With a Cabinet made up of supposedly highly qualified graduates, all of whom would claim to have a social conscience, you would expect Labour to be able to think critically about the solutions required to the problems created by fourteen years of Tory rule. Right now, however, it seems that there is not one critical thinker amongst the lot of them. No wonder they're already in such a mess.
The audio version is here:
This is the transcript:
Why can't anyone in Labour do critical thinking?
Critical thinking is what everyone in Labour should be able to do, because almost without exception, Labour ministers would appear to have been to Oxford University and done a degree in politics, philosophy and economics. And having done so, you would expect them to have been taught about critical thinking.
Now, let me tell you what critical thinking is, and I'm going to quote from Monash University in Australia, who described critical thinking in this way:
Critical thinking is a kind of thinking in which you question, analyse, interpret, evaluate, and make a judgment about what you read, hear, say, or write.
The term critical comes from the Greek word kritikos, meaning able to judge or discern. Good critical thinking is about making reliable judgements based upon reliable information.
I would have put it slightly differently, but however I would have expressed it, I would have come to something very much like that.
That is what critical thinking is about. So let's summarise it in a different way, and I've got six bullet points to do that. Critical thinking requires:
- that you clarify your thinking purpose and context.
- You then have to question your sources of information.
- After that, you need to identify the arguments that are in play
- And then, you have to analyze sources for those arguments.
- After that, you evaluate alternative arguments that might be available to those which first drew this subject to your attention.
- And finally, you have to create your own argument based upon all the views that have been presented.
Now actually, I would clarify that last one and say you have to come up with an alternative solution to the problem, which is why you were thinking about the issue in the first place, because what's the point of thinking about anything if you aren't looking for a solution to a problem? That's my belief in life.
So, we would expect people in Labour to be able to undertake that type of exercise. And yet, day in, day out, we see evidence that they appear not to be able to do so.
If they could think critically, would they have, for example, decided to withdraw the winter fuel allowance and create all the furore and backlash as a consequence to save just £1.5 billion of revenue cost as a consequence? The answer is no, they wouldn't.
If they had really thought before the election that we were going to face a financial crisis, which was, let's be honest, forecast to exist by absolutely everyone from well before that election took place, and most especially since March, when Jeremy Hunt made such a bodge of the last Tory budget of the last government, then you would not have imagined that they would have boxed themselves into a corner in the way that they have by guaranteeing they would not increase income tax, national insurance, VAT, and so on, meaning that as a consequence, they were left with almost no room to manoeuvre within their budget strategy. And yet that's what they did.
You would not imagine that if they were genuine critical thinkers, they would have ended up with the Tory's strategy on migration. Because very clearly, the Tory's strategy on migration has failed, but what we get from Keir Starmer at present is, “we're going to beat the boats”, which is exactly what Rishi Sunak said, and which didn't work, and which never will, because the migrants are going to keep coming, because getting hold of boats across the English Channel has obviously turned out to be not that hard, and there's no great incentive for the French to stop them. None of that should have been any great surprise to Labour, and yet apparently it is.
And, as a consequence, they keep digging holes for themselves because they're unable to imagine the consequences of anything that has apparently happened, let alone has been said, or which might be done, or to interpret the arguments and consider alternatives, which is what critical thinking requires. So, they make mistake after mistake after mistake, and they're only a couple of months into office so far.
Is this going to change?
I wish it would, but when you have people in charge like Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves and Wes Streeting and Lucy Powell, who made the claim that the UK economy would collapse because financial markets would no longer support it if Labour did not take away the winter fuel allowance, then you have to wonder about these people's capacity to think, let alone think critically.
I would expect our politicians to be amongst the best thinkers in the country. And I will be honest, there were a lot of thinkers who I didn't agree with when I was a young man who were politicians, but who could nonetheless undoubtedly think critically. I think of some of the titans of that era, Denis Healey and Michael Hesseltine, even, who could stand back and look at a problem and interpret it. These people. were genuine thinkers, and there were plenty of them, but there are no such equivalent thinkers now. Whether you liked Roy Jenkins or not, there's no one of his intellectual calibre that I know of in the House of Commons at present, and nor is anyone coming through the ranks who looks likely to be that type of person.
And this is deeply worrying because if they can't think well, they can't govern well because the whole task of those at the top of government is to think. After all, their job isn't to implement, that's what the civil service does. Their only job is to create strategy. And strategy requires critical thinking, and they can't do it.
And in that case, and unless there's some form of radical Damascene conversion to critical thinking amongst Labour ministers over the next few weeks, frankly, I think we're heading for a disastrous five years of Labour government. And I really wish that wasn't the case.
Why can't they remember what they were taught at university?
Or did they not pay attention then, any more than they don't seem to pay attention to anyone now?
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Maybe the critical thinking has been done by the Labour party’s puppeteer funders?
Starmer, Reeves, Streeting, Powell – they are just avatars for wealth playing games to keep things stable for themselves, keep the money rolling in.
And the four above, maybe they have done the critical thinking about themselves and how they will be ‘looked after’ when the fall comes. It’s win/win for them when it’s all over surely? The speech circuit, the book, Strictly…………………………board memberships, the Lords.
In an age of hyper-individualism, critical thinking is not lacking – it’s just aimed at oneself and not the collective.
What I detect is a lack of democratic principle. We have an ossified political system that looks democratic but is not; that purports to offer debate, but does not and pretends to be concerned about us all – and is not.
It is a mono-culture that delivers to power that has the infinite – it seems – capacity to keep going, replicating itself, generation after generation.
And yet, it is becoming more brazen and this might be its downfall?
A good blog. Yes we have lost government ministers and many MPs who do not engage in critical thinking. Apart from Roy Jenkins, I would add in Barbara Castle, Tony Benn, Shirley Williams to name a few. You did not have to agree with all that they said but at least they did produce cogent arguments which had a basis in reality and came up with policies which were thought out. We have lost that.
Also I would have thought that someone would have said to Keir Starmer and his close associates “You are making cuts to money for people who are generally not that well off, but have had lots of freebies and you have a high income, how do you think that will look?” Obviously there was no advice given or quite probably ignored as Keir seems to believe in Starmer infallibility.
I regret for some time now Universities teach undergraduates to pass their exams, that’s the contract they enter with students, “you give us a shed load of money, we’ll give you a degree. The better your answer fits the model one we made earlier, the better the grade.’ that they do that well is demonstrated by the grade inflation. In my year, one brilliant student got a first. Last year 50+ did.
Critical or any other form of thinking is reserved to post graduate students, not critical at masters level but a requirement to show capacity to think. At Doctorate, some critical thinking is allowed, but essentially it is showing you have learnt and can perform the ordained research process.
Critical thinking was reserved for higher professional training, but it was despised by NHS managers. As policy as given by the minister is sacred. Even if it’s a complete waste of time, money and costing patients lives. Hence the long waits to get treated, no critical thinking.
Agree entirely on critical thinking, Richard, although as you know definitions differ slightly. And by a strange coincidence I had that discussion with my eldest grandson only yesterday morning, having taken him over to Bangor to start his degree there (I was explaining to him how progression in academic development is expected over the years you are at university: basically from description in year one, to critical thinking in year three).
But then again, perhaps your assumptions about what the PPE degree actually covers and how it’s taught are awry. Or perhaps what critical thinking takes place in the minds of said graduate is so warped and restricted by the neoliberal mindset that thinking about alternatives never arises. Personally I suspect it’s the latter. Perhaps anyone who studied PPE at Oxford and reads this blog could tell us. Then again, reading your blog may well be too challenging for an Oxford PPE graduate and therefore they avoid it like the plague. We shall see.
I was doing some preparation for a talk I gave last week.
In passing I mentioned the recent riots.
Now whatever one thinks of Thatcher and her administration they did commission The Scarman Report after the 1981 riots and Heseltine did try to do some work on the economic issues that triggered them.
Now if a report were to be written into the recent riots its a wonderful stick to beat The Tories with and of course there would be many benefits to addressing the economic issues that caused them but no.
What is it I say of some people they went to University not that it seems to have done them any good.
They, the Labour Party, seem to be having several “Ratners” moments, having managed within just several months in power, alienated large sections of the electorate. Leaving aside critical thinking, has any thought at all taken place before they made these disastrous pronouncements. Is this deliberate, or are they just plain stupid?
The reason Labour does not do critical thinking, is because it is not allowed. As you pointed out, critical thinking requires you question what your sources say, and you may judge they are wrong. This is not allowed anymore, because it would expose our politicians as frauds. The MSM, of course, avoids critical thinking like the plague!
It is the reason we have “fact checkers” and “BBC verify” – you are not allowed to question the narrative, all that has been done for you and presented in a nice uncontroversial soundbite.
Oh, and no doubt you will have seen that Farage aims to be PM at the next election. Pat on the back to Starmer.
My own thinking, limited as it is, takes me to the conclusion that politicians are selected and elected on their ability to say popular and plausible things to the demographic constituencies most likely to vote. Whether they are right or not is not material. Perhaps critical thinking isn’t a faculty that is really selected for.
Or is that the PPE degree at Oxford is lamentably bad about teaching anything of worth? Judging from the politicians who we have had in the most recent years PPE appears only to teach them how to be appalling selfish and to be sycophants of the wealthy. I would suggest that critical thinking is what is taught in those “useless” humanity subjects such as history and english.
Years ago I started an A level economics course and fell out immediately with the teacher who told me economics was based on humans acting rationally – and my view is that is true only for a small % of the time – no wonder we have such stupid approaches to the economy.
Correct
@AliB
Exactly my own experience.
I rejected economics as a serious discipline as an undergrad. when my economics course tutor explained ‘homo economicus’ was predicated on superman, and all the resultant classical theory was based on those assumptions.
If what is now classical plate tectonics had been based on equivalent and utterly stupid theoretical basic assumptions Geophysicists would be a laughing stock globally, and not just with the seven day nutjobs, who really do rely on superman.
How conventional economists have managed to gain more credibility than the tooth fairy, and the chutzpah to pretend scientific validity is still beyond me.
That was my first year experience but I persisted, arguing all the way through the course.
@Tony
“…If what is now classical plate tectonics had been based on equivalent and utterly stupid theoretical basic assumptions Geophysicists would be a laughing stock globally,…”
I was reading a piece only the other day about the guy who first came out of the closet with the continental drift theory. He was long dead before ‘Plate Tectonics’ became a respectable interpretation of reality.
Academia can be painfully conservative. Doesn’t have to be, but there are powerful incentives (more to do with ego than money, in my estimation, though a chair and tenure must be powerful influences when a stipend is attached).
NB. Richard, you might yourself consider from time to time how the moniker ‘professor’ impresses (or otherwise) your audience. I suspect it is still positive, but it may not remain so.
You might bear in mind I’m old enough to remember Theophilus Brainstawm, Jimmy Edwards and Stanley Unwin who all used the title. Celebrated company, but…… 🙂
Noted
In Derrick Jensen’s book, Endgame, he wrote about what he called hidden premisses, that whenever people talk or think, there are things that they hold to be true but don’t mention. From whatever else they say, hidden premisses can be inferred, since what they say will support them. His argument is that hidden premisses (values, principles, truths) need to be openly stated at the outset. I would add this to your list. For instance, if I was speaking with someone who held the hidden premiss “people need to be told what to do” and I knew that openly, it would make sense of the things they might say, such as “strong, decisive leadership is needed”. Similarly, knowing that someone believed that “people do best together as equals” would also help with understanding what they might say. Knowing about hidden premisses and inferring what they are, is essential, whether they are our own, or others, because of their influence. In my work with people who work with drug and alcohol users, becoming aware of values/principles (hidden premisses) is the start point, since having problems with drugs/alcohol is stigmatised. We do sense hidden premisses. If I say the government’s withdrawal of the WFA is horrible, we can sense a hidden premiss, since its only horrible if I actually care about what it does to others, which means I think that others are also important. Hidden premisses sit beneath “should” statements, abstract judgement statements – “it’s good/bad that”. The question I ask is: “What must this person believe to be true in order to say that?”
To think critically about “X” requires that one looks objectively at “X” – engage with empirical base reality, up-load the epistemology/ontology sub-routines & ditto the honesty sub-routine.
The current LINO bunch are functionaly incapable of doing this: they are, as past, recent (& future) events show – corrupt to the very core, owned men & women. That’s why LINO cannot do “critical thinking”. Expacting & hoping they ever could is a waste of time. As Mr Warren noted in a previous blog: they are priests & objectivity…critical thinking has no place in priesthoods (Our lobbyist/funder, which art in heaven, hallowed by they name .. etc).
Might the lack of critical thinking problem have factors which could include the homogeneity of education and the blocking.or filtering out, of those with different socio-economic education and learning backgrounds and/or non-group ideas?
“Chums: How a Tiny Caste of Oxford Tories Took over the U. K.” by Simon Kuper, gives a credible and disturbing analysis of the effects of a least some current forms of tertiary education.
Lateral Thinking, which seems to be relevantly similar to Critical Thinking, can be taught in primary school, and in at least one, was. Such was not so easy after the 1988 Education Deform Act which basically presented thinking and knowledge as what the government said it was, and was not to be questioned.
“With silo mentality organisations are over managed and under led.”
(From Digital Master)
Much to agree with
@Steve Trevethan
I like “1988 Education Deform Act “.
Steve T
Hence the bill in Parliament to say that Rwanda is a safe country for refugees, when evidently it is the opposite.
Does the Labour Party continue to have a social conscience? I think “Free Gear Kier” and his minister defenders has put paid to that idea!
Very good blog and insightful.
I would think one of the most useful things you can do for your own self improvement is apply critical thinking to the question, “Am I good at critical thinking”?
Most of us think we are, but if we spend enough time thinking about this question honestly we will find routes to improving our thought processes…
A nice virtuous self improvement cycle. 🙂
There are some things in party politics that don’t require any kind of thinking, critical or otherwise, because the position on/solution to the issue is obvious, decided, settled and therefore no discussion or thinking is required. Such as “small boats” – crack down on the people smugglers; drugs – crack down on the dealers; financial black holes – crack down on public spending to balance the books. And many more.
I don’t agree
The answer to small boats is tickets on big ones
To drug smugglers is, in some cases, regulated legalisation
And black holes, that’s raise tax because that’s why this one exists.
0/3 then
I would suggest all of those so called solutions are actually the result of a lack of critical thinking as non of them will work. So what then? The next not critically appraised idea that pops in to their heads?
Mea culpa. I was in a rush and didn’t make clear I was trying to point out the poverty of much party political dogma. None of the things I mentioned work but they are articles of faith for both Tory and Labour and never subjected to any kind of examination.
The small boats for example , as you say, ferry tickets, ie a safe route to the UK is the answer, but such an obvious solution (to us) is one that can’t even be contemplated because it is entirely counter to their innate worldview. They probably don’t even realise that their solutions don’t work and so they double down and create more failures and more misery.
I realised after I had posted
I wondered why you were so out of character
Sorry!
I wanted a telling quote from your opener, but it is all pertinent. An excellent thought-provoking argument – and there’s the rub.
In order to think – to define the aim, to analyse the arguments, research alternatives, apply judgement and synthesise the new argument – why, that takes time. Smooching the donors, getting fitted for the new suits, and enjoying the Arsenal box for the day doesn’t allow reflection, does it?
When the country doesn’t just stop for the weekend, a politician who seeks to govern needs to accept that the country demands more from them than they have had to cede in Opposition. I never believed I would say this – but perhaps some Ministers need to look to Thatcher and her famous 4-hour sleeps. It’s not a job, it’s a vocation.
What sticks in my throat is that almost certainly the majority of Labour MPs thought the Winter Fuel decision was wrong, but they voted for it anyway. Why bother with MPs if they are just there to do as they are told?
@ Michael G
“…the majority of Labour MPs thought the Winter Fuel decision was wrong, but they voted for it anyway.”
Hmmmm…… I wonder. (?)
I suspect that a large number of current Labour MPs do not share my visceral objection to Means Tested Benefits. So many are the sons and daughters of Thatcher. They know nothing else. (Except the tired mythology of the ‘Winter of Discontent.)
Those few who were reputed to be in tears as they passed through the lobbies were probably weeping for their chances of re-election. And whips or no whips they did have a choice.
I don’t. We don’t.
Agreed. I would love all means testing to be abolished, it is equivalent to a 100%+ marginal tax rate. Instead, all benefits should be treated as taxable income.
RE the winter fuel payment why not link it to actual temperatures, so that if the temperature falls below a certain agreed amount for a period of say 3 days the aged receive an additional payment for fuel costs in that month.Wouldn’t that satisfy both the demand for support and reduce unnecessary payment .I
But temperature varies widely in the UK, and Scotland is always colder
The cost of measuring daily temperatures everywhere and then applying the results to payments would cost a lot more than just giving everyone the WFA. Probably including the entire population in ‘everyone’.
As an example I live at the top of a very steep hill, exposed to weather changes from every direction. The major town at the bottom of the very steep hill in only 2 miles away, but is probably, usually, 1 degree warmer.
Agreed
There is already a Cold Weather Payment scheme.
https://www.gov.uk/cold-weather-payment
Our education system is now influenced by Taylorism:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877050915026721
We are being trained to learn and regurgitate the “syllabus” and accept the “group think” – critical thinking or challenging is not being a good “team member”, and will be reflected in promotion prospects, or in a job reference.
That was what the national curriculum was always going to be about.
“…Why can’t they remember what they were taught at university?”
I suspect what they were taught at university is perhaps the problem here.
You don’t go to university to be taught: you go there to learn. (To learn critical thinking in some form for instance) University is not about vocational training. (Except it has become so). We do that in technical colleges. Training is about learning how things are, have always, been done. Education is (should be) about improving on that and finding new solutions to old and intractable problems.
Oxford University’s PPE course belongs in a technical college. It isn’t education. It’s training.
Actually…….”indoctrination” sounds closer to the mark judging by the tenor of this post.
I don’t know how you undermine that and replace it, but it needs to be done. (Or you get a political class like the one we’ve got.)
And come to think of it the fact that we can think of a ‘Political Class’ is condemnation in itself. Margaret Thatcher was hot on ‘Victorian values’. What we have now is closer to Tudor values except The Court no longer centres on a monarch, but on No.10 Downing Street. Sycophancy and patronage.
It won’t do.
Teaching is required to guide the development of critical thinking
It is possible.
Critical thinking on its own is insufficient for social well-being it needs to be accompanied by the fundamental disposition of always seeking to balance individual needs against those of others because they will often clash.
Without a doubt the teaching of critical thinking at an early age in school, and throughout the education pathway, is the only way we can hope to balance reasoned thinking with the onslaught of mis and dis information so prevalent in our national and social media.
Very obviously the bulk of the British electorate doesn’t do complicated. It’s not really in the habit of asking questions particularly about economic and monetary matters. “Above my pay grade.” is the thinking. (I actually had a prospective Green candidate for my local council tell me this once!) MMT therefore needs to focus on making its explanations how money works even simpler. Difficult but a necessary task. Perhaps a simple list of questions with answers which also enable drilling down with additional questions and answers below the initial question might be the answer. Easy-peasy structuring being the “fine-art” of this approach.
Certainly the country needs to move past the following mindless regurgitation found in today’s Andrew Rawnsley article in the Observer:-
“When you’ve got a cash-strapped country to renew, bickering about which Downing Street staffer is being paid what and squabbling about who sits where in Number 10 is extremely unedifying.”