In a recent article the author went into some detail about the biblical symbolism evident in the story of "Atlas Shrugged". It is ironic that Ayn Rand's seminal masterpiece - given that she was a profound atheist - is so full of Christian imagery. But her work on this great novel displays the contempt she had for the "conventional morality" of the day, when "Atlas Shrugged" was published in the 1950s, with the novel acting as a philosophical marker for a different form of morality, which she called Objectivism.
As argued in my previous article on this subject, Rand's morality tale bears some strong similarities to a retelling of the story of Satan's fall from heaven in the Old Testament - but crucially, with the moral perspective reversed. As Atlas Shrugged is about industrial "heroes" fleeing the constraints of government, a "revision" of the Fall From Heaven sees Satan and his followers lose their battle with God, and decide to flee to exist independently from God's power.
I said (in jest) that Rand could be said to be a kind of "Satanist"; but more accurately, she could be called a "Luciferian". Her philosophy of extolling independence, self-love, the pursuit of knowledge and rationalism comes very close to the ideas also shared by Luciferianism. Lucifer himself represents the symbolic "Fallen Angel".
Lucifer (Satan) is seen as the symbol of the pursuit of ultimate knowledge and personal growth. More exactly, this is the name given to Satan before "The Fall". Seemingly inspired by the pursuit of knowledge and self-advancement, he grows frustrated with God's arbitrary use of power, seeks more independence, and refuses to bow down to man, God's creation. And yet, after The Fall, in the guise of The Serpent, his temptation of Eve may better be seen as a method of trying to lift the veil from the first humans' eyes about God's intentions and deception (by eating from from the Tree Of The Knowledge Of Good and Evil the humans will be "like God"). What are Satan's motives here? By labeling Satan's motives as purely evil, this is something that Christian theology struggles to convincingly answer.
Rand's use of biblical symbolism in the novel is self-evident in some of phrasing she chooses: using words such as "hymns" to describe the ideas expressed by the heroic characters in Atlas Shrugged; the industrialists talking of themselves as "sacrificial victims"; and the pirate Ragnar Danneskjold describing himself as an "avenging angel". This is the morality of Christianity turned on its head.
The Anti-Pope
In the modern day, the current Pope, Francis, has been seen as a paragon of Christian virtue: going back to the "old values" of a "poor" church that focuses as much on social welfare as spiritual purity. Rand's philosophy stands for the exact opposite to this idea of altruism and self-sacrifice. Her morality is one based on people's value being based purely on the talents, not their "need". In her eyes, people are rich due to their own talents and efforts; likewise, people are poor for their lack of the same properties. This is not something for "society" or government to be concerned about; it is a matter of individual responsibility. In other words, "inequality" is the state of nature. Modern-day Conservatives talk of the same thing.
Pope Francis talks about ideas such as love for our fellow man; in "Atlas Shrugged", the government of the day uses the same language, while Rand twists this thinking into meaning the exact opposite: turning the rich into the victims, and the poor into looters. In Part Two, Chapter Seven of the novel, the pirate character, Ragnar Danneskjold, talks about how he is effectively a "Robin Hood" for the rich: taking back the money "stolen" from the rich by the government (on behalf of the poor) and returning it back to them. Rand also (through the character of Danneskjold) gives an astonishing attack on the "morality" of the legendary Robin Hood, damning his methods as the epitome of evil. As the pirate says:
"He is a man who became the symbol of the idea that need, not achievement, is the source of rights; that we don't have to produce, only to want, that the earned does not belong to us, but the unearned does. He became a justification for every mediocrity who, unable to make his own living, had demanded the power to dispose of the property of his betters, by proclaiming his willingness to devote his life to his inferiors at the price of robbing his superiors"
This gives a small example of the morality behind Rand, and her ability to make the counter-intuitive appear logical. To her mind, because Pope Francis wishes to "help the poor", he represents evil in human form.
Where does this leave ideas such as "love" or empathy? As said earlier, people like Pope Francis extol the idea of self-sacrifice and love for our fellow man. In Rand's morality, these ideas are anathema: "love" can only be earned. "Empathy" appears entirely absent from Rand's value system.
A "psychopathic" morality?
"Empathy" is generally understood to be the ability to recognise how someone else feels emotionally, and being able to respond to this appropriately. In the field of psychology, psychopaths (who represent around 1% of the overall population) are distinguishable for their absence of human empathy. Because of their lack of empathy, they cannot understand or react to, for example, human suffering. This results in their being capable of extremely callous and cold-hearted behaviour.
Going back to the example of Satan, it could be argued that descriptions of his actions in Christian literature mark him as being one of the prime examples of a psychopathic character in scripture. What many consider "evil" could likewise be called "psychopathic". While the terms can never be exactly interchangeable, it is true that psychopathy is responsible for a great deal of crime and social ills.
With this in mind, Ayn Rand's philosophy has been held to blame for the neo-liberal economic model that has ruled much of the world for the past thirty years. It is this system that has resulted in a widening gap between rich and poor, the re-shaping of the global economy, as well as being responsible for the conditions that caused the financial crisis of 2008, which many people even now are still feeling the after-effects of, seven years later.
The moral system that underpins the economic system of today's world was written by Ayn Rand. For this reason, it could well be said that "Atlas Shrugged" was the most influential - and dangerous - novel of the 20th century. It takes a special kind of genius to take an idea that almost everyone considers to be immoral, and transform it into the appearance of the highest virtue.
In many ways, "Atlas Shrugged" is a kind of Bible of our time. It certainly reads like one, and may well also have been responsible for causing human suffering in the same way as the Word Of God, thanks to the "Pied Piper"-like quality of the words contained in its many pages.
In "Atlas Shrugged", the "Pied Piper" role is played by the character John Galt, whose role is explored in more detail in the following article.
Saturday, June 13, 2015
Sunday, June 7, 2015
Westminster and First Past The Post: A British political system not fit for purpose
Westminster is a living museum, in every sense of the word. A recent piece in "The Economist" gave an accurate and thought-provoking reminder of how impractical a place the Palace Of Westminster is to deal with the day-to-day tasks of dealing with British politics in the 21st century. Built in the middle of the 19th century, no-one would disagree that the building is an architectural masterpiece. But still using it in the same way in the 21st century as we do now is like insisting on using the same clapped-out, classic car that keeps failing its MOT and you can't fit your family into simply because it was your grandfather's. As reported some time ago, the building needs urgent repair work that would probably take at least several years, resulting in parliamentary business being conducted elsewhere.
Even on a practical basis, the current arrangements are an ad hoc solution. There is not enough space in the Palace Of Westminster for MPs to work, even to fit all the current MPs into the House Of Commons. When there is an important debate, many MPs have to stand; when there is an important vote, because - as pointed out in the "Economist" article, MPs are housed in any one of three separate buildings - there is a dash to get to the chamber in time. This is ridiculous. It may look good on TV to have MPs housed in the Palace Of Westminster, but it makes no sense in reality, least of all for the MPs themselves who have to deal with these issues every day.
And this is before mentioning the antiquated procedures and "traditions" that the recent cohort of neophyte SNP MPs are - rightly - finding an absurd distraction from the business of politics. Some of these points (and the "fighting" over where to sit in the House Of Commons) were recently mentioned in a "Question Time" debate on the BBC (in the episode's first question). The SNP is looking at the way things are done in Westminster, compared to how things are done in Holyrood, and seeing the London institution as a place trapped by its own history, unable to deal with the realities of the 21st century.
The Palace Of Westminster is a museum piece, and should be treated and preserved as one: it is not a suitable place of work for 650 MPs and staff in the 21st century. It is a museum, and should be used as one. And this is without even mentioning the electoral system....
The most unfair election in history
A recent article pointed out the fact that the election result of the last election produced a result in parliament that was the most unrepresentative (compared to how people actually voted nationally) ever.
On the one hand, the Conservatives gained a majority of the seats in parliament based on 37% of the vote. The SNP took 56 of Scotland's 59 seats in Westminster based a little over half of the vote in Scotland. The Greens, who received over a million votes (a little under 4% of the national vote) only returned one MP. And then there is UKIP, who gained 12.5% of the national vote...and also returned only one seat in parliament.
Those figures there tell you the nature of the problem: while the electoral system has for decades not been a true reflection of the political reality, resulting in distortions that favour the two biggest parties, today the system has created not so much a distortion as a perversion of how politics is meant to work. In the multi-party reality of UK politics in 2015, we have an electoral system that is loaded massively in favour of the two main parties; clearly, much more in favour of the Tories at the moment.
In short, it could be called a "fix". It is not "democracy". As the electoral system favours the party in government (currently with a majority), the party with that position has no inclination to change the system. Ergo, the party in government has a stranglehold on parliament and the electoral system that benefits itself at the expense of the other (especially, smaller) parties. Furthermore, in this parliament the constituency boundaries are due to be redrawn in a manner that will benefit the Tories, giving them a further in-built advantage. With Labour likely to be out of office for ten more years, it is difficult to say what the UK will be like after fifteen years of Conservative rule in 2025.
So the hideous irony here is that as British politics becomes the most multi-polar it has been for generations (arguably, ever), the "natural party of government" - the Tories - tilt the system in the exact opposite direction. The UK has a multi-polar political environment with a political system weighed massively in favour of one party: the Conservatives. Only in Scotland does the system produce a different result, now weighed massively in favour of the SNP.
Not fit for purpose
The author has made comments on the easily "corruptible" nature of the British political system before. The British political system has always been a "fix" of one form or another, ever since the electoral franchise was extended beyond the landed classes. It could be argued that the system worked at its best (i.e. it best reflected the political reality) in the 1950s and '60s, when Labour and the Conservatives dominated British politics.
That system began to break down in the '70s in Scotland with the rise of the SNP, and Liberals more generally. In the 1980s, the SNP/Alliance were the victims of a system that didn't give any "space" for a third national party. From the '90s onwards, their successors, the LibDems, managed a way to get over some of the hurdles in their way, while by the time Labour gained office in 1997, the next thirteen years saw the system skewed in their favour instead, up to (and including) the 2010 election.
Britain has changed, but its political system remains fundamentally the same as it was two hundred years ago. Stepping away from the House Of Commons, to the House Of Lords, we see an assembly of hand-picked individuals, aristocrats and bishops - one of the world's last remaining bastions of modern-day feudalism in the developed world. This is masked in the tones of deference to the "mother of all parliaments" and reverence for "families that have generations of experience at the highest level of the decision-making process".
But this is simply masterful misdirection; something that the establishment has been good at for centuries.
The Tories are the party of the aristocracy, and have been since the 17th century. They know how to make people want to vote for them, and when you are up against (in the words of Alastair Campbell) a set of "ruthless bastards", what can you do?
Even on a practical basis, the current arrangements are an ad hoc solution. There is not enough space in the Palace Of Westminster for MPs to work, even to fit all the current MPs into the House Of Commons. When there is an important debate, many MPs have to stand; when there is an important vote, because - as pointed out in the "Economist" article, MPs are housed in any one of three separate buildings - there is a dash to get to the chamber in time. This is ridiculous. It may look good on TV to have MPs housed in the Palace Of Westminster, but it makes no sense in reality, least of all for the MPs themselves who have to deal with these issues every day.
And this is before mentioning the antiquated procedures and "traditions" that the recent cohort of neophyte SNP MPs are - rightly - finding an absurd distraction from the business of politics. Some of these points (and the "fighting" over where to sit in the House Of Commons) were recently mentioned in a "Question Time" debate on the BBC (in the episode's first question). The SNP is looking at the way things are done in Westminster, compared to how things are done in Holyrood, and seeing the London institution as a place trapped by its own history, unable to deal with the realities of the 21st century.
The Palace Of Westminster is a museum piece, and should be treated and preserved as one: it is not a suitable place of work for 650 MPs and staff in the 21st century. It is a museum, and should be used as one. And this is without even mentioning the electoral system....
The most unfair election in history
A recent article pointed out the fact that the election result of the last election produced a result in parliament that was the most unrepresentative (compared to how people actually voted nationally) ever.
On the one hand, the Conservatives gained a majority of the seats in parliament based on 37% of the vote. The SNP took 56 of Scotland's 59 seats in Westminster based a little over half of the vote in Scotland. The Greens, who received over a million votes (a little under 4% of the national vote) only returned one MP. And then there is UKIP, who gained 12.5% of the national vote...and also returned only one seat in parliament.
Those figures there tell you the nature of the problem: while the electoral system has for decades not been a true reflection of the political reality, resulting in distortions that favour the two biggest parties, today the system has created not so much a distortion as a perversion of how politics is meant to work. In the multi-party reality of UK politics in 2015, we have an electoral system that is loaded massively in favour of the two main parties; clearly, much more in favour of the Tories at the moment.
In short, it could be called a "fix". It is not "democracy". As the electoral system favours the party in government (currently with a majority), the party with that position has no inclination to change the system. Ergo, the party in government has a stranglehold on parliament and the electoral system that benefits itself at the expense of the other (especially, smaller) parties. Furthermore, in this parliament the constituency boundaries are due to be redrawn in a manner that will benefit the Tories, giving them a further in-built advantage. With Labour likely to be out of office for ten more years, it is difficult to say what the UK will be like after fifteen years of Conservative rule in 2025.
So the hideous irony here is that as British politics becomes the most multi-polar it has been for generations (arguably, ever), the "natural party of government" - the Tories - tilt the system in the exact opposite direction. The UK has a multi-polar political environment with a political system weighed massively in favour of one party: the Conservatives. Only in Scotland does the system produce a different result, now weighed massively in favour of the SNP.
Not fit for purpose
The author has made comments on the easily "corruptible" nature of the British political system before. The British political system has always been a "fix" of one form or another, ever since the electoral franchise was extended beyond the landed classes. It could be argued that the system worked at its best (i.e. it best reflected the political reality) in the 1950s and '60s, when Labour and the Conservatives dominated British politics.
That system began to break down in the '70s in Scotland with the rise of the SNP, and Liberals more generally. In the 1980s, the SNP/Alliance were the victims of a system that didn't give any "space" for a third national party. From the '90s onwards, their successors, the LibDems, managed a way to get over some of the hurdles in their way, while by the time Labour gained office in 1997, the next thirteen years saw the system skewed in their favour instead, up to (and including) the 2010 election.
Britain has changed, but its political system remains fundamentally the same as it was two hundred years ago. Stepping away from the House Of Commons, to the House Of Lords, we see an assembly of hand-picked individuals, aristocrats and bishops - one of the world's last remaining bastions of modern-day feudalism in the developed world. This is masked in the tones of deference to the "mother of all parliaments" and reverence for "families that have generations of experience at the highest level of the decision-making process".
But this is simply masterful misdirection; something that the establishment has been good at for centuries.
The Tories are the party of the aristocracy, and have been since the 17th century. They know how to make people want to vote for them, and when you are up against (in the words of Alastair Campbell) a set of "ruthless bastards", what can you do?
Friday, June 5, 2015
Ayn Rand, "Atlas Shrugged" and biblical symbolism: God, Government and Satan
Ayn Rand's magnum opus, "Atlas Shrugged" was published a little under sixty years ago. At the time, the novel - and the philosophy behind its key message - was considered unfashionable and even controversial, as it went against every moral fibre of the society that existed at the time. As one of the main advocates of pure Capitalism (i.e. a society and economy effectively without government interference), Rand took the economic ideas of the "Austrian School" and created a "moral code" from them:she called this new philosophy "Objectivism". As this novel was published in the middle of the so-called "post-war consensus", her ideas took conventional morality and turned it on its head.
Rand's sense of morality - of right and wrong - is displayed and explained in stunning clarity in"Atlas Shrugged". It tells a morality tale, but one relevant to modern times and written in an accessible, highly-readable form. As a piece of literature it is a true masterpiece; a contemporary work of art. It is breathtaking, terrifying, electrifying yet dangerous. It is breathtaking in the enormous scope of vision, a piece of literature over a thousand pages long that takes in everything from big industry to the lowest poverty. It is terrifying in its description of gradual social breakdown, with its predictions of how government can easily lose sight of how society functions. It is electrifying in the manner of how morality and ideas are explained with cut-glass sharpness and a refined clarity of thought. And yet, as a piece of writing, it is also dangerous: dangerous for the great convincing intelligence shown in its pages, but also the horrible truth of what these ideas mean in the real world.
As dangerous as "The Communist Manifesto" was to society when its ideas began to put put into practice, the ideas of "Atlas Shrugged" have been as dangerous to society when implemented by governments for the past thirty-five years. Communism brought about the poverty of any society that implemented its ideas; meanwhile, trying to implement "pure" Capitalism in the last thirty years simply resulted in a complete collapse in the system. Russia after Communism was as good an example of this as any: the result was complete anarchy and a depression-style collapse in living standards. And lest we forget, it was only "government" that saved the global system from complete collapse in 2008.
For both pure Communism as preached by Karl Marx, and pure Capitalism as described by Ayn Rand, are simply dangerous - but convincing - pipedreams; opposite versions of a nightmarish dystopia.
The Word Of Rand
As said earlier, Atlas Shrugged is a morality tale. It is a document, in fictional form, of Rand's view of the world.
In essence, the story revolves around several "heroic" characters who are people of industry. These characters (such as Hank Rearden and Dagny Taggart, who dominate the first half of the story) are moral purists, who wish to make (more) money and become (more) successful, it seems simply for the sake of becoming better. Their goal is not to do things for the benefit of others (e.g. society, or their family) but doing things that further their own goals. Any positive effect that others gain from their success is incidental. Moral purity and philosophical (and psychological) strength are key attributes, as are honesty and the principle of self-reliance. As a result, these characters have little time (and respect) for those around them that do not follow those same ideas.
Rand is a fervent believer in America as "the land of the free". In her eyes, America is the nearest thing - given she was an ardent atheist - to "heaven on earth". America for Rand was a place founded on the principles of freedom and the right to self-betterment through individual struggle and excellence without government interference. In "Atlas Shrugged", these "heroic" characters gradually fall victim to efforts by the government to prevent them from fulfilling their wishes to "become better" under their own terms. A succession of government rules obstruct them and create disincentives to working as they would wish, as the government sees these industrialists as "greedy" and "anti-social". These "heroes" are forced to either accept government's many rules, or quit.
In the end, the industrialists are shown another way of doing their work, without government interference in the "New Atlantis", which they flock to, and then thrive in.
God, Government, and The Bible
Rand sees this "New Atlantis" as a society where the only rule is that of nature and "rational self-interest". Conversely, the land of "government" is one of rules that stifle the free will and betterment of individuals who seek to make their own success and fortune - in effect, because they are rivals to the exclusive power of "government".
Anyone familiar with the Old Testament, and especially the fate of Satan, might see some interesting parallels with the morality tale of Atlas Shrugged - albeit with an important twist.
In the Bible, Satan is God's most powerful (and beautiful) angel. Satan seeks to be as powerful as God, and (according to the theologian Origen) seeks greater free will from the will of God. When God makes man in his own image, he refuses to kneel before man when God requests it. These factors result in the "war in heaven", which culminate in the ejection of Satan and his followers from Heaven and their banishment to Hell, which Satan becomes the ruler of. It is therefore only in Hell where Satan and his followers are truly "free".
Of course, the Bible goes out of its way to portray Satan as the embodiment of evil, but this is a misleading simplification, even when directly reading the Bible itself. Satan's key role in Genesis is the temptation of Eve with the apple from the Tree Of Knowledge (Of Good And Evil), which would make her and Adam "like God". Satan's other name is Lucifer, which is Latin for "light-giver", and it was this role - as the giver of "light" or knowledge - that Satan is punished for by God after the temptation of Eve. In other words, Satan's role in Genesis is to encourage the first man and woman to better themselves, while also highlighting God's arbitrary and deceitful nature.
Rand's grand morality tale, "Atlas Shrugged", could then be called a re-imagining of the tale of Satan's fall from Heaven told from the perspective of Satan rather than God. Substitute the word "God" for "Government" and Satan and his followers for the "heroic" industrialists, and the narratives are in many ways parallel, except that the sense of perspective is reversed. In the Bible, Satan and his followers are forced to leave Heaven as they refuse to follow God's (arbitrary) commands and (to their minds) twisted philosophy, and feel held back from their full potential. In "Atlas Shrugged", the "heroes" flee the control of "government" for the same reasons.
It could also be argued that God represents to Satan the same idea that "government" represents to Rand. Satan rebelled against God partly because of what he saw as God's arbitrary power, but also because Satan refused to bow before man, God's creation. In this way, Satan refused to offer man his unconditional love or respect, as he felt it was undeserved or unearned. This idea (of "conditional love" or undeserved respect or charity) also features strongly in Atlas Shrugged. For example, Hank Rearden, one of the industrial "heroes", refuses to give a job to his brother because he is unqualified and undeserving. Later, he threatens to throw his brother out of his house, rather preferring to see his brother on the street than getting charity from him for simply being part of the family. Rand's philosophy reels against the idea of charity and "brotherly love" precisely because she sees it as unearned, detrimental and pointless. Satan, given his attitude towards man, would doubtless agree: part of what Satan stands for is the opposite to the concept of Judaeo-Christian selfless, "brotherly love". Satan represents the advancement of the "self" to its moral conclusion - severing connection to "God", and the rejection of the idea of selflessness and self-sacrifice for (undeserving) others e.g. by refusing to unconditionally "love" man, or to blindly obey God's commands.
To follow "God", then, is to abandon the idea of the "self" for the benefit of the whole; this is what Satan rejects, resulting in his Fall From Heaven. Likewise, Rand's philosophy rejects the idea of "government" having the right to arbitrary power over individuals, and in her novel, Atlas Shrugged rails against this (calling those who support government's arbitrary power "looters"), and also strongly rejects the idea of (wealthy and talented) individuals sacrificing for the benefit of others who are poorer (and less talented) - the "heroic" industrialist Hank Rearden, during his trial in the novel, calls himself a "sacrificial victim". However, he refuses to accept this quietly.
It could also be argued that God represents to Satan the same idea that "government" represents to Rand. Satan rebelled against God partly because of what he saw as God's arbitrary power, but also because Satan refused to bow before man, God's creation. In this way, Satan refused to offer man his unconditional love or respect, as he felt it was undeserved or unearned. This idea (of "conditional love" or undeserved respect or charity) also features strongly in Atlas Shrugged. For example, Hank Rearden, one of the industrial "heroes", refuses to give a job to his brother because he is unqualified and undeserving. Later, he threatens to throw his brother out of his house, rather preferring to see his brother on the street than getting charity from him for simply being part of the family. Rand's philosophy reels against the idea of charity and "brotherly love" precisely because she sees it as unearned, detrimental and pointless. Satan, given his attitude towards man, would doubtless agree: part of what Satan stands for is the opposite to the concept of Judaeo-Christian selfless, "brotherly love". Satan represents the advancement of the "self" to its moral conclusion - severing connection to "God", and the rejection of the idea of selflessness and self-sacrifice for (undeserving) others e.g. by refusing to unconditionally "love" man, or to blindly obey God's commands.
To follow "God", then, is to abandon the idea of the "self" for the benefit of the whole; this is what Satan rejects, resulting in his Fall From Heaven. Likewise, Rand's philosophy rejects the idea of "government" having the right to arbitrary power over individuals, and in her novel, Atlas Shrugged rails against this (calling those who support government's arbitrary power "looters"), and also strongly rejects the idea of (wealthy and talented) individuals sacrificing for the benefit of others who are poorer (and less talented) - the "heroic" industrialist Hank Rearden, during his trial in the novel, calls himself a "sacrificial victim". However, he refuses to accept this quietly.
Seen in this light, "Atlas Shrugged" not only turns conventional morality on its head, but its symbolism - to those knowledgeable of The Bible - makes a morality tale like the "Fall From Heaven" seem instead a "Flight From Hegemony": Satan and his followers escaping the "tyranny" of God's power and "sacrificial" morality to establish their own "freedom" outside of Heaven. In Atlas Shrugged, the "heroic" industrialists similarly wish to escape the "tyranny" of government. So Rand could - arguably - be called a "Satanist" of a kind, looking at the evidence above.
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
The 2015 General Election: how did the Conservatives win?
In the cold light of day, it is clear that the Conservatives' election strategy worked. Their aim - which seemed hopelessly fanciful when said by David Cameron during the campaign - was to win around twenty seats; what was need to achieve a bare majority. In that simple aim, the Tories were even able to exceed their wilder expectations (given the polls), producing a - precariously-small - majority government.
The Tories are masters at winning elections, having been doing it on a regular basis since the 18th century. For this reason, to many people, they seem the "natural" government. The thirteen years of Labour government could be seen an aberration, only achieved by the Labour leadership under Blair by accepting many of the basic tenets of Thatcherism, the Conservatives' longest-serving leader of the 20th century. Meanwhile, the "post-war consensus", that saw the Tories move closer to the left than they have ever been, could be seen as the Conservative Party showing its chameleon-like ability to adapt to survive. Then, when the economic crises of the 1970s happened, the Tories under Thatcher seized on the opportunity to re-define and remake their party in its more traditional guise, and quickly shedding its support for the "consensus". Whether or not these facts are "fair" or "just" feels like a trivial point. The hard truth for those on the left is that, when it boils down to it, England is a "conservative" country in many ways.
This is a simplification, though. As we have seen, the election has shown us that the UK in 2015 is now more politically-fractured than ever before. The main point is that in spite of the fracturing of the political faultlines, the Tories still - in spite of everything - know how to keep their nose ahead of the rest to get over the finishing line first.
All part of the game
This author has talked before about the plethora of "dirty tricks" and negative campaigning used by the Tories in the 2015 election campaign. And the nakedly-cynical "divide and rule" strategy over the "threat" of the SNP - which even some Tory elders were warning of the dangers of - worked with clinical effectiveness at the end of the day. In the end, it was the Tories' sway over the "marginals" that ensured that Labour's result in England was no better than what they got in 2010, putting Labour's number of English MPs on the same level as what they got in 1992.
A BBC "Question Time" special on the day after the election provided some particularly insightful moments of analysis. Paddy Ashdown agreed wholeheartedly to the brutally-effective supposition put to the panel that the LibDems were punished for the mistakes of the Coalition, while the Tories were rewarded for its successes. As Alastair Campbell put it more bluntly, the Tories won because they were "ruthless bastards". Francis Maude, the Tories' member of the panel, kept quiet while these points were being made. His silence told its own story.
The LibDems, post-election, are - ironically - now having their biggest surge in membership in living memory. A wit might argue that this was many English voters now feeling guilty for realising that they had been savagely punishing the wrong party for the Coalition's errors. Certainly, Paddy Ashdown's indictment of how his party was punished for doing what it felt had been the right thing for the country was a very powerful point.
While the "divergence" of the two Coalition parties had been going on more at least a year prior to the election, it was Francis Maude - the Tory - who complained of the Coalition partners not "being fair" to the government. He should have known better, and Paddy Ashdown put his squarely right in his place. The Tories - and Cameron in particular - were shamelessly claiming credit for popular ideas (such as raising the income tax threshold) that were really LibDem policies that had never been in the Conservative 2010 manifesto.
But this is part of a trend with the Tories: to stab you in the back, and later harmlessly claim it was "part of the game" of politics.
This attitude is symptomatic of how people like David Cameron and George Osborne see politics not as a force for good, but as "sport". The two of them have made duplicitous, cynical and savage attacks on their opponents (and segments of society), but later on brush it off being "heat of the moment" stuff. A common accusation made against Cameron is that in spite of appearances, he never seems to take things very seriously. This feeds into a feeling that many of the Tories involved in politics still think they are playing by "boarding school rules"; certainly, the way that some of their MPs in parliament behave at times reinforces the view that Westminster is all "old school tie" and a callous "establishment" that treats democracy as an inconvenience to be tolerated
With this level of cynicism evident in the ranks of the Tories, it is no wonder that more and more people see the electoral system as a "fix". When things are constructed like this, how can they lose?
The Tories are masters at winning elections, having been doing it on a regular basis since the 18th century. For this reason, to many people, they seem the "natural" government. The thirteen years of Labour government could be seen an aberration, only achieved by the Labour leadership under Blair by accepting many of the basic tenets of Thatcherism, the Conservatives' longest-serving leader of the 20th century. Meanwhile, the "post-war consensus", that saw the Tories move closer to the left than they have ever been, could be seen as the Conservative Party showing its chameleon-like ability to adapt to survive. Then, when the economic crises of the 1970s happened, the Tories under Thatcher seized on the opportunity to re-define and remake their party in its more traditional guise, and quickly shedding its support for the "consensus". Whether or not these facts are "fair" or "just" feels like a trivial point. The hard truth for those on the left is that, when it boils down to it, England is a "conservative" country in many ways.
This is a simplification, though. As we have seen, the election has shown us that the UK in 2015 is now more politically-fractured than ever before. The main point is that in spite of the fracturing of the political faultlines, the Tories still - in spite of everything - know how to keep their nose ahead of the rest to get over the finishing line first.
All part of the game
This author has talked before about the plethora of "dirty tricks" and negative campaigning used by the Tories in the 2015 election campaign. And the nakedly-cynical "divide and rule" strategy over the "threat" of the SNP - which even some Tory elders were warning of the dangers of - worked with clinical effectiveness at the end of the day. In the end, it was the Tories' sway over the "marginals" that ensured that Labour's result in England was no better than what they got in 2010, putting Labour's number of English MPs on the same level as what they got in 1992.
A BBC "Question Time" special on the day after the election provided some particularly insightful moments of analysis. Paddy Ashdown agreed wholeheartedly to the brutally-effective supposition put to the panel that the LibDems were punished for the mistakes of the Coalition, while the Tories were rewarded for its successes. As Alastair Campbell put it more bluntly, the Tories won because they were "ruthless bastards". Francis Maude, the Tories' member of the panel, kept quiet while these points were being made. His silence told its own story.
The LibDems, post-election, are - ironically - now having their biggest surge in membership in living memory. A wit might argue that this was many English voters now feeling guilty for realising that they had been savagely punishing the wrong party for the Coalition's errors. Certainly, Paddy Ashdown's indictment of how his party was punished for doing what it felt had been the right thing for the country was a very powerful point.
While the "divergence" of the two Coalition parties had been going on more at least a year prior to the election, it was Francis Maude - the Tory - who complained of the Coalition partners not "being fair" to the government. He should have known better, and Paddy Ashdown put his squarely right in his place. The Tories - and Cameron in particular - were shamelessly claiming credit for popular ideas (such as raising the income tax threshold) that were really LibDem policies that had never been in the Conservative 2010 manifesto.
But this is part of a trend with the Tories: to stab you in the back, and later harmlessly claim it was "part of the game" of politics.
This attitude is symptomatic of how people like David Cameron and George Osborne see politics not as a force for good, but as "sport". The two of them have made duplicitous, cynical and savage attacks on their opponents (and segments of society), but later on brush it off being "heat of the moment" stuff. A common accusation made against Cameron is that in spite of appearances, he never seems to take things very seriously. This feeds into a feeling that many of the Tories involved in politics still think they are playing by "boarding school rules"; certainly, the way that some of their MPs in parliament behave at times reinforces the view that Westminster is all "old school tie" and a callous "establishment" that treats democracy as an inconvenience to be tolerated
With this level of cynicism evident in the ranks of the Tories, it is no wonder that more and more people see the electoral system as a "fix". When things are constructed like this, how can they lose?
Monday, May 11, 2015
The 2015 General Election: the aftermath, and the implications for Labour and UK politics
The results of the general election were a shock, to Labour most of all. The Liberal Democrats suffered catastrophic losses, who - for their naive willingness to join in coalition with the Tories five years ago - may as well now be called the "Useful Idiots" of the last parliament. But this was not totally unexpected, given their low percentage of polling.
In spite of all the criticism of the pollsters getting the result so wrong, the reality was that they got most things more-or-less right - except for the polling for Labour and the Conservatives. All the other parties polled at roughly where they predicted. It was the "shy Tory" effect that the pollsters either completely missed or - just as likely - a collective "group think" that made polling companies discard "wrong" polling results that appeared to inflate the support for the Tories.
In this election, it was a "perfect storm" of factors that resulted in Labour overall losing twenty or so seats, leaving them a hundred behind the Conservatives in parliament. Several factors over the duration of the last parliament swung things - unexpectedly - for the Tories, leaving them with a surprise (albeit tiny) majority. The collapse of the Lib Dems left twenty-odd seats there for the taking for the Tories. The surge in UKIP over the last few years has seen a portion of the working class transfer their vote from Labour and into the purple, costing Labour precious votes in key Tory/ Labour marginals. And the surge of the SNP has effectively left the three main parties locked out of Scotland, which cost Labour forty-odd seats.
These three factors, coupled with the simple effectiveness of the Tory message (in spite of its negativity and bare deceitfulness), allowed the Tories to fend off any Labour advance in the key battlegrounds. The result was a net gain of twenty-odd seats.
The road to contrition
Labour now has some hard questions to ask itself about what strategy they can formulate to regain power. Where did it they go wrong? The Tories were allowed to dictate the "narrative" of the events of 2008 without a coherent alternative argument (namely, the truth!). Many will say that the Tories' message about Labour was based on a willful lie - which is basically true - but the fact that the Tories were able to so easily get away with it demonstrates the weakness of Labour's leadership and message.
Equally, many will - rightly - point to the loss of the key marginals (places that, under Blair, usually swung their way). Winning back the confidence of those voters is key to Labour being able to eat into the hundred-seat gap that separates them from the Tories. The battle over "Middle England" (i.e. the marginals) is the key to getting into government. Regardless of how popular a party is in Scotland or Wales, England will always be the only way a party can find its way into government. This may be not what some Labour people want to hear, but that is the reality.
And herein lies a problem - several, actually. First of all, there has to be a realisation that the next time there will be an election (presumably in 2020), many people will have forgotten why the financial crisis happened. If Labour were unable to convince people of the truth about what happened in 2008 this time around, five years from now it will be basically impossible. Think about it: any voter who will be, say twenty, come the next election, was only a child of eight when the financial crisis happened. Arguing over what happened in 2008 in a 2020 election will look parochial and backwards-looking in the extreme, regardless of the truth.
Labour may well have to swallow their pride and - to an extent, at least - accept the "lie" of the Tory narrative. It's already too late to change people's minds about what they think what happened. While Labour go on arguing about the facts, the Tories have their "narrative". The average person will believe almost any narrative if it is explained simply and repeated enough: this is the simple (if sad) truth. The extent to which Iain Duncan Smith can still convincingly talk about "welfare reform" is a case in point.
To get to that point in the party, however, will probably involve a prolonged "blood-letting" exercise within the party, like that which existed in 2005 after the Tories lost their third successive election. This is will painful for many after the bitterness of losing an election they thought they had a good chance of "winning" (after some negotiation). Those people will have to simply take in on the chin if the party is to move forward, or look at leaving the party altogether.
But that exercise in "contrition" is only half of the problem...
The "Party Of Britain" no more?
Blair's Britain was the high watermark for the Labour party: winning three successive elections, two of them successive landslides. Whereas the Conservative and Unionist Party at one time represented the nature of the United Kingdom, under Blair, Labour came to represent the modern-day "Party Of Britain", leading in all parts of Great Britain. The Conservatives were reduced (and still are) to being essentially an English party, looking parochial compared to Labour's embrace of the modern, diverse Britain of the 21st century.
Come 2015, and the the UK looks more divided than ever, between the nations and between different segments of society. While Labour still dominates in its Welsh heartlands, Scotland's politics has effectively detached itself from the rest of the country. Meanwhile, England looks politically very similar to what it did twenty or thirty years ago: with Labour dominating the North, the English cities and London, with the Tories having a sea of blue in everything between. England is segments and islands of red in a sea of blue. And under the surface, UKIP is the second party in many places up and down the coast of England.
This leaves Labour in a more difficult situation politically than in 1987, when they last won a similar number of seats in an election. While the Tories' majority is slender (even less than in 1992), Labour - due to the factors mentioned earlier - have their work cut out to claw back the lost ground.
Assuming that the party choose a "modernising figure" (i.e. "Blairite", for want of a better moniker), this will help them win back the Tory marginals.
If Labour is very smart, they will also exploit the (temporary?) collapse of the Lib Dems and try and muscle into contention in places like the South West, where traditionally Labour have struggled against a Tory/ Lib Dem two-horse race. However, even this may be a lost cause, given that the LibDems look keen to get a new leader in quickly. Tim Farron, chairman of the party and a leading left-wing figure, looks to be favourite. Indeed, the LibDems may already have the threat Labour poses on their mind more keenly than Labour does, given Labour's post-election introspection. The irony here is that while it was Labour's failure of introspection post-2010 that resulted in a lurch leftwards and Ed Miliband becoming leader, a surfeit of introspection post-2015 may lead to Labour missing out the opportunity to quickly fill the political space in the centre by the collapse in the LibDems.
Labour made the assumption back in 2010 that a collapse in LibDem support would leave a mass of support flocking to Labour. The 2015 election proved this to be a pipedream. While this effect won them maybe a dozen seats, the same effect won the Tories around double that. It is possible that the transfer of votes in Tory to LibDem is "soft", and therefore malleable to the right kind of Labour message; but it's tall order. The right kind of message from a LibDem leader would see them simply switch back to what they know.
Many Labour figures are talking about a ten-year plan, with no realistic hope of regaining the lost ground needed in time for the next election. Unlike in 1987, Labour's position is precarious because the diversification of the British political scene is mostly to the cost of Labour. If Labour, as necessary, move to the centre to reclaim the middle ground as Blair did, it leaves their left flank exposed. Under Ed Miliband, their positioning was deemed to far to the left to convince enough centrist voters to back them. If Labour move more to the centre as anticipated, it will be more difficult to dissuade the working class against switching to UKIP. As Labour move to the centre, more of their "core voters" will see them as increasingly out-of-touch compared to the straightforward message of UKIP. This may be a risk that Labour will have to take: will the votes they gain from undecided voters in marginals be more than those lost to UKIP?
Regarding the Greens, it is unclear if they had a decisive effect on the Labour vote or not. Apart from in a small number of constituencies, their numbers did not seem big enough to have a decisive effect either way, compared the striking performances of UKIP.
Lastly, of course, there is the SNP. Politically, Scotland is now separated from the rest of the UK, leaving Labour without one of its heartlands. The one-time "Party Of Britain" is now looking like a party without a country - in a sense, a "stateless" party. The Tories may have retreated into being "Little Englanders", but at least they have retained their coherence; the diversification of British politics has left the Labour party being ideologically and geographically pulled apart, with little unifying coherence remaining.
Ironically, while the Tories may be a party in hock with The City, Labour cemented its political dominance of London itself in the 2015 election. London remains the most "Blairite" part of the UK, and a Labour citadel. It is the miles of towns and countryside around the rest of England that are largely with the Tory camp. Meanwhile, the Labour supporters in the Welsh and Northern heartlands are politically closer to those supporting the SNP. Trying to keep these differing versions of "Labour" together is becoming a more difficult challenge given the changed landscape
The battle for the political soul of Britain is not over, but the forces that are pulling Britain's politics and identity apart are winning. And time is running out.
In spite of all the criticism of the pollsters getting the result so wrong, the reality was that they got most things more-or-less right - except for the polling for Labour and the Conservatives. All the other parties polled at roughly where they predicted. It was the "shy Tory" effect that the pollsters either completely missed or - just as likely - a collective "group think" that made polling companies discard "wrong" polling results that appeared to inflate the support for the Tories.
In this election, it was a "perfect storm" of factors that resulted in Labour overall losing twenty or so seats, leaving them a hundred behind the Conservatives in parliament. Several factors over the duration of the last parliament swung things - unexpectedly - for the Tories, leaving them with a surprise (albeit tiny) majority. The collapse of the Lib Dems left twenty-odd seats there for the taking for the Tories. The surge in UKIP over the last few years has seen a portion of the working class transfer their vote from Labour and into the purple, costing Labour precious votes in key Tory/ Labour marginals. And the surge of the SNP has effectively left the three main parties locked out of Scotland, which cost Labour forty-odd seats.
These three factors, coupled with the simple effectiveness of the Tory message (in spite of its negativity and bare deceitfulness), allowed the Tories to fend off any Labour advance in the key battlegrounds. The result was a net gain of twenty-odd seats.
The road to contrition
Labour now has some hard questions to ask itself about what strategy they can formulate to regain power. Where did it they go wrong? The Tories were allowed to dictate the "narrative" of the events of 2008 without a coherent alternative argument (namely, the truth!). Many will say that the Tories' message about Labour was based on a willful lie - which is basically true - but the fact that the Tories were able to so easily get away with it demonstrates the weakness of Labour's leadership and message.
Equally, many will - rightly - point to the loss of the key marginals (places that, under Blair, usually swung their way). Winning back the confidence of those voters is key to Labour being able to eat into the hundred-seat gap that separates them from the Tories. The battle over "Middle England" (i.e. the marginals) is the key to getting into government. Regardless of how popular a party is in Scotland or Wales, England will always be the only way a party can find its way into government. This may be not what some Labour people want to hear, but that is the reality.
And herein lies a problem - several, actually. First of all, there has to be a realisation that the next time there will be an election (presumably in 2020), many people will have forgotten why the financial crisis happened. If Labour were unable to convince people of the truth about what happened in 2008 this time around, five years from now it will be basically impossible. Think about it: any voter who will be, say twenty, come the next election, was only a child of eight when the financial crisis happened. Arguing over what happened in 2008 in a 2020 election will look parochial and backwards-looking in the extreme, regardless of the truth.
Labour may well have to swallow their pride and - to an extent, at least - accept the "lie" of the Tory narrative. It's already too late to change people's minds about what they think what happened. While Labour go on arguing about the facts, the Tories have their "narrative". The average person will believe almost any narrative if it is explained simply and repeated enough: this is the simple (if sad) truth. The extent to which Iain Duncan Smith can still convincingly talk about "welfare reform" is a case in point.
To get to that point in the party, however, will probably involve a prolonged "blood-letting" exercise within the party, like that which existed in 2005 after the Tories lost their third successive election. This is will painful for many after the bitterness of losing an election they thought they had a good chance of "winning" (after some negotiation). Those people will have to simply take in on the chin if the party is to move forward, or look at leaving the party altogether.
But that exercise in "contrition" is only half of the problem...
The "Party Of Britain" no more?
Blair's Britain was the high watermark for the Labour party: winning three successive elections, two of them successive landslides. Whereas the Conservative and Unionist Party at one time represented the nature of the United Kingdom, under Blair, Labour came to represent the modern-day "Party Of Britain", leading in all parts of Great Britain. The Conservatives were reduced (and still are) to being essentially an English party, looking parochial compared to Labour's embrace of the modern, diverse Britain of the 21st century.
Come 2015, and the the UK looks more divided than ever, between the nations and between different segments of society. While Labour still dominates in its Welsh heartlands, Scotland's politics has effectively detached itself from the rest of the country. Meanwhile, England looks politically very similar to what it did twenty or thirty years ago: with Labour dominating the North, the English cities and London, with the Tories having a sea of blue in everything between. England is segments and islands of red in a sea of blue. And under the surface, UKIP is the second party in many places up and down the coast of England.
This leaves Labour in a more difficult situation politically than in 1987, when they last won a similar number of seats in an election. While the Tories' majority is slender (even less than in 1992), Labour - due to the factors mentioned earlier - have their work cut out to claw back the lost ground.
Assuming that the party choose a "modernising figure" (i.e. "Blairite", for want of a better moniker), this will help them win back the Tory marginals.
If Labour is very smart, they will also exploit the (temporary?) collapse of the Lib Dems and try and muscle into contention in places like the South West, where traditionally Labour have struggled against a Tory/ Lib Dem two-horse race. However, even this may be a lost cause, given that the LibDems look keen to get a new leader in quickly. Tim Farron, chairman of the party and a leading left-wing figure, looks to be favourite. Indeed, the LibDems may already have the threat Labour poses on their mind more keenly than Labour does, given Labour's post-election introspection. The irony here is that while it was Labour's failure of introspection post-2010 that resulted in a lurch leftwards and Ed Miliband becoming leader, a surfeit of introspection post-2015 may lead to Labour missing out the opportunity to quickly fill the political space in the centre by the collapse in the LibDems.
Labour made the assumption back in 2010 that a collapse in LibDem support would leave a mass of support flocking to Labour. The 2015 election proved this to be a pipedream. While this effect won them maybe a dozen seats, the same effect won the Tories around double that. It is possible that the transfer of votes in Tory to LibDem is "soft", and therefore malleable to the right kind of Labour message; but it's tall order. The right kind of message from a LibDem leader would see them simply switch back to what they know.
Many Labour figures are talking about a ten-year plan, with no realistic hope of regaining the lost ground needed in time for the next election. Unlike in 1987, Labour's position is precarious because the diversification of the British political scene is mostly to the cost of Labour. If Labour, as necessary, move to the centre to reclaim the middle ground as Blair did, it leaves their left flank exposed. Under Ed Miliband, their positioning was deemed to far to the left to convince enough centrist voters to back them. If Labour move more to the centre as anticipated, it will be more difficult to dissuade the working class against switching to UKIP. As Labour move to the centre, more of their "core voters" will see them as increasingly out-of-touch compared to the straightforward message of UKIP. This may be a risk that Labour will have to take: will the votes they gain from undecided voters in marginals be more than those lost to UKIP?
Regarding the Greens, it is unclear if they had a decisive effect on the Labour vote or not. Apart from in a small number of constituencies, their numbers did not seem big enough to have a decisive effect either way, compared the striking performances of UKIP.
Lastly, of course, there is the SNP. Politically, Scotland is now separated from the rest of the UK, leaving Labour without one of its heartlands. The one-time "Party Of Britain" is now looking like a party without a country - in a sense, a "stateless" party. The Tories may have retreated into being "Little Englanders", but at least they have retained their coherence; the diversification of British politics has left the Labour party being ideologically and geographically pulled apart, with little unifying coherence remaining.
Ironically, while the Tories may be a party in hock with The City, Labour cemented its political dominance of London itself in the 2015 election. London remains the most "Blairite" part of the UK, and a Labour citadel. It is the miles of towns and countryside around the rest of England that are largely with the Tory camp. Meanwhile, the Labour supporters in the Welsh and Northern heartlands are politically closer to those supporting the SNP. Trying to keep these differing versions of "Labour" together is becoming a more difficult challenge given the changed landscape
The battle for the political soul of Britain is not over, but the forces that are pulling Britain's politics and identity apart are winning. And time is running out.
Saturday, May 9, 2015
The 2015 General Election: what happened?
Politics is a brutal business, they say; but rarely has an election in modern times been so brutal. The Conservatives were the major beneficiaries to the dramatic collapse in the Lib Dems across the UK, and Labour's Scottish supporters switching en masse to the SNP.
While in the 2010 election, the Conservatives were ahead of Labour by fifty seats, now they are ahead of them by a hundred. However, this must still be put into context. Needing 323 seats for a working majority, David Cameron won 331. This is more than the bare majority that Wilson got in October 1974, but still less than what Major got in 1992 (336). And we know what happened to that "majority" over the course of five years.
In that sense, George Osborne's hope that 2015 would be like 1992 again, we was proved right, in that the Conservatives won a similar result in terms of seats (though around 4% less than 1992 in the popular vote).
However, there the comparisons end. For Labour, the number of seats won (232) was similar to what they won in 1987. But this was not because of collapse in the votes in England. Compared to 2010, they won nearly a million more votes this time around, in spite of the collapse of their support in Scotland. So something very strange - and perverse - must have happened. There were different factors (more on those in a moment) that resulted in Labour doing far worse than they were expecting in England.
Lastly, the poor Liberal Democrats - as many of their party members feared - reaped the whirlwind of working in government with the Tories. After losing nearly fifty seats, Tories seemingly voted tactically to save Nick Clegg's seat where so many other Lib Dems were ousted. This must have felt like a particularly cruel kind of mercy. No wonder that when Clegg gave his speech standing down as leader, he seemed like a broken man. Their cohort of MPs had been reduced to the kind of levels they had in the 1960s.
A perfect storm
For Labour, the election results were a stunning shock.
While the results in Scotland had been feared to an extent (if not quite believed), in reality they were caught in an unexpected "pincer" on both sides of the border.
They had been hoping that the losses they might have had to the SNP would have been offset by gains in English Tory/Labour marginals. Instead, in many marginals, Labour became victim to an unforeseen "UKIP Effect". In places like Bolton and Bury (close to this author's neck of the woods), the Tories unexpectedly won, sometimes by a margin of only hundreds of votes. This was repeated even in places like Wales, and across other towns and small cities in "Middle England". In these constituencies the common denominator was UKIP coming a strong third. What seems to have happened is that, rather than the Tories bleeding votes to UKIP and letting Labour through (as they had hoped might happen), the opposite was happening: Labour was bleeding "working class" votes by their thousands to UKIP.
This was one of the major factors that accounted for UKIP receiving nearly four million votes. And was - without doubt - the reason for Labour's biggest (and most unexpected) casualty of all - Ed Balls.
Of course, this does not explain all the results in the key Tory/Labour marginals, but it was certainly a key factor in a significant number of them. In many marginals, UKIP were the Tories "secret weapon".
The reasons why people chose to vote Conservative and not Labour in those key marginals will not be discussed here. Some of these factors have been discussed by the author before. It was also clear from anecdotal evidence that the SNP "fear factor" was playing on the minds of some key voters.
One more thing about UKIP. As UKIP themselves predicted, they came second in a number of "safe" Labour seats in the party's northern heartlands, and similarly, came second in a number of the Tories' heartland seats in the South-East. So Farage's claim as being the only "working class" party in England, was now beginning to look more and more credible, in spite of the reality.
A "lucky" Prime Minister?
As said at the start, the Conservatives won their seats due to the collapse of the Lib Dems, grabbing almost all the seats that were a toss between the Tories and the Lib Dems. Cameron claimed during the campaign that he only needed twenty more seats to govern, and he got them, from the Lib Dems. However, that presupposed that he didn't lose any seats to Labour, but as we have seen above - again - he was proved right, against all the odds. Thanks to the insurgent effect of UKIP on Labour's base, the "fear factor" of the SNP and worries over the economy on classic swing voters, the Tories emerged from the face-off in the Tory/Labour marginals relatively unscathed. Some seats were lost to Labour, but there were equally other (unexpected) gains from Labour. The losses and gains basically cancelled each other out. It was in these seats that the election was really won.
The switching of many Lib Dem seats to Tory, and the collapse of the Labour vote in Scotland meant that Labour had to rely on the English marginals mostly going their way in order to ensure that the Tories lost enough seats to bring Labour into contention as a serious alternative to form a government. In this way, Labour really were fighting against the tide. Due to the three factors mentioned - the Tories being the biggest recipient of the Lib Dem collapse, the surge of the SNP, and the UKIP "secret weapon" - the Tories really held the best set of cards to allow them to consolidate on their 2010 result.
In hindsight, these three factors should have been more obvious, in spite of all the predictions of a hung parliament and a messy politics to follow.
As things stand now, both Labour and (even more so) the Lib Dems have serious questions to ask themselves about what direction they should take their respective parties. While Labour's result in this election is comparable with 1987, this fails to take into account the loss of so many MPs in Scotland this time around. They cannot expect to gain them back any time soon. So the 1987 comparison is not truly accurate. Labour now are much more an "English" party than they were on Thursday morning.
But the political scene in Westminster is more fractured than ever before, in spjte of the gross injustices that FPTP has brought to UKIP and the Greens (while massively rewarding the SNP). In that sense, the political scene feels, if anything, like that in 1983: a divided opposition allowing the Conservatives to continue ruling from Downing Street.
David Cameron may well have felt he has dodged a bullet in this election, and been rewarded with a political bomb landing in the laps of his opponent, leaving a multitude of political carcasses.
Perhaps he's just "lucky".
While in the 2010 election, the Conservatives were ahead of Labour by fifty seats, now they are ahead of them by a hundred. However, this must still be put into context. Needing 323 seats for a working majority, David Cameron won 331. This is more than the bare majority that Wilson got in October 1974, but still less than what Major got in 1992 (336). And we know what happened to that "majority" over the course of five years.
In that sense, George Osborne's hope that 2015 would be like 1992 again, we was proved right, in that the Conservatives won a similar result in terms of seats (though around 4% less than 1992 in the popular vote).
However, there the comparisons end. For Labour, the number of seats won (232) was similar to what they won in 1987. But this was not because of collapse in the votes in England. Compared to 2010, they won nearly a million more votes this time around, in spite of the collapse of their support in Scotland. So something very strange - and perverse - must have happened. There were different factors (more on those in a moment) that resulted in Labour doing far worse than they were expecting in England.
Lastly, the poor Liberal Democrats - as many of their party members feared - reaped the whirlwind of working in government with the Tories. After losing nearly fifty seats, Tories seemingly voted tactically to save Nick Clegg's seat where so many other Lib Dems were ousted. This must have felt like a particularly cruel kind of mercy. No wonder that when Clegg gave his speech standing down as leader, he seemed like a broken man. Their cohort of MPs had been reduced to the kind of levels they had in the 1960s.
A perfect storm
For Labour, the election results were a stunning shock.
While the results in Scotland had been feared to an extent (if not quite believed), in reality they were caught in an unexpected "pincer" on both sides of the border.
They had been hoping that the losses they might have had to the SNP would have been offset by gains in English Tory/Labour marginals. Instead, in many marginals, Labour became victim to an unforeseen "UKIP Effect". In places like Bolton and Bury (close to this author's neck of the woods), the Tories unexpectedly won, sometimes by a margin of only hundreds of votes. This was repeated even in places like Wales, and across other towns and small cities in "Middle England". In these constituencies the common denominator was UKIP coming a strong third. What seems to have happened is that, rather than the Tories bleeding votes to UKIP and letting Labour through (as they had hoped might happen), the opposite was happening: Labour was bleeding "working class" votes by their thousands to UKIP.
This was one of the major factors that accounted for UKIP receiving nearly four million votes. And was - without doubt - the reason for Labour's biggest (and most unexpected) casualty of all - Ed Balls.
Of course, this does not explain all the results in the key Tory/Labour marginals, but it was certainly a key factor in a significant number of them. In many marginals, UKIP were the Tories "secret weapon".
The reasons why people chose to vote Conservative and not Labour in those key marginals will not be discussed here. Some of these factors have been discussed by the author before. It was also clear from anecdotal evidence that the SNP "fear factor" was playing on the minds of some key voters.
One more thing about UKIP. As UKIP themselves predicted, they came second in a number of "safe" Labour seats in the party's northern heartlands, and similarly, came second in a number of the Tories' heartland seats in the South-East. So Farage's claim as being the only "working class" party in England, was now beginning to look more and more credible, in spite of the reality.
A "lucky" Prime Minister?
As said at the start, the Conservatives won their seats due to the collapse of the Lib Dems, grabbing almost all the seats that were a toss between the Tories and the Lib Dems. Cameron claimed during the campaign that he only needed twenty more seats to govern, and he got them, from the Lib Dems. However, that presupposed that he didn't lose any seats to Labour, but as we have seen above - again - he was proved right, against all the odds. Thanks to the insurgent effect of UKIP on Labour's base, the "fear factor" of the SNP and worries over the economy on classic swing voters, the Tories emerged from the face-off in the Tory/Labour marginals relatively unscathed. Some seats were lost to Labour, but there were equally other (unexpected) gains from Labour. The losses and gains basically cancelled each other out. It was in these seats that the election was really won.
The switching of many Lib Dem seats to Tory, and the collapse of the Labour vote in Scotland meant that Labour had to rely on the English marginals mostly going their way in order to ensure that the Tories lost enough seats to bring Labour into contention as a serious alternative to form a government. In this way, Labour really were fighting against the tide. Due to the three factors mentioned - the Tories being the biggest recipient of the Lib Dem collapse, the surge of the SNP, and the UKIP "secret weapon" - the Tories really held the best set of cards to allow them to consolidate on their 2010 result.
In hindsight, these three factors should have been more obvious, in spite of all the predictions of a hung parliament and a messy politics to follow.
As things stand now, both Labour and (even more so) the Lib Dems have serious questions to ask themselves about what direction they should take their respective parties. While Labour's result in this election is comparable with 1987, this fails to take into account the loss of so many MPs in Scotland this time around. They cannot expect to gain them back any time soon. So the 1987 comparison is not truly accurate. Labour now are much more an "English" party than they were on Thursday morning.
But the political scene in Westminster is more fractured than ever before, in spjte of the gross injustices that FPTP has brought to UKIP and the Greens (while massively rewarding the SNP). In that sense, the political scene feels, if anything, like that in 1983: a divided opposition allowing the Conservatives to continue ruling from Downing Street.
David Cameron may well have felt he has dodged a bullet in this election, and been rewarded with a political bomb landing in the laps of his opponent, leaving a multitude of political carcasses.
Perhaps he's just "lucky".
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
The Conservatives' election strategy and "dirty tricks": how to divide your enemies and threaten people
Q: How do the Conservatives, the party that represent the interests of Britain's rich and powerful, persuade others to vote for them?
There have historically been two strands to this answer, depending on who they are trying to persuade.
To the "middle class", the Conservatives use the double-pronged "threat" of the Labour party as the party that will take away their money through taxation (and destroy the economy), as well as the "threat" that the "feckless/ undeserving/ immoral" segments of society pose to the rest.
Married with the psychological "threat" of the alternative is the "opportunity" that the Conservatives say they can bring to the middle class - that they offer the easiest (low tax) route for the the middle class to rise upwards to the golden realms of the elite. The message is fear on one hand, and greed on the other.
To the "working class", the Conservatives use the similar "threat" of the "feckless/ undeserving/ immoral", which is presumably much closer to home to them, married with the message that the Conservatives represent the "party of opportunity", allowing the "hardworking" to rise up to the middle class. Again, it is fear on one hand, and self-interest on the other.
Over the long history of the Tories, they have been adept at masking their recurring incompetence inside an exterior shell of assured self-confidence. This may well also be a metaphor for the state of modern Britain itself: but that's another story.
Divide and rule
George Osborne's use of the "strivers versus skivers" rhetoric is the latest telling of a narrative from the Tories that has been the same for many decades, which has intensified with the coming of Thatcherism.
The psychology of politics is a science in itself, and the psychology of the Conservatives is well worth studying in detail. The author looked at some examples from the Conservative government a few years ago, and came up with some interesting results. But as the only way that the Tories can become the government is by making their enemies hate each other, divide and rule is the best way to achieve it. As said earlier, this is a strategy they've practiced over many years.
This explains why Cameron's election strategy - devised by Lynton Crosby - has been all about the negatives, which reached a particular nadir a few weeks ago. But things have hardly got much better since, and there has been the relentless promotion of the "threat" that the SNP have over a possible Labour government - about the most cast-iron example of a literal "divide and rule" strategy you could witness.
The baseness of psychology required to formulate this strategy is stark, and it tells you much about how many Conservatives view human nature: as a game of winners and losers, where those who "lose out" have done so through their own mistakes, and therefore should be deservedly punished for it. As well as mirroring the thinking of Ayn Rand, it also - alarmingly - mirrors the thinking of one of the most destructive psychological disorders.
The kind of Britain that the Tories espouse is one where the disabled and the unemployed are presumed as probable fraudsters for simply wishing some financial aid from the state. It is a Britain where the unemployed are sometimes forced to work for their benefits (which is not only immoral, but also bad economics). People have literally died as the indirect result of government welfare policy. But under the Tories "divide and rule" strategy, those people that died were not penniless and starving because the government withdrew their benefits, but because of the choices that those people made. They were defined as "undeserving" i.e. they deserved to die.
The use of "divide and rule" provides the most important element of electioneering - creating a "scapegoat". Whether it's the SNP (or Scotland in general), "immigrants", "skivers", or whoever, the electorate - from a psychological point of view - have convincing "hate figures" in order to turn to the Tories as their saviour.
But for a cynical and immoral "divide and rule" strategy to work to its best, you also have to know how to use cynical and immoral "dirty tricks"...
How to use "The Dirty Tricks Handbook"
First and foremost, you have to control the "narrative". This is the "story" of what has happened up to the election. In short, it's propaganda - a lie - that you tell voters. It must be simple to be easily memorable, and repeated regularly.
The Tories' "narrative" about Labour - repeated by Cameron - is that they "broke the banks", and that it was "Labour overspending" that caused the crisis. Only the other day a treasury civil servant said catagorically that this "narrative" was untrue and a historical fallacy. It was a banking crisis (partly caused by lack of government regulation) that created the financial crisis. The "Labour overspending" happened as a result of the crisis; it was not the cause of it. The fact that so many people in the UK have such bad memories that they don't remember this is deeply worrying. The Tories are relying on the notion that if a smart, smooth-talking politician keeps on saying something, people believe it is true. And - horrifyingly - the evidence supports that notion.
Secondly - but probably as important - you have to have the media on your side. In this election, there is convincing evidence (also carried out by Loughborough University) that the media are solidly on the side of the Conservatives. This also seems to extend to the BBC, given the regularly tough questioning given out to Ed Miliband especially, compared to the tame (and sometimes poorly-phrased) questioning given to Cameron and other Tory figures. Given the similar educational backgrounds that many media figures have to many politicians, this shouldn't be so surprising, but it certainly puts paid to any real sense of media "freedom". Also, given that Ed Miliband had effectively declared war on a large segment of the media "establishment" following the events of Leveson, it is even less surprising.
It wasn't always like this, though. Under Tony Blair, the media "establishment" was largely on his side, but again - especially in the case of Rupert Murdoch - it was a case of currying favour in order to gain the support of the media. If the media really wasn't so influential, why did Blair (and Cameron) so obviously want to win them over?
Next, and related to the two previous ideas, is how essential it is to control the agenda. The Tories did this with ruthless duplicity. The whole "debate about the debates" was a prime example of the Tories controlling events in order to allow David Cameron to dictate to the media and the other parties precisely on what terms things would be allowed to happen. It was a disgraceful - but horribly effective - strategy.
Fourthly, apart from the "big lie" to control the "narrative", is the use of character assassination. This was alluded to earlier with the negative attacks on Miliband as someone who would "Stab Britain in The Back". In the case of this election, they seem to have been fairly ineffective (even counter-productive), but in the past had a greater chance of success - with the help of the media (see above). Related to this point is using your opponents' comments in an out-of-context manner to try to destroy their reputation.
One of the most interesting - and to your rival party, confounding - tactics is the use of "projection". This is a psychological term more commonly used as a tactic of narcissists to confound those around them when under threat. In political terms, this is when you accuse your rivals of the exact same errors that they accuse you of - "projecting" your own weaknesses onto your opponents. As this is the last thing your rivals are expecting, it leaves them confused and unclear where to go next with their argument.
An example in this campaign is Cameron's claim the other day that the Tories are for "hardworking people" and against the excesses of bankers, unlike Labour (because they bailed them out, and allowed excessive bonuses). This statement is so catagorically opposite to the Conservatives' reality that it beggars belief that Cameron can even convincingly utter it. As anyone with a brain knows, the Conservatives finances are strongly-reliant on groups and individuals in The City and offshore clients.
This kind of statement tells us more about the worrying ease with which David Cameron can spout complete nonsense from his mouth while seeming to believe every word of it. But Cameron has a track record for being a compulsive liar (or - let's be fair - possibly just a complete idiot), as well as a bully; not to mention a coward, and an incompetent.
Lastly, you can always steal the clothes (i.e. policies) of your opponent and claim they were yours all along.
There have historically been two strands to this answer, depending on who they are trying to persuade.
To the "middle class", the Conservatives use the double-pronged "threat" of the Labour party as the party that will take away their money through taxation (and destroy the economy), as well as the "threat" that the "feckless/ undeserving/ immoral" segments of society pose to the rest.
Married with the psychological "threat" of the alternative is the "opportunity" that the Conservatives say they can bring to the middle class - that they offer the easiest (low tax) route for the the middle class to rise upwards to the golden realms of the elite. The message is fear on one hand, and greed on the other.
To the "working class", the Conservatives use the similar "threat" of the "feckless/ undeserving/ immoral", which is presumably much closer to home to them, married with the message that the Conservatives represent the "party of opportunity", allowing the "hardworking" to rise up to the middle class. Again, it is fear on one hand, and self-interest on the other.
Over the long history of the Tories, they have been adept at masking their recurring incompetence inside an exterior shell of assured self-confidence. This may well also be a metaphor for the state of modern Britain itself: but that's another story.
Divide and rule
George Osborne's use of the "strivers versus skivers" rhetoric is the latest telling of a narrative from the Tories that has been the same for many decades, which has intensified with the coming of Thatcherism.
The psychology of politics is a science in itself, and the psychology of the Conservatives is well worth studying in detail. The author looked at some examples from the Conservative government a few years ago, and came up with some interesting results. But as the only way that the Tories can become the government is by making their enemies hate each other, divide and rule is the best way to achieve it. As said earlier, this is a strategy they've practiced over many years.
This explains why Cameron's election strategy - devised by Lynton Crosby - has been all about the negatives, which reached a particular nadir a few weeks ago. But things have hardly got much better since, and there has been the relentless promotion of the "threat" that the SNP have over a possible Labour government - about the most cast-iron example of a literal "divide and rule" strategy you could witness.
The baseness of psychology required to formulate this strategy is stark, and it tells you much about how many Conservatives view human nature: as a game of winners and losers, where those who "lose out" have done so through their own mistakes, and therefore should be deservedly punished for it. As well as mirroring the thinking of Ayn Rand, it also - alarmingly - mirrors the thinking of one of the most destructive psychological disorders.
The kind of Britain that the Tories espouse is one where the disabled and the unemployed are presumed as probable fraudsters for simply wishing some financial aid from the state. It is a Britain where the unemployed are sometimes forced to work for their benefits (which is not only immoral, but also bad economics). People have literally died as the indirect result of government welfare policy. But under the Tories "divide and rule" strategy, those people that died were not penniless and starving because the government withdrew their benefits, but because of the choices that those people made. They were defined as "undeserving" i.e. they deserved to die.
The use of "divide and rule" provides the most important element of electioneering - creating a "scapegoat". Whether it's the SNP (or Scotland in general), "immigrants", "skivers", or whoever, the electorate - from a psychological point of view - have convincing "hate figures" in order to turn to the Tories as their saviour.
But for a cynical and immoral "divide and rule" strategy to work to its best, you also have to know how to use cynical and immoral "dirty tricks"...
How to use "The Dirty Tricks Handbook"
First and foremost, you have to control the "narrative". This is the "story" of what has happened up to the election. In short, it's propaganda - a lie - that you tell voters. It must be simple to be easily memorable, and repeated regularly.
The Tories' "narrative" about Labour - repeated by Cameron - is that they "broke the banks", and that it was "Labour overspending" that caused the crisis. Only the other day a treasury civil servant said catagorically that this "narrative" was untrue and a historical fallacy. It was a banking crisis (partly caused by lack of government regulation) that created the financial crisis. The "Labour overspending" happened as a result of the crisis; it was not the cause of it. The fact that so many people in the UK have such bad memories that they don't remember this is deeply worrying. The Tories are relying on the notion that if a smart, smooth-talking politician keeps on saying something, people believe it is true. And - horrifyingly - the evidence supports that notion.
Secondly - but probably as important - you have to have the media on your side. In this election, there is convincing evidence (also carried out by Loughborough University) that the media are solidly on the side of the Conservatives. This also seems to extend to the BBC, given the regularly tough questioning given out to Ed Miliband especially, compared to the tame (and sometimes poorly-phrased) questioning given to Cameron and other Tory figures. Given the similar educational backgrounds that many media figures have to many politicians, this shouldn't be so surprising, but it certainly puts paid to any real sense of media "freedom". Also, given that Ed Miliband had effectively declared war on a large segment of the media "establishment" following the events of Leveson, it is even less surprising.
It wasn't always like this, though. Under Tony Blair, the media "establishment" was largely on his side, but again - especially in the case of Rupert Murdoch - it was a case of currying favour in order to gain the support of the media. If the media really wasn't so influential, why did Blair (and Cameron) so obviously want to win them over?
Next, and related to the two previous ideas, is how essential it is to control the agenda. The Tories did this with ruthless duplicity. The whole "debate about the debates" was a prime example of the Tories controlling events in order to allow David Cameron to dictate to the media and the other parties precisely on what terms things would be allowed to happen. It was a disgraceful - but horribly effective - strategy.
Fourthly, apart from the "big lie" to control the "narrative", is the use of character assassination. This was alluded to earlier with the negative attacks on Miliband as someone who would "Stab Britain in The Back". In the case of this election, they seem to have been fairly ineffective (even counter-productive), but in the past had a greater chance of success - with the help of the media (see above). Related to this point is using your opponents' comments in an out-of-context manner to try to destroy their reputation.
One of the most interesting - and to your rival party, confounding - tactics is the use of "projection". This is a psychological term more commonly used as a tactic of narcissists to confound those around them when under threat. In political terms, this is when you accuse your rivals of the exact same errors that they accuse you of - "projecting" your own weaknesses onto your opponents. As this is the last thing your rivals are expecting, it leaves them confused and unclear where to go next with their argument.
An example in this campaign is Cameron's claim the other day that the Tories are for "hardworking people" and against the excesses of bankers, unlike Labour (because they bailed them out, and allowed excessive bonuses). This statement is so catagorically opposite to the Conservatives' reality that it beggars belief that Cameron can even convincingly utter it. As anyone with a brain knows, the Conservatives finances are strongly-reliant on groups and individuals in The City and offshore clients.
This kind of statement tells us more about the worrying ease with which David Cameron can spout complete nonsense from his mouth while seeming to believe every word of it. But Cameron has a track record for being a compulsive liar (or - let's be fair - possibly just a complete idiot), as well as a bully; not to mention a coward, and an incompetent.
Lastly, you can always steal the clothes (i.e. policies) of your opponent and claim they were yours all along.
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