Britain’s new government (2)

Yes. It’s hyperbole.
I’ve been a paid up opponent of the Tories for a long time, but you’re losing perspective. They just won power, obviously they are going to move on the things they want to do. Given that the chief change has been the removal of the Liberal Democrats, who it turns out were in fact A) genuinely liberal and b) genuinely stopping the Tories doing illiberal things, it’s not surprising that the list contains some illiberal nastiness. That being said, few of them are a surprise, and none of them will prevent a reasonably well-organised opposition taking over in 5-10 years when they have made themselves as unpopular as ever. On the specifics
1) Anyone who knows BBC staff knows they lean against the Tories. It is therefore massively unsurprising that the Tories are going to make nasty noises in return. Secondly the BBC is an unusually large state broadcaster, and it is a perfectly normal right-wing objective to want to reduce the size of state-run business working in a competitive marketplace. It seems a bit much to expect the Tories to break their normal preference for private industry specifically to support an institution which dislikes them.
2) The Tories are going after public sector strikers not to close down the revolution but because it’s a useful and nasty bit of populism. Public sector strikers are not very popular, especially among the Tory base.
3) There is only one specific type of ‘dissent’ they are going after with the law – Islamic extremism. Again, that’s illiberal, but realistically Islamic extremists are currently less popular than leprosy and I suspect that Labour will not be voting against this. I would also be genuinely astonished if these kind of laws were used against any mainstream opposition in the next ten years, which is what happens in states like Russia and Turkey.
4) & 5) are bad measures but again, they have been extensively flagged as being part of the Conservative programme and realistically are not going to get used against mainstream opposition of the kind that could actually win the next election

In your newer list, you have to admit it’s going to be difficult to argue against letting union members, often low paid, get an active say in whether their dues get sent to the Labour party. (Personally, I am surprised that Labour didn’t ban donations without explicit shareholder consent from companies, which could be viewed in the same way). Going after check-off – again, is it really Putinism for a governing party to abolish an unusual practice in the public sector which actively funds its bitterest opponents? Can’t the revolution be funded by the unions collecting their own dues, and the Labour party its own membership fees? Finally, I’ll admit that the voter registration changes look worrying, but the boundary changes are overdue –everyone knows the current boundaries actively discriminate against the Tories.
To sum up, the free election of a somewhat illiberal right-wing party is leading to the implementation of some illiberal, right-wing measures as per their programme, and the reduction of state support for entities which actively oppose that party. This is not Russia – to equate this with the treatment of the Russian opposition is silly, and to believe it meaningfully reduces our chances of getting rid of them in 2020 is worse – I’m still pretty confident that by the time they’ve finished twisting themselves into knots around the European referendum (aggravated by their small majority and byelections) any borderline competent opposition will be able to stomp them. Giving up at this point is senseless.

Not comparing Cameron to Putin or Orban is what is unhinged. Of course the Tories are attempting to destroy whatever is left even of the performance of democracy in the UK. The sad part is that the Labour right is actually collaborating in this effort, as they prefer Tory rule to even moderate social democracy a la Corbyn.

christian_h is right. The whole political process is about closing off the potential for change, and the Tories are just proposing measures that will continue to erode the ability for wider political participation and organisation. As the Labour leadership election and the record of the later Blair/Brown governments have demonstrated, the Labour Party establishment is all part of this arrangement, merely seeking to skew things in its own favour.

The mistake is to single out Britain amongst ‘Western’ countries- it is just happening to a greater degree here than in other liberal democracies.

I’d also remind people that a ‘hard crackdown’ is not needed. IIRC, Thatcher never got more than 40% of the vote; geography took care of the rest.

Rearrange electoral districts, apply barriers to voting which will trim the opposition of 10% of their vote, make it far harder to reveal government actions, cronyize the system, and have a legal system friendly to political persecution, and one has gotten quite a bit of the way to a one-party state.

And the final trick is that if things get so horrible that the party has a hard time retaining control of Parliament, they can allow a castrated opposition to assume control. Of Parliament, that is, not the rest of the government, and certainly not the support of the Establishment media, the financial elites, or the nexus of cronies, who will have long-term contracts to bind the government.

At that point a very seriously limited opposition will have to deal with a horrible situation, with limited power, and the Deep State blaming them for causing it.

Actually, Thatcher got 43.9%, 42.4% and 42.2% of the vote in the three elections in which she stood as Tory leader. It wasn’t geography that translated these pluralities into massive Parliamentary majorities in 1983 and 1987; it was that the opposition was split.

The Alliance wasn’t a third-party fringe movement, they were centrists. The Labour Party decided that the reason they lost in 1979 was that they were too moderate and so moved decisively to the left. This was just as successful then as it would be today. So the moderates in the Labour Party broke away and allied with the Liberals – eventually merging to form the Lib Dems. Their game, then and now, was to appeal to moderates of both parties.

On the one hand, this meant that the Conservatives were able to win massive majorities based on only 42-43% of the vote. On the other hand, the whole reason for the Alliance is that huge numbers of former Labour voters balked at the prospect of Foot. In a straight Labour-Tory choice, the Conservatives would have won anyway.

I should have written better – I didn’t mean that the Tories *did* that, I meant that they (from their viewpoint) *should* do that. A nice third party on the left can suck up 5% of the vote, and a lot of energy and attention.

As someone whose living is made on the study of Russia (and to a lesser extent Hungary), I can confidently assert that comparing current UK policy, or even just it’s ‘direction’ to Putinism is indeed hyperbolic, to a degree that it totally discredits the person making the claim. The policies listed may indeed be lamentable, but to say that they’ve put the UK on the path of becoming a personalised authoritarian kleptocracy, where large parts of the country are ruled by murderous warlords (Chechnya) and the government’s political opponents are gunned down in the street is so transparently ludicrous, not to mention offensive, it gives a massive boost in the public debate to the people actually advocating said policies. Ditto with Hungary which, while not as bad as Russia, has become a basically authoritarian and ethno-chauvinist state. There are real institutional constraints -such as the judiciary, the rule of law etc. – on government power in the UK. Until the Tories advocate their abolition, comparing them to Putin and Orban is the kind of deep silliness usually confined to 16 year olds just finished skimming through Das Kapital for the first time.

Additionally, I think its also worth noting that all of these policies, which you argue are putting the UK on the path towards crypto-fascism, were previously blocked due to the participation of the Lib Dems in government, participation at the time you derided as placing basically no meaningful restraints on the Tories and functioning as little more than a fig leaf. A degree of basic intellectual honesty might behoove you to start this post with an admission that your previous assessment was an error.

Hyperbole?

Yes–and I think one can say this is so without invoking some mythical national culture that would cause the drift in the UK to be different from that in the former USSR. Is this even a question?

Chris – I’m currently running out the door so don’t have time to respond to this in longer detail. Suffice to say a) ‘drifting in the direction’ seems to me to be closer to equating than comparing, b) I live in the UK and have spent significant amounts of my time in Russia and other post-Soviet states – there is no meaningful comparison to be made. For example, the recent public downfall of Lord Sewell may have been over something as trivial as sex and drugs, but it was accomplished by investigative journalists who were able to operate freely and publish their findings without being beaten to a pulp or shot in some dark alley.

It may surprise you that I’m very much on your side on issues such as legal aid and immigration. But again – these are not in any way comparable to systems in which the courts rule at the direction of the executive, or in which white nationalist gangs are allowed to violently terrorise immigrants with no legal consequences.

As to ‘massive boost’ – perhaps that was giving you and CT too much credit. Fine – but I do remember a time when the Observer saw fit to call it one of the most influential blogs in UK politics, and it is a public platform for public musings by someone who is a serious (or at least professionally employed) political philosopher. Especially in an age when the Labour party is on the verge of electing Jeremy Corbyn, half-baked posts comparing Cameron to Putin do give ammunition to the (dominant) right-wing voices in UK politics and the ‘looney left gone mad’ narrative. They also make you look silly.

PS – On ‘enabling’ – you’re right. It’s Nick Clegg’s fault for giving into the tyranny of bourgeois mathematics and failing to pretend that Lab+Lib= parliamentary majority in 2010 that we had the coalition. Oh how the scales have fallen from mine eyes…

MPAV, you said it before I could. I would add that Harper has stacked the justice system with judges who agree with him, and greatly weakened the balance of the selection process.

“I would add that Harper has stacked the justice system with judges who agree with him, and greatly weakened the balance of the selection process.”

Totally agree Lynne. Out of curiosity are you watching tonight’s debate? I am curious to see how Justin Trudeau does. I will be voting strategically anyway but still it should be interesting.

@ MPAV & Lynne

I’ll be watching the debate (and have suitably low expectations for anything that Maclean’s and that hack Paul Wells touches). In regards to the liberal leader, I’ll be interested to see how he does (not because I have any intention of voting for him– I’m in what I think is a fairly safe orange riding that I’m sure you, MPA, would know well from your grad studies days). His handling of C51 and then his ham-fisted justification for it– “I didn’t want the conservatives to make hay out of it”, “I promise to repeal it later if you elect me” was so stupendously stupid I think he’s got to have a better answer for it tonight or he’s likely to bleed even more red votes to the orange.

By the way MPA, I used to be in Dewar’s riding, before moving slightly south and ending up in the horror that was Baird’s constituency. I think you now reside in roughly the same greater area– any idea if either of those seats are up for grabs this time around?

We already have an orange sign on our lawn. We haven’t had representation in Ottawa since 2008 when we got a talking-point Conservative MP. I think the NDP have a good chance in our riding—we elected an NDP MPP last provincial election.

@ Lynne

here’s hoping it works out for your riding this time around!

Christian_h, there’s a big difference here in Australia from the UK and Canada. We have long had preferential voting – a form of the STV.

This means that smaller parties are often kingmakers though rarely co-rulers, which ensures stable government (unlike PR) but at the same time is a deterrent to governments throwing red meat to their base or otherwise pursuing directions that might seriously upset those parties (eg fiddling electoral boundaries, hampering opposition finances).

I thought at the time, and still think, that UK Labour had rocks in its head to oppose the STV referendum. How long did they think their electoral gerrymander was going to last? And when it was removed, would it be their friends or their enemies doing the removing?

And yes, it is silly hyperbole to compare Cameron to Putin. Tory populist illiberalism and machinations to give themselves an electoral leg-up should be opposed for what they are, not through some paranoid fear of it all being part of a hidden fascist agenda.

Definitely hyperbole. Come on, the comparison should be with Texas, Louisiana, and Wisconsin. The right wing shitheadedness pursued in a country with a well established democracy is of a different order than one where they set up shop after 1989-91. Wasn’t the recent election in the UK run by a couple of American spinmeisters anyways?

Follow Hegel, your political sun sets in the West my friend.

The Labour Party (or at least Ed Miliband) did support AV for what it is worth.

Not a fan of Cameron or the Tories but unless Andy, Jeremy, Liz or Yvette goes down with something unpleasant after dining on Polonium Sashimi with an employee of MI5, I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that an analogy with Putin is not an exact one.

Stephen @36 –

Actually, even then you wouldn’t be close to Putinism. First you’d need every party with parliamentary representation to become completely and explicitly co-opted by No. 10, largely through the provision of personal financial largesse to their senior leaders. The Duma has three, nominally ‘opposition’ parties to Putin’s Unified Russia but it’s an open secret that they’re directly managed by the Kremlin’s spin doctors.

You’d then need to subordinate every newspaper, television channel and radio station in the country to government control, either through direct ownership or through ownership by proxy via tame oligarchs, and send them daily instructions on what to cover. This would include a minimum of 50% of news broadcasts consisting of positive references to David Cameron, followed by lurid horror stories about how literally every country on earth besides the UK is falling apart. Criticism of Cameron, or portraying him in any form of negative light whatsoever would be totally verboten. Say what you like about the Barclay Brothers and Rupert Murdoch, but they’re not afraid to criticise Cameron when they want to.

You would also, in the midst of all this, you’d need to set up a system whereby any decision of political significance taken by the courts is directly and explicitly dictated by no. 10, in advance. Restrictions on legal aid are odious and wrong, IMHO, but they are not the same as the judiciary being subordinated to the executive.

Finally, you would need to denude literally every institution in public life of any meaningful substance in order to eliminate practical restraints on state power, and govern more or less exclusively by extensive, complex networks of corruption and patrimony. You would also need to explicitly ‘manage’ the outcome of elections through direct fraud and intimidation. This is not the same as gaming the inherently anti-democratic FPTP system to one’s advantage when you are in power (and really, the Labour argument against equalising constituency sizes boils down to ‘we find it harder to mobilise our electorate, therefore there should be a bit of gerrymandering in our favour’, which is frankly ridiculous).

Again – one can argue, vigorously, against many of the Tory proposals outlined above. Personally I think making political donations a positive choice, or raising the threshold on strike actions may be justified, and could even be beneficial to the Labour party if they used it to engage with their membership in a meaningful way, instead of generally regarding them with fear and contempt and then getting outraged when they then vote for Jeremy Corbyn as a result. But it isn’t Putinism, or Erdoganism or even Orbanism. And making the comparison immediately, and totally, shuts off the potential to engage with and debate people who might actually be converted to your side. Which raises the question – why make such a deliberately provocative and loopy comparison?

subdoxastic and MPAV, what did you think of the debate?

Chris Bertram, as MPAV noted, Stephen Harper has done some of the same things here in Canada. One of the most worrying aspects to these changes is that many of them will be quite hard to undo. Harper has spent years barricading himself and his MPs from the press, and this at least should be easy to change should we elect a new government this fall, but he has stacked the Senate and the courts with appointees who will be there for a very long time. He has cancelled a lot of scientific research, and has hamstrung or fired the scientists who oversaw drug safety. I don’t see them being rehired in future.

No, I didn’t watch. I have a lot of time for Elizabeth May, so I’d have enjoyed that part. I also quite like Trudeau, but luckily I can vote NDP in my riding and actually hope for a win. I’ve voted strategically in the past so I still get hopeful phone calls from the Liberals, and I’ve supported the Greens before so I get hopeful calls from them, too. Strangely, I never get calls from the Conservatives, though they are targeting my son, for some reason.

MPAV, oh boy. We make all our donations in my husband’s name, and he is a member of the NDP, but to reduce calls and e-mails I haven’t joined or donated in my own name (different last names). I still get some calls, but nothing like what he gets.

And thus concludes Canada Hour on Crooked Timber. We now return to your regularly scheduled programming.
;-)

(not t’other Stephen@36: can we sort this out?)

When Chris adds to the other things he dislikes about the present UK government their proposal “to strip the electoral roll of non-Tory voters and to ensure boundary changes that to strip the electoral roll of non-Tory voters and to ensure boundary changes that under-represent economically deprived areas” I fear this is like “the thirteenth strike of a crazy clock, that discredits not only itself but also the other twelve that have gone before it”. (Good phrase, I can’t remember from whom.)

There has been as far as I know no proposal at all (none, nein, niente, nilc, nada) to disenfranchise non-Tory voters. If there has been, I as a non-Tory voter should know. Details requested, if not expected, from Chris.

The proposed boundary changes are not as far as I can see intended to “ensure boundary changes that under-represent economically deprived areas. Rather, they are to ensure the equal representation of central urban districts, currently much over-represented, and other districts. Does Chris have any democratic objection to that? Again, response requested if not expected.

@Chris

Gosh, you mean David Cameron is creating new peers to ensure that the Tories have a majority in both houses of parliament, as has been the case with virtually every post-war government? Well that’s changed my mind – clearly Cameron is the new Putin.

Less sarcastically – Cooper isn’t even making the complaint that the Tories are ‘packing the Lords’. She’s arguing that no new Lords should be appointed until a process of constitutional reform of the upper house is completed, which is all well and good, but it does rather elide the fact that Labour have had several attempts to support such reform in the past and have refused to do so for rather cynical, short-term motives at every point.

As to the registration issue – anecdotal evidence it may be, but I’m guessing from experience that ‘the mobile, the young and those in private rented accommodation’ are the kind of people who also tend to make sure their on the electoral register. Beyond that, you’ve provided absolutely no evidence of people who want to exercise their franchise being denied the opportunity to do so, or even there being a realistic prospect of this happening in future.

As to the boundary issue, there’s a nice fix for that – the Labour party actively engaging with potential voters, undertaking registration drives etc. In other words, acting like a political party worthy of the term.

As to the boundary issue, there’s a nice fix for that – the Labour party actively engaging with potential voters, undertaking registration drives etc.

You might think that, but they actually seem intent on doing the opposite. (The Labour party – the only political party known to man which views gaining 65 000 members as a threat…)

@Chris –

Apologies for mistaking you as a Labour partisan. I guess I got mistaken impression due to the fact that you supplied a link to an Yvette Cooper speech as your ‘evidence’ for the charge that the Tories are packing the Lords.

I am trying to find an historical record for Lords membership, but will admit that the 1999 reform of hereditary peers makes an apples to apples comparison rather difficult, as well as ensuring post-war consistent majorities for the Tories (who also formed the government for most of the post-War era so it’s kind of a wash).

That being said, the current composition of the Lords is 226 Tories, 212 Labour, 101 Lib Dem, 17 Other, 20 non-affiliated and 179 cross-bench. Leaving one’s personal politics to one side for the moment, I think it’s safe to say that this is not representative of current public opinion.

The occasional appointment of new Lords to redress the political balance in the upper house is, from my understanding, part and parcel of the post-1999 constitutional norm, and one that has been exercised frequently and with little controversy until now (the current imbalance likely due to those dastardly Lib Dems who sat on their hands and did nothing throughout the coalition).

In other words, I find it hard to reach any conclusion other than that your objection isn’t that Cameron is engaged in ‘packing the Lords’, but rather that a Conservative prime minister is appointing Conservative lords who will support politics you don’t like. That’s perfectly within your rights, but to dress it up as some kind of concern for the health of British democracy strikes me as cynical.

As to your expectation “that we’ll soon be seeing enhanced ID requirements at the polling booth too”, there’s absolutely no evidence to support that expectation. Indeed, there are large chunks of the Tory PLP (such as that around David Davis) who have fought tooth and nail against the kind of national ID card proposals that would have to accompany such a thing. I fully expect they’d also be dubious about imposing extra requirements on the right to vote. Say what you will about the Tories but there are many of them who have genuine principles that they act consistently with.

It also ignored the fact that the GOP’s ‘voter ID’ sham is largely a means of discrimination by race. Say what you want about the Tories, but they have been reasonably successful in opening up their electoral coalition to include non-white voters as well. Do you have any other supporting evidence for your ‘expectation?’

At this point Chris this whole debate is becoming embarrassing. You’re throwing around paranoid accusations that commonly accepted (if not particularly reputable) acts of political patronage are savage attacks on democracy, and attempting to support your criticisms of technical changes to the electoral register with dire warnings about policies the Tories have shown no inclination of introducing, but you’re pretty sure will at some point in the future.

As you brought up the GOP, it’s interesting to compare and contrast the reactions of the UK left to Cameron’s victory and the US right’s to Obama’s. In the latter case, the GOP responded to crushing electoral defeat by retreating further into base politics, and a strategy of wholesale attacks on Obama’s legitimacy, complete with dire warnings about various secret plans to subvert the constitution and destroy the republic. It’s given them some short term success due to structural advantages they possess in the US system, but has ultimately led to Donald Trump, a completely unelectable charlatan who nevertheless happily indulges the paranoid fantasies the party has cultivated in its base, becoming a serious contender for the 2016 nomination. Starting to sound a bit familiar?

Daragh: “As to your expectation “that we’ll soon be seeing enhanced ID requirements at the polling booth too”, there’s absolutely no evidence to support that expectation. Indeed, there are large chunks of the Tory PLP (such as that around David Davis) who have fought tooth and nail against the kind of national ID card proposals that would have to accompany such a thing. I fully expect they’d also be dubious about imposing extra requirements on the right to vote. Say what you will about the Tories but there are many of them who have genuine principles that they act consistently with.”

Daragh, look at the US. Enhanced ID requirements are quite, quite deliberately not matched with a standardized ID, because the goal is to prevent voting by certain people.

For example, in Texas (IIRC), concealed weapons permits, even expired, were valid ID’s for voting; student ID’s, even from state universities, were not.

@Barry – yes, that would be because the US is a federal system, and as I pointed out above, the goal of said laws is to disenfranchise minorities. I think they’re odious and shouldn’t be enacted – what’s your point?

@Chris – You are aware that the electoral commission is an independent body, not some subset of the Tories right? Even then – the EC’s proposal specifically includes mechanisms for free-of-charge voter IDs, something Republican proposals have avoided for quite obvious reasons. If you put in place such a system with a sufficiently rigorous campaign of advertisement and distribution of such cards, it might not actually be that bad an idea, particularly given the rickety state of local elections in certain boroughs (most infamously Tower Hamlets). Nevertheless I have my doubts that you could, which is why I’m not a fan. Incidentally, neither is David Davis nor a large chunk of the Tory party, making the likelihood of such a measure passing virtually nil.

So again – your argument for the conspiracy to undermine British democracy boils down to a proposal put out by an independent body, that might actually improve the integrity of elections if practical issues in implementation could be ironed out, but nevertheless has a snowball’s chance in hell of actually passing. Suffice it to say I remain unconvinced.

Chris @64 (with apologies for the multiple comments) – you’ve said above you’re not a Labour partisan. But your ‘evidence’ for the claim that the Tories are engaging in nefarious chicanery is a claim by the Labour party, basically reprinted by the Guardian, a paper which, despite its many estimable qualities, is not generally known for evaluating Tory policy proposals in an objective manner. In fact most of your ‘evidence’ supplied so far has been Guardian articles announcing that a Labour leadership candidate, or the party itself, has criticised a recently announced Tory policy. This does not strike me as a particularly compelling support for your various claims.

[Asking on a blog if it is hyperbole to compare authoritarian drift of Conservative policy to Putin] materially aids those trying to delegitimise Cameron’s critics

The word which I’d use to describe this assertion begins with ‘h’…

@Abbe – Russia isn’t withdrawing from the ECHR because it generally ignores rulings from the court that it doesn’t like (though the recent Yukos ruling may change that). Ditto Turkey. Hungary, I’ll give you, is a little more complex.

As to your charge that “The UK is building a mass surveillance system that ‘authoritarian’ countries only dream of”, I would invite you to do a bit of reading on Russia’s SORM system, or current practices for internet monitoring in the PRC.

Again – this isn’t to say that Cameron’s proposals are laudable, or benign or even harmless. But to compare them to Putinism is more than a little bit crass, and a good way to concede the debate before it’s started.

Stephen D.@59: very elegant so;union, much appreciated.May the ghost of James Joyce reward you.