{"id":32673,"date":"2016-03-10T13:56:10","date_gmt":"2016-03-10T13:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=32673"},"modified":"2016-03-10T15:25:08","modified_gmt":"2016-03-10T15:25:08","slug":"dab-jarvis-analysis-of-a-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2016\/03\/10\/dab-jarvis-analysis-of-a-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"Dan Jarvis: analysis of a speech"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have been sent a copy of the speech Dan Jarvis <\/a>gave this morning at Demos.<\/p>\n

I stress, my interest is technical: I am interested to see what he is suggesting.<\/p>\n

Three phrases stood out amidst a soup of sentiment:<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s take out the politics.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And:<\/p>\n

Keir Hardie said that the British are a practical people, not given to chasing bubbles.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And:<\/p>\n

People I meet, the people I am talking about, don\u2019t attend economic seminars.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As someone who teaches political economy I think these phrases are pretty powerful. In combination they say three things.<\/p>\n

First, don't think. Or, to put it another way, accept the political status quo.<\/p>\n

Second, second politics is as a consequence a response process.<\/p>\n

And third, it says don't whatever you do have a strategy that you might share with those you are asking to follow: just expect them to do so.<\/p>\n

This may well be good for the army. I note Dan Jarvis served in it. As he stressed in the speech, he has been on the frontline three times (admittedly by choice: although I do not doubt his bravery or the value of his service).<\/p>\n

The army should be above politics.<\/p>\n

When you're on the frontline your job is to accept the status quo - what you are told.<\/p>\n

And it is to respond to orders, the meaning of which will all too often not be explained to you.<\/p>\n

But that is the army and Mr Jarvis is now a politician. These don't sound like the basis for a sound political strategy in a democracy. Nor do they suggest that Mr Jarvis has a plan. They just say that he's wiling to stand before the troops thinking he's the man to follow and because he's got the right pips on his shoulder.<\/p>\n

The trouble is he never got enough pips to get to HQ by the look of it. And there such an approach should not work.<\/p>\n

Nor should it in politics. And that is why this was a worrying speech. The country is not like the army. I'm not sure Dan Jarvis has worked that out yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have been sent a copy of the speech Dan Jarvis gave this morning at Demos. I stress, my interest is technical: I am interested
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32673\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}