Gay Gordon, Gloomy Dave

I was having a thought this morning. Just a little one, but it kicked off a lot of other thoughts like someone dropping a pebble on a neatly arranged cluster of marbles.

Gordon Brown is a vilified figure, to the extent that it's embarrassing for Labour a politicians to be seen to have been too close to him (The Guardian this morning felt the need to point out that Shadow Foreign Sec Douglas Alexander had "fallen out" with his former mentor) . Biographies and documentaries paint him as a bullying monster and a raging megalomaniac. I'm not in a position to argue with any of these things, but it's interesting to compare one aspect of him with his shiny faced successor in Number 10.

When the global financial crisis - which most people who don't have foam dripping from their mouths will concede was mostly born of reckless behaviour by US banks - hit Britain, Gordon had a choice. He could immediately blame said American institutions and start warning us how terribly, terribly bad the whole thing was going to be. Gordon didn't do this, however, understanding as he did that the more terrible he told people it was going to be, the more terrible it actually would be. This is a fairly basic part of economics that even duffers like me understand - if people are terrified of the future they stop spending, making any contraction in the economy that much worse. Or he could be upbeat - Mr Brown insisted repeatedly that Britain - although hugely reliant on the financial services sector since the 1980s - was actually well place to weather the economic storm.

"Tell 'im he's dreamin'" was the basic response from many, but although the financial crisis hit us harder and longer than most countries, we did actually start to pull out of trouble at a decent lick in early 2010.

But this was too late for Gordon. By insisting that we would be all right, he left himself in a weak position when it came to blaming international causes. If Britain is "uniquely well placed", then it's different to other countries. If it's different to other countries, recessions of international causes do not necessarily have to happen here. If they still *do* happen here, it must be the Government's fault. However, there's a very real chance that the recession was less severe because of the constant reassurance issuing from Number 10. Alistair Darling couldn't stop himself from prognosticating gloom, but at least he kept it to newspaper interviews rather than banging on about it in every speech opportunity that came his way.

David Cameron is a superb political operator. There's no way he's going to make the same mistake as Gordon and leave him unable to blame international circumstances for the floundering state of the economy. The only problem is that Gordon's approach wasn't a mistake. It was the right approach. We've now had weeks of Cameron and Osborne warning us that the Euro-crisis would precipitate some sort of financial Armageddon that Britain cannot escape. On top of high inflation and wage cuts (in real terms or just real) and with VAT increases and far rises, we're now being prepared for some sort of economic pebble to drop down right on our neatly clustered marbles. It's hard to imagine consumer demand recovering any time soon.

In seeking to avoid responsibility for the problem, Cameron is very likely to make it worse. And if duffers like me get the consumer spending (and company hiring) link to confidence, so should he. He should accept that if the economy fares that badly his chances of re-election are pretty slim anyway and 'take one for the team'. He should start acting as if Britain has the ability to fight off the effects of the Eurozone crisis, even if he doesn't really believe it, because if he doesn't it's going to be a whole lot worse. If even "power hungry" Gordon can see that, surely Dave can.

SR

PS: Maybe I'm wrong - maybe Dave is an avid reader of Paul Krugman and refuses to believe in the Confidence Fairy. If so it's a shame he hasn't spotted the defence of counter-cyclical Keynesian spending while he's at it, though.

WIIFTNIMBYS?

Michael White has posted a balanced but fairly upbeat analysis of Labour's 2011 conference so far. What's got me writing is this little snippet:

"All politicians talk about devolving power from Whitehall, only to reassert themselves against local decisions they don't like, as Eric Pickles is already finding."

And I wondered - why do local people fight back against decisions (mostly planning, I would think) that the national Government thinks would be broadly positive for the country?

I grew up not in suburbia exactly, but in an off urban/rural dividing line. The front of the house faced the busiest road in the area (since slightly healed by a by-pass), while the back looked over flat arable fields. Once they put in double glazing in the front windows it was pretty lovely, but last year we heard that the council is pushing forward plans to pave over the field at the back and build a new housing estate. It's been rumoured for 30-odd years, so no-one is shocked, but it'll be sad for anyone still living there when the bulldozers roll in.

It's no surprise that there is local opposition. The main road may well become insanely busy again, the schools might get overcrowded. It's all great news for owners of various local supermarkets and other commercial enterprises, and the developers will make a packet. The Conservative Council will hold out their hands and fees from the development and massive hike in Council Tax returns will make sacrificing some beautiful green fields a very rewarding one. I'm sure voters across the district will benefit from a small cut in their taxes as a result, and of course it's undeniable that we do need to build more homes - somewhere.

But I wonder - what will the families and home owners fringing the field get? The ones whose view will be irreparably harmed? Whose cars will get stuck in the extra traffic jams, or whose children will end up lost in bigger class sizes? I suspect very little. And I'm sure the same applies to every other NIMBY the country over. The national or regional economy may well benefit from a new factory or energy plant, but do the actual locals - the people who have to look at a chimney or breathe in its smoke - get a fair share of the resultant benefits? We're probably talking money here in most cases, but if you're building a factory of buildings at the end of someone's back garden, the very least you should offer them is a slightly longer garden.

There's a sense, I suspect, for most people that councillors and developers are the only people who really get a pay off from controversial planning, or that any democratic benefits are thinly spread and as likely to apply to someone who'll never see the new developments as those who'll have them shoved under their noses.

This is a post of questions, but I can't help thinking that if we answer them it might just be a fairer way of deciding whether things go ahead than moaning about local opposition in the face of national need. And if you fix that maybe localism could be trusted to proceed unhindered for a while and we can see if it works.

Talking Round Corners

Slightly fascinated by a part of the exchange in PMQs this morning. Ed Miliband accused the Government of presiding over a rise in waiting list times. The PM responded by saying they'd gone down. Presumably there is some truth buried somewhere, but two things puzzled me. Firstly, Ed was trying to say that public sector reforms were not needed; why then did he want to suggest that the NHS was floundering? But secondly, David Cameron has not yet implemented any of his reforms on the NHS (except in a few pilot pockets that are unlikely to affect overall figures), so why does he wish to suggest that the NHS is doing well?

There must be some logic, but I fear logic has been superseded by the usual presumption that everyone else is fucking stupid and only understand "fire bad, tree pretty", or in this case Waiting List Up or Waiting Lists Down.

Can Benefits Claimants Sue the Daily Express?

I was idly thinking, as I spotted The Daily Express' latest headline "4M SCROUNGING FAMILIES IN BRITAIN" whether there is a possibility of some sort of collective legal action by recipients of benefits in the UK.

Of course, some might think it flattering to be described as 4 metres tall, but putting aside lazy typography there must be some harm befalling these people because of the misrepresentation of their circumstances. Can the Express continue to lie with impunity? I'm not quite sure how it can. You can't call millions of people scoungers and expect there to be no harm caused to them.

Especially since, as usual, their figures are more than selective. It turns out that to qualify as a scrounging household you need only 1 adult of working age. They then admit that 7.25million people are living in these workless households. Wow. Small families. The average family has 1.8 children these days. 75% of households still have two parents. So that's a an average family size of 3.3 people, whereas these "workless families" are only 1.8 people strong. And there are only 1.85 million children in this equation. Who are these families? What are the definitions? Are we excluded pensioners, or is claiming your pension now considered to be scrounging? Are these older workers, whose children have long since left and might be finding it hard to keep up with the ever changing labour market (not that the Express would give a shit, clearly)? All of which is entirely unclear from a Daily Express article that finally admits, despite its screaming headline, that there are 38,000 fewer workless households this year than last, despite rising unemployment. And this is a headline? Did they just forget to mention it last year?

This is not news. It is campaigning. The Express is aligning itself with the Tax Payers' Alliance to support benefit cuts, and ultimately tax cuts. There clearly *is* a problem with worklessness in this country, but it is not one that will be addressed by the kind of economic policies proposed by the TPA. And it certainly won't be fixed by demonising the workless and exaggerating public perception of how many there are, but that is the very mission on which they have embarked. "Confusing and over-generous benefits are trapping people in worklessness" says the TPA. No mention of any other possible factors, but that would confuse there nice simple world view. How about a lack of jobs? Cut benefits, starve the economy of money, reduce jobs, fix worklessness? Is that how the TPA rolls? Good to know they can find novel ways out of the liquidity trap.

But seriously, if I allege on the front page of the Express that Jerry Kitchener of Rotherhithe is a scrounger, I imagine Mr Kitchener might be entitled to some sort of recompense. So why - if I smear 3.88 million households (probably including pensioners, single parents and those too ill to work)- can I keep doing it?

Sometimes I wish I knew more about the law. But at least I feel I'm on safe ground announcing that The Daily Express is poorly written and following a suspect political agenda. The joy of common knowledge.

He Did Everything Right

"LEO: ...in the two and a half hours we've been sitting here have you discovered one thing that he's done wrong? OLIVER: No. LEO: So, what's your problem? OLIVER: That's my problem, Leo. Are you out of your mind? He did everything right. He did everything you do if your intent is to perpetrate a fraud." The West Wing, Season2. Apparently - in this is only hearsay based on a lot of pre-election mutterings - The West Wing is one of David Cameron's favourite programmes. If it is, he certainly doesn't pay attention to it as closely as he should. The above quote is from a story line about how liberal President Jed Bartlett turns out to have concealed his Multiple Sclerosis from the US public prior to his election. Jed justifies this in two ways - he only intends to serve one term, minimising the chances that his condition will ever affect his Presidency, and he views it as a sin of omission, rather than a lie. He has always been careful not to put himself in a position where he is forced to claim that he does not have MS. Bartlett eventually realises that this carefully constructed morality is, in itself, wrong. Cameron's handling of the sticky News International phone has been steadily more sure footed over the last few days, recovering from a stodgy start where Ed Miliband was making all the running to look as though he might survive with his reputation intact. After all, he hadn't really done anything *wrong*, had he? Yes, he's trusted someone that he shouldn't have trusted, but really the blame was on Andy Coulson, and not his erstwhile boss. Cameron didn't hack phones; he was innocently exploited by someone who possibly had. But yesterday a new, interesting, angle appeared. Alistair Campbell and his Labour successors had been given the very highest security clearance (how else would Campbell have been able to get involved in the production of the "dodgy dossier"?). Such clearance requires the individual to be subject to very rigorous screening and investigation. This morning it was confirmed that Cameron's current press Chief, former BBC man Craig Oliver, also has top level clearance, and will have undergone the same examinations of his past. The really interesting thing, though, is that Coulson was not given such clearance, meaning that he did not have to undergo anything like as through an examination. This jarring blip in the sequence of high level access for Press Chiefs screams for explanation, because the one that springs first to mind is good old plausible deniability. If no-one exposes Coulson's possible misdemeanours, then Cameron can very fairly rely on the "trust" response. But if Cameron truly trusts Coulson, why was he afraid of what a security investigation would uncover? Despite that, David Cameron has insured that he really didn't know anything about Coulson's past, simply because he didn't look very hard. But there's no actual wrong-doing here, surely? Is there one thing that Cameron has done wrong? No. He did everything right. Oh dear.

Twitter, Censorship and Prurience.

(warning - no opinions formed in this blog have been scientifically tested)

I have just read - with a certain amount of stomach churning horror - a Guardian Comment is Free article demanding that Twitter feeds be delayed so that "someone" can ensure they abide by the law. This would obviously have the effect of killing this form of social media stone dead - the resources do not exist to check tweets with the speed needed to keep the Twitter format fresh and interesting, and even if it was virtually instantaneous you would still miss that sense of anarchy, or someone-could-say-anything that makes it challenging and fascinating. Watching successful, allegedly intelligent people get themselves into trouble for publishing photos of themselves driving in the fast lane or criticising their superiors is a game of schadenfraude even better than watching George Osborne announcing growth figures. But on a worthier note, Twitter's contribution to spreading revolutionary fervour around Egypt, Tunisa and Libya *can* be overplayed, but certainly shouldn't be ignored. Twitter is a mass voice, a crowd-sourced social thermometer, and even if it gives you contradictory readings half the time its still an unrivalled indicator of mob intellect that breaks the shackles of the no-debate sterile media in this country, not to mention the timid politicians that claim to run it.

But enough evangelism. Back to footballers shagging.

I have a smidge of sympathy for Ryan Giggs - not because he hasn't been a shit to two women, but because of plenty of men (and women) have been this much of a shit and no-one cares two hoots - but in the end, the only people who actually matter in the whole scenario are those directly involved. Imogen Thomas clearly noticed that he was shagging her. I assume the inordinate amount of time and money that went into procuring the superinjunction tipped off Mrs Giggs, even if her husband's honesty didn't. The important people knew. Does it really matter who else is talking about it?

Clearly it does if Giggs wants to profit from his image as a faithful family man. But obviously there's a further moral quandary in allowing him to do that if he isn't one. But as a footballer, it means fuck all. He just joins a club most of his shallow fucked up colleagues have already signed up to.

So I'm forced to ask, in the great "free speech v privacy debate", what gives this multi-millionaire shagger the right to fuck not just a busty TV nobody, but also my right to reasonable self-expression? Not my ability to name shaggers - I really don't care - but any attempt to protect them also protects people that don't need protecting. The slippery slope easily becomes a water slide.

Secondly, and this is where my thoughts get really experimental, if gossip was all over the free Twitter services all the time, people wouldn't get their gossip from newspapers. Tabloids couldn't boost sales by including stories that people had already swapped amongst themselves. They would stop paying journalists to find this stuff out. Consequently although everyone on Twitter would be talking about everything that had been discovered, fewer things would actually be discovered in the first place.

It's just a thought. And possibly as convincing as coalition economic policy, which I note Barack Obama has declined to support.

New Voting! Now 4.87% Fairer!

I'll level with you. I don't think this Government is particularly competent. I'm predisposed to think that, but the more I hear of cock-ups, getting policy from watching TV, forgetting to consult important people or just basically not knowing how stuff really works, the Con-Dems really don't have much of a clue. Probably, if you believe that the state is an irrelevant intrusion into people's otherwise perfect lives, it's a bit of a shock to find that running the country is actually quite fiddly.

But one part of the brain is alive and kicking within their top brass, and that's the bit that got them where they are now. At the moment it's still unclear what the result of the AV referendum is: by which I mean we don't yet know how massive a drubbing electoral reform has been given at the ballot box. But we do know it's massive.

And I suspect David Cameron has been in control of this since he signed that coalition agreement on a sunny mid May day last year. His genius may look even greater against Clegg's monumental naivety, but by offering the Liberal Democrats a system that made voting about 4.87% fairer, he positioned his troops at the top of the hill. As long as he was ruthless enough to charge, he was always going to win.

This is simply because, in the face of the hostility and bare-faced lies unleashed by the NO campaign, the half-hearted effort of a deeply unpopular Liberal Democrat leadership were never going to inspire the kind of resistance required to turn lies against the liars.

When the Tories used negative campaigning against Blair in 1997 ("New Labour, New Danger!") it didn't work simply because the public were a lot more excited about Blair than they were scared of Labour. The Tories lost ground whenever they tried the tactic. This time round, not even supporters of the change were actually that excited about it. And it was about as easy to get the average-not-really-that-fussed-about-politics type person to believe that this was any more interesting than, say, pensions.

The YES campaign found themselves engaging in debate like the underdog in a contest to be President of the Droitwich Accountant's Association.

The NO camp shouted "AV is expensive!" YES replied "No, not really, well maybe a bit, but nowhere near as expensive as you're saying!" (the massed crowds cheer their defiance)

The NO camp opined "It is the end of One Person One Vote! Supporters of fringe parties have their votes counted MORE TIMES. Tis the end of British democracy!!" YES reply "No, not really, because even if your vote hasn't been transferred upon the elimination of your unsuccessful preferred candidate and you did in fact vote for a more successful candidate who lasts until the final round of voting redistributions your vote is counted every time!!" (the Red Arrows do a fly past)

And so on. Lies like this require an impassioned defence, a roar of outrage that scares the liars and tests their courage. Do we dare continue to tell such porkies in the face of such public outrage? A revolution is imminent! But no one is going to wave a flag, release a balloon or march with a banner for the sake of AV. It's better than First Past the Post, but First Past the Post had the good PR sown up when it was invented. It *isn't* first past the post! The post moves around according to how far the candidates get. AV actually *is* first past the post, in that the finish line stays exactly the same place election to election. People have been spinning FPP for more than 100 years. We never stood a chance.

It's hard to believe that Cameron hadn't got this figured out last May when he signed on the dotted line. He might not be clever enough to run the country, but he's certainly cunning enough to run the Conservative Party.

No Fly With Me

Recent debate about the Middle East has been swinging back and forth like an England World Cup match.

Initially, as regimes fell is North Africa, the feeling was that it was all a bi embarrassing for the supporters of the Iraq War. The argument went that that the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions showed that eventually oppressed Arab people would rise up and enact their own regime change. If Bush & Blair had been a little more patient, Saddam would be gone by the hand of his own people, and a foreign policy disaster avoided.

Naturally, neo-cons suggested that it was only the introduction of that guiding light of Arab democracy, Iraq, that inspired the revolutions. And yes, it seems pretty likely that anyone would take a look at modern Iraq and think "why can't we be more like that - I was bored of having legs anyway".

But Muammer Gaddafi, as he so often does, has confounded things. Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak might not have been terribly nice people, and I'm glad I never invited them for tea and biscuits or sang for them, but Saddam Hussein they were not. It wasn't particularly reasonable to point them out and say "Hey, that could have been Iraq!" But the People's Colonel is giving us slightly more of a glimpse of how The Sadman would have behaved had his people flooded Baghdad with calls for change.

He would have killed quite a lot of them. As he did several times previously.

So now we end up, rather than learning the lessons of history and leaving people to sort things out, we have seemingly learned different lessons of history and realised that if we don't act all that will happen is that a lot of Libyans will die. But recognising what didn't work so well in Iraq we're keeping the our boys in Khaki out of the firing line, and instead essentially providing an airforce for the rebellion.

And we're all none the wiser - yet - as to whether we're doing the right thing. How the fuck are you supposed to tell?