophants, or backbenchers plugging stupid questions in hope of some local media coverage; and the whole ridiculous ritual is just an excuse for Punch and Judy soundbite politics of the worst sort.
Indeed, it’s that last point I want to chase-up. Check out Wednesday’s PMQ’s on BBC iplayer (skip to 15.40) and watch what happens as Nick Clegg gets up to speak.
The booing and heckling is in response to his calls (silly and populist as they may be) for the Legg proposals to go even further.
Yet it’s precisely this sort of outmoded, idiotic, school-boy like, boorish behaviour which helps turn people right off politics. Those of us who are already political nerds tend to forget, but for the average person who is relatively non-political, the spectacle of fully grown adults shouting and finger-jabbing and booing other people as they try to speak appears childish, unpleasant and pointless. It feeds into all the stereotypes about politicians being idiots, and encourages people to ignore them.
And frankly, I can sympathise.
Want to reform Westminster? Start by either getting rid of this stupid, pointless weekly ritual, or impose some sort of meaningful and enforceable rules ensuring that when MPs get up to speak, they are met with a dignified and respectful silence, not the hoots and heckles of a pack wild of beasts.
October 13, 2009
Moving the Goal Posts
I’m not going to defend individual MPs incriminated in the expenses scandal. What those MPs did was totally wrong (though let’s also be fair and remember that most MPs did in fact stay within both the spirit and letter of the rules).
Yet I am deeply uncomfortable with the imposition of retrospective rule-changes resulting in thousands of pounds being demanded from individual MPs. Here’s some reasons why I feel uncomfortable:
1. Morally, there looks to be something very fishy about saying “oh, those were the rules, but we’ve changed them now, and there’s nothing you can do about it – now please give us lots of money”. As Anne Widdecombe [I can't believe I'm going to quote her approvingly, what is the world coming to?] put it on the BBC today, if a private employer turned around to their employees and said “OK, you stayed within the rules as they were originally set and the expenses departement approved your claims, but now we’ve changed the rules and you have to pay back what you claimed”, then that employer would be up in front of an employment tribunal. And that employer would lose. I don’t really see why it’s any different for MPs, to be honest and with an eye to ethical consistency.
2. There looks like some further – pretty unsustainable – inconsistency here. From what I can tell, Jacqui Smith claimed c. £110,000 in expenses by breaking the rules. Yet she’s not being asked to pay it back. Why? The only reason I can think of is that the new regime has concluded that this is too much to ask one person to repay. Instead, they are demanding that those who made smaller claims, but which were within the rules, pay money back. This looks inconsistent, and arbitrary. And indefensible, frankly.
3. Which makes me think this is more about gesture politics than anything else. It was decided that a big show of “cleaning up Westminster” needed to be made, and this is how it’s now going to be achieved: hitting MPs where it hurts, in a very public way. But because of the 1. and 2. above, it looks more like empty gesturing designed to pander to an angry electorate, rather than simply delivering the substantial reform which is actually needed. Which is a problem because…
4. It puts MPs and Party Leaders in a pretty impossible situation. Cameron has already said that any Tory MP refusing to repay expenses will have the whip withdrawn. Brown has said he will consider doing the same for Labour. The leaders have to do this, because there is no room for complaint: if they try and point out that it’s pretty fishy to retrospectively move the goal posts in order to facilitate gesture politics, they will be instantly pilloried. This means nobody can complain that this sort of retributive justice may not be the right way to do things if we’re serious about cleaning up Westminster. Furthermore – and importantly – this means that a basic tenet of delivering justice – the right to appeal – is de facto being denied (because of the enormous personal cost of so-appealing, in the present climate). And that bothers me.
5. What bothers me even more is that, already, it looks like the re-payments are going to hit Labour MPs hardest. I’m certainly not going to deny that even post-tax, £64K a year is a very tidy sum. But even then, being hit for a bill of several thousand pounds is pretty severe. Especially if you don’t have any other source of income, except for your salary. Of course, we know which side of the House MPs who tend to already have pots of wealth or lucrative second jobs sit on, don’t we?
Indeed, already it’s been Labour MPs who’ve been muttering about refusing to pay-back claims that were within the rules when the rules were made. This farrago has the potential to mess with Labour a lot more than the Tories (the fact that Brown has already been hauled out for a stoning only adds to this). And that bothers me, because it will be a result not of Labour having been worse expenses cheats (I think both parties were fairly equal in doing wrong, and why not check out Boy George’s dodgy – and so far, largely ignored – affairs whilst we are here) but of the playing field being uneven between them and the Conservatives. And that in itself bugs me, as well as the obvious fact I am partisan and loathe to see anything help the Tories.
To summarise: retrospective rule-changing in the case of MPs’ expenses looks morally fishy, is apparently inconsistent (both vis-a-vis rule breakers and the valid private sector comparison), is arbitrary, smacks of shallow gesture politics, makes legitimate complaint or appeal pretty much impossible from those affected, and is likely to unfairly hit one party more than the other because of general differences in abilities to pay, not because of any especially greater tendency towards wrong-doing.
Congratulations, Mr Legg, it looks like you just put together one hell of a dodgy package. But don’t mind me, I’m just a blogger and part-time philosopher who thinks about these things too much. Justice will be seen to be done, and that’s all that really matters.
Right?
October 12, 2009
How to make excuses for your nasty friends
So, you’ve gone and formed a new grouping in the European Parliament, forsaking your moderate allies in a desperate attempt to stop haemorrhaging votes to frothing right-wing lunatics in the Home Counties (led by a nonsense-spouting twit).
But there’s a catch! Your new alliance is full of frothing far-right loons, and if this becomes a point of mainstream discussion, people might stop moaning about the guy your grassroots keep smearing as “mental” and start to wonder if they really want you in power after all.
But never fear! There are 5 easy steps that your party can take to make this all go away! Do it right and you’ll be laughing all the way into Downing Street…
1 – Whataboutery: This one is easy. Anyone can do it (but it’s best for derailing threads on enemy blogs). If someone points out that it’s shameful to be in alliance with anti-Semites and homophobes, then you shout “yeah, but whatabout that thing what [insert opposition party here] did!?” Seems crass? Dishonest? Hypocritical (because when Damien McBride got caught, you said there should be no whataboutery)? Who cares!
2 – Gag and Boot: Reserved for Party leadership, the Gag and Boot is exactly what it says: try and gag your errant MEPs, and if they continue to point out what you are doing is wrong, boot them out. (Note: Has potential to back-fire if target starts writing in the Guardian).
3 – Misrepresent the nature of your new alliance: If steps 1 and 2 aren’t working, don’t worry! Here’s a little secret: politics is complicated, and people are forgetful. If somebody starts asking why you’re affiliated with a rump of extremists, just speak solemnly about how “it was necessary to leave the main grouping because of our opposition to the evil Lisbon Treaty”.
Don’t worry, people won’t notice that the leader of your little group actually supports the Lisbon Treaty – that’s complicated stuff, the plebs won’t notice! Try also: “hey, there are crazies in all the EU Parliament groupings!”, shrugging sheepishly with a whatcha-gonna-do grin. People will forget that you created this particular alliance of 55 MEPs (after leaving an alliance of 265) which can only continue to exist thanks to the homophobic, anti-Semitic, Nazi-apologists that you invited.
4 – Misrepresent the activities of your new allies: Very similar to 3. For example, if somebody points out that some of your Latvian friends are in favour of celebrating the Waffen SS, just claim that they are “commemorating their war dead”. Those who pay attention will notice that, actually, there’s a world of difference between commemorating war dead and wanting to rehabilitate fascism in the face of an official ban by the Riga authorities.
They may also notice that although the Latvian SS divisions in question formed a year after the last massacre of Jews in Latvia, the SS in fact started recruiting in Latvia in 1941, and that many of those recruited were instrumental in the murder of 80,000 Latvian Jews. But don’t worry, look how many words that took – and it required reference to boring history and complicated stuff like chronology! No, just ignore it, and keep repeating your line. Nobody will notice.
5 – Play the Man of Honour card: In your supposedly-neutral politics magazine, interview the leading – and potentially most-embarrassing – frothing extremist from your new alliance. Conclude that he is, in fact, not a homophobe at all, but a really nice bloke. Accuse others of nasty smears. Play the Damian McBride card again – that always helps.
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Originally posted at Liberal Conspiracy.
When Borris Met Dave?
OK, I know i’m late on this one. But I’m super-busy, and am wandering around half-blind and not allowed to wear contact lenses because apparently I have a “potentially serious eye infection”, or something. Anyway…
Last night I watched a repeat of Channel 4′s When Borris Met Dave, which was supposed to be an expose of Borris Johnson and David Cameron’s time in the Bullingdon Club at Oxford.
It was pretty boring, and it massively wimped-out with regards to Cameron.
While Johnson was portrayed as a pretty nasty and arrogant sort of creep, Cameron was presented as suave, nice, and (somewhat paradoxically) both uninterested in politics and yet playing an extremely intelligent long-run political game. This is generous, to say the least: much more likely was that Cameron had zero interest in politics outside of his degree, and that was the start and end of it. No “finely tuned political antennae”, or any such nonsense.
However, what really annoyed me about the entire programme was the way Cameron was portrayed as somehow being a sort of “accidental” Bullingdon member, who didn’t really know or get along with the rest and always left before the trouble began.
Pull the other one, i’m dying of laughter. The Bullingdon is an extremely exclusive little affair. Not only do you have to be absolutely loaded to be “elected” and then to afford the uniform, you have to know and move in the right circles. And those circles are very, very exclusive. The kind of people who end up in the Bullingdon don’t do so by accident, playing air-guitar to the Smiths in the daytime, reluctantly tagging along with the Buller in the evening, desperately and conscientiously leaving before the smashing begins.
No, my guess is that Cameron was much closer to the Buller than Channel 4 wanted to portray. So what’s their game? The programme looked deliberately political to me: C4 has a major funding crisis, and quite possibly its only chance of survival is a slice of the BBC license fee being thrown its way. When Borris Met Dave may thus have been a very deliberate attempt to paint Borris black and Dave white, in anticipation of a Cameron administration that could keep C4 afloat.
Which is a shame, for reasons going beyond the cynicism and political sycophancy of long-game cronyism.
Dave Osler recently wrote at Liberal Conspiracy that anti-Tory campaigners should not bring up the issue of the Bullingdon, as it blows all the wrong class dogwhistles and is likely to backfire. Dave’s example was the Crewe and Nantwhich bye-election, when Labour paid somebody to follow the Tory candidate around in a top-hat and tails, implying that he was a “Tory Toff” that northern working class voters should reject. In Crewe, that strategy failed for pretty much the reasons Dave Osler lays out: it was insulting and transparent.
The Bullingdon club is a whole different ball game. You don’t need to be a greyhound-and-flat-cap working class hero from the mills of Lancashire to feel put-out by the Buller. You just need to be in the bottom 99% of the population in terms of income and class.
And of course, it doesn’t end there. This is not just about rich boys running around in silly uniforms, excluding girls, the poor and the state-educated from their silk-lined tree houses. It’s worth recalling the activities that the Bullingdon Club defines itself around.
Booking seats at a restaurant, arriving blind drunk, getting more drunk, and then fighting each other – yes, punching and kicking each other – whilst trashing the place, is a top favourite. After all the other guests have been driven away, and the place wrecked, the Buller wave cash in the face of the proprietor to avoid having the police get – or stay – involved. [This particular practice is very well document].
Anecdotally, I’ve been told that the Buller also enjoy destroying things that belong to other people more generally. This could be random windows, a-la-Borris’ plantpot. Or it could be, say, a group of musicians who think they are turning up for a normal matinee performance, and when they get under way the Bullingdon spring to action and smash all their instruments. Again, the remedy is to use money to shut them up. [Stress: this is an anecdotal example I've been told about. I believe it. It may not, however, be true].
And that’s the real core of what is wrong with the Bullingdon. It’s not just that they dress up in expensive clothes and represent what ought to be a bye-gone era in which money and class birth indicate an automatic right to wealth and power. It’s that they not only have wealth and power, but delight in using it to domineer over those lower down the social scale than themselves. That’s what waving the cash in their victims’ faces is all about: the naked demonstration of the power that money brings; the power that they have abundantly more of than their victims.
That’s why the Bullingdon – and Cameron and Johnson’s membership of it – should be a very live political issue. It says a lot about where these Top Tories have come from, and the sorts of people they once were, and maybe still are. At present, the common perception of the Bullingdon in most people’s minds is simply of a bunch of toffs dressed like old-fashioned prats. But it’s a lot more than that. And if people realised what Bullingdon membership really entailed, Cameron and Co. could suffer tremendously.
Don’t believe me? Why else do you think that Tory HQ copyrighted the infamous photo of Johnson and Cameron in full uniform, and now it can’t be reprinted anywhere? Except, interestingly, that it was broadcast by C4 . How intriguing that CCHQ allowed this to happen. Conspiracy theorist? Moi?
