Oh for a grown-up party!

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Oh for a grown-up party!

In asking, more or less rhetorically in one of yesterday's posts, whether "we" care, my actual target was myself as much as our many readers. The question is addressed to myself in terms of whether I care, the uncompleted query being whether one really cares which political party makes the running.

In truth, the economy is in such a mess – and made worse by Brown's maladministration – that, in the short term at least – it will make very little difference. We are going to take some pain and the only real choice is where we take that pain.

It is possible to argue that, in the longer term, the Conservatives will be better for the economy, if only because it is virtually impossible to do worse than Mr Brown and his current chancellor. But that is as much a fond hope as anything else. As Bruce Anderson pointed out yesterday, the essential flaw in the Brown package is that it is comprises a series of fiscal measures, when the "current ailments are not fiscal; they are monetary".

It was that which led Anderson to conclude that Brown is playing politics - and I agree with the conclusion. Rather than dealing with the economic crisis, he has devised a carefully crafted set of "bribes" focused on a tiny sub-set of the electorate whom, he hopes, will be impressed enough to vote for Labour at the next general election and thus make the different between victory and defeat.

And, as one commentator remarked on the ToryBoy blog, which I have reproduced on our forum:

Whatever people may think about labour's ability to run the country, they are not stupid. They know their electorate and how to play the political game, or they wouldn't be in power. A shrewd player makes use of situations that arise to kill 15 birds with a single stone... and keep the stone.

So maybe this is all a deliberate plan by labour. They can see the country is a mess, and their chances of winning the next election are poor. So, address the crisis with measures designed to look good to your traditional supporters, while simultaneously generating a pile of trouble for whoever next gets into government. Since there is a good chance it may not be labour, they can then crow about the failure of the government in 4 years time ("it was never close to this bad under labour") before storming back in on a massive majority after just 1 missed term.

That more or less sums up what I think, my point being that it doesn't matter what we, what the media or the rest of the chattering classes think. What matters is that electoral sub-set being addressed by Brown, the ignorati as I put it. And, to be brutally frank, none of us really know what they think.

One of the most difficult things to do as an analyst is to assess other peoples' ignorance. There is a tendency to think that because you know something, or that it is blindingly obvious to yourself, that everybody else also knows it, or comes to the same level of understanding.

The crucial thing, of course, is that elections are not won by appealing to the politically aware, and that very small band of people fortunate enough to understand the economic issues involved in our current crisis, and the remedies that are needed.

The coming election will be won by appealing to the ignorati, the economically illiterate and the politically apathetic. Like the ToryBoy commentator, I suspect – but don't know – that Brown (guided as he is currently by Peter Mandelson) has a better understanding of what makes theignorati tick than we do – and possibly a much better idea that the Tories.

That brings me back to the thesis of "who cares wins?" My problem here is that I take an instinctive and violent dislike to braying back-benchers and the Punch and Judy politics that we see on display in the House of Commons. Equally, I dislike "opposition by soundbite" as much as I do government by soundbite. Therefore, the natural reaction is to say, "a plague on both your houses" and retire from the field.

Add to that, the Anderson diagnosis that we are dealing with a monetary crisis and this feeling is strengthened, as so many of the controls needed to remedy the global and national financial systems lie outside the power (or competence) of our local politicians. To that extent, it really does not matter which party is in office. Neither of them is truly in power, both having sold their souls to the tranzies.

Taking all this in the round, one can conclude that the basic difference is that, while neither Labour nor the Tories can make things much better, Labour has within it the capability to make things a whole lot worse. Therefore, Conservatives have to be the choice, but it is not a wholesale endorsement.

One has to do more than hold one's nose to vote for a party which is in bed with the Friends of the Earth, an organisation which holds values to which I am totally, completely and utterly opposed, with every fibre of my being. Frankly, if it was not for the economic issues, no amount of wild horses would drag me into a polling booth to vote Conservative.

Expecting rational policies on the environment and related issues, however, seems to be too much to ask but, since Labour policies are no better, it is definitely a matter of Hobson's choice. Either way we get shafted, and I resent being put in a position where I am forced to vote for a party which takes a stance on a core issue (one of many) with which I totally disagree.

Thus, the only thing one can possibly hope for is that, if either or both parties are going to shaft us – the choice being not "whether" but to what degree - then it would be nice if one of them could act like grown-ups instead of squabbling children fighting over a satchel. That alone would almost be enough to get my vote – almost. More likely, the nose peg will have to be employed.

In the meantime, I remain convinced that forensic opposition is the best way of taking down this government, and I am (and have been) working on a piece that will take this philosophy further. That I hope to post sometime tomorrow, but it may take a little longer. With that, at least, I can retain some semblance of personal sanity - possibly the only thing left that they cannot tax.

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Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Makes you weep

As it happens, I have never shared the visceral hatred so many people in Britain display towards bankers and other people who make large sums of money, particularly as those people are keeping the British economy going. Without the City this country will be a sorry place.

I might not want to consult businessmen on political matters but when it comes to such things as money and the economy I know whom I would choose, businessmen or politicians. The latter, in my opinion, are like overgrown uncontrolled children who, unable to build an elaborate sandcastle, prefer to kick over the other kid's creation to finding some useful occupation for themselves.

At least two commentators, Thomas Sowell on Townhall.com and Timothy Noah on Slate.com, think that is precisely what is happening in the United States. Once things are made to go wrong, it is very difficult to put them right as numerous studies about the dire effect Roosevelt's policies had on the depression of the thirties.

As for our own Prime Minister, who has just mortgaged the country for the next fifty years (if we are lucky), I fear that for once I have to agree with Boris Johnson's outburst. This is Gordon, the old socialist, delighting in what he sees as the humbling of people better than himself in that they are more useful to the country.

Mind you, it is not entirely clear to me why Mr Johnson is so surprised at the fact that all that money has been squandered on the public sector since 1997. I thought everyone knew that.

I also disagree with the boss - people are not being fooled by Gordon the Moron's performance and, for once, neither is the media. All the newspapers were lambasting him this morning, no matter what their political outlook might be.

The problem is that, whichever way we turn, the country loses out. ToryBoy blog is correct in its analysis (gosh, I am being generous today but only because anything and anyone is better than malevolent idiot politicians): Brown thinks he is in a win-win situation. Either the public swallows his assurances that he is the saviour and not the destroyer of the British economy and he is re-elected; or he loses the next election and the incoming Conservative government is left with an unholy mess. Sadly, I do not share ToryBoy blog's admiration for the Shadow Chancellor.

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