Janan Ganesh has an article in the FT this morning in which he argues:
The politics of hope has a spurious respectability but reeks of snake oil. It elides good intentions with good outcomes and treats the status quo as a baseline that can only be improved on. For normal people in the actual world, the status quo is superior to many plausible alternatives. Things can be made worse not just better by well-meaning politicians.
Ganesh is important. He is George Osborne's biographer and is undoubtedly close to him. If you want to know what the right wing are thinking I suspect he may be the best person to ask. And in this one paragraph (in an article in which he praises Lynton Crosby for exploiting fear to deliver a Conservative election victory) he makes clear several things.
The first is the negativity of the right wing political offering: the assumption is that by suggesting to people that they might lose what little they have they can be coerced into voting against politics itself as if that is the source of the threat.
Second, he is quite clear that there is no vision on offer on the right wing.
He is, thirdly, equally explicit that there is no offer of gain for most people in those politics either.
Instead all he makes clear that the right have to offer is a suggestion, based on fear, that the actions of the left might reduce well being. This is their politics in a nutshell.
I could not help but contrast this with a picture in the Guardian this morning of people in Paris declaring they were not afraid after Charlie Hebdo attacks.
But most of all I cannot help but feel sorry for Janan Ganesh and all who think this way. This is, of course, the politics of the Cowardly Politician I describe in The Courageous State, but it still troubles me to see it written so explicitly. This is a statement of such desperation in itself.
Freedom from fear is, of course, a fundamental human right. I think it the duty of politicians to deliver that freedom.
Nye Bevan virtually defined the post war ideal with his book In Place of Fear. Building on Beveridge this was the founding logic of the welfare state.
And hope is, in my opinion, the motive that really drives us to do better. Surely that should be what politics is about?
Fear, in contrast, shrinks and diminishes us.
The contrast effectively defines, I'd almost say too strongly, the difference between left and right wing politics.
But there is more to it that that, and I think Ganesh is wrong. Fear may have worked in 2015, because people still thought they had something to lose. My work suggests that for many the impact of cuts had hardly been felt by 2015, and by 2020 it will have been. So, for many in the North their reality of cuts is now a living nightmare. Ganesh assumes, however, that there will be a continuing trajectory of fear of government. First, I doubt it: when the reality of the loss from austerity is faced an alternative will be sought. Second, when people realise that what they really have to lose is the safety net itself, and that is the state, then if there is a continuing trajectory of fear it will be a radically different one from the Ganesh assumes.
People will realise what is obvious. For example, no one can beat flooding by themselves.
The same as no one person can build the infrastructure the economy needs.
And that health and education have to be communally supplied services.
No amount of fear will change these realities. But appreciation that they are the greatest loss we might face will change the direction of political travel.
It may be fear that starts that process of change but when it gets underway it will be hope that will fuel the process because it will be the foundation for the belief that something better is possible.
That's why I believe in a politics of hope. Quite simply, I believe we can massively enhance the way things are. The political process has to deliver on that possibility. And any party could be part of the process. It's depressing that some seem to want to opt out.
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Ganesh is articulating something that is very clear; another version of TINA, a sort of lowest common denominator mentality; as one RT documentary put it recently: ‘ The Financial Crisis as a Business Model. For most of the population it is a ‘crumbs-from-the-table’ outlook and the hope that, if politicians don’t bother to educate the public (Labour!!!) they won’t notice the catheter and enema syphoning off the wealth, nor the pointless treadmill spinning ever faster.
So according to Ganesh we can expect more of the same: useless jobs (insecure at that), ‘poundland’ economics, increasing household debt, home -repossessions, the ill/vulnerable treated as surplus population, gains to capital soaring and environmental degradation -you can’t beat that for vision! This is apparently, our ‘means’, within which we must live.
Spot on Simon
It’s this vision of the present and possible future that thinkers on the left should be addressing now. It takes time to build up an understanding of the situation in the electorate and population as a whole. Stop allowing the right wing (Tories) to set the agenda. Start articulating the lack of hope that ordinary people are faced with and challenge the ideological trashing of public services and servants and grow a pair!
I am working on it
I have seldom felt angrier reading such a statement than reading this “offering” from the ENTIRELY ill-named Mr Ganesh (given that Ganesh is the Hindu god of happiness and well-being!)
How DARE this intellectual equivalent of scrapings from one’s shoe when you’ve stepped in something nasty come out with such ill-intentioned rubbish?
I entirely endorse Simon’s reading of what Ganesh is saying, only adding this further observation – that, taken together with the intention to knight Lynton Crosby for having frightened (“terrorised” might be a better word – so who are the real “terrorist sympathisers”?) the UK electorate into returning to power the worst Government in 200 years, there could not be a clearer proclamation of the neo-feudal state than this: as serfs we are to be denied even hope, and as serfs, must gratefully kiss the boots of our “betters”, such as the appalling Lynton Crosby, who will be rewarded for being thugs, while the only reward us serfs will be considered to deserve will be a further kicking.
Labour must reach out to ALL the anti-|ory forces, Parties and organisations, and build a coalition to drive these parasites out of power for AT LEAST a generation, and certainly not allowing them back into power before they have learned the meanings of both humility and humanity. I am TIRED of being ruled by Al Capone.
And I thought I was angry!
I also feel ‘incandescent’ with anger at times, Andrew. Unfortunately I don’t feel Labour are yet up to the task you mention and we will have some years of this stuff to ride, I fear.
It takes someone of the vapidity and vacuousness of Ganesh to write a biography of one of the most vapid, vacuous and intellectually voided political figures I’ve had the misfortune to witness.
Simon, you’ll note that I asked that Labour should “reach out to ALL the anti-Tory forces, Parties and organisations, and build a coalition to drive these parasites out of power for AT LEAST a generation” exactly because,
a) even ceteris paribus (all other things being equal), Labour are not yet up to being a killer Opposition/Government in Waiting, and
b)things are most decidedly NOT in a “ceteris paribus” situation, as this current bunch of spivs build themselves ever thicker walls, deeper moats surrounding those walls, and boob-traps in those moats to ensure they stay in possession of the castle they captured by deceit (pre 2010 = “no top-down registration of the NHS; pre 2015 = “tax credits and child benefit will not be touched” – FAR more than Churchillian “terminological inexactitudes, but actual bare-faced lies!)
Only a “Progressive Front” in organised politics, and – as I said in another post – the sort of real, open anger, quietly expressed and with discipline, of people coming out into the streets, day after day in East Berlin, Prague (rattling keys) and Rio de Janeiro (banging cooking pots with spoons) – to many for the police to “manage”, and hopefully disciplined enough for the police, army, fire brigade and others to join in, and drive these bandits out of power – as power they stole by lies.
As for having “some years of this stuff to ride” – alas, we don’t HAVE years, only months, I would guess, as the shrinking ice floe of the civilised, decent, communitarian, “help my neighbour” settlement of the post war years melts and shrinks in the heat of neo-liberal hatred and bigotry, until all that is left is for us to swim in the neo-feudal sea or drown.
Gramsci is SO apt here:”Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.” And the fight between pessimism and optimism is currently weighted on the side of pessimism, I fear. Politicians can easily live with being vacuous; they can’t live with mockery, as the last election showed, where Cameron’s banality easily trumped Ed’s fighting with a bacon sarnie. Mockery is what we must use, and hopefully, the floods in the north of England will be Dave “Dubya” Cameron’s “Hurricane Katrina” moment, turnin his public image into Dave “King Canute” Cameron.
I’m with Gramsci
@Andrew, I have to disagree with you about Labour not being ready to govern. The only thing that holds us back, and will be apparent in next year’s elections, is the state of the PLP. John McDonnell has been working for years with progressive economists (including Richard, of course) on plans for “Another World (Is Possible)” – under the LEAP banner. And he has masses of experience when he ran GLC finances. Someone was telling me recently about the fantastic London Plan which was produced under John’s stewardship. And there is not much that Jeremy doesn’t understand about foreign relations.
Labour can only do this once they stop focussing on each other. That is my view. And the longer they put with internal issues, the more likely the chance to create this coalition of real progressives will pass them by.
Bevan is the key. It could never had been predicted that Labour would have had a surge of votes after the war, that led ultimately to the building of the welfare state (which is now used in a deragatory way!). It was only courageous and vocal politicians like Bevan, that had the political will to achieve this. As long as Corbyn is leading Labour, I have hope!
This should warm the cockles of your heart then:
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/video/2015/mar/02/michael-sheen-slams-cuts-nhs-passionate-speech-video
He was great
Nothing like a passionate man
Except a passionate woman, of course
Yes, great stuff.
I don’t think enough is taught of the history of the NHS etc…
If the younger generations don’t value it and understand the changes it brought to ordinary people, the right have a chance of dismantling it before our eyes.
I have to force myself to read Ganesh because he is a good writer. I didn’t know that he was so in bed with Osborne. I shall be posting this on Facebook. Thanks, Richard. And I wish you and yours the very best for the new year.
Thanks Carol
And to you
You , presumably read these people, as I do, in the spirit of ‘know thine enemy.’!
After a lovely time with my children, sharing them with their other families, all travelling far,one son goes back to work with an increase in his rent, we pay his 6 months in advance for him because his wage does not cover the landlords criteria, my lovely son pays us back.
My hard working daughter who won the golden spur this year, association of British riding schools teaching award, needs a new roof, we hope for dry weather. My middle son, bless him, struggling with a painful marriage break up, you know the usual families. But we have love and hope. However, that this bloody, smug, government with their verbal diarrhoea platitudes have the gall to just simply quote statistics at us about how they have increased funding for this and that, well.
I know all about families
And you sound like a mum to treasure
It’s beginning to feel increasingly like we have a government in the UK that is actually at war with its people.
You are quite right, Richard.
The “always keep ahold of nurse/for fear of finding something worse” politics of fear may have less effect by the time enough people have experienced first hand the impact of the Conservative Party’s damage to our country.
I wonder what will be left by then, and what kind of damage they will have done to the rising generation?
Yes Richard. Agreed. I see your point but the politics of Hope have to be based in reality, on the real possibility that things can get better, can be improved. The other side of the coin to the politics of Fear is the politics of Hope where dreams are promised but there is consistent and serial failure to deliver the goods and whole countries are bankrupted in the process. Look around you. A Long Leftist List of bankruptcy.
People as they get older want – and have the legitimate right- to be certain that what they have they will keep. They don’t want to be the victims of yet another pipe dream of Hope against the Odds and against Reality. Allied to the wonderful and legitimate aspiration of the politics of Hope is unfortunately the persistent and pervasive stench of Leftist corruption – every time. This because the Politics of Hope always seems to end up in throwing money at problems as it keeps the ‘peasants’ happy but also greases many palms which is sometimes the main intention.
So how does a totally objective, totally apolitical, very hardworking person choose between the two? WITH GREAT DIFFICULTY! But people want the certainty of owning rather the uncertainty of dreams.
Leftist bankruptcy?
Where?
The NHS?
State education?
Pensions for th elderly?
The best universities we have ever had?
Most technology founded on state sector innovation?
A welfare state?
What are you talking about?
“Leftist bankruptcy?
Where?”
I have very high and healthy respect for you but can predict that your refuge will now be in the interpretation of “leftist”. The lists of leftist (all that is on the left) is a long list from Russia through to Venezuela and even more recently to Portugal (3 times bankrupt by 3 leftist leaders/ parties since 1975). All leftist all bankrupt and all mostly corrupt. It would take a week to catalogue the list and the associated corruption.. Closer to home, a leftist Blair aided and abetted by Gordon Brown brought Britain to its knees.
Have we (conveniently) forgotten all this to bask in the illusion of Hope rather than facing the reality that politicians are what they are and leftist politicians win the Olympics of Corruption when it comes to filling their pockets, all in the name of feeding the masses with whatever politics of hope concurrently fills their pockets?.
Oh come on: grow up
Russia was a ghastly dictatorship and not left at all
Venezuela is a million miles from any state I am interested in
Portugal is a small peripheral state that had to recover from fascism and was bankrupted bg the EU and the euro
To out if another way – stop talking crap
The things you say that older people want are exactly what is being stolen form the young (unless they have rich families). The true left want EVERYONE to share in wealth. For the older generation to pull up the ladder is just unfair and will lead to huge social costs.
The left created the society now being dismantled by the right. This is ideological. Tories hate the state.
We’ve got a bizarre situation where the PARENTS of the kids suffering insecurity are the one’s with the wealth and swallow the austerity myths. This has come out clearly in the recent Spanish election, as Bill Mitchell writes:
“The Spanish labour market has bifurcated with older workers, who managed to keep their jobs in the crisis still enjoying relatively secure employment, and younger workers in casualised, precarious, low-paid jobs.
The labour market policy shifts associated with the imposition of austerity exacerbated this segmentation.
There is no sign that the much-touted ‘recovery’ is reducing that segmentation. It is no wonder that political sentiment among the younger voters is at odds with the choices made by their parents.”
The parents want something better for their kids but haven’t the tools to counter the economic myths due to the left being co-opted into neo-liberalism. Corbyn has a chance to give people those tools – not much sign of it as yet unless the reshuffle has some effect ( assigning political oblivion to Benn might be a good start!)
My nephew lives on the East coast, jobs are almost none existant. He has seven good GCSEs and level three qualifications, he didn’t want to go to uni, preferring to enter the jobs market. Since leaving college two years ago he has only had short term contract employment. Recently the vileness of this governments attitude towards young people hit him hard. He had to apply for unemployment benefit and was informed he would have to work at the local Poundstretcher to continue getting the benefit, he worked for three weeks.Then he was told the store would employ him for the Christmas period. He is under twenty-one so he earned about £5.20 per hour. He was told he would have to work Boxing Day, so our family rearranged our usual Christmas get together. He wanted to do the right thing in the hope of further employment. When he came home after work he told us that that he wasn’t needed any longer, he was gutted.
Businesses taking part in Workfare are sponging off society. Is this the status quo we want?
I feel really sorry for him
I wish he had the security, work and training he deserves
What a ghastly introduction to the world of work! The fact that we need Poundstretchers in the first place is an indictment of the low wage culture we’ve had since the late 70’s.
Poundland. That place of extreme personal conflict: reduced to shopping there while being one of the very people the damn place so willingly exploits. (Spits, regardless of being unlady-like.)
Dear Mr Shigemitsu, If I may demur: the government is not at war with the people. You do not war with people you despise, whose views you hold in contempt, whose needs you deny. You just ignore them. I studied in South Africa in the 1960s and this is exactly the behaviour the apartheid rulers used towards anyone who was not classified white.
If there is any body that we need to be angry about it is the so-called opposition – all of the them – who at this time of real suffering and thus real opportunity are sulking in their tents. Shame on them!
Absolutely agree, John! The failure of the Left has left us with this train of suffering and hopelessness. The economist, Bill Mitchell is working on a book about the Failure of the left covering the post war years to the present.
Ed Milliband’s dad Ralph was a great critic of the failure of the Left to transform the institutions of society far enough so as to not allow the last 40 years of recrudescent class malevolence.
The release of Cabinet Papers from Thatcher’s era provide an ideal opportunity to reveal the narrow minded, self serving, elitest and sickening mentality of the current Tory government and its advisors.
We should thank the journalists who trawl through these archives and expose those individuals who must be called to account in full for their lack of morality and should clearly no longer allowed to influence public policy.
The public pay for our government and should expect greater and faster transparency on those who make decisions on our behalf. Releasing non-security related papers within 10 years should be the minimum, 5 years would be preferable.
As for Letwin and others like him, they should be hung out to dry and sent back into the real world of our inner cities to do some genuine community service. Sadly he will most likely walk back into a so called elite private sector establishment where this type of thinking is still prevalent and welcomed by those in charge.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/dec/30/oliver-letwin-blocked-help-for-black-youth-after-1985-riots
A little insight into just how vile Letwin seems to be
I always find it horribly ironic that Tolpuddle lies in Letwin’s constituency. I guess the locals abhor the very idea of their fantastic annual festival. It makes me even angrier that on the way we pass by the longest brick wall in England, with two massive gates topped with stags, behind which is a vast estate. I found out one year that the estate (which no doubts entitles the owner to a nice fat cheque from the CAP) belongs to Richard Drax, MP for Dorset North. The Drax’s owe their to fortune slavery.
Literally sickening
Interesting views that peaceful Civil Disobedience is the democratic way that people should respond to injustice, intolerance and inequality. People should not be obedient to, or fearful of, their rulers (and their laws) when they are clearly morally wrong.
Perhaps we are just too much like sheep after all!
Matt Damon’s version (2013)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KxOVy52EiE
Howard Zinn’s original (1970)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gx6QQOn4dQE
I agree with the politics of hope wholeheartedly but I feel the need to qualify that by a fault of inter-family relations I have spent the post Christmas period in affluent Chiswick where I suspect many of the rather well-off people I have seen I bet would hope that things stay exactly as they are because frankly that works for them.
I have found that I have entered a world dominated by such concepts such as ‘tax efficiency’ and ‘flexible accountants’.
It is like being in another Universe.
I met a person yesterday who was not aware there was any financial stress in the UK
I think he was entirely serious
So weird
Happy New Year Richard.
And to you