O-turning

The trouble with the Budget is it’s mired in show business - it’s made into a pivotal event. And it is, politically, but not to the extent as the BBC covered it, with a pre-show followed by a four hour long pre- and post- speech analysis which included a tracking aerial shot of Mr. Hammond’s Jaguar as he made his way to parliament. Now, I’m not criticising the BBC, in part because I adore the absurdity of it all. I’m just setting the scene.

Of course, almost as much show business and performance went into the address itself as did go into the coverage of it. A jokey Budget is how many newspapers are describing Mr. Hammond’s hour-long delivery in the Commons. Some will argue it shows confidence and gives the government a much-needed sense of swagger; some that it shows Mr. Hammond fighting for his corner; some will say it shows a government and a Chancellor who is already sinking, so why bother to be bothered about further perceptions?

From my point of view, and what is almost a defence of the Chancellor, though the jokes were awful, when we all know the content of whatever is said will be reduced to a half-dozen bullet points by the commentators covering it, why not give them more cheesy content to sift through? But this, nor the other reasons suggested, are really the reason the Chancellor put on a show.

Though more jovial than most, Mr. Hammond’s tone and turn of phrase was just mimicry of what is seen in that chamber every week, and indeed what was seen immediately before during PMQ’s. Politicians speak in such a way as to embed their real politicking within a defensible question or statement. Many see it as annoying, or sycophantic. Yet that is the reality, and one the Chancellor cannot shy away from.

When he speaks about his decision to, “choose the future,” as if he had a choice, or about his desire for his children to live in a country where people have good jobs, as if this were somehow a new revelation, surely the intention is to paint himself as some political visionary. Yet it says something about the orator, I suggest, when the entirety of a speech’s punch is found in the rhetoric. Indeed, those same words could have come out of Michael Gove’s mouth and they would have had the same impact. In a profession based on candidacy, this is a problem.

Now it is unfair to say this is the exact problem that faces this government, not because it’s untrue, but because such a statement implies this is the only government that is forced to hide behind vapid statements, bluster and stage lights. Indeed, much of Labour’s high and mighty tone invokes such methods. But it is this government, distinguished with a nightmare (bureaucratically and logistically, if not actually) in the form of Brexit on the one hand and a failed yet crucial economic policy on the other that mean it seems to consist almost entirely of empty phrases spoken by interchangeable and frankly forgettable characters.

This is of course the sign of a dying government - one with an obvious lack of vision and too much time spent in office to suddenly decide to find a new one. The fact such a government remains in power demonstrates the priority is not serving, but sustaining.

Brexit remains its own animal, yet the rhetoric spouted by the government of full sail ahead whilst fires break out left right and centre shows they are, somehow, also drowning. A stronger government might be honest with the public that there are challenges in the process, some of which were unforeseen and some which stubbornly persist. Yet this government cannot for fear of upsetting the balance of power and collapsing into civil war.

On the economy, we see a similar story. Seven years into an austerity policy and government debt to GDP (this week’s favourite statistic for citation) will only soon begin to peak. Meanwhile, Andrew Neil of the BBC questioned whether the promise to eliminate the deficit has been abandoned, and Norman Smith (also of the BBC) asked whether Britain just needed to accept we are a poorer country? Yet Mrs. May and Mr. Hammond will continue to refer to Britain’s, “strong economy,” and their party’s economic credentials.

This is the equivalent of closing one’s eyes and putting fingers in one’s ears and shouting, “la la la!” into the aether. A strong government would, at the very least, address these concerns and debate the effectiveness of their choices. Yet for the Conservatives to abandon austerity, they would also have to abandon their legacy of the past seven years. They would have to accept they were consistently wrong, and would have to acknowledge the sense of stagnation (at best) that is gripping the country. They’d self-destruct, shooting themselves with their own silver bullet - economic credibility.

The Budget serves as a fine example of all of this. Immediately after, buoyed by the announcement on stamp duty abolition, the Chancellor may have believed he’d done what many thought was impossible - delivered a good Budget. Yet within hours the maths had been run, and the projection looks an awful lot grimmer and problematic. Mr. Hammond had to U-turn on his previous budget. This is also a sign of weak government, as the Conservatives should most certainly know. But it is much more concerning when a government is so fragile they cannot even risk changing their mind.

So... Who Won?

Elections are like high school drama. You kind of hate them, but you also secretly adore them. Though I’ve got to say, this election might be the first I’ve found genuinely exhausting. I suppose maybe it’s because I’m getting old, or maybe it’s because it’s a nice day up North (that’s not a political nod to anything) and as I watch the coverage – eyes glued to the screen, obviously – the Sun is dehydrating me. Like the election, there’s a lot of things to consider.

Or maybe I should say blame. Who does Theresa May blame for what is most certainly a huge loss, but at the same time is technically a win? Who does Jeremy Corbyn blame for Labour’s indisputable loss that has the smell of victory about it? Who do the electorate blame for telling them there’d be a landslide victory, and (not so subtly) who do the TV pundits blame for giving them terrible polling results?

This is a weird election. I believe all elections can be weird, if you drill down into the demographic data enough, but this is weird because you don’t need to do that too much.

Let’s look at turnout, which was at its highest point since 1997¹ and particularly high amongst young people² (there is a figure of 72% doing the rounds, but as the BBC points out, there’s no reliable data yet). Lord Ashcroft published an article on June the 6^th noting that the number of Tory seats falls as the voter turnout rises.³ It’s worth pointing out that Ashcroft’s model predicted a Tory majority, even under high turnout scenarios – “The higher turnout scenarios, meanwhile, estimate a lower range of majorities,” so maybe Ashcroft isn’t the best go to guy to talk about turnout data.

The point is this – if the Tories knew that a high turnout would go against them, then, just from data alone, we must place some blame for the result at the door with all those people that chose to, well, step out of their doors and vote.

One thing that was in Mrs. May’s pocket, one thing she could rely on to win, was Brexit, no? Even I wrote on the 31^st of May, “If tonight's debate is about Brexit, Theresa May will win even in absentia.” Certainly, early in the night some commentators were finding comfort in the fact that Leave seats were seeing a smaller swing compared to what the Exit Poll would suggest, but one must ask the question: if the British public believed in a Conservative Brexit, indeed, if they believed in Brexit at all, why didn’t Mrs. May win a majority?

Some will bark that the referendum result shows the British public clearly care about Brexit, and others will argue that the collapse in the UKIP vote⁴ (from 13% in 2015 to 2% today) shows that Brexit was a trump card for the Tories. But that’s a reductionist view of UKIPers (I find that statement oddly ironic). In my mind, there’s three reasons for the collapse in UKIP. The first is the Hard Brexiteers have defected to the Tories, accounting for some fall in UKIP and some rise in the Tories. The second is that the (potential) rise in the 18-24-year-old vote essentially diluted the UKIP vote, and what we’re seeing isn’t necessarily movement (on this, I very well could be wrong. I’ve not been able to compare the raw number of votes to confirm this idea). The third is that many of those who voted for UKIP don’t care about Brexit.

This sounds dumb. UKIP, almost undeniably, were a one issue party, which was Brexit. Yet, as many in the media seem to forget, UKIP for the longest time were a protest vote too. And Brexit, in my opinion, was more of a vote against the establishment order than anything to do with the EU. So, when Theresa May runs on Brexit (and UKIP run on enforcing the integrity of Brexit), many UKIP voters just don’t care. She’s establishment, and some would argue, responsible for many economic issues facing the lives of that group. And Corbyn, the leader of the (still) second largest party, markets himself as outside the establishment, and importantly, as anti-austerity.

If Brexit isn’t as big an issue as the media and the Tories think, and austerity is the real creature that they must slay, then the picture quickly emerges of why the result was what it was.

But what of the media? They told us this election would be dull. There were murmurs of low election turnout;⁵ Brenda articulated in the most adorable when the sense of fatigue the whole country felt. And yet on the night (and throughout the election, let’s be honest) it wasn’t boring. In fact, little of what the pundits said turned out to be true, except for of course the Exit Poll, which many, “[couldn’t] believe.”

In fact, many of the pundits seemed so sure that no one saw that result coming. Except… YouGov⁶ and Survation⁷ saw it coming about a week ago. Now, to the credit of at least the BBC, they acknowledged that those two polls were bang on the money, and that they, with their commentary, had missed a trick. What was that trick? Well, both YouGov and Survation factored in a higher number of young voters than other polls.⁸ There’s that old stick-in-the-mud again.

I’m not going to say much about the Tabloids that, on both sides of the argument, were far too dispelling in their coverage. Nor am I going to linger on the problems the mainstream media had covering this election, in terms of being correct or being complacent. I can be accused (rightly) of both myself. And of course, the Exit Poll, YouGov and Survation were (to varying degrees) off in their predictions. But the media must realise that they’re losing creditability, and that’s bad for all of us. Did they play a factor in the election, perhaps as a whispering sound in Theresa May’s ear as she was walking on holiday?⁹ I think someone should be asking what role the media will play in the future.

And that’s about it. Well, it’s not. Theresa May was a disastrous candidate with a horrible manifesto, whereas Jeremy Corbyn was (by most reporting) a disastrous candidate with a popular manifesto; the Dementia Tax swung the polls more than Labour ever actually did;¹⁰ nationalism remained a prominent force, whilst whispers across the channel played their role too; “Strong and Stable,” repeat ad infinitum. I don’t see the point of talking about these things, because I don’t need to. Switch on your TV and absorb the analysis, with a free side of cross-analysis thrown in.

I’m trying to get to a point, and I think it’s this. Firstly, the youth vote (probably) swung this election massively, which is good for democracy, bad for functioning government, and a much more significant trend than it is currently being given credit for. Secondly, Brexit wasn’t the issue it was meant to be. That’s not to say it didn’t matter, but Brexit is derivative of austerity policy, and is not in itself the cause of political turmoil. Austerity (amongst other policies, such as Social Care) drove this election result; if anything, Brexit is this election’s cousin, not it’s father. And thirdly, the media got predictions very wrong throughout the campaign. Some will say the media was horribly biased; all I’ll say is it felt frustrating at times, and caveats exist for a reason – use them!

Anyway, I’ll see you in Autumn… (maybe)

¹ http://www.ukpolitical.info/Turnout45.htm

² http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2017-40220032

³ http://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2017/06/lord-ashcroft-my-election-models-probabilities-suggest-a-potential-conservative-majority-of-64.html

⁴ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/06/08/ukip-heading-huge-loss-vote-share-2017-general-election/

⁵ http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/theresa-may-general-election-tony-blair-brexit-turnout-young-people-barely-democratic-a7691321.html

⁶ https://yougov.co.uk/uk-general-election-2017/

⁷ https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-election-poll-survation-idUKKBN18Y390?il=0

⁸ https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/may/31/yougov-poll-predicting-hung-parliament-brave

⁹ http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-may-snap-general-election-wales-walking-holiday-husband-easter-robert-peston-uk-prime-a7689046.html

¹⁰ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/26/conservative-poll-lead-cut-half-dementia-tax-u-turn/

How was your weekend?

I have recently come to re-evaluate my opinion on those often described as ‘professionally offended’. I think there is an assumption – or, at least, I assumed – that this group of individuals who seem to always care to the point of outrage were a new, online phenomenon. However, I now believe this is unkind.

There is a news segment on the BBC called Newswatch, a feature where the editors of BBC News can be challenged to answer questions about the quality of the service fielded by members of the public (almost always referred to as License Fee payers, as if to add legitimacy to their concerns, but more on that later). I think the show is a good idea, and I think there is often cause for some discussion. I have also come to realise that there exist a great many people who seem outraged to the point of inconveniencing themselves over the most trivial of things.

Of course, what I consider trivial is subjective and possibly miscategorised, but still my opinion holds. There simply are, and always will be, people who revel in being offended. This is my re-evaluation; that the concept of the professionally offended is not a new thing, but merely a human condition. This, I believe, is very interesting.

Why do people so regularly place so much importance on trivial mishaps? By trivial I include the occasional shitty day at work, missing the bus by a few seconds, delayed service in a restaurant, buying the wrong sized garment in a store – what might be considered, ‘first world problems’. My thesis is this; people place importance on minor mishaps because when you’re sailing on a quiet ocean you notice and acknowledge the most minor of ripples. Mishaps – which oft turn into storied compliant in the appropriate company – embellish an otherwise uninteresting set of events. They make our lives more interesting not only by increasing variety but by adding, or at least suggesting, strife that we must overcome. Ultimately, this makes the banal feel more valuable.

I have three ideas about the rise of the professionally offended in the more contemporary sense, the third of which I add only for the purposes of showing an objective viewpoint, without which I feel my thesis would suffer.

Firstly, I suggest the emergence might be due to that previously discussed; that we use outrage or offense as a way of embellishing otherwise forgettable events. The changing medium – from newspaper articles and news segments to online forums and comment sections – merely reflects the changing structure of a person’s life and reflects their access to media. Though this argument is not without some merit, I would suggest that these people, no matter how technologically cosmopolitan they claim to be, would still encounter the events I have previously discussed, and should still, therefore, respond accordingly with coffee table debates and plastic cup politics. If anything, their wider exposure to technology should lead to more compliant and outrage.

This leads me onto my second proposal; that in a world of regular compliant and outrage, the social norm has changed so much that it is now banal to be outraged, and as such one must be even more offended to punch through this paradigm and into the realm of noteworthy. This is an argument that should offend some people, because it is essentially implying some sort of superiority complex, or, I guess – as some might say – that those who get offended are merely ‘special snowflakes’.

As an aside, I think calling someone a snowflake is unfair, because framing the debate in that way implies it is the person at fault, and not the new social norm. After all, outrage and offense is built upon some perceived violation of a social covenant, implying the offended occupies some sort of moral high ground. In that sense – at least in terms of elevation – they are superior.

My third reason; that there is simply more to be upset about, and that the rise of the professionally offended is due to the greater access of information that the Internet has enabled. Furthermore, the apparent rise in the number of people offended can also be attributed to greater access to virtual soapboxes that the Internet has provided. The problem with this argument is one I have previously mentioned; that some people will think something is very important, whilst others will think it’s trivial.

It is here a distinction should be made, because a difference of opinion both in how to deal with a problem but also whether a problem is a problem is what makes us all individuals. The issue many people have, in my opinion, is that the professionally offended do not care about the issue, they care about the outrage. This is a whole different type of debating style, and one that reinforces the concept of ‘special snowflake’. It also introduces the aforementioned idea of legitimacy.

Think about it; ‘professionally offended,’ does not specify any cause or set of beliefs about the person the term is being applied, merely that they are offended. Furthermore, the word professional evokes parallels with work, suggesting the purpose of the offense is not in response, but by requirement, and interestingly for the benefit of the offended. Ultimately, they care not for the issue, but for themselves, and this means they lack legitimacy.

In the UK, though I suspect other places around the world have similar set-ups, there are regular Saturday-and-Sunday-morning debate shows. For the purposes of objectivity, the panel will almost certainly be made up of people from all different sides of the argument, all, in a kind of cringe-inducing way, forced to sit intermingled amongst each other.

This, as an aside, is clearly an attempt to show the person making the argument can be transcended so that only the argument, not the person, is being scrutinised and criticised, but anyway…

In the TV graphic that will appear maybe 2-3 seconds after the individual enters the frame (primarily as a none auditory way of introducing this person) will be a small detail or subtitle area which provides context to the person in question. The relevance of this to this piece as a whole is the following; regularly, and by regularly I mean weekly, there will be an individual whose detail box has fantastic word economy by only referring to them as, ‘activist’.

Now, there is some logic to why a person might be a professional activist. Firstly, they may care passionately for a cause that is ongoing (causes that come to mind are minority rights, but I’m sure there are other equally valid campaigns) and thus it becomes justified that they – the activist - become defined by that subject matter. If this is the case, why not dispense with the word economy somewhat and call them, for example, ‘civil rights activist’? Secondly, they may work as part of a group that provides logistical and/or other services to would be campaigns. I assume many protests require a number of professional skills, and that groups would form to meet these needs. If this is the case, why not say that? Both solutions would add context to the view and better represent the speaker. Therefore, I must conclude the only purpose for the vague description is by some unknown (at least to the viewer) design and as such intentional.

I acknowledge this is possibly tangential, and potentially more of a reflection of the production company behind the TV show and less a reflection of those who would be branded, ‘activists’. I also acknowledge I am now embodying that license fee payer previously discussed by communicating my grievance with what I see on television, which perhaps adds, unintentionally, credence to my point. However, I do believe the perpetuation of this classification – calling someone an ‘activist’ – implies that many of those classified are OK with it, which does add to the thesis of this piece.

Skin in the game matters. There is a non-discussed but totally required need to caveat some debate with reference to the devil; the purpose of this is to acknowledge that you have no skin in the game, and that the debate exists for its own sake. Lack of skin in the game – as might be suggested by calling yourself merely an activist – has the same effect as playing the Devil’s advocate. However, the difference is without the caveat of, ‘I agree, but I’m now going to disagree,’ the argument becomes at best muddled and at worst lost. Again, it becomes about the person, the snowflake, rather than the matter at hand.

This is the same issue that those described as professionally offended face, however those who occupy online forums and comment sections and blogs (I acknowledge the irony, now may we move on?) lack even more legitimacy, for at least the ambiguously named, ‘activist,’ is still being named as something, by someone. Behind the scenes, whatever that means, they – the activist – have done something to warrant their presence on the show. Whether validation from a TV network is good becomes irrelevant here – though many will believe this is all that matters – because at least this validation is not open to everyone. There is an expectation of exception, and that’s a powerful thing.

Platform, rightly or wrongly, provides legitimacy. The grace that the Internet has given is that everyone has a platform; the issue that has evolved from this is now economic, that of excess supply, with relatively unchanging demand. Further complicate this situation with the ripple on the ocean adage – the desire to embellish and escape the banal – and it becomes obvious how online forums can quickly reach a critical mass of outrage. This is a problem, not because people are talking and debating and (maybe) caring, but because no one is listening. Commentary without legitimacy is like screaming at a brick wall; mass commentary without legitimacy is just more screaming.

Of course some people are listening, but often they’re listening to their own words coming out of another person’s mouth. Sonically, the screaming becomes similar, and thus audibly understandable. So yes, I have re-evaluated by opinion of the professionally offended. They are not a new phenomenon. The Internet is not to blame for their emergence. But they raise an interesting idea in the context of the online world nevertheless, namely, how to we listen to each other when everyone is talking?