11th July 2022
In late June/early July 1995 I was spending some time in Boulogne.
It was the time of the Conservative leadership contest between John Major and John Redwood, and so every day I would go to a café that sold English newspapers to find out what had happened one day or sometimes two days before.
And apart from some occasional radio news, that was it for that day: a few minutes for information about the important matter of who would become Prime Minister and thereby shape the United Kingdom’s relationship with the (then new) European Union.
In 2022 the significance of the current contest is in one way the same: the question of who will be Prime Minister as well as leader of the governing Conservative Party.
But it is very different – not least in the deluge of information, all day, every day, about the candidates.
The biggest difference is that all the current candidates are now on the Redwood ‘side’ of the matter of Europe.
Indeed, in this post-Brexit period, all realistic Conservative leadership contenders have to say things that would make John Major wince and John Redwood clap and cheer.
The question of the leadership of the governing Conservative party is no longer also a question about the future of the United Kingdom and Europe.
That question has been answered – and the answer has also been adopted by the main opposition Labour party.
The division between Major and Redwood in 1995 is not even a division between the main two political parties.
Indeed, there seems very little policy difference between the current candidates for leadership and thereby the premiership.
This is why they are seeking to outbid each other in fantastical demands for tax cuts and infantile pandering to horrible culture wars.
These are things are what you talk about when you do not want to engage in hard policy.
They are not about policy, but a lack of policy.
But another thing the 1995 and 2022 leadership contests do have in common: both were about two years from the next general election.
Given the recent by-election defeats the current governing party looks as if it is heading for a heavy defeat, just as it was to in 1997.
If so, the current contest is for the prize of leading the Conservatives into that defeat – and without enough time to put in place an entirely new policy agenda, even if the successful candidate wanted to do so, which none of the candidates do.
Of course, somehow, some of the candidates are even worse (from a liberal perspective) than others, and one or two a lot worse.
But there is little to separate them – so far – on overall policy.
This is perhaps not surprising: the departing Prime Minister Boris Johnson did not go because of policy – in contrast to say, Margaret Thatcher in 1990 where the Poll Tax and European policy were central to her removal.
And so: this is a leadership contest where the winning candidate is not likely to change policy and who is also likely to lose the governing party’s majority at the next election.
If you did not have the internet and twenty-first century communications, would you walk to a local café to follow what was happening for a day-to-day account?
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Interesting – Europe has brought down every Conservative Prime Minister since Heath and it is now looking like it will bring down the Party itself!
We can only hope.
No. I only want to see who emerges from this cage fight, I don’t want to see any of the sickening detail of what goes on in the cage before a winner emerges. Not even in prose.
Please, please David can you give us a short definition of ‘culture wars’.
It’s where they throw pots of yoghurt at each other.
cf. Ernie, the fastest milkman…
Of all the breathless reporting that we’ve seen on the Tory Leadership campaing thus far, the one element that gave me a “Wait! What!?” moment has been the rallying cry of “Tax Cuts! Tax Cuts! Tax Cuts!”
The first I saw reported, over the weekend, came from Liz Truss and pretty much gave me whiplash. Maybe I should sue.
Apparently, the thinking is that:-
– The £18.9 billion for Crossrail was chump change…
– The £72-£98 billion projected cost for HS2 was *necessary*…
– The estimated £310-£410 billion cost of the Covid-19 pandemic was “well within projections” [and let’s just not mention the blatant fraud…]
– The estimated 4% GDP cost of Brexit was irrelevant because the current/previous administration “got Brexit done”…
– To March this year, i.e. excluding the full understanding of the Russia/Ukraine conflict, the UK budget deficit to the FY ending March this year was £89.5 billion or 3.8% GDP…
Yet, faced with significant financial challenges in every possible direction they could look, the Tory leadership hopefulls are arguing for… tax cuts?
I do appreciate that everything else going on is causing the nation a significant amount of pain right now. Food bank usage is at the highest level we’ve ever seen. Curiously, mortgage arrears and repossessions appear to have been shrinking for the first quarter of the year – which seems counter-intuitive – but the fact remains that the economy is completely “out of whack”.
It’s obscene that we see companies like BT report a 9% increase in quarterly profits on May 12th this year; or BP profits doubling to £5 billion; Tesco up by 34.9% to £2.6 billion… only to see the Tory leadership hopefulls say that those companies can bank outlandish profits – that tax returns from them will be reduced thanks to tax cuts – and that meanwhile citizens will be shoulder the burden of the massive increases in public sector borrowing.
Insane. Offensive. Should be automatically disqualifying.
If there’s any politician worthy of the position, it’s one that would immediately re-balance UK taxation, to ensure that the fat-cat corporations pay their share, that foreign-held companies trading in the UK pay their share (Amazon, Starbucks, Farcebook (sic) and so on).
Chance would be a fine thing.
You are absolutely spot on. It is insane.
Disgraceful. Disgusting. Shameful.
I simply cannot grasp, let alone understand, what is going on in the minds of the Tory candidates. Assuming they have minds which function.
In Psychology, there is the concept of cognitive dissonance – holding two opposing views internally at the same time. In order to stay out of a psychiatric unit, people who hold these internal opposing views unconsciously go with one, dumping the other. It is the mental mismatch which results in cognitive dissonance.
In politics, there is a similar dissonance, which is exhibited by “saying one thing but doing another”. We, the public, initially suffer from dissonance, because politicians look us in the eye – via TV cameras – and categorically state that a. is true, or is being done.
At the same time, those same politicians are actively pursuing b. Initially, this confuses us. We trust them.
I would prefer to call this dissonance in us the result of being repeatedly lied to. Overtly. In plain sight.
We clearly hear politicians saying one thing – yet we clearly see them doing the opposite.
“Cost of living crisis..blah..biggest financial support ever….blah…helping ordinary, hard working people….blah blah..the will of the British people…high skill/high earning….”
Let us be in no doubt. Not a single candidate for the Tory leadership has mentioned “hard working people” or even, I think, “cost of living crisis”.
Grant Schapps referred to the crisis as “a squeeze”, by the way.
This tax cutting is pandering to less than 200,000 comfortably off, probably elderly, Conservative Party members and is not only out of order, but actually obscene.
The people who will vote to decide our next Prime Minister make up
0.29% of the UK’s population. Less than 0.3% of the population.
I’ll say that again. The Prime Minister of the UK will be elected in a vote by:
0.29% of the UK population. Do you REALLY think they give a stuff about the cost of living? About “those nasty poor people over there”? About people waking up scared and going to bed scared.
The last time round, I even thought of joining the Tory Party to place a vote but, quite sensibly, the website said you had to wait some time (a year?).
And yet 20 months ago it was those same “poor people” who kept the country’s lights on, who drove the delivery vehicles, who brought food and medicines to the elderly and vulnerable, who worked in the shops despite the significantly greater risks to their health.
Didn’t take the politicians long to forget that, did it?
I weep at what this country has become
Just so. But a table in the current Economist has the poorest third as the strongest supporters of the tories and the wealthiest third as least supportive.
We must win back the terraces. That is where the votes are.
One aspect that does seem to have changed since 1995 is a substantial degree of interest in the tax and business affairs of some of the leading candidates.
Perhaps that is what we expect when many have founded and then sold their own companies, or worked in the City of London and other financial centres overseas, or married wealth, or inherited non-domiciled status, or a combination of all of these.
For comparison, John Redwood was born in Dover and grew up in a council house for a period, but then studied at independent schools and then Oxford, including an All Souls fellowship and history DPhil, and worked at NM Rothschild and then a Number 10 policy unit elected in 1987. John Major’s family had a garden ornament business which went through financial problems while he was a grammar school, and he left with three O-levels. He studied banking by correspondence course, and became a banker, latterly at Standard Chartered, until elected in 1979.
Hmm. Policy wonks or the City or both – perhaps it was ever thus.
This might be unkind of me, but I wonder if the change you have noticed over the last ~ 27-odd years has been due to the fact that whereas in the mid-90s the average British politician might have felt guilty for fiddling his expenses for the odd taxi fare… today they are beyond corrupt – handing out huge no-bid contracts to their mates, taking up lucrative directorships – even working in other jobs while they are supposed to be MPs. And let’s not forget the expenses claim for a house for one’s ducks.
Perhaps, then, one of the reasons that today’s typical MP is so out of touch with reality is because there really is rampant corruption in the corridors of power?
It will be interesting to see what post-politics job Boris Johnson decides to take up. John Major joined the Carlyle Group; Blair did his Middle East thing, funded by the US; Brown has done nicely out of speaking engagements; Cameron was independently wealthy before he got in to politics. Not sure about May. I read somewhere recently that Boris Johnson’s tax returns indicate that he is one of the top-earning MPs, due, I believe to book royalties.
Perhaps he’ll write an autobiography?
Lewis Carroll once wrote that if you did not know where you were going then it did not much matter which way you turned.
Here is the full passage which is perhaps more nuanced than I earlier thought:
Cheshire Puss,’ she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little wider. ‘Come, it’s pleased so far,’ thought Alice, and she went on.
‘Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’
‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat.
‘I don’t much care where—’ said Alice.
‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the Cat.
‘—so long as I get SOMEWHERE,’ Alice added as an explanation.
‘Oh, you’re sure to do that,’ said the Cat, ‘if you only walk long enough.”
Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another question. `What sort of people live about here?’
`In that direction,’ the Cat said, waving its right paw round, `lives a Hatter: and in that direction,’ waving the other paw, `lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they’re both mad.’
`But I don’t want to go among mad people,’ Alice remarked.
`Oh, you can’t help that,’ said the Cat: `we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.’
`How do you know I’m mad?’ said Alice.
`You must be,’ said the Cat, `or you wouldn’t have come here.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
I love the charm but terror of the Chesire Cat!
One difference between today and your experience in the 90s is that people don’t just use communications tools to ‘follow’ the news in a passive fashion they seek to engage with it by posting their own comments and interacting with others
While it’s arguably whether this engagement has any effect on the policy positions you describe as fixed, people must find some comfort or value in it beyond simply being informed which was seemingly your main purpose in the 90s.
There is at least one other difference, certainly for UK citizens.
In the 1990s [thought to a slightly lesser degree today] the news as reported through British media (broadcast certainly, perhaps not so much print) was largely neutral and largely fact-based.
Since then the rise of “Social Media” and the distribution/propagation of stories – including those from malevolent actors such as Russian Agents – far out-compete anything from such well-regulated channels.
As a result, the power of misinformation actually has a greater potential to shape our world than that of policy. For example, analysis of the 2016 election shows that the Cambridge Analytica / Russian misinformation campaign served to keep a statistically significant number of Democrats from voting. When you think just how close the final tally was, it’s entirely likely that it was misinformation and media manipulation that won Trump the White House.
When you look back at the harm that he did in just four years – to the US political system, to international relations, to the environment, to pretty much anything he touched, it’s shocking and sobering to think that it pretty much came about thanks to the manipulation of “the news” through social media.
In fact, I would go one step further: platforms like Facebook should no longer be thought of as “social media” sites, but as “cognitive maniulators”. They can persuade you to go and buy a new phone. Or they can persuade you to sit out an election – and bring about a calamotous, dystopian future.
Indeed, when I asked my hairdresser before the Referendum which way she was going to vote, she said,”Oh, you have to vote Leave, Facebook says so”.
Could it be that the initial punted favourite for the future Prime Minister, Ben Wallace, elected not to run as he saw it as a poisoned chalice leading to inevitable defeat at the next election with a worsening of the economy and the accompanying blame? Possibly with a view after such defeat of the Conservatives, taking over the reins of the party and then initiating the first moves towards membership of the Customs Union/Single Market, for when back in power at some later date?
Ha. Wondered exactly the same thing an hour ago.
However. It’s a big however. Why on earth would the EU want anything to do with us? Our politicians have lied to 27 countries, been offensive to 27 countries and blamed 27 countries for those lies and offence. We (Johnson and Frost, anyway) signed an international treaty they KNEW they had no intention of sticking to.
I’d have nothing to do with us.
Obviously the task of rebuilding the UK’s credibility and trustworthiness is going to be a long one. But it has to be started. And if you’re a Tory hopeful who recognises this and wants to be in a leadership position for a reasonable while so as to advance this necessary task, you maybe don’t want to be elected leader right now. The leader elected now is likely to have a short shelf-life.
I think the EU would be both cautious and appreciative if the UK showed a change in attitude.
However, given that the UK usually flip-flops between either Labour or Conservative majorities, it will only consider significant changes such as Single Market membership once both parties are no longer outright hostile.
So while a change to a Labour government would certainly unlock many possible improvements, it might need a future change to a Conservative government under some moderate to unlock significant improvements in relationship with the EU.
It might help our case if we prosecute those liars and lock them up for life.
Indeed. The only eventual “winner” will be the one playing the longest of games. The current crop of hopefuls are talentless and harbour ambitions far beyond their capabilities as we’ve seen already.
I’ve never been a fan of blood sports but perhaps it’s time to make an exception
In response to DAG and Sproggit, I feel despairing from the baying about tax cuts and don’t want to hear another word from any of them. Despite his manifold limitations, is Sunak the only sensible one on this issue, or has he already changed his mind?
None of them are sensible.
This isn’t a contest to find the best candidate, but a desperate search for the least-worst.
Critical distinction to make.
Indeed least worst. I was careful to say “on this issue”.
Indeed, when I asked my hairdresser before the Referendum which way she was going to vote, she said,”Oh, you have to vote Leave, Facebook says so”.
My partner and I visit northern France regularly and generally stay in fabulous little hotel a few miles outside Boulogne. (Obviously a bit less regularly in the last couple of years). We love going there to escape the lunacy of British politics for a few days.
I had forgotten that Major’s key opponent was Redwood. Thank you for that chilling reminder. Most of the current contenders almost make Redwood look like a heavyweight intellectual. How has it come to this?
I repeat, Redwood won a prize fellowship at All Soul, and has a history DPhil. You might disagree with his politics, and his presentation does him few favours, but he is not an idiot.
On an intellectual level, I expect he would be a match for any of the current contenders. As a politician, not so much, perhaps. Would he have been a good leader for the Conservative party? Absolutely not.
We should insist on a general election first.
They have ousted Boris for personal reasons. They were right behind him with everything that he has done, they have taken affront because he knowingly appointed a sexual deviant as a whip.
I suspect that Boris doesn’t see him as a deviant: Pincher’s deviance being not very far removed from his own, but however they paint it, this is an internal party matter.
The fact remains that Johnson led the Conservatives to a landslide victory, and I think it is fair to say that it was *his* victory more than it was the Conservatives.
Everything that they have done since has been to his credit, although for example with the vaccine roll out, they have claimed for him credit that was all due to the NHS and despite him.
The point here is that they credit him, not the party.
We do not have a presidential system, but the claim that the mandate is his and not theirs is not completely unreasonable, even despite coming from the minister for the eighteenth century.
We need to be aware of our own cognitive bias here: we know that he is completely unfit for office, but we have always known that. In 2019 the electorate registered a different opinion.
The Tories have argued consistently that Boris is the man, and now, all of a sudden, because of personal differences and internal party issues, they turn on him.
They cannot claim that this ousting is through the representation of their constituents: it is a party matter.
They are not entitled to presume that the nation have also turned. I doubt that many of his voters care about a bit of groping in the House.
Where there is such clear uncertainty about the opinion of the people, the only sensible answer is a general election.
The law requires that the opinion of the people is freely expressed in these choices by holding elections “At reasonable intervals”.
By what argument is it reasonable to delay?
I’m very sorry for this being so completely off-topic, but to give us all a bit of a break for BorisGate, I wonder if you might be interesting in sharing your thoughts on the legality or otherwise of the activities behind this story:-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-62124094
Thank you!
My opinion is that the information contained in those communications are official records, and they have no authority to delete those records.
If they have done, that would likely be an offence under the Misuse of Computers Act, if not criminal misconduct.
If they deleted them in regards to any threat of investigation, that would appear to be interfering with the course of justice.
Caan’t tax carburessions, Cap’n! Caan’t tax carburessions. Take another look at that therr chaart o’ yourn. Zee? Boddom left ‘aand corner: “Heere be Pension-Funds.” Treacherous warders, Cap’n. Ghosties, zome doo zay! Don’ ee go therr Cap’n,
Oim beggin’ ee! Best skirt round ’em, Oi reckon. Voind zome other way.
Carburettors are old technology: everybody uses fuel injection these days…
A “carburession man” is how a Gloucestershire dustman described his occupation to me in 1968. I make no claim as to the precise birthplace of my First Mate. He’s an amalgam of somewhere West of over there-ish.
Um, a Corporation man?
See https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ixcjAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA885
Which claims that “dust” was primarily a London term, when a considerable part of refuse collected by the municipality was ashes from solid fuel fires. Other regional terms for the same role as the “dustman” included “ash-man”, “Corporation man” and “scavenger”.