Crash Bang Wallace
Libertarian political blog from Mark Wallace; political opinion, breaking news and exclusivesWhere is the love for Tory backbenchers?
Posted on July 28, 2010It’s a story we all recognise. A disaffected gang start causing trouble – smashing things up, daubing graffiti, hanging around threateningly on street corners.
Their motivation? Boredom, rejection, and the feeling that they have been left behind while others are getting ahead.
This isn’t a case study by Iain Duncan Smith or a socially just Guardian article, though. These aren’t gangland hoodies. They’re backbench Tory MPs.
From David Davis’ overheard remarks the other day, to the proposed founding of the Brokeback Club and even the gathering pace of the campaign to move the date of the AV referendum, the blues’ backbenches are increasingly on the warpath.
Why?
Talk to backbenchers and you’ll hear the same concerns time and again. They feel left out in the cold. The leadership doesn’t understand them or even dislikes “the Right” innately. Worst of all, they feel the Lib Dems are valued more than them.
Contrary to the common assumption this is not simply an ideological dispute. Many of these same MPs have been content to follow David Cameron’s leadership for the last three years despite plenty of large ideological divisions.
No, this is about respect, pride and the workings of the Government. Many backbenchers are left out, sidelined and (intentionally or unintentionally) snubbed.
The irony is that most of these problems could be avoided by applying to the Conservative Party itself many of the principles its leadership want to apply to the nation.
Here’s David Cameron in the Guardian last year presenting the localist agenda:
“If people know that their actions can make a real difference to their local communities, they’re far more motivated to get involved – and civic pride is revived. If local government is both more powerful and more accountable, we can start to restore the trust that’s been lost in our political system. It’s for these practical reasons that I am a confirmed localist, committed to turning Britain’s pyramid of power on its head.”
And yet if you so much as whisper the question “how centralised is the Party?” to a backbench MP, they’ll talk your ear off about quite how much power lies at the top. (Michael Crick has a handy list of centralising moves within the Conservative Party here.)
Another famous cornerstone of the leadership’s philosophy is understanding the deeper causes of antisocial behaviour and disaffection. Here’s a quote from the “hug a hoodie” speech:
“So when you see a child walking down the road, hoodie up, head down, moody, swaggering, dominating the pavement – think what has brought that child to that moment. If the first thing we have to do is understand what’s gone wrong, the second thing is to realise that putting things right is not just about law enforcement. It’s about the quality of the work we do with young people. It’s about relationships. It’s about trust.”
The same, fundamentally, goes for Conservative MPs.
Admittedly, they’re not happy slapping people in Central Lobby, though I can think of a few who might be tempted. But disaffection and distrust in politics is corrosive, something Blair and Brown proved in spades.
It’s not too late to fix this. These cracks don’t yet have the depth or permanence of those between John Major and “the Bastards“.
David Cameron once laid out a simple prescription for hoodies, that he now needs to apply to his own MPs:
“It is about love.”
With Lord Mandelson, who knows what to believe?
Posted on July 16, 2010The press, the airwaves and the Westminster gossip mill are a bit like the Premiership, the FA Cup and the Champions League – it’s an impressive feat to hold all three at the same time. Normally one will run ahead or lag behind the others in the current hot topic.
It takes a big star – or a big scandal – to hold the Treble, and they don’t come much bigger at the moment than Lord Mandelson (take your pick of whether he’s a star or a scandal). His memoirs are occupying enough newspaper space for Wayne Rooney to write out his full bank balance in crayon, and the chatter is only going to grow as the serialisation and publicity campaign rolls on.
The revelations in ‘The Third Man’ seem fairly interesting, giving us more insight into the backstabbing, infighting and conspiracy that ate at the heart of New Labour.
In so doing, the good Lord has only really coloured in more of the general picture that we all knew existed. Everyone knows that Blair and Brown didn’t get along, though it’s nice to get an actual Blair quote about Brown being “mad, bad and beyond redemption”. Everyone knows that Mandelson is an arch-schemer, though it’s good to get an insight into how he went about it.
Most importantly, of course, we all know that many Ministers were lying through their teeth on a regular basis. I’m not going to pretend that this is something that only applies to the recent Labour Government – it would be absurd to do so – but it’s generally acknowledged that New Labour, under the guidance of Messrs Mandelson and Campbell, took it to a new level of accomplishment.
That raises an important question about “The Third Man” as a memoir. Given that its author was the architect of a new type of politics characterised by the telling of untruths in what they saw as a greater cause, can we actually believe any of it?
People often portray New Labour as a cheap con trick, but it was far more intelligent – if not much more honest – than that (see Peter Oborne’s excellent “The Rise of Political Lying” for more). In their early days in particular, they really were setting out to redefine language in order to win political power.
In doing so, they completely severed the already weak links of trust between the political class and the public. Indeed, they lost the ability to trust each other, with Brown telling Blair “There is nothing that you could ever say to me now that I could possibly believe”. (Ironically, that was probably the moment that Gordon Brown had the most in common with ordinary British voters).
It is fitting that the New Labour era is being brought to an end by a whole book which we don’t really know if we can believe or not. It is equally appropriate that a book which is effectively Peter Mandelson’s longest ever press release is occupying central stage – irrespective of whether it is true or false. Just like the old days, he’s achieved his aim – and whether he told the truth to get there is by the by.