Contagion of the political system

 

Citizens of the UK have in recent weeks watched in amazement as the current candidates for leadership of the Conservative party debate their policies. Whoever wins will replace Boris Johnson as Prime Minister, with the decision made by a few thousand members of the Conservative Party. All options were bad, and we are now down to the last two: Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak.

 

For those of us who are not Conservatives, and for many who are, there was immense joy at the ousting of Boris Johnson. The man seemed like a limpet, impossible to dislodge. Every week brought a new scandal that would have been more than sufficient to lead to resignation 10 years ago, yet he hung on and on. Many people thought that, after a vote of no confidence in his leadership, he would step down so that a caretaker PM could run the country while the debate over his successor took place, but the limpet is still clinging on. He’s not doing much running of the country, but that’s normal, and perhaps for the best. He’s much better at running parties than leading the Conservative party.

 

I have to say I had not expected much from Truss and Sunak, but even my low expectations have not been met. The country is facing immense challenges, from climate change, from coronavirus, and from escalating energy prices. These are barely mentioned: instead the focus is on reducing taxes, with the candidates now competing for just how much tax they can cut. As far as I can see, these policies will do nothing to help the poorest in society, whose benefits will shrink to pay for tax cuts; the richer you are the more tax you pay and so this is a rich person’s policy.

 

What has surprised me is just how ill-informed the two candidates are. The strategy seems to be to pick a niche topic of interest to Conservative voters, make up a new policy overnight and announce it the next day. So we have Rishi Sunak proposing that the solution to the crisis in the NHS is to charge people who miss doctor’s appointments. Has he thought this through? Think of the paperwork. Think of the debt collectors tasked with collecting £10 from a person with dementia. Think of the cost of all of this.  And on Education, his idea is to reintroduce selective (grammar) schools: presumably because he thinks that our regular schools are inadequate to educate intelligent children.

 

On Education, Liz Truss is even worse. Her idea is that all children who score top marks in their final year school examinations should get an interview to go to Oxford or Cambridge University. This is such a crazy idea that others have written at length to point out its flaws (e.g. this cogent analysis by Sam Freedman). Suffice it to say that it has a similar vibe to the Sunak grammar schools plan: it implies that only two British universities have any value. Conservatives do seem obsessed with creating divisions between haves and have-nots, but only if they can ensure their children are among the haves.

 

Another confused statement from Truss is that, as far as Scotland goes, she plans to ignore Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister of Scotland and leader of the Scottish National Party. At a time when relationships between Scotland and England are particularly fraught, this insensitive statement is reminiscent of the gaffes of Boris Johnson.

 

Oh, and yesterday she also announced – and then quickly U-turned – an idea that would limit the pay of public sector workers in the North of England, because it was cheaper to live there.

 

What I find so odd about both Sunak and Truss is that they keep scoring own goals. Nobody requires them to keep coming up with new policies in niche areas.  Why don’t they just hold on to their original positions, and if asked about anything else, just agree to ‘look at’ it when in power? Johnson was always very good at promising to ‘look at’ things: when he’s not being a limpet, he’s a basilisk. The more you probe Sunak and Truss, the more their shallowness and lack of expertise show through. They’d do well to keep schtum. Or, better still, show some indication that they could, for instance, get a grip on the crisis in the NHS.

 

What all this demonstrates is how an incompetent and self-promoting leader causes damage far beyond their own term. Johnson’s cabinet was selected purely on one criterion: loyalty to him. The first requirement was to “believe in Brexit” – reminiscent of the historical wars between Protestants and Catholics, where the first thing you ask of a candidate is what their religion is. Among Conservative politicians, it seems that an accusation of not really being a Brexiteer is the worst thing you can say about a candidate. Indeed, that is exactly the charge that her opponents level against Truss, who made cogent arguments for remaining in the EU before the referendum. Like a Protestant required to recant their beliefs or face the flames, she is now reduced to defending Brexit in the strongest possible terms, saying that “predictions of doom have not come true”, as farmers, fishermen, and exporters go out of business, academics leave in droves, and holidaymakers sit in queues at Dover.

 

It's known that Johnson does not want to give up the top job. I’m starting to wonder if behind all of this is a cunning plan. The people he’s appointed to cabinet are so incompetent that maybe he hopes that, when confronted with a choice between them, the Conservative Party will decide that he looks better than either of them.

 

 

 

 

Boris Bingo: Strategies for (not) answering questions

On Wednesday 27th May, the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, appeared before the House of Commons Liaison Committee, to answer questions about the coronavirus crisis. The Liaison Committee is made up of all the Chairs of Select Committees, which are where much of the serious business of government is done. The proceedings are available online, and contrast markedly with Hansard reports from the House of Commons, where the atmosphere is typically gladiatorial, with a lot of political point-scoring. In Select Committees, members from a mix of parties aim to work constructively together. It is customary for the Prime Minister to give evidence to the Liaison Committee three times a year, but this was Boris Johnson's first appearance.

The circumstances were extraordinary. The PM himself did not look well: perhaps not surprising when one considers that he was in intensive care with COVID-19 in April, only leaving hospital on 12th April, with a new baby born on 29th April. Since then, the UK achieved the dubious distinction of having one of the worst rates of COVID-19 infection in the world. Then, last weekend a scandal broke around Dominic Cummings, Chief Advisor to the PM, who gave a Press Conference on Monday to explain why he had been travelling around the country with his wife and son, when both he and his wife had suspected COVID-19.

I watched the Liaison Committee live on TV and was agog. There had been fears that the Chair, Bernard Jenkin, would give the PM an easy time. He did not; he chaired impeccably, ensuring committee members stuck to time and that the PM stuck to the point. Questions were polite but challenging, regardless of the political affiliation of the committee member. Did the PM rise to the challenge? This was not the sneering, combative PM that we saw in Brexit debates – he, no doubt, could see that would not go down well with this committee. Rather, the impression he gave was of a man who was winging it and relying on his famous charm in the hope that bluster and bonhomie would win the day. Alas, they did not.

Intrigued by Johnson's strategy – if it can be called that – for answering questions,  I have spent some time poring over the transcript of the proceedings, and realised in so doing that I have the material for a new Bingo game. When watching the PM answer questions, you have a point for each of the following strategies you identify. If you do the drinking game version, it may ease the angst otherwise generated by listening to the leader of our nation.

Paltering

This term refers to a common strategy of politicians of appearing to answer a question, without actually doing so. It can give at least a superficial impression that the question has been answered, while deflecting to a related topic. In the following exchange, 'I have no reason to believe' is a big red flag for paltering. The Chair asked what advice the PM had sought from the Cabinet Secretary about Cummings' behaviour in relation to compliance with the code of integrity, and the PM replied:

I have no reason to believe that there is any dissent from what I said a few days ago.

Asked whether Scottish and Welsh first ministers had any influence on the approach to lockdown (Q14)

Stephen, we all work together, and I listen very carefully to what Mark says, to what Arlene and Michelle say, to what Nicola says. Of course we think about it together.

Response to Jeremy Hunt on why there were delays in implementing testing

As you know, Jeremy, we faced several difficulties with this virus. First, this was a totally new virus and it had some properties that everybody was quite slow to recognise across the world. For instance, it is possible to transmit coronavirus when you are pre-symptomatic—when you do not have symptoms—and I do not think people understood that to begin with.

When Hunt later asked the straightforward question "Why don't we get our test results back in 24 hours", (Q45) Johnson replied:

That is a very good question. Actually, we are reducing the time—the delay—on getting your test results back. I really pay tribute to Dido Harding and her team. The UK is now testing more people than any other country in Europe. She has got a staff now of 40,000 people, with 7,500 clinicians and 25,000 trackers in all, and they are rapidly trying to accelerate the turnaround time.

When asked by Caroline Nokes about the specific impact of phased school opening on women's ability to get back to work (Q73), Johnson answered a completely different question:

I think your question, Caroline, is directed at whether or not we have sufficient female representation at the top of Government helping us to inform these decisions, and I really think we have

Vagueness
This could take the form of bland agreement with the questioner, but without any clear commitment to action. Greg Clark asked (Q27) why we have a policy of 2 meters for social distancing when the WHO recommends 1 meter. The response was

...You are making a very important point, one that I have made myself several times—many times—in the course of the debates that we have had.

Pressed further on whether he had asked SAGE whether the 2-meter rule could be revised (Q32) he replied

I can not only make that commitment—I can tell you that I have already done just that, so I hope we will make progress.

Asked about firms who put their employees on furlough and then threatened them with redundancy (Q99), Johnson agreed this was a Very Bad Thing, but did not actually undertake to do anything about it.

...You are raising a very important point, Huw. This country is nothing without its workforce—its labour. We have to look after people properly, and I am well aware of some of the issues that are starting to arise. People should not be using furlough cynically to keep people on their books and then get rid of them. We want people back in jobs. We want this country back on its feet. That is the whole point of the furlough scheme.

Asked about how the Cabinet were consulted about the unprecedented Press Conference by Cummings (Q9), the PM was remarkably vague, replying:

...I thought that it would be a very good thing if people could understand what I had understood myself previously, I think on the previous day, about what took place—and there you go. We had a long go at it.

Asked to be specific about advice to parents who are in the same situation as Dominic Cummings re childcare (Q 21)

...The clear advice is to stay at home unless you absolutely have to go to work to do your job. If you have exceptional problems with childcare, that may cause you to vary your arrangements; that is clear.

The use of the word 'clear' in the PM responses is often a flag for vagueness.

A direct question by Greg Clark on whether contact tracing was compulsory or advisory (Q34) led to a confused answer:

We intend to make it absolutely clear to people that they must stay at home, but let me be clear—

When the questioner followed up to ask whether it was law or advice, he continued:

We will be asking people to stay at home. If they do not follow that advice, we will consider what sanctions may be necessary—financial sanctions, fines or whatever.

It is not always easy to distinguish vagueness from paltering. The PM has a tendency to agree that something is a Very Good Thing, to speak in glowing and over-general terms about initiatives, and about his desire to implement them, without any clear commitment to do more than 'looking at' them. Here he is responding to Robert Halfon on whether there will be additional resources for children whose education has been adversely affected by the shutdown (Q63)

The short answer is that I want to support any measures we can take to level up. You know what we want to do in this Government. There is no doubt that huge social injustice is taking place at the moment because some kids are going to have better access to tutoring and to schooling at home, and other kids are not going to get nearly as much, and that is not fair.

and again, when Halfon asked about apprenticeships (Q64)

All I will say to you, Rob, is that I totally agree that apprenticeships can play a huge part in getting people back on to the jobs market and into work, and we will look at anything to help people.

Halfon pressed on, asking for an apprenticeship guarantee, but the PM descended further into vagueness.

We will be doing absolutely everything we can to get people into jobs, and I will look at the idea of an apprenticeship guarantee. I suppose it is something that we would have to work with employers to deliver.

Other examples came from answers to Darren Jones, who asked about financial support to different sectors, and payments after the furlough scheme ended; e.g. the response to Q89:

We are going to do everything we can, Darren, to get everybody back into work.

Deferral

This was the first strategy to appear, in response to a question by the Chair (Q2) about when the committee might expect to see him again. Johnson made it clear he wasn't going to commit to anything:

You are very kind to want to see me again more frequently, even before we have completed this session, but can I possibly get back to you on that? Obviously, there is a lot on at the moment.

Stephen Timms asked about people who were destitute because, despite having leave to remain, they had no recourse to public funds when they suddenly lost their jobs (Q68). The PM responded:

I am going to have to come back to you on that, Stephen.

It is perhaps unfair to count this one as deliberate strategy: Johnson seemed genuinely baffled as to how 100,000 children could be living in destitution in a civilised country.

When asked by Mel Stride about whether there would be significant increases in the overall tax burden, the PM replied:

I understand exactly where you are going with your question, Mel, but I think you are going to have to wait, if you can, until the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, brings forward his various proposals.

Refusal to answer

Refusals were mostly polite. An illustration appeared early in the proceedings, when asked by the Chair about Dominic Cummings (Q6), the PM replied:

I do think that is a reasonable question to ask, but as I say, we have a huge amount of exegesis and discussion of what happened in the life of my adviser between 27 March and 14 April. Quite frankly, I am not certain, right now, that an inquiry into that matter is a very good use of official time. We are working flat out on coronavirus.

So the question is accepted as reasonable, but we are asked to understand that it is not high priority for a PM in these challenging times.

Asked by Meg Hillier whether the Cabinet Secretary should see evidence provided by Cummings, the PM responds that this is inappropriate – again arguing this would be a distraction from higher priorities:

I think, actually, I would not be doing my job if I were now to shuffle this problem into the hands of officials, who are—believe me, Meg—working flat out to deal with coronavirus, as the public would want.

At times, when paltering had been detected, and a follow-up question put him on the spot, Johnson simply dug his heels in, often claiming to have already answered the question. Asked whether the Cabinet Secretary has interviewed Cummings (Q8), Johnson replied:

I am not going to go into the discussions that have taken place, but I have no reason to depart from what I have already said.

And asked whether he'd seen evidence to prove that allegations about Cummings were false (Q17), the PM again replied:

I don’t want to go into much more than I have said—

Asked by Jeremy Hunt on when a 24-hour test turnaround time would be met (Q48), the rather remarkable reply was:

I am not going to give you a deadline right now, Jeremy, because I have been forbidden from announcing any more targets and deadlines.

Challenge questioner

This strategy where unwelcome questions were dismissed as either having false premises, and/or being politically motivated. Pete Wishart (SNP) asked if Cummings' behaviour would make people less likely to obey lockdown rules (Q10). Johnson did not engage with the question, denied any wrongdoing by Cummings and added:

Notwithstanding the various party political points that you may seek to make and your point about the message, I respectfully disagree.

Similar phrases are seen in response to Yvette Copper (Q24), who was accused of political point-scoring, and then blamed for confusing the British public (see also Churchillian gambit, below):

I think that this conversation, to my mind, has illuminated why it is so important for us to move on, and be very clear with the British public about how we want to deal with that, and how we want to make progress. And, frankly, when they hear nothing but politicians squabbling and bickering, it is no wonder that they feel confused and bewildered.

And in response to a similar point from Simon Hoare (Q25)

...what they [the people] want now is for us to focus on them and their needs, rather than on a political ding-dong about what one adviser may or may not have done

False claim

This doesn't always involve lying; it can be unclear whether or not the PM knows what is actually the case. But there was at least one instance in his evidence where what he said is widely reported as untrue. Intriguingly, this was not an answer to a direct question, but rather an additional detail when asked about testing in care homes by Jeremy Hunt (Q44)

Do not forget that, as Chris Hopson of NHS Providers has said, every discharge from the NHS into care homes was made by clinicians, and in no case was that done when people were suspected of being coronavirus victims. Actually, the number of discharges from the NHS into care homes went down by 40% from January to March, so it is just not true that there was some concerted effort to move people out of NHS beds into care homes. That is just not right.

A report by ITV news asserted that, contrary to this claim, places in hospitals were block booked for discharged NHS patients.

The Churchillian gambit

When allowed to divert from answering questions, the PM would attempt the kind of rhetoric that had been so successful in Brexit debates, referring to what 'the people' wanted, and to government attempts to 'defeat the virus'.
For instance, this extended response to Q9 re Dominic Cummings;

What we need to do really is move on and get on to how we are going to sort out coronavirus, which is really the overwhelming priority of the people of this country

After a lengthy inquisition by Yvette Cooper, culminating in a direct question about whether he put Dominic Cummings above the national interest (Q24), we again had the appeal to what the British public want.

I think my choice is the choice that the British people want us all to make, Yvette, and that is, as far as we possibly can, to lay aside party political point-scoring, and to put the national interest first, and to be very clear with the British public about what we want to do and how we want to take this country forward.

Overall, there were four mentions of 'getting the country back on its feet', including this statement, appended to a question on whether sanctions would be needed to ensure compliance with contact tracing (Q58)

Obviously, we are relying very much on the common sense of the public to recognise the extreme seriousness of this. This is our way out. This is our way of defeating the virus and getting our country back on its feet, and I think people will want to work together-

And in response to a further request for clarification about Dominic Cummings from Darren Jones (Q94)

It is my strong belief that what the country wants is for us to be focusing on how to go forward on the test and trace scheme that we are announcing today, and on how we are going to protect their jobs and livelihoods, and defeat this virus.

In all these exchanges, the 'British people' are depicted as decent, long-suffering people, who are having a bad time, and may be anxious or confused. During Brexit debates, this might have worked, but the problem is that now a large percentage of people of all political stripes are just plain angry, and telling them that they want to 'move on' just makes them angrier.

Ironic politeness

The final characterstic has less to do with content of answers than with their style. British political discourse is a goldmine for researchers in pragmatics – the study of how language is used. Attacking your opponent in obsequiously polite language has perhaps arisen in response to historical prohibitions on uncivil discourse in the House of Commons. Boris Johnson is a master of this art, which can be used to put down an opponent while getting a laugh from the audience. He had to be careful with the Liaison Committee, but his comments that they were 'kind to want to see me' and that he was 'delighted to be here today' were transparently insincere, and presumably designed to amuse the audience while establishing his dominance as someone who could choose whether to attend or not.

The final exchange between the Chair and the PM was priceless. The PM reiterated his enjoyment of his session with the committee but refused to undertake to return, because he was 'working flat out to defeat coronavirus and get our country back on its feet'. The Chair replied:

I should just point out that the questions on which you hesitated and decided to go away and think were some of the most positive answers you gave, in some respects. That is where we want to help. I hope you will come back soon.

I read that to mean, on the one hand, most answers were useless, but on the other hand, where the PM had pleaded for deferral, he would be held to account, and required to provide responses to the Committee in future. We shall see if that happens.

A letter to Boris Johnson

Dear Boris,

Last week you  created a media storm with your speech at the Centre for Policy Studies in London. As a self-publicist, you make Katie Price look like a case of social phobia, and maybe you are pleased with the column inches you attracted. But perhaps you are also made nervous by the many commentators who have suggested that you have damaged your chances of greater political glory by letting the avuncular mask slip and revealing what lies behind it.

As a eulogy for Margaret Thatcher, your speech was most effective, though it came across as a transparent bid to take on her mantle.  But it also revealed a blind spot in your understanding of your fellow human beings.  This is evidence in the two themes that run through the speech: (1) people are motivated solely by competition with others; (2) those who win competitions are morally superior and more deserving than those who lose.

Let’s look at the evidence in the speech.  The first comment that gave me pause was this: “Of the 193 present members of the UN, we have conquered or at least invaded 171 – that is 90 per cent.” This is presented as if it is something to be proud of. As someone who’d like to peaceably get on with my neighbours, I find it disturbing that a man who has ambitions to lead our country sees domination of other nations as an admirable goal.

You then go on to argue that as Britain’s empire waned, we suffered from a “spiritual morosity that bordered on self-loathing”.  Not my memory of the 1960s-70s. It was all rather jolly what with flower power and the sexual revolution (all made possible through science and the advent of the pill).  According to you, part of Thatcher’s greatness was that she revived the nation and created “a buccaneering environment where there was no shame – quite the reverse – in getting rich.” So instead of invading other countries and stealing their resources, we could elbow our way ahead of others in our own country, and feel smug about it at the same time. I do remember those days, which was exactly when my own spiritual morosity set in. Encounters with various businesses – utilities, banks, large shops, car hire firms, airlines – which had previously been straightforward and uneventful became obstacle courses that you had now to negotiate with extreme caution, because they were all trying to rip you off. You needed to be on your guard, as the default assumption was that they’d try to stitch you up and lock you in to the wrong kind of deal, with unnecessary insurance to boot and nasty little charges added on at the last moment. Those of a more recent generation may find this hard to believe, but you used to be able to interact with any large-sized company on the assumption that they were honest and cared about their reputation.  The “buccaneering environment” that Thatcher introduced delivered us into the hands of the pirates. Which was a good thing if you were a pirate, but not much fun for everyone else.

The part of your speech that has attracted most comment is when you talked about IQ. Full marks for demonstrating an understanding of the normal distribution, but less than full marks for the logic of your argument:

“Whatever you may think of the value of IQ tests, it is surely relevant to a conversation about equality that as many as 16 per cent of our species have an IQ below 85, while about 2 per cent have an IQ above 130. The harder you shake the pack, the easier it will be for some cornflakes to get to the top.

And for one reason or another – boardroom greed or, as I am assured, the natural and god-given talent of boardroom inhabitants - the income gap between the top cornflakes and the bottom cornflakes is getting wider than ever. I stress: I don’t believe that economic equality is possible; indeed, some measure of inequality is essential for the spirit of envy and keeping up with the Joneses that is, like greed, a valuable spur to economic activity.”

It’s unclear how far you understand IQ – some people have suggested you think it’s a measure of innate ability. But in a sense it doesn’t matter whether you recognise it is modifiable or not; the real problem is you confuse someone’s intellectual abilities with their worth. You seem to be saying that bright people deserve to succeed (and indeed we should give them knighthoods for their wealth generation activity) – whereas at the same time you seem to accept that there are some individual differences in ability. So are you saying that the less able people deserve to be poor? The cornflake analogy you use is not entirely clear, but it seems to amount to saying that you want to stimulate further inequalities between people – and surely that means the poor getting poorer while the rich get richer?

What I find particularly chilling in your speech is the view of human beings as motivated primarily by envy, greed, and the need to get to the top, as well as the implication that if you don’t you are stupid. You seem unaware that there are large numbers of people who are motivated by things like interest in what they are doing (e.g. scientists), a desire to help others (e.g. doctors, nurses, teachers or carers), or a creative urge (e.g. writers and artists). When confronted with a banker whose annual income is fifty times as much as average earnings, for many of us the feeling is not so much envy as incomprehension. Why would anyone need all that money? Don’t they feel embarrassed at having so much more than everyone else? Weren’t they taught that you care for those less fortunate than yourself and that greed was a bad thing? Well, clearly not, because, as you tell us, Thatcher changed the culture so that there was “no shame – quite the reverse – in getting rich.”  

You don’t say what you think about the legions of people who exist happily on moderate incomes, but the implication is that they are all suckers, who’d be better off with a good dose of greed and envy. Indeed, you imply they are parasitic on the rich, who create all this wealth by paying massive amounts of tax. This is a good way to enrage a substantial part of the electorate.

At least from time to time you give a nod of recognition of the need for philanthrophy:

“But I also hope that there is no return to that spirit of Loadsamoney heartlessness – figuratively riffling banknotes under the noses of the homeless; and I hope that this time the Gordon Gekkos of London are conspicuous not just for their greed – valid motivator thought greed may be for economic progress – as for what they give and do for the rest of the population”

But, dear Boris, if you set up a system that rewards the greedy, you can hardly expect them to change their ways and start being philanthropic once they’ve made it. The main reason the very rich end up commandeering all the resources is because they are never satisfied. Like you, they are motivated by a sense of intense competition with everyone else. They won’t think about whether their income is sufficient to live a comfortable life; all they care about is having more money than everyone else.  And people like that are not going to make philanthropic donations; on the contrary they will avoid paying tax using any means that is legally available to them.  And you, by clapping them on the back for their avarice, are just encouraging them.

I agree with you that capitalism and competition are unlikely to disappear; they are an inherent part of our economic system. I also agree that we cannot prevent inequality; the key question for politicians is how best to manage it. According to you we should give greed and envy a free rein because they have such good consequences.  I disagree. I do not feel proud to be British in a country that treats its most vulnerable citizens with contempt, and values the qualities of competition, envy and greed over those of co-operation, compassion and moderation.