Robert Sharp

Pupil Barrister

Tag: UK (Page 16 of 21)

Coalition

12 May 2010 / / 2 Comments


Welcome to our new Prime Minister, David Cameron, and his deputy, Nick Clegg.
The above image was taken in M&S a couple of weeks ago.  Then this morning, I read the Alain de Botton thinks we need a Prime Minister built on precisely these values:

But what we crave most is normality.  However much we may want our intellectuals or artists to be passionate, strange, a little deformed and prone to outbursts of joy or fury, recent experience has left us in no doubt as to the dangers of eccentricity.  We need a Prime Minister as imagined by the menswear range of Marks & Spencer.

Rob's #LeadersDebate Reax, Part III

29 April 2010 / / 2 Comments

Let’s start at the end: I think Cameron won this one. He looked much more confident than in previous debates, and seemed on the front foot in the back-and-forth. His soundbite about the “confusion” between goverment and economy was a new idea since last week’s debate (though variations on this theme have been on Tory posters for a couple of years) and was craftily put, the sort of thing that might persuade undecideds, rather than a preach to the choir. It is not a truism by any means, but Brown failed to muster comparable rhetoric to fight back.
Cameron also had very strong rhetoric when he spoke about “saving £1 in every £100 spent”. He suggested that this could mean saving on a local council’s glossy brochure, a highly dubious claim (do authorities with a £1bn budget really spend £10 million on communications?) but he nevertheless sounded credible.
Clegg looked beleageured in the first 10 minutes, but came into his own on the question about manufacturing. His Sheffield constituency brings him a certain credibility. He began by raising the need for growing the green industries – Clegg has always been the first to mention the environment, and it is a noteworthy difference between him and the other two men. As in the previous debates, he looked strongest when under attack on his illegal-immigration amnesty policy. It is humane and pragmatic and both Tories and Labour look ‘nasty’ when they belittle it.
Oh yeah: I made a prediction earlier, which turned out to be correct:

At no point in #LeadersDebates has anyone sunk to tabloid level. So I predict #Bigotgate will not be mentioned tonight.

Brown excelled when he was speaking like a Chancellor of the Exchequer. If ever there was a walking example of the Peter Principle, Brown is it. With the housing question, Brown gave a lengthy four point answer on building societies, and was clearly enjoying himself.
Overall, I think these debates have harmed the Labour campaign. How could they not? Brown is fighting the election on a 13-year record, and each and every question in these debates is on a problem that has not yet been solved. This stuctural handicap was most stark during Brown’s “no life on the dole, that’s my policy” soundbite. Cameron threw that right back at him, and many Labour party members would have let slip a small nod in agreent with the Conservative leader. A little later, Brown mentioned NEETs, and Cameron again easily pinned failures on the Prime Minister’s collar.
It’s no great insight that the debates have been a boon for Clegg, who has been the most talked about politician this past fortnight. Ultimately, the Lib Dem leader has looked comfortable and credible alongside the other two – but can you imagine the debates with Sir Menzies Campbell in his stead?
The BBC turned in the best production of the three broadcasters. We saw an uncluttered set design and an equally sparse screen. Much less claustrophobic. The only weird element was the slowly changing screen colour, which was a distraction, but forgivable. Dimbleby, a veteran of Question Time (as well as, incidentally, the Bullingdon Club) made one or two interventions which were shrewd and kept the conversation moving.
This is a great development in British politics. The rise of Clegg could, and should, deliver a hung parliament, which in turn should result in electoral reform. More political engagement will be the result.

Rob's #LeadersDebate Reax, Part II

22 April 2010 / / 0 Comments

Some quick points.
I don’t think this was a game changer. By which, I mean, I think the pro-Clegg narrative of the last few days should continue. Clegg avoided a smackdown on the EU because Brown was largey in agreement, and although he wobbled and was criticised on Trident there was no killer argument from either Gordon Brown on David Cameron.
Clegg’s opening remarks were very strong. I think the assertion of the importance on climate change was persuasive.
On occasions there was too much focus on anecdotes and detail. All three men seemed listless on Afghanistan and all were searching for something to say on the delightfully loaded question about the Pope. It is fine to express sympathy for the victims of Catholic child-abuse, but it’s not an election issue.
The ‘open’ section was a repeat of last week – In some cases, word for word, it seemed. But the issues are the issues, so perhaps this is neccesary.
Brown stopped smiling: good. But he did tell another pre-scripted joke about kids in the bath, which I was disappointed but not surprised to see the news channels highlighting as their soundbite of choice.
Clegg had his own sound-bite “the old parties” which seemed a little forced and false. However, he made very short work of Bolton’s chuckle about the fact that he was “on the front page of the Telegraph” this morning. It made Bolton look like a bit of a dick and highlighted the inability of the partisan media to influence the election.
On the final pitch, Brown went off piste… and Cameron managed to look mature in response. Clegg’s speech was definitely the strongest of the three, and so I was surprised that the YouGov insta-poll put Cameron ahead overall.
As for the TV presentation: What horrible visuals on Sky News! The news ticker was a distraction, and the constant label announcing what we were watching (in case it wasn’t obvious) cut off the politicians’ chins.
And Christ! The pre- and post-debate pundit was excrutiating. A clubby and cliquey window into someone else’s party. The BBC’s Emily Maitless gushed t how the “Westminster village has decamped to Bristol” as if she was talking about a load of pretentious English students, on a jolly to Glaspnbury or the Edinburgh festival.
I wrote earlier today that the media is failing to cover this election properly. But in way, that’s alright – Greater exposure to the leaders, and better democratic tools at our disposal, mean that we will make an informed choice on 6th May.

Rob's #LeadersDebate Reax

15 April 2010 / / 0 Comments

The Leaders Debate, on the Telly


First, it was refreshing to hear a political debate without the noise. I mean that not only with regards to PMQs, but to Question Time too.
I think there was substance in what all three leaders said, but precious little ideology. I was struck by how many of the policies seemed interchangable, as if one party only had the policy because they thought of it first. The only big policy differences that did seem to be based on ideology were Trident (where Clegg split with Cameron and Brown) and on taxes, where the old argument about rises and cuts seemed to play out unchanged since the 1970s.
The moderator Alastair Stewart was awkward when addressing the camera and audience. He was also annoying when moderating… but I actually think this was necessary, and a sign he did well. Only because Stewart was so firm, did he manage to minimise the constant talking over other people, and refusal to heed the chairman, that we see on Question Time.
There was surprisingly little snark. Brown tried a pre-written gag about smiling in election posters, and followed it up with a Lord Ashcroft dig at the Tories… but it fell flat.
I think Nick Clegg missed a trick, which was to ram home a point about judgement. As well as emphasising ideas, he should also have made more of the calls the the Liberal Democrat are acknowledged to have got right. I didn’t hear Vince Cable’s name mentioned, despite his prescience on the 2007/08 banking crisis. The public consensus is that the Lib Dems also got the call on the Iraq war right too, and Clegg could have reminded people about that (even though that issue was dealt with at the 2005 election).
Alll three men looked ‘Prime Ministerial’ and anyone who tells you otherwise is probably a partisan hack. But in a perverse way, I think the uniformity of the leaders reminded me of the crucial difference of the parties rank-and-file. The fact is that the Tory, Labour and Liberal Democrat activists are different from their leaders, and very different to each other. It is these activists who will influence how the winning party(s) govern. In addition to these debates, which I think are healthy, this election also needs a greater examination of the parties’ underlying values too.
And how is the media analysing the event? Well, I’ve just turned back over to Newsnight and they were analysing whether or not Cameron and Brown made enough eye-contact, and how they choreographed shaking hands at the end: Pathetic. Now I am watching Michael Crick, presenting an ‘instapoll’, and giving an analysis of what other analysts say, a fine British example of what Jay Rosen calls ‘The Church of the Savvy’.

Some Idle Thoughts About Voting

7 April 2010 / / 3 Comments

So apparently there is some kind of election thingy happening on 6th May.

“Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”
– Sir Winston Churchill, 1947

I’ve been reading thoughts from Peter Kellner and Mat Bowles on the issue of polling and turnout.
First, I have to admit I find the concept of ‘swing’ rather discordant.  Kellner analyses the race in these terms -the election is an iterative equation and not an isolated event. I am reminded of the Monty Hall ‘Game Show’ thought experiment, where there is a prize-goat behind one of three doors.1 After Monty, the host, has revealed one of the bogus doors, the chances of the goat being behind the door you did not choose is 2/3… or so the Mathematicians say, ignoring the fact that something has happened in between. Likewise with elections – the concept of ‘swing’ suggests that this election is merely a function of the previous one.
Yes, yes, I know: Elections are a function of previous outcomes. Voters have an after-the-fact loyalty to the person they voted for last time, for example. The memory of the brutal Thatcher years, or even The Winter of Discontent, still has influence in 2010 when many (if not most) of the voters don’t remember them first hand. Still, like voting along ethnic lines, the fact that the starting positions on the electoral board are skewed doesn’t seem like the ideal of democracy.
All this means that the contest is already over in 382 seats, according to the Electoral Reform Society.  This inspires people in those constituencies to stay at home.  Worse, it nudges the politicians in those constituencies – both those destined for victory, and those who know they will lose – to campaign elsewhere.  So begins a vicious cycle of disenchantment for the electors, and a disconnect between them and their MPs.  Add to that the Heisenberg effect of polling (i.e. measuring voter intentions might actually alter voter intentions) and you can make a strong case that all these pesky statistics actually serve to discourage voting.
How does PR or STV change the equations?  Or must we, in the end, return to Churchill’s quote about democracy and make the best of a bad job?

1.  On reflection, I think in the original formulation of the puzzle, the prize is a car and the goat is the bogey-prize.  I prefer my version though.  A goat in the back garden is a handy alternative to lawmower, and we all like feta, don’t we?

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