Crash Bang Wallace
Libertarian political blog from Mark Wallace; political opinion, breaking news and exclusivesFive lessons from the AV referendum
Posted on May 09, 2011The dust has settled, the fog of war has dissipated, and every other introductory cliche in the book has been used. What have we really learned about British politics from the crushing victory of the No2AV campaign? There are five implications that I can see for the practice and principle of politics. Here they are, in no particular order:
1) Combat Campaigning is here to stay. For several years now there have been signs that the methods and style of political campaigning have been evolving in Britain.As the old party system has become weaker, there were two voices vying to be its heir: on one side there was combative, streetfighting campaigning built on the belief that a proper dust-up interests people and produces the best ideas; on the other side was a consensus model, founded on the idea that no-one liked a nasty argument and it was much better to build a cosy centrist consensus.
Not only did the two sides in the AV referendum employ these two competing models – with No going combative and Yes opting for cuddles and herbal tea – but their beliefs aligned with them as well. AV is a system founded on the idea that politicians should share body warmth smack in the centre, whilst First Past the Post is about the battle of ideas.
The fact that No won bears out both the model of campaigning they employed and the belief that they were fighting for – people are more interested in a boxing match than a singalong. While Yes tried to argue that real life is preferential and consensual, voters thought otherwise. The campaigning style espoused by No, and pioneered in the UK by the TaxPayers’ Alliance, is successful and on that basis it here to stay.
2) The “Progressive Majority” doesn’t exist…except in the minds of Islingtonians who can’t bear to imagine that anyone might disagree with them. Whether it’s LeftFootForward, Laurie Penny, Polly Toynbee or Liberal Conspiracy there’s an in-built smug sense of virtue to the new British Left – they think something, they know they’re the most compassionate and sensible people on the block, so therefore everyone must think the same, right? I mean, almost every TV comedian does, so obviously the rest of the population are on board too? Nope. It turns out that only Islington, Camden, Hackney, Cambridge, Oxford and part of Glasgow supported AV, the “Progressive Majority’s” new favourite child – and nationally on 6.1 million people even support AV, never mind the Progressives’ supposed vision of Britain. The referendum proved that those who shout loudest are not automatically the most numerous.
3) There is no such thing as Progressive. Not only is there no majority in favour of it, there is actually no such thing as Progressivism. In effect it could be defined accurately as: Progressive, noun, Someone nice, ie in agreement with me.
The really notable thing about this referendum is the way that it split the Left. The Lib Dems and the self-declared “Progressive Majority” – a broadly young rump of Labour, the NUS and the SWP’s twitterati and commentariat – divided from the mass base that they normally assume they can ignore and still gain funding from.
I’m only an outsider looking in on the Left, but if you viewed yourself as “Progressive” before the referendum, only to be told that if you voted No then you weren’t in the club any more, you’d now be reassessing whether you’re a “Progressive” any more.
4) No-one likes a whinger. Someone – I can’t remember who – once said that “It isn’t fair” is the most powerful message in British politics.
They were right, but the Yes camp ably demonstrated that this is only true when your situation genuinely isn’t fair. It’s not fair that if you join the Army you end up buying your own kit. It’s not fair that if you save all your life and provide for your kids you get hammered with extra taxes while others get a subsidy at your expense. It’s not fair that the Gurkhas risked their lives for this nation then told them to do a running jump.
When your opponents in a referendum campaign starting hitting you hard by digging up quotes that prove you’ve done an about-face or talking about Nick Clegg, that certainly is fair. You’re not going to gain any fans by trying to get judges to enforce Marquess of Queensberry Rules – in fact, you’re going to make people think you’re a bit of a wet blanket and don’t deserve their vote. So don’t moan, fight back.
5) People want more power. In the run-up to the referendum, everyone was saying that turnout would be apocalyptically low, threatening the idea that people wanted to be allowed to vote on important matters. It’s understandable why they thought people might not turnout – AV was a proposal hardly anyone had heard of previously and even fewer people actually liked (including most of the Yes campaign).
But that’s not how it turned out. Even on a boring proposal which had been brought forward as a result of political shenanigans in Whitehall back-offices, more than 40% turned out. That’s not bad given the topic. Imagine how many would turn out to vote in a referendum on, say, EU membership?
Student Union turnouts shows the Unions lack a mandate
Posted on March 04, 2011The NUS and the Student Unions have made great play in the last few months about the Coalition’s supposed lack of “democratic legitimacy” or a “mandate”. Cameron and Clegg, we are told, don’t really represent the voters.
The Student Union establishment is on shaky ground here, as today’s news from Sheffield University shows. In publishing the results for their SU elections they proudly boast that they have achieved “the highest ever election turnout for a Students’ Union election in the UK”.
So what was this staggering percentage? Erm, 23.82%
Yes, you read that right. They who complain about the democratic legitimacy of the Government can only achieve a turnout from their own constituents that would make most local councils blush.
Thom Arnold, the Sheffield student president elect, received 1,933 first preference votes out of 6765 cast – a miserable 28.5% of the 23.82% of the constituents who bothered to vote. It was only after six rounds that he was able to go through on others’ lower preferences.
This is the same old story – most Student Unions are far worse. I remember when I was elected to represent Durham at the NUS conference (for my sins) we had a miserable turnout of 10% or so. When we arrived at the conference we were amazed to find that most other delegates viewed our “high” turnout as a remarkable success.
At the core of this news is a simple truth that they don’t want to accept – the so-called “student leaders” are utterly disconnected from the people they claim to represent. They don’t inspire attention from most students, never mind confidence or actual support. Next time they throw stones at the Government, they might want to pause to consider their own glass house.
The Child Benefit proposal is a vote-winner
Posted on October 07, 2010The child benefit hoo-hah over the last few days is understandable. It’s controversial, communications within the Cabinet clearly weren’t as hot as they should have been and – inexplicably – it was launched before obvious potential loopholes had been spotted and sorted out. As a result particularly of those unsealed loopholes it has been pretty roundly panned, particularly in the Mail, Telegraph and Express.
However, I think the media have called this one wrong – this idea has the potential to be a big vote-winner. In the words of one lobby editor I spoke to on Monday, the papers swiftly resolved to “pour a bucket of shit over the idea”. As Guido points out, this may in part be because many of those writing our papers are on more than £44k, so are themselves going to lose out from the policy. Whatever the reason, there is now definitive evidence that their assumption that this was an unpopular idea is mistaken.
According to YouGov there is massive 83% support for the principle of the policy. Interestingly, on its implementation (where there have been some screw-ups) the only real concern comes from the 46% of people who want fully-fledged means testing introduced – a much more radical suggestion. Instead of the predicted popular backlash, the Government’s real challenge is that they aren’t going far enough for many people.
Is conservatism dead? Did it ever live?
Posted on September 16, 2010Chris Dillow of the excellent Stumbling and Mumbling blog asks – not for the first or the last time, I suspect – “Is conservatism dead?”. It’s a great piece and well worth reading.
But it raises an even more fundamental question. To work out whether something is extinct or not, you first need to know what it looks like. Without a recognisable identity, the beast you think has died out might be merrily wandering around the jungle or the pampas, chomping on small animals.
Before we can know if conservatism is indeed dead, we need to ask “what does conservatism look like?”
The problem is that conservatism has never had one stable identity. Disraeli, Salisbury, Heath, Powell, Thatcher, Cameron – all of these were conservatives by self-description, and yet their philosophies are wildly different. Even more remarkably, all of them have been heralded simultaneously as the very essence and the very antithesis of what it means to be conservative.
Even more confusingly, these different conservative identities don’t just change over time – they have historically been in existence simultaneously and in competition with each other. At the moment, there are those who would define Thatcherism as conservative, and Cameron as a soft-socialist. Others would argue that Thatcher was a revolutionary masquerading as a conservative, and Cameron is making a return to the true conservative tradition.
This isn’t just about branding or personalities, it’s a contradictory flaw at the heart of the idea of conservatism. Dillow quotes the Oakeshottian idea that
To be conservative…is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect.
Meaning that to be conservative is to conserve the status quo for the simple reason that it’s what you’ve already got. That sounds obvious, but it actually raises serious questions. Should a conservative government winning power after several years of rule by a radical or even revolutionary government conserve their predecessors’ legacy?
Accepting that definition of conservatism would mean in Britain that the Conservative Party simply has the role of preserving the legacy of various Labour Governments – that they in effect become stewards for a ratcheting socialism, standing in to mind the shop while Labour are having a rest.
That kind of conservatism doesn’t exist, and never truly has outside the world of semantics, for the obvious reason that it is somewhat farcical – you would fight each election saying “What we’ve got now is great”, even if what you’ve got now is the outcome of a manifesto that you opposed 5 years previously on the basis that it would be disastrous to change what you had then. If anyone believes that this conservatism once did exist, please show me the Conservative Government that passed no legislation during their time in power and simple honoured what they inherited.
So when Chris asks “Is conservatism dead?” I would reply no – because it never lived. To lament it would be to lament the extinction of the unicorn, the shooting of the last griffin and the sad look on the face of the sphinx.
Wheeling and dealing
Posted on August 03, 2010Conservative Home’s poll of Conservative party members explores an interesting idea this week – should the Coalition partners step aside for each other in key seats at the next election?
The results are mixed – 55% of Conservatives think it “may be necessary” but are withholding final judgement, but 35% view the idea of a non-agression pact as “totally unacceptable”.
This is an extremely sticky topic. The Coalition partners don’t need to decide yet, or for quite some time, but they will eventually have to make their minds up about what to do. They will be desperate to avoid discussing it for as long as possible, because the eventual decision will crystallise what the Coalition is really all about – is it a temporary and uncomfortable marriage of convenience, a happy and lasting ideological meeting of minds or something between the two?
It also plumbs the existential questions which the Liberal Democrats have brought upon themselves by joining the Coalition in the first place. The polls already show them suffering not because people dislike what the Government is doing but because people are starting to wonder what the point in voting Lib Dem is. If they are seen to be too keen on a non-aggression pact it could be interpreted as a sign that they are scared to face the public, but there are great electoral risks if they try to fight every seat.
Consider the recent history of non-aggression pacts. The Better Off Out campaign, which I launched when I worked at The Freedom Association, brokered a deal that UKIP would not stand against true, out and out anti-EU Conservatives. In places like Shipley (Philip Davies) and Harwich and Clacton (Douglas Carswell) it worked fantastically, helping to land whopping majorities for anti-EU MPs in previously marginal constituencies.
The problems came in places where UKIP couldn’t control their local activists, who broke the deal their leaders had agreed to. Instead of trust and co-operation, you end up with an embarrassing mud-slinging match.
The rebellion in UKIP only really sprung up in the South West, but it’s a safe bet that such disobedience would be far more widespread if there was a deal sewn up between the Conservatives and the Lib Dems. If 35% of Tories deeply oppose a deal, then a lot more Liberal Democrats would probably do so. Could Nick Clegg and David Cameron bring them all to heel?
India is the future, not Europe
Posted on August 02, 2010The size and seniority of the British Government delegation sent to India shows that Westminster is at last waking up to the thing that everyone else knows – India is the great economic hope for the 21st Century.
With a rapidly expanding economy, a vast population and a well-functioning, liberal democracy, it is essential that we tap into India’s growing wealth.
The focus on the Old World, so typified by the British political class’ obsession with European integration, is worse than irrelevant, it is becoming dangerous. By bricking ourselves up in a protectionist Fortress Europe, we send the insulting signal that we don’t want to buy Indian goods, and we don’t want them to buy our products.
It’s quite encouraging that the Coalition are making the right noises – with David Cameron calling for trade barriers to be dropped and even Vince Cable saying:
There is no future for Britain looking inward and backward, or being trapped in a Eurocentric world. Our country must be open for global business.
This is a welcome change in rhetoric, particularly to hear a Liberal Democrat acknowledge the foolishness of trying to be little-Europeaners when Europe is falling behind the rest of the world. But when will it be matched by a change in action?
Britain has given up control of her own trade policy. Even though David Cameron and Vince Cable, the PM and Business Secretary, recognise that our future must lie in free trade with India, the decision is out of their hands.
Instead of being able to simply go ahead and drop our trade barriers to India – bilaterally or even unilaterally – they have to sit on their hands and wait for the EU to strike a deal that allows the corrosive regime of protectionism and subsidies in all sorts of industries to continue.
We have waited through four years of moribund EU-India negotiations – how much longer must we wait to do what we could easily simply do tomorrow if we controlled our own trade policy?
The argument for “pooling” sovereignty in the EU is supposedly that it gives us more clout – and Vince Cable amongst others has peddled the myth that we would be ignored if we negotiated alone. But Britain, not the EU, is ideally placed to deal with India; we share so many cultural, liguistic and even legal ties with them that we should be natural partners.
Frankly, it is shameful that while we wait on negotiators who never have to answer to the people for the harm their delays do to our economic prospects, other, smaller and more nimble economies like Canada have already taken advantage of those same links to get their share of the Indian dream.
If we aren’t careful we will find ourselves in a stagnant economic backwater where instead of musing on the possibility of free trade with India, we will be begging them to sign on any terms.
David Cameron and Vince Cable are right – it is time for free trade with India, and the abandonment of the “eurocentric” obsession. But that is all talk unless they actually do something about it.
Where 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.”