Barely a good word for Donald Trump in Houses of Parliament

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I am beginning to develop an addiction to Hansard, the public record of debates in Parliament and the House of Lords. It's a fascinating public record of how major political decisions are debated, and I feel fortunate to live in a country where it is readily available on the internet the day after a debate.

The debate on Donald Trump's state visit was particularly interesting, because it was prompted by a public petition signed by 1.85 million people, which read:

Donald Trump should be allowed to enter the UK in his capacity as head of the US Government, but he should not be invited to make an official State Visit because it would cause embarrassment to Her Majesty the Queen.

I've been taking a look at the debate from 20^th February, which divided neatly down party lines, with the Conservatives and a single DUP member supporting the state visit, and everyone else (Labour, Lib Dems, SNP and Green) opposing it.

A notable point about the defenders of the State Visit is that virtually none of them attempted to defend Trump himself. The case that speaker after speaker made was that we should invite Trump despite of his awfulness. Indeed, some speakers argued that we'd invited other awful people before – Emperor Hirohito, President Ceausescu, Xi Jinping and Robert Mugabe - so we would be guilty of double standards if we did not invite Trump as well.

It was noted, however, that this argument did not hold much water, as none of these other invitees had been extended this honour within a week of being elected, and other far less controversial US presidents had never had a State Visit.

The principal argument used to support the government's position was a pragmatic one: it will be to the benefit of the UK if we work with the US, our oldest ally. That way we may be able to influence him, and also to achieve good trade deals. Dr Julian Lewis (Con) went even further, and suggested that by cosying up to Trump we might be able to avert World War 3:

…given he is in some doubt about continuing the alliance that prevented world war three and is our best guarantee of world war three not breaking out in the 21st century‚ do they really think it is more important to berate him, castigate him and encourage him to retreat into some sort of bunker, rather than to do what the Prime Minister did, perhaps more literally than any of us expected, and take him by the hand to try to lead him down the paths of righteousness? I have no doubt at all about the matter.

He continued:

What really matters to the future of Europe is that the transatlantic alliance continues and prospers. There is every prospect of that happening provided that we reach out to this inexperienced individual and try to persuade him‚there is every chance of persuading him, to continue with the policy pursued by his predecessors.

I can't imagine this is an argument that would be appreciated by Trump, as it manages to be both patronising and insulting at the same time.

The closest anyone dared come to being positive about Trump was when Nigel Evans (Con) said:

We might not like some of the things he says. I certainly do not like some of what he has said in the past, but I respect the fact that he is now delivering the platform on which he stood. He will go down in history as the only politician roundly condemned for delivering on his promises. I know this is a peculiar thing in the politics we are used to here‚- politicians standing up for something and delivering‚- but that is what Trump is doing.

But most of those supporting the visit did so while attempting to distance themselves from Trump's personal characteristics, e.g. Gregory Campbell (CON):

My view is that Candidate Trump and Mr Trump made some deplorable and vile comments, which are indefensible - they cannot be defended morally, politically or in any other way - but he is the democratically elected President of the United States of America.

Other made the point in rather mild and general terms, e.g. Anne Main:

Any of us who have particular concerns about some of President Trump's pronouncements are quite right to have them; I object completely to some of the things that have been said.

If we turn to the comments made by the speakers who opposed the state visit, then they were considerably more vivid in the negative language they used to portray Trump, with many focusing on the less savoury aspects of his character:

Paul Flynn (Lab) referred to the 'cavernous depths of his scientific ignorance'. Others picked up on Trump's statements on women, Muslims, the LGBT community, torture, and the press:

I think of my five-year-old daughter when I reflect on a man who considers it okay to go and grab pussy, a man who considers it okay to be misogynistic towards the woman he is running against. Frankly, I cannot imagine a leader of this country, of whatever political stripe, behaving in that manner. David Lammy (Lab)

President Trump's Administration so far has been characterised by ignorance and prejudice, seeking to ban Muslims and deny refuge to people fleeing from war and persecution. Kirsten Oswald (SNP)

Even if one were the ultimate pragmatist for whom the matters of equality or of standing against torture, racism and sexism do not matter, giving it all up in week 1 on a plate with no questions asked would not be a sensible negotiating strategy. Stephen Doughty (Lab)

I fought really hard to be elected. I fought against bigotry, sexism and the patriarchy to earn my place in this House. By allowing Donald Trump a state visit and bringing out the china crockery and the red carpet, we endorse all those things that I fought hard against and say, Do you know what? It's okay.  Naz Shah (Lab)

Let me conclude by saying that in my view, Mr Trump is a disgusting, immoral man. He represents the very opposite of the values we hold and should not be welcome here. Daniel Zeichner (Lab)

We are told that Trump is very thin-skinned and gets furious when criticised. It is also said that he doesn't read much, but gets most of his news from social media and cable TV, and is kept happy insofar as his staff feed him only positive media stories. If so, then I guess there is a possibility his team will somehow keep Hansard away from him, and the visit will go ahead. But it's hard to see how it could possibly succeed if he becomes aware of the disdain in which he is held by Conservative MPs as well as the Opposition. They have made it abundantly clear that the offer of a state visit is not intended to honour him. Rather they regard him as a petulant but dangerous despot, who might be bribed to behave well by the offer of some pomp and ceremony.

The petition to withdraw the invitation has been voted down, but it has nevertheless succeeded by forcing the Conservatives to make public just how much they despise the US President.

The alt-right guide to fielding conference questions

After watching this interview between BBC Newsnight's Evan Davies and Sebastian Gorka, Deputy Assistant to Donald Trump, I realised I'd been handling conference questions all wrong. Gorka, who is a former editor of Breitbart News, gives a virtuoso performance that illustrates every trick in the book for coming out on top in an interview: smear the questioner, distract from the question, deny the premises, and question the motives behind a difficult question. Do everything, in fact, except give a straight answer. Here's what a conference Q and A session might look like if we all mastered these useful techniques.

ED: Dr Gorka, you claim that you can improve children's reading development using a set of motor exercises. But the data you showed on slide 3 don't seem to show that.

SG: That question is typical of the kind of bias from people working at British Universities. You seem hell-bent on discrediting any view that doesn't agree with your own preconceived position.

ED: Er, no. I just wondered about slide 3. Is the difference between those two numbers statistically significant?

SG: Why are people like you so obsessed with trivial details? Here we are showing marvellous improvements in children's reading, and all you can do is to pick away at a minor point.

ED: Well, you could answer the question? Are those numbers significantly different?

SG: It's not as if you and your colleagues have any expertise in statistics. The last talk by your colleague Dr Smith was full of mistakes. She actually did a parametric test in a situation that called for a nonparametric test.

ED: But can we get back to the question of whether your intervention had a significant effect.

SG: Of course it did. It's an enormous effect. And that's only part of the data. I've got lots of other numbers that I haven't shown here. And if we got to slide 3, just look at those bars: the red one is much higher than the blue one.

ED: But where are the error bars?

SG: That's just typical of you. Always on the attack. Look at the language you are using. I show you all the results in a nice bar chart, and all you can do is talk about error. Don't you ever think of anything else?

ED: Well, I can see we aren't going to get anywhere with that question, so let me try another one. Your co-author, Dr Trump, said that the children in your study all had dyslexia, whereas in your talk you said they covered the whole range of reading ability. That's rather confusing. Can you tell us which version is correct?

SG: There you go again. Always trying to pick holes in everything we do. Seems you're just jealous because your own reading programs don't have anything like this effect.

ED: But don't you think it discredits your study if you can't give a straight answer to a simple question?

SG: So this is what we get, ladies and gentleman. All the time. Fake challenges and attempts to discredit us.

ED: Well, it's a straightforward question. Were they dyslexic or not?

SG: Some of them were, and some of them weren't.

ED: How many? Dr Trump said all of them were dyslexic.

SG: You'll have to ask him. I've got parents falling over themselves to get their children enrolled, and I really don't have time for this kind of biased questioning.

Chair: Thank you Dr Gorka. We have no more time for questions.

We know what's best for you: politicians vs. experts

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I regard politicians as a much-maligned group. The job is not, after all, particularly well paid, when you consider the hours that they usually put in, the level of scrutiny they are subjected to, and the high-stakes issues they must grapple with. I therefore start with the assumption that most of them go into politics because they feel strongly about social or economic issues and want to make a difference. Although being a politician gives you some status, it also inevitably means you will be subjected to abuse or worse. The murder of Jo Cox led to a brief lull in the hostilities, but it's resumed with a vengeance as politicians continue to grapple with issues that divide the nation and that people feel strongly about. It seems inevitable, then, that anyone who stays the course must have the hide of a rhinoceros, and so by a process of self-selection, politicians are a relatively tough-minded lot. 

I fear, though, that in recent years, as the divisions between parties have become more extreme, so have the characteristics of politicians. One can admire someone who sticks to their principles in the face of hostile criticism; but what we now have are politicians who are stubborn to the point of pig-headedness, and simply won't listen to evidence or rational argument. So loath are they to appear wavering, that they dismiss the views of experts.

This was most famously demonstrated by the previous justice secretary, Michael Gove, who, when asked if any economists backed Brexit, replied "people in this country have had enough of experts". This position is continued by Theresa May as she goes forth in the quest for a Hard Brexit.

Then we have the case of the Secretary of State for Health, Jeremy Hunt, who has repeatedly ignored expert opinion on the changes he has introduced to produce a 'seven-day NHS'. The evidence he cited for the need for the change was misrepresented, according to the authors of the report, who were unhappy with how their study was being used. The specific plans Hunt proposed were described as 'unfunded, undefined and wholly unrealistic' by the British Medical Association, yet he pressed on.

At a time when the NHS is facing staff shortages, and as Brexit threatens to reduce the number of hospital staff from the EU, he has introduced measures that have led to demoralisation of junior doctors. This week he unveiled a new rota system that has a mix of day and night shifts that had doctors, including experts in sleep, up in arms. It was suggested that this kind of rota would not be allowed in the aviation industry, and is likely to put the health of doctors as well as patients at risk.

A third example comes from academia, where Jo Johnson, Minister of State for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation, steadfastly refuses to listen to any criticisms of his Higher Education and Research Bill, either from academics or from the House of Lords. Just as with Hunt and the NHS, he starts from fallacious premises – the idea that teaching is often poor, and that students and employers are dissatisfied – and then proceeds to introduce measures that are designed to fix the apparent problem, but which are more likely to damage a Higher Education system which, as he notes, is currently the envy of the world. The use of the National Student Survey as a metric for teaching excellence has come under particularly sharp attack – not just because of poor validity, but also because the distribution of scores make it unsuited for creating any kind of league table: a point that has been stressed by the Royal Statistical Society, the Office for National Statistics, and most recently by Lord Lipsey, joint chair of the All Party Statistics Group.

Johnson's unwillingness to engage with the criticism was discussed recently at the Annual General Meeting of the Council for Defence of British Universities (where Martin Wolf gave a dazzling critique of the Higher Education and Research Bill from an expert economics perspective).  Lord Melvyn Bragg said that in years of attending the House of Lords he had never come across such resistance to advice. I asked whether anyone could explain why Johnson was so obdurate. After all, he is presumably a highly intelligent man, educated at one of our top Universities. It's clear that he is ideologically committed to a market in higher education, but presumably he doesn't want to see the UK's international reputation downgraded, so why doesn't he listen to the kind of criticism put forward in the official response to his plans by Cambridge University? I don't know the answer, but there are two possible reasons that seem plausible to me.

First, those who are in politics seldom seem to understand the daily life of people affected by the Bills they introduce. One senior academic told me that Oxford and Cambridge in particular do themselves a disservice when they invite senior politicians to an annual luxurious college feast, in the hope of gaining some influence. The guest may enjoy the exquisite food and wine, but they go away convinced that all academics are living the high life, and give only the occasional lecture between bouts of indulgence. Any complaints, thus, are seen as those coming from idle dilettantes who are out of touch with the real world and alarmed at the idea they may be required to do serious work. Needless to say, this may have been accurate in the days of Brideshead Revisited, but it could not be further from the truth today – in Higher Education Institutions of every stripe, academics work longer hours than the average worker (though fewer, it must be said, than the hard-pressed doctors).

Second, governments always want to push things through because if they don't, they miss a window of opportunity during their period in power. So there can be a sense of, let's get this up and running and worry about the detail later. That was pretty much the case made by David Willetts when the Bill was debated in the House of Lords:

These are not perfect measures. We are on a journey, and I look forward to these metrics being revised and replaced by superior metrics in the future. They are not as bad as we have heard in some of the caricatures of them, and in my experience, if we wait until we have a perfect indicator and then start using it, we will have a very long wait. If we use the indicators that we have, however imperfect, people then work hard to improve them. That is the spirit with which we should approach the TEF today.

However, that is little comfort to those who might see their University go out of business while the problems are fixed. As Baroness Royall said in response:

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, said that we are embarking on a journey, which indeed we are, but I feel that the car in which we will travel does not yet have all the component parts. I therefore wonder if, when we have concluded all our debates, rather than going full speed ahead into a TEF for everybody who wants to participate, we should have some pilots. In that way the metrics could be amended quite properly before everybody else embarks on the journey with us.

Much has been said about the 'post-truth' age in which we now live, where fake news flourishes and anyone's opinion is as good as anyone else's. If ever there was a need for strong universities as a source of reliable, expert evidence, it is now. Unless academics start to speak out to defend what we have, it is at risk of disappearing.

For more detail of the case against the TEF, see here.