Banana Monarchy
When is a 1,000-man troop withdrawal not a 1,000-man troop? When it’s a New Labour troop withdrawal, obviously. Once again, they’ve been caught double-counting. Five hundred of that 1,000 were announced last month. Two hundred and fifty troops are already home. When is a promise to make an important announcement to Parliament not a promise to make an important announcement to Parliament? When an important announcement is made in Baghdad in time for the lunchtime news bulletins. It wasn’t even made in Basra in front of British troops.
That new kind of politics we were promised is looking more and more like a cut and shunt job; the worst of Blairism welded to Brownite ruthlessness. Just why the announcement couldn’t wait to be made on Monday to Parliament hasn’t been explained, not least by the woeful defence minister Bob Ainsworth, the fall guy on this occasion, with his slippery delivery and anti-charisma. He makes Defence Secretary Des Browne look like JFK. (Not that Tory shadow Liam Fox was much better debating Ainsworth on the Today programme this morning – I have a seven year-old daughter who can debate better if the Tories are truly stuck.)
You have to wonder if there isn’t something pathological – obsessive-compulsive – about this. New Labour have been caught out time and time again doing this kind of stuff and yet they still can’t help themselves; this ‘culture of bullshit as routine’ as Charlie Whitaker puts it. I suppose they stick with it because it’s tried and tested and to a large extent it works. Most people have largely forgotten it by the time they reach the voting booth, if they make the effort at all.
But it adds a little more to the background radiation of contempt for and by politicians. It gently contributes to the slow, sad death of politics and engagement rather than inciting something stronger and healthier like the public standing up and declaring they’re sick of being spoonfed this horseshit.
This feverish twisting will no doubt become more febrile if Brown calls a general election next week. I’m in two minds about an election myself. It’d be nice to see Gordon face a vote seeing as how he didn’t have the cojones to face an internal debate and vote within his own party. On the other hand, I can’t shake the feeling that Gordon might be in a hurry before economic chickens come home to roost and American cruise missiles decide to migrate to Tehran for the winter.
You can see how this seemingly headlong rush towards an early election (symbolised by Baghdad boasting and other portents; cancelling an audience with the Pope, asking for TV slots on Monday evening…) reflects Brown’s regard for democracy and the political niceties. The electoral rolls aren’t properly updated until December 1 and the problems over postal voting have yet to be resolved. Going to the country before both are sorted could disenfranchise up to one million voters according to John Turner of the Association of Electoral Administrators speaking on Five Live last night.
But why worry about it when you’ve got a country to run? Surely a few hundred thousand people denied their democratic right is a price worth paying? Let’s just hope that they don’t all live in the 39 super-marginal constituencies where this government is going to live or die. That would be a rich irony.
UPDATE: More from John Turner in the Scotsman, on The Politics Show, The Times and elsewhere.
Posted on October 3rd, 2007 at 12:30pm under A 'new' politics, New Labour
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• 11 Comments |
What surprises me is how little time it’s taken for the Brownites to go from statesmanlike-itude-ness to, well, the edge of panic. I’d (almost) like them to recover: it seems too soon for this to be happening.
Dear old Bob was using the Monbiot Calculus. Think of a number .. make it bigger.
Embiggening is the etymologically correct term and is based on the post Aristotelian concept of the “Thoery of the excluded muddle”.
Consult “Heat” – How to stop the Planet Burning” – by the legendary polymath with the venereal strabismus.
Page 6
“The IPCC …estimated in 2001 that global temperatures will rise between 1.4 and 5.8 this century (Centigrade)….
…one study published in 2005 suggests that the maximum possible temperature rise .. caused by a doubling of carbon dioxide ….is 11.5 (Centigrade) .. an increase as big as this …is very unlikely ..” ( but read on …)
Pages 12 /13
“I have concentrated on the effects of the…IPCC range of 1.4 -5.8 (Centigrade) ….some climate scientists maintain … this could rise much further.”
Paul Crutzen (Nobel Laureate) … falling levels of particles ….temperature could rise by between 7 and 10 (Centigrade).
In 2005 British scientists … computer simulation large and more detailed ….ranging anywhere between 1.9 and 11.5 (Centigrade)
Page 158
” … UK consumes 37.8 Mn tonnes of petroleum products a year. The most productive oil crop in UK is rape ……yield is 3 – 3.5 tonnes per hectare ….One tonne = 415 kilos biodiesel so 1 hectare produces 1.45 tonnes of road fuel and so…. we need 25.9 Mn Hectares …but the UK has only 5.7 Mn hectares of cropland ! WOW!
Page 6
“The global sea level has been rising by 2mm a year”
Page 8
” ..and sea levels increase by 40 centimetres (roughly in the middle of expected range)… the number of people in danger from storm surges grows from 75 Mn to 200 Mn…”
Page 9
” researchers (on 5 continents) .. found that if temperatures rise to about the middle of the expected range (would that be by IPCC, Paul Criuzen or British Statisticians?) 15-37 % of the world’s species will cease to exist by 2050 … 1.5 degrees and Indian Ocean corals become extinct …. 2.0 degrees and 97% are likely to die”
Page 159 (if you can get this far)
“In Sumatra and Borneo…4 Mn hectares of forest …converted to palm farms…6 Mn is scheduled for clearance in Malaysia …16.5 Mn in Indonesia …. orang – utan extinct etc., etc.,”
Justin, the difference as I see it is that we have replaced spinning/deceiving with a grin to doing just the same with a frown or at best an artificial smile.
The thought of Brown getting a mega majority to dominate us for 5 years makes me squirm.
Yes yes quite. they all lie and you can tell because their lips move, Labour and Tories have effectively merged so the reason they cant debate is that they have nothing to debate (other than a referendum on Europe – zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz) and surprise surprise Broon is no better than his lying partner in war crime – but what was all that climate change denial all about? More jiz than ziz.
Well bloody said.
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Yep well said although if I was Brown I’d go for it; when the Tories lose they’re going to knife Cameron and this will make them unelectable for a few more years (unless of course Hague comes to the rescue)…
A lot is being made of the electoral register not being updated. People are getting plenty of notice that there might be an election. Maybe the time limit should be expanded once the election is called and more resources put in so people know they have to register and get the time to do so, but it is not satisfactory for people to say an elected government cannot call an election because the association of electoral administrators says so.
We do have an appalling level of registration in some areas (mainly young, urban, lower socio-economic groups in rented accomodation that move more frequently and overwhelmingly would vote Labour if they bother to vote at all). But if I remember correctly, a lot of the same people who called for much tougher individual registration that will reduce registration even further, are now complaining about disenfranchisement. This is not credible. Get off your high horses. It seems you have got so used to criticising Labour – you cannot do anything else. This problem is exagerated and can be easily solved. At least you cannot say Labour are doing this for electoral gain.
Neil, you may be right and I may be wrong but bigger experts than both you and I seem sincerely worried at the prospect of an election this early in the cycle.
Maybe the problems will be ironed out but the Tory press will only have to find a granny or a first-time voter who’ve lost their votes and they’ll run with it for days during the campaign.
As for the new rules for postal voting, well, if the measures had been implemented properly by the government that introduced them (measures, need I remind you, put in place to avoid electoral fraud – to help safeguard free and fair elections in this country), we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. Don’t have a go at me for wanting our electoral system to be as watertight as humanly possible.
Politics’ll keep on like this until the system changes. Who is going to change the system, though?
I think I’ve finally figured this one out: both US and UK politicos have decided to run democracy down, making it less and less attractive, until it can be quietly strangled and Something Else can take its place – something without all this tiresome pandering to the masses. The shortest path is to convince voters: (a) all politicians are intrinsically evil, (b) there’s no difference between them, and therefore (c) there’s no point showing up for elections.
I think it’s going rather well. The chief danger is that some idiot will break away from the crowd and actually try to get people to like him for cheap, short-term, personal gain. Such efforts can generally be quashed by the group, however, through passive resistance and louder shouting.