Portrait of Politics in Super-Powers, and Super Failings

  It is absolutely our fault you know - this current horrific choice between bullying tweedledum in the red corner and foppish tweedledee in the blue corner (and the one in the orange corner as well, who could be either red or blue, and at times is). If we were more sensible about the way that we wanted to be governed, it would surely never have come to this. That is, were we able to take democracy sensibly and actually put the commitment into understanding that which was at issue, then this tweedledee and -dum would not be as it is. However (and this was Plato et al’s objection to democracy) the system never really works like that. It is not about learned people doing their bit for governing the nation; but rather about the creation of howling hopes and fierce loyalties. Governments come and governments go, not really based on rational choice, so much as the howl of the mob and the ‘boredness’ of the people. We get bored with the same faces, and act to get rid of them. More than that we change governments as in legend at least, people killed kings and spread their blood on the fields. We change the government to remind the government that we can (and so that we can snigger at their faces as they lose on election day).

  It goes without saying that the entire political establishment appears keyed into this fact. We are never really given serious debate, only interviews and personalities. Parties endlessly re-throw themselves, change leaders, or alter the mood music of their policies, or even learn to wiggle their hips seductively. Journalists likewise become freed to avoid any real reporting of actual issues, and become merely judges in the beauty parade. More than that of course, they get to market their personal relations with politicians, they get to use them as copy, albeit in a guarded and careful manner. Any need to actually think or do research is swept aside - who wants to actually work, when one can dine out and make money from being ‘in the loop’? The point of course here, is that this then gives a real momentum to who are journalists. A great deal of political journalism becomes a profession in which those who can turn a nice phrase, strike a proactive pose, and gossip, with very little more needed in the job description. The very rottenness of the system becomes then very deeply ingrained within its mechanics.

  And we, the mass voters, become all the more used to government’s posing and gossip. We lose then sight of what the system ought to be about, and cease to care very much. A government’s polices might not make much sense (Labour never did learn the art of drafting legislation) nor might they be consistent in what they say or do, and yet we do not really care. Worse than that, we say we never really expected that much of politicians anyway. We never really thought that they could change the world very much. It does not matter then whether they are effective in government, as no one is: What matters is whether they cry on stage or whether we feel they are 'effective leaders’ (whatever that cod phrase means?). Even worse than that, this desire to be ruled over by the generating of gossip, shows a deep cynicism and mistrust of power. One suspects that we are actually scared of the implications of good government or real government. That is, if government really worked effectively then it really could actually change the system, and that would be scary. Not only would one need to keep an eye on the government itself, but also one would need to ensure that one elected the correct lot to do it. Hence if government mattered, then we would have to be engaged with the democracy, and we do not really want to spend the time doing so. We need then the connivance of weak and stupid government, defined by gossip to ‘clear the decks’ and ensure that we can be lazy about our choices. We crave, in the basest and daftest of ways the lack of choice; or perhaps more truthfully we will never act against it.

  The result of this deep and cynical laziness is a double shift in the nature of democracy. The old system was centred around the need to make tough choices. This made sense of course, it is what governments ought to do (and what they actually must do). And yet this never really made easy politics for the unengaged masses to understand. More than that, in recent times Blair used the phrase ‘difficult choices’ to justify all kinds of nonsense and folly and so devalued the credit of such choice: After all, declaring war on states with gung ho abandon, and selling the MOD to private businesses based off shore, were merely the result of ‘difficult choices’. Perhaps to be fair to Blair, it is actually impossible to have a real discussion with 65 million people about difficult choices and then listen to their answers and have those answers matter, in our current system of government (and its accompanying apathy). All that one is likely to do is to raise hopes, and then not fulfil them, as the horse trading between different sides and the carping takes over; one side or other always recently being on the losing side in this tough exchange. Tough choices then have become very discredited just of course at the time we really need them. We are faced then with an election where tough choices appear to have become another pose that parties all then make. They all talk tough as a brand, but then will not be specific about exactly where they will act. Worse than that, they do not say exactly how the difficult choices are really going to be made (beyond the amorphous and meaningless appeal to cutting waste). The result is then, that toughness might be on the way (or might be already here), and yet so devalued is the currency that we cannot make choices based on that toughness. Consequently meaningful power in this democracy has very much slipped into two facets - issues and honeymoons. It is these and only these that really wield clout and which represent genuine democracies.

  Issues are of course the secret glue that holds the system together – the element where all sides momentarily agree. Parties want issues. They can hide their overall lousiness around large scale and noisy projects. 'Vote for us and we will do A, B and C' they shout, and hope that we listen. Parties make then sense when linked to issues, they win elections from them (to think back to Blair, with his gun control, and Obama with his health care). It does not matter of course whether those issues are valid or achievable, politics dos not work like that. Likewise of course journalists love their campaigns. They can really get on the bandwagon, and clone numerous stories: again no matter if the campaign is wrong-headed (like dangerous dogs) or that it is merely sentimental or even will not make effective legislation, all that matters is the struggle itself, and the human interest which it sparks. All that matters then is that running campaigns, real or otherwise sells newspapers.

  The public of course love their issues. It is the point at which they really feel engaged with democracy, the point at which they feel they can make a difference to the world around them. More than that, issues represent that other version of democracy that is ingrained in our society - the democracy of consumer choice, a democracy we understand so well. Campaigns are then run like a marketing campaign - their agents sell the idea, and its benefits to their fellows. The problem of course here, is that the issue is never really about choice or the difficulty of government. It is about selling. More than that, it is in a sense about selling in the hardest of senses. A good campaign is all about high emotion. It uses emotive topics in a way that ad agencies can only dream of, to sell its campaign; we feel poor, and bankers are rich, (as well as clearly both arrogant and incompetent, and partially responsible for our poverty - they connived after all with our greed to make it) drat the bankers – let us ‘do’ them - as why not? Or again a child is murdered and we spin a campaign to prevent one aspect of that murder, one feature of it, ever happening again. No matter that each crime is a unique event, nor that the policy once enacted created a system that criminalized 60% of the adult population, and does not make children much safer (as the existing safety measures, the ones that by and large work are then ignored). What does this matter in the face of emotion and its powers?

  A powerful campaign therefore reconfigures a political landscape, creating new verities for politicians to heed, and using powerful emotions to so. The result is that very difficult problems are then codified within rather simple ‘issues’ that spin across the population gathering momentum, becoming things, powers, very much in their own right. In addition, real choices, real government becomes caught up in managing these rather raw powers, for good or ill. I.e., faced with a massive marketing operation and a loose agglomeration of disparate individuals united by the one overarching or encompassing campaign (or sentiment) politicians must act. And yet that action might not be clear (a campaign is likely to be rather disparate and complex in nature). The result of course is that this action that is taken will be as much about diffusion of the campaign’s power as it is about taking on anything sensible which it has to say. The effort will then be about making sure that one can claim that one has done something about it. Or perhaps in making sure that one favours one bit of the campaign (sensible or otherwise) so that if other bits disagree or become disillusioned, then the resulting dissention is the campaign’s problem, and not the governments! Campaigns become then the modern bomb strewn across the path of politicians, who must perforce become adept in defusing them, and rendering them relatively harmless.

  The second main powerbase in modern democracy is clearly the ‘honeymoon’ that surrounds the leader when just elected. A magic time, when they can do little wrong (or if they do, it will not stick). They can outlaw the advertising of smoking for all but their mates, and it does not really matter, as no one cares much. Or they could sweep aside a set of constitutional arrangements and everyone merely nod, and say that this is what new governments do, and at least it was a change. This power is of course all the more critical in the British system, as it is not very good at changing government (or at least it has not been for the last thirty years or so). This fact of course is caught up with the honeymoon ideal. During this moment in politics, if the government can do no wrong, then the opposition can do no right. Their most trivial errors suddenly appear to really matter, and it makes them (yet again) a figure of fun or a cautionary tale of what not to do. We render then the opposition ineffective just at the time we glorify the elected government.

   Behind this oddity in the system is the mysticism of democracy. That is the magic feeling we all get, the high from metaphorically ‘shedding the old king’s Blood’ and electing a new. ‘The people have spoken’, it is thundered, as if we had; But if we did ‘speak’ in one voice (and not merely make a multitude of different choices based on very different priorities), then our voice is little more that the mob’s approval or denial than anything else. This mystique then infuses the new leader – allowing them a once in a political generation chance to act, and make a difference. It was then Blair’s peculiar gift that he was able to stretch out this euphoria of choice and democracy far longer than most leaders. Here of course he was helped by the fact that Labour had not been in power for so long, that by the time they got in government (and were not utterly incompetent), we were all so shocked that anything, (even Peter Mandleson coming back three times?) seemed possible. This temporary faith in government by the people then allowed him to do what he liked - be it war upon war, or auctioning of all government buildings to the highest bidders. The People had spoken, and in the very arbitrariness of his acts we heard our own power, as the creatures or instigator of this monster. Perhaps it is then this honeymoon or not that is at the root of the current talk of a hung parliament. If there is a hung parliament then the honeymoon is vanishingly small or non-existent, and maybe, we wonder, this might be a good thing. To want a hung parliament is then not to want Cameron to have his honeymoon - his ability to do no wrong. It is then to assume that he is already wrong. In a strange way the forthcoming election will then come down to this choice; do we want a Cameron honeymoon or not? If we do not, then we need a hung parliament, as there is no real hope of a Labour victory – (and another Brown honeymoon – and who would want that?!). This then is a matter of real choice, and actual debate.

  Our very disillusion with politics has created the strangest of systems. The modern powers in the land are not individuals or organizations so much as causes – loose federations united by passions and belief in a single issue and little else. As such they are powers that are difficult to listen to as a whole, and yet easy to diffuse. Modern politics becomes as much about diffusing over-powerful campaigns (or using them in short term political moves) as it is about anything else. Elections then become about the endorsement (or not) of a number of such campaigns. The real task of government has slipped into that oddity of politics, the honeymoon; the one moment that campaigns do not crowd the actual point of government – that of making hard choices. The forthcoming election is as much about whether we allow the Tories their honeymoon or not. A cause that it is surely worth caring about.