I was having a discussion with someone yesterday, who shall remain nameless, who I would consider a shrewd political thinker.We were discussing the events of the last twenty-four hours or so and considering whether or not Johnson and Cummings (BoriDom as I now think of them) had played a shrewd hand. The answer was no.
We agreed they have to have been planning an election: every economic indicator suggests we're going downhill from here, Brexit or not. In that case of course they want an election before the proverbial hits the fan. And Brexit would only exacerbate that. Anyone wanting a long term career as PM would want one now to get settled in for the long term before a crash happens. So we can dismiss all the bluster to contrary.
But in that case their splitting their own party is a big mistake. Some of those now not Tory MPs will be put up as Tory candidates anyway. That's a massive gift to the Opposition. BoriDom got this badly wrong. They should have been buttering those opponents up, not deliberately alienating them.
And if they were so smart they would not have been briefing a mid-October election from the weekend onwards. Instead, they should have waited to let Corbyn call for one on Tuesday night after winning the first vote defeating the government when Johnson could have agreed he could have one. That way Corbyn would have had no way out. But instead they gifted control to Corbyn, and have no majority of their own left.
And if they really wanted a deal they'd at least be saying something about it. But they're not, and so look hopeless.
The only obvious conclusion is that BoriDom is actually seriously out of control. And why? Because they are so arrogant that they think all their opponents are idiots and that none of them can gameplay. And as a result they're losing the game - as Tuesday night, last night and PMQs (where Corbyn did well and Blackford did better) prove.
Long may it continue.
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It’s the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Darwinism at work here.
Overinflated egos combined with mythomania and megalomania rarely manage to survive reality for very long.
The shorter their reign, the better for us all.
They should be jailed for the damage already caused.
Or maybe the exact opposite is the case?
Maybe Boris was not confident he could predict the opposition’s behaviour accurately enough to rely on Corbyn calling for an election first. I.e he respects his opponents’ game.
Therefore Boris has taken the safer option of setting the stage to call the election himself early enough to suit his plans.
Just because the government’s strategy here (firing their own MPs, giving up their majority etc) is highly risky doesn’t mean it’s unwise. If no lower risk course of action has any chance of achieving their success criteria then they’ve got no choice but to accept high risks.
I mean it’s obvious that the existing parliament isn’t going to allow any of the currently available forms of brexit to take place on 31st October so those who want to leave the EU absolutely have to change the make up of the house if they’re to achieve their aim.
Personally I’m inclined to agree that the people need to decide this as parliament has clearly become stuck.
The fact is remainers are only happy going back to the people once no-deal is off the table whereas brexiters want the option of no-deal left on the table.
Boris’ strategy has been to highlight that and thereby attempt to steal back the cloak of democratic respectability and show that remainers are hypocritical in their claims of coups and antidemocratic behaviour on the government’s part.
This obviously won’t change any remainers’ minds – it isn’t intended to. Boris just wants to mobilise his base and I think he’s succeeding so far.
I am disinclined to view this in terms of the latest events in an unfolding crisis, especially if we are being invited to ‘over’ or ‘under’ estimate individual participants. We have a Conservative Party that created this crisis; it proposed a referendum in order to dish its own Brexiteers, and nevertheless over three years has run through three PMs; transformed itself into a hard-right, no-deal Brexit Party; trashed the constitution; failed to deliver Brexit; clung on to power; put the Conservative Party before people or country; and through it all it is still clinging on to office, now even without any parliamentary power; insisting that everyone else – EU, Opposition, every single “Remoaner” is to blame: the failure and chaos is nothing to do with the Government or Conservative Party: that is the official position. Of course everything has gone wrong, and there is much less shrewdness than chaos in all this. Into the vacuum a solution is sought by a desperate Brexit clique running the Government, who were out of ideas or credibility even before they began.
What I am focusing on is what is likely to unfold from where we are; the rest is window dressing. The PM brought in Cummings because he delivers. Cummings is a risk-taker, because he knows that, from where the Government is placed, risk cannot be eliminated. If Downing Street loses, the game is up for Johnson, for the Government, and perhaps for the Conservative Party. Downing Street knows the political opposition are almost exclusively risk avoiders. Cummings and Johnson (only because the PM is now ‘trapped’ more deeply in this than anyone) are not.
Cummings is flawed, but he is the most successful national political campaign strategist of our time; he has proved that in the North East referendum and the Brexit referendum. He embraces the modern techniques of the internet and social media capitalism; he has produced an effective campaign methodology that is a derivation of cutting-edge surveillance capitalism, that we may call modern surveillance politics. His great strength; what he brings to the Conservative Government, his USP is the edge he can bring to a massive political campaign. So the sole purpose of the Government in the mess they are in, is an election campaign; this battlefield is Cummings USP. Cummings is also an ideologist, read his papers. It is no surprise to me that the old guard are ruthlessly being cleared out of the Conservative Party; clearing the decks for a new generation of ideologists (‘synthesisers’?) who will fight the campaign. It is high risk, and may end very, very badly. It doesn’t follow that it will not happen; for better or worse; do or die.
I’m inclined to agree with Adam. We underestimate Mr Cummings at our peril. He is a very clever man – sociopathic yes – psychopathic very possibly – but cunning and extremely well read. Everything he does is measured and calculated – nothing is left to chance. He understands the mentality and operation of the mob and how to turn it to his advantage. Game theory demonstrates convincingly that the ethical and the moral garner no advantage and the selfish and self serving win out every time. So we should be on our guard and only hope that Labour have their own equivalent psychopath to predict Cummings next move and how to counter it
“…..they are so arrogant that they think all their opponents are idiots….”
Hence the resort to bluster and ad hominem attacks. That’s all there is in their armoury now.
Monty Python’s Black Knight sequence from the Holy Grail film comes to mind…..”Come back here. I’ll bite your legs off.”
Cummings is nothing more than a shock trooper. That’s all. After BREXIT he’ll walk away and leave others to sort it out.
Sure – the unprincipled maybe do get everything and nice guys/girls come last. But only in the short term.`
Pilgrim Slight Return says:
“Sure — the unprincipled maybe do get everything and nice guys/girls come last. But only in the short term.`”
Pilgrim, we are still disagreeing on this.
Game theory says you need trust to win. The Cummingses of this world get away with it where trust is lacking. (And only a fool would trust HIM)
How much trust is there out there…? When you vote tactically trust is everything.
Oh dear……….
‘Game Theory’.
Please read Jon Aldreds book ‘ License to be Bad’. Game Theory is much lauded but actually hopelessly invalid. It is part of the short termist view we have in society at the moment. BREXIT is all about emotion and reaction based on ingrained bias brought about by or supported by unsafe information, rather than calculation. Game Theory on the other hand is supposed be based on people being ‘rational’. It strips them of their humanity (their unpredictable nature brought about relationships, context, mood, values etc) and reduces them down to homogenised logic machines.
We must remember the weaknesses that Cummings is also carrying. He is vulnerable too whilst attacking and he has a propensity to attack first. These weaknesses can be exploited – and one weakness is his contempt for others.
I think we are lauding Cummings too much. Cummings will be undone because the ERG high rollers he is working with in the British establishment are basically thick and not very high calibre because they have mostly come from privileged positions rather than having to learn from experience.
This is why I think calling Boris ‘The British Trump’ is a joke. Trump has obviously walked it like he has talked it for a long time and is obviously consistent in what he is. Boris does not seem to know what he is from day to day.
This is the best Tax Research UK read I’ve had for ages. The replies to this already stimulating article are thought-provoking and informative.
Maybe though we are over-rating Cummings. Maybe he’s just another Alastair Campbell playing poker against uncorordinated competitors. He is certainly an accomplished player though – just not as good as he and his friends in the press would have us believe.
“…..they are so arrogant that they think all their opponents are idiots….”
I suspect their arrogance lies in the fact that they believe a big portion of voters will believe their lies about “cowardly” “chicken” Corbyn. I also suspect Cummings is too smart to underestimate his opponents. Corbyn has already been the subject of more character assassination than Fidel Castro by our oligarch owned media so it will be interesting to see what percentage of the voters believe it. Quite a large one I fear. Hope I am
proved wrong.
Philip Espin says:
” I also suspect Cummings is too smart to underestimate his opponents. ” Hmmmm…. don’t think so. He’s human.
(sort of)
“Corbyn has already been the subject of more character assassination….”
Why ? Because the monied class know they are milking it and they are terrified…….
Johnson is all mouth and no trousers; Corbyn is well trousered but he doesn’t quite believe the support is there for a leftwards shift.
Not a Miliband lurch that never was, but a positive and deliberate step, left. The support is there or it isn’t. Twice the membership screamed for it. Get some fucking ear trumpets, Jeremy.
Don’t ask you don’t get.
This whole thing is about trying to stay in power, nothing more. Clearly we know he has no concern for the actual country or the people in it, it’s simply to try and cling to power himself in the first instance, and to keep the conservatives in power in the second instance.
And he only has a single route to do that: deliver Brexit.
If he is able to, a huge thorn in his side disappears. The Brexit Party’s reason for being is now over and done with, and all of these voters return to the Conservative fold. Yes he alienates some of the slightly more mildly right conservatives, but he’s already on the path now so has to gamble on making that loss up again from the crazy far right.
Now if he isn’t able to somehow cajole his way into doing that, Plan B is to play the blame game, something the Tories know well, and so he pretends he doesn’t want a GE. However it’s kind of a win win situation for him whatever happens.
If by some miracle the Tories are able to win, or if the Brexit party do very well and he is able to make a “Brexit alliance” with them, he’s back to Plan A: Deliver Brexit and bring the Brexit party members back into the conservatives.
And if Labour win, he escapes too much of the blame for anything.
“Theresa made a mess of the negations, then I was prevented from fixing it by parliament, and now JC and Labour have taken over and the fact that it’s all went to shit (even though it was clearly going to anyway) is all Jeremy’s fault, if only I’d been in charge and been allowed to do it properly, things would have been so much better. “
Supported by the right wing media, enough people believe that lie to put him (or at the very least the conservatives) back in power in a few short years.
The other factor is about the ‘nastiness’ of those pushing a No Deal and the lengths they are prepared to go through.
I was reminded of this last night when I witnessed Rees-Mogg hiding behind Parliamentary privilege to attack a medical consultant he’d had a disagreement with about the preparations for BREXIT on a radio phone in. I think that this was very ugly stuff frankly.