Last week the co-leader of the New Zealand Parliamentary Green Party Dr Russel Norman, struck out at Prime Minister John Key and the National-led Government. I don't want to unintentionally misrepresent myself when I say that his attack was overwhelmingly dull and predictable. Political attacks of this sort and at this point in the electoral cycle are the bread and butter of opposition politics; the proverbial sword is unsheathed from now until the election. It was annoying to wait so long. But here after all the anticipation the attack by Dr Norman was uncharacteristically primitive, and such a disappointment.
The most soporific part was his invocation of the worn cliche that is comparing the current Prime Minister to the notoriously obstinate Sir Robert Muldoon. A similar comparison was drawn between Key's predecessor Helen Clark and Muldoon at about this time in her tenure (and continuing with increasing frequency until her defeat). This has become the cliche that stupid people can draw and respond to. Rather like comparing Margaret Thatcher to Caligula, or arguing in favour of the 'Presidentialisation' of Tony Blair. It is unlikely that Norman was after the National voter with his attack, nor was he going for any more of Labour's tepid support. His saccharine praises for David Shearer tell that much. He was merely appealing to his base and I argue that the fuel he used is cheap; his base easily satiated, and the Greens less formidable than they appeared earlier this year.
The reason the comparison with Sir Robert Muldoon is an unhelpful cliche, is that he was a Prime Minister with a vast array of buttons and leavers, to control the political system and the country. New Zealand had a statist face completely unrecognizable next to the face it wears today. Quite a few of the buttons and leavers Muldoon had at his disposal just don't work any more, many are absent altogether. Reliance on the picture of government thirty years ago is to critically misread the present narrative of politics. If a misapplication of the narrative informs the attack designated to appeal to the base, then both the attacker and the base are walking in the sunny transience of their own fantasy.
Thursday, 6 June 2013
Monday, 29 April 2013
The Iron Fault
Margaret Thatcher prided herself on her resolute consistency, a lady not for turning, a conviction politician with no time for consensus politics. In the realm of cabinet government, where authority is drawn from a majority in parliament, the ability of a leader to persuade those around them is of paramount importance. As Prime Minister one can get away with a certain amount of unilateral decision making, especially when it is junior ministers who disagree with you, but the ability of a leader to overrule senior ministers (especially the Chancellor of the Exchequer) has a short shelf life.
If the conclusion above is correct then how then did Margaret Thatcher remain in power for so long? The answer lies in one of the essential components of the Westminster system, a credible alternative government-in-waiting in opposition. After Callaghan's shaky minority Labour government fell in 1979, the party languished in fractious opposition for far too long. It put off modernization and remained committed to unpalatable socialism until Tony Blair re-branded it as New Labour after he took the leadership in 1994. Faced with such a jaundiced opposition the Falklands war gave Margaret Thatcher all she needed to win the 1983 and 1987 elections. She said after leaving the Commons that she intended to contest the 1992 election and retire about two years after that, which would have extended her tenure to nearly sixteen years. For someone who did not learn of the importance of persuasion and maintaining key supporters, this seems like a nonsensical ambition.
It is painfully obvious to all who study Westminster politics that the relationship between the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer can make or break the government. The struggle between Blair and Brown has become almost legendary, in New Zealand the falling out between David Lange and Roger Douglas sunk the fourth Labour government. Margaret Thatcher battled her Chancellor Nigel Lawson over joining the ERM and he eventually resigned in 1989. That event did not destroy her but it did deepen divisions within the Tory party and should have triggered a need for caution and rebuilding on the part of the Prime Minister. But she was so self-assured, so egotistical that she continued much as she had, patronizing cabinet colleagues and taking an increasingly hard line against Europe.
Geoffrey Howe was her first Chancellor, and longtime deputy Prime Minister, a senior and extremely respected member of the Tory party. He opposed her on European policy but for a long time remained in her government, bound by loyalty and a wish to get other work done. Margaret Thatcher could not persuade him that European federation was something to be resisted, and she could not change her mind, the lady's not for turning after all. Howe resigned on the 1st of November 1990 and delivered a speech from the backbenches on the 13th that fatally weakened Margaret Thatcher, providing the opportunity for Michael Heseltine to challenge her for the leadership. The conclusion to be drawn from this is obstinacy is damaging. Die hard principle is unsustainable as politics requires the give and take of war, in order to win a battle here, one may have to sustain a loss there. Never say never. Thatcher's downfall was only ever going to happen like it did because politics is ruthlessly Darwinian, if you threaten the system it will try to eliminate you. Thatcher forgot that.
If the conclusion above is correct then how then did Margaret Thatcher remain in power for so long? The answer lies in one of the essential components of the Westminster system, a credible alternative government-in-waiting in opposition. After Callaghan's shaky minority Labour government fell in 1979, the party languished in fractious opposition for far too long. It put off modernization and remained committed to unpalatable socialism until Tony Blair re-branded it as New Labour after he took the leadership in 1994. Faced with such a jaundiced opposition the Falklands war gave Margaret Thatcher all she needed to win the 1983 and 1987 elections. She said after leaving the Commons that she intended to contest the 1992 election and retire about two years after that, which would have extended her tenure to nearly sixteen years. For someone who did not learn of the importance of persuasion and maintaining key supporters, this seems like a nonsensical ambition.
It is painfully obvious to all who study Westminster politics that the relationship between the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer can make or break the government. The struggle between Blair and Brown has become almost legendary, in New Zealand the falling out between David Lange and Roger Douglas sunk the fourth Labour government. Margaret Thatcher battled her Chancellor Nigel Lawson over joining the ERM and he eventually resigned in 1989. That event did not destroy her but it did deepen divisions within the Tory party and should have triggered a need for caution and rebuilding on the part of the Prime Minister. But she was so self-assured, so egotistical that she continued much as she had, patronizing cabinet colleagues and taking an increasingly hard line against Europe.
Geoffrey Howe was her first Chancellor, and longtime deputy Prime Minister, a senior and extremely respected member of the Tory party. He opposed her on European policy but for a long time remained in her government, bound by loyalty and a wish to get other work done. Margaret Thatcher could not persuade him that European federation was something to be resisted, and she could not change her mind, the lady's not for turning after all. Howe resigned on the 1st of November 1990 and delivered a speech from the backbenches on the 13th that fatally weakened Margaret Thatcher, providing the opportunity for Michael Heseltine to challenge her for the leadership. The conclusion to be drawn from this is obstinacy is damaging. Die hard principle is unsustainable as politics requires the give and take of war, in order to win a battle here, one may have to sustain a loss there. Never say never. Thatcher's downfall was only ever going to happen like it did because politics is ruthlessly Darwinian, if you threaten the system it will try to eliminate you. Thatcher forgot that.
Tuesday, 16 April 2013
Farewell Baroness: Mourn or Shut-up
It was a sad moment when I learnt of Margaret Thatcher's death last week, sadder still when the leftist cynics from the backwaters of British obscurity cheerfully burned old newspaper clippings they had been saving since 1982, and anti-west whores like George Galloway babbled of their glee and made a fuss about the cancellation of this weeks Prime Minister's questions to make way for the funeral.
I can think of no word more appropriate than pathetic to describe the mewlings of such stuffy grudge holders. This is not to minimize the impact of Thatcherism on Britain's working class, but for these people to maintain such vehement outspoken loathing twenty two and a half years after the Iron Lady strode out of No. 10, is for them to convict themselves of a kind of stubborn selfishness that only exists in the developed world. How marvelous that Britain maintains a level of condition in society that allows people to remain off their rag about a leader after almost three decades, without sacrificing time and energy to put food on the table, or beer in their jugs. This perhaps gets at the core of their grumpy position, Thatcherism worked and Britain got richer and more powerful. It came at the expense of coal miners and industry north of London, the curmudgeons received the pain, for the gain of society as a whole. It is pathetic that these people do not accept their selfless suffering and move on, instead they judge it appropriate to disrupt and darken the farewell of an old woman who spent her life trying to make life in the UK better.
I have not written anything since the death of Margaret Thatcher. This wasn't by design or because I felt obliged to observe a mourning period and neither shave nor pick up a pen, I simply didn't feel I had anything of value to say. Quite apart from politics (I have given up trying to define my own political view) I admired Margaret Thatcher in a very general way. I was born in the final months of her Prime Ministership and I grew up in the Blair era. Like Tony Blair I suppose I have tremendous respect for Thatcher, her courage, and her personality (I suppose I am mirroring her by staying up most of the night to continue working with a scotch and soda by my side). I am not of the cohort who proclaim her as the last conviction politician, that being a glimpse of the pathetic fallacy by which people reduce history to myth-making. To me she is not at all superhuman, her success in politics being as much to do with other people as herself. At the end she was a shadowy figure, reduced by age and impediment to a cold and lonely place in retirement. The conceited curmudgeon's would not allow her to outlive the divisiveness of her government, it is my fervent hope that they allow the funeral the respect that they refuse to extend to the Iron Lady, and either mourn or shut-up.
I can think of no word more appropriate than pathetic to describe the mewlings of such stuffy grudge holders. This is not to minimize the impact of Thatcherism on Britain's working class, but for these people to maintain such vehement outspoken loathing twenty two and a half years after the Iron Lady strode out of No. 10, is for them to convict themselves of a kind of stubborn selfishness that only exists in the developed world. How marvelous that Britain maintains a level of condition in society that allows people to remain off their rag about a leader after almost three decades, without sacrificing time and energy to put food on the table, or beer in their jugs. This perhaps gets at the core of their grumpy position, Thatcherism worked and Britain got richer and more powerful. It came at the expense of coal miners and industry north of London, the curmudgeons received the pain, for the gain of society as a whole. It is pathetic that these people do not accept their selfless suffering and move on, instead they judge it appropriate to disrupt and darken the farewell of an old woman who spent her life trying to make life in the UK better.
I have not written anything since the death of Margaret Thatcher. This wasn't by design or because I felt obliged to observe a mourning period and neither shave nor pick up a pen, I simply didn't feel I had anything of value to say. Quite apart from politics (I have given up trying to define my own political view) I admired Margaret Thatcher in a very general way. I was born in the final months of her Prime Ministership and I grew up in the Blair era. Like Tony Blair I suppose I have tremendous respect for Thatcher, her courage, and her personality (I suppose I am mirroring her by staying up most of the night to continue working with a scotch and soda by my side). I am not of the cohort who proclaim her as the last conviction politician, that being a glimpse of the pathetic fallacy by which people reduce history to myth-making. To me she is not at all superhuman, her success in politics being as much to do with other people as herself. At the end she was a shadowy figure, reduced by age and impediment to a cold and lonely place in retirement. The conceited curmudgeon's would not allow her to outlive the divisiveness of her government, it is my fervent hope that they allow the funeral the respect that they refuse to extend to the Iron Lady, and either mourn or shut-up.
Thursday, 28 March 2013
A dry, boring, incompetent Speaker of the House
Since the installation of the Hon David Carter as Speaker of the House of Representatives, I have had a chance to listen, read, and consider his level of competence in the role. He succeeded Dr the Right Honorable Lockwood Smith (yes he really did insist on doctor coming before Rt Hon) and as many Parliament watchers expressed at the time, the shoes to be filled were large. The former Speaker chaired the house with humor balanced by a patriarchal piety. The crimson stripes on his black robes and his imposing stature gave him the ability to be intimidating without the need fore fire and brimstone bellowing. Furthermore he made a definite effort to push Ministers for an answer, he took standing orders seriously, and this was to the benefit of question time.
Speaker Carter on the other hand is dry as the last summer, catastrophically boring, with a selective ear discerning statements that bear little resemblance to what is reflected in the hansard. Concerning standing orders and the rules of the house he has an almost bottomless deficit, the extent to which he pushes for answers is allowing the question to be repeated. Addressing questions rather than answering them seems to be the way now. He has a comic fear of disturbance, cutting off members when they start to say something witty, something Lockwood allowed periodically knowing it was better if the house lets of steam once in a while.
It may be to the governments benefit that the new Speaker is such a dunce, even though for the moment the Prime Minister can run rings around David Shearer and the uncomfortably flat Labour party. The rest of his government is taking hits, Phil Goff thoroughly embarrassed Chester Burrows who was answering on behalf of the Police Minister, about the closing of several Auckland stations. While Key is popular (and he is likely to remain so until the election) and the Opposition Leader is so verbally strained, question time is likely to be unremarkable. But once the inevitable dissatisfaction becomes evident to pollsters, the Prime Minister will be glad to have a Speaker who won't push him to take account, and answer questions.
Friday, 22 March 2013
Review of Christopher Hitchens 'Mortality'.
On December 15, 2011 renowned intellectual and writer Christopher Hitchens died in Houston, yet another among millions to succumb to "a vulgar little tumor", as he liked to characterize his particular malignancy.
Stage four oesophageal cancer diagnosed is June 2010 as he was in the cut and thrust of promoting Hitch-22, his best selling memoir. The Vanity Fair columns he penned in the hope of demystifying 'the big C', were collected into a short volume Mortality which had been the intention of Hitchens to be considerably longer, but which he did not see completed. The resulting work is a fascinating look at the process of "livingly dying", in his words. An intellectual journey into the banal machinations of terminal illness, the erudite mind struggling to express itself through ossified vocal cords, and numb fingers.
Hitchens sought to demystify cancer, or at least reduce its power to inspire terror in would be sufferers, and solipsism in those it infects. He certainly spared the reader no illusion, in his writing the anxiety is palpable, there is no attempt at dressing up or playing with the guilt of the healthy. He trashes the late Randy Pausch for taking advantage in this way in his book and film The Last Lecture. Terminal illness is not something to make a pious play out of, and in communicating his gnawing fear at becoming boring, his frustration at being unable to summon the familiar boom of his resonant voice. He also writes of the curious connection he feels with the language of the medical staff, and his famous experience of torture (he wanted to know whether waterboarding was torture and after going through it at the hands of former navy seals, he admitted it most certainly was).
The issue of religion and his staunch abhorrence of it was certainly touched upon in the first part of the book. Any suggestion of a death bed conversion was eviscerated by his argument that it makes absolutely no logical sense to say to someone that since they are in the grips of an immanent demise they might want to renege on the values and principles of a lifetime. To the outspoken evangelists who said they were praying for him, he wondered: "Praying for what?" To the thousands of ardent believers who organised a prayer day, he extended his blessing insofar as "pray if it makes you happy". In one chapter he fully ridicules the practice of intercessory prayer, "please do not trouble deaf heaven with your bootless cries."
Through all, Christopher Hitchens held no personal illusions about his illness. He knew precisely why he had been afflicted by this particular malignancy, a redoubtable constitution that enabled him to consume immense quantities of alcohol, and maintain a heavy smoking habit. Burning the candle at both ends to produce a "lovely light" and fuel the conversation and writing that made the Hitch, well the Hitch. Holding that all of life is indeed a wager, Hitchens decided to wager on this particular bit, and the cancer which killed him at 62, also killed his father at the rather more ripened age of 79. Dismissing questions of "why me" as silly and self-evidently nonsensical to an intellectual, Mortality avoids the pit of solipsism as much as it reaches the crest of being a beautiful final conversation with an author who writes in a way that the reader feels personally addressed.
The final part before the loving afterword by Hitchens wife Carol Blue, contains a revealing yet fragmented spluttering of sentences and paragraphs Christopher Hitchens left unfinished before his passing. They indicate through the haze of tubes and medications the razor-blade mind of the Hitch remained sharp to the very end. Through this I feel that if my life is not suddenly blown out before I come to terms with the situation, and I am taken by paramedic ambassadors across the border from the country of the well to the stark frontier of the land of malady, as Hitchens wrote in his first column about his illness, I at least have a kind of guide. Not specifically a travel book telling me where to stop, eat, and sleep; but rather an example of how to approach the ultimate frontier. Christopher Hitchens was not so much concerned with dying with dignity, but dying livingly, a lesson as we both live and die ourselves.
Stage four oesophageal cancer diagnosed is June 2010 as he was in the cut and thrust of promoting Hitch-22, his best selling memoir. The Vanity Fair columns he penned in the hope of demystifying 'the big C', were collected into a short volume Mortality which had been the intention of Hitchens to be considerably longer, but which he did not see completed. The resulting work is a fascinating look at the process of "livingly dying", in his words. An intellectual journey into the banal machinations of terminal illness, the erudite mind struggling to express itself through ossified vocal cords, and numb fingers.
Hitchens sought to demystify cancer, or at least reduce its power to inspire terror in would be sufferers, and solipsism in those it infects. He certainly spared the reader no illusion, in his writing the anxiety is palpable, there is no attempt at dressing up or playing with the guilt of the healthy. He trashes the late Randy Pausch for taking advantage in this way in his book and film The Last Lecture. Terminal illness is not something to make a pious play out of, and in communicating his gnawing fear at becoming boring, his frustration at being unable to summon the familiar boom of his resonant voice. He also writes of the curious connection he feels with the language of the medical staff, and his famous experience of torture (he wanted to know whether waterboarding was torture and after going through it at the hands of former navy seals, he admitted it most certainly was).
The issue of religion and his staunch abhorrence of it was certainly touched upon in the first part of the book. Any suggestion of a death bed conversion was eviscerated by his argument that it makes absolutely no logical sense to say to someone that since they are in the grips of an immanent demise they might want to renege on the values and principles of a lifetime. To the outspoken evangelists who said they were praying for him, he wondered: "Praying for what?" To the thousands of ardent believers who organised a prayer day, he extended his blessing insofar as "pray if it makes you happy". In one chapter he fully ridicules the practice of intercessory prayer, "please do not trouble deaf heaven with your bootless cries."
Through all, Christopher Hitchens held no personal illusions about his illness. He knew precisely why he had been afflicted by this particular malignancy, a redoubtable constitution that enabled him to consume immense quantities of alcohol, and maintain a heavy smoking habit. Burning the candle at both ends to produce a "lovely light" and fuel the conversation and writing that made the Hitch, well the Hitch. Holding that all of life is indeed a wager, Hitchens decided to wager on this particular bit, and the cancer which killed him at 62, also killed his father at the rather more ripened age of 79. Dismissing questions of "why me" as silly and self-evidently nonsensical to an intellectual, Mortality avoids the pit of solipsism as much as it reaches the crest of being a beautiful final conversation with an author who writes in a way that the reader feels personally addressed.
The final part before the loving afterword by Hitchens wife Carol Blue, contains a revealing yet fragmented spluttering of sentences and paragraphs Christopher Hitchens left unfinished before his passing. They indicate through the haze of tubes and medications the razor-blade mind of the Hitch remained sharp to the very end. Through this I feel that if my life is not suddenly blown out before I come to terms with the situation, and I am taken by paramedic ambassadors across the border from the country of the well to the stark frontier of the land of malady, as Hitchens wrote in his first column about his illness, I at least have a kind of guide. Not specifically a travel book telling me where to stop, eat, and sleep; but rather an example of how to approach the ultimate frontier. Christopher Hitchens was not so much concerned with dying with dignity, but dying livingly, a lesson as we both live and die ourselves.
Friday, 8 March 2013
A Plague on all three Houses.
On the first of this month the feared budget sequester came into effect after urgent negotiations to solve the debt crisis failed. I will not pretend to possess any expertise in the United States budget system, nor do I have much interest in the fine details of economics. My interest is in the political science of the matter, and as such I will limit my comments to that theater.
Since his inauguration the President's approval rating has fallen to 43 percent, he is weakened by his inability to force congressional republicans to a deal before March 1st. Likewise the Republicans are facing an angry public, around 10 percent more people identify with the Democratic party which is polling better in the lead up to next years mid-term elections. But overall the public is not happy with the Senate, the House of Representatives, or the White House. This is a plague on all three houses, and it is my opinion that because that is the case there is no way either of the players can win the public relations battle. President Obama can conceivably bet the farm if he wants, in budget negotiations he has the ability to refuse to agree to the whims of Speaker Boehner even if it means shutting down the federal government. It happened under Clinton, and what we know is that situation is politically unwinnable too. Except Obama never has to campaign for election again. Speaker Boehner and the house have that coming next year.
So the President can afford to be unpopular. In a game where everyone loses the player with nothing to lose is king. The sequester is costing at least 29000 jobs from the Defense department, as everyone who watches US politics there is no way to spin the constricting of the military in a way that favors congress. The Commander in Chief wins a small part of the PR battle here although I am quite sure he is more concerned with the tension in North Korea, and the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Maintaining his strategic objectives with fewer resources at his disposal.
Without wanting to be held to prediction since I will probably have to adjust it as early as next week, I would say that it is highly likely that the President will outmaneuver his opponents and attain a result closer to his desires. But this is going to be the key fight that will define this term, he will either come out of this weak, or very strong indeed. If the latter proves to be the case it can be assumed that many boxes of his agenda will be ticked by the time he leaves office in 2016.
So it is a plague on all three houses, but one of them has four years of immunity. Its time for US politics to get tough, and get working.
Since his inauguration the President's approval rating has fallen to 43 percent, he is weakened by his inability to force congressional republicans to a deal before March 1st. Likewise the Republicans are facing an angry public, around 10 percent more people identify with the Democratic party which is polling better in the lead up to next years mid-term elections. But overall the public is not happy with the Senate, the House of Representatives, or the White House. This is a plague on all three houses, and it is my opinion that because that is the case there is no way either of the players can win the public relations battle. President Obama can conceivably bet the farm if he wants, in budget negotiations he has the ability to refuse to agree to the whims of Speaker Boehner even if it means shutting down the federal government. It happened under Clinton, and what we know is that situation is politically unwinnable too. Except Obama never has to campaign for election again. Speaker Boehner and the house have that coming next year.
So the President can afford to be unpopular. In a game where everyone loses the player with nothing to lose is king. The sequester is costing at least 29000 jobs from the Defense department, as everyone who watches US politics there is no way to spin the constricting of the military in a way that favors congress. The Commander in Chief wins a small part of the PR battle here although I am quite sure he is more concerned with the tension in North Korea, and the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Maintaining his strategic objectives with fewer resources at his disposal.
Without wanting to be held to prediction since I will probably have to adjust it as early as next week, I would say that it is highly likely that the President will outmaneuver his opponents and attain a result closer to his desires. But this is going to be the key fight that will define this term, he will either come out of this weak, or very strong indeed. If the latter proves to be the case it can be assumed that many boxes of his agenda will be ticked by the time he leaves office in 2016.
So it is a plague on all three houses, but one of them has four years of immunity. Its time for US politics to get tough, and get working.
Thursday, 7 March 2013
Blind to Chavez
Hugo Chavez stood and quite rightfully falls on principle. He fought in his estimation for the good of the people, but he eroded their electoral voice and withdrew from protecting his people from crime.
He was outspoken against the United States of America, fueling his populism and gaining sympathy from a world suspicious of US power. But if this same world, or rather the people in it, allow his charismatic leadership to overshadow and erase the record of his sinister abuses of power, they then allow themselves to be utterly morally compromised.
Chavez stopped exporting oil to the US which sparked a feud with the Bush Administration and led to their ridiculously heavy handed interference in the internal affairs of Venezuela, to create fertile conditions for a coup to remove President Chavez. This was almost successful in 2002 when massive protests allowed Pedro Carmona to take power for three days before a lack of support brought Hugo Chavez back to the presidency. The culpability of the Bush Administration is clear in the aftermath, with skewed reporting of events revealed in the American press, and Pedro Carmona escaped house arrest and fled to Florida. There are reports of him meeting with Colin Powell at the end of 2002.
The interference of the United States of America is as disgusting now as it was during the failed invasion of the Bay of Pigs. It is arrogant and Chavez was quite right to call it imperialism. But after the failed coup he dramatically expanded the military and instead of negotiating with the USA he favored Russia, Syria, Gaddafi's Libya, and Castro's Cuba. A cult of personality and electoral manipulation characterized his later years in power. It was announced today of the former president will be embalmed and put on display "so the people always have him." This puts him in the same league as Lenin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Kim il-Sung, and (ridiculously) Eva Perone. Not a friendly club to democracy and freedom.
Hugo Chavez was a critic of US imperialism and stood up against it because he could afford to do so, not something many other states can do. But he must be seen as the tyrant he was or else we convict ourselves of gross moral relativism and unworthy of the democratic systems we live under. Good luck to the embalmers of Chavez, the'll sure need a lot of formaldehyde to prevent the last bits of him from rotting.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)