The IDS resignation, the EU referendum, and Cameron: a Conservative crisis of Cameron's making

A week is a long time in politics; a year a lifetime.

Last May the Tories unexpectedly won the general election. After proving all the polls wrong, it left Cameron and Osborne with a definitive mandate to continue their plan of austerity and "reform". Unencumbered by being in a coalition with the LibDems, Cameron's government were free to pursue their aims.
Cameron came to government with a clear agenda to completely restructure how government is done, and also how government is perceived by the public. It was this "agenda" that was so catagorically trashed by Iain Duncan Smith when he resigned.

The roots of the IDS resignation go deep, back to the time when he was Conservative leader, and Cameron and Osborne were advising him on his speeches. The resignation spoke of wounded pride and bitterness at the way the "power duo" were running the government as an exclusive and divisive clique.
Cameron and Osborne had been the "rising stars" of the party in the years after the 2001 election, culminating in Cameron's successful bid to become leader after the failure of the election of 2005. From this point onward, it was Cameron and Osborne, with their neatly dovetailing personalities, that dominated the party's direction. This dominance has been self-evident ever since - up to now.

The spring budget can be called the high-point of the dominance of the "power duo": self-evident from the congratulatory response from Cameron and his intimates at the end of Osborne's budget speech to the look of smug satisfaction on Osborne's face at the end of it.

It was in the hours after this that things quickly began to unravel.









The manner of the IDS resignation was certainly the most high-profile and damning incident of its kind that has been seen since the resignation of Geoffrey Howe more than twenty-five years ago. It is also the first time in more than a generation that a minister has resigned over the budget.

As IDS alluded to, this has been a long time coming, but also has been orchestrated for maximum effect. To Cameron and Osborne, it is clear that politics is something of a "game" to them; Cameron is the superficially-charming, ideology-free careerist, while Osborne is the charisma-free, deviously-smart schemer. This is how their talents have dovetailed so fortuitously for them; equally, it is this opportunistic "dovetailing" of their talents that has ultimately brought about the divine vengeance of IDS.

However sceptically you may view IDS motivations, he has said that the entered politics to make a genuine difference. And as he said in interview, he views Cameron and Osborne's agenda as little more than amoral and divisive politicking, seeking success through a policy of "divide and rule" among the electorate. The "power duo" appear to care little about the disadvantaged because they do not vote Tory; this is what makes it so easy to scapegoat them as "skivers". Equally, this is also what makes it so easy for them to ignore - and even attack - the younger generation in order to indulge the "grey vote": a cynical manipulation (at the expense of the government's actual fortunes) to curry favour with those who are more likely to vote. Last year, this strategy worked to a tee.

In fact, it worked too well. For by cynically destroying their coalition partners the LibDems, it left the Conservatives with an absolute majority - and a headache to actually put their manifesto pledges into practice. As has been alluded to, it was always clear that the Tories were expecting for (at best) a resumption of the coalition, allowing them to dump some of their more fantastical fiscal ideas for the sake of compromise. As this didn't happen, it left Osborne with a lot of "creative accounting", which finally caught up with him in this month's budget. This time, it was "Omnishambles 2: the sequel". And this time, it was personal.

The Conservative Party itself is a coalition of two main flanks, and has been since at least Thatcher's time. Roughly divided between the pro-European "moderates" and Euro-sceptic (for wont of a better word) "hardliners", IDS belonged in the latter camp. The loss of the 2005 election saw "Camborne" rise to the leadership, with their own, 21st century brand of a moderate, "One Nation" Conservativism. They saw that it was the dominance of the Euro-sceptic "head-bangers" who were destroying the Tories' chances of winning power.
With the 2010 election, the chance to form a coalition with the LibDems was therefore a opportunity too good to miss: it would allow Cameron and Osborne a legitimate reason to sideline the Tory right, by making their positioning as a "middle ground" between the centrism of the LibDems and the hard-right "head-bangers" in their own party.

This was clever positioning, but all too clever by half. This was not "conviction politics", but mere "product placement", as IDS clearly saw. At the same time, his department, and his own ideas of welfare reform (whatever your view on them), became a victim to the superficial whims of Osborne in particular. Osborne and Cameron were in favour of austerity, but only really as a trap for Labour and a tool for re-election, rather than a genuine fiscal crusade. This is why austerity in the UK - as awful as it has been for those on the receiving end - is still a drop in the ocean compared to the experience of Ireland or Greece. For those that complained about the highly-unequal application of the policy on government departments, Osborne could either blame their LibDem coalition partners or the need to be firm on austerity, depending on who he was talking to.

Then there was the issue of Europe, which is in fact the true cause of Cameron's hubris and miscalculation in particular. While Europe was not the given reason for IDS' resignation, he also knew - as an arch Euro-sceptic - that he would face the chop in a post-referendum re-shuffle. So he had nothing to lose by resigning now, and it would almost certainly benefit the fortunes of his allies in the Euro-sceptic camp.
The fact that the UK is to have a referendum at all is simply due to the whim - and opportunism - of David Cameron. This in itself tells us everything about the Prime Minister's personality.

In truth, the referendum was talked about at a moment of Cameron's weakness, with the rising spectre of UKIP, from the middle of the last parliament onwards. His pledge to a referendum in the next parliament was therefore a sop to the hard-right of his party, as a tactic to neutralise the threat from UKIP. This is what European leaders find so incredible: that David Cameron would risk the UK's membership of the EU simply as a measure of controlling his party's internal divisions. It is certainly a sign of David Cameron's sense of perspective, or astonishing lack of it.

In this sense, the LibDems in coalition acted as a political buffer or shock absorber to "Camborne" for the internal divisions of the Conservative Party, especially over Europe. Winning the election last year was, in some ways, a disaster for the "power duo", for it left them completely exposed to the right of the party. And by opening up the issue of Europe in as raw a manner as the referendum has, it guaranteed that Tory divisions would come boiling to the surface sooner or later.
Again, Cameron and Osborne's high-handed and autocratic manner of dealing with the referendum has added further evidence of their dismissive and disdainful attitude towards "outsiders". The budget and its immediate fallout were simply a manifestation of all these animosities that have been brooding amongst that wing of the party since the Conservatives gained power in 2010. IDS simply articulated in words the source of those animosities in his resignation. The uproar now among the local party over the planned enforced conversion of all schools to academies (which wasn't even in the party's manifesto last year) is simply another example of how remote from the party the "power duo" have now become.

After the fallout from the budget fiasco and the IDS resignation, many in the party are looking at the time after the referendum, without Osborne and Cameron running the government - and the party - like their own private fiefdom. It's not difficult to imagine this scenario; in fact, it appears more and more likely that Cameron and Osborne will be forced out soon afterwards because they no longer represent the party itself, but simply see the party as a vehicle for their own cack-handed schemes.
In this sense, the referendum may well prove to be Cameron hoisting himself by his own petard. That Cameron did not see this as a real possibility - or was reckless enough to think it worth the risk - is deeply telling.
In trying to out-do Thatcher on Europe, Cameron may well end up out-doing the failure that was John Major. It would be fitting if Cameron were indeed brought down by Europe, for it would symbolise everything about the man: the ego; the superficiality; the hubris.

And then, the UK might have Boris Johnson to look forward to as his successor: replacing one superficial careerist for another...

Fascism, marketing and the "confidence trick": why Iain Duncan Smith says "I believe I am right"

I wrote last week about the link between marketing and Fascism, and how these links have been modified to adapt to an age of almost limitless technology. The language of marketing is used to encourage people to give up masses of personal information to their governments, via online companies like "Facebook", who willingly co-operate with the surveillance state.

This is an example of how Fascism operates in the 21st century: where surrendering privacy is transformed by marketing language into an "opportunity" for the individual, rather than a (very real) threat. Mussolini's Fascist state was contemporaneous with the rise of "marketing" as an institution in the West; to an extent, this was then extended after the Second World War in post-war USA, as consumerism was equated with patriotism and helping to preserve the "American way of life"; technological advances in the late '90s and early 21st century have enabled the kind of mass surveillance, with the consent of the individual, that was impossible before.

Politics has always had a difficult relationship with facts, and all politicians are guilty of manipulating the facts for their own purposes, at one time or another. However, the rise of propaganda in politics and the manipulation of language for political purposes occurred in tandem with the rise of marketing as a "science". The manipulation of facts and language for the purpose of propaganda became almost a science, with a philosophy in its own right; although began by Mussolini, Hitler's Nazi regime, under the guidance of Joseph Goebbels, were the real pioneers in manipulating language for political purposes in the modern era.

Using one example, the word "fanatical" became manipulated in meaning in the early days of the Nazi regime; from its previous (widely-understood) negative meaning, "fanatical" was transformed into a positive attribute - Hermann Goering, was described as a "fanatical" animal lover, for example. The Nazi regime talked of "fanatical" beliefs as being a positive asset, rather than a sign of ideological extremism. Al-Qaeda would surely recognise and agree with such a sentiment today, and Political Islam in general shares much of this ideological thinking. In other words, the strength of your beliefs is is manipulated into being more important that the realism of your ideas - this is in the crux of Fascist psychology.

"I believe I am right"

Bringing this up-to-date, the manipulation of language and a disregarding of "facts" is seen in Conservative politicians in the UK Coalition government.
The five most dangerous words that can come out of a politician's mouth are "I believe I am right"; words spoken recently by government minister, Iain Duncan Smith. His portfolio is "Work and Pensions", which includes government policy towards distribution of government benefits for the needy. In spite of him being told by official statistic agency, the ONS, that he is abusing statistics in an dishonest way for political purposes, and that his ideas were essentially lies, his response was "I believe I am right". In other words, faced with the facts, he was able to simply ignore the truth and state that he was no longer bound to reality, and that reality is what he said it was. Such behaviour would easily be found within the Nazi regime.
These five words are so terrifying because it means that a politician can make his own reality, unbound by rules. Hitler also believed what he was doing was "right"; Osama Bin Laden also believed what he was doing was "right". It is the signature of an authoritarian, and a Fascist who uses the language of morality to equate himself with God.

Austerity in the UK and Europe is also explained using the language of marketing and Fascism. Hitler said that if you repeat the lie long enough, people will believe it. Psychologically, the bigger the lie is, the more difficult it is to dispel, because the reality of a "big lie" becomes so horrifying for people that it is much easier not to think about it.
So there is a reason why Cameron says "There is no alternative!". If you repeat this enough times, people will believe it: it is a marketing strategy of carpet-bombing a product's slogan. Also, it gives people an easy answer to having to think of another economic strategy (such as the successful growth-led strategy of the Obama administration, or a long-term production-led strategy of Germany's government).

George Osborne does the same, as combined economic government strategist, and electoral strategist for the Conservative Party. The language he uses is even more nakedly divisive and compelling: that of "strivers versus skivers", implying (without any facts to support it, of course), that the economy's ails are a result of the government giving too much money to the "undeserving" poor. The massive bank bail-out (that effectively created the new concept of "Corporate Socialism") is not mentioned. Neither is it mentioned that by far the largest amount of public spending goes on pensions, rather than benefits on the "undeserving" poor; but the government doesn't want to declare war on the elderly - the defenceless poor are a much easier scapegoat. But scapegoating is a very well-worn Fascist strategy as well.

Confidence is the key to holding power. If a politician appears confident in his beliefs, then regardless of the facts, he has the ability to hoodwink the electorate very convincingly. George Osborne's confidence in the growth of the British economy goes against all the facts, when you compare it to other countries' experiences. But the government has been able to ignore sensible comparison.

David Cameron may be the most incompetent premier that Britain was seen for years, but the fact that he exudes self-confidence, makes people have confidence that he knows what he is doing.

This is why the opposition seem to have an incoherent strategy compared to the Conservatives; it's difficult to be coherent when you're fighting against a self-confident opponent that doesn't follow any rules.

Cait Reilly versus IDS: why "Workfare" doesn't work

"Workfare" is a system encouraged by Ian Duncan Smith to help the unemployed gain work experience, in order to gain skills that will give them a better chance of getting a job, and at no extra cost to the government or the employer. That's the official explanation, in any case.
IDS believes that it is justifiable that unemployed people work for their benefits as it will help them maintain a more pro-active mindset, as well as keeping them familiar with the working environment.

Internships are a popular form of casual employment in various industries in London, particularly in media, law, fashion and the arts, where employers offer work as an opportunity to a longer-term career prospect of paid employment. The employer typically pays for travel costs.

Indentured Slavery was a system popular in the Southern states of the USA in the 19th century that helped Africans gain long-term work experience in the cotton industry. The initial travel expenses were paid up-front by the employer, and the employer paid the daily expenses for the duration of the African's work experience.

Spot the difference? It's just a matter of presentation and perspective.

The case of Cait Reilly has provoked reactions from opposite ends, as she has succeeded in highlighting the moral bankruptcy at the heart of IDS's approach to generating employment.

Regardless of your opinion of the "Workfare" scheme in general, the first question should be if it is actually effective at helping the unemployed find work. The statistics published so far have shown that people who have taken part in the scheme have been less likely to get a job afterwards than those who didn't. Somehow, the scheme is not just ineffective at it's supposed primary purpose - it is actually detrimental to it.

How this is possible, or is this just some kind of statistical anomaly? Right now, that seems unclear, and it is just possible that the statistics are just a freakish one-off. So on that point right now, it seems fair to reserve judgement. The kindest thing to say about the effectiveness of "Workfare", is that it is not yet proven its worth.

However, what does seem fair to judge is the economic sense, as well as the social destruction, being done to the country by the concept of the "Workfare" scheme. Some commentators, even supposedly from the left, have defended the scheme as supporting work experience, and criticised out-of-work graduates for feeling they are too good to work in a place like "Poundland", as IDS himself implied.
This misses the point, though the point they raise does deserve an answer, which I'll get to later. The real problem with this scheme is not that the work itself is considered lowly. The real problem is that the government are giving the private sector free temporary workers that they would otherwise have to give real jobs to.

I wrote an article some months back explaining how the economics of fascism created an economy where the public sector is there to support the inefficiencies of favoured interests in the private sector, at the expense of employees' (especially unions') rights. In other words, government ministers think it is their job to economically support large private companies from failure, but not individual taxpayers. In an economically-fascist state, the government are a cash-cow for the moneyed private sector industries.
The "Workfare" scheme perpetuates this kind of logic. Tendering-out government services to private companies is another economically-fascist policy, when this policy costs the government far more money than it would if they did it themselves. The government's financially eye-watering use of G4S in the Olympics (rather than just using the police or army to begin with) is a prime example. But the whole point here is that the Conservatives are either so blind in their certainty (or so reckless) that they fail to see the economic lunacy of such practices. Labour's use of PFI was another example of government being a "private sector cash-cow", paying for the costs in the event of failure, but letting the private sector take the profits. The economics of fascism are completely counter-productive to the government's financial health, because they always result in the government being taken for a ride by private sector interests; there the private sector has the best of both worlds (all the profits and no costs), and the government the worst of all worlds, paying for the private sector's failings and having no control over its own expenditure.
As a result, the economics of fascism always lead in inefficiency and incompetence in the private sector as well as the government, and to unsustainable government debt. It seems that fascists generally despise government because they think it doesn't work, so have devised an economic system that makes government fail by leeching the government's money to the private sector elite. In this way, fascism is literally a vampire towards the health of good government. Which is the situation we have now in the UK.

"Workfare" is in effect another form of government tendering to the private sector, where employers have the best of both worlds (employees at no cost to themselves, and can be easily replaced), and the government has the worst (it still pays out state benefits to the "Workfare" participant, but receives no taxes as the person is not on a taxable salary). This is why such a scheme makes no economic sense at all: it costs the government everything, and costs the private sector nothing.
This then has a detrimental knock-on effect to the job market overall. Every job for free that is taken up by the "Workfare" scheme is a potential opening for a real paid job, one that gives someone a salary and boosts government tax receipts (and whose salary feeds back into the economy generally). So the the government are also shooting themselves in the foot a second time. The scheme is therefore creating poverty and dependency in the long-term by potentially creating an entire sub-class of government-subsidized workers on the beck and call of whichever employer feels like getting something for nothing. There are already an increasing number of part-time and temporary staff at the lower end of the job market: this scheme is likely to make that situation even worse.

The final criticism is creating the precedent of unemployed people having to work to earn their government benefit, which in any case sounds like an ironic joke. This seems even slightly sadistic. If an unemployed person wishes to gain work experience, there are plenty of charities or volunteering jobs around, especially since government recently withdrew funding from many charitable organisations, and are crying out for help. This was the point that Cait Reilly made: she already had a voluntary job in the sector she was educated in.
Even so, why do the unemployed need to be forced to work for the benefits that they are entitled to through the taxes they have paid into the system? Since when has it become fashionable to assume that unemployed people don't have jobs because it's their fault, and therefore should be forced to work for practically nothing? This just feeds into the easy (lazy) thinking that being unemployed means you are bone-idle. Not only that, it implies that the government and IDS in particular somehow equate £60 a week with an employee's salary. It is not: JSA is a basic sum of money to pay for the bare essentials, nothing more. It may be true that there are some who are in work and who do not earn a great deal more than JSA per week, but that is the fault of the employer and the wider economy, not the fault of the unemployed. If wages are low compared to the cost of living, do something to raise the wages or lower the cost of living; do not punish those who don't even have a job in the first place.

Lastly, there is the point IDS mentioned about unemployed graduates feeling they are "too good" for menial jobs like in "Poundland". Whatever his views, the fact that there are not the relevant jobs in the sector they trained in, or that they gained a degree in a non-vocational subject, is due to a combination of government and private sector shortsightedness and poor strategic planning. Wanting half of young people to have a degree is a noble government aim, but pointless unless you expect to have thousands of highly-educated shelf-stackers. A similar criticism can be levelled at the private sector heavyweights who always demanded a degree (even regardless of the discipline) in order to get the most basic white-collar job.
There is more to education than university: vocational training has proven to be far more useful in the long-term to a young person's career; and proper advice about the true state of affairs in the workplace would be of far better use to a young person, so they can make an informed decision about if they should take the time to get a degree in the first place, or just make an earlier start on the career ladder.

But one thing is clear: "Workfare" doesn't work, in any real sense of the word.