9th December 2021
There is a certain Dickensian quality to the unfolding political events in the United Kingdom.
The events of a Christmas past – last Christmas – are illuminating the politics of Christmas present.
And, unlike other wrongs and transgressions by this wretched government, the facts and significance of last year’s Christmas party are readily grasped by the most unpolitical of people.
It has ‘cut through’.
Many people will not empathise with or understand those who may have their citizenship withdrawn, or want to make noisy protests, or want to make a hazardous channel crossing without drowning.
But, just like a day trip to see a castle, people easily understand about a works Christmas party.
This is not to say there are not more fundamentally bad things happening in law and policy at the moment.
This tweet summarises the current illiberal situation well:
Tory MPs declaring their opposition to attacks on liberty re: masks/vaccines while voting through a Borders Bill that allows the Govt to remove someone's citizenship without even telling them why. And supporting a Police Bill that allows them to stop any protest causing "unease"
— Sam Freedman (@Samfr) December 8, 2021
The government of the United Kingdom is pushing forward legislation that will enable its officials to kill people without legal consequences, to prohibit meaningful protest, and to summarily remove citizenship from you because of where your family is from.
All this is as sickening and disconcerting as it can be.
But none of this has ‘cut through’.
*
Whenever the government does more than one bad thing at once, somebody somewhere will comment that one of the things is ‘a dead cat’.
This is the phrase to describe a tactic of political distraction.
One of the bad things happening – usually the more trivial – will be described as a cunning misdirection, to distract us from a far less trivial thing.
But.
The thing about ‘a dead cat’ tactic is that it requires basic competence.
It relies on the notion that those in power are capable of doing something that works.
This is a perhaps comforting idea.
The reality is, at least with the current government, that there is no basic competence.
The true situation is that the government is doing lots of bad things at once, all over the place.
This is a scarier predicament.
When one of the bad things gets more public and media attention, it is not because a deliberate political tactic has worked.
It is instead because the thing in question just happens to be more understandable.
That is the only difference.
*
This is a chaotic government.
It is tempting to posit some order or pattern – or conspiracy – as the alternative of absolute disorder is too horrible an idea to contemplate.
Indeed, it is an even more horrible prospect than a dead cat suddenly slammed upon a table.
**
The Great Cat Massacre by Robert Darnton
******
This daily law and policy blog needs your help to continue for another year – for the benefit of you and other readers.
Each free-to-read post takes time and opportunity cost.
This law and policy blog provides a daily post commenting on and contextualising topical law and policy matters.
If you value this free-to-read and independent legal and policy commentary – both for the you and for the benefit of others – please do support through the Paypal box above, or become a Patreon subscriber.
*****
You can also have each post sent by email by filling in the subscription box above (on an internet browser) or on a pulldown list (on mobile).
******
Comments Policy
This blog enjoys a high standard of comments, many of which are better and more interesting than the posts.
Comments are welcome, but they are pre-moderated.
Comments will not be published if irksome.
And I always thought a “dead cat” is that fluffy thing you put on a microphone to stop the wind noise…
Or is there a connection?
What were the unforseen consequences of France’s “great cat massacre”, I wonder. Didn’t China attempt to kill the birds feeding off crops and then suffered a plague of insects?
Well, if Wikipedia’s account of Robert Darnton’s book is accurate, the “great cat massacre” in 1730s France was a much smaller and more localised event than the title might suggest (two apprentice printers in Paris being mistreated, and taking an early and rather direct form of industrial by killing the better-treated cats owned by their master and his wife: it seems an account written by one of the apprentices about 20 years later has survived). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Cat_Massacre
To cross the streams with your lore and fantasy account, perhaps we are just better off accepting that our current Prime Minister is a Dead Cat Nexus Being?
That there are multiple horrible things occurring is due to his ability to generate distraction through his approach to life. The performance of “Boris Johnson” is the distraction.
Fortunately there appears to be an end to the shelf life of such a performance. Once departed, we will be left with the mess he leaves behind and perhaps there will be cut through for the empty shell that is the British State?
To describe the current political events as Dickensian gives them a certain classical dignity. I prefer to think of them as something out of Gilbert & Sullivan
But a dead cat is not a distraction if it is one that has died of COVID.
While “illiberal” can certainly be applied to what is set out, many who would not see themselves as “liberals” are appalled at this government. The attack on the judiciary and the disregard of Parliament are incommensurable with Disraeli’s principles. This is fast becoming a tyranny.
Readers of this blog may find Ipsos MORI’s Monthly Issues Index of interest on the subject of cut throughs.
The survey is conducted monthly and provides an overview of the key issues concerning the country.
Ipsos MORI interviewed in November 2021, a representative sample of 1,001 adults aged 18+ across Great Britain.
The answers are spontaneous responses, and participants are not prompted with any answers.
No leading questions.
Despite the cock ups at COP26 last month …
“Concern about the environment and climate change has reached its highest-ever score in this month’s Ipsos MORI Issues Index – likely an impact of the COP26 conference. There is also widespread agreement on this priority across different groups including across supporters of both the Labour and Conservative parties, although younger people stand out as putting COVID-19 marginally ahead.”
Mike Clemence, a researcher at Ipsos MORI
Churchill’s often infuriating average voter strikes again, seeing past Kermit.
That 40% of a 100% of the British electorate in November 2021 is greater than the 42.2% vote share, on a 67.52% turnout, Boris Johnson won in the General Election of December 2019.
Incidentally, Brexit came in at 22% with immigration/immigrants and lack of faith in politicians/politics/government on 11% each.
https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/ipsos-mori-issues-index-november-2021
Ipsos MORI also produces an annual Veracity Index.
The 24th edition records a significant decrease in public trust in the police, for the second year in a row. It also reveals that librarians (93%) are one of Britain’s most trusted professions, ranking alongside doctors (91%) and nurses (94%).
Lawyers are trusted by 59% of those polled and civil servants by 57%.
The bottom four in terms of trustworthiness are journalists on 28%, Government Ministers on 19%, politicians in general on 19% and advertising executives on 16%.
Professional footballers have had a good year, moving up from 30% in 2020 to 35% in 2021.
https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/ipsos-mori-veracity-index-trust-police-drops-second-year-row
I’ve written to my local Tory MP to complain about the behaviour of his party’s leader and urge his removal from office. I’m sure my suggestion will be treated with the seriousness it deserves.
Incompetence or conspiracy? There are those amongst us who would subscribe to the latter theory. Why? Because the whole point of Brexit was to allow this particular ideological group to have a bonfire of rights without its citizens having recourse to the the TEU (and subsequent Treaties) and the ECJ where they may have sort to redress the actions of this ”incompetent government”. No, no, no they are not incompetent, I think you will find that this was always the plan but for COVID we would be a lot further into the bonfire. Christmas parties may end up changing the bus driver, but it will not change the direction the bus is travelling in.
Quite. From the very beginning (2016) I thought they were not at all incompent. On the very contrary, I strongly felt them to be very competent and cynical in managing their power for the very disgraceful ends which show up daily.
Yes, he gives the impression of being a bumbling idiot, it’s a very good impression, but beneath that bumbling exterior and within the bosom of the ERG is an earnest desire to eradicate anything that appears to give any of us, a right of any description. Sadly the Bexiteers are only now beginning to realise that this was the plan all along. A plan dressed up in a little England ideology and sold to the many at their own expense. You couldn’t make it up!
I wouldn’t put it past this government to attempt a an actual dead cat tactic, but not be competent enough to pull it off.
What we would get instead is a mess that ends up being erroneously described as a dead cat. So it is both a dead cat and not. Schrodinger’s dead cat, if you like.
Imelda’s Shoes
The analogy seems to me to be the discovery of the thousands and thousands of shoes owned by Imelda Marcos. One could speak of the corruption under Marcos, the human rights violations, as well as all the economic, social, and military disasters, but it didn’t move the needle.
The shoes did it both for the people and for the Americans who were watching. Why? People can easily understand the specific of thousands of shoes. Tangible. And, once again, specific and not an abstract.
Imelda’s shows; Boris’ Party
If I may address a slightly different aspect of the ‘dead cat!’ cry — perhaps it does not matter so much, even to the crier, whether the occasion is a cunning plot or an uncaring blunder. When someone says “that’s a dead cat!”, that’s shorthand for “We must not allow this new scandal to distract us; we must maintain our focus on the current scandal!”