Thursday 24 July 2014

Good. Too good.

The problem with some political ideas is that they’re too good.

Take grammar schools. Grammar schools are clearly excellent. Everyone who went to one will tell you how great they are. It was the greatest contribution to social mobility, half a century before that phrase existed. It’s like a public school, but without the bills and the guilt.

They were small, local bundles of excellence, and everyone had a chance of getting in. People who went to them have risen to prominence in the land, based on nothing but their own excellence. And it provided a pleasant working environment for teachers, so the state sector didn’t lose all of its more delicate flowers to the independents.

How were grammar schools so wonderful? Because they selected which kids they wanted. This meant that some kids weren’t wanted, and they had to be taught somewhere else. And those schools, the ‘somewhere else’ which used to be called secondary moderns, are the reason why the grammar school system is a bad one.

The conversation goes like this. The left says, ‘The grammar school system was bad.’ The right says, ‘But grammar schools are wonderful.’ The left replies, ‘Yes, I know, that’s exactly the problem.’ And the right says, ‘You bloody lefties - you hate success.’

The way it turned out, the grammar schools system was horrible, and created social divisions. Society was now divided up based on how clever you were at age 11. And considering the stupidity of all 11-year-olds, that’s a pretty crazy measure.

There are worse ways of choosing how to divide up society - the size of your father’s house, or how many of your family’s generations can you count back, for example. So it was an improvement. And the proportion of people getting into the better bracket was larger than it had been before. But it was still a system based on dividing people up into the right kind and the wrong kind. And without any plan for what the wrong ’uns are then meant to do with their lives.

And, of course, vestiges of the old system remained. Wealthy families would give their children every support they could to pass the 11-plus. And if they failed, they would be shipped out to a public school that specialised in less academic pursuits such as rugby, dressing as a soldier, and geography. And however supportive poorer families want to be towards their 11-year-old scholars, there’s a limit to how much academic preparation they can do in a household short on spare rooms and tables.

It was a cruel system as it turned out, but it was never meant to be like that. The system was meant to be based on three types of school, not two. The idea was that if you wanted an academic schooling, you would go for a grammar school. If you wanted a practical schooling, you went to a technical school. And if you wanted a bit of both, you went to a secondary modern. Think of a grammar as a Lion bar, a technical as a Snickers, and a secondary modern as a Picnic.

They were all meant to be excellent schools. Two different kinds of specialists, and one generalist. But two things happened. First, everyone wanted to go the grammar schools. British parents want their children to go to university, get an arts degree, then settle into an uninspiring job in publishing. They do not want them to become plumbers, and retire a millionaire at 32. God knows why.

The other thing that happened, or more accurately didn’t happen, is that the government didn’t build enough technical schools. So, in practice, very few parents had the full choice. Grammar schools became where you wanted to go, secondary moderns were for the failures, and technical schools were little quirks of local history, like a oddly-coloured windmill or a church with a crooked spire. Confused tour guides would routinely point at technical schools and say, ‘I think it’s some kind of water tower.’

Grammar schools are a fairly small issue these days. Not many areas still have them, and there are bigger problems to deal with in education. The comprehensive school system that replaced it didn’t repeat the mistakes of the grammar school system - it made a whole load of brand-new ones.

So why bang on about grammar schools? Aren’t there enough real problems in politics without raking over generations-old disagreements?

The grammar school system is a very useful archetype. It is a clear example of when the well-meaning right do something which is partially wonderful, but detrimental overall. They then always use the same debating tactic: distraction. When an unfair system is attacked, the right can say, ‘But look at this beautiful, big, shiny, wonderful thing that everyone likes. Hey everyone, you know that brilliant thing you like? The left want to take it away. Boo.’

Of course, the right aren’t very fond of government at the best of times. They instinctively dislike the idea of a big central system controlling everything. Sometimes this means that they don’t have a big central system. But more often, they do have a big central system, but pretend it isn’t there. Then when the left object to the system, the right say, ‘What system? There’s no system here. This is just me and my friends relaxing and having fun - hey, don’t kill the buzz, man.’

The right knows that the electorate at large aren’t terribly interested in political theories, and if you object to a policy on national rather than local grounds, that sounds a lot like a theory. They encourage the thought, ‘Well, I don’t know much about your big fancy ideas, all I know is that the trains run on time.’

The right likes to pretend that their policies are better, because they can tell stories of individual people who benefit. Whereas the left have to talk in vaguer terms, because it’s not possible to have had a chat with everyone who would benefit from a more equal society. The right like to position themselves as the protectors of the individual. But the left looks after many more individuals than the right. They just may not be individuals you went to school or have played golf with.

Grammar schools were great; the grammar school system was terrible. It’s a very slightly complicated idea - that a single positive by-product cannot justify an entire unfair system - that the right love to pretend they cannot understand. And from the current government, each a beneficiary of an excellent (and often expensive) education, that feigned stupidity is not an edifying - or even particularly convincing - sight.

Friday 18 July 2014

How many nations?

I believe the children are our future. People who need people are the luckiest people in the world. The world is just a great big onion.

Political slogans love to state the blindingly obvious. Whenever a politician says ‘forward together’ we should all looked surprised and say, “I really thought you were going to say ‘backwards, separately’.” A politician who says something that no one could possibly disagree with may as well be the rock band asking a festival audience, ‘Anyone here like sunshine?’

But sometimes the most seemingly unnecessary political statements are the most important. Our rock band were, probably, just trying to get the audience to cheer. But what if someone really was planning to abolish sunshine?

That is the problem that the slogan ‘One Nation Labour’ has encountered. It has been dismissed as a meaningless ‘motherhood and apple pie’ line, but naively so. ‘Who could possibly disagree with the idea of One Nation?’ you might ask. But what if the answer is ‘the government’?

‘One Nation’ is a phrase with a long history - a long Tory history until now. Disraeli gave one of his novels the subtitle ‘The Two Nations’ fearing that rich and poor were becoming permanently divided. Since then a ‘One Nation Tory’ has opposed the division between rich and poor. Tories disagreeing with this either feel that the separation of rich and poor is no bad thing, or that it is not the government’s job to prevent it. For these hard-hearted types, the description ‘Two Nation Tory’ has sadly never caught on.

In the early 1950s, several Tories wrote a pamphlet called ‘One Nation: a Tory Approach to Social Problems’ which brought the phrase back into general use. It then became a banner that most Tories were happy to sit under, until Thatcher came along. Thatcher than branded One Nation Tories as ‘wets’, because we all know compassion is a sign of weakness.

And now Ed Miliband has given his party the banner of ‘One Nation Labour’. It shouldn’t work. The Conservatives should be able to say, ‘Hey, don’t be silly. Everyone knows we’re the One Nation lot. It’s our phrase. Use one of your own.’ It should be as ridiculous as the Tories calling their manifesto ‘Workers of the world unite’.

But it does work, because the Tories have entirely abandoned their One Nation tradition. Thatcher may have hated One Nation Tories, but at least they were there to be mocked. Cameron hasn’t needed a belittling nickname for the opponents of his divisive policies in his cabinet, because there aren’t any.

‘One Nation’ describes just one strain - a practically extinct strain - in Tory thinking. But all of Labour can happily claim it. ‘One Nation’ amongst Conservatives is a description of disunity. For Labour it is uncontroversial, and it reminds people that the nice version of the Tories is no more.

It’s not just that Ken Clarke is gone - though that is harmful enough to the Tory brand’s humanity. It’s that they no longer look like a party cuddly Ken would ever join. Labour’s ‘One Nation’ policies taunt them, saying, ’If you were nice Tories, you’d be doing this yourselves.’

The idea of Two Nations runs deep in current Conservative thinking. So many of this government’s policies are about dividing people up into goodies and baddies, such as the deserving and undeserving poor. Every call to cut someone’s benefits comes from a desire to divide. And the Tories have never encountered a problem that couldn’t be solved by removing benefits from somebody.

Even their attitude towards prisoners - some actual baddies - starts from the principle that we are better than them. So anything they can be deprived of - comfort, reading, the vote - must be to the benefit of real people. And it doesn’t matter whether any of this makes the punishment ineffective.

Of course, the government’s attitude towards prisoners may be softening as an ever greater proportion of the prison population is known to the cabinet personally. I wonder if the thought of Andy Coulson voting makes David Cameron feel physically sick?

But most of the people the government demonises are not actually criminals - it’s more about making life difficult for people they disapprove of. Regardless of the morality of this, it’s bad tactics. You’re not running a business or a school - you can’t sack or expel people. If you cut someone’s benefits, they’re still there, and you’re still their government. You’ve not solved your problem, you’ve just made it hungry and cross.

This should be the real meaning of ‘One Nation Labour’. Every time the government addresses a problem by splitting the country into goodies and baddies, Labour must jump on them.

It will require some courage. The Tories may enjoy demonising people, but the press adore it. Every time the Tories outline their latest culprit, the press dust off the stocks with glee. As Labour attack, the press will accuse them of being soft, and not hating this week’s pariah as much as right-thinking people should. It’s not that Labour are in favour of murderers, benefit claimants, or the unmarried - they’ve just rather sensibly observed that tutting doesn’t make them disappear.

Maybe ‘One Nation Labour’ has struggled because of unlucky timing. At the moment, the biggest factor determining how many nations there are is the Scottish referendum. ‘One Nation Labour’ sounds more like an attack on Alex Salmond than on the rightwards drift of the Tory party. If the Scots say yes, the slogan is unusable.

But if they say no, it should do Labour some good. ’One Nation Labour’ is negative campaigning disguised as positive. It sounds like it is describing what Labour is, but it really highlights what the Tories aren’t. It is a bit like standing on a platform with your opponent and calling yourself ‘the non-sheep-shagging candidate’.

‘One Nation Labour’ crystallises something about the Conservatives that should create many ex-Tory voters. It tells everyone who calls themselves an ‘occasional Tory’ that next year’s election is a time to exercise their veto. There are enough people who believe in a unified society, and a party that sows divisions will be punished. Because people who need people are, after all, the luckiest people in the world.

Friday 11 July 2014

Ed Miliband: Rock Star

There’s no way Ed Miliband can win a general election cos he just looks, well, he’s got that face and, he’s just…no.

Because everybody knows that if you look a bit weird, you can never win a general election. Like that odd woman who challenged likeable avuncular Jim Callaghan in 1979 and was never heard of again.

In fact, there are plenty of examples of unpromising performers winning elections. Ted Heath was prickly and awkward, but somehow beat the polished and assured Harold Wilson in 1970. John Major was universally agreed to be boring and uninspiring before becoming, in 1992, the only party leader ever to attract 14 million UK voters.

And Clement Attlee’s government would top many people’s lists of the best ever, but his lack of charisma is an accepted historical fact, taught in history lessons somewhere between the Munich Putsch and the miniskirt.

Now, of course, these examples are from the past - as quite a lot of history is. The modern logic is that politicians have to be multi-media perform-atons, forever glossy and flawless. Elections, we are told, are entirely media events, and whoever does the media best wins. Maybe in the distant past you could win an election without winning the media, but not any more. The modern world is different. You’ve probably been told that the media will be the decisive factor in this coming election. It was probably the media that told you this.

The thing about being ‘modern’ is that you always think you are. No election coverage ever started with a Dimbleby saying, “Hello and welcome to the last election of the olden era.”

Every single general election is the most modern one yet. In every election, the media is bigger, more influential, and more demanding than they were at the last one. The media existed when Heath beat Wilson, Thatcher beat Callaghan, and Major beat anyone. By the media standards at the time, they were the less attractive candidate. So how come they still won?

There is an element of the beauty contest about an election, but it is not the whole story. If it was, then fresh gleaming David Cameron would have won a handsome majority over grumpy dirty Gordon Brown in 2010. And, of course, he didn’t win a majority at all (which is why he has governed ever since with such an air of consensus and humility).

Some politicians’ media performances are so good, they are electorally invincible. Tony Blair couldn’t have lost a general election if he wanted to. But Labour aren’t facing anyone with that kind of telegenic magnetism. Cameron’s lead over Miliband in the charisma stakes is not nearly wide enough to win the election purely on that measure. Miliband can’t win the charisma round - he just has to lose it narrowly enough that he’s still in the race. Like in Krypton Factor - you might be terrible at the assault course, but you have to make sure you at least finish it to be in with a chance of forging ahead during quick-fire general knowledge.

If Miliband confines the debate to this government’s record and both parties’ policies, then the election is there to be won. Why is an election campaign ever about anything else? Ed Miliband needs to avoid photo opportunities, even if they don’t feature a hot sandwich or tabloid newspaper. He needs to avoid narratives, message platforms, and branding. This election needs to be about explaining how his ideas are better than the other lot’s - everything else is wasted effort.

Who should be Ed Miliband’s model for an election campaign? Not Blair, obviously. His brother could have been a neo-Blair, and might even have done it well. But Ed needs to look elsewhere for inspiration. He needs to find someone who did not have matinee idol looks, someone who came across as a bit weird. Someone who was a forensic master of policy detail, who won arguments by the strength of his case. And someone whose principles sometimes led him to shelve his personal ambitions. Surely no such example exists in recent political memory?

What about Robin Cook? Mostly remembered now as the man who ran off with his secretary in protest at the Iraq war, Cook had qualities Miliband could learn from. We will never know if Cook would have been an electoral asset as a party leader. Cook’s death was the largest factor in Labour having no credible alternative to Gordon Brown when Blair resigned two years later. Cook’s public persona was very clearly exactly who he was - spiky, unashamedly bright, and with a steely determination to abide by his principles. He didn’t turn himself into something the electors would go for. He was entirely himself, and if that was something that appealed to voters, that was entirely a matter for them. We can be pretty sure that no style consultant ever suggested he look like that or talk like that.

When faced with Cameron’s sixth-form debating tricks, Ed Miliband could do a lot worse than ask himself, ‘What would Robin Cook do in this situation?’ He wouldn’t care about whether his opponents’ position was more attractive, pressed more of the right focus-group buttons. He would sharply and clinically set about why his opponent’s arguments were not good enough. It seemed he never worried about whether something was the right thing to say. He trusted that his brains and his heart would win him the argument. And if Cook had come up against Cameron, he would have made him work harder than he has ever had to over the last four years.

It is very easy to see how Ed Miliband can lose next year’s general election. He will appear on daytime television, cook his adoring family a Quorn tagliatelli, and finally let us know who his favourite member of the The Saturdays is.

If Ed plays that kind of game - the Blair playbook - he will get destroyed, and rightly so. If he ever says, ‘Well, Fearne, it’s been a real pleasure meeting you,’ then Samantha Cameron may as well cancel the removal company straightaway.

If Ed Miliband is going to become prime minister, he has to ignore every media adviser who pushes him in that direction. There are many ways of winning an election. It may sound old-fashioned, but Labour’s best approach may simply be to win the argument. And wouldn’t politics benefit if it worked?

Friday 4 July 2014

With a small C

Beware - conservatives are everywhere. They’re in the government, they’re in the institutions. And, worst of all, you’ve got one in your head.

Everyone’s a little bit conservative. If you’ve ever said, ‘Oh, I was enjoying that,’ about something that’s just stopped. If you struggle to get out the word ‘Snickers’ or ‘Starburst’. If you prefer cricket in white clothing (if you like cricket at all, really). You are, to some degree, conservative if you have ever described someone changing something as meddling, messing, or tinkering.

For some people, the little conservative voice in the brain becomes the defining characteristic of their characters. These conservative people in Britain enjoy the traditional, establishment bits of the country. They probably favour the Church of England, irrespective of their personal opinions on worshipping a deity. They love Radio 4. They respect the police. They revere the armed forces. They prefer public schools, and people who went to them. The royal family, especially the Queen, do a jolly fine job in pretty tricky circumstances, actually. They also, bless their socks, tend to vote for the Tory party.

You get conservatives in other parties too, of course. Tony Blair railed against the ‘forces of conservatism’, and he had in mind mostly Old Labour and the civil service - a very unlikely coalition. Blair assumed that anyone who opposes him must be in cahoots. Like the people who assumed that Osama and Saddam must have been regularly lunching together, simply because they both had spats with the Bush family.

Now New Labour Blairites can be seen as conservatives, begging that his legacy isn’t undone by cutting investment or cancelling invasions.

And the Lib Dems have their conservative element, which has carefully ensured that no senior Lib Dem has non-white or female skin.

But, of course, the Tory party has always been the natural home of the conservatively-minded element in British society. What is remarkable is how very badly the Tory party treats these people. The current government may have principally targeted the weak, poor, and vulnerable in their reforms. But the last four years has not been a picnic for the stuffy, the old-fashioned, and the set-in-their-ways (and they bloody love a picnic). They may not have had their livelihoods pitilessly targeted as the needy have - their investments are far too safe for anything like that. But this government has provided very little to warm a conservative heart.

It’s not the most important example, but look at broadcasting. A conservative person loves the BBC. They are put to bed by the Shipping Forecast, woken up by John Humphrys and, whether they love or hate The Archers, they do so with a life-affirming passion. They’re happy for the grandchildren to watch Doctor Who and, though they claim not to watch any television themselves, can describe the strengths and weaknesses of every single contestant on Strictly Come Dancing.

But the Tory party hates the BBC. It is a hotbed of lefty bias and - most grievous of all sins - it distorts the market. The BBC is a hangover from a barbarian past when people got things they hadn’t paid for. To this government, all people are consumers, all the time, in everything; all organisations are merchants; and the world will achieve perfection when it resembles one big market. The BBC doesn’t give customers an itemised bill, so how can we know if any of its services has any value?

The Tory party’s preferred broadcaster is Sky. Whereas a natural conservative, unless a major cricket fan, would never have a Sky subscription. Most of them don’t let their children watch ITV.

The Tories have parted ways with conservatives on all their sacred cows. The Tories made enemies of the police - conservatives love an honest copper (and still think they all are). The Tories have cut the armed forces extensively - conservatives have Help for Heroes car stickers, and would give all squaddies a job for life. The Tories have given equal marriage rights to everyone, which has left the naturally conservative baffled, if not actually appalled - and it’s made life terribly complicated for the poor old vicar. There are even some conservatives who think the government treated the Queen badly when they removed the gender bias from the primogeniture system of royal succession.

There are many aspects to a conservative character, and the current Tory leadership embodies just one. The Tories in government believe in right-wing economics - cutting back the state, trusting the market - and that’s it. To conservatives in the country, that belief is a long way down their list of priorities, if it figures at all.

The conservative is a many-faceted chap; the Tory cabinet minister has a one-track mind. Their love of cutting has extinguished their love of anything else. They are like a gardener who so enjoys weeding, they forget they ever loved flowers, and turn their award-winning garden into no man’s land.

The current Tory appeal to conservatives is entirely negative, based on a shared dislike of benefit scrounging and immigration: “You know those things you don’t much like? Well, we’re doing less of them!” At no point do they cherish anything, or hold it dear. And you can’t build a relationship entirely on hating the same things.

As this relationship breaks down, the Tories may see the results at the polls. British electoral logic says that when it rains on election day, Labour suffers. This isn’t really because Tory voters can get to the polling station without getting wet because they own motor cars and Barbour jackets. It’s because when natural Labour voters become disillusioned, they don’t vote for other parties, they stay at home. When lots of people are ambivalent about whether they can be bothered to vote, that’s when drizzle becomes a decisive factor.

Maybe now, the Tories will start to see the same problem. Maybe natural conservatives will join in with the refrain that the working class have been singing since the invention of New Labour: “We don’t know who you are any more. We’re your natural supporters, but what do you do for us?”

If it starts to rain on polling day, yes, more conservatives may get in the car. But the Tories may find it can just as easily take them to the golf club as the polling station. And the fact that the cabinet went to the right schools might not be quite enough to change that.