Rob the Gob

Keeping things nice and simple massively benefits the Conservative party in political debate, and massively disadvantages everyone else. But it’s misleading, and, frankly, dangerous. The other parties have their faults and cynical strategies of their own, but the Conservative attitude – which I will here characterise as ‘nice and simple’ is particularly insidious and awful.

The received wisdom regarding political campaigning is ‘keep it simple’. It’s perhaps a slightly insulting attitude to take towards the intellect of the electorate, but insults are often more accurate than compliments, as is the case in this particular circumstance. People don’t take as much of an interest in politics as they should, and you simply don’t understand things if you don’t take an interest in them. Especially if it wasn’t rammed down your throat at school, which, in the case of growing up in Britain, it isn’t. Rather pathetically, it’s deemed to be ‘impolite’ to even discuss politics in Britain.

Keeping ‘the message’ simple works. Every party has to strike a balance between the complexity of the proposed solution and the depth to which the electorate understands the issues, for even if you are remarkably well-informed, it’s unlikely that you completely understand all the variables, and, anyway, there’s always a limit on the time that a politician has to explain themselves. There are other considerations, of course; if you haven’t already, you should probably read my piece ‘honesty, politics and the bloody weather’, below (http://theadversary.yellowgrey.com/uncategorized/honesty-politics-and-the-bloody-weather).

Yet, these considerations enormously benefit the parties to the ‘right’ (as difficult as it is to accept that outmoded distinction, it is, at least, descriptive of a group). Because they genuinely advocate simple solutions. The ‘left’ tend to be formed of parties that are formed in the understanding that political situations are subtle, complex things requiring subtle, complex solutions. In fact, the change in definition between ‘the left’ and ‘the right’ might well be best re-defined in that manner. The appalling lie at the heart of this is that it there is not a choice between simple and complex solutions – because simple solutions have complex consequences. Social and political issues are complicated. Given that they are formed from the interactions between the most complex things in the known universe – us – we should expect them to be. Which means that the parties that recognise this are at the disadvantage of living with that honesty – that they have to try and explain why it’s more complicated than the ‘right’ say it is.

But that’s not their only advantage in debates. There’s also ‘nice’. Which, unsurprisingly, perhaps, works at it’s best when you define it via negativa, by characterising ‘nasty’. Usually, without directly naming them for fear of controversy and bigotry. But do not think for a moment that the roots for this motivation lie in anything other than prejudice or fear. Simple solutions need a target group to blame and punish, and another to reward. Unsurprisingly, the Conservative party always want to try and make you feel like the ‘nice’ person they are defending. Someone in or at the edge of their core vote. Which, broadly speaking, are slightly above average in affluence, and highly conventional in lifestyle. ‘You are the nice people, and all your woes are not your fault. Your conventionalism is to be rewarded and praised. It is not your fault that your obedient behaviour is not reaping its proper reward, for you are virtuous. It is those others who are to blame, those who would hold us all back. They must be restricted in this unconventional behaviour, and punished for it, for they are villains, and a drain on us all.’

So – keep it simple and blame other people. It’s an appealing, successful attitude, but, like anything that exploits narrow-minded naivety and it’s hideously damaging.

This terrible structure works well even in relatively uncontroversial cases. For instance, ‘call me Dave’, when asked about the laws concerning people who enter you home recently said “We’d like to raise the threshold, to say unless the force you use is grossly disproportionate then you should have no fear from the law. Basically my view is if the burglar crosses your threshold they leave their human rights at the door.” Seems like a simple solution to help nice people, right?

The punch is the second sentence. No human rights? Really? Remember, this would be the policy to cover all circumstances. The first sentence, then, that’s there to make sure that we can still prosecute people if they do something truly awful. So, if a twelve-year-old girl breaks into someone’s house on a dare, the residents don’t have the right to, say, rape her to death. I can understand why ‘call me Dave’ would want to avoid that. However, it does seem to imply that, providing I’m a little frightened, I’m well within my rights to kill someone for trying to pinch my telly. Let’s just look at that again. Kill a person for trying to steal my television. Providing, of course, I’m not ‘grossly disproportionate’ in my use of force. So, no flamethrowers, then?

The situation is more complicated than it looks at first sight, but because we see a vision of a ‘nasty’, ‘dangerous’ person breaking into a ‘nice’, ‘caring’ person’s house as soon as any kind of burglary is mentioned does not mean that it couldn’t possible occur the other way around. But ‘call me Dave’s answer seems reasonable at first. It will be popular. Despite making it legally fine to lie in wait with a shotgun for the (admittedly annoying, but hardly villainous) 12-year-old-boy who keeps pinching your gnomes because he thinks it’s funny – providing, of course, you can convince the court that he gave you a bit of fright and you were worried for the lives of your family. Essentially, by being ‘simple’ and appealing to ‘nice’ people, he could end up legitimising something I’d call ‘child murder’. Fortunately for us, we have the European Court of Human Rights to help limit attitudes like this. For now.

But perhaps the best illustration of this is the arbitrary cap on immigration that the Conservatives propose. It fulfils both criteria ideally. In fact, more than simply endorsing the view that there is a group which isn’t ‘you’ which is to blame –immigrants, in this case – it also appeals, by implication, to outright bigots. And it’s a simple, reasonable-sounding solution. ‘We’ll take this many and no more.’ But it’s rubbish. For a start, if they were trying to apply it to EU citizens, it would be illegal. Of course, it couldn’t possibly be applied to illegal immigrants, as they wouldn’t appear on the records. If the cap were applied largely to student visas, our university system would fall apart – they are, after all, one of the primary sources of funding for our higher educational institutions. And if there was a skills shortage, say, in the NHS, and the cap had already been reached, it would be ludicrous to claim that we shouldn’t allow any more doctors to come to work here. And it would be utterly, inhumanly, disgracefully immoral to apply it to people genuinely in need of asylum.

Essentially, given a moment’s thought, it’s ridiculous.

But it will get them votes. Because it’s a simple solution to problem that allows voters to blame someone else for their woes.

Similarly, claiming that you should re-distribute money to fund an inheritance tax break for the wealthy when you are going to have to bring in strong austerity measures is awful. Funding a tax break for married couples is so old-fashioned you can smell the tweed, but it appeals to their core voters in a nice, simple way. Nice people get married. We should reward that. Get’s a clap from ‘nice’ married couples every time. Yet the fact that the money to fund that is likely to come from the child trust funds – a great idea that helps children regardless of what their parents do – is, frankly, a bloody disgrace. Who are the implied ‘nasty’ people here? Unmarried people. Especially unmarried parents. By a roundabout means, then, the Conservatives are having a crack at their old favourite hate figures, single mothers. Their ‘3 strikes’ benefit policy is another clear example, clearly demonising all unemployed people as lazy freeloaders, but that policy is clearly hideously unfair after a moment’s analysis, especially when compared to the plans of the other two major parties. I could go on, and I’m sorely tempted to. But I will leave you in peace soon. Just a couple more thoughts.

The kings of blaming other people and coming up with simplistic, unworkable solutions with little thought to their moral consequences are the far right. People like the BNP. People on the ‘far right’. Like the Conservative’s allies in Europe.

The Conservative party are patronising you, and hiding their real interests behind this ‘nice and simple’ veneer. If you want to know their real motivations, and whose interests they really serve, you need only look at their tax policies. And here’s why the Conservative party are, in many ways the most dishonest and awful of all of the parties on the right – they don’t have the excuse of ignorance. They are all well-educated, well-informed people. More so than any other party, in fact. Which means that they know the consequences of what they are suggesting. Which means that they are misleading people as a whole in order to serve the minority groups they represent.

People want things to be simple. They also want to feel that they are the nice ones. Unfortunately, wanting something true doesn’t make it so. And saying that that’s your standard doesn’t either. You see, regardless of how you vote next week, the chances are, you aren’t the ‘nice’ people that these ‘simple solutions’ are going to serve. Because their definition shifts to suit whatever they want it to protect the core interests they serve. And, unless you are one of the tiny minority who the Conservatives do serve (in which case, there’s a high probability that you are a member of, or a donor to, the party), you’ve just allowed them to convince you that they are.