The Republic of Dissent

An obsession with sleaze

Mick Hume over at Spiked! sums up perfectly the Laws scandal (about Britain's Chief Secretary to the Secretary David Laws resigning for paying the rent of his secret gay lover):

This is the end point of the process that some of us have warned about from the start, when the elite obsession with sleaze becomes a substitute for political debate.

British politics suffers from the same disease that is inflecting American politics ( which has contaminated the rest of the world) and paralyzing essential debates due to an incessant focus on the trivial and the titillating, but insignificant.

The intolerable notion of sin in politics

Disturbing quote from Yasmin Albhai-Brown:

In international politics, too, memories roam and fuel conduct. Take the very moving film about a white farming family in Zimbabwe this week. What was the back-story, the historical decisions and power grabs that created the civil enmities? We Ugandan Asians were cruelly dispossessed by Idi Amin in Uganda, but we too must ask why so many Africans ended up hating us – our racism and economic greed consumed them and they then behaved abominably. And the British need to acknowledge their role in the making of leviathans like Mugabe and Amin.

According to Alibhai-Brown's logic,  the original sin is always more important than anything else that follows and the real culprits are never doers who fit a particular profile or share a certain history but rather those who should have stopped them or who enabled them or had the power over them once upon a time. In short, Mugabe and Amin were creatures of the Brits who don't have the right to judge them because they are the original sinners.

Scary and distressing logic, which divides the world between the powerful who are always guilty of something because the sinful past and the weak who always have an excuse for doing the unconscionable. In short, the notion of sin in politics is a limited, destructive and misguided one which just facilitates intellectual masturbation and other self-indulgences.

Taking Cameron-Clegg seriously

Funny bit from Iain Martin:

It’s been troubling me ever since they got married, I mean ever since they forged a coalition in the national interest. Who or what does the Cameron-Clegg partnership remind me of?
But then it hit me. It’s as though Hugh Grant and Colin Firth have gotten together to make a romantic comedy about the life of a new government - a sequel to Love Actually. As though the young PM Hugh Grant has no overall majority and has to partner with Firth (leader of a small third party in this film rather than the dejected writer in Love Actually). The plot unfolds with “hilarious” results.

Is it just me, but do most people expect the marriage partnership between Nick Clegg and David Cameron to fail? I wonder if the expectations would have been the same if Clegg has expected to wed labor. My guess is it wouldn't be and that there wouldn't be this uneasiness and tendency to find mock the situation rather than to entertain the idea that it has a chance to work. In politics as in real life, people, particularly in Anglo-Saxon countries, are incredible conservative and believe that one ought to marry, to partner with one that shares the same 'identity' to avoid conflicts or even discussions that may left to productive change or to needed growth and maturation.

Nick Clegg and David Cameron had a "mixed" marriage and people are troubled by it because it opens them to new and possibly unsettling possibilities, which they many not be prepared to face.

To resist feminist guilt

The sugary quote of the morning is from Libby Purves on the complaint that there aren't enough women in the new British government

The phone rang: another periodical’s editor wanting a why-oh-why rant about the dearth of women in the new Cabinet. Four out of 23 gives us a female percentage one-third that of Spain, half that of France and the Netherlands; in the EU only the Portuguese Cabinet has a smaller proportion of women.
Well, a girl likes to oblige and I come of a liberated generation, fists poised to smash the glass ceiling in the conservatory of life. But after a few seconds’ thought I sadly replied: “Sorry. Just realised: I don’t care.” Feminist guilt flared and swiftly receded. There have been women in Cabinet and the great offices of state, there will be others. No law bars the door, there is no quota against us. Tokenism is anathema.

I've just realized that having women in government is less important than enacting policies that not treat them as sheep. In short, the power of symbols is always limited if their goal is to stop the conversation on real issues, by making people feel good about their own 'tolerance' and superiority.

Cleggmania had some changing value

Interesting point from Ian Leslie:

The lasting value of Cleggmania is that it raised the profile of the Liberal Democrat leader to the extent that it became much easier for Cameron to invite him into government. Had the Lib Dem leader been anonymous after the election, or worse, actually unpopular, such a full-blooded partnership wouldn't have been possible. The debates - and Clegg's seizing of the moment - facilitated this coalition.

 I have had to wonder whether Cleggmania wasn't mainly about dissatisfaction with Labour and distrust of the unmarketable, unconvincing, and soft Thatcherism of David Cameron. In short, I'm doubting that Cleggmania was really about Nick Clegg rather than about the Brit psyche.

The union of David Cameron and Nick Clegg as a Las Vegas wedding

Nick Robinson on the Cameron and Clegg partnership:

The question that kept coming up in my mind though, reminded as I was of the couple who got married the day after meeting in Las Vegas, was whether on the morning after the night before they would wake up and wonder how they got hooked up for five years with someone they barely knew, and if their families would ever forgive them.

Robinson is as he almost always is on point, except tat Las Vegas weddings rarely involve parties who have everything to lose by getting a divorce or a quick annulment.

Lib-Dems = Tories

Pic of the morning is about the political state of Britain (via). I disagree with its message for I think that Nick Clegg had no other alternative since Labour had the arrogance to believe that it was better off in the opposition to give the Brits the opportunity to realize that they are the best. Not choosing Cameron would meant choosing the political wilderness for Nick Clegg in the sake of purity, which is what political fundamentalists do usually when they are not willing to shoulder the responsibilities that come with power .There is no question that Nick Clegg's choice is risky and not the best so is politics and he took a chance to give his party the chance to become something other than the serf of  disdainful masters and his country the one to move on from Blairism (it is about time). The culprits here are Labour, the Blairites and Gordon Brown for governing and campaigning without imagination and something other than marketable and flashy humility.

I'm happy that Nick Clegg isn't François Bayrou.

Prime Minister Cameron

My take on the end of the British spectacle is that Labour is as gutless as the Democrats (they still are) were in 2000 when because they were tired of Gore and centrism, they let Bush come to power without putting of much of fact. Their calculation was that he would never last and that four year out of the White house with a bad American president would be beneficial to their party. My point isn't that David Cameron is George Bush, but rather that Labour had been in power for so long that it assumes that it will get back on top fast when it has burned all of its witches and Cameron has proved to be as bad a prime minister as he is a campaigner.

For different take on the election, read Massie, Sagar, and Hagley Road to Ladywood. Boy, I hope that David Cameron becomes a decent prime minister in spite of his views and makes Labour regret the day that they dismiss too casually the opportunity, one,which they didn't deserve to change history and Nick Clegg finds a way to last.

Nick Clegg as Salome

Alex Massie on Nick Clegg and his attempts to find a partner to governing dance:

And so, playing Salome, Clegg has got Gordon's head on a platter and we now have the extraordinary sight of the Lib Dems negotiating with both parties at the same time. This is madness and invites the public to view the Lib Dems as a party of political hoors prepared to sell their services to the highest-bidder for nothing more than self-evidently narrow, selfish interests.

I think that in a way, Nick Clegg can't win unless he joins a government coalition that lasts for if it doesn't, the Lib Dems are over for the public will blame them for making the wrong choice.  I'm wondering how long will it take for the Tores to get rid of David Cameron if he doesn't become the next PM.

New Labour is just undead

Quote of the day from Lenin's Tomb arguing that Labour will not turn left even though it lost the elections:

(...) don't believe the hype - New Labour is not so much dead as undead. Like the zombie banks, it will roll ahead on life support for the foreseeable future, even as it further hacks away at its base, the very support system that keeps it animated. It is not about to emerge from a period of chrysalis as a beautiful, vibrant new life form. The secular trend remains for Labour to increasingly erode its position in the working class, for party identifications to decrease, for exclusively parliamentary politics to become less and less relevant.

I agree with those assertions. Labour kike the American Democratic party never doesn't have any incentive to turn left for the simply reason that the left doesn't have any alternative since the backbone of its politics has become its strong distaste for Republicans and what they stand for or rather who they believe that they are ("American idiots"). It is easier for the American left to focus, for example, on how much it dislikes Sarah Palin rather than on Obama and the Democrats' policies which are against its values, which are less and less sacred for what matters is fluff, appearance, and belonging to the right group.  To put things simply, New Labour is the future of The Brtish Labour party just like timid Centrism remains the one of the Democratic party.

Three losers

I agree with Gideon Rachman's take on the results of the British election:

But, one of the strange aspects of this election, is that - in a way - all three leaders have lost.

After all, how can one conclude that there are any winners when it is the Lib-Dem, who had less than 60 MPs, who get to make to decide who will the next prime minister, a choice that the Brits didn't/couldn't/wouldn't make. What a pitiful circus!

Neoliberalism, unclear political identities, and the Brit hung parliament

Astute observation over at Potlatch on Britain political 'quagmire':

What Britain is witnessing right now is this paradox imploding. For the past thirty years, British political parties have gradually converged on the perfect neo-liberal model. Their policies have moved gradually closer to the prescriptions of The World Economic Forum, starting with guaranteeing adequate security and policing, then stabilising the macro-economy, then turning to market competition and regulation, and finally nurturing the right sorts of social 'externalities' and 'public goods' in the areas of education, infrastructure and culture. The problem is that this neutering of political difference ultimately leads to the very ambivalence that the markets so hate. They want someone to be in control, they just don't want that someone to have any clear political identity.

This observation would apply to the United Sates where it seems that political identity has nothing to do with politics, but everything do with constructed identities to avoid resolving political issues. Case in point: I still don't know what is Obama's political identity ( I would say the same for Sarkozy). I know that he is an excellent politician, but I just don't what it is that he wouldn't do to get himself elected and to beat down his opposition.

Hung and dud

I have to say that the outcome of the British elections bugs me. It's like a great movie having the most disastrous, frustrating, and ugliest ending thus undermining the pleasure that you felt while watching and making you feel cheap for going along for the ride for the plot was always unrealistic to begin with. I don't know what is going to happen, but I have a feeling that there will be another election fairly soon. At least, I got the answer to one of my big questions: the Brits are not as excitable as Americans, which explains in part in my opinion why Cleggstasy was solely an entertaining fantasy, which they liked because it gave them the illusion that they could be daring with their politics to, at the end, when they were alone in the voting booth realize that they are not comfortable with unknown unknowns (a hung parliament is a known unknown). I'm just wondering how good/bad a prime minister David Cameron will be. The good news for Britain is that sometimes bad campaigners make good leaders. 

The unexcitable Brits

Funny assertion from Jasmine Birtles:

Unlike Americans, we Britons tend not to get too excitable about the whole election process. Even political rallies usually elicit no more than an extra-strong cup of tea and maybe a ripple of applause if things get really heated.

I guess it means that Nick Clegg has no shot to win tomorrow and to become the new prime minister of Britain.

A reason to vote Labour

Norman Geras offers a good (though not convincing) reason to vote for 'Labour' in tomorrow UK elections:

I think there are unjustified inequalities in our society, and that Labour has a better record of addressing these than the Conservative Party does, and is more likely than are either the Tories or the Lib-Dems to look to the needs of working people and the less well off.

I'm just wondering whether the past in politics must always conditioned present's and future's political choices especially when the results are mixed to say the least.

The political ability to inspire

I disagree with Paul Sagar on this:

What gives the successful political leader his or her appeal, and thereby power, is precisely what Weber identified: the ability to inspire unquestioning belief. That neither Cameron, Clegg nor Brown presently possesses an outright lead is a testament to how little belief they inspire, and hence what poor political leaders they really are – even if Brown showed yesterday that he could have been something more.

Our times are ones where the electorate and the political and social context aren't the same as it was when Max Weber wrote  and that makes all the difference. Elections have become about glitz, television, and the ability to look and to sound good. The point isn't that Cameron, Clegg, and Brown are the best candidates to ever run for the British prime ministership; it is rather that the British electorate, as any electorate in a liberal and modern society, given the context and the times it evolves in, is looking for style that can masquerade as substance and make them feel good about who they are without requiring them to sacrifice and to make life-altering changes to their way of life.

The end of Gordon Brown

I feel probably the same as this young Brit about Gordon Brown except that it has nothing with him, but everything to do with the fact that he reminds me, and I suppose too many Brits, of the worst of Tony Blair without been able to bring something new to the table or even to remind people of why they trusted Blair for so long. Politics is unfair (via, h/t)

David Cameron as the new Charles de Gaulle

Bruce Anderson is comparing to Charles de Gaulle:

As any Tory should be, he is also rooted in Britain. De Gaulle said that throughout his life, he always had a certain idea of France. That is not how we British talk, which is both fortunate and unfortunate. Unfortunate, in that it could produce magnificent prose; fortunate, in that in France, the grandiloquence is the product of embattlement, invasion and the consequent soul-searching, which we complacent Brits have been lucky enough to avoid, thanks to the Channel. But in a reticent English way, Mr Cameron could echo de Gaulle.
In a few days, he, like de Gaulle, may have the chance to turn his ideas into a programme for national recovery. Success is far from certain. The next government will not only have to cut spending and raise taxes. If grim, endless austerity is to be averted, it will have to rely on renewed economic growth, yet the components of that growth are hard to identify. It would be absurd to dismiss Mervyn King's doubts.

I have to say that I find Anderson's comparison as funny as it is ridiculous for it is indicative of his ignorance of French history and about Charles de Gaulle who was a war hero who came to politics late in life after fighting the Nazis and taking some time to find his voice in politics. David Cameron knows nothing about war (it isn't a bad thing in my book) and has been in politics all of his adult life. In short, comparing David Cameron to Charles de Gaulle is as imaginative and accurate as asserting that Scott Brown, the newly elected senator of Massachusetts is the new Churchill.

Keeping the Tories out and voting for the lesser of two evils

This argument from Paulinlancs arguing that people should vote for 'Labour' just to keep the Tories out shws that Labour has already lost the election:

Labour may have done bad things, but a next Labour government will not be ANYWHERE NEAR AS REMOTELY DAMAGING to us all, and especially to the working class, as a Tory government.
You don’t have to support Labour’s track record to support Labour at this election.  It’s enough to want to keep the Tories out, and the way to do that is generally to vote Labour (I accept there is a tactical voting issue in some places).  Voting for TUSC, or RESPECT, or the Greens, will not keep the Tories out.  It’s not rocket science.

The argument isn't wrong, but it is paternalistic, disrespectful to voters, and not very convincing. It argues that Gordon Brown , his record and the one of his party in power don't matter because the Tories will always be worst. It is a little bit like a student been close to failing an important exam who stops to argue to the judges that the test doesn't matter because they know who is the smarter, and exemplary student and that therefore they don't have to pay attention to anything else. The bigger point is that Gordon Brown let this election become one about change and cannot argue that change doesn't matter because it is worst than the present when he has failed to convince the Brits that he is change.  Voters don't like to hear that they don't have any choice and that they are stuck between choosing the plague and the cholera, that is between an illness that hurts them, but gives them a chance to survive and one which will kill them.

The last debate

I haven't yet had the chance to watch the last debate of the British Election for I've been back from Chicago for less than two hours. Yet, I'm not surprised to read that most analysts including Alex Massie, Jonathan Freedland, Nick Robinson and Iain Martin believe that David Cameron won for Brown has already lost, Nick Clegg is no longer looking fresh, and Cameron has been at this for too long not to know how to win a post-debate debate in the media. In any case, to the contrary of most, I don't wonder whether Cameron can't close the deal, but whether Nick Clegg will fade. I have the strong suspicion that Clegg's fate is intertwined to Brown's ability to convince traditional Labor voters not to punish his party for his inadequacies given the fact that he won't be the next prime minister and that voting for Labor therefore just means saving the furniture now that the house is gone

Cameron, Clegg, Blair, and political brands

Interesting  take on the two front runners of the British elections David Cameron and Nick Glegg from the Virtual Stoa  (via):

I’ve never had much time for Cameron and Clegg, with Cameron modelling himself on Blair, and Clegg on Cameron. But what the election campaign is bringing out is the extent to which Cameron was only ever offering the most fraudulent impersonation of Blair, and that it’s because of this that the Clegg-as-Cameron strategy is working out so very nicely for the Liberal Democrats.
The reason Blair was far more successful as a centrist politician than Cameron is managing to be is that he went out of his way to humiliate the Left of his party in public as a part of his move to the right. He chose to pick fights that he really didn’t have to fight, with the result that it made it all much easier for former Conservative voters to think that it was safe to vote Labour after all.
Cameron, by contrast, has made a lot of centrist noises, and he’s done various things that the Tory headbanger tendency doesn’t much like (stuff on the website about tackling homophobic bullying in schools, running more women candidates or candidates from ethnic minorities in winnable seats, banging on about the environment, usw), but he’s never seriously tried to stage a meaningful fight with the party’s Right, to lure them out into the open, and to slap them down in public.

David Cameron is trying to impersonate Blair because he can't impersonate Thatcher without scaring everyone or rather reminding them of John Major. I believe that he has trouble taking on the right of his party because it doesn't like humiliation or even confrontation as the left of the left does because it reassures it of its intellectual superiority. As to Nick Clegg, his choice given that Labor has been governing for more than 13 years can't be to look at the left, but to rather look as David Cameron would be looking if he was sure to be the future prime minister. The goal is to make himself look not as a unsettling novelty or a risky change candidate, but as a bold, but reasonable one that would give the Brits change without taking their country back to the Eighties or to even the Blair years. In short, the point is that people like toxins in politics if they make them feel good and politicians tend to go back to what has worked before.

Nick Clegg, fils du peuple

Worth digesting point from Jonathan Raban on Nick Clegg:

Though, like Cameron, he comes from a rich family and was privately educated, Clegg’s accent is mongrel-London and his pleasant face looks more fils du peuple than to-the-manor-born. His great strength is that he comes off as entirely inoffensive; decent, knowledgeable, articulate without being dangerously eloquent or witty, bright but not brilliant, telegenic but not a natural star. Eight days of national fame have led to a rash of silly comparisons with Obama, which, I think, miss the whole point of Nick Clegg, one of whose chief merits, to the skeptical British eye, is that he is no Obama. Clegg and the Lib Dems give the electorate the chance to teach the British parliament a lesson that it won’t forget.

Nick Clegg is able to play the role of le fils du peuple because again, he is neither David Cameron nor Gordon Brown and because his party has always been on the outside, which gives it the possibility to pretend to be on the side of the people who feel misrepresented by Labor and the Tories. I have to admit that the UK election fascinates me and that I'm wondering how much like Americans the Brits are. I have the suspicion that David Cameron is the next prime minister and that Nick Clegg might just have to become his number two.  I hope that I'm wrong.

Bad people politics

The quote of the day is from Nick Cohen:

(...)with the possible exception of the BNP, the Lib Dems are indeed the most unscrupulous campaigners in politics, the only party to my knowledge that has taken stolen money from criminals and then refused to return it to its rightful owners. Meanwhile, you do not have to be a deranged militarist to look at the Liberal Democrat front bench and suspect that they would, if they could, leave Afghan women to the mercy of the Taliban and feel very pleased with themselves as they did it.

Another Change election

I'm disgusted by the empty and flashy word that is 'change' during political campaigns. Change i used as a way to avoid talking about substance and to camouflage troubling policies, but Jonathan Freedland is right when he reaches the following conclusion:

(...)with Nick Clegg repeating the accomplished performance of the week before – means the two largest parties now have to accept that they are in a new kind of contest from now till polling day. Any hope that normal service would be resumed has gone.
For Labour, that should prompt a radical conclusion. A government in power for 13 years cannot hope to win an election that is now all about change. Instead its best hope surely has to be to maximise its core vote to prevent a collapse into the low 20s on percentage points, a defeat even more absolute than that of 1983.

I don't see how Gordon Brown can defeat both Clegg and Cameron in an election when change is the buzz word because  everything that he does looks old and just reminds people that Labor has been in power for a long time

Britain, Europe, Brown, Cameron and Clegg

Gavin Hewitt summarizes the positions of the three main candidates to be the next prime minister of Britain

The debate came down to this: the Conservatives will resist any new powers going to Brussels. The differences between Labour and the Liberal Democrats over Europe are slight. They believe the EU delivers a string of benefits in dealing with common problems.

Something tells me that the European policy of the next prime minister will be lukewarm and careful not mater who wins because the result of his election will be too tight for the winner to ignore the fact that the Brits don't feel that warm towards Europe.The form might be different, but the substance will be the same meaning that the tone will be Thatcherian and the meat not very much different from the one of the policies of the Blair-Brown governments.

A reason to resist Nick Clegg

Chris Dillow offers reasons not to vote the Liberal Democrats and thus for Nick Clegg. The most convincing of Dillow's reasons is the following:

I have many more arguments with Labour policy, and yet I feel an instinctive fondness for the party that I don’t towards the Lib Dems.
One reason for this is that I’ve never been sure what their core principles are. At best, this reflects the tension between Orange Bookers and tofu-munching eccentrics. At worst, it’s manifested itself in a mere search for a gap in the market between the two main parties, and the tendency to tell voters on the doorstep whatever they want to hear.

It is in that sense that Nick Clegg reminds me most of Obama, you hear what you want to hear and you have to wonder what he really believes and whether there is more beef to the change candidate than cheese and air. The fact that the campaign is really short compared to the one in America helps and hurts Clegg because he has to rely solely  on image to seduce on voters by providing them with just enough substance so not as to turn them off and to convince them he is not a lightweight while offering them enough sweeties with charm to get to them to marry him even though they don't know him very well. Thus, Clegg is hoping for a coup de foudre, but the trouble with love at first sight is that the awakening can be rough and lead to a brutal separation.

Scripted politics

Entertaining story from Charlemagne:

A Labour MP I know tells a story about the young Tony Blair, campaigning in a tough council housing estate years before he was famous and powerful. At the time, Labour was still promoting a platform of more cordial relations with the Soviet Union, and nuclear disarmament. According to this (supposedly true) story, the young Mr Blair began explaining to an elderly woman that only Labour could avert nuclear armageddon. "Can Labour stop the yobs peeing in the lift?" she replied. Mr Blair waffled, sticking to his lines about disarmament. "Young man," said the voter severely. "If Labour can't stop them peeing in the lifts, how are they going to stop a nuclear war?"

Cleggmania and the state of the British Democracy

Brendan O'Neill on Cleggmania, the popularity of Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat candidate to be Britain's next prime minister:

Cleggmania, as the media (who else?) have dubbed it, is an extraordinary phenomenon. Not because recent opinion polls seem to indicate that the Lib Dems are benefiting from Labour’s and the Tories’ disarray – the Lib Dems have long been a dustbin-style repository for the electorate’s disgruntlement with the two main parties. And not because some newspapers are getting overexcited about a young(ish) and allegedly handsome politician – from Blair to Cameron, hacks have always had a soft spot for soundbites combined with cheesy grins. No, Cleggmania is extraordinary because it indicates that the media are now becoming more and more politically influential, to the extent that they can almost singlehandedly frame the way that politics is understood and even how the political leaders conceive of themselves and their campaigns.

Humm, I wonder if O'Neill thought the same thing about Obamania. In any case, he isn't wrong, the trouble is that the Brits and their journalists have been infected by the Obama syndrome, which is the willingness to believe that it is enough to vote for somebody who epitomizes, symbolizes and looks like change to get it. It's easy anyway and gives the impression that one special and providential man can change a nation without asking it to make some sacrifices and to change itself like Lionel Messi can win a soccer football game. If Nick Clegg were someone other than a good 'clean' white man, he would be unbeatable. That said, I like Nick Clegg, I just don't know what he really stands for and I'm sure for a lot of Brits what matter is that he isn't the other two and that he represents a difference alternative, a chaotic and potentially dangerous one, but a different one nevertheless.

UK Debate II: Gordon Brown can't win

My take on the second Britain election debate is that Gordon Brown cannot win because Nick Clegg's presence hurts him. David Cameron looked good, but I don't think he has sealed the deal but I thin that he helped by Clegg in he same way that John Edwards helped Obama during the Democratic primaries debates by reminding voters that how much they want change and that Brown is the status quo. Alex Massie has an interesting take on the debate. His conclusion is that Gordon Brown won narrowly. Massie is too close to the trees to realize that for Brown to win, he has to be better than both Cameron and Brown, Cameron only has to be better than Brown, and Clegg is the wild card for he is trying to convince the Brits to go against their history by trusting him enough to vote for him, which means remaing both fresh and steady. 

Out of touch

I'm not a Brit, but I am still appalled by how out of touch Lord Pearson, of the United Kingdom Independence Party, is.(via) What is he doing on TV?  That's the kind of people, smart operatives keep in the background especially when there is an election going on.

Philosophy and politics

Julian Baggini on philosophy and politics:

In many ways, the disconnect between politics and philosophy is neither surprising nor unhealthy. Real politics is a messy business of compromise and coalition; political philosophy the scrupulously tidy task of conceptual clarification and justification. Nevertheless, there should be some interplay between the two: the pragmatics of the real can be guided by visions of the ideal, and vice-versa.

I' less comfortable than Baggini with the idea that politics and philosophy are disconnected because it makes the former being about everything but thought and substance

New Europe as a self-satisfying delusion

Another proof that Mary Dejevsky lives in another world:

New Europe was the neat formula coined by Donald Rumsfeld in aid of the Bush administration's war effort. The "old Europeans" disliked and derided it, as it suggested that Europe was more divided over the Iraq invasion than it actually was. But they could never deny its grain of truth. There was indeed a split between those who signed up to the Bush crusade for democracy in foreign parts – not least because of their recent history – and those who saw the same campaign as a misuse of military might.
But that was then. Now that Poland and Russia are making up, East and Central Europe have lost their appetite for fighting US wars, and the Obama administration is eschewing the whole idea of special relationships, it could be time to lay this irritating concept to rest. Six years after the European Union completed its greatest single expansion, the divisions are neither as sharp nor as resentful as they were.
Even as "new" Europe blends with the old, however, could it be that a new breed of rather different "new" Europeans may be arising in that least likely of places, here in Britain? There are reasons to doubt, but suddenly, too – for us pro-European dinosaurs – to hope.

My reaction this paragraph and to Dejevsky's article is that pro-Europeans like too much the politics of hope instead of dealing with the reality, the fact that inadequate institutions and the lack of ambition, of pragmatism, of political courage and the refusal to acknowledge that countries have different interests is crippling the European Union. The point is that Eurocrats like Dejevksy like fantasies, grand ideas because they make them what I'm started to believe they like to be: optimistic dreamers instead of being builders and leaders. It seems clear to me that Dejevsky is enamored with the idea of "new Europeans"  who will do what their elders couldn't  because it is an empty dream that doesn't cost her anything or rather require nothing more than hopefulness. Ah, if life were that easy, I would have already capitulated to Obamania!

Europe hearts Nick Clegg

Pertinent assertion from Tony Barber:

(...) as Clegg rides high in the polls, Europe has a big beaming smile on its face - but it is doing its best to hide it, for fear that British voters spot it and punish Clegg accordingly.

I wonder if all this focus on Nick Clegg isn't going to halt his improbable march to Downing Street.

David Cameron and Nick Clegg as Children of privilege

Interesting, but not surprising point from Sholto Byrnes for media coverage and biases depends on likability and other fluffy criteria such as as attractiveness and friendliness to the press:

Two of the three party leaders are the sons of financiers, attended major public schools and then went to Oxbridge. Both have aristocratic connections and high-powered, high-earning wives. Yet only one, David Cameron, is portrayed as the child of privilege, while none of the "revelations" about Nick Clegg – that Louis Theroux was his fag at school, that his grandmother was a Russian baroness, or that his family owns a chateau in France – stop many, including even a Daily Telegraph columnist, from depicting him as an "ordinary bloke".

Media coverage in political elections is always unfair and even often outrageously bias when what is important and even critical is the personality of the candidates. One only has to be reminded of the press coverage that Al Gore got in the 2000 American presidential election (Bush got favorable coverage because he was friendly to journalists and even had pet names for them) and the one of Hillary Clinton who was considered to be unsympathetic to the press got while Obama was glorified.

Nick Clegg as the new Princess Di

Interesting stuff from Iain Martin on the new hysteria around Nick Clegg:

But similarly to Diana, hailing from the English aristocracy, Clegg is a creation of the political class he wants to shake up. Remember, Clegg is a professional politician who, after Westminster and Cambridge, was schooled by the Brussels elite. He then became an MEP and an MP. He is a rebel only in that he wants to smash the system and rebuild it so that it operates in his favor, but he has much in common with the opponents he attacks.
Like Diana in death, Clegg is now also beyond criticism — which entrenches his new popularity. The two leaders of the main parties are petrified of being seen as being unfair to “Nick.” They fear looking mean and out of step with these dramatic shifts in public opinion. If they attack him directly, they vindicate his claim that the two big parties are scared of their duopoly being challenged and are getting desperate. If they treat him with more respect, he continues to grow in stature.
In a sense, however, it’s not really about Nick Clegg — charming bloke though he is. He got himself, brilliantly, in the right place at the right time. But he’s just the vehicle.

For some reasons, the more I read articles comparing Clegg to Princess Di to make the point that he is a lightweight or no worthy to be prime minister, the more I hope that he win because it is transforming the British election into a pop event since politics, substance seem to be overlook by the fluff and he anxiety of he many over why might happened if Nick Clegg happened.

The British media and Cleggophilia

Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, responding to the fact that Nick Clegg has become a media darling and that some polls put him ahead of the Tories and Labor:

I am certain that the Tories will win, and that the current fantasy of a Liberal Democrat resurgence is the biggest load of media-driven nonsense since the funeral of Diana.

Johnson might be right. I'm wondering if the Brits are risk-takers and therefore willing to take a chance on Nick Clegg. I know that neither Americans nor the French would even if they were convinced that a third party candidate of the presidency was the best for the job. They would find a way convince themselves that their country couldn't deal with political uncertainty, that their system of government was the best in spite of its imperfections and that therefore they shouldn't break it by trying something/someone new.

Liking Nick Clegg

I've just finished watching the UK election debates; as most pundits, I ended up liking Nick Clegg. Nick Robinson shares my views on this manner and expresses them better than I could:

Politically it is the emergence of Nick Clegg as a serious player in this election which will prove to be most significant. The Liberal Democrat leader was given a great opportunity to introduce himself to the millions of voters who scarcely knew him and he took it with gusto.
The question is whether instant polls suggesting that he "won" the debate can be converted into increased support for his party. If so, what matters is where will that support come from.
With a hung parliament a very real possibility and with many voters saying that they like the idea of parties working together the Lib Dems are certain to find themselves wooed, attacked and scrutinised with renewed vigour.

I feel uneasy about the fact that I liked Nick Clegg because I don't know much about the Liberal Democrats (his party) and don't trust his shtick about the other guys been bad and him being fresh, new, and thus, the only one capable of bringing change to the Brits and Britain, it reminds me too much of Obama. In any case, the reason why I need more from Clegg is that I'm aware that my attraction to him as a candidate is also a product for the fact that I don't trust Brown and disagree with Cameron. Having Clegg would be a way to escape a untenable dilemma, which I'm sure many Brits feel which was to do when you don't like two main parties candidates and that the political history of your country tells you that voting Clegg may just bring unnecessary chaos to a nation that doesn't need it. 

I'm happy that I don't to vote.

Immigration and prosperity

Interesting point from Alex Massie on the issue of immigration and the British election:

Immigration is one of the reasons why, despite everything, the United States' long-term position is likely to be healthier than, say, Japan's. In the British context this does indeed mean this small island is going to have to become more crowded. And there will be costs associated with that.

This isn't a good argument (it may not be meant to be) for immigration. iI presents it as the sole way to achieve long term prosperity and therefore dehumanizes immigrants by giving them the requirement/the j.o.b to be as useful as cattle. Telling people that they have no alternative than to accept immigrants in their country may be true, but it encourages tensions, clashes and the tendency to judge the value of an immigrant solely in economic terms while requiring her/him to do her/his job and to shut up.

Mums in politics

Quote of the early morning from Libby Purves decrying the role that mothers play in politics or rather in political elections.

Face it: parenthood is an extreme mind-altering drug, and those in its strongest grip should not be invited to swamp the political and economic argument any more than bankers, business leaders or trade unions. It is fatally easy to think of mothers, in particular, as saintly altruists sacrificing everything for their children, and therefore guarding all the virtues. But any honest mother (or properly involved father) knows deep down that it is not disinterested goodness or reason that fires us in the early years. It is what you might call transferred selfishness.

Britan, America, and the rowdy relationship

Quote of the day from Bruce Anderson:

There are problems with the Americans. Because they have not spent the last millennium in a conflict-ridden continent, crammed up against potentially hostile neighbours, they have only been fitfully interested in diplomacy. They are so big that they sometimes dispense with allies in favour of global solipsism. But almost every President comes to recognise that this is not enough. At some point he wants friends and discovers we British not only speak the same language. We tend to think in the same way. We are more likely than anyone else to provide tea, sympathy and troops.
But it is never a tranquil partnership.

Curry as the positive aspect of immigration

Here is Nick Griffin's answer, the Chief of Britain far right party, the BNP the British National Party)  to put things mildly, to the question put to me by Iain Dale about the positive side of immigration:

Well, a wide range of curries is a plus. But there again, I've got the recipes.

I'm not appalled, just reassured that I'm right not to take Griffin seriously for he reminds me of Ann Coulter. He has a backbone or a little bit of political culture, he would have put things differently, Neither Geert Wilders nor Jean-Marie Le Pen, who are as far right as Nick Griffin, would have given that answer. In short, Nick Griffin is a clown.

Rehabilitating Child killers

I agree with Julian Baggini on this:

(...) when we ask how much we should try to rehabilitate child killers, for instance, it is wrong to think that forgiveness should be the key motivation. It is not for the legal system to forgive. Justice in such cases is rather about giving the right answers to four main questions. First, were the killers sufficiently responsible for their actions for us to regard retribution as of primary importance? Second, would prioritising rehabilitation threaten public safety? Third, would prioritising rehabilitation weaken deterrence against similar future crimes? And four, would rehabilitation actually work?
The best reasons we have for thinking that the Norwegians dealt with their child killers better than we did with the Bulger killers is because the answers to these questions in most such cases is no, no, no and yes. It has nothing to do with forgiveness being a superior virtue. To prioritise the rehabilitation of violent criminals who knew what they had done and posed a danger to the public just because we thought it good to forgive them would be a terrible mistake. More than that: it would be unforgiveable.

Unfortunately, most societies, most notably, the United States aren't Norway and believe less in rehabilitation even for child killers than in punishment and retribution because they were born bad and that there is nothing that society can do except protect itself from them.

Multiculturalism and diversity

Kenan Malik on the differences between multiculturalism and diversity:

The irony of multiculturalism as a political process is that it undermines much of what is valuable about diversity as lived experience. When we talk about diversity, what we mean is that the world is a messy place, full of clashes and conflicts. That's all for the good, for such clashes and conflicts are the stuff of political and cultural engagement.
(...)Multiculturalism, on the other hand, by reposing political problems in terms of culture or faith, transforms political conflicts into a form that makes them neither useful nor resolvable. Rather than ask, for instance, "What are the social roots of racism and what structural changes are required to combat it?" it demands recognition for one's particular identity, public affirmation of one's cultural difference and respect and tolerance for one's cultural and faith beliefs.
Multicultural policies have come to be seen as a means of empowering minority communities and giving them a voice. In reality such policies have empowered not individuals but "community leaders" who owe their position and influence largely to their relationship with the state. Multicultural policies tend to treat minority communities as homogenous wholes, ignoring class, religious, gender and other differences, and leaving many within those communities feeling misrepresented and, indeed, disenfranchised.

Britain's brand of multiculturalism has failed because it placed at its center the cult of diversity and thus sacralized differences in the name of culture and of religion making moral judgments difficult and segregation/sectarianism unavoidable. I'm uncomfortable with drawing sharp distinctions between Britain's multiculturalism and diversity because  in the mind of too many those two concepts have merged. Nowadays, people who argues fanatically for diversity are in fact doing so  by categorizing people, by hierarchizing particularities, and thus deciding which ones ought to more important than others. The trouble with both multiculturalism and diversity as they are commonly understood is that they lead to desindividualization. People are forced to identity with a group of people in order to matter and to avoid marginalization because identity politics is the most potent form of politics.
To put things more simply, the only acceptable multicultural society is one, which sees that people as individuals, not as member of a group/community/whatever else and recognizes that culture and particularities are never legitimate justifications for the erosion of the social compact and the unjustifiable.

'Muslim' hearts and minds

Flashy,  but problematic assertions from Roger Hardy

Much of the talk about winning Muslim "hearts and minds" is shallow and misguided. The issue is often seen, especially in the United States, as a matter of public relations – as if America has an image problem in the Muslim world, and dollars can buy it a better one. Or it is seen, in a facile way, as a matter of bolstering "good Muslims" while clobbering "bad Muslims". Without a surer grasp of Islamism and its discontents, the battle for Muslim hearts and minds will be lost.

What bugs me about Hardy's assertions is that they are full of air and not much else because he tied together awkwardly and dangerously the issue of discontent with the so-called West and its foreign policies and the one of "identity." Talking about Muslim hearts and minds is as dumb as talking about a "western" identity for we know that an American is different than a French and has different sensibilities. The point is that too many people tend to homogenize groups of people when they want to make an ideological and grand point that fits their world-view, but does not reflect the realities. In short, I'm rebelling here against the notion that "Muslims" are so different from other people that policy makers trying to appease tensions and address apprehensions while dispelling misunderstandings should forget about the simple fact that people just hate being stripped of their individuality and being told that they matter less than anybody else because of something that they haven't chosen. It seems to me that by claiming that Islamism is different and misunderstood, Roger Hardy just reinforces the old and dangerous stereotypes that values and reality are relative and that some people are allowed to be barbarian and that the rest of the world should accept it.  What bothers is that Roger Hardy would never make the same point about Christian fundamentalism and that's the problem.

Feminized politics

Quote of the morning from Cristina Odone:

Politicians once needed to prove their trustworthiness, efficiency, authority. Apparently these days they need an emotional hinterland to appeal to voters. The quickest way to achieve this is a picture op with a woman they love (wife, mum, sis, anything but mistress will do)

Psychologizing Sarkozy's love life

I'm not touching this bit from Duncan Brown on Sarkozy's sex life, but it's interesting because it offers a different read of the gossip around Sarkozy's marriage who for once must thinking his lucky start that he is not an American president:

When his last marriage to the long-suffering Cecile broke down, Nicolas Sarkozy was attacked over his lack of “pudeur” (a word part-way between shame and modesty) as he pandered to the press: an Anglo-American tactic that went against the grain of the Fifth Republic’s Catholic origins.
However, all the French coverage of the recent alleged Bruni/Sarkozy dalliances isn’t necessarily a sign of the French media becoming more like the British in its appetite for celebrity scandal. Rumours that Sarkozy’s liaison with his ecology minister has been invented to salvage his reputation as a “sex dwarf” (in the face of being cuckolded by his man-eating wife) point to an undiminished gulf between French and English attitudes to sex.
We have no concept of the chaud lapin: the very idea of a prime minister sleeping with a member of his cabinet would make English blood run cold. But for the French, such news can be bundled together with Bruni’s liaison as “extramarital affairs” as a face-saving measure. Meanwhile, the English-speaking internet resounds to a dwarf joke about Sarkozy that David Cameron made in September. We’re not identical yet.

Political wives as campaign tools

I agree with Justin McKeating on this:

f you are the sort of person who approves of, or allows their voting preference to be swayed even a little by, the interventions in our electoral process by the wives of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, you are a moron who should be interned until after the general election.
Insulting the country’s intelligence by wheeling out the wife seems to be a political tactic for all scenarios. Gordon Brown is seen as too serious by voters so the solution is to push out his wife to say nice things about him. David Cameron is seen as not serious enough by voters so the solution is to push out his wife to say nice things about him. The meagre amounts of dignity and self-respect on display are such you wouldn’t be surprised to see the two leaders being dropped off at the televised election debates by their mums.

Unfortunately, the use of political wives as campaign tools is worse in American politics for Americans need to believe that only good family men/women make good politicians even though their history shows that it isn't true. The point is that political wives are their husband's best accessory, sometimes that he has to show to show voters that he is a good moral man who loves his wife and his family even though we know that good people don't make good politicians and leaders.  

Volapük

I've always said that Sarkozy was as good with words as Obama, just in a different way, this proves my point:

The French president, complaining about negotiations leading up to last December's UN climate summit, said world leaders had been handed a draft text "similar to volapük."
Even native French speakers were stumped by this one, and some at first thought he said "vol a Buc", or "flight to Buc," a small and obscure town near Paris that has no airport.
Better-versed minds prevailed, and it turned out not only that Mr Sarkozy was making a nod to history and his hero. Volapük is a language invented in the late 19th century by a German Roman Catholic priest, Johann Martin Schleyer, who dreamt of creating a universal means of communication. His idea never really took flight and other international languages, such as Esperanto, emerged as more successful candidates. In French, "to speak volapük" was once used to denote gibberish or gobbledegook, but it was last used in any major context at a press conference in 1962 by General de Gaulle, who is revered by Mr Sarkozy.

Would it too condescending or too cynical of me to suggest that Sarkozy had no idea what Volapük meant until his advisers suggested that he used the word this morning to convey his mastering of the situation? It is amazing how language is important in politics especially when it is used either to elevate one self or to suggest that one is part of the common folk. Something tells me that Sarkozy is about to undergo another transformation just in time for his reelection 2012.

Bringing Congo to London

Great stuff from Jon Day:

The Congolese embassy, a shabby unassuming building at the insalubrious end of Gray’s Inn Road, is very different again. I used to go there regularly, on jobs from mining companies asking permission to get digging. Occasionally, I’d share the waiting-room with immaculately dressed Sapeurs, flamboyantly suited and booted fashionistas who’d wait in line clasping ornate canes and wearing Davey Crocket hats. More often than not, I’d be alone. But I’d often clock up an hour’s waiting while the correct stamp was being located, or the right person came back from lunch. I don’t know if any of the visas I subsequently delivered turned out to be fakes.
The embassy was set alight in 2007, in an arson attack allegedly perpetrated by supporters of Combattants de Londres, a group dedicated to preventing Congolese musicians who support Joseph Kabila from performing in Europe. Embassy staff were evicted from their homes in 2008 as no one had paid the rent. Ovens, clothing and furniture filled the embassy’s waiting room for months. The hallway leading into the building remains blackened by fire, and the burnt smell still lingered in the air the last time I was there.

Something is wrong with this reality, but I don't have the words to formulate it because I believe that it would be too painfully simple to say that we are uniquely the product of our environment.

Soliciting, gender and race

Cath Elliott and Thierry Schaffauser on the reason why soliticiting should be criminalis5a :

Criminalisation of soliciting is a sexist law and it's one that concerns all women, because any woman who goes out at night without being accompanied by a man can be suspected of soliciting. All women should have the right to occupy public and nocturnal spaces, legally, and without fear of harassment or violence.
Criminalisation of soliciting is also racist. It's frequently used, for example, to arrest migrant sex workers/prostitutes and deport them. Victims of trafficking deserve our protection; they should have the legal right to choose to live in the UK for as long as they want, and they should not face deportation back to countries where they run the risk of being re-trafficked by those who trafficked them here in the first place.
Soliciting shouldn't be an offence and it shouldn't be classified as antisocial behaviour. If society doesn't want sex workers/prostitutes working on the streets, then measures should be taken to provide those who are at risk of sexual exploitation with better economic options, routes out or professional reorientation, and harm-reduction help when they suffer drug and other addictions. Repression is never a solution: it only pushes those who are among the most vulnerable away into more remote and dangerous areas.

I have the strong suspicion that the arguments of Elliott and Schaffauser although they evoke both race and gender would never be listened to in the US because it is a religious country, which still views sex through a moral narrow prism, which for example why Tiger Wood is no longer the one.