I watched much of Boris Johnson's speech yesterday. Thankfully, he recognised it was almost entirely content free and got it over quite quickly. But what is left to think about?
The over-riding impression of the Tories this week is that they are all about messaging. There is no delivery. There is no grand plan. There will likely be no change. That they don't want any is implicit in their name. So, all they actually do now is create and deliver slogans. Their belief is that so long as those slogans continue to roll and are more memorable - however vacuous they are - than anything Labour has to say then they can and will win the next general election. There is nothing to market. The marketing is it. And nothing is sacred, former Tory governments included.
That leads to the second conclusion, which is that revisionism is very definitely in fashion. The Tories will now recast anything without any compunction. If it suits Johnson to blame all previous Tory prime ministers, he will. If he wishes to rewrite the history of Brexit now to claim it was all about a high wage / high productivity economy, which he has no idea how to deliver, then he will. There is no limit to what can be rewritten, and he thinks he will always get away with it.
Third, everyone else is to blame. From the feckless claimants of universal credit, to business that has lazily employed the best applicants for the jobs that they had to offer, it's everyone else's fault that the economy is not working for everyone's apparent benefit. The slight problem with this thesis is it would seem as though those on universal credit are far from feckless and that business is behaving exactly as might be expected in the enterprising world that the Chancellor praises, but still they are to blame.
Fourth, there are no problems. Supply chain issues, energy price increases, the risk of inflation, the reality of joblessness, skill shortages and so much more can all be ignored. They are not the government's job to solve, apparently. They are the fault of business and they can sort them. If they did not know or plan for the consequences of a Brexit deal agreed only hours before it was delivered and which has subsequently been renounced then that is their own fault, and nothing to do with Johnson.
Fifth, increasing wages without increasing productivity is apparently fine. However, paying universal credit, when every penny paid will recirculate into the productive economy and so create work apparently is not. The logical inconsistency is apparent, but not to those who will not see.
Sixth, climate change is just about a gig in Glasgow. It can otherwise be ignored. It was.
Seventh, and perhaps most apparent of all, Tories live in a world different to that where everyone else lives. It may be make believe, but they think that's what they can sell. Their belief in the ability to con enough of the people much of the time is staggering. And that is what they will seek to continue to do as a result. That is what this government is all about. Well, that and continuing the chance for a few of their friends to make a great deal of money without having to earn it.
The question is, can that con trick really last? We know the lies, the revisionism, the insults and the slogans will keep rolling. The snake oil salesperson is always ingenious, and entirely without either conscience or a sense of responsibility for their consequences. But what is it that will bring this edifice built in sand crashing down?
Facts will help. Ultimately telling a story that chimes with people's lived experience, as it is indelibly printed on their own personal narratives, will matter. At some point the truth will become apparent. In that case patiently benchmarking failure matters.
But there is something required that is more than that. The first thing to do is to not ape the Tories. That is essential. So, to adopt their fiscal rule is to say that despite all their stupidity and failure they are at their core right, and that is to concede everything to them. This is why those parties copying their economics cannot win by doing so.
Second, an alternative has to be offered. That cannot be ‘we will manage better' because managing well is not what keeps the Tories in office, and is clearly not what people vote for. So, as a strategy that fails. Instead a new, and alternative narrative matters.
What is that narrative? Look to Gary Neville and Marcus Rashford for ideas. People matter. Dignity is key. Helping people solves problems: when they have the resources they can and will manage, but they can't without them. Level playing fields work, and that we have is obscenely tilted. Law must not just exist but be enforced. Business must be appreciated when it adds value, and tackled when it abuses. And futures must be built, and they have to be green. And all this requires cooperation, not blame gaming. Those are the themes for a narrative.
That is not the narrative of our opposition and so Johnson thinks he can survive. He will because right now there is no credible party where we need one, in what is genuinely the centre left. That's the great absence in UK politics.
Corbyn was nowhere near this because for whatever merits he had he and the factionalised left played a blame game too, and it did not work for them and never will because it always sounded bitter, and always will. The left has to get beyond that, but fails to do so far too often. And, on top of that, Corbyn bought into austerity with a fiscal rule utterly inconsistent with his narrative.
Starmer is failing because he's aping the Tories, all too obviously.
What is required is left of centre politics that can embrace the reality of the mixed economy we are going to live in as a matter of fact, can deal with and manage that reality, and can deliver by embracing the idea that if this is what we have it can be moulded to the common good. I don't think that too much to expect. But it isn't what we are getting.
And so the Tories march on, still believing their own fantasy which for now they can still sell because so far there isn't an alternative better vision on offer.
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For me, Simon Jenkins summed it the speech up best…..
“To seek meaning in a Johnson speech is to miss the point”
🙂
You are right – Labour needs to create a vision and narrative and so far they have failed.
I think the key reasons for failure are
(1) factionalism. Tory infighting is vicious but it is all about power with very few caring about policy – so when it comes to getting into power they show great discipline. In Labour it seems policy/principle matters to people so the factionalism can never get parked in the pursuit of power.
(2) “how are you going to pay?”. Any attempt to define policy is wrecked on the reef of “fiscal prudence”.
Easy to say, hard to do. But on the second it would be a start if the Labour Party had a mission statement along the lines……
We will harness all the resources (human and physical) of our country to help everyone achieve all that they can in a sustainable, respectful and fair manner. (Sure, this needs a bit of work but you get my drift).
An excellent summary, Richard, but how you listened through it is beyond my comprehension. On second thoughts, is it really any different to my researches into Nazi culture requiring me to read and reread Mein Kampf?
You are correct that Corbyn did not, does not, understand MMT and ANYONE that doesn’t MUST fall into the austerity trap. This is my recurring point. Ignorance outside our happy bubble is near universal. I do not keep repeating this to induce pessimism, but to emphasise both the size and importance of your task. I know from personal experience how the internal perception of a group of their external environment can be distorted by the sheer clarity of its own analysis. Your analysis has been a revelation to both my wife and myself. We both kick ourselves for taking a lifetime to grasp it. It’s obvious now, but so recently. We have quite a number of open minded, liberal left friends and they ALL struggle with acceptance. They are not badly intentioned or obtuse, but they are being asked to change a perception of the economy that they simply believed was FACT. Thatcher’s purse still looks like ‘common sense’. I think the leap required is only a little less fundamental than that required by twentieth century advances in astrophysics. We have made that transition, flat earthers discounted and articulate experts with the ability to communicate at an appropriate level have been the key to that shift. You and the MMT group can achieve the same.
I still think Richard something interesting happened in the 2017 election around Corbyn that future historians (unfortunately for us) will be able to make more sense of one day. Personally, as I’ve said before – I think that those of the orthodox economic persuasion in both Labour and the Tory party decided to play dirty and I think the rest is history. Because there is I think a hardcore of opinion in the elite that social security etc., is too big a problem to take on because there are complete misunderstandings about the nature of money. And allied to this is that markets rule and should be left alone. All the usual stuff. Or should I say ‘Guff’.
I agree that ‘time is the revelator’ (to paraphrase a Gillian Welch song) but the factor that concerns me is the ability for those in power and with the funding to perpetuate the Tory fantasy like never before through the turbo charged media and communications we now have.
We have to remember that all that stuff about Cambridge Analytica and the abuse of data has not changed anything really. And anyone with deep pockets – the Tory Party, the Koch Brothers and companies like Dupont who historically funded the Mont Pelerin Society – know how it works and are prepared to spend money to have the world THEY want.
I think all we have to do is imagine that Starmer started talking in terms of MMT etc., and then imagine the media reaction. It might be akin to Starmer saying that Jesus has returned and is living in a studio flat in Dalston. He’d be ridiculed; the Guardian – if it did one of its ‘long reads’ on MMT (and tax) would be ridiculed by the fey Labourites who read it as well as the Right. They’d pour it on thick – they really would. What is it that they say? ‘In war, the truth is the first casualty’.
Fantasy or reality making? There is no doubt that the Tories want to manufacture a new reality that the rest of us will have to bear around our necks it seems. This is exactly what the team around George Bush Jnr did – whilst everyone looked on judiciously of course as the famous quote tells us.
Perhaps that is why Johnson continues to endure. Because whatever we can say about him, we all know what he is up to. And what is so refreshing in one way is that he doesn’t seem to hide his intentions. This makes it appear that he is – in a perverted way – more honest – than most politicians. He simply removes obstacles in his way. There is no hand wringing about his use (abuse) of executive power. The bumbling and everything just makes him look less polished than most politicians but more human and therefore more relatable to voters (this come through time and time again from the public).
Johnson is obviously playing to the rich because he knows that will give him money-power to use to keep things as they are which starts with him and his party in power. My own Tory ran district council does the same thing – it in my opinion uses the planning system to gerrymander. The amount of new executive/mansion style homes that have been built in my area are notable. The Tories know how to feather their nest.
The assault on democracy is from the rich really who, in honour of Thatcher – their maker – want us to go back to that time and back further because apparently all our troubles started after WWII and citizen Clem.
Weaknesses to exploit because its where it hits the citizens on a personal level (does the average citizen see how Tory funding methods impact on them – doubtful?).
Well, a new generation of young people who will not be able afford home ownership might be worrying to a Thatcherite mode of politics where owner occupation was seen as a brake on left wing activism as well as home owners being more likely to vote Tory than those who rent. This new generation will want an explanation and also why credit is easier to come by than well paid jobs when they worked like slaves through their GCSEs and A levels as they were expected to.
Another weakness is Tory isolationism – since BREXIT Britannia has been unleashed but really only in its own very small caged back yard – the cost of that to the country is being revealed now. And what about our standing in the world? A new low? I think so. None of this will help ordinary people. But it will take time to filter through if at all which is sad because I’m sure as Timothy Snyder says, the fascist Tories will find some other bogeyman or threat to take our attention away.
The other weaknesses though are the Tories own extreme ideology and the fact that like their funders, they are greedy. This – and the use of executive power might very well lead them to putting their foot in it big time.
But as you say, then, when you look at the opposition – what is on offer? Not much. Is this then Starmer’s tactic?
” if Starmer started talking in terms of MMT etc., and then imagine the media reaction. ”
It depends how its done.
If we start from the real example of £100’sbn spent in the last 18 months – not being ‘debt’ – but simply owed to ourselves, and using that as part of a case for how Labour could invest to tackle the climate emergency etc.
It wouldn’t need to be about ‘MMT’ as such, but about the practicalities of what needs to be done and what combination of savings, QE, tax on higher incomes and income from wealth would be involved.
If Starmer and his economic team were to support MMT, their best tactic might be for an independent body to advocate and for Starmer to ‘discuss the possibilities’ in public, and emphasise the opposition is probably the vested interests looking after their profits and power. Then adopt it when public knowledge and acceptance of it grows. And urge the Greens, nationalists and even the Liberal Democrats to join them.
As I write it looks a long shot, but when things break down, change can come quickly.
The message is not yet mainstream, but it only needs the right person to explain it in the right way, in the right context for that to change. Someone should teach Danny Dyer about MMT.
Labour just have to ask who we owe all this money to, when their critics mention it, and then the follow up question of where that money came from in the first place. It’s easy to imagine a speech with that in, although somewhat more difficult to imagine Starmer being able to make it.
At the simplest level it’s a several line conversation – “Who made or created the money you pay your taxes with?” The Bank of England
Who owns the Bank of England?
The government.
So if the government created this stuff, then why do they need it back from you then?
The conversation can then go onto inflation, but it’s not about taxpayer money anymore.
Sadly, Richard is right. Despite more and more journalists (finally) seeing through Johnson and holding him to account, Labour is not still not resonating with the electorate, according to the latest poll
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/09/29/voting-intention-con-39-lab-31-28-29-sep
I believe it is the increased monopoly ownership of the mass media and now social media over the last 30 years that maintains the Narratives.
These messengers are the real masters of how the populace votes.
That is why the Tories are retaining their acquiescence whilst the Loyal Opposition does its bit through erroneous self destructive policies and attacking its own grassroots.
I agree that the Corbynites failed to educate the electorate about the truth of the magic money tree they were accused of believing in by the Tories and the Media.
Only going as far as claiming it is in the Cayman Islands was a start but not the full truth; that it is just down the road in Threadneedle Street and the many entities of that EC2R postcode.
It is a message hard wired into the populace through generations. A religious belief even. Most of us live our lives by ‘common sense’ certitudes, which are unsurprisingly exactly the fairytales we are told by ‘these in charge’.
The only time Labour will be allowed back into government will be to keep one of these fairytales. A supposed Democratic Parliament, two party system alive or in a coalition of a Government of National Unity along with other assorted ‘parties’ which provide a veneer of differing ideology.
The only thing that can change this stitch up, is a demand for true messy PR by the people, from the localest levels UPWARDS.
That means agreeing with the racists, kippers and all the other loony persons and none voters, who want to be represented but complain their votes are wasted.
We may disagree vehemently with them but we must fight to make sure their right to have a vote that counts is paramount.
I caught the end of a chap discussing productivity and immigration on News night. He showed that France and Germany had higher productivity even though they had many immigrants ( a million refugees in Germany). Japan had the lowest in the G7 and has few immigrants.
Then he showed areas of the UK with the highest productivity. They had the most migrant workers and the areas with low productivity, like the North East, had the fewest.
The intellectual basis of Johnson’s strategy denied. It seems from the headlines that the business world, the natural supporters of the Conservative party, don’t buy it either.
Operation Yellowhammer predicted many of the effects of Brexit which were denied by the cabinet. Yet business is being blamed for the effects of a botched Brexit. James O’Brien quipped yesterday “business is being blamed for not doing what the government said wasn’t going to happen.”
That was Lewis Goodall
Look it up – he was excellent
I have tweeted it this morning
Its been known for many years that for organisations, increased diversity in most senses of the term leads to increased innovation and productivity. There’s a good economic case though prejudice and conservatism ignores it. Academic studies from credible organisations demonstrate it and Im going back 20 years plus.
Ive long thought that it must also be true of societies and regions. Much of the UK’s strengths in say the creative sectors and academia could be traced to its historic openness. London a particular case in point. At the same time, so many areas of the country that are the least diverse and have the lowest level of immigration, also suffer from low productivity and associated economic problems. And voted Brexit.
Its not a 100% correlation, but there is something in it.
Richard, you’ve said before on this site that you know Clive Lewis. Perhaps your MMT advocacy is starting to get through? You have your disagreements with PM and you wouldn’t have phrased things exactly as they did but a Labour MP openly praising the message that the government can fund itself and did fund itself during the pandemic with money creation is a good start:
https://twitter.com/labourlewis/status/1445864537995956225
Every time Lewis opens his mouth I can’t quite believe that Labour had the chance to make this person their leader last year and turned it down.
🙂
I’ve just noticed that the right -wing think tank, the Adam Smith Institute, has called BJ’s speech “economically illiterate”.
I’m not sure how he feels about that but I’d take it as a compliment!
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/oct/06/business-leaders-pm-tory-conference-speech-boris-johnson