So, Labour is going to campaign on immigration: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2010/mar/31/general-election-2010-conservatives.
The absurdity is clear and will be said by others. What I wish to challenge here is the idea that the only good challenge to immigration is by reference to resources. David Cameron seems to have bought into this. Doubtless he was taken aback when he was asked on television by a Muslim nurse with a hijab about why we import medical staff rather than train our own? An excellent question - but once you remove identity issues from the immigration debate, once you have no particular loyalty to compatriots over would be migrants, then it is all about economics. If it is cheaper to import staff, it is economically rational not to train your own.
Essentially, we have long since bought into this. The original importation of migrant labour into the NHS was to deal with a genuine labour shortage when we had full-employment. But it has long since turned into a means of bringing in cheaper workers and cutting down the messy business of training your own.
Provencal paradox
However, what I want to address here, is the issue of whether it is racist to object to cultural change created by immigration. Gordon Brown clearly thinks so, and has limited his debate to purely material matters.
My point is that no one likes their community changed by weight of numbers - at least not if they like it. I am sorry to use such a prejorative term such as "weight of numbers", but I could tie myself in knots looking for a euphemism. Let us not play that game. After all, the weight of numbers need not come from immigrants, it may come from British middle class people moving into a Docklands development (eg: Wapping), it may come from Guardian readers wanting to move somewhere edgy, and pushing out local ethnic minorities (eg: parts of Brixton). But unless an area is wholly undesirable, locals do not welcome such change. Well, they may pocket the profits from house sales, but they do not regard it is an improvement.
Why can our left-wing friends not understand that it is rational to object to changes brought by virtue of mass immigration? It is not a belief in the superiority of local people or culture. It is not even a desire to be wholly insular. It is just that people like the familiar, and don't want it swept away. Locals will be quick enough to assimilate the best influences of newcomers once barriers are broken down. But it is one thing to delight in an Indian restaurant, another to find that the local butcher has been replaced by a Halal one.
What is more, I like to think that most immigrants come to Britain not to create an enclave of their home country. Some do behave like the worst British ex-pats and colonials, sending their children "home" to marry rather than risk mixing with the locals - and let us never forget, inter-marriage is the best sign of healthy immigration. But ultimately, those who make their home in this country probably like this country for what it is.
This sentiment is probably incredible to many lefties, but let me explain it in terms they may understand: the Provencal paradox:
If you move to Provence, you do so to live in France. You want France to surround you and French things to surround you. You want to talk French to French people, even if it might take time to get fluent. You want to be part of local life. Of course, you need to take time to achieve such a state of affairs. If there are a few other English people in your village, that may make things easier - it is nice to relax and speak your own language and discuss familiar things. Only with copatriots can you discuss British TV of the 1970s and 1980s, and it is nice to do so.
But you do not want too large a British community. You do not want to create a British cocoon to keep France at arm's length. What is more, you do not want in your village a large number of compatriots who Anglicise the place. You do not want the cafe turning into a greasy-spoon. You do not want an English pub replacing the local bars. You do not want to live in the place which feels increasingly like England, and decreasingly like France.
I am sure our left-wing friends would wholly agree with this. They would regard as an abomination towns in Spain where English pubs sit next to Welsh pubs which sit next to Scottish pubs.
But wherever they find in Britain areas that are increasingly defined by Asian or African culture, they are thrilled to the bone. It is on such areas that they lavish praise for being vibrant; while damning as a sterile any areas which seem hideously white.
Of course, somewhere, deep down, the left understand that this does not quite square. That is why Tony Blair maximised immigration without lifting a finger to share the blessings of diversity with his Sedgefield constituents. But, until such time as the socially conservative minorities flex their muscles with the Labour party, it will always be full-steam ahead with immigration.
Wednesday 31 March 2010
Monday 29 March 2010
With thanks to Stephanie Flanders
The Tories now have two lines which are compelling. One is a gift to Labour and well highlighted by the BBC's Stephanie Flanders - the other comes from their own endeavour, although they possibly haven't thought it through yet.
1. If Labour has identified large amounts of waste, why wait a year to stop the waste? Why tax the economy in order to waste the money? Why borrow in order to waste money? Now, Maynard Keynes would say that there is no such thing as wasted government spending in a recession - but most of us cannot see the point of paying one man to dig a hole, and another to fill it in, to use Keynes's example. Osborne was a little slow to use this important point - probably he had not fully thought it through, possibly he was a little worried at the small matter of opportunism having denied the existence of Labour's efficiency savings, more likely it was just the vicissitudes of debate. But can Labour explain why cuts of waste should be deferred?
2. Labour highlight their stimulus measures. They stress the help to businesses that they will give? But how can it make sense to increase employer's national insurance? Labour propose taxing business generally in order to put money into chosen businesses and chosen business areas. And, throughout the process, there will be waste and inefficiency. Even if the civil service is thoroughly efficient, there will be costs in managing the process. And for what point - to tax business in order to stimulate business?
All in all, not so pessimistic. Osborne did okay, which should be enough to blunt the strongest attacks on him. Maybe, like Brown, he could even engage public sympathies for having been subject to attacks. He remains "not the best choice", but should have ceased to be a positive liability.
But, it all rather depends on the Tories sowing together simple points into a compelling narrative. In the above, with particular thanks to Stephanomics, they should have the starts.
1. If Labour has identified large amounts of waste, why wait a year to stop the waste? Why tax the economy in order to waste the money? Why borrow in order to waste money? Now, Maynard Keynes would say that there is no such thing as wasted government spending in a recession - but most of us cannot see the point of paying one man to dig a hole, and another to fill it in, to use Keynes's example. Osborne was a little slow to use this important point - probably he had not fully thought it through, possibly he was a little worried at the small matter of opportunism having denied the existence of Labour's efficiency savings, more likely it was just the vicissitudes of debate. But can Labour explain why cuts of waste should be deferred?
2. Labour highlight their stimulus measures. They stress the help to businesses that they will give? But how can it make sense to increase employer's national insurance? Labour propose taxing business generally in order to put money into chosen businesses and chosen business areas. And, throughout the process, there will be waste and inefficiency. Even if the civil service is thoroughly efficient, there will be costs in managing the process. And for what point - to tax business in order to stimulate business?
All in all, not so pessimistic. Osborne did okay, which should be enough to blunt the strongest attacks on him. Maybe, like Brown, he could even engage public sympathies for having been subject to attacks. He remains "not the best choice", but should have ceased to be a positive liability.
But, it all rather depends on the Tories sowing together simple points into a compelling narrative. In the above, with particular thanks to Stephanomics, they should have the starts.
Saturday 27 March 2010
How not to express yourself
Matthew Parris quite rightly commented in today's Times that Cameron should be a little less angry in his speech. I could not agree more. Intelligent policies should be expressed intelligently.
We should all by now have noticed the difference between listening to and reading a Gordon Brown speech. Much the same as a Tony Blair speech. Fine in tone, and you can often be forgiven for believing you had heard something brilliant. Or at least something that could be mistaken as great crowd pleasing rhetoric.
But read the same speech, and all you find is a sequence of non sequiturs. No argument - just assertion interspersed with insult.
So what is Cameron doing?? Not for the first time - he did the same in his Spring Conference Speech - he ends with the tone of a school rugger captain trying to rally the First XV at half-time. Short of arranging a rally in Sheffield and shouting, "Well, alright!!", could it be more embarrassing?
A cry of "lets get at them" may be good at the meeting - but has Cameron not forgotten the true audience of every speech? Every word he says before television, the audience is the entire British electorate.
In short, he must always present a tight, logical and coherent argument for why the viewer should vote Tory. Something that can withstand the sneers of Brown, Balls and the other blustering bullies. Something that always addresses the basic charge against the Tories - that they are going to cut for the sake of ideology and not because the nearly bankrupt must cut costs.
So, please, if he does has policies - explain what and why to the public as a whole. Your party workers will do their job without the captain's half-time talk.
We should all by now have noticed the difference between listening to and reading a Gordon Brown speech. Much the same as a Tony Blair speech. Fine in tone, and you can often be forgiven for believing you had heard something brilliant. Or at least something that could be mistaken as great crowd pleasing rhetoric.
But read the same speech, and all you find is a sequence of non sequiturs. No argument - just assertion interspersed with insult.
So what is Cameron doing?? Not for the first time - he did the same in his Spring Conference Speech - he ends with the tone of a school rugger captain trying to rally the First XV at half-time. Short of arranging a rally in Sheffield and shouting, "Well, alright!!", could it be more embarrassing?
A cry of "lets get at them" may be good at the meeting - but has Cameron not forgotten the true audience of every speech? Every word he says before television, the audience is the entire British electorate.
In short, he must always present a tight, logical and coherent argument for why the viewer should vote Tory. Something that can withstand the sneers of Brown, Balls and the other blustering bullies. Something that always addresses the basic charge against the Tories - that they are going to cut for the sake of ideology and not because the nearly bankrupt must cut costs.
So, please, if he does has policies - explain what and why to the public as a whole. Your party workers will do their job without the captain's half-time talk.
Why should I vote Conservative?
Some time ago, Matthew Parris dealt with the question of why he did not change to New Labour. At the time, there seemed little between the parties apart from a social conservatism where he was firmly on the side of Labour. “I am too tribal,” I recall was his answer. Essentially, the Tories were his team and he’d support them evermore. Faced almost 25 years ago with relegation from the league – Burnley fans had sung the same refrain, even those who seldom turned up to see a game.
And this, I think is the difference between most of us and those who have played the game of politics as a lifelong pursuit. Even if we have voted Tory at almost every opportunity, we do not support them with the unconditional loyalty that we give to our football teams. We are not tribal with our political parties in quite the same way. We do not shop around to support the team which plays the style of football that we most admire – we do shop around for the political party that supports the type of policies we most desire.
This, is the first flaw in Cameron’s modernisation strategy. It assumes that the core vote will vote Tory as they will still vaguely assume that the party is likely to be sounder on Europe (despite Maastricht), sounder on immigration, sounder on educational standards (despite introducing the GCSE), and tougher on crime (despite always disappointing in the past). But when we see a party flirt with all-women short lists, we are not so sure that it shares our principles – although the hostility of the northern women at the recent Question Time to the idea shows that these principles are fairly broadly held. The abandonment of the European referendum has sowed doubts (wrongly, in my view) as to their soundness in that issue. The code of silence on immigration means that (ridiculously) Labour are trying to appropriate immigration control for themselves – even if their definition of immigration control is finding a system to process the record numbers that we have seen for over a decade, and to pretend (clearly wrongly) that it has all been about temporary Eastern European immigration. Stripped of a policy direction on matters of general conservative thinking, we ask ourselves why we should vote Conservative.
The second flaw is presentational. You do not want to be the nasty party? But how can you be anything but a nasty party if you have no policies? All you are left with is negative campaigning. For sure, there can be times when this is sufficient – but we live in an era of real difficulties where difficult policies must be announced. How can you say we will cut, and not say how? To say how is to give a rational explanation of what you plan and hope to achieve. Otherwise, you are just cutting.
The third flaw was shown by his Gay News interview. It was a simple question - how far would he use the whip on gay equality issues? To translate - it means when does he regard the issues as being open and shut, and when it is the sort of difficult thing that requires compromise for us to live happily together? The teaching of gay issues in church schools is an obvious example of such complications - if civil partnerships are upgraded to marriage, then should churches be required to conduct gay marriages? These are the sort of issues that lie beneath the question. What was shocking was that Cameron had embraced gay issues without having any understanding of the limits of his support, or the complexity of some of the issues. Other than that it sounds nice and modern, he does not seem to understand why he supports gay rights. If he understood why, he would be able to have an idea as to what demands might be going too far, in his view. And this encapsulates his whole approach to modernisation - it is done for the sake of image. He doesn't know what any given step should be thought of as a good thing. No wonder his rebranding is quickly seen as unprincipled.
But to return to the main theme, parties are there to represent strands of opinion that exist in society. If those strands go unrepresented, then it is a failure of democracy. The Tories campaigned on reducing public spending in 2001 and 2005 – they lost. I do not say that parties should not take stock of the situation – politicians must ask if there is a constituency for their views. But they cannot simply track the fashions because they garner 33% as opposed to the winner's 36%. Oppositions can only hold a government to account if they disagree with it - and maintain that disagreement despite by definition haveing had their own views rejected.
If a party wins two or three elections, it does not follow that political debate must narrow and everyone must adopt the thinking of the recent winner - but that appears to be the idea behnd this "heir of Blair" abomination. We see that with Cameron and Osborne’s previous pledge to follow Labour spending policies – does anyone doubt that it would be better if they were now saying that the Tories had been right in 2001 and 2005? Would it not be better if they took Labour’s proposed efficiency savings and played a thousand times Brown and Blair denying in 2001 and 2005 that there was any scope for such serious savings? What Labour trumpeted on Budget Day, was Tory policy of 2001 and 2005. But Cameron and Osborne abandoned that policy – and with it they abandoned any sense the people might have that the country was moving towards Tory policies.
So, why should I vote Conservative? The harm that Brown will do is a certainty – the gain from humiliating Cameron is speculative. We know that the deficit will not be tackled – the overspend comes from Labour pet causes. We all know that immigration is a core belief of Labour, they will not tackle it. Left wing teachers are pathologically opposed to school discipline and academic rigour – how will a left wing party do anything but fail on education. If Europe comes asking for more powers, we know Labour will find an excuse to deny us a referendum – the Tory failure is a misdemeanour in comparison to Labour’s.
So, at the very least, let us to try to reduce their majority, or dent their legitimacy by giving the Tories the higher vote. I am very sceptical about winning – Cameron has done too much damage to woo the liberals, who repay him with talk of toffs. But we do not want Brown given a landslide as a reward for his many failures, and thus encourage him to many more and greater disasters.
In the meantime, it may be too late, but could Cameron remember that his voters are partisan towards policies not towards party colours. We are not interested in him becoming Prime Minister or any of his friends achieving office. We are interested only in what might happen next. And, frankly, he has given us only doubts.
And this, I think is the difference between most of us and those who have played the game of politics as a lifelong pursuit. Even if we have voted Tory at almost every opportunity, we do not support them with the unconditional loyalty that we give to our football teams. We are not tribal with our political parties in quite the same way. We do not shop around to support the team which plays the style of football that we most admire – we do shop around for the political party that supports the type of policies we most desire.
This, is the first flaw in Cameron’s modernisation strategy. It assumes that the core vote will vote Tory as they will still vaguely assume that the party is likely to be sounder on Europe (despite Maastricht), sounder on immigration, sounder on educational standards (despite introducing the GCSE), and tougher on crime (despite always disappointing in the past). But when we see a party flirt with all-women short lists, we are not so sure that it shares our principles – although the hostility of the northern women at the recent Question Time to the idea shows that these principles are fairly broadly held. The abandonment of the European referendum has sowed doubts (wrongly, in my view) as to their soundness in that issue. The code of silence on immigration means that (ridiculously) Labour are trying to appropriate immigration control for themselves – even if their definition of immigration control is finding a system to process the record numbers that we have seen for over a decade, and to pretend (clearly wrongly) that it has all been about temporary Eastern European immigration. Stripped of a policy direction on matters of general conservative thinking, we ask ourselves why we should vote Conservative.
The second flaw is presentational. You do not want to be the nasty party? But how can you be anything but a nasty party if you have no policies? All you are left with is negative campaigning. For sure, there can be times when this is sufficient – but we live in an era of real difficulties where difficult policies must be announced. How can you say we will cut, and not say how? To say how is to give a rational explanation of what you plan and hope to achieve. Otherwise, you are just cutting.
The third flaw was shown by his Gay News interview. It was a simple question - how far would he use the whip on gay equality issues? To translate - it means when does he regard the issues as being open and shut, and when it is the sort of difficult thing that requires compromise for us to live happily together? The teaching of gay issues in church schools is an obvious example of such complications - if civil partnerships are upgraded to marriage, then should churches be required to conduct gay marriages? These are the sort of issues that lie beneath the question. What was shocking was that Cameron had embraced gay issues without having any understanding of the limits of his support, or the complexity of some of the issues. Other than that it sounds nice and modern, he does not seem to understand why he supports gay rights. If he understood why, he would be able to have an idea as to what demands might be going too far, in his view. And this encapsulates his whole approach to modernisation - it is done for the sake of image. He doesn't know what any given step should be thought of as a good thing. No wonder his rebranding is quickly seen as unprincipled.
But to return to the main theme, parties are there to represent strands of opinion that exist in society. If those strands go unrepresented, then it is a failure of democracy. The Tories campaigned on reducing public spending in 2001 and 2005 – they lost. I do not say that parties should not take stock of the situation – politicians must ask if there is a constituency for their views. But they cannot simply track the fashions because they garner 33% as opposed to the winner's 36%. Oppositions can only hold a government to account if they disagree with it - and maintain that disagreement despite by definition haveing had their own views rejected.
If a party wins two or three elections, it does not follow that political debate must narrow and everyone must adopt the thinking of the recent winner - but that appears to be the idea behnd this "heir of Blair" abomination. We see that with Cameron and Osborne’s previous pledge to follow Labour spending policies – does anyone doubt that it would be better if they were now saying that the Tories had been right in 2001 and 2005? Would it not be better if they took Labour’s proposed efficiency savings and played a thousand times Brown and Blair denying in 2001 and 2005 that there was any scope for such serious savings? What Labour trumpeted on Budget Day, was Tory policy of 2001 and 2005. But Cameron and Osborne abandoned that policy – and with it they abandoned any sense the people might have that the country was moving towards Tory policies.
So, why should I vote Conservative? The harm that Brown will do is a certainty – the gain from humiliating Cameron is speculative. We know that the deficit will not be tackled – the overspend comes from Labour pet causes. We all know that immigration is a core belief of Labour, they will not tackle it. Left wing teachers are pathologically opposed to school discipline and academic rigour – how will a left wing party do anything but fail on education. If Europe comes asking for more powers, we know Labour will find an excuse to deny us a referendum – the Tory failure is a misdemeanour in comparison to Labour’s.
So, at the very least, let us to try to reduce their majority, or dent their legitimacy by giving the Tories the higher vote. I am very sceptical about winning – Cameron has done too much damage to woo the liberals, who repay him with talk of toffs. But we do not want Brown given a landslide as a reward for his many failures, and thus encourage him to many more and greater disasters.
In the meantime, it may be too late, but could Cameron remember that his voters are partisan towards policies not towards party colours. We are not interested in him becoming Prime Minister or any of his friends achieving office. We are interested only in what might happen next. And, frankly, he has given us only doubts.
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