David Cameron's career is, in many ways, a parable of the ascent and (inevitable) demise of the narcissist as politician.
In a previous article, we've looked at Cameron's rise to party leader and Prime Minister, through the prism of the narcissist. The nature of his fall was as much the result his own personality and narcissism as any other part of his career; in some ways, even more so.
The article mentioned looks at how Cameron took control of his party by effectively making the success of the party reliant on the success of the leader; the party became popular because he was popular. In this sense, like many narcissist-politicians, the party became a form of "personality cult". He modernised the party, becoming known as the "heir to Blair" in the process. He took a look at how to make his party popular, recruiting Steve Hilton in the process; this was the "hug a hoodie" period before the financial crisis. These were the positives that Cameron brought to his role; but there were far more negatives in the long run.
Over his career he became known as masterful at tactics, but hopeless at strategy. His superficial charm was noticeable and what gave him an automatic sense of gravitas. The problem with this was that it perhaps too often it gave him an automatic sense of invincibility. We'll look at this in more detail in a moment.
The superficial charm, along with some other more unpleasant characteristics, have seemed to point to a darker aspect of Cameron's personality. While he has plenty of admirers and his circle of supporters are fiercely-defensive of his character and motives, a more distanced look at his career at the pinnacle of politics for six years (plus his four-and-a-half years as leader of the opposition) leads to a less sympathetic assessment. While he himself said that "all careers end in failure", his own failure was one he brought about on himself. It is this seismic failure that will always define him.
Politics as a poker game
Some see politics and power as a game of chess; others see it as a game of poker. A famous example of the former would be the cynical "grand master" of geo-politics in the early 21st century, Vladimir Putin. This is a man who will do whatever he needs to in order to preserve power, exploit weaknesses in his enemies, and grab opportunities to extend influence. Cameron's partner-in-power, George Osborne, is someone who also played politics as a chess game, using his position as chancellor to trap and destroy his enemies.
David Cameron, though, sees it as a game of poker, He would never admit this himself probably, but the evidence is there to see when you look at the judgments and decisions he has made as leader of his party and, more significantly, as Prime Minister.
Cameron is the ultimate "risk-taker" as politician. It is easier, and more instructive, to look at the progress of Cameron's career as a series of decisions and judgments (or "gambles"), and how this affected (or reinforced) the somewhat callous, risk-taking aspect to his character, ultimately resulting in an explosive "ultimate gamble".
This goes back all the way to his initial rise to the leadership of the Conservative Party. His main challenger for the leadership in 2005 was David Davis. As Davis was known as an arch Euro-sceptic, and Cameron's views on Europe were more nuanced, in order to win the support of the party's hard right, he declared that if he became Conservative leader he would take them out of the European People's Party (EPP), the EU's largest group of conservatism in the parliament. This declaration was key to getting the support he needed, and then he carried through with his promise to take his party out of the EPP. This was largely unremarked on in Britain at the time, but it was not in the Europe. It was never forgotten in Europe's major capitals how Cameron played to his party's anti-European instincts for his own personal gain; as would be repeated ten years later.
While this decision might not be a "gamble" as such, it was a judgement that would start a ball rolling and have long implications.
Cameron's relationship with the parliamentary party was almost always unstable, due to the distrust they felt over what they saw as his instinctive "Europeanism". Like during John Major's tenure, he was always having to play a balancing act between doing things to remain popular with the wider electorate (and thus in office), and doing things to stay on the right side of his MPs. His instincts were to the former, with the occasional piece of red meat thrown to the latter when the need arose. It was this strategy of effectively "winging it" with his own MPs (and thus the fate of the country) that would lead to the fateful "Bloomberg Speech" in early 2013.
His parliamentary party were taken aback when he failed to win the 2010 election outright; when Cameron then took the decision (and thus his first real "gamble") to join in a full coalition with the Liberal Democrats, many of them were incensed, and it took all his charm to keep them on his side. But even that was only temporary.
This "gamble" of coalition government led to a further "gamble" the following year, in the form of the AV referendum. This referendum on changing the voting system was one of the LibDems' terms in the Coalition Agreement; Cameron was taking a risk, for if he lost it, his party would have permanently fewer seats in parliament (and he would, one assumes, not be long in his job). Luckily for him, the risk was in fact over-stated, and due to the winning over the support of the Labour party, the "no" side won comfortably. Cameron had taken his first major domestic gamble, and won.
By 2012, though, the LibDems were causing trouble. After accepting austerity and losing the AV referendum, their leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg was becoming increasingly unpopular, and so needed something to raise his party's profile than being seen as the Conservatives' "enabler". According to the Coalition Agreement, the AV referendum was tied to changes on constituency boundary reform, which would benefit the Conservatives (at the expense of Labour and the LibDems). However, the LibDems now said that boundary reform was tied to House Of Lords reform; they would not support boundary reform without Lords' reform.
This led to boundary reform can being kicked down the road till after the 2015 election after the LibDems' Lords' reform failed, which infuriated many of Cameron's MPs. They were further infuriated by another decision (read "gamble") that Cameron took, to support gay marriage.
It was partly due to these factors (and the rise of UKIP) that led Cameron to feel the need to give his rebellious MP some "red meat"; the result of this was the fateful "Bloomberg Speech". In other words, his "gambles" in one direction had led to the need to "hedge" in the other.
Meanwhile, Cameron took his first foreign policy "gamble" early in 2011, with the intervention in Libya. The "Arab Spring" affected him quite strongly and, with the support of Nicholas Sarkozy, took the war in Libya to be a kind of personal crusade. It was a largely Anglo-French operation, but what was meant to be an operation that had learned the mistakes of Iraq turned into one that simply repeated them, albeit in a slightly different form. Once Muammar Qaddafi was gone, Cameron's attention rapidly waned; even before that, Cameron's "strategy" in Libya was proving to be almost non-existent. To be blunt, while Cameron may have had good intentions, to outsiders it looked like an exercise in foreign policy "attention seeking". The fact that Libya quickly collapsed into civil war due to a lack of Anglo-French guidance or oversight told its own story. Cameron's "gamble" in Libya is something that Britain seemed to quickly forget; meanwhile, Libyans are living it every day.
That trend of Cameron "taking his eye off the ball" did not get any better with the vote on war in Syria two years later. Again, Cameron's character flaws shown themselves to lead to a blunder of his own making. This was another case of him rolling the dice with high stakes in foreign affairs, and losing.
Raising the stakes
So far, Cameron's "gambles" had either paid off, or (at a superficial level) his "losses" had not critically damaged his position; he would lick his wounds and move on. In this sense, you could see where Cameron might get the impression that he was "getting quite good" at making judgement calls, in spite of the reality. He seemed to be quite good at shrugging off the occasional knock-back as part of a learning curve. The problem with this was that it might lead him to think his judgement was getting better with each "gamble" he made. It wasn't; it was simply that the stakes were getting higher each time.
Cameron has been called an "Essay Crisis" Prime Minister: he would often lack the drive and attention to deal with a problem until the last minute, when he would suddenly bring it all together as if by magic. It also meant that he was liable to panic at the final moment.
This was true of the Scottish Referendum, when during the negotiations with Alex Salmond he gave way on some issues, as long as the vote was an "either-or" and London would decide the timing of the vote. As the polls suggested a comfortable majority for staying part of the UK when the campaign started, Cameron saw this as a way to "lance the boil" of Scottish independence, while also catching Alex Salmond on the back foot.
As we know, the polls narrowed dramatically in the final weeks of the campaign, resulting in Cameron's panicky "vow" with the other major party leaders for more powers for Scotland to stay part of the UK (as an aside here, with Scotland being the only other kingdom in the "United Kingdom", Scotland leaving the UK would effectively mean the name would no longer have any meaning; so Scotland was effectively voting to abolish "the UK").
Again, this was another moment when Cameron was truly "risking it all". But no sooner had the referendum been won that he was again "hedging" with his own troublesome backbenchers by calling for EVEL; currying favour with Scotland one day, and with the English shires the next. No wonder people saw him as untrustworthy.
As we have seen, Cameron had been a "lucky" Prime Minister. The after-shocks of the referendum had huge effects on the politics of Scotland, with horrifying effects for Labour. Come the general election, it meant that Labour had to win dozens of seats in England to stand a chance. Cameron's use of Lynton Crosby, combined with a ruthless assault on the seats of the coalition partners, meant that his party was able to create an almost "perfect victory".
The strategy Cameron used in the election campaign was risky, especially as - in relentlessly attacking the LibDems - they were undermining the very party they thought they would need to form a functioning government. And, indeed, the "perfect victory" was almost too perfect: for it meant that with the LibDems no longer there in government to block an EU referendum, he would have to go through with his promise. This would prove to be a hideous irony.
And so Cameron arrived at his biggest gamble of all. As he had won so many other battles, and often played his hand with mastery over the past six years, he thought he had done enough to win the referendum, so he could go on to the final, glorious years of his premiership. In many ways, he used the same strategy ("Project Fear") in the EU referendum as he had in the Scottish referendum. He made many assumptions - mostly false - about the state of politics in the UK. Forgetting that UKIP were doing to Labour in the Northern England what the SNP had done to them in Scotland was a huge error of judgment on Cameron's part. This meant that Labour could not "rely" on "their" voters to vote the way they wanted, to fateful effect.
It was Cameron's "Essay Crisis" too many. He had looked at his hand of poker, and misjudged the table when he needed his judgment the most, when the stakes could not have been higher - for him or the country. The tendency for Cameron to be the expert of "winging it", of recklessly assuming "everything will be fine", of over-estimating his own judgment, finally came to destroy him.
In the end, also the manner of his resignation was told us something of his character. He was infamously quoted as saying after the result was clear "I'm not here for the hard shit", or words to that effect.
Monday, October 24, 2016
Thursday, October 6, 2016
Is Islamic Extremism a mental illness?
What kind of person is an Islamic extremist?
Islamic extremism is an ideology, but is also a psychology of its own. One way to understand this psychology is to look at the psychology of Islamic extremists themselves: those who claim that their hatred and acts of violence are done in the name of Islam.
"If you insult my religion, I'll kill you"
The psychology of the Islamic extremist bears an uncanny resemblance to that of the psychopathic narcissist. One example that sticks in the memory is of a murder that took place in the UK. A middle-aged Muslim shopkeeper was murdered in his shop in Scotland, in an attack that shocked the neighbourhood, as he was a caring and sympathetic member of the community. It transpired that the perpetrator was a Muslim man from the north of England. It was discovered that the motive for the attack was that he had seen a seen a video the shopkeeper had posted online which had angered him as it had somehow "disrespected Islam"; so he decided to kill him.
In other words, the murderer had taken this man's comments as a personal insult. The murderer had associated anything which he saw as an "attack" on his religion as an attack on himself.
This theme is a common thread in Islamic extremism. The reaction in the Muslim world to the Danish cartoons is another example of this: Muslim reactionaries across the world react with fury and violence when they feel that their prophet has been insulted. Again, they react as though they were insulted personally. They are psychologically unable to disassociate themselves from their religion, as they see it as an essential part of themselves. Because they see their religion as their life, their own sense of self is therefore injured if their religion is "injured". No wonder they can't take a joke.
Without meaning to sound flippant, there is something of a "mafia" feel to this: the stereotype of the mafia boss who kills someone because "they disrespected them" sounds to sounds an awful lot like the reaction that Islamic extremists take to seeing their religion "disrespected". You dare not criticise Islam if you value your life. This is the thought that these Islamic extremists want everyone else to have.
Again, another example was the shocking attack on Charlie Hebdo. Journalists murdered because they made cartoons insulting Islam. The psychological reaction that can be seen in the examples mentioned is like that of a tantrum-throwing child; the insecure and weak-willed person whose ego is so fragile that any slight to their own self-constructed perfected image can result in a rage that is totally disproportionate to the situation: "You insulted my prophet! YOU INSULTED MY PROPHET! ARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!", These people are in need of anger management classes, to say the least.
This touches on the wider issue of religion in the role it plays in "infantilising" society: because religion acts as a social code, there is a tendency for some to defer to it for all decision-making; in other words, their brains have been side-lined in the decision-making process. This is especially dangerous when the book you're reading from is open to many interpretations (or, in the case of Wahabbism and Salafism, reading words written about life in the middle of the desert in the 7th century as applicable cast-iron truths for the 21st). This child-like deference to a literal "God-head", and the internalisation of that God-head so that the "God-head" and the "self" become inseparable, is what makes this so potentially poisonous, as we have seen above.
"Infantilism" is also seen in narcissism. Elsewhere, we've looked at the differences and similarities between narcissism and psychopathy. Narcissists are at heart insecure and needy individuals with a fragile sense of worth always in need of affirmation (a source of narcissistic supply); this can make them tiresome company and difficult to deal with at the best of times; at their worst, they can be downright dangerous.
In social situations, this can be seen in more extreme groupings such as cults, as well as in the politics of populism and authoritarianism, where the leader attains an infallible status. There have been many historical examples of this. The psychology of the populist politician and their following becomes poisonous for all involved, especially if there is a religious underpinning to the movement, as can be seen in contemporary Turkey.
The rules don't apply
This "infantilism" prevalent in Islamic extremism is one aspect of the issue; another glaring part of the Islamic extremist's narcissism is their grandiose sense of self-worth and entitlement.
The "Trojan Horse" scandal in the UK with appeared in the news a couple of years ago is a prime example of this. This British news story uncovered how many Islamic schools in the UK were preaching intolerance, views antithetical to British law, and effectively bringing about self-imposed segregation of the Muslim community from the rest of British society.
Using the British state's own beliefs of "free speech" and cultural diversity back against them, they claim that their religious rights are being infringed if they are not allowed to practice their faith as they see fit. This would be a fair point, if it were not also the case that practising their faith as they see fit means that it also goes against various aspects of British law. These extremists see their faith as being being absolute and above that of national law i.e. because they are Muslims, the normal laws literally don't apply to them.
In this way, Muslim extremists seek to socially and legally separate themselves from the rest of society, using their faith as an excuse. They literally seek to create a "state with a state" in majority non-Muslim countries.
At the same time as claiming that their faith allows them special treatment (and can never be criticised), they still claim the same rights of "free speech" to incite hatred and violence against (for example) Jews (whom the Koran has called "pigs" and "monkeys") and non-believers in general. The use of "free speech" is therefore turned on its head, so that these extremists can have their cake and eat it: free to attack their "enemies" at whim, while free from attack themselves. In fact, it could be considered be a stunning piece of legal manipulation if its effect were not so dangerous.
Judge, jury and executioner
In a more general level, Islamic extremists suffer from a severe lack of empathy for others and society as a whole. We've mentioned earlier how this can exist in different social groupings (and also can be argued to exist in modern Capitalist society) creates divisions in society.
Islamic extremism very clearly divides between those who are "true" Muslims, and those who are not. This thus excluded not only non-Muslims, but what they would call Muslim "apostates" who are fallen from the "right path". For the likes of ISIS and their fellow Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia, this includes, primarily, Shias, as well as any other "lesser" branches of Islam that are deemed to have lost their way; and, of course Muslim "liberals", who would not be thought of as "Muslim" at all. This division, and the use of violent language, is what feeds their lack of empathy. For the extremist to feel "chosen" is what makes him a narcissist, and it is the need to therefore have an enemy (the more, the better) that helps to solidify his own sense of self, and reinforce the need for violence. The extremist scorns social rules, and is ultimately anti-social in character. This is the psychopathic aspect of the dangerous narcissism that lurks inside them.
We can see that, from a psychological point of view, the Islamic extremist is an insecure "rebel without a cause" who uses Islam as a way to seek validation from an unrealistic God-figure and a reliable source of narcissistic supply. It makes him feel powerful, and part of something "special"; he gains self-nourishment from the thought of having a divine cause, with this "divine cause" propelling him to impose his will on others, knowing he's doing "God's work". He feels he has the "divine right" to impose his will on others; this is an essential ingredient of narcissism
The source of narcissistic supply, therefore, is the ability to affect others around him in a way that no-one else can. Is this, then, the ultimate attraction of Islamic extremism? That it allows its "followers" to act like God; as judge, jury and executioner?
So this is the crux of the psychology of the extremist. Apart from the dangerous sense of entitlement already described, intertwined with this is the threat and use of violence to achieve his aims. And because those aims are ultimately unreachable ("A worldwide caliphate"?), this is what makes the Islamic extremist even more obviously a dangerously-psychopathic narcissist: he wants the world, literally. And nothing can stop him except death (which for him is an "honour" in any case). The obsession with death as a "martyr" (and the ultimate, self-destructive death-act) is the epitome of narcissism as a macabre exercise in histrionic attention-seeking. It is a sickness of the mind that kills all those that the narcissist extremist seeks to "take with him" in his orgy of death.
Islamic extremism is an ideology, but is also a psychology of its own. One way to understand this psychology is to look at the psychology of Islamic extremists themselves: those who claim that their hatred and acts of violence are done in the name of Islam.
"If you insult my religion, I'll kill you"
The psychology of the Islamic extremist bears an uncanny resemblance to that of the psychopathic narcissist. One example that sticks in the memory is of a murder that took place in the UK. A middle-aged Muslim shopkeeper was murdered in his shop in Scotland, in an attack that shocked the neighbourhood, as he was a caring and sympathetic member of the community. It transpired that the perpetrator was a Muslim man from the north of England. It was discovered that the motive for the attack was that he had seen a seen a video the shopkeeper had posted online which had angered him as it had somehow "disrespected Islam"; so he decided to kill him.
In other words, the murderer had taken this man's comments as a personal insult. The murderer had associated anything which he saw as an "attack" on his religion as an attack on himself.
This theme is a common thread in Islamic extremism. The reaction in the Muslim world to the Danish cartoons is another example of this: Muslim reactionaries across the world react with fury and violence when they feel that their prophet has been insulted. Again, they react as though they were insulted personally. They are psychologically unable to disassociate themselves from their religion, as they see it as an essential part of themselves. Because they see their religion as their life, their own sense of self is therefore injured if their religion is "injured". No wonder they can't take a joke.
Without meaning to sound flippant, there is something of a "mafia" feel to this: the stereotype of the mafia boss who kills someone because "they disrespected them" sounds to sounds an awful lot like the reaction that Islamic extremists take to seeing their religion "disrespected". You dare not criticise Islam if you value your life. This is the thought that these Islamic extremists want everyone else to have.
Again, another example was the shocking attack on Charlie Hebdo. Journalists murdered because they made cartoons insulting Islam. The psychological reaction that can be seen in the examples mentioned is like that of a tantrum-throwing child; the insecure and weak-willed person whose ego is so fragile that any slight to their own self-constructed perfected image can result in a rage that is totally disproportionate to the situation: "You insulted my prophet! YOU INSULTED MY PROPHET! ARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!", These people are in need of anger management classes, to say the least.
This touches on the wider issue of religion in the role it plays in "infantilising" society: because religion acts as a social code, there is a tendency for some to defer to it for all decision-making; in other words, their brains have been side-lined in the decision-making process. This is especially dangerous when the book you're reading from is open to many interpretations (or, in the case of Wahabbism and Salafism, reading words written about life in the middle of the desert in the 7th century as applicable cast-iron truths for the 21st). This child-like deference to a literal "God-head", and the internalisation of that God-head so that the "God-head" and the "self" become inseparable, is what makes this so potentially poisonous, as we have seen above.
"Infantilism" is also seen in narcissism. Elsewhere, we've looked at the differences and similarities between narcissism and psychopathy. Narcissists are at heart insecure and needy individuals with a fragile sense of worth always in need of affirmation (a source of narcissistic supply); this can make them tiresome company and difficult to deal with at the best of times; at their worst, they can be downright dangerous.
In social situations, this can be seen in more extreme groupings such as cults, as well as in the politics of populism and authoritarianism, where the leader attains an infallible status. There have been many historical examples of this. The psychology of the populist politician and their following becomes poisonous for all involved, especially if there is a religious underpinning to the movement, as can be seen in contemporary Turkey.
The rules don't apply
This "infantilism" prevalent in Islamic extremism is one aspect of the issue; another glaring part of the Islamic extremist's narcissism is their grandiose sense of self-worth and entitlement.
The "Trojan Horse" scandal in the UK with appeared in the news a couple of years ago is a prime example of this. This British news story uncovered how many Islamic schools in the UK were preaching intolerance, views antithetical to British law, and effectively bringing about self-imposed segregation of the Muslim community from the rest of British society.
Using the British state's own beliefs of "free speech" and cultural diversity back against them, they claim that their religious rights are being infringed if they are not allowed to practice their faith as they see fit. This would be a fair point, if it were not also the case that practising their faith as they see fit means that it also goes against various aspects of British law. These extremists see their faith as being being absolute and above that of national law i.e. because they are Muslims, the normal laws literally don't apply to them.
In this way, Muslim extremists seek to socially and legally separate themselves from the rest of society, using their faith as an excuse. They literally seek to create a "state with a state" in majority non-Muslim countries.
At the same time as claiming that their faith allows them special treatment (and can never be criticised), they still claim the same rights of "free speech" to incite hatred and violence against (for example) Jews (whom the Koran has called "pigs" and "monkeys") and non-believers in general. The use of "free speech" is therefore turned on its head, so that these extremists can have their cake and eat it: free to attack their "enemies" at whim, while free from attack themselves. In fact, it could be considered be a stunning piece of legal manipulation if its effect were not so dangerous.
Judge, jury and executioner
In a more general level, Islamic extremists suffer from a severe lack of empathy for others and society as a whole. We've mentioned earlier how this can exist in different social groupings (and also can be argued to exist in modern Capitalist society) creates divisions in society.
Islamic extremism very clearly divides between those who are "true" Muslims, and those who are not. This thus excluded not only non-Muslims, but what they would call Muslim "apostates" who are fallen from the "right path". For the likes of ISIS and their fellow Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia, this includes, primarily, Shias, as well as any other "lesser" branches of Islam that are deemed to have lost their way; and, of course Muslim "liberals", who would not be thought of as "Muslim" at all. This division, and the use of violent language, is what feeds their lack of empathy. For the extremist to feel "chosen" is what makes him a narcissist, and it is the need to therefore have an enemy (the more, the better) that helps to solidify his own sense of self, and reinforce the need for violence. The extremist scorns social rules, and is ultimately anti-social in character. This is the psychopathic aspect of the dangerous narcissism that lurks inside them.
We can see that, from a psychological point of view, the Islamic extremist is an insecure "rebel without a cause" who uses Islam as a way to seek validation from an unrealistic God-figure and a reliable source of narcissistic supply. It makes him feel powerful, and part of something "special"; he gains self-nourishment from the thought of having a divine cause, with this "divine cause" propelling him to impose his will on others, knowing he's doing "God's work". He feels he has the "divine right" to impose his will on others; this is an essential ingredient of narcissism
The source of narcissistic supply, therefore, is the ability to affect others around him in a way that no-one else can. Is this, then, the ultimate attraction of Islamic extremism? That it allows its "followers" to act like God; as judge, jury and executioner?
So this is the crux of the psychology of the extremist. Apart from the dangerous sense of entitlement already described, intertwined with this is the threat and use of violence to achieve his aims. And because those aims are ultimately unreachable ("A worldwide caliphate"?), this is what makes the Islamic extremist even more obviously a dangerously-psychopathic narcissist: he wants the world, literally. And nothing can stop him except death (which for him is an "honour" in any case). The obsession with death as a "martyr" (and the ultimate, self-destructive death-act) is the epitome of narcissism as a macabre exercise in histrionic attention-seeking. It is a sickness of the mind that kills all those that the narcissist extremist seeks to "take with him" in his orgy of death.
Saturday, March 26, 2016
The IDS resignation, the EU referendum, and Cameron: a Conservative crisis of Cameron's making
A week is a long time in politics; a year a lifetime.
Last May the Tories unexpectedly won the general election. After proving all the polls wrong, it left Cameron and Osborne with a definitive mandate to continue their plan of austerity and "reform". Unencumbered by being in a coalition with the LibDems, Cameron's government were free to pursue their aims.
Cameron came to government with a clear agenda to completely restructure how government is done, and also how government is perceived by the public. It was this "agenda" that was so catagorically trashed by Iain Duncan Smith when he resigned.
The roots of the IDS resignation go deep, back to the time when he was Conservative leader, and Cameron and Osborne were advising him on his speeches. The resignation spoke of wounded pride and bitterness at the way the "power duo" were running the government as an exclusive and divisive clique.
Cameron and Osborne had been the "rising stars" of the party in the years after the 2001 election, culminating in Cameron's successful bid to become leader after the failure of the election of 2005. From this point onward, it was Cameron and Osborne, with their neatly dovetailing personalities, that dominated the party's direction. This dominance has been self-evident ever since - up to now.
The spring budget can be called the high-point of the dominance of the "power duo": self-evident from the congratulatory response from Cameron and his intimates at the end of Osborne's budget speech to the look of smug satisfaction on Osborne's face at the end of it.
It was in the hours after this that things quickly began to unravel.
The manner of the IDS resignation was certainly the most high-profile and damning incident of its kind that has been seen since the resignation of Geoffrey Howe more than twenty-five years ago. It is also the first time in more than a generation that a minister has resigned over the budget.
As IDS alluded to, this has been a long time coming, but also has been orchestrated for maximum effect. To Cameron and Osborne, it is clear that politics is something of a "game" to them; Cameron is the superficially-charming, ideology-free careerist, while Osborne is the charisma-free, deviously-smart schemer. This is how their talents have dovetailed so fortuitously for them; equally, it is this opportunistic "dovetailing" of their talents that has ultimately brought about the divine vengeance of IDS.
However sceptically you may view IDS motivations, he has said that the entered politics to make a genuine difference. And as he said in interview, he views Cameron and Osborne's agenda as little more than amoral and divisive politicking, seeking success through a policy of "divide and rule" among the electorate. The "power duo" appear to care little about the disadvantaged because they do not vote Tory; this is what makes it so easy to scapegoat them as "skivers". Equally, this is also what makes it so easy for them to ignore - and even attack - the younger generation in order to indulge the "grey vote": a cynical manipulation (at the expense of the government's actual fortunes) to curry favour with those who are more likely to vote. Last year, this strategy worked to a tee.
In fact, it worked too well. For by cynically destroying their coalition partners the LibDems, it left the Conservatives with an absolute majority - and a headache to actually put their manifesto pledges into practice. As has been alluded to, it was always clear that the Tories were expecting for (at best) a resumption of the coalition, allowing them to dump some of their more fantastical fiscal ideas for the sake of compromise. As this didn't happen, it left Osborne with a lot of "creative accounting", which finally caught up with him in this month's budget. This time, it was "Omnishambles 2: the sequel". And this time, it was personal.
The Conservative Party itself is a coalition of two main flanks, and has been since at least Thatcher's time. Roughly divided between the pro-European "moderates" and Euro-sceptic (for wont of a better word) "hardliners", IDS belonged in the latter camp. The loss of the 2005 election saw "Camborne" rise to the leadership, with their own, 21st century brand of a moderate, "One Nation" Conservativism. They saw that it was the dominance of the Euro-sceptic "head-bangers" who were destroying the Tories' chances of winning power.
With the 2010 election, the chance to form a coalition with the LibDems was therefore a opportunity too good to miss: it would allow Cameron and Osborne a legitimate reason to sideline the Tory right, by making their positioning as a "middle ground" between the centrism of the LibDems and the hard-right "head-bangers" in their own party.
This was clever positioning, but all too clever by half. This was not "conviction politics", but mere "product placement", as IDS clearly saw. At the same time, his department, and his own ideas of welfare reform (whatever your view on them), became a victim to the superficial whims of Osborne in particular. Osborne and Cameron were in favour of austerity, but only really as a trap for Labour and a tool for re-election, rather than a genuine fiscal crusade. This is why austerity in the UK - as awful as it has been for those on the receiving end - is still a drop in the ocean compared to the experience of Ireland or Greece. For those that complained about the highly-unequal application of the policy on government departments, Osborne could either blame their LibDem coalition partners or the need to be firm on austerity, depending on who he was talking to.
Then there was the issue of Europe, which is in fact the true cause of Cameron's hubris and miscalculation in particular. While Europe was not the given reason for IDS' resignation, he also knew - as an arch Euro-sceptic - that he would face the chop in a post-referendum re-shuffle. So he had nothing to lose by resigning now, and it would almost certainly benefit the fortunes of his allies in the Euro-sceptic camp.
The fact that the UK is to have a referendum at all is simply due to the whim - and opportunism - of David Cameron. This in itself tells us everything about the Prime Minister's personality.
In truth, the referendum was talked about at a moment of Cameron's weakness, with the rising spectre of UKIP, from the middle of the last parliament onwards. His pledge to a referendum in the next parliament was therefore a sop to the hard-right of his party, as a tactic to neutralise the threat from UKIP. This is what European leaders find so incredible: that David Cameron would risk the UK's membership of the EU simply as a measure of controlling his party's internal divisions. It is certainly a sign of David Cameron's sense of perspective, or astonishing lack of it.
In this sense, the LibDems in coalition acted as a political buffer or shock absorber to "Camborne" for the internal divisions of the Conservative Party, especially over Europe. Winning the election last year was, in some ways, a disaster for the "power duo", for it left them completely exposed to the right of the party. And by opening up the issue of Europe in as raw a manner as the referendum has, it guaranteed that Tory divisions would come boiling to the surface sooner or later.
Again, Cameron and Osborne's high-handed and autocratic manner of dealing with the referendum has added further evidence of their dismissive and disdainful attitude towards "outsiders". The budget and its immediate fallout were simply a manifestation of all these animosities that have been brooding amongst that wing of the party since the Conservatives gained power in 2010. IDS simply articulated in words the source of those animosities in his resignation. The uproar now among the local party over the planned enforced conversion of all schools to academies (which wasn't even in the party's manifesto last year) is simply another example of how remote from the party the "power duo" have now become.
After the fallout from the budget fiasco and the IDS resignation, many in the party are looking at the time after the referendum, without Osborne and Cameron running the government - and the party - like their own private fiefdom. It's not difficult to imagine this scenario; in fact, it appears more and more likely that Cameron and Osborne will be forced out soon afterwards because they no longer represent the party itself, but simply see the party as a vehicle for their own cack-handed schemes.
In this sense, the referendum may well prove to be Cameron hoisting himself by his own petard. That Cameron did not see this as a real possibility - or was reckless enough to think it worth the risk - is deeply telling.
In trying to out-do Thatcher on Europe, Cameron may well end up out-doing the failure that was John Major. It would be fitting if Cameron were indeed brought down by Europe, for it would symbolise everything about the man: the ego; the superficiality; the hubris.
And then, the UK might have Boris Johnson to look forward to as his successor: replacing one superficial careerist for another...
Last May the Tories unexpectedly won the general election. After proving all the polls wrong, it left Cameron and Osborne with a definitive mandate to continue their plan of austerity and "reform". Unencumbered by being in a coalition with the LibDems, Cameron's government were free to pursue their aims.
Cameron came to government with a clear agenda to completely restructure how government is done, and also how government is perceived by the public. It was this "agenda" that was so catagorically trashed by Iain Duncan Smith when he resigned.
The roots of the IDS resignation go deep, back to the time when he was Conservative leader, and Cameron and Osborne were advising him on his speeches. The resignation spoke of wounded pride and bitterness at the way the "power duo" were running the government as an exclusive and divisive clique.
Cameron and Osborne had been the "rising stars" of the party in the years after the 2001 election, culminating in Cameron's successful bid to become leader after the failure of the election of 2005. From this point onward, it was Cameron and Osborne, with their neatly dovetailing personalities, that dominated the party's direction. This dominance has been self-evident ever since - up to now.
The spring budget can be called the high-point of the dominance of the "power duo": self-evident from the congratulatory response from Cameron and his intimates at the end of Osborne's budget speech to the look of smug satisfaction on Osborne's face at the end of it.
The manner of the IDS resignation was certainly the most high-profile and damning incident of its kind that has been seen since the resignation of Geoffrey Howe more than twenty-five years ago. It is also the first time in more than a generation that a minister has resigned over the budget.
As IDS alluded to, this has been a long time coming, but also has been orchestrated for maximum effect. To Cameron and Osborne, it is clear that politics is something of a "game" to them; Cameron is the superficially-charming, ideology-free careerist, while Osborne is the charisma-free, deviously-smart schemer. This is how their talents have dovetailed so fortuitously for them; equally, it is this opportunistic "dovetailing" of their talents that has ultimately brought about the divine vengeance of IDS.
However sceptically you may view IDS motivations, he has said that the entered politics to make a genuine difference. And as he said in interview, he views Cameron and Osborne's agenda as little more than amoral and divisive politicking, seeking success through a policy of "divide and rule" among the electorate. The "power duo" appear to care little about the disadvantaged because they do not vote Tory; this is what makes it so easy to scapegoat them as "skivers". Equally, this is also what makes it so easy for them to ignore - and even attack - the younger generation in order to indulge the "grey vote": a cynical manipulation (at the expense of the government's actual fortunes) to curry favour with those who are more likely to vote. Last year, this strategy worked to a tee.
In fact, it worked too well. For by cynically destroying their coalition partners the LibDems, it left the Conservatives with an absolute majority - and a headache to actually put their manifesto pledges into practice. As has been alluded to, it was always clear that the Tories were expecting for (at best) a resumption of the coalition, allowing them to dump some of their more fantastical fiscal ideas for the sake of compromise. As this didn't happen, it left Osborne with a lot of "creative accounting", which finally caught up with him in this month's budget. This time, it was "Omnishambles 2: the sequel". And this time, it was personal.
The Conservative Party itself is a coalition of two main flanks, and has been since at least Thatcher's time. Roughly divided between the pro-European "moderates" and Euro-sceptic (for wont of a better word) "hardliners", IDS belonged in the latter camp. The loss of the 2005 election saw "Camborne" rise to the leadership, with their own, 21st century brand of a moderate, "One Nation" Conservativism. They saw that it was the dominance of the Euro-sceptic "head-bangers" who were destroying the Tories' chances of winning power.
With the 2010 election, the chance to form a coalition with the LibDems was therefore a opportunity too good to miss: it would allow Cameron and Osborne a legitimate reason to sideline the Tory right, by making their positioning as a "middle ground" between the centrism of the LibDems and the hard-right "head-bangers" in their own party.
This was clever positioning, but all too clever by half. This was not "conviction politics", but mere "product placement", as IDS clearly saw. At the same time, his department, and his own ideas of welfare reform (whatever your view on them), became a victim to the superficial whims of Osborne in particular. Osborne and Cameron were in favour of austerity, but only really as a trap for Labour and a tool for re-election, rather than a genuine fiscal crusade. This is why austerity in the UK - as awful as it has been for those on the receiving end - is still a drop in the ocean compared to the experience of Ireland or Greece. For those that complained about the highly-unequal application of the policy on government departments, Osborne could either blame their LibDem coalition partners or the need to be firm on austerity, depending on who he was talking to.
Then there was the issue of Europe, which is in fact the true cause of Cameron's hubris and miscalculation in particular. While Europe was not the given reason for IDS' resignation, he also knew - as an arch Euro-sceptic - that he would face the chop in a post-referendum re-shuffle. So he had nothing to lose by resigning now, and it would almost certainly benefit the fortunes of his allies in the Euro-sceptic camp.
The fact that the UK is to have a referendum at all is simply due to the whim - and opportunism - of David Cameron. This in itself tells us everything about the Prime Minister's personality.
In truth, the referendum was talked about at a moment of Cameron's weakness, with the rising spectre of UKIP, from the middle of the last parliament onwards. His pledge to a referendum in the next parliament was therefore a sop to the hard-right of his party, as a tactic to neutralise the threat from UKIP. This is what European leaders find so incredible: that David Cameron would risk the UK's membership of the EU simply as a measure of controlling his party's internal divisions. It is certainly a sign of David Cameron's sense of perspective, or astonishing lack of it.
In this sense, the LibDems in coalition acted as a political buffer or shock absorber to "Camborne" for the internal divisions of the Conservative Party, especially over Europe. Winning the election last year was, in some ways, a disaster for the "power duo", for it left them completely exposed to the right of the party. And by opening up the issue of Europe in as raw a manner as the referendum has, it guaranteed that Tory divisions would come boiling to the surface sooner or later.
Again, Cameron and Osborne's high-handed and autocratic manner of dealing with the referendum has added further evidence of their dismissive and disdainful attitude towards "outsiders". The budget and its immediate fallout were simply a manifestation of all these animosities that have been brooding amongst that wing of the party since the Conservatives gained power in 2010. IDS simply articulated in words the source of those animosities in his resignation. The uproar now among the local party over the planned enforced conversion of all schools to academies (which wasn't even in the party's manifesto last year) is simply another example of how remote from the party the "power duo" have now become.
After the fallout from the budget fiasco and the IDS resignation, many in the party are looking at the time after the referendum, without Osborne and Cameron running the government - and the party - like their own private fiefdom. It's not difficult to imagine this scenario; in fact, it appears more and more likely that Cameron and Osborne will be forced out soon afterwards because they no longer represent the party itself, but simply see the party as a vehicle for their own cack-handed schemes.
In this sense, the referendum may well prove to be Cameron hoisting himself by his own petard. That Cameron did not see this as a real possibility - or was reckless enough to think it worth the risk - is deeply telling.
In trying to out-do Thatcher on Europe, Cameron may well end up out-doing the failure that was John Major. It would be fitting if Cameron were indeed brought down by Europe, for it would symbolise everything about the man: the ego; the superficiality; the hubris.
And then, the UK might have Boris Johnson to look forward to as his successor: replacing one superficial careerist for another...
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