By John C. Dyer, UK Correspondent
24 Jan 2012. Westminister. It is High Noon for two major Coalition policies, the “reform” of Welfare and the “reform” of the National Health Services. As the week began, both bills faced major tests in a rebellious House of Lords.
This drama provides a study in contrasts between the stands of conscience of the nations’ Bishops on Welfare Reform (and rebellious Social Democrats among the Liberal Democrats on NHS Reform) and the real politik of the nation’s Tory, Labour and Liberal Democrat leaders.
The drama may also seal the deal for Labour’s current leadership. It comes at a time Labour appears to be imploding rapidly, at least in terms of electorate support, due, it is widely argued, to a right turn in its leaders’ rhetoric, if not their actual policies.
Of the issues, the reform of the National Health Service (NHS) is probably of most interest to (and most easily understood by) most Americans. The United States is itself struggling to define the appropriate boundaries for government involvement in the provision of care. Some have looked to the NHS as a model alternative system. So the debate over NHS strengths, weaknesses, and affordability would be of great interest and an easier connect.
But for those very reasons, the NHS debate deserves a focused article. This I will undertake another time. I raise the issue now only to flesh out the drama that this week represents.
Turning to Welfare Reform
Turning to Welfare Reform, the Tory led Coalition government has introduced several initiatives to dramatically cut the costs of benefits.
The packaging rhetoric is a social conservative attack on the “something for nothing culture.” Welfare recipients are widely portrayed as “scroungers” who do not deserve the support. The Coalition argues that benefits should not pay more than work. It is not “fair” for a taxpayer earning less than a welfare recipient to pay taxes toward that benefit.
Fair enough, but the Coalition is not seeking to increase wages or harmonize tax levels to welfare levels. Far from it. The coalition simply seeks to diminish benefits and force recipients onto an already glutted labour market.
Moreover, the Coalition sweeps together what Americans would recognize as Welfare (support to families with dependent children) together with what Americans would regard as Social Security (recipients of “incapacity benefit” who paid into the equivalent of Social Security while they worked but became permanently or temporarily disabled from performing the work for which they trained or in which they were experienced). Both groups now must make efforts to secure a job or face sanctions. Even failing to accept a “voluntary” unpaid position can lead to loss of benefits for an entire year.
This, in a job market where there are already between 5 and 200 able bodied applicants for every job. Not counting the welfare recipients, most observers project that the ratio of seekers to jobs will only worsen as the UK slips once again into recession. Which employer, given the choice, is going to pick a person with a history of disability when given the option of 5-200 able-bodied and qualified applicants?
Moreover, the new system decides these post benefit disabled persons able to work and sends them out into employment without a medical examination from an independent physician designed to determine what the disabled persons can safely do without exacerbating their conditions. In perhaps the most egregious example, these rules apply to hospice patients dying of cancer who are not projected to die within the next 6 months. Really.The Coalition defends its position on this issue by citing the results of “screenings” conducted by its contract agent, ATOS. ATOS has found 70% of the recipients they have “screened” to have actually been fit for work.
Critics respond that almost half of the determinations that were appealed administratively have been reversed, even though the burden of filing and pursuing the case belongs to the recipient and the hearing officer must apply the law as written rather than question it. Critics also point out that the “screening,” while touted to be by a medical professional is in fact governed by a pre-structured checklist and without consultation with the recipient’s personal physician. I know of a recipient who was found fit to work despite 14 years of various MD’s finding her not. I know of ATOS determining a person in a coma fit for work.
Rebellion in the House of Lords
The government’s proposals have come under heavy fire. Last week saw the House of Lords rebel, successfully introducing 3 amendments to limit the government’s Welfare Bill. This week the Bishops backed a rebellion on a proposed government cap on total benefits.
Americans may have some difficulty relating to the issue without some explanation. The government wants to cap welfare benefits at £26,000 a year. That is over $40,000, a figure that no doubt drops an American’s jaw. Nowhere in the United States does an AFDC recipient receive anything like $40,000 a year.
So what is the problem with the proposal?
First, the cap applies to people American would consider Social Security recipients retired on disability receiving supplemental benefits to compensate for their unique difficulty. Second, the cap also includes amounts paid to support housing.
In London a welfare recipient might have to pay over £1,000 a week in rent. That’s over $1,500 a week or $6,000 a month. Rent alone. The government is not proposing to control rents. It is proposing to cap benefits, effectively cutting the housing benefit, the greatest single item of cost. Capping the total benefits at £26,000 would mean the recipient has two thirds the resources with which to pay the fixed cost of rent as well as the basics of food, etc. With housing benefits often going directly to the landlord, it leaves the recipient without money for basics while locked into a lease. Assuming the recipient can break the lease, the person still must face tearing up roots in an uncertain quest to find a new home that will cost a much lower rent. That is not a likely prospect in London, where thousands of recipients live.
Charities argue that as many as 100,000 children will be made homeless by the cap. The government has not argued with the figure, for, indeed, it is not deniable.
Enter the Bishops.
Americans sometimes think of the House of Lords as a Senate with wigs. But it is more like the Supreme Court, serving as a rare check on the excesses of the more popularly accountable House of Commons. The Lords are appointed not elected. Some are appointed because they are deans within their party. Some are political independents with a recognized expertise or constituency. A very few are the remnants of the hereditary peerage. Some are ex officio Bishops of the Anglican Church.
The role of the Bishops may take a little translation for Americans. Americans are used to the clergy wading into political issues from the pulpit. I dare say it would not surprise an American to hear that a clergyman delivered a sermon protesting a measure that would make 100,000 children homeless, especially given the unwillingness of the Coalition to even consider rent controls. But the church has no comparable place in American political life to the place the Bishops have in the House of Lords. Church leaders are not ex officio members of the Senate, nor can they lead the Senate in rejecting a measure floated by the House of Representatives. In the UK, church and state are not separate.
This week in the UK, the Bishops of the Anglican Church led the charge to clip the wings of the Coalition’s Welfare Reform Bill. They introduced an amendment to exempt child benefits from the calculation of the proposed $26,000 cap and they won.
The Bishops could have done no less. They serve a Boss pursuant to a contract to which the Bishops all pledge their lives and sacred honour. They may not recite the Shema from which the First Commandment comes, but they are bound to the First and Second Commandments. The Kingdom of G*d does not conduct polls to determine policy based on populist sentiment. The contract’s standards of righteousness apply regardless of popular sentiment.
The standards of righteousness are clear. The Second Commandment is, Love Thy Neighbour as Thyself. Some translate this as Sympathy, others as Empathy, but it is more active than that. Sympathy may be the still, small voice speaking in Empathy’s divine wind, but one person acting accordingly is the G*d particle. The acid test is the treatment of society’s marginal, something the government might bear in mind the next time it proposes that Education Secretary Michael Gove write an introductory letter for the anniversary distribution of the King James Bible to the nation’s schools.
The Bishops could not fail to stand this test and they didn’t fail. They performed firmly and decisively.
By contrast, the silence of the Labour leadership during the debate was deafening. Labour expressly did not object to a cap in principle, but opined without opposing or seeking to amend the bill that its details might need examination. Even the Coalition member Liberal Democrat peer, Paddy Ashdown, added his voice to the opposition although he, too, professed not to object in principle. As the debate raged across Twitter and in the media, commentators from every persuasion noted the absence of Labour’s leadership from the debate.
It comes at a time when Labour’s popularity among the electorate is rapidly imploding. In less than 6 weeks it has moved from a 4-7% lead in the polls over Conservatives to an average 1% behind at 38% to 39% of those intending to vote. The ratings of Labour leader’s Ed Miliband have fallen to the dismal levels of California Governor Gray Davis prior to the recall election.
From leading a resurgent Labour in November to leading a collapsing Labour in January - what happened?
Barrels of ink spill to explain this. Miliband seems to think he needs to move his pitch to sound, at least philosophically, more in tune with New Labour. His brother David, a New Labour figure from whom Ed took Party leadership in a surprise victory supported by the Unions, is reputedly busily trying to bridge the gap between the Leader and the New Labour faction.
The Coalition spins it as the Coalition winning the economic argument. But notice the Conservatives have moved only 2-4 points and represent less than 2/5 ths of those intending to vote. Notice the polls do not disclose who is undecided or who is not intending to vote at all.
The point is, Labour is losing support from Labour’s base, not that the Conservatives are winning the argument or that Labour’s base wants its leadership to embrace New Labour policies.
How did this happen?
Labour’s leadership adopted a new rhetorical packaging over the past few weeks. Without giving an explanation why they did this, Labour’s leadership began to tell public sector employees that Labour could not promise to reverse Coalition public sector cuts. As noted, Labour has not objected to the Welfare Reform Bill or its caps in principle. They have adopted a murky commitment to something they call “predistribution” instead of “redistribution” as a governing social/economic principle. They’ve stopped banging on about their 5 point alternative economic plan.
They have launched a distinction between moral business and immoral business practice. This distinction offers very little in the way of actually distinguishing characteristics to the Prime Minister’s own narrative on this same topic. It all remains a vague and general preamble to attacks on the Prime Minister for either not doing enough or doing too much along what Labour seems to consider as the right lines of initiative.
In short, Labour appears to be taking the “lesser of two evils” tack.
The electorate seems to have read it, however, as “Me too.” It has been like the proverbial pin to the balloon of opposition to government policy, and more vigorous opponents have seen it as betrayal. Probably the most accurate interpretation of the polls is the current leadership is not seen to represent a credible alternative to the existing Coalition.
To be clear, I never thought Ed Miliband would be Prime Minister. I once compared him to Adlai E. Stevenson. My apologies to Stevenson’s memory.
Miliband now more reminds me of Michael Dukakis or maybe even more accurately, Gray Davis. Miliband and his team appear awkward rather than slick political technicians with their eyes on the polls, talking to each other. If informed by a conscience it is only one voice among many in heads foremost arguing the case for Real Politik.
This image stands in stark contrast to the Bishops, who are now widely dubbed the Real Opposition. I doubt they have achieved this because of not talking to people outside Westminster or only listening to the pundits who babble the conventional wisdom. They do. But it appears to an outsider that Labour’s leadership just does not hear anyone but each other and the Westminster pundits interpreting what the people say.
The balance of this week appears to be building toward a rebellion among Socially Democratic Liberal Democratic MPs and Lords. More on this in a subsequent article. As the week moves into the drama of the future of the NHS, the question will be whether Labour politicians find the conscience to stand like Bishops or prefer to remain the lesser of two evils. If it is the latter, expect to see Labour’s standing deteriorate further and its leadership replaced or to find the Labour Party sink even further in the polls listing toward the level of the Liberal Democrats.
By Patricia H. Kushlis
I have been having an ongoing e-mail conversation about whether and what kind of influence the US and Western Europe can and should have on the political situation in Russia in view of the recent anti-government demonstrations protesting Putin’s cavalier changing places announcement last September and the well-documented and blatant electoral fraud in the December 4 parliamentary elections which was employed – almost Soviet style - to maintain his party in power.
No, this was not a send-in-the-NATO-tanks-as-Putin-plays-hardball-with-the-Russian-political-opposition sort of conversation. It was more about moral suasion and whether the new US Ambassador can have a positive influence on Russian internal politics at a time when the situation is more fluid than at any other period since 1991 only this time with Putin and his henchmen assuming the roles of the drunken coup-makers of twenty years ago.
What sort of influence can an Ambassador have on another country’s internal affairs – if at all? This is what the tough and broader question boils down to. Or should a US Ambassador in a country like Russia, China or even Syria confine his or her activities to dealing with the government in power as the best way to represent this country’s interests.
There’s been a fair amount of play in the US news media and American academia about soft power and the importance of an Ambassador’s role as the country’s chief public face or public diplomacy representative and what sort of message that individual sends or should send to the people and the government of the country to which he or she is accredited.
China and the Locke phenomenonGary Locke, US Ambassador to China, has recently become a folk hero because Locke, America’s first Chinese American Ambassador, went to the countryside to meet ordinary rural Chinese. A recent met-and-greet included a visit to the village of his ancestors – to the consternation of the Beijing officials who have strangled Chinese media coverage of his meetings with the people because apparently Locke is far more likeable than they are. The US media who accompanied him on his ancestral village pilgrimage - as a result perhaps - gave him far more prominent coverage than he would have received had the Chinese government not been so uptight.
I have to wonder why Chinese officialdom should fear Locke – I mean – it’s not as if he’s using the position to run for China’s first non-Communist president after all. But that’s another story.
McFaul and the Russians
Meanwhile, Russian officials were upset – and the political opposition heartened – when America’s new Ambassador to the Russian Federation Michael McFaul, who had arrived on a Saturday, began by meeting with democratic opposition leaders over the weekend before holding official meetings with the government at which time he may have presented his credentials for approval making his stay in the country official.
Now it’s true McFaul didn’t need to meet with anyone those first couple of days – but it is hard to imagine the Russian Foreign Minister, for instance, being willing to give him the time of day, let alone an official appointment, on a weekend. Weekends are weekends after all as well they should be.
In the Garden of the Beasts - Ambassador Dodd's dilemma
I recently finished reading Eric Larson’s In the Garden of the Beasts, a fascinating account of US Ambassador William E. Dodd’s assignment to Berlin from 1933-7 during Hitler’s consolidation of power. Larson’s archival research shows that the State Department saw its primary task as that of cementing a cooperative relationship with the German government regardless of that government’s odious political cast as the best way of protecting American interests. These interests boiled down to two: to ensure German repayment of war debts owed to US banks – and to spring American Jews and other citizens from detention after being picked up and roughed up by the Nazis as a result of their religious or perceived religious beliefs. (The Nazis did make some identity mistakes by the way.)
Dodd, a Roosevelt political appointee and an American historian who had taught at the University of Chicago was not a part of State’s then Ivy League circle. He came from humble origins, had spent a year as a student in Leipzig and was not disposed one way or another to the Nazis when he first arrived. As time continued, he became increasingly sickened at the regime’s treatment of the Jews including Jewish Americans resident in Germany as well as horrified by the Nazis’ own vicious party purge (The Night of the Long Knives) as a tiny group of fanatics gained absolute control over the country. This nightmare swirled around him in Kafkaesque fashion throughout his tenure there.
The question was how Dodd should best behave: his answer was to minimize contact and above all to refrain from public appearances with the Nazis as a way of demonstrating America’s displeasure with the repressive and brutal regime – a decision which cost him his job thanks to State’s then appallingly antediluvian leadership which thought otherwise.
Syria - Ford versus Asad
In a blog post on Sunday in FP, Middle East specialist Marc Lynch raises the question as to whether the US Embassy in Damascus should be closed and/or the highly visible Ambassador Robert Ford withdrawn. According to Lynch, State is considering closing the Embassy if, that is, the Syrian regime fails to guarantee its security. He concludes by arguing that the Embassy still has valuable work to do including developing and maintaining contacts with the embryonic opposition inside the country as well as the Syrian business community in preparation for a post-Asad era.
Lynch makes an excellent case for staying put - at least right now - but then there’s the flip side. Does the Obama administration really want to risk another Iran 1979 if the Asad regime decides it has more to gain by terrorizing Embassy staff than not? And what is the likelihood of this worst case scenario coming to pass?
I was not as enthralled with Ford’s highly publicized trip to Hama last summer as some others have been – a trip where he was greeted with flowers and olive branches by the anti-Asad opposition and strong condemnation thereafter by the government. If the goal, as stated, was a fact finding mission, wouldn’t it have been just as productive, if not more so, to send a mid-level political officer who would not have attracted the kind of attention Ford did?
That’s how the US covered unrest in the Baltic Republics in the years prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union: it sent in mid-level officers from the Embassy in Moscow and the Consulate in Leningrad almost on a rotational basis – not the Ambassador or even his Deputy. The US also met with Baltic leaders when they visited Moscow, Leningrad and Helsinki so that contact between the higher levels at the Embassy and the republics future leaders was not exactly cut off.
Aren’t there other just as effective ways to demonstrate displeasure with the actions of a repressive regime and to help a democratic opposition which are not so in-your-face? Seems to me there are very good times and places to wave the flag publicly. I’m not so sure that in the middle of someone else’s civil war is one of them.
This is not to say that countries do not meddle and have not meddled in other countries domestic affairs if they see it in their interest and this doesn’t mean enacting a military “solution.” The British and the French, for instance, supported the South during the US Civil War. AIPAC, the wealthy conservative Jewish lobbying organization does everything it can to gain US government support for the Israeli government and its' efforts are highly effective. These are just a few examples. They don't ensure success – but then neither does empty and sometimes counterproductive showing of the flag or worse, sending in the tanks.
But this takes me back to McFaul and Russia. The US has long operated on two tracks with respect to Russia and its predecessor, the Soviet Union. America’s heart is, and has long been, with the democratic opposition; its head, however, is with the need to maintain decent relations with the Russian or Soviet government whether run by Communist apparatchiks or ex-KGB officers masquerading as democrats for the purposes of world stability and nuclear nonproliferation.
As a consequence, when high level American officials visit Moscow they not only pay obligatory calls on government officials but they also meet with opposition leaders and address university students – events that may, or may not be covered by the official media but surely are broadcast by RFE and VOA and also transmitted virally through the Internet and cell phones by Russians themselves.
But here’s the problem: just as Ambassador Dodd was faced with the quandary as to how best to represent the US in Germany during the 1930s, so too are Ambassadors McFaul, Ford and Locke faced with similar dilemmas today. These decisions are not easy. They require both strategy and tactics and must be finely calculated and calibrated. Often there is no one right answer.
Effective use of soft power, however, is also not always in-your-face flag waving. This form of high level gamesmanship should be used judiciously and appropriately depending upon the circumstance.
By Patricia H. Kushlis
Why is it that Democratic administrations – in particular - think that shrinking the federal government means forcing agencies including small, highly effective ones with excellent track records like the USTR (Office of the US Trade Representative), into large, lumbering ones like the Commerce Department?
You’d think people would have learned from the ill-fated consolidation of the US Information Agency and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency into the State Department and almost eviscerating the US Agency for Development under President Clinton that this is a really bad idea. Aside from Monica Lewinsky, the consolidation of the foreign affairs agencies into State was by far the worst decision Clinton made during his entire presidency.
True, it wasn’t just the Clinton administration that acted alone. Republican connivance was there front and center, too. Without isolationist Jesse Helms as Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee spurring, or perhaps goading, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on – in fact, forcing her to choose between USIA and a Chemical Weapons Treaty – this fiasco wouldn’t have happened.
In the end, consolidation is a questionable money-saving device and it certainly won’t make the USTR – the agency responsible for negotiating our international trade agreements - more effective by cramming it into the behemoth Commerce bureaucracy – likely the opposite on both accounts.
Consolidation is expensive, time-consuming and disruptive
First, the process of consolidation itself is expensive, time consuming and disruptive. Second, it creates a knowledge deficit that will not be easily filled because professionals who excel working in small, nimble environments will leave. The USTR staff I’ve met and heard speak at conferences over the years were and are excellent, experienced international economists who can and will find jobs in the private sector or at one of the international banks or funds. Or those who are close enough to retirement will find an island in the sun, pronto.
Attrition at USIA was huge after the merger with State 12 years ago: the two cultures were night and day and the pachyderm, as expected, rolled over the mouse. If I remember correctly a good 25% of the very experienced staff was gone within two years. The State Department made a travesty of public diplomacy expertise from day one – so it’s no wonder.
As a consequence, the US government lacks a nimble, coordinated agency designed to improve America’s image abroad. Instead, the current operation resembles a pair of torn jeans with a few shiny new colorful patches sewn on and a strong Pentagon tilt. Because State was so ineffective after 9/11, most public diplomacy funds went to the can-do Pentagon.
But here’s one little problem: selling America abroad works far better when this country’s interface with foreigners is undertaken by civilians and our tanks, uniforms and battleships are kept in mothballs - or at least over the horizon.
Yes, Madeleine, it was a huge mistake
Even Madeleine Albright, a chief proponent of the ill-fated consolidation has been heard to question whether the whole consolidation affair wasn’t a mistake.
Yes, Madeleine. It was. Hindsight is often better than foresight. History is not dead and the US still needs a flexible governmental organization along USIA’s lines to tend this country’s image throughout much of the troubled world.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration - which in my view has done a lot right otherwise - needs to shift into reverse before it’s too late on this latest ill-thought-through proposal. Small is often more effective. The National Security Council, for instance, is small. Doesn’t mean it should be broken up and made parts of the Pentagon, the CIA, and the State Department.
Please. Leave USTR alone. This proposal should be dead on arrival.
By John C. Dyer, UK Correspondent
Nothing, you reply?
At first glance it might seem preposterous.
Chris Bryant is a Labour MP, Shadow Minister for Borders and Immigration. Bryant was last seen in vigorous attack mode, seeking Home Secretary Theresa May’s head over a little experiment gone ‘orribly wrong (at least ‘orribly visible in the fishbowl). Bryant is better known, however, for his battle with Rupert Murdoch, whose grubby fingered underlings exposed Bryant to unseemly and embarrassing (not to mention politically difficult) ridicule. Bryant recently appraised Rupert Murdoch, an unflattering comparison to Sivio Berlusconi.
Michael Gove is, on the other hand, a Conservative MP, current Coalition Education Secretary. Gove’s very name makes die hard Labour supporters awaken in the night with cold sweats. He is the bane of public educators, dedicated to the overthrow of public education through private Academies (albeit to be fair to Mr. Gove, he would see it as their fulfillment and betterment). His “reforms” are legion and legendary, opposed vigorously by Chris Bryant and Bryant’s Labour Party. So black and white is this it does not bear citation. Michael Gove is also a well known “Neo Conservative.” Gove served Murdoch as an editor at The Times. His appraisal of Murdoch now? A great man.
So what could Chris Bryant and Michael Gove possibly have in common? Outside the fact they presumably put their pants on the same way in the morning, although maybe we shouldn’t assume. The answer is, the Henry M. Jackson Society. And a little more as will unfold.
The Henry M. Jackson society is an astro turf “Think Tank” with an agenda. That isn’t greatly editorialized. It calls itself a think tank and it has an expressed agenda. I dub it “astro turf” because it looks like a pressure group, acts like a pressure group, is funded like a pressure group, and has assiduously cultivated rich and powerful people with agenda and connections, like a pressure group. But it calls itself a think tank and is organized as a charity. How benign. Rather like Atlantic Bridge, but more on that in a moment.
The Henry M. Jackson society was formulated in 2005, named after US Senator Henry M. Jackson. No, not for his public welfare agenda, but for his “hawkish” interventionist agenda. Again, not editorializing. It is well documented and the Society says so itself.
The Henry M. Jackson Society promotes trans Atlantic cooperation in the intervention into the affairs of other nations, particularly in the Middle East, allegedly to spread liberal democracy. This agenda can be seen directly in the Society’s own activities.
Politics makes strange bedfellows, as they say. But Bryant and Gove are not alone. The membership of the Henry M. Jackson society also includes Denis MacShane, a colourful Labour MP, as well as a cast of dozens of public figures on every side of the aisle.Not all the public figures are politicians. Take Steven Pollard. Steven Pollard is the editor of the Jewish Chronicle. He is a former President of another astro turf think tank, The Centre for a New Europe, a “free market” think tank. And a frequent critic of “Jihadist” movements.
Tory, right? Wrong. He at least was a Labour intellectual.
But Pollard does have in common with Gove a commitment to free market economics and having written a column in The Times (as well as contributing articles to The Daily Mail). Perhaps he is a bridge figure between Bryant and Gove. Pollard was one of the founding signatories of the Henry Jackson Society.
Pollard famously advocated Labour reappraise its agenda and move more to the right to retain office. He argued that The Left was “now the enemy” in the “battle to save Western Civilization.” Pollard has endorsed the argument that “liberal appeasement” is paving the way for a replacement of European civilization by Islamic extremism.
Herein we have a theme that seems to link Gove, Pollard, MacShane, and the Henry Jackson Society- the conflict between Israel and her neigbours.
Denis MacShane and Chris Bryant are also members of Labour Friends of Israel. Gove is a member of Conservative Friends of Israel. TheHenry Jackson Society has joined in a number of initiatives professing to defend Israel's statehood from its implacable foes, including with “Friends of Israel” as co-sponsors.
The Henry Jackson Society recently merged with the Center for Social Cohesion whose agenda is often seen as openly hostile to Muslims in the UK ( See separate PDF; ; ) .
The Society’s “main man” is Alan Mendoza. Mendoza is a frequent commentator on the Middle East. He is a hawk with post imperial pretensions.
Together Mendoza and the Henry Jackson Society have become the voices of crusade, seeking to enlist the British public, intelligentsia and politicians in a campaign against Islamist terrorism . What drew my attention to the organization in the first place was an article by its communications director, Michael Weiss, arguing Western military intervention into Syria is inevitable.
I am neither anti Israeli nor pro Assad. The point of my article is not to argue the Henry Jackson Society, Steven Pollard, Alan Mendoza, Michael Gove, Chris Bryant are right or wrong, or even that they form a secret conspiracy.
But I have some questions.
First, has the furor over Atlantic Bridge, Adam Werrity, and Liam Fox (the former Defence Secretary) faded into oblivion because of the thing that Michael Gove and Chris Bryan have in common?
You may remember the story, but let me refresh. Liam Fox was the Secretary of Defence who lost his job because of his inadequately disclosed connections while in office to Adam Werrity and the “think tank” Atlantic Bridge, that lost its charitable status following an investigation by the regulator. ( See my earlier WV article, "Liam Fox and Atlantic Bridge Don't Lose the Important QUestion to the Excitement of the Fox Hunt.
Remember?
Seemed like it might bring down the Coalition. But it didn’t. Prompted calls for tighter regulation of Think Tanks and charities. But it didn’t. Last heard from in articles dating to the end of October, 2011.
As I say, apparently consigned to history's bin can.
The Murdoch “Hackgate” almost suffered the same fate. But that story was kept alive by the Guardian, Tom Watson, and, wait for it, Chris Bryant.
It would be unnatural to expect friends to out friends. One of the great dangers of organizations like the Henry Jackson Society, the former Centre for Social Cohesion, Friends of Israel, Labour Friends of Israel Labour, Conservative Friends of Israel, Atlantic Bridge, and a whole host of other “astro turf” “grass roots movements,” “think tanks,” and “charities.” They have friends. The are not regulated. Friends do not feel the need to look with the same degree of scrutiny on their friends as they do on their foes. Friends feel the need to defend friends.
It is an important question with the drums of war beating once again with respect to Iran and Syria. As I say, I am not anti Israel much less pro Syria or Iran. Far from it. My friends worry about my neoconservative tendencies. I confess, I have to watch them. The correct policy isn’t the point, however.
The point is transparency about a decision of incredibly high stakes.
Consider the War on Terror brought to you by the intellectual predecessors of the UK’s neoconservatives. Just in terms of money, consider. Estimates vary but most place the cost of these wars to already exceed a Trillion dollars (and billions of pounds). Estimates place the cost as high as $4 Trillion.
Imagine if the embattled governments of the Eurozone, Britain, and the US had that money now with which to battle the sovereign debt crisis.
One might ask, what price WWII? Fair enough. Sometimes it is worth it and necessary.
But I don’t want to be herded into another seemingly endless war without outcome at great cost and with profound consequences to my children and grandchildren. I don’t want to again be the victim of an echo chamber effect from a cacophony of unregulated “astro turf” think tanks holding themselves out as expert. Or from the lazy complicity of media who find it easier to accept their press releases and “reports” as objective expert commentary to fill out their programming time.
This time I want the government to consider carefully the projected outcomes, plan and stick to an exit strategy, identify how they will pay for it in advance, and be sure it is Adolf Hitler we face and not some two bit petty dictator we don’t like.
I want someone to take seriously the lessons of the past. OK, the government does not have to investigate their drinking buds in the now defunct Atlantic Bridge. It would be enough for me if BBC and others, would investigate, disclose, and disclaim the credentials, biases, and associations of their “experts,” instead of happily letting these “experts” fill out their programming time with “reports,” press releases, and considered opinions.
The price of failed scrutiny is just much too high.
By Patricia Lee Sharpe
Let’s dispense quickly with the contradictions besetting the Republican notion of privacy during this amazing rundown to the upcoming presidential election. Privacy à la GOP largely involves business and finance, which means allowing the close-mouthed denizens of the executive suite to connive exorbitant profit-making opportunities free of interference from regulations designed to protect consumers from confusion, manipulation, deception or outright fraud. Meanwhile, most Republican presidential candidates want to regulate every aspect of the sex lives of consenting adults. Surely having government tromping around like an elephant in the bedroom is a gross invasion of privacy.
But my primary interest here involves the ever-increasing, ever more pervasive and intrusive invasions of privacy made possible by modern technology. At this point, we can be monitored day and night no matter where we are. Even our private thoughts are in danger. There is virtually no escape from the watchfulness of the national security state.
The Naked Ape in the Airport
Personal privacy is a thing of the past for those who wish to board an airplane. We must be scanned or wanded or patted down, and if we are too sassy, we’ll be interrogated in a frightening little room, like criminals, which means the flight will leave without us. Although we are assured that no other passengers can see our nakedness, the fact is that we are undressed by the machinery operated by TSA personnel, who can view our underwire bras, the titaniam repairs to broken bones, the depth of our fat layers, the subtle details of our posture, thus totally violating our bodily integrity. Worse, official assurances not withstanding, we have no way to prove that our images are not stored, like fingerprints, for future purposes beyond our control.
Herded along like cattle, we dare not utter a word of protest. We cannot make jokes. We can’t protest too vehemently when a pat down is too intimate or a person with a colostomy bag is humiliated. We must simply put up and shut up, even though we know that this supposedly sophisticated equipment routinely misses dangerous weapons and that the regs about lotions and so on have no basis in science.
Maybe the whole purpose of the exercise is to teach us docility.
The Fear that Shuts Us Up
It’s not only the fear of missing a flight that turns us mute, passive, as abject as captives in a slave market. If we say or do something that leads us to be apprehended as possible terrorists, we could lose every liberty and right supposedly guaranteed to every citizen by our Constitution, which has been more or less amended by various incarnations of the “Patriot” Act as endorsed by compliant courts and judges. If we end up in legal limbo, we might never be tried. We would, to all intents and purposes, cease to exist.
So we toe the line, remembering how proud and happy we were when democracy overcame totalitarianism. Perhaps we need an Occupy Airports movement to reclaim our privacy and our dignity.
Brain-Reading as Non-Fiction
But personally invasive science is offering even more license to those who would control us by taking away our privacy. The latest wrinkle is this: those thoughts that we keep rigorously to ourselves in the hope that we may pass unscathed through the TSA inspections system may not be sacrosanct much longer. I’m not talking of old hat truth sera. I’m not referring to the familiar misuse of the notoriously unreliable lie detector test that terrifies the unpracticed and unsophisticated. I’m talking about the evolving ability of brain monitoring devices to evoke reasonable facsimiles of images that we have seen and thought of. At the moment, this technology seems to be tentative and crude, but the usual trajectory of such technology is refinement toward perfection. Maybe words won’t be recovered from our brain cells anytime soon, but imagine this: no longer being able to retreat into the pleasant privacy of your own thoughts. Talk about self incrimination!
The Surveillance Octopus
Other surveillance technologies have already reached high levels of reliability. Heat detectors can tell if we are home, even if the car isn’t outside and we aren’t standing in front of a window. Sound monitors can pick up conversations from considerable distance, and there isn’t a single electronic communications device that can’t be turned against us. What’s more, anything hacking doesn’t reveal, documents may, and the courts are all too happy to ask IPOs and phone companies to supply them. To make the invasion of privacy even more pernicious, it may be illegal for those who supply the records to tell us that the documents have been seized.
How much more naked can we be? How much privacy is left to lose?
Oh dear! I forgot about the spies in the sky. And, not only are there geosynchronous satellites that can watch us 24/7, there are spies in our cell phones and rental cars that reveal to those who have the right equipment exactly where were are whenever we’re away from home. Finally, spy cameras are becoming a commonplace part of the urban landscape. To foil criminals and terrorists, of course. But how convenient for other purposes, too. Talk about 1984!
You can monitor your baby from afar, too, which may be a good thing. But that's the trouble with technology. It's two-faced, and too many people abuse it too frequently.
Lobsters in the Pot
In the era of voluntary self-revelation on Facebook and given the data-mining to which all users of the Internet are willynilly subjected, it may seem silly to worry about privacy. Furthermore, many Americans would say that a little erosion of freedom is the small price we pay for increased security. But I’m not sure that everyone has reflected on the extent to which privacy has become all but unattainable. Nor, I fear, have they thought of the implications for extreme social control in a not so distant future.
It’s said that creatures who are immersed in a stew pot filled with cold water don’t realize that they are being cooked until it’s too late. The process is too slow. The increase in heat is too gradual. Just so, our freedom is eroding degree by degree as our opportunities for privacy fade toward zero. I wouldn’t be surprised if many of the human lobsters who read this piece guffaw and decide I’m over-reacting.
I guess they haven’t felt the heat yet. If they don’t wake up soon, we’ll all be cooked.
By John C. Dyer, UK correspondent
9 January 2012 London and Edinburgh. The simmering conflict between the governments of Scotland First Minister Alex Salmond and Prime Minister David Cameron has erupted in verbal warfare.
Over the weekend Prime Minister David Cameron demanded that, subject to further legal advice due later this week, Scotland’s leadership set a date for its planned referendum on independence. Cameron also insisted there only be one issue on the ballot - in or out. In return Cameron offered the referendum would be binding. Cameron pointed out that the referendum could only be binding if Whitehall agreed. Cameron would agree subject to an in or out vote to be scheduled within 18 months.
Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon responded for Scotland. Sturgeon replied that the Prime Minister was interfering with a Scottish decision. She argued that the Scottish people were entitled to have the referendum for which they voted in the time frame for which they voted when they handed the Scottish National Party a significant electoral mandate in the last election.
During the campaign for that election, First Minister Alex Salmond promised a referendum no sooner than 2014. He has also suggested that the ballot raise the question of whether or not the government should instead seek repatriation of greater powers rather than full independence.
By the night of the 9th, Sky News reported that Cameron may have backed off the 18 month deadline in the face of Scottish anger. But not a demand for it to be held "sooner rather than later."
On 10 January this became "only Westminster has the power" to schedule a referendum. With these words Westminster opened what the British call a "consultation" on when the referendum should be held, what should its form should be, who should be able to vote. The announcement was heralded as a historic gauntlet laid down to Scotland. First Minister Salmon essentially told Westminster, in an American phrase, to "pound sand."
The battle is now joined.
Cameron cited feedback from unnamed companies reluctant to invest in the UK while the issue remained unresolved. But BBC’s political analysts suggest the reason for the timing of Prime Minister Cameron’s gambit is the Prime Minister’s assessment that he cannot leave this to the capable First Minister’s management.
But I wonder if there is more to it than Scottish independence alone.
I raised this issue prior to the Prime Minister’s deadline during my reflections in this blog on the Prime Minister’s 2 January address to the country. The demand for Scotland to set an in or out referendum comes less than a week after I warned that overall poll numbers that seem to suggest a consensus in support of the Prime Minister actually disguise serious division between the “Home Counties” and the balance of the UK.
The gambit seeks to regain the initiative, now in the First Minister’s hands. That is true. Cabinet Ministers “briefing” in the background express a real concern that the canny First Minister could win if allowed to manage the referendum on his own timing. Perhaps that is also true. It is also true that the Prime Minister has Scottish connections. How strong they remain is unknown.
However, at the heart of it may be the Prime Minister’s awareness that First Minister Alex Salmond is a capable adversary who embodies an alternative approach to the UK’s current social and economic policies and government style. Seek it or not, Alex Salmond is rapidly becoming more than potential victor on the local issue of Scottish independence. He is becoming a visible national focal point for those who argue 1) there is an alternative to the philosophy governing Westminster, and 2) the balance of the UK need not be subservient to the ambition and interests of the Home Counties. And dominos watch and wait. Wales, Cornwall and even the North of England have movements seeking either independence or greater local rule.
The issue could be seen by Labour as a model that suggests the way forward for Labour is to out Salmond Salmond on the national level. But a chorus of former ministers and wonks advise Miliband to out Cameron Cameron. “Advising” Ed Miliband via the newspapers, they argue that Labour must accept the economic framework the Coalition has fashioned.
One, Davin Kelly, Downing Street deputy Chief of Staff from 2007 to 2010 (toward the end of Labour rule), advised Miliband to accept financial “realities.” He argued government should charge baby boomers for services related to aging (and for other services based on means testing) rather than spreading the cost across all taxpayers as has been Labour’s historic position. Kelly bases his advice on an alleged relative affluence of the boomers, even in their retirement, but in effect his advice pits workers against pensioners.
Miliband gave yet another address widely interpreted to be meant to address his leadership. He appears to have bought at least some of this wealth of advice. He claims to "get" the idea that Labour must adapt to provide social fairness without money to do so. It is not clear what that means. But it is also clear he is not calling for any buy, see, spend, do. Miliband may even have orchestrated the release of all that helpful advice as cover for this major address (although the last is entirely unconfirmed speculation).
But however much of it he buys, neither Labour officials nor Miliband seem to see Salmond as a model for an alternative approach to leading the UK through its economic crisis.
Labour also echos the Tory and Liberal Democrat stand on Scottish independence.
I have little doubt a well governed United Kingdom is significantly more in the interest of both Scotland and the United Kingdom than Scottish independence would be. In my 2 January article I expressed sadness at its prospect. If I had a vote, which I won't, I would vote for Union. But, and this is an important but, I wonder aloud, did anyone in the hierarchies of Labour, the Liberal Democrats, or the Tories consider the impact of an attempt by London to bully Scotland into voting on London’s terms?
By making an issue out of this issue the national parties risk a self fulfilling prophecy. Was doing so really necessary at this time to defeat the independence movement?
I think not.
Or was this the handling simply the reflexive attempt of a competitor to dominate the competition? It may be that the Prime Minister gave in to the internal competitive imperative. The competitor on the playing fields of Eton must dominate (and all that).
I also doubt that.
I wonder whether the Prime Minister may have calculated the risks but concluded that they were necessary. Why? Because the Prime Minister feels a need to defeat or otherwise "put in his place" this effective opponent now. Now, before the opponent clearly demonstrates to Scotland - and others in Wales, Cornwall and the North of England also chafing under Coalition policies - that the alternative Salmond's leadership represents works better or at least more attractively than the Prime Minister's.
Rocky days lie ahead for the UK economy. The Prime Minister's own 2 January speech reflects how much this weighs on the Prime Minister's mind. I think the Prime Minister may well have concluded that Salmond represents a danger to his own leadership over the UK as a whole, and that danger outweighs any risks that Scotland would rally behind Salmond on the issue of independence.
By Patricia H. Kushlis
In a December 30 Newshour interview with Judy Woodruff, a group of five wavering Iowa Republicans described who they intended to support in the January 3, 2012 caucuses and why. The whys ranged from thoughtful to questionable despite the fact the individuals had been carefully chosen by respected but unidentified educational and civic groups as articulate and informed Americans and also despite the fact that our news media has assured us that Iowans are better educated and more politically savvy than voters living in most other states.
Woodward was careful to pose the most objective questions she possibly could. She did not attempt to correct factual errors even though she must have known when she heard them. The Newshour should, however, have run a follow-up Snopes Fact Check because without it, viewers could have all too likely passed on fiction as fact – in a kind of 21st century game of telephone - or simply think a Newshour senior staffer had problems herself making the distinctions.
One of the more mistaken – but unsurprising - comments I heard from this focus group was that one of two reasons an interviewee supported a Republican candidate in 2012 was that America’s image abroad was poor. Here’s the quote: “And I think, also, our world standing has declined.”
Declined from when? Who was responsible?
Therefore, I suppose, blame it on Obama and the Democrats although she didn’t make that inference herself and she didn’t say when it had declined. This, in itself, is a dubious observation for a Republican to make because, well, our most recent Republican president, George W. Bush’s foreign policy mistakes sent this country’s international favorability ratings into the cellar. But furthermore, and this is where a Snopes Fact Check should have come in, some of those international favorability ratings have recovered remarkably since Obama became president in 2009.
From the nadir of the Bush presidency post Iraq invasion in 2003 to his departure from the White House January 20, 2009, Ms. Nawsike would have been right – with a few notable exceptions where George W. Bush’s administration was liked – as in Sub Saharan Africa where US aid continued at about the same levels as under Clinton and has continued to flow under Obama and where a war against terror, aka Islam, didn’t matter because most people are not Muslims.
In 2009, however, with the change in US administrations, the US favorability ratings rose dramatically throughout almost all of Europe and much of Asia especially in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim nation, where Obama spent several years as a child with his anthropologist mother.
The ratings even spiked somewhat in the Muslim world as a result of his decision to send “the war on terror” packing and his acclaimed speeches in Istanbul and Cairo - although the numbers have declined somewhat since then. Even in Turkey and Egypt, the US is not seen quite as negatively as during the Bush 43 administration by as much as 15 percentage points.
What then are the major image problems for the US that recent polls have identified in Muslim majority countries?
Listening to the jingoistic rhetoric coming from most Republican candidates, the answer seems to be even more militarism. There is only one - namely Ron Paul - whose foreign policy proposals would address the two most contentious issues differently.
Paul, who represents the old isolationist wing of the party, would pull all US troops out of the Middle East, Asia and as far as I can tell elsewhere as well as let Israel fend for itself. It's unclear to me how he would use diplomacy - if at all. Who knows, maybe he'd close our Embassies abroad and dispense with America's diplomats as well.
Just two problems with Paul's approach: 1) he apparently intends to throw the baby out with the bathwater, pull up the drawbridges and return the country to a distant, if not fairytale foreign policy past; and 2) its unclear how he would deal with an irate and highly influential AIPAC - by far the most significant foreign policy lobby in the country which would not take kindly to America's "abandonment" of Israel.
All the other candidates would – they tell us – implement an even more muscular US foreign policy than we have now with, perhaps the exception of Huntsman – the only one with real, on the ground, foreign policy experience and actually knows of what he speaks at least with respect to Asia - China in particular.
In the days since Woodruff's interview, a Newshour focus group interview by Gwen Ifill of five undecided New Hampshire Republican primary voters on January 6 suggests to me that 1) the individuals chosen had a better grasp of US politics and a more realistic view of America’s role in the world than their Iowa cousins – Snopes not needed; and 2) that Ron Paul’s anti-interventionist platform continues to play well with returning Iraq war veterans.
Yes, Matilda, sometimes personal experience does make a difference.
Could the rah-rah militaristic jingoism of the Bush years be waning among American youth? Texas Governor Rick Perry whose swan song will surely come after his defeat in the South Carolina primary has been its loudest proponent. If so, this could represent a sea change in how the US behaves in the world.
Then there’s Jon Huntsman’s comment on Sunday Morning’s Republican presidential candidate debate on Meet the Press: "I was criticized by Mitt Romney for putting my country first." When Romney countered that it would have been preferable had Huntsman stood for people with conservative principles and not called President Obama "a remarkable leader", Huntsman fired back, "The nation is divided by attitudes like that."
A return of civility? Don't count on it
No I don’t expect civility to return to American politics if, indeed it ever really existed. Romney’s not-so-secret PAC’s negative advertising in Iowa against Newt Gingrich did pay off. Gingrich’s support plummeted and Romney supposedly won the Caucuses by 8 votes. The shoot-out at the Republican corral, therefore, will continue until, at least, Romney’s immense War Chest has either bought him his party's nomination - or not.
By John C. Dyer, UK Correspondent
2 Jan 2012. London.
David Cameron became the latest European leader to warn his country that this coming year will be severely challenging. Last week fellow Conservatives Nicholas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel preceded Cameron with similar messages.
Cameron defended his government’s policies as necessary, but pledged to "do whatever it takes” to pull Britain out of the difficulties ahead. Cameron was short on the specifics of "whatever." Is this more than words meant to reassure restive UK businessmen? Does he mean something different or just more of the same? Cameron did pledge to tackle bank regulation, although, again, he mentioned no how.
Cameron at least invoked hope for future improvement, just not in 2012. Unlike Sarkozy, Cameron did not call for stoicism, precisely. But Cameron, like the Queen in her annual address the week prior, called upon the British public to “suck it up” or “dig deep” as it would be called in the United States. Both called up the British to summon their famed emotional strength in time of adversity to deal with the unnamed difficulties ahead. While nonspecific, both speeches succeeded at conveying the aura of a Churchillian wartime address (albeit without the fine turn of phase).
Perhaps the two clearest messages in Cameron’s speech were nonverbal. The first message was conveyed in his face. His lips curled as if sucking a lemon. I have seen this expression before at moments of real political crisis for the Prime Minister. The second message was the fact that Cameron delivered such a message at all. It was only last year he predicted the country would emerge from its difficulties in 2012. My how time flies. . .
Looking at the polls and British history one might wonder why Cameron displayed nervousness.
I will suggest the answer may lie in the intangibles of the character of David Cameron and in the dangers of separatist movements, but first a bit of background is required.
The electorate – those who say they will vote in the next election - appear to be in a frame of mind that would accept the Prime Minister’s message. Polls have shown for months, that the majority of those intending to vote in the next parliamentary election believe the Prime Minister’s approach is necessary. This is so even though a separate composite figure shows a majority believe the approach hurts the economy. A third composite majority continue to believe that Labour is more at fault for Britain’s situation than the Coalition.
The polls are not refined enough to tell the degree of overlap between these three composite majorities. However, understanding the nuances of those intending to vote may not require a PhD.
First, the prevailing synthesis in Europe supports the government's framing of the economic issues.
Those sources widely reported by the media and in whom the public place their trust overwhelmingly characterize the situation as a “debt crisis” created by governments and individuals spending money neither had. Hence austerity.
The IMF says it. The Bank of England says it. Commentators reporting the attitude of “the markets” say it. The now widely Conservative Euro leadership says it. The OCED said it. The World Bank said it. The European Bank said it. Respected journalists say it. The Chinese government says it. The US- for-Europe says it. Even Labour leaders acknowledge debt must be addressed. The daily gyrations of the bond markets and credit ratings keep the message before the public’s eyes.
For those who dig a little deeper into what generates government revenues, these same sources blame the economy on the global marketplace and a lack of "competitiveness" in Western economies. Pundits from news journalists to Chinese officials claim European workers must work harder, longer, for less, and expect less from government. Don't look at the free trade treaties. Some add what may be meant-to-be hopeful phrases like unless and until “the economy is rebalanced,” “deficit spending” eliminated, and sovereign debt paid down.
I don’t hear that reassurance coming from China. Interesting that this debate has flipped. It was not that long ago that Western leaders lectured Chinese counterparts that they had to increase the share of Chinese workers in China’s new prosperity.
But even the hope-offering pundits now caution recovery will take a very long, long time.
The prevailing synthesis leaves out dissenting voices.
Arguably equally credible experts have contradicted some or all of the prevailing synthesis. Examples who have commented on both the UK and the Eurozone as well as the United States include Krugman, Reich, Stiglitz, Pettifor, Marglin, and Delong.
But the existence of dissenting views (and of their impressive credentials) has not been widely reported in the UK, much less given the same level of respectful in depth coverage as the prevailing synthesis. More typical is the reaction of one BBC presenter to the Euro crisis this past November. In discussing the so-called "Big Bazooka," she asked her European correspondent in exasperation words to the effect of “don’t they get it?”
The prevailing synthesis is right, the dissidents’ view is wrong.
Perhaps remarkably, the prevailing synthesis does not deny that austerity is hurting the economy now. Even proponents of austerity use analogies to the 1930s first offered by dissenting economists. However, it is the nature of belief that proponents and pundits alike explain that the very failure of the synthesis to either grow the economy or cure the deficit problem demonstrates the need for those policies. Authorities need to work the same failed approach harder for longer.
It is little wonder that the polls show what they show.
It is tempting to rail against the synthesis and to accuse Cameron of using PR techniques to deceive the public.
But Cameron deserves a better evaluation. True, he is a PR expert. True, he does use PR techniques. But he is also a “one nation” Conservative who has consistently advocated a better Britain for all. He is not a “Thatcherite” who feels comfortable saying, as Thatcher did say, that widespread unemployment is a price worth paying.
I believe the electorate sees this also. So attacks on him for insincerity backfire on the attacker.
History suggests the synthesis may simply reflect a prevailing national attitude toward sacrifice and trusting the political classes to run the government. Cameron himself as much reflects this attitude as exploits it.
This is not the first time in history this attitude has supported a Prime Minister.
At least one pundit compares David Cameron to Stanley Baldwin, another suggested parallel to the 1930’s. Baldwin was, like Cameron, a “one nation” Tory. Baldwin served 3 terms as Prime Minister during the time period leading up to World War II and including the worst of the Great Depression.
Since World War II historians have faulted Baldwin both for Britain’s lack of military preparedness going into World War II and for Britain’s inadequate response to the Depression. However, while history has not been kind to Mr. Baldwin since World War II, Baldwin was popular among the electorate prior to World War II despite the austerity of his policies and the hardships the public endured. This is the basis for the analogy.
Yet, Cameron gave the speech and the nervousness was apparent. What does an analysis of polls and history miss that may have been on the Prime Minister's mind?
It appears that Cameron has at least temporarily tamped down his right wing rebels. Maybe the European veto. Maybe the polls, Maybe their calculation of his strength and what it would do to them to undercut him. Maybe his socially conservative rhetoric over Christmas. Whatever it was, November and December's “running of the wolves” has abated.
There are indicators of restiveness within the business community. Cameron appeared to be addressing this with his generic, I’ll-do-whatever-it-takes statement. But with VAT and train tickets set to rise yet again, anticipated dismal results from Christmas shopping right around the corner, bleak predictions concerning more belt tightening, the business community grows increasingly restive.
But I don’t think that either is the concern of the moment. The business community is somewhat a captive constituency. I have already pointed out that the political calculus does not favour back bench rebellion.
The answer to the Prime Minister’s nervousness may lie in two intangibles not disclosed by the composite polls.
First, there is the man himself. If ever a man was born and conditioned to lead it was David Cameron. He received a first in the prestigious Oxbridge program designed to prepare the nation’s future leaders. He is not, by reputation, a man who accepts failure easily. He is, by reputation, well aware and disappointed by his government’s failure to produce a viable growth plan. Stanley Baldwin’s mantle cannot rest easily on his shoulders. He is well aware how history judged Baldwin. History’s judgment is important to a man like Cameron.
Second, and perhaps as objectively important as the first, is something the composite poll figures disguise.
The “headline” figures are composite nation wide majorities. But all politics are local and in the UK even more so than in the United States. The composite polls do not show the geographic distribution of voter intention (although such figures are available if one digs).
The detail reveals a significant North/South divide in the UK. This is not news to pundits in the UK. The North tends to support Labour, the South the Conservatives. This divide reflects the economic divide in the UK. In general, the further one lives from London the less general the prosperity. The South, especially the so-called “home counties” surrounding London, benefit from and benefit Tory governments.
The headline figures also don’t disclose what those who are not intending to vote intend to do, if anything, about how they feel. One cannot assume what is on the minds of this large group, more than half the eligible electorate. One also cannot be sure its geographical distribution.
Why is this important?
It is important because the dynamics that held the United Kingdom together have changed. Force of arms held the United Kingdom together for most of its history. There is a residue of strong separatist national identity in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Cornwall. One only need look at the Balkans to understand that such residual identities survive seemingly forever and reassert themselves when the central state weakens. In the past ruthless force quashed these separatist movements. But today, for all their identity as the successors to the Normans, the Tories cannot “harrow the North” into submission if the North concludes its destiny better lies along a different path than that of a United Kingdom.
There is a leader with the capacity to capitalize on this dynamic, Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond. Alex Salmond’s party is the Scottish National Party. That party stands for Scottish independence. Salmond has promised Scotland a referendum on Scottish independence before the next Parliament.
In the past, polls have not shown independence high on the agenda of the Scottish electorate. However, Salmond has pursued a New Deal approach to the economic situation. He has been critical of both Labour and the Conservatives. Some credit his approach with Scotland's economy performing better than the United Kingdom as a whole. He therefore demonstrates and symbolizes the viability of a different synthesis.
The South has tried, unsuccessfully, to force an immediate referendum. Salmond holds firm on a future date prior to the next Parliament. In the meantime polls show the Scottish National Party gaining momentum. Salmond recently chuckled that David Cameron was the Scottish National Party’s best friend in building support for independence.
If Salmond succeeds only in drawing attention and hope to an alternative plan, that success will grow those who have begun to look outside London for their salvation. Electoral dissatisfaction with the options presented by the Coalition and its disappointingly weak Labour opposition have in Salmond a rallying point. Whether or not Scottish independence succeeds, tectonic plates slip beneath the figurative feet of the economically weakened United Kingdom.
We know from pundits this prospect is of major concern to the Queen. It is also should be of major concern to London. The loss of Scotland alone would be almost incalculable. But the success of an alternative could reinvigorate movements in Wales, Cornwall, Northern Ireland and even the North of England.
At times, living in the North of England feels a little less like living in the same country as the "Home Counties" than living in a colony. Contemplating the British attitude toward government has been one of those "ah ha" moments for me, contrasting with the values inculcated in America's public schools. I grew up at a time when adults told American youth they were the leaders of the 21st century. The government was an expression of the will of its citizens, their servant.
In the UK, regardless of rhetoric, the people as a whole seem less citizens than subjects of a government that is the expression of the wills of something called "the political classes." The political classes had been penetrated by the working class in the 20th century, but once again they are becoming increasingly an elite indoctrinated-in-an-elite tradition in elite educational programmes.
It also often seems that government only sees itself to be working if it is hurting and imposing. Hence the Thatcher government readily wrote off communities centered on mining and naval dockyards. Hence unemployment was an acceptable price to pay. Because the decisions came from political classes tied to an economic structure based in the Home Counties and imposed on the subjects. Nothing in my experience prepared me for this. It has been as vivid a discovery as the beautiful green landscape, the powerful waves crashing the Cornish coastline, and the picturesque village square of Lytham.
It is not surprising, therefore, that independence movements have grown up in Scotland, North Ireland, Cornwall, and Wales. With each succeeding month of economic bad news, elimination of public services, loss of military capability, and accretion of power to the elite "political classes" it is as unsurprising as it is sad. It is certainly something Whitehall cannot ignore.
Perhaps this was not what troubled the Prime Minister. The severity of the difficulties ahead would be enough. But whatever David Cameron's private thoughts, it is very clear that 2012 will bring gales to a divided house with fracturing foundations.