Sprocket 6: Being Honest with the Voters.
One thing I Suppose one has to hand Cameron’s mob, is that that are spectacularly good at lying about honesty. The recent Tory conference has been a master class, of how to pretend o be honest, for narrow political advantage. Honesty, and being straight with the punters (sorry voters) has become a political tool allowing disingenuous politicians to splice together constellations of half truths, prejudice and downright lies. . A sprocket that is all the more powerful because honesty is one of the those worlds, that lack (in the political context anyway) any real meaning. The world is too flexible for honesty (sticking to he one word) to mean anything substantive. It power then lies not in a programme, so much as at linguistic coupe d’etat: To capture the head waters of ‘honest’ political debate is to control the political situation. :And so a Sprocket is born. The most recent (tory) incarnation of this sprocket has seven clear aspect, seven faced, all designed chime in with the voters.
First and foremost was that it was defined by and through slogans (and nothing else). But these are odd slogans. They are not really designed to summarise any truth, or be an aide memoir or s pocket sermon. They are not then in the best traditions of philosophic slogans, no’ Man is born in freedom, but everywhere is in chains’. Nothing meaningful. But rather they are vapid none phrase such as mending broken Britain. And yet it is the very vapidity of these phrase, their very insipid meaninglessness that names them so very powerful.
Value or purpose aim of a phrase such as broken Briton, is not to carry meaning, but rather to invite others, the give meaning to an essentially valueless phrase. Or to be more exact, the power of the phrase lies in the fact that it could meaning anything (or nothin0. But if one take it as the former, the every can be projected into it. Everything, pointless wars or the fact the bus was late is a symptom of a broken Britain. The Tories then can very reach everyone, and speech to a galaxy of apparently different causes and in apparently hopeless situations. More than this, of course the very phrase ‘broken Britain’ over in itself the insipid solution. Britain is Broken and so someone (read the Tories) must mend it. Politics can very easily descend with the lips of Cameron in to a micky mouse wonderland of supposed avoid problems, based on words, and supposed solutions.
The oddity then of such a phrase is how/ how it is able to create a reality-show language where everyone project their own meanings onto an empty phrase? In this there are two main culprit On the one hand, and very obviously enough there is the utra Cameron friendly media. They not only allow him to repeat the phrase, but also start to use it themselves. They go looking for Broken Britain, and so of course find it at once. Once they have found it. What is more, in looking themselves everyone is invited to look. We call can find our own broken Britain, in our own way: we can all then be recruited to Cameron’s army… On the other hand, there is a stately that the Add man Cameron uses relentless. He not only repeats the phrase but also patronises those who fail to accept it, and does so from the height of his Eton horse. Everyone he says thinks Britain I broken (well everyone with any sense, the implication is0m so you must. The thereby not only ignores almost every social scientist and expert of communities (who would not be seen dead using such a naff phrase) but also bullies the interviewer into accepting his position.
Mending broken Britain climbs other o the wonderland where it was defined, and becomes a little piece of malicious nonsense that will change our lives.
The second face of (dis-honesty), I that old old Tory came or responsibility and criminality. It is one of those ironies that sociologists (those who do not believe in Broken Britain) note, that societies that mouth off about being liberal or free actually have very high prison populations, while those who regulate freedom appear less prone to lock up their citizens. I is as if an ethic of freedom demands that a elsewhere, beyond the bounds of those who are for some reason not allowed to not meant to be a part of that freedom are regulated and locked up in some way. Freedom become then one of those phrase : We are Free, you are a competition, but there are a criminal or a migrant Or to put is differently humans are not very good at really standing on their own two feet, in the face of the free market. The Myth bout the free market then always comes with something else, so point beyond which one does not compete freely or fairly, a point were prejudice is allowed. In Britain therefore we accept (grudgingly) that will trade with Europe and allow Europeans into Brittan and yet deny the genuinely poor from elsewhere the same rights. We police then our freedom. And perhaps we have to. That is perhaps we can only have our standard of living because we prevent others coming in and sharing it. Perhaps we cannot ‘afford; to do so. But then this is to open us up to the immediate criticism, that our happiness is then effectively being all to often subsidised by cheap labour (and land) else where, that produces the product we mindless consume. That is our wealth demands suffering of others elsewhere. But that is a different argument.
The point is that freedom, creates a and agenda of law and order It opens the mind p to defining barriers or border beyond which one cannot allow freedom. One starts to talk fixing the limit, and working out what one does not allow. The minute however on does this, then this language in effect shatters To want to condemn Moslem extremist, feeds into racisms that are worked to in a petty way elsewhere, and allow quite other feeling and worries to be cobbled together, under one barrier. Or again to worry about the numbers of people coming into Britain for whatever reasons, is also to speak to another audience or another fear, that would condemn all migrants and look at all other people with bleary if hate filled eyes. In effect then liberalism creates barriers, which n turn feed prejudice or better creates axis that elsewhere allow prejudices to be cobbled together, and worried at.
This combines message of freedom, repression, and expression, become then the mantra of the honest Tories (and one of their strength). They can cobble together apparently dissimilar element in society, and do so in the one part, the one conference the single axis of ‘honesty’. For them to talk’ honestly’ about freedom, is then to create new ‘honesties’ about repression, and yet other ‘talking’ straights’ about fear of others.
The third face of this ‘honesty’ surely lies around the economy. Take Osbourne’s recent Speech. He claimed he was talking honestly about what needs to be done to the economy.: cuts; cut; cuts. And yet the subtext of the speech was very obvious. He was claiming that these cuts were really all Gordon Browns Fault. The fact then the was claiming to be the one that was making unpopular decision though to be laid firmly at the door of Brown. Browns sin was, of course by implicatio beign further conpomuned by thefact that he was denying or at least not owning up to the fct that these cut were politically necessary. In effect if one took the bate, one was being invited into believing that Osborne was being the hero of the cut and living within your means, the Brave man who spoke out, while Brown was a sulking coward locked in the lies of yesteryear.
Well maybe. Two things are actually clear about this little piece pf political honesty. Firstly it is clear tht Osborne was lying about the government position but also about his own cuts, Not only would his cuts not come close to what he wants them to (tht is answer the problem of the nation debt) but also the current government is already committed of cutting deeper than the Tories are yet prepared to say they are. Secondly and more importantly, the reach message of Osborne’s speech was a massive ‘we told you so to the British people. Mean since 1992 the Tories have always claimed tht labour would wreck the economy, an they have waited along time for this moment. Once it came then, they had their stories their honesty at hand, ready to build up a story of Labour spending and Tory economy. Listen then to Osbourne's speech, as listen to the politics of yesteryear and the battle the Tories have hoped to fight for ages. I was then honest in the sense that the past of told you so is always honest: it is always true in some way if only you wait long enough; moreover it is always a truth of the past that thing or someone is of the past, it is though always a deep problem, exactly who (Is it Brown or Osbourne?).
The fourth face of the Tory conference was the media itself The media clearly have invested their future in a Tory win. It is a sad fact of the lobby system that politicians and the media are caught up with one another in an endless lunch and cocktail circuit. They know then each other. More than tht the media (a this series has noted before) invest in the careers of politicians and government. Tht is they lunch those individuals they feel will come to power, and do so for their own careers: who they lunch then in crating contacts defined careers. When then the young Turks of the media then need to lunch different sets of politicians, and it is clear the Tories are (as Labour fifteen years ago was0 the benefit of this switch. The media have then invested rather a lot of there, their champagne and their caviar on the Tories, and cannot really afford to let them loose. They are then likely to respond to every the Tories say as if it were genuinely open, and honest. The Tories can tell therefore (with reason) lost any old lie or recycle any policy and the media react to it as it were true. They have no vested interested in going beyond face value, and no desire to create other truths. The tories then become over night the great truth speaks do the political system, while the labour party split into the role of liars by proxy.
Fifthly there was a clear shape of things to come in the present-absence of Europe from the conference platform. Why the Tories did not want to talk endlessly about Europeans clear enough. I could very easily reveal the party as not only disunited but as a bunch of extremist and xenophobes Europe had t be marginalised, and wit a media as friendly as they are tht was at least possible. What was need was that the Czech waited until after the end of the substantive part of the conference to announce they would ratify the treaty. This pause would be long enough to allow the Tories their fig leave of having only the one policy and than a referendum if possible. And this unlikely event appears to have happen. The Czechs waited t Thursday to say ht thy were ratifying. The timing is very convenient for Cameron, perhaps suspiciously so I mean it was very clear ht Cameron was negotiating behind the seen to persuade the Czech something (it was leaked tht the man was). Perhaps then in the name of honesty he was persuading the Czechs to delay their announcement by a few days t help him out (they are allies in the European parliament after all). If so then this would be the shape of Cameron ‘Honest dealing to come. What appears of be the acts of a statement, are really small minded local very political gambles.
Sixthly here was the positioned General Dennet, who has finally come clean and admitted he is a Troy. This story run two ways, on the one hand there is the spin given to us by he media, the spin of a political coupe for Cameron, an another problem for Brown. On of the Chief of staff, the top brass has joined the Tories. Well maybe. Is it not more likely he always was a Tory (it would explain why he was so ‘outspoken’ in the job). H would to be the first army man to be also a Tory…More then that this of course changes the entire story into one about Brown’s judgement allowing someone opposed to his policies the position f chief of staff for so long (and allowing the appointment in the first place). But also if does make one wonder about Dennet himself, who is going very quickly form general to politician. The Cameron Coupe, the quest for honesty in the military that coupe appears to represent, then transforms into quite different story.
Finally it is very clear the Tories final great act of Honesty is the limit their our greed or to apparently do so. They will then be Spartan (to degree into themselves, and for everyone else. All salaries will be pegged the prime ministers salary. Cameron thereby sets up his own alluded parsimonousness’ as the god sans for everyone else. He invited them everyone to agree with him, tht home jobs ought to be rewarding in themselves and people ought to do with the public interest and God. Well maybe, but then perhaps not all of us have a mortgage on a mansion house paid by the government or a rich wife.
The Tories an their media friends have then offered us a master calls in now to honestly lie. That is how to ensure that ones lies are inventing new order, new political truths, which warp the meaning of the world, and stamp political reality afresh. Honesty has become then merely a way to postion the language to ensure that ones own path to powers is secure (as one opponents are necessarily dishonest). The problem we have as voters if of course do we really go along with this story, this spin? Probably in the answer, but let us hope for some other redemption!
