Behold the Master of Cod Psychology

Ian Duncan Smith (pictured), keen to have a party role after his dismal attempt at party leadership, established for the Conservatives the curiously named 'Social Justice Policy Group'.

"Why is a right-wing Tory proclaiming the need to give social justice to the poor and working classes," said many...er... Tories. Well, they need not have feared. The title is a complete misnomer; it could be more accurately termed, the Clinging-to-the-Notion-of -an-Ideal-Society-which-only-existed-in-John-Mills-films-in-the-1950s Group.

The SJPG published their report on the 'Broken Society' seemingly for the third time today. IDS saw the publication as "timely" given the current case of the highly distressing death of Baby P in Haringey. But he chose the timing and so is putting party politics where it does not belong. Cameron's shameful bellowing of incorrect 'facts' about the case at PMQs last week did not underline his reasonable concern but brought shame on the Commons. Even Speaker Mick Martin's dignified appeals were ignored,"it is not good, at a time when we have heard this news about a little child who has gone before us, that we should be shouting across the Chamber."

IDS's report champions marriage as the great panacea to the nation's ills. Conservative policy at the next election is likely to include tax breaks for married people regardless of their level of income and none for the non-marrieds or for those with new unmarried partners termed disturbingly, "non-biological adults". Duncan Smith does not show any evidence how this discriminatory tax system would restore the marriage ideal. The report reads like a series of moral prejudices and mother's knee philosophy, employing some pretty disasteful terms such as, "black families" and "breeding."

It is an almost endless stream of generalist discrimination and suburban despair. For example, how's this for a sweeping statement, "it is no longer seen as a moral duty to look after ageing parents or blood relatives". Millions of carers up and down the country must be wondering to themselves why they spend so much effort looking after their mother, husband or child, if IDS is so sure their selfless committment is not derived from a sense of "moral duty".

IDS has always been somewhat removed from reality; his report paints a picture of English life disinfected from modern culture. The evangelical proposal to offer heroin addicts abstinence, rather than treatment, shows a total ignorance of the nature of drug dependence.

But IDS's unfamiliarity, if not disconnection, with human experience has been the hallmark of his political career. As leader, he behaved as if his considerable military experience would allow him to control his MPs like a battallion of compliant sappers. It did not - his 'loyal' troops de-frocked him with an unusual degree of alacrity, even for Tories. To put the failure of his 2001-3 leadership into context, he was only the second Conservative leader (after Neville Chamberlain) to be dumped without even contesting a General Election.

Iain's new role allows him to throw himself into 'people' issues and mix with minorities with a certain gauche enthusiasm - a bit like a Latin prep master 'getting down' to a Calypso at school assembly.

He's the kind of person who is the last to get the joke, if he gets it at all. His final billetting in the army was as bag-carrier to Lord (Christopher) Soames, last Governor of Rhodesia. Soames detested IDS's relentless sobriety and took to calling him, "Iain Drunken Smith," to which Captain Smith would reply meekly, "But, Sir, I've told you, I don't drink."

The only memorable quotation IDS contributed to political life was, "never underestimate the determination of a quiet man". For now, I wish he'd just shut up.

Did you stay up for Virginia?

It's just not possible to continue this blog without considering the election of Barack Obama on Tuesday night. I had 'done the numbers' as they say over there and could see Obama was going to win five or six red states and end up with about 350 electoral college votes. My confidence in Obama's victory was unwavering; other commentators talked of the 'McCain bounce' and 'Bradley effect'. Although I had been certain of his victory, when Obama finally spoke as President elect in Chicago's Grant Park, the prospect of his Presidency suddenly came as a shock.

Most candidates with progressive, liberal credentials are invariably eliminated before they even get a whiff of any Presidential election. Let alone one with black skin. When you think of Bush (either one), Reagan or Carter you don't think of them in any way as intellectual. Americans may not be generally very class conscious but they do hate to feel threatened by intelligentsia. This guy's a professor. He's more like a European ideal of what a US President should be. Or a Hollywood version.

Let's not forget his story. Obama's stint as a volunteer community organiser in the tough end of Chicago in the '80s was much derided by that parochial patsy, Governor Sarah Palin. Except these simple 'people' skills translated to the national stage, meant he organised about 8 million more votes than the dismal Republicans. Obama's campaign was as disciplined and professional as McCain's was disreputable and chaotic. Eventually, the ever erratic McCain was reduced to parading a bald-headed Walter Mitty from the plumber's guild as a symbol of his supposed connection with the working man.

The zeitgeist for the Republicans is very similar to the Conservatives in 1997, so they haven't even reached bottom yet. Sidney Blumenthal, adviser to Clinton, put it succintly, follow this link.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/04/uselections2008-johnmccain

Obama's stated intention to return the country to the 1999 tax rates (before Bush gave $1.2Tn to the top 1% earners) was deemed 'socialist' or at times 'Marxist'. These pitifully transparent accusations belonged only at a Palin redneck rally but one interviewer even put them as serious points to Joe Biden. He treated them with the contempt they deserved.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=m3EkhDru23U&feature=related

Obama mixed-race heritage turned out to be a talisman rather than an albatross. The black vote was very motivated and allowed Obama to win in Virginia, Florida and North Carolina where vicious racism persists today. It is nothing short of a monumental political achievement.

*********************************

The coverage on the night was very mixed - CNN was the best with amazing vote analysis. The BBC 'roundtable' discussion, with Dimbleby in the chair, was the essence of restrained excitement - it was the equivalent of a kindly uncle turning up to cheer his nephew's debut for the first XV.
MSNBC intermittently switched to commentary on the latest swings in the Tokyo markets: it seemed incredible, at such a pivotal moment, anyone could be distracted by such tiresome trivia. It's like in a betting shop when they interupt the Derby coverage to give the result of some dog race at Walthamstow.
Fox News were predictably muted and begrudging - while desperate to avoid praising Obama, they spent an inordinate amount of time discussing Michelle Obama's dress. ITV's technology wouldn't work and the pompous Alistair Stewart kept referring to McCain and Obama as 'Mr' instead of 'Senator'. Sky were inexplicably based in New York; one can only assume all the hotels in DC were booked up.

One great moment was on CNN when they were trying to establish one defining reason for Obama's win from the serried ranks of experts.

"Not taking public funding gave him overwhelming advertising resources".

"Democrats always benefit in tough economic times."

In the middle sat the rotund, genial figure of William Bennett, former education Secretary under Reagan. He looked stupified by their observations and impatiently shouted over them, "It's the candidate! The candidate! This is one incredible candidate with a phenomenal ability to communicate with today's America. It's all about Obama." At least one Republican gets it.

Anything you can't do

Jacqui Smith still has a long way to becoming the worst Home Secretary in British history. But she's definitely making progress. Out on his own is still Reginald Maudling (left) whose deft handling of Northern Ireland included internment and Bloody Sunday (which he defended stoutly). He was eventually booted out by Ted Heath in 1972 when he was found to be 'eyebrows deep' in a corruption scandal over multi-million pound building contracts.

Jacqui has, of late, shown she has picked up some of the pure bluster and bold dogmatic idiocy of our Reg. Her Achilles heel appears to be her small-minded, self-certainty. A perfect example was her veto-ing of new Immigration Minister, the barely half-witted, Phil Woolas, from appearing on BBC's Question Time. After two weeks in the job, Woolas had shown little, if any, command of his brief and could only supply journos with tough-sounding but illogical statements on immigration.

Officially, she wanted a Minister with more experience of economic matters to be espousing the Government line and demanded Tony McNulty be Woolas's sub. Firstly, McNulty's expertise is police and security matters. Second, any Minister, indeed any guest, on Question Time is expected to be able to pontificate on any area of domestic policy or world affairs. Third, it is not for Home Secretaries to set the panel on political discussion programmes. The Beeb quite rightly told Jacqs they had editorial integrity to preserve and if she wanted an empty chair then so be it. As it was, Roy Hattersley stood in and showed them all how it's done: with patience and good humour.

It was only the next day, it was revealed the Home Office figures on violent crime had been fiddled to project a much more reassuring view of the risk of violence. Crime has certainly fallen significantly in ten years although the public's perception is the opposite. Any suspicion of creative counting by the Government on crime figures was bound to provoke a big press reaction. But even Jacqus was not quite ready for the Sun's banner headline in 160 point letters, "GBH: Grievous Bloody Hypocrisy."

Ms Smith's has put in a consistently amateurish display in recent weeks. Her response to the Lords' thrashing of the 42-days detention clause by almost 200 votes was poor by her own very low standards. But to shout from the dispatch box, "I, for one, take the issue of security seriously," when many of those who opposed it were former senior officers in the security services, was pretty shameful stuff.

On Tuesday, Jacqui was up in front of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights to answer for her speech. Senior Tory MP, Richard Shepherd, could not easily hide his contempt for Ms Smith, particularly as the 'softies' on terrorist included his pal Lord (Peter) Carrington, ex-Foreign Sec and veteran of the D-Day landings. "Why are you as Home Secretary making assertions like this in an important speech?" bellowed Shepherd. "It is an incredible position for a very new home secretary to launch into an attack on people who have been protecting our liberties for a very long time". Her own side called her views merely, "trenchant" while others plumped for the more apt, "offensive."

She made a feeble attempt at defence but had only the refuge of party politics to protect herself with. "My comments specifically were aimed at opposition parties who despite having numerous attempts to engage in a process of bringing us to a consensus has failed to move one jot throughout the whole of the process," she opined. Lord Onslow said she was confusing consensus with people not agreeing with her. Certainly true, but Jacqui Smith also mistakes robust defence with obnoxious arrogance. Just like old Reg.

Don't you forget about me

It's been an amazing year for Cameron. The only major activity his party has engaged in, is publishing six very general policy discussion documents from which one could derive almost any manifesto. And yet the Conservatives have moved from a 10-point deficit last September to a long-established 20-point lead. How do those polls make the smug egotists of his inner Cabinet (Osbourne, Maude, Hague and Gove) feel? Their ears must glow hot in anticipation of their Ministerial briefs and travelling the world as team Cameron.

The problem with Cameron, as Alistair Campbell says in every public utterance, is he's done nothing to earn such a 'winning lead'. Brown's woeful display as PM has been the entire reason for Dave's illusory popularity. Now Brown is enjoying a very good war in the City there has been a minor panic in Tory ranks as their lead rapidly comes under threat.

So it was pure ego and selfism which inspired Cameron to stand up at the crack on Friday morning at Bloomberg's to ditch the days old agreement to support Govt action through the market crisis. (I watched Cameron decrying Brown's disastrous economic management while FTSE flashed above him showing a rise of 400 points that morning.)

Politics is like comedy - timing is everything. Early Friday morning is a really poor time to chose for hitting the news and the weekend papers so it was a bad tactic. But it's a poor strategy too to be shouting, "listen to what I think," when the economic storm is still raging. It's certainly too early to start taking lots of long-term decisions on the resolution. And Cameron will have to eat platefuls more humble pie than even John McCain when it comes to his previous utterances on de-regulation. Haven't seen much of free-marketeer John Redwood lately. It was only two weeks ago, he told Tory conference in Government, they would, "repeal 54 different pieces of regulation in our first de-regulation bill".

Cameron's argument, Britain should have followed the example of responsible conservatism like ex-Australian PM John Howard, is specious. Australia's relatively stable position is almost entirely derived from selling collossal amounts of raw materials to China. We'll see how they fare as global recession bites this year and next. First Secretary to the Treasury, Yvette Cooper put it well when she said, Cameron has been engaging in "juvenile political games".

Cameron's speech was obviously rushed, it must have been to contain excrutiating lines such as, "we need to do far better in bringing into everyday use technologies that are still in laboratories and developing in the laboratory technologies that haven’t even been thought of yet." Wise words, eh Dave.

New opinion polls are expected in a day or two and Brown is bound to benefit from his 'bank managerial' calm through the crisis. Cameron doesn't like to include many 'grey beards' in his team. It shows more political immaturity and flashes of real arrogance that he cannot take criticism from those who have the experience he obviously lacks. At last, it is starting to show.

Yeah, Whatever

No-one could seriously suggest political speeches are as eloquent as they once were, even in recent history. In US politics, there has been an intense purge of the articulate; John McCain has even made a point of attacking Obama's eloquence. In Britain there is also an embarrassment about using expressive and literate phraseology. There has been an intellectual retreat into using business-like soundbites.

There is no better example than the abysmal over use of the words, 'whatever it takes.' It will have not escaped your notice Brown and Darling have been doing just that in an attempt, in economic terms, to plug the gaping hole in the dam. I've rather lost track of how many tens of Billions have been doled to whom and for what reason.

The use of "whatever it takes" is now pervasive; yesterday Harriet Harman standing in for Gord at PMQs said the Government would, "do whatever it takes to back up our small business sector". The implication of the phrase is a kind of emotional bluntness. HH was trying to say, 'I get how important this is and I want to demonstrate my absolute commitment to its resolution.' But she might as well have said, 'we'll be trying 200 percent'. Or add the ultimate in pathetic verbal gestures, "and I feel very strongly about it."

The words "whatever it takes" are also empty of purpose; they imply, there is no plan, no well-considered strategy, just a pledge to chuck resourses at a problem in the vain hope it goes away.

John F. Kennedy's eloquence easily eclipsed Obama's and its worth reminding yourself of a time when leaders were not scared to be expressive. Here's the link to his inaugural speech in 1961.

http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres56.html

If you read carefully you will notice within the speech JFK still says the equivalent of 'whatever it takes'. But in those days you would say something like," we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty". Present day speech writers would attack such lucidity with a red-pen demanding several re-writes. Nowadays if it can't be summarised in a three word headline, it's not considered worth saying.

Gordon's Best Speech that Day

The biggest cheer Brown got mid-speech in Manchester last week was when he said "My family are not props but people". The impromptu roar and over-the-head clapping from Ministers like Tony McNulty had me really puzzled. It was obviously a dig at Dave 'the Toff' Cameron. And how relieved were the troops to hear Gordon dare to have a pop. Except his point was totally fatuous. Cameron has allowed one or two shots of the normal 'Dave and the kids' in the market, on the beach. Certainly that staged shot with his wife Sam in Cornwall was pretty nauseous. But these pictures are not so commonplace so anyone could accuse him of exploiting his children's image - rather they show he has some appreciation of ordinary life. It's just with oodles of dosh in the bank he doesn't know anything of the stresses of a tight budget. And then I remembered this shot of Gord with his 'received smile' with wife and wee bairns. So the moral high ground was really no more than Gordon standing on tip-toe.

********************************************************************

What was the big message of the speech they were discussing in the pubs and clubs up and down this great land? Why the New Settlement of course. It has taken Brown and his coterie months to come up with a big idea and the result is instantly forgettable New Settlement. It's a kind of muddled and compromised version of the New Deal I suppose. Except it is only about the vague notion of 'fairness', long gone are those trotskyist principles of social justice and equality. Even a good policy announced on free nursery care for two year olds will take a yawning ten years to deliver. Atlee, Morrison and Bevan gave us the whole welfare state in five.

Overall it was a successful speech, well presented but ultimately lacking and vision for the voters. It was a bit like a good Premiership team who have had a rotten start to the season but then get a good win in the League Cup against Crewe Alexandra. "This could be the kick start to our season," opines the manager, when we all know relegation beckons. That looks certain even with a new manager.

And lead us not into an Election..

No, the picture, left, is not David Miliband estimating Labour's chances of re-election. In fact, his theme was, if anything, defying the fatalism of defeat. If he really believes that, he is not New Labour, he is Evangelical Labour.

'Brains's conference speech today was, as usual, totally bereft of any decent gags. You've got to pity the delegates; the poor buggers have been hard-arsing it in that conference hangar since Saturday morning with barely a good pun to cheer their spirits. The place looks strangely empty with banks of unused seating - there would probably be a better turnout if they put Mama Mia on instead.

Fortunately for everyone, Ministers have been instructed to limit their speeches to a mere six minutes. The downside is there no other option for them but to regale a list of bite-size soundbites.

Dave began by setting out his family's journey, as if it were the opening two minutes of "Who do you think you are?" The story of his Jewish grandfather being refused re-entry to the country in 1945 (he selfishly went to Belgium in search of his wife and child) reminded us immigration authorities have always employed plenty of officious pencil-necks.

But after the personal bit, everyone was looking for a sign, just a subtle hint of disloyalty or independence of spirit which would indicate his intention to move boldly against the PM. But no dice.

What did come was a personal commendation, " to you Gordon" thanking him for his great efforts in improving the world's aid budget. After so much recent in-fighting, Gordon found it impossible to take the compliment with any grace. Brown's tired and quietly resentful smile of 'appreciation' was like that of the amputee whose surprise present turns out to be a new pair of trainers.