tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/tony-blair-6417/articlesTony Blair – The Conversation2023-10-09T17:19:19Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2147532023-10-09T17:19:19Z2023-10-09T17:19:19ZThe Tony Blair Rock Opera features bagpipes, Lady Macbeth and a wrestling match with Gordon Brown<p>If you’re looking for subtlety and sophistication, Harry Hill and Steve Brown’s <a href="https://tonyblairrockopera.co.uk/">Tony! The Tony Blair Rock Opera</a> is probably not for you. It starts – literally – with a bang and careens through a hectic hour and a half of high-energy songs and skits. </p>
<p>The committed cast are happy to provide their audience with caricatures, as opposed to characters. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Prescott">John Prescott</a> (Rosie Strobel) is portrayed as a professional northerner, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Robin-Cook">Robin Cook</a> (Sally Cheng) as a priapic ginger gnome, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Cherie-Booth">Cherie Blair</a> (Tori Burgess) as a sharp-tongued Scouser – you get the picture.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for The Tony Blair Rock Opera.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Although the occasional joke misfires (blind <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/David-Blunkett">David Blunkett</a> walking into a door frame, really?) and some of the actors’ accents are as woeful as the deliberately dodgy wigs they whip on and off, it works on its own terms.</p>
<p>The music and the lyrics might not be that memorable, but the songs rhyme well. In the run up to the 1992 election, for example, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Neil-Kinnock-Baron-Kinnock-of-Bedwellty">Neil Kinnock</a> (Martin Johnston) sings: “We’ve been waiting in the valleys, I’ve been storming it at rallies.” And <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-princess-dianas-death-came-to-define-tragedy-for-the-media-82939">Princess Diana’s fatal accident</a> is neatly, if rather bluntly, summed up as “the chauffeur was smashed, no wonder he crashed”. </p>
<p>And they cohere nicely – perhaps even especially – when they stray beyond the bounds of good taste. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Osama-bin-Laden">Osama Bin Laden</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/saddam-hussein-how-a-deadly-purge-of-opponents-set-up-his-ruthless-dictatorship-120748">Saddam Hussein’s</a> numbers (the latter done via a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Groucho-Marx">Groucho Marx</a> impression) are a case in point.</p>
<p>The occasional cameos are particularly well done (Britpop’s Liam Gallagher was a favourite of mine), the impressively athletic choreography is basic but effective and one or two of the set pieces work particularly well. The momentous <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/jun/06/labour.uk">Granita deal</a> (at which <a href="https://theconversation.com/gordon-brown-political-giant-and-wasted-talent-at-the-same-time-34673">Brown was persuaded</a> to give Blair a free run at the leadership in the wake of <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/may/12/newsid_2550000/2550803.stm">John Smith’s untimely death</a>) is staged as a wrestling match complete with ropes and shiny leotards. Believe it or not, this actually conveyed what was allegedly discussed and agreed during that dinner pretty accurately.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-princess-diana-story-why-everyone-has-their-own-version-82224">The 'Princess Diana story': why everyone has their own version</a>
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<h2>The show’s limitations</h2>
<p>So far, so good(ish), then. But there are some downsides. The most obvious is that in order to get most of the rock opera’s jokes, you probably had to be there – “there” being the 1990s and the early 2000s. Those under 50 might struggle to appreciate some of the political and cultural references, unless they’ve done or are doing a politics degree that covered the New Labour years.</p>
<p>Having not only lived through them but taught them, too, I had no trouble. But that didn’t mean I had no problems with the show.</p>
<p>First and foremost, it fell into the trap of inferring that Blair (Jack Whittle) was driven almost entirely by his love of the limelight. As a result, he is portrayed as an amoral airhead throughout – a puppet whose strings were pulled by <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Peter-Mandelson">Peter Mandelson</a> (Howard Samuels). </p>
<p>In reality, I suspect even Blair’s toughest critics wouldn’t deny that his extraordinary powers of communication rested not just on his natural charisma but on a penetrating intelligence, too. Nor would they deny he was animated by a passion to do what – by his own lights anyway – was right.</p>
<p>Whether that sense of moral purpose (misguided or otherwise) deserted Blair once he left Downing Street and entered the shadowy world of high-paid, globetrotting consultancy is another story. But it’s a story that the authors (who were apparently determined not to write something too long) stop short of telling.</p>
<p>Other all too familiar tropes are much in evidence. Mandelson, who is effectively the narrator of the show, is predictably portrayed – albeit with considerable aplomb – as some sort of vampire or Mephistopheles. And by the same token, Cherie, although wonderfully played, is presented (not for the first nor, I suspect, the last time) as Lady Macbeth.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Gordon Brown comes over (very amusingly, as far as the audience were concerned) as a stereotypical angry Scotsman. <a href="https://twitter.com/campbellclaret?lang=en">Alastair Campbell</a>, for good or ill, only gets a brief walk-on part, coming on, complete with kilt and bagpipes, after the ghost of Princess Diana has – bear with me – persuaded Blair to sex up the “dodgy dossier”.</p>
<p>My main gripe, however, was with the supposedly showstopping last number. Blair, not unreasonably, reminds the audience that 9.5 million of us voted him in for a third term, notwithstanding his decision to go to war in Iraq. The song that follows declares that “The whole wide world is led by assholes”, accompanied by pictures of a bunch of strongmen leaders from around the world.</p>
<p>To equate the UK’s prime minister, however little one may think of him, with the likes of <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-recap-kim-jong-un-visits-putin-for-arms-for-tech-talks-while-kyiv-urges-west-for-longer-range-missiles-to-aid-counteroffensive-213603">Kim Jong Un</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/bashar-al-assad-13775">Bashar al-Assad</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/vladimir-putin-6680">Putin</a> seems, to me at least, a category error. And, even if you disagree, the underlying message merely serves up more of the populist take on politics that, frankly, we could probably do with rather less of these days.</p>
<p>That said, if you happen to be in Liverpool for the <a href="https://labour.org.uk/conference/">Labour Party conference</a> next week, don’t miss the chance to go see it at the city’s Playhouse. You might not love it, but there’s no way it won’t leave you laughing.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Bale does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Written by comedian Harry Hill, it’s a hectic hour-and-a-half of high-energy songs and skits.Tim Bale, Professor of Politics, Queen Mary University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2135132023-09-15T13:57:29Z2023-09-15T13:57:29ZWhy taxing ‘junk food’ to tackle obesity isn’t as simple as it seems<p>Former prime minister Tony Blair has <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/blair-calls-for-tax-on-junk-food-times-health-commission-2gd7hhh69">called for</a> more taxes on junk food to tackle the UK’s obesity crisis. This includes extending sugar taxes beyond just soft drinks, as well as taxing food that is high in salt and fat. Blair also called for restrictions on advertising unhealthy food.</p>
<p>The former PM believes this is the only way to save the NHS. “We’ve got to shift from a service that’s treating people when they’re ill to a service that is focused on wellbeing, on prevention, on how people live more healthy lives,” he told The Times Health Commission.</p>
<p>But is it as simple as that? A levy on sugary drinks was introduced in the UK in 2018 which led to drinks makers reformulating their products so they contained less sugar. A year later, the British public was <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.06.26.23291902v1">consuming less sugar</a>. However, sugar consumption had been falling in Britain before the levy was introduced. Once this was factored into the analysis, there was no significant fall in sugar consumption. </p>
<p>Denmark experimented with a fat tax and it had similar underwhelming results. It was hailed as a world-leading public health policy when it was introduced in October 2011 but was abandoned 15 months later. </p>
<p>According to one survey, <a href="https://www.iea.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/files/The%20Proof%20of%20the%20Pudding.pdf">only 7% of Danes</a> reduced the amount of butter, cream and cheese they bought. A different survey found that 80% did not change their food shopping habits at all.</p>
<p>However, whether or not levies on unhealthy food work is difficult to determine. Advocates for these programmes tend to highlight positive effects based on data modelling rather than actual changes in people’s weight and health. Detractors, on the other hand, quickly challenge such policies as being the enactment of the “nanny state”.</p>
<h2>Where and what to tax?</h2>
<p>Although the UK’s sugar tax led to drinks being reformulated to have less sugar, it also had some unintended consequences. For example, sugary drinks called slushies needed to have glycerol (E422) added to them to maintain their slush (artificial sweeteners failed to produce the required “slush”). </p>
<p>While this is safe for most older children and adults, the <a href="https://www.food.gov.uk/news-alerts/news/not-suitable-for-under-4s-new-industry-guidance-issued-on-glycerol-in-slush-ice-drinks">Food Standards Agency</a> identified a possible risk of <a href="https://www.foodstandards.gov.scot/news-and-alerts/glycerol-in-slush-ice-drinks">glycerol intoxication</a> in smaller children and suggested sales should be restricted to children five years old and older. </p>
<p>Another unintended consequence is making the poor poorer by raising the price of food. If taxes or levies are extended beyond drinks and sugar to include all food high in fat, salt and sugar, the cost of this reformulation is likely to be passed on to the consumer.</p>
<p>With the current cost of living crisis, this is simply not acceptable to politicians or many of the public. If such levies are introduced, they need to be a smarter version of the soft drinks industry levy. It should drive food producers to change the food they produce, making less healthy ingredients cost more while making it more profitable to grow and supply healthier food.</p>
<h2>What is ‘junk’ food?</h2>
<p>The next challenge is to identify which food to tax. </p>
<p>Blair suggested “junk food”, which he defined as high in fat, salt and sugar - often called <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/restricting-promotions-of-products-high-in-fat-sugar-or-salt-by-location-and-by-volume-price/restricting-promotions-of-products-high-in-fat-sugar-or-salt-by-location-and-by-volume-price-implementation-guidance">HFSS foods</a>. It is these foods that can no longer be advertised on <a href="https://evidence.nihr.ac.uk/alert/advertising-ban-was-linked-to-lower-purchases-of-unhealthy-food-and-drink/#:%7E:text=In%20February%202019%2C%20the%20transport,bus%20stops%2C%20and%20railway%20stations.">Transport for London</a> sites. </p>
<p>This has been hailed as a success. These restrictions on advertising are estimated to have <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1003915">significantly decreased</a> the average amount of HFSS foods households buy each week. </p>
<p>This <a href="https://ijbnpa.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12966-022-01331-y">data</a> was then used to claim that this change reduced the number of people with obesity by <a href="https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2022/junk-food-advertising-restrictions-prevent-almost-100000-obesity-cases-and#:%7E:text=Restrictions%20for%20junk%20food%20advertising,Behavioural%20Nutrition%20and%20Physical%20Activity.">100,000</a>. This claim has been <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jhn.13155">heavily criticised</a>. It is an estimate, and the change in the number of people who are overweight or obese linked to the advertising ban is unknown. </p>
<p>So, although there may be some merit in tackling advertising, it perhaps needs to be smarter and respond to modern and emerging trends in advertising strategies. The focus on out-of-home advertising, which is the Transport for London approach, does not look at how social media and online advertising linked to cookies and trackers can build a message for potential consumers. Challenging how advertisers link campaigns across media is probably more effective. </p>
<p>An alternative is to focus where advertising is permitted. For example, regulating billboards near schools so that they only show healthy messages may be a more effective solution.</p>
<p>This is before considering the potentially stigmatising language in calling food “junk” food, especially given the message is focused on helping poorer people. Perhaps this is why there has been a move to use terms such as “ultra-processed food”. </p>
<p>Both, however, are slightly subjective. The HFSS definition could include cheese and Greek yoghurt and therefore might suggest that these foods receive an advertising ban. Whereas a fast-food meal with water and carrot sticks – although these may be the least popular meal option – can still be advertised. </p>
<p>When promoting healthier dietary choices, we need to make options like vegetables attractive. This can be difficult for people on low incomes, who might avoid trying new food that might be rejected and wasted. Instead, go for family favourites which might be less healthy but will make sure everyone is full within their budget. </p>
<p>So what are the answers? Perhaps not top-down approaches, such as those proposed by Blair. An example of how our food system can be changed has been set out in the <a href="https://www.birmingham.gov.uk/downloads/download/5219/birmingham_food_system_strategy">Birmingham Food System Strategy</a>. This sets out how small local food businesses make healthier food widely available across the city, as well as provide employment in the city. This sets out a community-led approach that encourages a city-wide food supply that is healthy for people and the planet. </p>
<p>To solve a complex problem you need subtle and connected changes in many areas that are designed with and are acceptable to those with the most to gain, but who are struggling on low incomes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213513/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Duane Mellor has provided technical nutrition advice to the slush drinks industry and out of home advertising industry. They are also a member of the British Dietetic Association.</span></em></p>Tony Blair has called on ministers to tighten food regulation, including adding levies to foods high in fat, salt and sugar.Duane Mellor, Lead for Evidence-Based Medicine and Nutrition, Aston Medical School, Aston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2100172023-08-08T16:52:05Z2023-08-08T16:52:05ZHow 25 years of education policy led us to believe we can only succeed in life with a degree<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540734/original/file-20230802-29-94osov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=31%2C10%2C3517%2C1782&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The number of students going to university has increased significantly over the past 25 years. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/speaker-giving-talk-on-corporate-business-481869205">Matej Kastelic/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, is putting measures in place to restrict student numbers on what he has termed “<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/crackdown-on-rip-off-university-degrees">rip-off degrees</a>”: university courses that have high drop-out rates and are unlikely to lead to <a href="https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/publications/setting-numerical-thresholds-for-condition-b3/">highly skilled jobs</a>. </p>
<p>Instead, the government is <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sunak-favours-apprenticeships-over-rip-off-university-degrees-w2cnsc8j0#">promoting apprenticeships</a>, through which young people train for a specific career while in employment. Ucas, the universities admissions service, is making it easier for applicants to <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/apprenticeships-boosted-under-plans-to-broaden-ucas">compare degree options with apprenticeships</a>. </p>
<p>But attempts to encourage people to take vocational routes as an alternative to studying for a degree are unlikely to work. </p>
<h2>The value of a degree</h2>
<p>A degree is a widely recognised mark of achievement, and its value does not look likely to diminish. Young people and their families aspire towards degrees. They also know that having a degree is likely to lead to a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/graduates-enjoy-100k-earnings-bonus-over-lifetime">higher salary</a>.</p>
<p>Degrees now incorporate elements of vocational training that might traditionally have been associated with work-based training, and a degree has become an entry requirement for many careers. Even when people choose apprenticeships, they are increasingly taking up higher level courses that <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn06113/">can lead to a degree</a>. </p>
<p>The current pattern of increasing higher education participation started with Tony Blair’s New Labour government. Blair <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/460009.stm">set a target</a> in 1999 for 50% of young people to enter higher education, which was <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-49841620">ultimately achieved</a> 20 years later. </p>
<p>But Labour’s expansion of student numbers was originally part of a wider plan to boost learning throughout life. This would be achieved by combining vocational and academic learning, rather than positioning them as alternatives. The plan was outlined in a consultation paper published in 1998 and titled <a href="https://education-uk.org/documents/pdfs/1998-the-learning-age.pdf">The Learning Age</a>. </p>
<p>The paper expected that more people progressing to higher levels of learning would benefit both individuals and the economy. It also claimed that “a culture of learning will help to build a united society”. </p>
<p>It stated that people should be able to access different types of learning more easily and at more stages in their lives. This would begin with a new qualification combining academic and vocational learning at age 16-18, which would replace A-levels. Then learning would expand through the growth of further and higher education together. </p>
<p>The proposals also expected that, as more people entered higher levels of education, it should increasingly be financed by learners contributing to the cost of their studies. </p>
<p>Only this last part has survived the 25 years since. </p>
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<img alt="Woman wearing hijab in classroom" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540739/original/file-20230802-23-rhni23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540739/original/file-20230802-23-rhni23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540739/original/file-20230802-23-rhni23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540739/original/file-20230802-23-rhni23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540739/original/file-20230802-23-rhni23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540739/original/file-20230802-23-rhni23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540739/original/file-20230802-23-rhni23.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The Learning Age consultation paper expected significant numbers of mature students to enter higher education.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/muslim-woman-wearing-hijab-sitting-table-2160229043">Pressmaster/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>In 1998, Labour introduced tuition fees of £1,000 per year. Under different governments and through re-payable loans, this fee <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8151/">then increased</a>: to £3,000 from 2006, £9,000 from 2012, and £9,250 from 2017. </p>
<p>But rather than a united culture of education – integrating all kinds of learning – policies increasingly encouraged direct entry to degrees as the starting point for a career. </p>
<p>Even though Labour increased tuition fees in 2006, the government was still also <a href="https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20040117012057/http://www.dfes.gov.uk/highereducation/hestrategy/exec.shtml">providing funding to universities</a> for teaching students. This included funding for collaborations between further education colleges and universities, with the aim of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2006/feb/01/highereducation.uk1">enabling learners to progress</a> from vocational courses to degrees throughout life. But the idea for a single qualification combining A-levels with vocational qualifications in schools <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4299151.stm">was abandoned</a>. </p>
<p>A Conservative-led coalition elected in 2010 replaced most of the university teaching grant with tuition fee loans from 2012, then removed caps on student numbers for degree courses from 2015. This allowed even greater numbers of young people to go to university. It also placed reliance on <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/higher-education-white-paper-students-at-the-heart-of-the-system">student choice and competition</a> to shape the pattern of courses offered by universities. </p>
<h2>The higher education market</h2>
<p>This more competitive system made the educational vision presented in the Learning Age paper – learning for people throughout their lives and in all parts of the country – more distant. Universities <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/apr/02/universities-spending-millions-on-marketing-to-attract-students">focused on</a> bringing young students to study full-time on their own campuses. </p>
<p>The proportion of undergraduates studying part-time, which is favoured by older students who are not entering directly from school, <a href="https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7966/CBP-7966.pdf">halved</a> across the decade until 2019. </p>
<p>The pathway from school to university and then into a graduate career became the definition of success for many students, parents and teachers. As a result, recent attempts to divert young people towards vocational routes have met with limited success. Since 2017, funding for apprenticeships in England has been boosted by a <a href="https://theapprenticeacademy.co.uk/the-apprenticeship-levy">levy paid by employers</a>, but apprenticeship numbers are <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn06113">going down</a> among school leavers. </p>
<p>The government is also <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/203/education-committee/news/196242/education-committee-blasts-disappointing-govt-response-to-t-levels-report/">experiencing difficulties</a> implementing its new vocational T-level qualifications, which have been promoted as an alternative to the A-level path towards degrees. </p>
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<p>The caps on certain courses being introduced by Sunak seem likely to encourage young people to move between degrees, rather than take other routes. A better option would be to accept the value of a degree, and make it easier for people to progress to them through vocational learning. </p>
<p>The growth of <a href="https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2023/06/02/degree-apprenticeships-how-you-could-get-a-degree-for-free/">degree-level apprenticeships</a>, which allow people to study for a degree during their apprenticeship, and a new <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/lifelong-loan-entitlement">lifelong loan entitlement</a> provide opportunities for this. But it is still much harder to move to a degree from a vocational course in a further education college than directly from school. <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21582041.2023.2219664">Better incentives</a> are needed for universities to create pathways for learners from further education colleges, rather than competing with them. </p>
<p>By encouraging diverse paths towards university degrees, the government can both meet the needs of employers and respect the interests of learners. The way to build a more unified society is to bring people together through the education system, not divide them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210017/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Millward is Professor of Practice in Education Policy at the University of Birmingham. He previously worked as Director of Policy at the Higher Education Funding Council for England and Director of Fair Access and Participation at its higher education regulator, the Office for Students. Chris is a trustee of the Society for Research in Higher Education, a Marshall Scholarships Commissioner and Chair of the Advisory Board for the Centre for Global Higher Education. </span></em></p>The government in England is promoting apprenticeships rather than “rip-off” university degrees.Chris Millward, Professor of Practice in Education Policy, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2025842023-04-06T09:59:10Z2023-04-06T09:59:10ZGood Friday Agreement: how the US came to be a key broker in Northern Ireland’s peace deal<p>Between 1820 and 1920, four million people emigrated from Ireland to the US. Many were fleeing hunger and destitution and so brought with them an <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/emigrants-and-exiles-9780195051872?cc=gb&lang=en&">“exile” nationalism</a> – a conviction that they were forced to leave by British misgovernment and exploitation of Ireland. Little wonder, then, that the Irish diaspora in the US played a crucial role in supporting, and particularly financing, the struggle for Irish independence. </p>
<p>When the Northern Ireland conflict broke out in the late 1960s, Irish America again mobilised in support of the region’s nationalist minority community. The diaspora saw the conflict in simplistic terms, as a renewal of the fight for Irish freedom from British imperial domination. </p>
<p>Events like <a href="https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/events/bsunday/chron.htm">Bloody Sunday</a> in January 1972 – when British troops shot dead 13 civil rights protesters in Derry – understandably reinforced such views. As a result, money and even arms (more easily acquired in the US) began to flow across the Atlantic and into the IRA’s hands. In this period, therefore, Irish American actions only contributed to further bloodshed in Northern Ireland.</p>
<p>By the 1990s, the diaspora was playing quite a different role, one which was crucial to the region’s peace process and the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. There were various reasons for this. Firstly, more sensible voices had emerged in Irish America. Instead of supporting the IRA, or advocating a British withdrawal and the reunification of Ireland, they pressed for radical reform that would achieve <a href="https://academic.oup.com/dh/article/43/4/671/5518859">real equality for the nationalist minority.</a></p>
<p>Secondly, with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the global picture had drastically changed. Previously, the White House had largely avoided commenting on Northern Ireland. The US relied on the British government to contain the communist threat in Europe and would not risk offending it for fear of losing that support. But with the collapse of the Soviet Union, president Bill Clinton did not need to worry in the way that his predecessors did about damaging the Anglo-American “special relationship”. He thus listened to those in Irish America who argued that the White House should <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/30001915?casa_token=Flk9hFl3FxQAAAAA%3ACyM6j0H_YqkWijWWgmc8WpdXOfx7zKDeAhSUh3DyAFBKrejG89sdgNzW7f2Ymi4OWLt5XvKdPeZaM2wVgI7tPjkGtObtjzG0YMfnGx0TfQ9aYpYHgQ">play a role in the peace process</a> then emerging in Northern Ireland. </p>
<p>Most controversial was Clinton’s decision in January 1994 to give Gerry Adams a US visa. This came at a time when the IRA was still bombing Britain, and the Sinn Féin leader was seen by most people as an apologist for republican violence. The British government was <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/how-britain-tried-to-stop-gerry-adams-getting-us-visa-1.3739551">outraged by Clinton’s decision</a>, and John Major refused to take his calls for some time afterwards – a undeniable rarity in US-UK relations. However, when the IRA called a ceasefire six months later, Clinton appeared to be vindicated. Giving Adams a US visa had allowed the Sinn Féin leader to demonstrate to the IRA the gains that could be made by adopting a purely political strategy.</p>
<h2>Chairing tense talks</h2>
<p>Clinton then sent a trusted confidante, the recently retired US senator, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/29736367?casa_token=YvI9bryj3TAAAAAA%3AV3IhITNorIKSEsg6zKvIxCw0VpuBrnhVKuHNIDBLDD02FXStzIO94BFC5ePyCbrIu0kdSv4l_XPLMATb1S49XJD5_GwNsc4Z970q_pT3-ENq45jzKg">George Mitchell</a>, to chair peace talks in Northern Ireland. Mitchell managed to steer discussions in which some parties still refused to directly address one another, and instead communicated only through him as chair of the talks. His patience was phenomenal, and Mitchell played a major role in bringing about the Good Friday peace settlement.</p>
<p>After Clinton left office in 2001, the George W. Bush administration helped in the difficult process of implementing this accord. The IRA still refused to decommission its weapons, but pressure from the US – which, after 9/11, showed no tolerance for anything that might be seen as terrorist activity – helped force it to do so. Similarly, the Bush administration pushed Sinn Féin towards accepting reformed policing arrangements in Northern Ireland. </p>
<p>In Irish America, figures like <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fresh-light-shed-on-edward-kennedy-role-in-northern-irish-peace-process-1.2372644">Ted Kennedy</a>, who had been crucial in bringing Sinn Féin into the peace process, now insisted that it accept all the rules of the new political order. Even the hardline unionist party, the DUP, was impressed, and was eventually obliged to share power with Sinn Féin.</p>
<p>Thereafter, the US played a limited role in Northern Ireland – until Brexit. The UK’s departure from the EU created significant challenges in managing the Irish border, and thus posed a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/sep/16/us-uk-trade-deal-in-danger-if-good-friday-agreement-jeopardised-democrats-warn">threat to the Good Friday Agreement</a> as it is generally considered a hard border on the island of Ireland would go against the spirit of the deal. Irish America responded by reorganising and lobbying to protect the accord. Even when running for the presidency in 2020, Joe Biden – fiercely proud of his own Irish heritage – famously tweeted a warning to the UK: “We can’t allow the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland to become a casualty of Brexit.”</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1306334039557586944"}"></div></p>
<p>After Biden’s election, pressure from the White House undoubtedly helped steer Boris Johnson towards a Brexit deal which prioritised peace in the region. </p>
<p>This also explains why Biden will be <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-65110382">visiting Northern Ireland</a> to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. The US government, and Irish America, both feel that they helped create peace the region, and want to preserve and celebrate this achievement.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202584/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter John McLoughlin has received funding in the past from the AHRC, Leverhulme Trust, the Irish Research Council, and the Fulbright Commission. He is a member of Greenpeace.</span></em></p>Bill Clinton and senator George Mitchell were central in keeping the players at the table so that the historical deal could be signed in 1998.Peter John McLoughlin, Lecturer in Politics, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2029862023-04-06T09:51:58Z2023-04-06T09:51:58ZGood Friday Agreement: the early 1990s back-channel between the IRA and British government that made peace possible<p>In February 1990, in the midst of the Troubles, Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness publicly invited the British government to <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022343311417982">reopen a back-channel</a> used during previous phases of contact with the IRA in the 1970s and during the 1981 hunger strike.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If [the British government] think there is something to be lost by stating publicly how flexible they would be, or how imaginative, we are saying they should tell us privately … there is an avenue which they are aware of whereby they can make what imaginative steps they are thinking about known to the Republican movement.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It was a crucial early step on the road to the Good Friday Agreement.</p>
<p>The British government, acting in conditions of the greatest secrecy, took McGuinness up on his offer the following year. An MI5 officer who went by the name Robert McLaren liaised with intermediary <a href="https://www.derryjournal.com/news/people/brendan-duddy-a-life-in-the-shadows-3254147">Brendan Duddy</a>, a Derry businessman who had played this role on several occasions since 1972. The aim was an <a href="https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/events/peace/pp9398.htm">IRA ceasefire</a> followed by political negotiations. On the British side only prime minister John Major and a handful of senior officials knew of the initiative. Duddy told me in 2009: “the very moment Robert appeared, the very second he appeared, I knew: the British government don’t send Robert to me unless they want to do business.”</p>
<p>The prospect of a negotiated end to the IRA campaign had first been explored more than a quarter century earlier. In June 1972, William Whitelaw, the British secretary of state for Northern Ireland, told his cabinet colleagues that, after three years of conflict and almost 400 deaths, “it was inescapable that some understanding would have to be reached with the ‘Provisional’ IRA; no solution seemed possible unless their point of view were represented.”</p>
<p>But although Whitelaw met secretly with IRA leaders in London in 1972 and Labour PM Harold Wilson sanctioned secret talks again in 1975, for most of the 30 years of conflict, orthodox thinking held that the IRA and the political party associated with them, Sinn Féin, would never compromise and that any settlement would have to exclude them.</p>
<p>Perhaps the biggest stumbling block was the Republicans’ central ideological demand – that the British government “acknowledge the right of the Irish people to determine their own future without let or hindrance.”</p>
<p>But as early as 1972 British officials considered whether it might be possible to accommodate them. After Whitelaw’s meeting with the IRA a senior civil servant noted that “the formula of the IRA was very close to the position of Mr Lynch [the Irish prime minister], that the future of Ireland should be decided by the people of Ireland as a whole.”</p>
<p>The question, though, was how this could be squared with the principle that Ireland could only be reunited if a majority in Northern Ireland agreed. In the 1990s a way would finally be found to do it.</p>
<h2>Secret talks</h2>
<p>The secret contacts that started in 1991 culminated in an IRA ceasefire offer made through the back-channel in early 1993. But the British government didn’t respond by agreeing to talks, as the Republicans had expected they would. After a period of recrimination the back-channel fell into disuse and was then dramatically revealed by the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1993/nov/28/northernireland">Observer newspaper in November 1993</a>. Ironically, this exposure helped to accelerate movement towards a compromise peace settlement.</p>
<p>Speaking in 2020, not long before his death, John Chilcot, permanent under-secretary in the Northern Ireland Office in the 1990s and perhaps the single most important driver of the peace process on the British side, told me of the sense of deep uncertainty created by the revelation of the back-channel, and the subsequent sense of relief:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The whole thing came to a head I think on the Monday after the Observer revelations … it wasn’t known whether the House of Commons would call for [secretary of state Patrick Mayhew’s] head on a platter and possibly John Major’s as well, instead of which the reverse happened. The whole of the House of Commons, or all of it that mattered, rose up to say ‘thank God. This is the right thing to be doing’ … my heart was in my mouth that Monday, same as Patrick Mayhew’s. I was in the House of Commons, in the official box and it was a wonderful moment actually.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Chilcot felt a sense “of immense relief and coupled with, I think, something more positive, elation really, that it really looked as though the thing was going to take wing and who knows, succeed. It took a long time after that, but nonetheless, that was a turning point.”</p>
<p>Within weeks the British and Irish governments had issued the <a href="https://www.dfa.ie/media/dfa/alldfawebsitemedia/ourrolesandpolicies/northernireland/peace-process--joint-declaration-1993.pdf">Downing Street Declaration</a>. It included a British acknowledgement, for the first time, of a right to Irish self-determination, albeit one that was heavily qualified and subject to the agreement of a majority in Northern Ireland/</p>
<p>In August 1994, the IRA finally announced an end to its campaign. There were further twists and turns before the Good Friday Agreement, including a return to IRA violence in 1996 before they finally ended their campaign in July 1997.</p>
<p>Nine months later, on April 10 1998, the Belfast Agreement – or Good Friday Agreement as it became popularly known – was signed after intensive talks chaired by <a href="https://theconversation.com/good-friday-agreement-how-the-us-came-to-be-a-key-broker-in-northern-irelands-peace-deal-202584">US special envoy George Mitchell</a>. The settlement guaranteed a place in government to all parties that enjoyed significant electoral support, including Sinn Féin. It opened the way to conflict resolution measures aimed at bedding down the peace – including police reform, the removal of troops from the streets, and the early release of paramilitary prisoners. The text on self-determination from the Downing Street Declaration, with a few embellishments, was incorporated word for word into the Good Friday Agreement and endorsed by all of the parties to the Agreement.</p>
<h2>Going official</h2>
<p>The 1998 agreement was the achievement of the British and Irish governments, of all the political parties in Northern Ireland (with the exception of the DUP), and of external actors such as the then US president, Bill Clinton. But the ending of the IRA’s armed campaign was a prerequisite for the inclusive negotiations that produced the agreement. And ending the IRA campaign had required engagement between the British government and the IRA. As Chilcot told me in a 2010 interview: “Ultimately … the basic players in this game are the British government and the republican movement.”</p>
<p>The back-channel may have collapsed in public acrimony in late 1993, but it had helped to establish the foundations for the agreement that followed. The argument within the IRA for a ceasefire to facilitate talks had been won. The argument within the British state for a negotiated settlement that included Republicans had been significantly advanced. This was no trivial achievement at a time when powerful forces in the British state continued to oppose contact.</p>
<p>The back-channel made it possible for both sides to nurture trust and understanding. They learned about the constraints within which the other party was operating and gradually became willing to make the moves and concessions that would allow the other party to move in turn.</p>
<p>It was through the <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/deniable-contact-9780192887535?lang=en&cc=gb">back-channel</a> that the British government and Sinn Féin began to build a new and less conflictual relationship. This was crucial to the ending of violent conflict.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202986/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Niall Ó Dochartaigh received funding from the Irish Research Council </span></em></p>Secret, behind-the-scenes talks were going on years before the official Belfast Agreement was signed – and made the whole thing possible.Niall Ó Dochartaigh, Professor of Political Science, University of Galway, University of GalwayLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1994152023-03-19T19:04:30Z2023-03-19T19:04:30Z‘We did it so badly … it’s now backfired’: women and minority US forces reflect on the invasion of Iraq – now 20 years ago<p>Twenty years ago, the United States led the “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_of_the_willing_(Iraq_war)#:%7E:text=The%20term%20coalition%20of%20the,led%20by%20the%20United%20States.">coalition of the willing</a>” in an invasion of Iraq, in the shadow of the September 11 2001 attacks on the US by militant Islamic network <a href="https://theconversation.com/understanding-islamic-state-where-does-it-come-from-and-what-does-it-want-52155">al-Qaeda</a>. </p>
<p>Western forces justified the war by <a href="https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030128-19.html">claiming</a> Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (which would never be found) and intended to help al-Qaeda. </p>
<p>A long, drawn-out war created a power vacuum in Iraq, leading to civil war between Iraqi Shias and Sunnis, and repeated insurgencies against occupying forces. Both were exploited by the emerging militant terror group Daesh, better known as ISIS, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/11/-sp-isis-the-inside-story">whose leaders</a> met and radicalised in US detention camps. </p>
<p>While most Western forces finally withdrew in 2017, <a href="https://www.iraqbodycount.org/">Iraq faces</a> continued insurgency and political crises. </p>
<p>“The people that we chose – and the people we empowered – were leaders of ethnic or religious extremists,” reflected Lieutenant Heather Coyne, as early as 2004. “We made them, we put them in charge.”</p>
<p>Coyne was one of the US military members and contractors whose experiences of the invasion were captured by the <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2005/10/oral-histories-iraq-experience-project">“Iraq Experience” Oral History Project</a>. It reveals a snapshot of Iraq at a key moment in time: just over a year after the war began.</p>
<h2>Culturally diverse armed forces</h2>
<p>The soldier-force Western militaries deployed to fight the War on Terror was the most diverse in history: providing language skills, cultural competencies and the ability to communicate with local women. It was also a <a href="https://warroom.armywarcollege.edu/articles/diversity-as-power/">representational device</a>, reflecting the invading forces’ rhetoric of pluralism, tolerance and equality. </p>
<p>Yet these soldiers waged a deeply racialised and gendered war. </p>
<p>Military policies around “collateral damage” and “enemy combatants” dehumanised enemies, allies, and civilians alike. Common threads of religious humiliation, sexual violence and racism run through reports of soldiers’ conduct. Allegations of war crimes by Western forces bear the hallmarks <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-why-soldiers-commit-war-crimes-and-what-we-can-do-about-it-185391">of white male supremacy</a>. Women and minority soldiers faced <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/10/get-a-weapon/596677/">epidemics of sexual violence</a> and <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-29/racism2c-sexism-rife-on-adf-facebook-group/3860736">racism</a> within Western military institutions.</p>
<p>I’m researching the experiences of women and minority soldiers deployed with US, UK and Australian militaries in the war on terror. In the project’s first stage, I read through existing archives of interviews with veterans.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.usip.org/">Institute of Peace</a> think tank conducted <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2005/10/oral-histories-iraq-experience-project">interviews</a> with military and contractors between June and November 2004 for a “<a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2005/10/oral-histories-iraq-experience-project">lessons learned” project</a>.</p>
<p>Six of the 35 interviewees met my criteria: three women (all white) and three men: one Navajo, one African American, and one Iraqi expatriate. Half had military experience; the three civilians all had expertise in conflict management.</p>
<p>The interviewees were proud of their mission and buoyed by hopes for the <a href="https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/b287848e17874c0a8d65849e64af4566">upcoming Iraqi parliamentary elections</a>. </p>
<p>Yet underneath this confidence were deep anxieties.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-why-soldiers-commit-war-crimes-and-what-we-can-do-about-it-185391">Friday essay: why soldiers commit war crimes – and what we can do about it</a>
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<h2>Good guys or bad guys?</h2>
<p>Navajo marine veteran Eric Bauer connected with Iraqis similarly to how he’d connect with other Native Americans: talking about relationships, family and community rather than resumes. By doing this, he explained, “they knew who I was as a person, and vice versa”. </p>
<p>Bauer was tasked with the practical process of setting up councils in Baghdad. He had to figure out if those who wanted to serve as representatives were, in his words, “good guys or bad guys”. In practice, this was “just getting people to talk about themselves”, often for hours. </p>
<p>One major struggle for the occupying forces was the problem of governance: how to create a new Iraqi political system that was representative, cooperative, friendly to Western allies, and had popular support. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515033/original/file-20230313-2482-4q89zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515033/original/file-20230313-2482-4q89zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515033/original/file-20230313-2482-4q89zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515033/original/file-20230313-2482-4q89zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515033/original/file-20230313-2482-4q89zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515033/original/file-20230313-2482-4q89zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515033/original/file-20230313-2482-4q89zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515033/original/file-20230313-2482-4q89zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Eric Bauer was tasked with figuring out if potential council representatives were ‘good guys or bad guys’ – which involved talking to them for hours.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jerome Delay/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The first step in this process was “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/aug/30/internationaleducationnews.iraq">de-Ba’athification</a>”, a policy of removing any members of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath party from positions of power. The Iraqi Army was disbanded and public sector employees affiliated with the Ba’ath party were removed and banned from future employment. Once the old system was removed, the US attempted to build one anew. </p>
<p>Interviewing so many Iraqis helped Bauer understand the holes in the policy of de-Ba’athification:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>if you wanted a job that was, let’s say a teacher or a doctor within the government […] you would take active part in furthering the goals of the Baath party, or at least swear allegiance to them now […] technically then, we would have to dismiss all schoolteachers. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>But this empathy for the struggle to survive clashed with his view that the Ba’ath party were fundamentally evil, and by extension those who cooperated were the same: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>for a lot of them it was a way to get by. If you didn’t have a moral conscience you would do it. Like I said, they weren’t loyal to the principles of it.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Failures of reconstruction</h2>
<p>Denise Dauphinais worked for USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives. As a civilian with foreign policy expertise, she was critical of how the US military handled – or neglected – seemingly obvious tasks such as clearing rubble, preventing looting, and making the cities feel safe and liveable.</p>
<p>Electricity supply was another major problem. The US administration had believed an oil-rich country would quickly become self-sufficient, providing energy supply throughout Iraq – along with the revenue to fund the ongoing US occupation. </p>
<p>In reality, years of prewar US sanctions had <a href="https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/resources/documents/report/57jqap.htm">crippled Iraqi infrastructure</a>, which was then bombarded in the invasion itself. Months into the occupation, the occupying forces were unable to provide electricity and other basic services.</p>
<p>Lieutenant Heather Coyne had worked on terrorism and conflict management for the White House and spoke Arabic proficiently. She worked in civil affairs in Iraq, for the Coalition Provisional Authority, where she used her language skills to connect with locals and hear their stories. By the summer of 2003, two months after the invasion,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…people were not only miserable because it was hot, but because food was spoiling. You could only buy a certain amount of food because they couldn’t count on their refrigerators working. It created such destruction in their lives.</p>
</blockquote>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515043/original/file-20230314-24-82uh3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515043/original/file-20230314-24-82uh3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515043/original/file-20230314-24-82uh3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515043/original/file-20230314-24-82uh3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515043/original/file-20230314-24-82uh3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515043/original/file-20230314-24-82uh3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515043/original/file-20230314-24-82uh3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515043/original/file-20230314-24-82uh3f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The US military neglected seemingly obvious tasks such as preventing looting. Here, a Baghdad shopkeeper bricks up his shop to protect it.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jerome Delay/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fifteen-years-after-looting-thousands-of-artefacts-are-still-missing-from-iraqs-national-museum-93949">Fifteen years after looting, thousands of artefacts are still missing from Iraq's national museum</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>‘We put them in charge’</h2>
<p>The US was determined to prevent concentration of power by any one group, so they allocated different offices to the parties representing different ethnic and religious groups. But the result was a <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/4/muhasasa-the-political-system-reviled-by-iraqi-protesters">system of quotas that fostered sectarian conflict between those groups</a>, as potential leaders traded on identity to consolidate their power bases. </p>
<p>Bauer, who worked on setting up these councils, was very defensive of the quota system: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>we carefully structured the councils to ensure that there was diversity in the representation because otherwise there would not have been […] People say, “well, that’s not a democracy”. No, it’s a republic trying to get fair representation, not just mob rule.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But Coyne, who was lower down the ladder, pointed out that the occupying forces had empowered extremists.</p>
<p>The civil war between Shia and Sunni militias that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/feb/28/iraq1">emerged in Iraq from 2006</a> was one legacy of the new sectarian political system. So were the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-49960677">waves of protests</a> calling for political reform in 2019-2021.</p>
<p>Coyne found the emphasis on equality and representation ironic, even hypocritical. She remembered sneaking into a meeting with military commanders who were insisting more women be represented in local council: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>the commanding general was pounding the table, “we absolutely need more women in these councils.” […] Around the table, nods of agreement, shaking heads, absolutely this is incredibly important. I looked around the room, of 40 people in the room I was the only female and I wasn’t really supposed to be there in the first place […] they’re going around telling the Iraqis you need to elect more women and the Iraqis look at [Americans] and see only men.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Loss of legitimacy and growing insurgency</h2>
<p>This ongoing US interference in supposedly Iraqi democratic institutions meant a loss of legitimacy. As a result, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2004/10/25/clerics-threaten-election-boycott">several moderate</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/dec/28/iraq.michaelhoward">Sunni groups boycotted</a> the 2005 parliamentary elections.</p>
<p>Lack of trust in the new local authorities, combined with the effects of de-Ba’athification, propelled the growing insurgency. </p>
<p>Munthir Nalu was an Iraqi expatriate who fled Iraq in 1991 and was recruited into the Iraqi Reconstruction and Development Council, an advisory body of Iraqi experts assisting the US Defence Department. </p>
<p>Nalu was highly critical of the decision to disband the Iraqi Army: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I have many, many friends in the former Iraqi army, and they were crying. They said, please, find us a solution, we have nothing. We are sitting home with no salaries, nothing … those opposition, they are fighting against us and against United States Army and the coalition, most of them from the Iraqi army.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The thousands of newly unemployed men of fighting age were then attracted by sectarian militias, established by newly empowered leaders such <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/may/25/iraq">Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr</a>.</p>
<h2>Increasingly dangerous</h2>
<p>Iraq felt increasingly dangerous, the interviewees reported. Many were concerned about the influx of foreign fighters across the borders, and increased attacks on anyone associated with the occupying forces. </p>
<p>Bauer felt lucky he was still able to move freely, because of his Navajo looks: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>in Baghdad, the city is pretty diverse. I would go to the restaurants and shopping markets in the city and I never got a second look.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Still, he acknowledged </p>
<blockquote>
<p>pretty much everybody that was involved, I mean in any way involved with the Coalition […] you were a legitimate target.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The interviewees were aware the US had fostered the sense of insecurity within the country. But they still felt the Iraqis, not the US, were ultimately responsible for Iraqi security. They failed to see the links between the US presence and the lack of security. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515036/original/file-20230313-26-t4riys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515036/original/file-20230313-26-t4riys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515036/original/file-20230313-26-t4riys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515036/original/file-20230313-26-t4riys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515036/original/file-20230313-26-t4riys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515036/original/file-20230313-26-t4riys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515036/original/file-20230313-26-t4riys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515036/original/file-20230313-26-t4riys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The US soldiers interviewed in 2004 failed to see the links between the US presence and the lack of security.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tony Nicoletti/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/as-a-patriot-and-black-man-colin-powell-embodied-the-two-ness-of-the-african-american-experience-170168">As a patriot and Black man, Colin Powell embodied the 'two-ness' of the African American experience</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What was the real goal?</h2>
<p>The weapons of mass destruction – the stated justification for the war – were almost absent from the Iraq Experience interviews, because in late 2004, it was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/oct/07/usa.iraq1">already apparent</a> they didn’t exist.</p>
<p>Only Bauer mentioned them, and only briefly, stating: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>he had them. I met the people that said he had them and I believe them. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Instead, the interviewees focused on two interlinked justifications for the war: removing a tyrant from power, and spreading democracy. </p>
<p>The Institute of Peace clearly selected interviewees that share the US government’s ideological views. In the next phase of my project, I aim to interview women and minorities with a much broader range of experiences, including those who have become critical of the War on Terror as <a href="https://aboutfaceveterans.org/who-we-are/">a result of their service</a>.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, these interviews from 2004 foreshadow the next 20 years of Iraq’s history. The interviewees accurately predicted the US would remain involved in Iraq for the next few decades. Despite their belief in the mission, they were not convinced of their success.</p>
<p>“I still think it was the right thing to do,” Coyne admitted, “but we did it so badly that it’s now backfired.”</p>
<p>What should they have done differently? The answer seems to be: everything. These interviews call into question the entire concept of a foreign military undertaking the mission of “nation-building”.</p>
<p>Twenty years later, perhaps the most prescient warning comes from Dauphinais: “the best that we can hope for [is that] the Iraqis will forgive us.”</p>
<hr>
<p><em>All quotations are from the interview transcripts available on the <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2005/10/oral-histories-iraq-experience-project">Institute of Peace “Iraq Experience” Oral History Project</a> website.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199415/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mia Martin Hobbs received funding for this research from the Freilich Project for the Study of Bigotry at ANU, and the Centre for Contemporary Histories at Deakin University</span></em></p>The beginnings of Iraq’s sectarian civil war, the failures of its US-built political system, and the struggle for civilians attempting to survive chaos and violence are here in these 2004 interviews.Mia Martin Hobbs, Research Fellow, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2015922023-03-17T15:48:13Z2023-03-17T15:48:13ZIraq war 20 years on: the British government has never fully learned from Tony Blair’s mistakes<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515227/original/file-20230314-3590-5mu5mp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C21%2C2364%2C1396&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Chris Ison</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Iraq war remains the UK’s most investigated foreign policy decision of the past 50 years. As the world marks 20 years since the invasion that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, we have to ask, has the UK learned any lessons from what happened in 2003?</p>
<p>The US and UK invaded Iraq in 2003 with the declared intention of removing weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and liberating the Iraqi people from the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. This followed a months-long process of diplomacy and UN weapons inspections, during which time the US and UK built their case for invasion.</p>
<p>As a result of all the investigations into the Iraq war, we have a good understanding of what flaws affected this process, particularly in terms of how prime minister Tony Blair made the decisions he did.</p>
<h2>Why do we need to learn from Iraq?</h2>
<p>The war resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and triggered a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/44744914">sectarian conflict</a> that has cast a long shadow over the country. For the UK and US, there was a huge cost in terms of service members injured or killed. </p>
<p>The political fallout has lasted generations too. When he announced the findings of the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-report-of-the-iraq-inquiry">official Iraq inquiry</a> in 2016 Sir John Chilcot said “the UK was, in fact, undermining the [UN] Security Council’s authority” by invading Iraq. If the UK government is to be a trusted international partner in future foreign policy actions, it must understand what went wrong in this case. </p>
<p>The inquiry found that the culture that prime minister Tony Blair established in Number 10 led to a lack of discussion before the decision was made to invade Iraq. Blair was known to operate what became known as a “sofa government” – an informal mode of working that saw him relying on an inner circle of people invited to hang out on his sofa in Downing Street. </p>
<p>This culture of limiting discussion to a select group was combined with a habit of making important decisions and commitments unilaterally. Blair made some policy by sending personally authored notes to US president George W. Bush, the content of which he had not discussed with relevant ministers. The infamous “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jul/06/with-you-whatever-tony-blair-letters-george-w-bush-chilcot">with you, whatever</a>” note that Blair sent to Bush in 2002 is a prime example. Blair committed to backing Bush come what may without talking to his cabinet and with no change in official government policy. </p>
<p>Both the Chilcot inquiry and the <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/61171/wmdreview.pdf">2004 Butler review</a> on the use of intelligence stressed the importance of government procedures such as collective cabinet decision-making. Chilcot said the cabinet was only able to give limited scrutiny to the attorney general’s legal advice on the invasion. When the attorney general presented Number 10 with conflicting advice for ministers to discuss, he was pushed into giving a more definitive view. </p>
<h2>Lessons left unlearned</h2>
<p>Despite all the investigations into the Iraq war and the sheer amount of evidence collected, little appears to have changed as a result. </p>
<p>The Iraq inquiry found that Blair’s Number 10 culture excluded outsiders and limited objections and discussion. Even now, multiple administrations later, there doesn’t appear to be a move to change this. In fact, ministers are more involved than ever in the process to select senior civil servants and <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-bullying-in-politics-is-a-matter-of-democracy-194686">accusations</a> about them <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/937010/Findings_of_the_Independent_Adviser.pdf">bullying officials</a> suggests little progress has been made in enabling robust discussion about difficult subjects.</p>
<p>As for proper cabinet discussion, one need only think back to the sudden economic crisis of October 2022 that was induced by Liz Truss and her chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s attempt to radically restructure the British economy without discussing their plans in full with the cabinet. Similarly, the controversy surrounding David Cameron’s <a href="https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2014-09-01/coalition-to-propose-new-powers-to-stop-citizens-returning-to-uk">removal of British citizenship from terror suspects</a> or Boris Johnson’s <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9006/">prorogation of parliament</a> in 2019 could have been better managed with fuller discussion of the decisions in cabinet. </p>
<p>One proposed way from the Chilcot review to reinforce government procedures was to give the cabinet secretary more power to draw attention to ministers who deviate from standard procedures – such as cabinet scrutiny of decisions. The proposal is that the cabinet secretary should be able to ask, on the record, for formal instructions from ministers if they feel that the cabinet manual is being ignored. </p>
<p>Those proposing this idea believe that this would have drawn greater public attention to how cabinet was sidelined on Iraq. In the proposal, this request for guidance would also be sent to the relevant House of Commons select committee, bringing public oversight and attention. However, this proposal has been rejected twice in recent <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmpubadm/656/656.pdf">years</a>.</p>
<p>Despite the controversy surrounding the legal process in the months before the UK invaded Iraq, there has been little change to this process. There is little to prevent a future attorney general being pressured out of presenting both sides in a legal debate, and into giving only the legal opinion that the prime minister wants.</p>
<p>It is surprising that so little has changed in the two decades since the invasion, even after years of investigation and inquiry. The UK has not invaded another country since Iraq but nor has it taken action that would help prevent such a poor decision being made again in the future. There is little point in being so bruised by a decision without having learned the lessons of the mistake.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201592/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Featherstone does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The former PM was criticised for making decisions without proper advice or consultationChristopher Featherstone, Associate Lecturer, Department of Politics, University of YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1956082022-12-08T11:39:27Z2022-12-08T11:39:27ZResearch has long shown institutional misogyny and racism within the UK’s fire services<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499253/original/file-20221206-13-9iol76.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">shutterstock</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/red-white-striped-warning-tape-prevents-1349124620">Sarnia | Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Following the tragic death of trainee firefighter Jaden Matthew Francois-Esprit, who took his own life in August 2020, an independent review was set up to investigate the workplace culture at the London Fire Brigade. Chaired by the solicitor and former crown prosecutor, Nazir Afzal, the review <a href="https://www.london-fire.gov.uk/about-us/independent-culture-review/">has found evidence</a> of institutional misogyny and racism in the UK’s largest fire and rescue service. </p>
<p>The report is based on the accounts of more than 2,000 current and former staff members and community groups. It details racial, ethnic and misogynistic abuse by co-workers, as well as unacceptable behaviour towards members of the public. </p>
<p>If <a href="https://theconversation.com/misogyny-in-police-forces-understanding-and-fixing-cop-culture-176303">similar accusations</a> have regularly been associated with the Metropolitan police, fire and rescue services have <a href="https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmicfrs/publications/public-perceptions-of-fire-and-rescue-services-2018/">consistently enjoyed</a> some of the highest satisfaction ratings from the public. But Afzal has warned that this culture of discrimination could be emblematic of wider structural problems within fire services across the country.</p>
<p>The question is how much of this was already known. My research <a href="https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/31645/1/9086_Murphy.pdf">consistently shows</a> that if some progress was made in the early 2000s as a result of comprehensive performance assessments and fire sector reforms, little progress – if any – has been made since 2010. Not only has the push for equality, diversity or inclusion died down, misogyny and racism have not been completely eradicated. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Pipes and bits of equipment in racks at the back of a fire truck." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499251/original/file-20221206-21-4v17is.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499251/original/file-20221206-21-4v17is.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499251/original/file-20221206-21-4v17is.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499251/original/file-20221206-21-4v17is.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499251/original/file-20221206-21-4v17is.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499251/original/file-20221206-21-4v17is.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499251/original/file-20221206-21-4v17is.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Diversity and equality in the fire sector continues to be woeful’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/fire-truck-open-side-hatch-hydrant-1431493637">Parilov | Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Illegal behaviour</h2>
<p>Former Labour MP Nick Raynsford, <a href="https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/substance-not-spin">in his 2016 book</a>, Substance Not Spin, An Insider’s View of Success and Failure in Government, highlights the decades of policy neglect by successive governments between the 1947 Fire Services Act and the end of the 20th century. In 2001, Tony Blair’s New Labour government commissioned an independent review of the UK’s fire service. The final report left little doubt about the decline in organisational culture. As the authors put it:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We have been, frankly, appalled at some of the stories we have heard of bullying and harassment. The harassment has been both racial and sexual, even given the very small numbers of non-white and female personnel in the service. Such behaviour is illegal as well as being morally repugnant".</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This resulted in a <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-62155-5_10">series of national policy reforms</a>, by both the Blair government and subsequently under Gordon Brown. These aimed to modernise the service – and its management in particular – seeking to increase equality, diversity and inclusion. After the Equalities Act was passed in 2010, the Local Government Association <a href="https://www.local.gov.uk/sites/default/files/documents/guidance%20-%20equality%20frameworks%20-%20Equality%20Framework%20for%20Fire%20and%20Rescue%20Services.pdf">produced</a> a a fire and rescue service equality framework and toolkit to help councils implement these reforms at local level.</p>
<p>Public management scholar Julian Clarke was a member of the team that developed the first equality standard for local government. He contributed a <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-62155-5_11">chapter</a> to the book I edited with Kirsten Greenhalgh, in 2016 entitled Fire and Rescue Services Leadership and Management Perspectives. Looking back at the evidence, Clarke was still able to be quite optimistic. If fire and rescue services had been late to improving equality policy and practice in both service delivery and employment, he deemed that in the years since 2006, they had made progress: perhaps, he wrote, “more than any other set of public service organisations.”</p>
<p>But he noted that things had slowed down. After 2010, he said, “equality improvement in employment outcomes appears to have been much more limited, when the detailed regulatory regimes of the previous decade disappeared and were replaced by ‘light touch’ oversight”.</p>
<h2>Regulatory failings</h2>
<p>In reality, the writing was already on the wall. In the context of the austerity measures put in place from June 2010, public scrutiny and assurance of the service were systematically and significantly weakened as the Audit Commission – the statutory agency that coordinated audit and inspection of local authorities – was abolished and external inspection of the services abandoned. </p>
<p>In contrast to the extensive coverage of diversity and workforce issues in previous national frameworks, the 2012 fire and rescue national framework included only one single mention of the need to comply with the Equality Act and that was in a list of statutory obligations. By 2015, <a href="https://anyflip.com/nwgw/wkpy/basic/">an independent review</a> by Irene Lucas into one regional fire service warned of extreme variabilities within the nation’s services more broadly. Of Essex county fire and rescue service (ECFRS) in particular, Lucas <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/sep/02/review-dangerous-pervasive-bullying-essex-fire-service">reportedly found</a> that it was culturally, “a failing organisation”, writing: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The organisational culture in ECFRS is toxic. There is dangerous and pervasive bullying and intimidation.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Lucas had been commissioned to undertake this review after two serving firefighters took their own lives amid reports of bullying. Two government reports on fire service finances – from the <a href="https://www.nao.org.uk/reports/financial-sustainability-of-fire-and-rescue-services/">National Audit Office</a> and the parliamentary <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmselect/cmpubacc/582/582.pdf">Committee of Public Accounts</a> – were also highly critical, leading to some big political gestures. In September 2015, the government published a white paper <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/459986/Consultation_-_Enabling_closer_working_between_the_Emergency_Services__w__2_.pdf">commission</a> that proposed making police <a href="https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/who-we-are-and-what-we-do/elections-and-referendums/past-elections-and-referendums/police-and-crime-commissioner-elections/report-how-2012-police-and-crime-commissioner-elections-were-run">commissioners</a> responsible for <a href="https://www.gov.uk/police-and-crime-commissioners">fire services</a> too. External inspection was also reestablished, through His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Police and Fire Rescue Services (HMICFRS). </p>
<p>In practice, however, this has occasioned no greater interest or action on equality, diversity or inclusion. Human resource management referred to as “people” issues by HMICFRS have repeatedly been found to be the poorest aspects of annual fire service inspections. This is at least in part due to a lack of diversity in recruitment to the fire service, especially at senior levels. In his final 2021 State of Fire report to the government, former chief inspector Thomas P Winsor <a href="https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmicfrs/publications/state-fire-rescue-annual-assessment-2021/">stated</a> that “diversity and race equality in the fire sector continues to be woeful”.</p>
<p>Despite this, as <a href="https://www.fire-magazine.com/the-mis-interpretation-of-section-25-of-the-fire-and-rescue-services-act-2004">my colleague and I have shown</a>, since 2010, not one of the home secretary’s biannual reports to parliament on fire service compliance with the national framework has ever mentioned equality, diversity or inclusion, still less the possibility of misogyny and racism in the service.</p>
<p>The evidence has long been clear and it just keeps coming. Since Afzal’s report, five firefighters in the West Midlands have <a href="https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/five-west-midlands-fire-service-25644386">reportedly been fired</a> for alleged misogynistic bullying and harassment on WhatsApp and are now fighting this dismissal in ongoing tribunal proceedings in Birmingham. </p>
<p>This comes mere weeks after allegations of <a href="https://www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/lostwithiel-firefighters-sacked-over-inappropriate-7209320">inappropriate behaviour</a> were made at the Lostwithiel community fire station in Cornwall. Our fire and rescue services need rescuing from organisational cultures that are not only inefficient and ineffective, but also damaging and harmful to the frontline staff who keep them functional. They deserve better.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195608/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Murphy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If some progress was made in the early 2000s, austerity measures from 2010 saw the push for equality, diversity or inclusion die down.Peter Murphy, Professor of Public Policy and Management, Nottingham Trent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1904512022-09-13T08:48:27Z2022-09-13T08:48:27ZUK-Africa ties: future looks gloomy under Liz Truss as political myopia reigns<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484268/original/file-20220913-12-o2cvok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Britain's new prime minister, Liz Truss.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Stuart Brock</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe id="noa-web-audio-player" style="border: none" src="https://embed-player.newsoveraudio.com/v4?key=x84olp&id=https://theconversation.com/uk-africa-ties-future-looks-gloomy-under-liz-truss-as-political-myopia-reigns-190451&bgColor=F5F5F5&color=D8352A&playColor=D8352A" width="100%" height="110px"></iframe>
<p>Britain has a new prime minister in <a href="https://theconversation.com/liz-truss-who-is-the-uks-new-prime-minister-and-why-has-she-replaced-boris-johnson-189713">Liz Truss</a>. For African leaders wondering what the new administration might mean for UK-Africa relationships, the view must be pretty gloomy. </p>
<p>British politics has been solidly inward-looking for the past two (post-Brexit Conservative) prime ministers – <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/people/theresa-may">Theresa May</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Boris-Johnson">Boris Johnson</a>. It shows few signs of changing. Looking at the UK’s shifts in relationship with African countries over the past three decades, I see little prospect of African issues rising up the political agenda. And little chance of an active Africa policy, whether at a continental or regional level, before the next general election.</p>
<p>The election must be held <a href="https://metro.co.uk/2022/06/07/when-is-the-next-uk-general-election-and-could-it-be-brought-forward-16782836/">by January 2025</a>, but is likely to be sooner. </p>
<p>Aid levels are unlikely to be restored. Nor is UK aid likely to be placed back in an independent government department. In addition, British politicians are unlikely to look beyond domestic and European crises. The result is that Africa is likely to feature in British high-level politics only when it is in the government’s narrow self-interest. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, UK policy will still have impact on the continent. A retreat from climate-emergency pledges, and continuing cuts in aid, will create real harm in many vulnerable African states. Sadly, there will be little scope for their voices to be heard in response.</p>
<h2>Shifting priorities</h2>
<p>Africa and the UK lack the close (some would argue too close) formal political, economic and military linkages of Franco-African relationships. Still, Africa has in the past been a much bigger part of the UK’s political conversation. </p>
<p>The creation of an independent aid ministry – the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-international-development">Department for International Development</a> – by the Labour government <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3993255">in 1997</a> was a key platform for building relationships.</p>
<p>It was also key to raising African politics and issues within the UK government. With both prime minister <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Tony-Blair">Tony Blair</a> (1997-2007) and finance minister <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/history/past-prime-ministers/gordon-brown">Gordon Brown</a> (2007-2010) interested in African prospects and development, close ties were forged. Through the Department for International Development, links with civil society voices were also stronger.</p>
<p>The transition to a Conservative government <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228198676_The_British_General_Election_of_2010_The_Results_Analysed">in 2010</a> (initially as part of a coalition) saw little change. Indeed, the raising of aid spending to <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/d217e3e4-7bc8-11e4-b6ab-00144feabdc0">0.7% of gross national income</a> – an increase of £1 billion – expanded the Department for International Development. At the time, other domestic-focused departments faced <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/mar/03/lost-decade-hidden-story-how-austerity-broke-britain">severe cuts to their budgets</a>. </p>
<p>The first conservative minister of international development, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/people/andrew-mitchell">Andrew Mitchell</a> (2010-2012), had long-standing interests in the continent. He developed close relationships with key leaders, including Rwanda’s Paul Kagame. He also maintained close ties with the Ethiopian government, among others. Prime minister <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/david-cameron-a-new-future-for-africa">David Cameron</a> (2010-2016) was also interested in Africa, as a visible indication of his ambitions for a strong UK global role.</p>
<p>Since the Brexit referendum <a href="https://theconversation.com/brexit-five-years-after-the-referendum-here-are-five-things-weve-learned-162974">in 2016</a>, however, Africa has slipped from its precarious but tangible place in UK political discourse. The dismantling of the Department for International Development and its incorporation into a new <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/foreign-commonwealth-development-office">Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office</a> in <a href="https://www.devex.com/news/breaking-dfid-merged-with-fco-97489">2020</a>, as well as subverting aid to British self-interest, led to the departure of many experienced personnel who maintained the relationships with African political and civil society leaders. </p>
<p>It also removed a key ally for Africa within UK debates. Recent discussions around Africa have focused removing some migrants <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-61782866">to Rwanda</a>, hardly the bedrock of a high-level relationship. </p>
<p>And it’s hard to imagine former governments remaining silent over the Ethiopia crisis, for example, as the most recent Conservative administration has done.</p>
<h2>Truss offers little prospect of change</h2>
<p>Before her elevation to prime minister, Truss was the foreign, Commonwealth and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/28/foreign-office-not-regained-global-footing-under-liz-truss-report-finds">development office minister</a>. She showed little interest in development, anti-poverty policies or creating relationships based on mutual respect and dialogue. In fact, in my view, she contributed to the subversion of UK aid to British diplomatic and economic self-interest.</p>
<p>Her global tours as minister did not include a visit to Africa. </p>
<p>It is true that agreements have been signed with the Southern African Customs Union and Mozambique <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-africa-trade-idUKKCN1VW1N5">in 2019</a>. But they offer little consolation in place of a new and powerful friendship.</p>
<p>More importantly, UK politics, and the attention of the new prime minister, will be firmly fixed on the domestic cost of living and inflation crisis, on a potential new row with the UK’s European Union neighbours (one of the UK government’s own making), and the conflict in Ukraine. Next on the agenda will be China, and the pursuit of trade deals elsewhere in the world.</p>
<p>It’s unlikely Britain’s limited attention span will have much space left for African issues and policy.</p>
<p>There is an argument to be made that African issues might receive a listening ear within the government given that most senior offices of state will, for the first time, be led by ministers with African heritage. The new chancellor is <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/people/kwasi-kwarteng">Kwazi Kwarteng</a>, whose parents migrated from Ghana in the 1960s, and who has written a (mildly critical) <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/books/review/ghosts-of-empire-by-kwasi-kwarteng.html">book</a> on the history of the British empire;
the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office will be led by <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/people/james-cleverly">James Cleverly</a>, who has a Sierra Leonian mother; and the parents of the new Home Office minister, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/people/braverman">Suella Braverman</a>, came to Britain from Kenya and Mauritius. </p>
<p>Never before have the top posts been held by so many with direct links to Africa.</p>
<p>In my view, however, this is unlikely to make any real difference. None of the ministers have a strong record of advocating for closer or deeper ties with the continent. And despite Kwarteng’s criticism of the legacy of British colonial occupation, all three have signed up to the Conservative Party culture wars which see criticism of a glorious British past as treasonous wokery.</p>
<h2>Danger ahead</h2>
<p>There is a real danger that Britain will institute policies that actively harm African countries. Restoring UK aid to previous levels is becoming a vanishingly small possibility, which means cuts to vital social welfare programmes for some of the world’s most vulnerable communities. </p>
<p>Calls for renewed investment in fossil fuel production, and the possibility of backtracking on climate emission promises <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/07/will-liz-trusss-government-adopt-or-weaken-green-policies">in response to the energy price crisis</a>, will undermine efforts to reduce the impact of the climate emergency.</p>
<p>African leaders and civil society organisations hoping a new broom will lead to a new set of relationships look set to be disappointed. Britain’s political myopia and navel-gazing will continue, with global engagement framed as something strictly to be done where it benefits the UK. Africa will likely have to wait for a new government, and a revived Department for International Development, for strong and close relations to be restored.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190451/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Jennings is affiliated with the Fabian Society </span></em></p>Since the Brexit referendum in 2016, Africa has slipped from its precarious but tangible place in UK political discourse.Michael Jennings, Professor in Global Development, SOAS, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1893552022-08-30T19:49:28Z2022-08-30T19:49:28ZLiz Truss may not appoint an ethics adviser – does that really matter?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481326/original/file-20220826-20-o187rq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C202%2C7732%2C5091&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/uk-foreign-secretary-elizabeth-liz-truss-2184445795">Clicksbox / Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Liz Truss, who is likely to be prime minister next week, has indicated that she <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-62657384">may not appoint an ethics adviser</a>. She said she has “always <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-62657384">acted with integrity</a>”, so there is no need for an official to advise her. </p>
<p>As with many other aspects of British politics, ethics advisers and the code they abide by do not exist as part of written law. The British constitution is essentially the compound of laws and conventions. It is famously unwritten, but only in the sense of there being no single codified document. In practice, it is “written” as ruling parties accept and observe conventions. These conventions may come about in reaction to wrongdoing and controversy. </p>
<p>The role of ethics adviser exists because a <a href="https://theconversation.com/sleaze-why-boris-johnson-is-being-reminded-of-the-lurid-scandals-of-1990s-britain-171761">series of scandals</a> in the early 1990s led then Prime Minister John Major to appoint the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/the-committee-on-standards-in-public-life">committee on standards in public life</a>. The committee identified seven standards – selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership – that the public should expect their ministers to abide by.</p>
<p>These, known as the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-7-principles-of-public-life/the-7-principles-of-public-life--2">Nolan priniciples</a> after the committee’s first chair, were enshrined in the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ministerial-code">ministerial code</a>. This code had existed <a href="https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C11521845">in various arrangements since the 1970s</a>, before being formalised in 1992 and published under its current title five years later. It is updated periodically by the prime minister of the day.</p>
<p>The arrangements for who investigated breaches of the code of conduct were ad hoc, until, in 2006, then Prime Minister Tony Blair <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/228834/7170.pdf">created the office</a> of the independent adviser on ministerial interests. The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2006/mar/24/uk.labour">adviser</a> would be “able, at the prime minister’s request, to investigate alleged breaches of the ministerial code”. The adviser would also publish an annual report.</p>
<h2>Ethical exits</h2>
<p>Of the four ethics advisers there have been, two have resigned under Boris Johnson.</p>
<p>The first, appointed by Blair, was Sir John Bourn, who served until 2007. In July 2007, the new prime minister, Gordon Brown, appointed Sir Philip Mawer, who served until November 2011. Neither adviser faced any great tests of investigation, or of their authority.</p>
<p>Mawer’s successor was Sir Alex Allan, appointed by David Cameron and remaining in post throughout Theresa May’s premiership. Johnson asked him to investigate the behaviour of Home Secretary Priti Patel, after her permanent secretary publicly resigned following <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-51688261">allegations of Patel bullying staff</a>.</p>
<p>Allan <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/937010/Findings_of_the_Independent_Adviser.pdf">pronounced</a> that Patel “has been in breach of the ministerial code”. The prime minister <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ministerial-code-investigation">immediately replied</a>, on November 20 2020, that in his judgment “the ministerial code was not breached … and considers this matter now closed”. Later that day, Allan resigned.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Boris Johnson walking out of Number 10 Downing Street with a folder under his arm" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481327/original/file-20220826-18-rx8ner.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481327/original/file-20220826-18-rx8ner.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481327/original/file-20220826-18-rx8ner.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481327/original/file-20220826-18-rx8ner.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481327/original/file-20220826-18-rx8ner.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481327/original/file-20220826-18-rx8ner.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481327/original/file-20220826-18-rx8ner.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Boris Johnson’s Downing Street exit was preceded by the resignation of both of his ethics advisers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/london-united-kingdom-september-22-2020-1819548479">I T S / Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After five months without an adviser, the prime minister appointed <a href="https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/christopher-geidt">Lord Geidt</a>, former private secretary to the Queen. Johnson also “<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ministerial-code/ministerial-code">updated</a>” the terms of reference, that rule-breaking ministers would not automatically be <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/may/27/boris-johnson-changes-ministerial-code-to-remove-need-to-resign-over-breaches">expected to resign</a>.</p>
<p>Geidt’s tenure was marked by months of speculation as to whether he had been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/dec/18/mps-question-standards-chief-over-claims-pm-misled-him-on-flat-redecoration">misled by the prime minister</a> over the financing of the redecoration of the private quarters in 10 Downing Street. But it was over the government’s apparent willingness to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jun/17/lord-geidt-claims-no-10-wanted-break-international-law-boris-johnson-ethics">break international law over steel tariffs</a> that, in June 2022, Geidt resigned.</p>
<p>Both advisers had been, in <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmpubadm/1761/1761.pdf">Sir Alex’s words</a>, “bypassed” by a prime minister who, according to <a href="https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22061443/lord-geidt-to-pm.pdf">Lord Geidt</a>, risked a “deliberate and purposeful break of the ministerial code”, leaving his ethics adviser in “an impossible and odious position”.</p>
<h2>Governing by convention</h2>
<p>The prime minister’s ethics adviser is a shining example of the peculiarly British way of governing, known to some as “muddling through”. That description was once a reflection of affection, <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4445410.stm">a Yes, Minister sort of culture</a> (referring to the 1980s sitcom). But in an increasingly partisan and polarised era, it appears less benign.</p>
<p>The ethics adviser is not independent, has no autonomy, and is not appointed through an open process. The practice is political. And as <a href="https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/598145">the government has stated</a>: “It is the prime minister’s responsibility to set standards of behaviour.”</p>
<p>With her comments, Truss highlighted the essential anomaly: not only does the prime minister personally choose the official who advises them as to the integrity of their and their colleagues’ conduct, but for any investigation even to take place, the prime minister must approve it. And should that adviser resign because their advice was ignored, the prime minister can elect simply to not replace them.</p>
<p>It’s been said that the British constitution is “what happens”. It can also be what doesn’t happen.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189355/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Farr does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Having an ethics adviser is a matter of convention, not a legal requirement.Martin Farr, Senior Lecturer in Contemporary British History, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1816012022-05-03T18:58:09Z2022-05-03T18:58:09ZCentre-left parties worldwide have struggled to reinvent themselves – what kind of ALP is fighting this election?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460889/original/file-20220503-14-o2b2fh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3964%2C1856&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Keir Starmer, Anthony Albanese and Jacinda Ardern.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images Europe, Lukas Coch/ AAP Image, and Robert Kitchin/Pool Photo via AP </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>With due caution about the <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-to-read-political-polls-and-why-we-can-expect-a-lot-of-drama-on-election-night-181477">(in)accuracy of opinion polls</a>, Australian voters may bring in a Labor government on May 21. If so, what kind of government would they get?</p>
<p>One obstacle to answering this is that the Australian Labor Party (ALP) has been out of office for so long, having lost three elections since 2013. And it’s difficult to find comparable case studies, as the <a href="https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/why-the-left-loses">social-democratic left</a> has generally not performed well in various elections over the past decade or more. </p>
<p>British Labour, for example, has lost four elections since 2010, although it’s showing signs of revival with Keir Starmer at the helm.</p>
<p>And the tide may be turning in the left’s favour. New Zealand Labour formed a coalition government after the 2017 election and then, following an election dominated by COVID-19 in 2020, hit a record high of 50% and won a single-party majority (virtually unheard of under the proportional MMP system).</p>
<p>And in Germany, social democrat Olaf Scholz now leads a coalition as federal chancellor following last year’s election.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460668/original/file-20220501-17-pm0014.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460668/original/file-20220501-17-pm0014.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460668/original/file-20220501-17-pm0014.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460668/original/file-20220501-17-pm0014.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460668/original/file-20220501-17-pm0014.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460668/original/file-20220501-17-pm0014.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460668/original/file-20220501-17-pm0014.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">ALP Leader Anthony Albanese and Liberal prime minister Scott Morrison at the first leaders’ debate of the 2022 federal election in April.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Three brands of labour</h2>
<p>The three labour parties (British, Australian and New Zealand) have converged around some key values and ideas, indicating how the ALP might govern. There’s always likely to be a gap between rhetoric and actual policy implementation, but examination of leaders’ speeches gives some evidence about where they’re heading. </p>
<p>Our comparative analysis of speeches by the three party leaders indicates a “thin” labourism in relation to the parties’ social-democratic traditions.</p>
<p>ALP leader Anthony Albanese’s key speeches since becoming leader in 2019 show he’s big on economic growth, with an emphasis on social mobility (“aspiration”), fairness and security. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/could-the-2022-election-result-in-a-hung-parliament-history-shows-australians-have-nothing-to-fear-from-it-181484">Could the 2022 election result in a hung parliament? History shows Australians have nothing to fear from it</a>
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<p>Along with talk of jobs and wages – essential themes for any politician wishing to appeal to working people – there’s reference to nation-building and infrastructure. These themes are reflected in the approach being taken by <a href="https://theconversation.com/if-labor-wins-the-election-he-is-set-to-become-the-next-federal-treasurer-so-who-is-jim-chalmers-180138">shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers</a>.</p>
<p>Albanese, Starmer and New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern are alike in that their speeches use the words “economy”, “growth” and “jobs” more than any others – although Ardern refers to the environment noticeably more frequently than the other two. </p>
<p>Like Starmer and Ardern, Albanese downplays traditional social-democratic vocabulary like “progressive”, “dignity”, “solidarity” and “equality”. These leaders also lack the enthusiasm of the third-way “soft neoliberals” who governed during an era of deregulation and downsizing and yet claimed they could “modernise” social democracy, as popularised by the UK’s former prime minister Tony Blair. </p>
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<h2>Safe centrism</h2>
<p>Today’s labour leaders do, however, steer a “safe” centrist path between being pro-growth (or at least not anti-business) and seeking gains for low- and middle-income earners. </p>
<p>They normally avoid explicit talk of class, redistribution and trade unions. None of them critiques the market economy – they just want it to be fairer. Once in office, the gains for workers from a labour government will be incremental, not transformational.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-much-do-mainstream-media-matter-in-an-election-campaign-spoiler-more-than-you-might-think-180780">How much do mainstream media matter in an election campaign? (Spoiler: more than you might think)</a>
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<p>One can see this in New Zealand. The pandemic has meant a major detour, but Ardern hasn’t made great progress towards her avowed social goals: getting everyone into <a href="https://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/fms/Colleges/College%20of%20Business/School%20of%20Economics%20&%20Finance/research-outputs/mureau/home-affordability/Home%20Affordability%20Report%20Q4%202021.pdf?FA6552978ED20FEB5522D94A5D1A7864">an affordable home</a> and reducing <a href="https://www.cpag.org.nz/what-the-annual-child-poverty-stats-tell/">child poverty</a>. The gains she can cite are incremental at best. </p>
<p>Under Albanese, the ALP removed some politically troublesome tax policies which had originally been intended to deliver greater fairness. Labor reversed its 2019 policy positions on negative gearing, capital gains tax and franking credits. Further, Albanese announced <a href="https://theconversation.com/albanese-has-dropped-labors-pledge-to-boost-jobseeker-with-unemployment-low-is-that-actually-fair-enough-181256">no lift in the unemployment benefit</a> under Labor, and also signed up to the Coalition’s stage three tax cuts – in effect removing an entire income tax bracket.</p>
<p>In the campaign he presents himself as professional, “<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-labor-can-win-the-2022-election-179750">reasonable</a>” and a safe pair of hands – but above all, not radical. There have been some “<a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-22/albanese-covid-19-diagnosis-upends-labor-campaign/101007156">gaffes and stumbles</a>” and then a positive COVID test, but the <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/labor-leads-polling-at-the-campaign-s-halfway-mark-20220501-p5ahiv.html">latest polls</a> will be reassuring.</p>
<h2>A thin ideological platform</h2>
<p>One impact of the pandemic has been a return of strong governmental action backed by borrowing. At the state level, premiers (notably Labor premiers) have gained credit for taking more decisive (or less indecisive) actions to prevent spread of the disease, reduce pressures on hospitals and save lives. </p>
<p>New Zealand Labour’s exemplary performance in disease control showed how a government can be rewarded electorally for this – although recent <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_New_Zealand_general_election">opinion polls</a> show Ardern’s government could be beaten by a centre-right coalition next year.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/if-labor-wins-he-is-set-to-become-treasurer-so-who-is-jim-chalmers-180138">If Labor wins, he is set to become treasurer. So who is Jim Chalmers?</a>
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<p>Ardern’s commitment to lift the minimum wage, and Starmer’s and Albanese’s focus on job security exemplify the incremental approach that’s focused on workers but doesn’t want to “frighten the horses” of capitalism.</p>
<p>Labour leaders have to work harder than their centre-right opponents to convince voters they’re not anti-business, that they understand macroeconomic policy and that they won’t get too tax-hungry – and yet also appeal to those for whom “economy” might mean how the next paycheck will cover rent and groceries. </p>
<p>Labour parties now find themselves on a thin ideological platform, anxious not to be an easy target for their pro-business opponents, especially during an election campaign. </p>
<p>An attenuated social-democratic value base is all that’s left now.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181601/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Anxious not to be easy targets for their pro-business opponents, labour parties everywhere now run on a ‘thin ideological platform’. Anthony Albanese’s ALP is no exception.Rob Manwaring, Associate Professor, Politics and Public Policy, Flinders UniversityCharles Lees, Professor of Government, Flinders UniversityGrant Duncan, Associate Professor, School of People, Environment and Planning, Massey UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1786612022-03-07T17:21:09Z2022-03-07T17:21:09ZUkraine: the UN’s ‘responsibility to protect’ doctrine is a hollow promise for civilians under fire<p>Images of gaunt, exhausted faces of people fleeing bombardment and death once again dominate global news. From <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/merciless-vladimir-putin-shells-ukrainian-evacuees-s98r0j50x">Mariupol</a> to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/06/world/europe/ukraine-irpin-civilian-death.html">Irpin</a>, Russian artillery attacks on Ukrainian civilians have kept them trapped in hell.</p>
<p>Every day, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/03/05/zelensky-call-senators/">pleads for help</a>. He begs for military support to save his people from Russian aggression. Every day, world leaders find new ways to say <a href="https://www.euronews.com/2022/03/01/boris-johnson-pledges-support-for-ukraine-but-insists-uk-will-not-fight-russian-forces">that they will not intervene militarily</a>. The line is drawn at warm words and humanitarian aid.</p>
<p>So, what has happened to the UN’s much-vaunted “<a href="https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/about-responsibility-to-protect.shtml">responsibility to protect</a>” – or “R2P” – doctrine? That willingness to use force to protect populations from genocide, war crimes and ethnic cleansing. United States secretary of state Antony Blinken <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/us-has-credible-reports-russian-war-crimes-ukraine-blinken-says-1685296">has already claimed</a> “very credible” reports of Russian war crimes. The Ukraine invasion shows R2P to be the hollow promise it has always been.</p>
<h2>What is R2P?</h2>
<p><a href="https://una.org.uk/r2p-detail">Responsibility to Protect (R2P)</a> was affirmed at the 2005 UN World Summit. World leaders agreed to protect civilians from the kind of atrocities that are now unfolding in Ukraine. R2P would be “an emerging international security and <a href="https://una.org.uk/r2p-detail">human rights norm</a>”. </p>
<p>The then secretary-general of the UN, Kofi. Annan <a href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2005/sgsm10090.doc.htm">announced</a> that the world had taken “collective responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity”. A new era in international cooperation had apparently arrived.</p>
<p>R2P emerged as a response to the atrocities in Rwanda and Srebrenica in the 1990s. Its aims were humanitarian, well-intended and optimistic. In 1999, Tony Blair captured the zeitgeist when <a href="https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20080909041753/http:/www.number10.gov.uk/Page1297">he declared</a>: “We are all internationalists now.” </p>
<p>Blair suggested five principles for military intervention to protect civilians on humanitarian grounds:</p>
<ul>
<li>The case must be proven</li>
<li>All diplomatic options must have been exhausted</li>
<li>There must be sensible and prudent military operations to be undertaken</li>
<li>It’s a long-term commitment</li>
<li>Do we have national interests involved?</li>
</ul>
<p>In 2000, prompted by events in Kosovo, Bosnia, Somalia and Rwanda, the Canadian government stepped forward. It established the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS). It reported on the so-called “<a href="https://idl-bnc-idrc.dspacedirect.org/bitstream/handle/10625/18432/IDL-18432.pdf?sequence=6&isAllowed=y">right of humanitarian intervention</a>”. That is, the right to use military force to protect people at risk in other states.</p>
<h2>The problem with R2P</h2>
<p>Since affirming R2P in 2005, the UN has failed to prevent atrocities in Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Myanmar and elsewhere. Now it is failing to protect civilians in Ukraine.</p>
<p>The problem is, R2P was set up to fail. At the heart of the principle exists an unresolvable geopolitical tension. There are five permanent members of the UN Security Council: the US, Russia, China, UK and France. Each can veto UN military or R2P action. Everyone protects their allies and their own interests, so the track record is damning.</p>
<p>After all the optimistic talk in 2005, by 2009 there had been little progress in implementing R2P. The then UN secretary general, <a href="https://www.un.org/ruleoflaw/files/SG_reportA_63_677_en.pdf">Ban Ki-moon, reported</a> that the UN and member states were “underprepared to meet their most fundamental prevention and protection responsibilities”.</p>
<p>By 2018, fighting in Syria had been underway for eight years, and <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/IICISyria/Pages/AboutCoI.aspx">the UN reported</a> the conflict had led to 400,000 dead, 5.6 million refugees and 6.6 million internally displaced people. Yet Russia and China still refused to invoke R2P. Russia and China <a href="http://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/s_pv_7180.pdf">also vetoed</a> UN attempts to refer Syria and the perpetrators of war crimes to the International Criminal Court.</p>
<p>If such levels of human suffering could not prompt a UN-sanctioned R2P-based military intervention, what will?</p>
<h2>The optimists</h2>
<p>Despite mounting evidence against it ever being used when it is needed most, R2P has its supporters. In November 2020, Gareth Evans from the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect <a href="https://www.globalr2p.org/publications/r2p-the-dream-and-the-reality/">set out a positive case for R2P</a>. A former Australian foreign minister, Evans helped conceive R2P, and described it as a new norm of international behaviour which “overwhelmingly, <a href="https://www.globalr2p.org/publications/r2p-the-dream-and-the-reality/">states feel ashamed to violate</a>, compelled to observe, or at least embarrassed to ignore”.</p>
<p>But such optimism seems misplaced in light of the harsh realities on the ground in Ukraine. The current UN secretary-general, António Guterres, <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/02/1112662">has stated</a> that protecting civilians “must be priority number one”. </p>
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<p>But the real priority is not protecting Ukrainian civilians but to <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/fight-ukraine-russia-world-war-risk-real/">avoid a third world war</a> by preventing a clash between Russia and the west. Plus, protecting Ukrainian civilians by intervening with massive military power would be costly – politically, financially and in terms of military lives lost.</p>
<p>There is little evidence that electorates in western liberal democratic states want their leaders to deploy such military force. UK polling in early March indicated only <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/polling-ukraine-support-for-sanctions-and-governments-handling-grows">28% support for military intervention</a> in Ukraine. Similar polling in the US showed <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/28/politics/cnn-poll-russia-ukraine-us-aid/index.html">42% support for military intervention</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.raf.mod.uk/what-we-do/centre-for-air-and-space-power-studies/documents1/air-power-review-vol-17-no-3/">political limits</a> of R2P have been reached. The possibility of military intervention on humanitarian grounds has, in practice, already be consigned to the history books. It would be kinder, and more honest, to stop offering desperate Ukrainians false hope. We should admit R2P was a principled idea whose time never came.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178661/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Lee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In 2005 the world decided it must take action to protect civilians from being targeted in war. In Ukraine frightened civilians are still waiting.Peter Lee, Professor of Applied Ethics and Director, Security and Risk Research, University of PortsmouthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1765982022-02-08T12:06:32Z2022-02-08T12:06:32ZThe politics of Neighbours: what the Australian soap can teach us about post-Thatcher Britain<p>Channel 5’s <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-6027793">decision to axe</a> Australian soap opera Neighbours has led to widespread dismay among British people in their thirties and upwards. After 36 years on British screens, the network said it will instead invest more in “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/feb/06/curtains-for-ramsay-street-as-channel-5-no-longer-needs-good-neighbours">original UK drama</a>”.</p>
<p>Although its 1990 heyday of 20 million viewers on BBC One are long behind it, the show still does comparatively good numbers. Its <a href="https://www.thinkbox.tv/research/barb-data/top-programmes-report/?tag=Channel5">20% market share</a>
makes it the most successful show on Channel 5. Presumably, the soap must be too expensive. But given it has relied on a very visible <a href="https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/soaps/neighbours/toadie-and-dee-reunited-6-crazy-must-see-moments-as-neighbours-plot-explodes/">mannequin in a wig</a> to function as a body double during a car crash, where any big budgets are going is difficult to ascertain.</p>
<p>Business case apart, a lot of the anguish is due to the loss of a communal experience. In the 1990s, Neighbours was a perennial part of young people’s lives, no doubt a product of its repetitive, five-day-a-week transmission. With 83% of 12-15-year-olds claiming to watch the show at <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13619462.2021.2019583">its height</a>, there is a generation of British people for whom the surname Kennedy will conjure up Karl and Susan before it does John F. or Bobby.</p>
<p>That said, despite its uncontroversial, amiable vision of the world, the show was not unrelated to the rough and tumble of party politics. Neighbours was at the peak of its popularity as the UK was beginning to transition away from Margaret Thatcher’s long tenure in Downing Street towards the New Labour period after 1997.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13619462.2021.2019583">I’ve argued</a>, the politics of Erinsborough is small “c” conservative and certainly capitalist. But, unlike Thatcher, Neighbours demonstrated there was <a href="https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/106689">such a thing as society</a>. All told, it was (and to some degree still is) very Blairite. </p>
<p>Indeed, the type of people who were so drawn to Neighbours – women and those who lived in suburbs – were precisely the type of voters who would go on to fervently back Tony Blair in 1997. The reasons people tuned in to Erinsborough in the late 1980s and early 1990s were largely similar to those they gave for backing New Labour: they wanted an escape from the realities of Thatcher’s Britain. They initially sought it on screen in the form of Australian sunshine and then, when Labour found a charismatic, moderate leader, at the ballot box. Some of Neighbours’ appeal was largely imagined – Australian cul-de-sac living can’t always be so pleasant – but it was certainly enduring. </p>
<p>Like opposition era Blair, the show was (and is) safe, reassuring television. This undramatic tendency would destroy its fortunes in the thrill-seeking US market, but its reliable niceness was a significant draw for the British public. Indeed, while the socially conservative activist Mary Whitehouse took issue with Eastenders’ “violence”, “bad language” and “demoralising situations”, viewers have consistently <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13619462.2021.2019583">told</a> audience researchers that they trust Neighbours with their children’s unsupervised attention. </p>
<p>For its star <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/culture/tv-and-radio/looking-back-at-80s-neighbours-scripts-how-much-has-really-changed-20200228-p545d6.html">Geoff Paine</a> (now back in the show as Dr Clive Gibbons), “the test was could adults and kids watch the show without either getting embarrassed, or the kids asking ‘what does that mean’”? Nearly all of the time, it passed this test. Viewers praised the soap’s lack of “extreme” content, and would make similar comments about New Labour.</p>
<h2>Neighbours’ opposition</h2>
<p>The interesting thing was that politicians didn’t get this at the time. Few watched the show (a product, perhaps, of its daytime transmission), but they would have been well advised to do so to get a more rounded understanding of its appeal.</p>
<p>In May 1991, schools minister Michael Fallon called for Neighbours to be removed from British screens altogether. For Fallon, it was harmful to Britain’s young and served to “dull their senses, making teachers’ jobs even harder”. Labour’s Jack Straw mostly agreed, calling Neighbours “a pretty trashy programme”. Some of this was proto-culture wars nonsense. At the time, only 7% of Neighbours’ viewers <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13619462.2021.2019583">found it</a> “unsuitable for children”. How could they? Dr Clive Gibbons wasn’t even allowed to say the word “pregnant” lest it raise any awkward discussions.</p>
<p>Equally, the fact that Jason Donovan and Kylie Minogue were glamorous heartthrobs no doubt helped its ratings, but many Erinsborough watchers were more likely to cite its “harmless, sexless stories about everyday people” than anything raunchy. Indeed, in so far as remarks were made, Minogue’s role as a car mechanic was seen as groundbreaking – and the female mechanic has formed something of a trope in later years. Neighbours told a narrative that was often empowering, did not appear tokenistic, and certainly proved popular among women. In 1990, almost two-thirds of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13619462.2021.2019583">female viewers</a> saw it as a programme “for people like me”. </p>
<p>Altogether, the show was and is well written. Although occasional comparisons at its height with Shakespeare were a bit much, it does comedy and tragedy very well. As anyone watching the 2019 death of Toadie’s wife Sonya will attest to, it delivers occasionally deeply poignant stuff. And so, while it may be curtains on Channel 5, there should still be a place for it on British television. If nothing else, because flight attendant-turned-Trumpian-business mogul Paul Robinson has gotten out of <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/archive/au/entry/neighbours-storylines-crazy-most-memorable_au_5e7302e2c5b6f5b7c53e23c0">worse scrapes</a> than this.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176598/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Carr does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The types of people who gathered daily to watch Neighbours are the same who backed Tony Blair in 1997.Richard Carr, Lecturer in History and Politics, Anglia Ruskin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1704162021-10-26T16:00:19Z2021-10-26T16:00:19ZPrivate Eye at 60: the prime ministerial parodies that tell a history of modern Britain<p>The fortnightly magazine <a href="https://www.private-eye.co.uk/">Private Eye</a> turns 60 this year. When it launched, it helped initiate the “satire boom”, and, more profoundly, the increasing lack of deference those in positions of authority could expect from the press, television, and, consequently, the public. </p>
<p>One of the magazine’s most popular and longest features has been the prime ministerial parody. Commenting on the state of politics, it provides a potted political history of Britain.</p>
<h2>The life and times of a Downing Street housewife</h2>
<p>Though Harold Macmillan was prime minister when Private Eye appeared in 1961, and Alec Douglas-Home soon succeeded him, the first to become the subject of a regular satirical column was Harold Wilson. </p>
<p>Labour had won the 1964 general election invoking a “<a href="http://labour-party.org.uk/manifestos/1964/1964-labour-manifesto.shtml">new Britain</a>” to replace the old establishment constraining a country on the cusp of a technological revolution. Rather making the point for him, a new prime minister conspicuously northern of provenance and accent found himself immediately patronised by the <a href="https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw11000/Private-Eye">Oxbridge public-school boys in London</a> behind the magazine. </p>
<p>Mrs Wilson’s Diary was the idea of Peter Cook, the most prominent of them, partly inspired by the radio soap opera Mrs Dale’s Diary. The Wilsons’ 10 Downing Street was a household of mundane domesticity, of spam garnished with brown sauce, accompanied by Wincarnis sweet wine. In skewering Wilson’s provincialism, the column also connoted <a href="https://www.academia.edu/41346605/Swinging_Imperialism_Days_in_the_Life_of_the_Commonwealth_Office_1966_68">Britain’s rapidly diminishing international status</a>.</p>
<p>In this way, Private Eye is, among other things, a unique example of conservatism and iconoclasm. It was born of the very establishment it was created to debunk. Its defining characteristic was to parody whoever is in power.</p>
<p>Wilson, who cultivated a pipe and a pint persona in public despite being a cigar and cognac man in private, could hardly complain – though complain he did, even <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/sep/17/alantravis.theobserver">intervening</a> to censor the script when Mrs Wilson’s Diary was adapted into a West End play.</p>
<h2>Tetchy Ted’s memo to Heathco staff</h2>
<p>The Conservatives <a href="https://www.academia.edu/44730542/The_1970_General_Election">unexpectedly won the 1970 general election</a>, and the new prime minister Edward Heath’s intention was to replace Wilson’s tired government of gimmicks and cronies with a gleaming, modern, almost corporate, administration.</p>
<p>But Private Eye presciently rendered Heathco as a struggling medium enterprise which duly collapsed <a href="https://youtu.be/bj9OlIiHFo4">alongside the increasingly tetchy managing director’s authority</a>. </p>
<h2>Callaghan: a blank space</h2>
<p>A case can be made for the 1970s parodies being the best because it was the dottiest decade, replete with singular scandals and improbable conspiracies, many of which were brought to light in the Eye. </p>
<p>Perhaps the most damning aspect of Jim Callaghan’s beleaguered premiership was that it, alone, went without a parody. The comic strip The Brothers had to suffice, depicting the breakdown between the Labour government and the trades unions, the end of <a href="https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/cabinetpapers/themes/collapse-of-consensus.htm">the post-war settlement and of corporatism</a>. </p>
<h2>The gripings of a golf-obsessed husband</h2>
<p>The landmark incarnation of the parody began in 1979 with the landmark prime ministership of Margaret Thatcher.</p>
<p>Dear Bill, in which Thatcher’s spouse Denis wrote to his friend Bill (Deedes, a prominent conservative journalist), allowed for the comic exaggeration of a certain commuter-belt conservatism, centred on gin, tonic, golf, and reacting against all manner of modern norms. Private Eye could characterise the husband as comic because his wife was far from funny.</p>
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<p>Suitably enough, it was the 1980s incarnation that was the most commercially-minded. The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/1996/feb/26/past.fromthearchive">Dear Bill books</a> were bestsellers, while audiences for the stage version <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peLaHi1w6lI&ab_channel=TheRobertStephensAppreciationSociety">Anyone for Denis?</a> included the Thatchers, smiling unconvincingly.</p>
<h2>Major growing pains</h2>
<p>The shift in scale from Thatcher to her unprepossessing successor in 1990 had Private Eye cast him as an overgrown, and equally dynamic, Adrian Mole in The Secret Diary of John Major (aged 47¾).</p>
<p>With the widely-ridiculed <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7772818.stm">Cones Hotline</a>, which provided the public with means of redress about local traffic calming methods, a flagship policy, and the government descending into a pit of endemic corruption, the long Conservative era that was clearly ending was not unlike <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/21957868">that of the early 60s</a> which had occasioned the satire boom in the first place. </p>
<h2>New Labour arrives in the parish</h2>
<p>After 18 years of Tory rule, the column shifted from the stale to the sanctimonious in 1997, when Tony Blair’s proclivity to play guitar in overly-tight jeans inspired his depiction as a trendy vicar addressing his congregation in the St Albion Parish News. </p>
<p>Reverend Blair issued updates from officials such as church warden Peter Mandelson, in charge of the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/1021308.stm">Millennium Tent</a> on the village green, and from his American friend George Bush’s “Church of the Latter-Day Morons”.</p>
<p>Ten years later, the Prime Ministerial Decree presented Gordon Brown as a Stalin-like dictator. It was effective for no other reason than that his hapless regime showed him to be <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/historic_moments/newsid_8174000/8174535.stm">anything but</a> Stalin-like. An appropriately narrow, joyless, iteration.</p>
<h2>2000s: Dave and Theresa’s school days</h2>
<p>The 2010s was a decade of scholasticism. The first multi-party government since 1940 had David Cameron as headmaster of the New Coalition Academy, the fortnightly newsletter of which foregrounded his <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-13266290">voguish headline educational reform</a>.</p>
<p>When Cameron happily shed his Liberal Democrat partners after the 2015 election, the magazine appointed him head of the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-13266290">even more voguish</a> Cameron Free School, penning another newsletter.</p>
<p>Mr Cameron was unfortunately soon made to resign by a disaster of his own making (Brexit), and his successor, Mrs May, took over as headmistress of St. Theresa’s Independent State Grammar School for Girls (and Boys) for two painful years before she was unfortunately made to resign by a disaster of hers (Brexit).</p>
<h2>The Johnson years: beyond a joke?</h2>
<p>In its sixty years, the parody has taken the form of private musing or public communication. But to work it had to be plausible.</p>
<p>The best that can be said of the latest version, in which the Prime Minister responds to questions from the public on social media, is that Boris Johnson’s Live on Fakebook is so like its subject that, depending on one’s disposition, it’s either unmissable or unreadable.</p>
<p>The purpose of the Private Eye prime ministerial parody was to render its subject unserious. When the subject manages that all by themselves, satire might be seen to have died.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/170416/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Farr does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The satirical magazine has long been a unique example of conservatism and iconoclasm.Martin Farr, Senior Lecturer in Contemporary British History, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1687012021-10-20T12:59:41Z2021-10-20T12:59:41ZEden Lake and the British ‘hoodie horror’ genre: how they reinforced policies to demonise the working class<p>On Halloween 2008, James Watkins’ horror feature <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1020530/">Eden Lake</a> was released to little fanfare. A British take on the “<a href="https://www.lastlibraryontheleft.com/episodes/episode-16-backwoods-the-monstrous-poor">backwoods</a>” horror film (think <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068473/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Deliverance</a> or <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0295700/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_3">Wrong Turn</a>), it was just one of a swathe of low-budget horrors being produced at this time. </p>
<p>Critic MJ Simpson identified Eden Lake as exemplary of the <a href="http://mjsimpson-films.blogspot.com/p/my-latest-book-urban-terrors.html">British horror revival</a>, which began in the late 1990s after a period of relative quiet. Following the demise of horror behemoth Hammer Studios in the 1970s and sustained attacks from censors and the government on extreme cinema throughout the late 20th century (reaching their peak during the “<a href="https://theconversation.com/censor-a-new-film-remembers-a-dark-episode-in-britains-cinematic-past-166198%22">video nasties</a>” panic), British horror had struggled to recover its footing. </p>
<p>However, the new millennium, along with high-profile releases like Danny Boyle’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0289043/">28 Days Later</a> (2002) and Edgar Wright’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0365748/">Shaun of the Dead</a> (2004), galvanised British horror. As a result, productions large and small proliferated throughout the 2000s.</p>
<p>Eden Lake became the first of a series of “hoodie horrors”, which closely examined Britain’s relationship to, and reliance upon, a deeply entrenched class system. This was the time of Tony Blair’s Labour government and its tough policies on antisocial behaviour that targeted the young and the poor. </p>
<p>Other “hoodie horrors” followed, including <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1478964/">Attack the Block</a> (2011) and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1641975/">Citadel</a> (2012). However, while these films focus specifically on the urban landscape, finding horror within Britain’s oft-vilified council estates, Eden Lake is more interested in revisiting (and perhaps compounding) the horror genre’s common, and deeply derogatory, representation of the rural poor.</p>
<p>In 2021, the Labour party are once again turning <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/09/28/labour-vow-put-bobbies-beat-tackle-anti-social-behaviour/">towards policies</a> that show that they are tough on crime and tough on antisocial behaviour, while the government <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/crime-plan-to-protect-victims-and-make-streets-safer">recently unveiled</a> a “Beating Crime” strategy as part of its policy to “level up” the country. As such, this Halloween is an apt time to revisit Eden Lake and its “hoodie horror” peers, to investigate how the genre at large mines the British class system to frighten audiences.</p>
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<h2>Tony Blair’s Asbos</h2>
<p>Tony Blair supported the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/civil-injunctions-criminal-behaviour-orders">anti-social behaviour order</a> (Asbo) in 1998 as part of his “respect” agenda. The Asbo supposedly worked as a pre-emptive measure, identifying and punishing antisocial behaviour before it graduated to criminality. But the number of Asbos issued rose annually, and dramatically, during the early 2000s, and they soon became synonymous with <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/anti-social-behaviour-order-statistics-england-and-wales-2013/anti-social-behaviour-order-statistics-england-and-wales-2013-key-findings">young, working-class men</a> in particular. </p>
<p>In the decade leading up to Eden Lake’s 2008 release, the hope and optimism that had accompanied the election of New Labour in 1997 had dramatically dissipated. The Asbos and the “respect agenda” were part of this, sowing new seeds of division across people from different classes. People who might have come together under the Blairite messages of community and unity were now turning against each other. </p>
<p>As sociologist <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/revolting-subjects-9781848138513/">Imogen Tyler suggests</a>, many facets of the Blairite “respect” agenda reinforced the idea that Britain’s poor existed outside of the accepted social order. The image of the delinquent, hood-clad teenager captured the public imagination and worked its way into horror cinema through films like Eden Lake. </p>
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<p>Watkins portrays such working-class exclusion quite literally in the film. The young, working-class antagonists occupy the outer edges of a rural backwater, isolated from the affluent metropolis within which the film’s entitled protagonists reside.</p>
<p>Contrast this with other “hoodie horror” films, such as <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1094295/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Disappeared</a> (2008), <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1992258/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Tower Block</a> (2011) and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2087720/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2">Community</a> (2012), which represent the working-class space as a kind of urban “border-zone”. It is a location that exists within an otherwise affluent, middle-class cityscape; yet it is aggressively maligned and separated from the wider locale through both physical and imagined boundaries. It is also dogged by perceptions of threat and danger.</p>
<p>Yet while Eden Lake is set in a different context, the representation of working-classness are not too dissimilar. Here, the countryside backwater also reflects and amplifies the “real-world” criminalisation of the young working-class. The youths reside here in an untamed space where the order of the city is seemingly nowhere to be found.</p>
<h2>Straight from the headlines</h2>
<p>By 2008, the Asbo had become shorthand for the poorly behaved, criminally inclined working classes in the British press. Along with the liberal use of terms such as “chav” and “hoodie”, the media openly stoked the fires of class contempt in post-millenium Britain. And as “hoodies” began appearing with alarming regularity within the British horror canon, these figures were often unambiguously coded as evil – at best as delinquent teenagers and, at worst, as literally inhuman, as in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1220214/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Heartless</a> (2009).</p>
<p>Watkins mines the same tabloid rhetoric in characterising his monsters – a group of working-class teenagers (all but one of them boys) whose supposedly inherent delinquency escalates to horrific, depraved violence as the film progresses. In pitting an aspirational middle-class couple, Steve and Jenny, against this group of aggressively antisocial youths, Eden Lake’s antagonists appear to have leapt directly from a tabloid headline onto the screen.</p>
<p>Watkins does attempt, albeit weakly, to challenge such a simplistic understanding of the film’s representation of class. As tensions rise between Steve, Jenny and the young people, we see gentrification and disenfranchisement in action. </p>
<p>Steve and Jenny, in their flashy car and their designer sunglasses, don’t unwittingly trespass upon working-class space. Rather, they occupy this space with the confidence of people who’ve never had to justify their presence anywhere. Indeed, they feel completely entitled to demand that the kids vacate the space, so that they may enjoy it without interruption. </p>
<p>Such a request betrays ignorance or denial of the working class’s right to space – to claim it or to belong in it. Their attempts to monitor and correct the behaviour of the kids provide the catalyst for a series of increasingly violent and gruesome acts of vengeance from both parties. This results in a film whose stance on class and violence is slightly more ambiguous than it first seems as Jenny and Steve also act violently towards the teenagers, and are no longer simple victims.</p>
<p>That’s not to say the film tries too hard to elicit any kind of sympathy for its young working-class antagonists. The group exhibit all the stereotyped behaviours of “hoodies” from the outset – from blaring loud music to theft and property damage. Watkins has still borrowed heavily from the Blairite definition of “antisocial”. </p>
<p>Despite its increasingly unlikeable protagonists, Watkins ultimately trades too enthusiastically on the stereotypes of “hoodies” to meaningfully critique unfair perceptions of them – as do many other “hoodie horrors”. Whatever ambiguity Watkins aims to cultivate fails. In the end, Eden Lake doesn’t offer an exploration of Britain’s entrenched classism, but rather becomes an opportunistic exploitation of it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168701/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lauren Stephenson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A wave of new horror films leant into Tony Blair’s Asbo policy demonising young working class men, portraying them as the monsters that society should be scared of.Lauren Stephenson, Senior Lecturer In Film and Media, York St John UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1693262021-10-06T16:30:18Z2021-10-06T16:30:18ZPaid millions to hide trillions: Pandora Papers expose financial crime enablers, too<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424838/original/file-20211005-25-gfjrt7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3072%2C1825&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The world's wealthiest people wouldn't be able to shield their riches from tax authorities without enablers.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Piqsels)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.icij.org/investigations/pandora-papers/about-pandora-papers-investigation/">Pandora Papers investigation</a> by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), a non-profit newsroom and network of journalists based in Washington, D.C., has revealed there are still some go-to havens for those looking to hide illicit wealth.</p>
<p>The people who don’t get mentioned as much in the media coverage of the Pandora Papers, however, are the enablers devoted to helping the richest people in the world get richer and to pass on their wealth while avoiding or evading taxes. These enablers help criminals and kleptocrats launder their ill-gotten gains.</p>
<p>They may not be as wealthy as their clients, but they are paid millions to hide trillions.</p>
<h2>The wealth defence industry</h2>
<p>For many years there has been a well-established “<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13563467.2020.1816947">wealth defence industry</a>” made up of a coalition of professionals — ranging from advisers and bankers to lawyers, accountants, notaries and estate agents — who use anonymous shell companies, family offices, offshore accounts and trusts to help the world’s richest people shield their wealth from tax collectors.</p>
<p>These highly compensated “enablers” are assisting oligarchs, dictators and criminals around the world. </p>
<p>There’s been <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-58780561">a lot of mainstream reporting</a> on the actual crimes, abuses and financial misdeeds of malicious foreign states and wealthy individuals. But what about the intermediaries to the financial system who handle the details and provide the get-away mechanisms for the criminals?</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A group of men gather around a selection of newspapers, one of them reading one." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424852/original/file-20211005-25-44kucm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424852/original/file-20211005-25-44kucm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424852/original/file-20211005-25-44kucm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424852/original/file-20211005-25-44kucm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424852/original/file-20211005-25-44kucm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424852/original/file-20211005-25-44kucm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424852/original/file-20211005-25-44kucm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Kenyans read the morning newspapers reporting a statement issued by President Uhuru Kenyatta following reports that he’s among more than 330 current and former politicians identified as beneficiaries of secret financial accounts in the Pandora Papers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Brian Inganga)</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Some elites pay respected professionals and businesses to open political doors, to lobby against sanctions, to fight legal battles and to launder money and reputations. In doing so, these institutions and individuals push the boundaries of the law and degrade the principles of our democracy.</p>
<p>According to the <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/in/Documents/finance/Forensic/in-forensic-AML-Survey-report-2020-noexp.pdf">Deloitte Anti-Money Laundering Preparedness Survey Report 2020</a>, the amount of money laundered in one year is estimated to be between two per cent and five per cent of global GDP, or from US$800 billion to US$2 trillion annually.</p>
<p>The ICIJ’s <a href="https://www.icij.org/investigations/fincen-files/">FinCEN Files</a> offer unprecedented insights into a secret world of international banking, anonymous clients and, in many cases, financial crime.</p>
<p>They show how banks blindly move cash through their accounts for people they can’t identify, failing to report transactions with all the hallmarks of money laundering until years after the fact, and even do business with clients enmeshed in financial frauds and public corruption scandals.</p>
<h2>The insidiousness of ‘dark money’</h2>
<p>Corruption and financial wrongdoing are by their nature secretive and often deeply complex. <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/dark-money/basics">Dark money</a> — essentially spending meant to sway political outcomes with no information about the source of the money — buys <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2020/01/dark-money-10years-citizens-united/">access to courts and politicians</a>, consequently making society less fair and more inequitable.</p>
<p>What often distinguishes ordinary rich people <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/oligarchy/">from the oligarchy</a> is that all oligarchs invest in wealth defence. They use their power and wealth to amass more power and wealth, to lobby and to rig the rules around them.</p>
<p>One of the challenges in cracking down on financial crime is the global race to the bottom among tax havens that are trying to entice customers by offering more lucrative incentives and a higher degree of secrecy for companies. Enablers who are part of the wealth defence industry develop and market strategies, structures and schemes to avoid tax liabilities and regulatory scrutiny.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.openownership.org/blogs/modelling-beneficial-ownership-data/">Beneficial ownership databases</a> aimed at combating money-laundering have become an <a href="https://www.osler.com/en/blogs/risk/april-2021/canada-s-budget-introduces-long-awaited-beneficial-ownership-registry-to-combat-money-laundering">increasingly popular reform</a> around the world <a href="https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/five-years-later-panama-papers-still-having-a-big-impact/">in the aftermath of the Panama Papers</a>, which focused international attention on how corporate anonymity can enable a range of social ills. </p>
<p>As this trend continues, there’s hope that as more jurisdictions institute greater beneficial ownership initiatives and tax transparency, remaining “outlier” offshore destinations like Bermuda, <a href="https://www.caymancompass.com/2021/10/01/government-extends-beneficial-ownership-consultation/">the Cayman Islands</a> and Malta will be sanctioned into compliance by the threat of exclusion from the global financial system.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two tourists walk along a white-sand beach lined with trees and shrubs." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424855/original/file-20211005-20911-y7w6j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424855/original/file-20211005-20911-y7w6j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424855/original/file-20211005-20911-y7w6j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424855/original/file-20211005-20911-y7w6j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424855/original/file-20211005-20911-y7w6j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424855/original/file-20211005-20911-y7w6j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424855/original/file-20211005-20911-y7w6j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Tourists walk along the shore of Seven Mile Beach in Grand Cayman Island.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/David McFadden)</span></span>
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<h2>Promising signs</h2>
<p>In the meantime, many jurisdictions continue to evade law enforcement agencies that chase the secret money trails of tax dodgers and criminals.</p>
<p>Due to all the obvious regulatory and enforcement gaps, and to the seeming lack of political will to address those gaps actively and practically, there are some encouraging signs suggesting governments around the world are being forced to act. </p>
<p>There’s now a growing global demand for greater transparency and accountability, combined with <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/3/19/bb-radicalchangeleaders-call-for-measures-to-tackle-inequality">calls to address the widening wealth inequity</a> as well <a href="https://hbr.org/2019/05/the-investor-revolution">as demands from investors for the adoption of ESG (environmental, social and governance) principles</a>. </p>
<p>While those factors play a role in getting the attention of senior political leaders, the cynical reality is that the probable primary motivation of these leaders is the serious and alarming trend of a <a href="https://www.oecd.org/tax/oecd-tax-revenues-fall-slightly-before-the-covid-19-pandemic-but-countries-face-much-larger-decreases-ahead-particularly-from-consumption-taxes.htm">reduction in tax revenues</a>. The endorsement of the concept of a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/countries-backs-global-minimum-corporate-tax-least-15-2021-07-01/">15 per cent minimum global tax rate</a> by G7 leaders at their June 2021 summit is a clear indication that the winds of change are coming.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Boris Johnson stands with his arms raised in front of other G7 leaders on a beach." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424849/original/file-20211005-30173-ycuwu5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424849/original/file-20211005-30173-ycuwu5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424849/original/file-20211005-30173-ycuwu5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424849/original/file-20211005-30173-ycuwu5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424849/original/file-20211005-30173-ycuwu5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424849/original/file-20211005-30173-ycuwu5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/424849/original/file-20211005-30173-ycuwu5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Leaders of the G7 nations pose for a photo in Cornwall, England in June 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Leon Neal/Pool Photo via AP)</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>The current model is not sustainable. Fiscal realities, along with political pressure and necessity, will force political leaders to act. They’ll soon have to do much more than pay lip service to wealth inequality and power imbalance, which allows the wealth defence industry and their clients to subvert the system and avoid paying their fair share. </p>
<p>Greater transparency and accountability are needed to expose the enablers and to reduce the loopholes that enable wealthy individuals and criminals, along with corporate entities, to operate with impunity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/169326/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marc Tassé does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Highly compensated ‘enablers’ such as financial experts, lawyers, accountants, notaries, estate agents and company service providers are assisting oligarchs, dictators and criminals around the world.Marc Tassé, Professor, Accounting, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of OttawaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1614802021-06-01T13:05:52Z2021-06-01T13:05:52ZWhat Keir Starmer can learn from the history of Labour leader documentaries<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403376/original/file-20210528-23-1uvqdbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=40%2C0%2C4552%2C3032&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Current labour leader Keir Stamer is in talks for a fly-on-the-wall documentary.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/cardiff-wales-uk-may-20th-2019-1574272270">ComposedPix/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The news that Keir Starmer is <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a445fbaa-b7ac-11eb-9a91-c8c89595f50e?shareToken=be2152d35204485147d3a7a32b775889">considering starring</a> in a fly-on-the-wall documentary, brings back memories of similar endeavours. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFgjCP6qpfU">Kinnock: The Movie</a> (1987), <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRilf3i8MrQ">Blair: The Biopic</a> (1997), <a href="https://youtu.be/6ac_pbq-zHc">Ed Miliband: A Portrait</a> (2015) and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94ptAcbfKP0">Jeremy Corbyn: The Outsider</a> (2016) were each part of attempts to return Labour to government.</p>
<p>Kinnock, Miliband and Corbyn looked to revive their flagging personal opinion poll ratings through these documentaries, while Blair looked to maintain his popularity. The films gave behind-the-scenes insights into the leaders and tried to convince the public that Labour had changed. </p>
<p>In 2021, if he is thinking of having his documentary, Starmer is likely hoping it will help to turn around his own <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/keir-starmer-approval-rating">low approval ratings</a>. A Labour party source revealed to The Times they believed the documentary would be “<a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/keir-starmer-plots-television-makeover-wwmllwk2c">a highly effective way to broadcast Starmer’s personality</a>”.</p>
<p>Looking at the history of Labour leader documentaries, Starmer, if he does go ahead with his own, can learn what works and what doesn’t.</p>
<h2>Kinnock: The Movie</h2>
<p>The Kinnock documentary, directed by Oscar-nominated director Hugh Hudson, formed part of Labour’s 1987 election campaign. <a href="https://tidesofhistory.com/2017/05/21/kinnock-the-movie-30-years-on/">The film marked a decisive shift in Labour’s message</a> but did not focus on specific policies. </p>
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<p>The Movie presented Kinnock as the family man who could be a tough leader. In particular, it highlighted his 1985 expulsion of members of the Militant Tendency (a Trotskyist group) from the Labour Party. The documentary was successful because it distanced Kinnock from Labour’s 1983 election campaign, where the party, on a left-wing platform, achieved its lowest number of MPs (209) since 1935. To achieve this separation, The Movie foregrounded the leader, ending simply with the word “Kinnock” displayed alongside a Red Rose in contrast to the usual “Labour” branding.</p>
<p>It had a significant impact on Kinnock’s popularity with his approval ratings <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/political-monitor-satisfaction-ratings-1977-1987">increasing by 17%</a> after the broadcast. However, overall, Kinnock still recorded a negative satisfaction rating of -13%. Moreover, the film seemed to have little impact on <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/voting-intentions-great-britain-1976-1987">voting intention</a> and at the 1987 election, the Conservatives secured a landslide majority of 102 seats. </p>
<p>Following the 1987 defeat, Kinnock embarked on more ambitious changes through a <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=cy_vDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA1836&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=2#v=onepage&q&f=false">policy review</a> and attempted to redefine the party’s <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13619462.2019.1636650">aims and values</a>. Despite reducing the Conservative’s majority to 21 at the 1992 election, his modernisation project fell short. Yet, the policy changes implemented under his leadership would form part of a new narrative under a different party leader, Tony Blair.</p>
<h2>Blair: The Biopic</h2>
<p>Blair’s use of a film in 1997, directed by the acclaimed Molly Dineen, played a very junior role in his overarching narrative of “New Labour”. In the broadcast, Blair <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/election-97-labour-film-asks-just-why-aren-t-you-a-tory-mr-blair-1268925.html">established himself as a leader who would change Britain</a>, but many of these changes had taken place before 1997.</p>
<p>From 1994 to 1997, Blair significantly transformed Labour’s branding to New Labour and shifted the party towards the centre ground. This agenda built on the Kinnock-era changes, where the party had distanced from the left-wing policies of the 1983 manifesto, such as nationalisation and unilateral nuclear disarmament. </p>
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<p>With Labour already <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/voting-intentions-great-britain-1987-1997">substantially ahead in the polls</a> and his personal approval rating <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/political-monitor-satisfaction-ratings-1988-1997">overwhelmingly positive</a>, Blair’s 1997 biopic showed a different side to his character. Interspersed with clips from his kitchen and action shots of Blair playing football and tennis, the Labour leader looked back on his childhood, his father’s stroke and his mother’s death. </p>
<p>Yet, the broadcast also made subtle, but effective, references to policy changes, highlighting Blair’s “<a href="https://youtu.be/-oDB667TB18?t=30">education, education, education</a>” speech, his commitment to get “<a href="http://www.labour-party.org.uk/manifestos/1997/1997-labour-manifesto.shtml">250,000 young people off benefits and into work</a>” and the battle for resources in the National Health Service. Blair put forward a convincing case that “things can change” in the country because things had changed in his party. This message resonated amongst the electorate with Labour securing a landslide victory at the 1997 election.</p>
<h2>Ed Miliband: A Portrait</h2>
<p>Miliband took inspiration from both Blair and Kinnock during his leadership. Echoing Kinnock, Miliband embarked on a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/nov/27/ed-miliband-renew-labour-party-squeezed-middle">policy review</a> and commissioned his short documentary, directed by the BAFTA-winning Paul Greengrass, in the run-up to the 2015 election. </p>
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<p>The film sought to rehabilitate Miliband’s approval ratings and offer an insight into his family and beliefs. Yet, it was <a href="https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/573595/Tories-make-fun-Labour-party-election-broadcast-Ed-Miliband-Portrait">roundly criticised</a> by the Conservatives for failing to include any reference to the economy while being light on policy detail. </p>
<p>Instead of such information, Miliband’s “portrait” merely indicated that he had “thought deeply about how the country needs to change”. Unlike Blair’s biopic, it offered little in the way of concrete policy and it was unclear how the party had changed since its 2010 defeat. </p>
<p>Through family stories, Miliband’s documentary attempted to alter the public’s opinion of his leadership. However, the film made no impact on his approval rating, which <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/political-monitor-satisfaction-ratings-1997-present">remained static at -19%</a> before and after the broadcast.</p>
<p>At the 2015 election Labour suffered its second successive defeat. <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2015/07/28/labour-voters-blame-ed-miliband-not-policy-election">Polling from this election</a> indicates that the two central reasons for Labour’s loss were Miliband’s leadership and the party’s economic policy (which wasn’t mentioned in the documentary).</p>
<h2>Jeremy Corbyn: The Outsider</h2>
<p>Suffering from <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2016/01/19/corbyn-rating-fall">poor personal opinion poll ratings in 2016</a>, Corbyn allowed youth media outlet Vice to film his movements over eight weeks. The result was a true fly-on-the-wall documentary that exposed the leader’s <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/polis/2016/06/01/that-vice-corbyn-film-beware-your-friends-in-the-media-especially-if-you-are-paranoid-and-incompetent/">strengths and weaknesses</a>. </p>
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<p>“The Outsider” showcased heated arguments within the leader’s inner circle, suspicions of a leak within the head office and a senior aide suggesting that Corbyn’s opponents should “let Jeremy fail in his own time”. Consequently, the documentary had little positive impact. Corbyn’s approval rating <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/political-monitor-satisfaction-ratings-1997-present">fell by 6%</a> after the piece aired.</p>
<p>Although Corbyn established a distinct left-wing narrative during his leadership, which was highlighted in “The Outsider”, it did not lead to a huge turnaround in either his or his party’s polling. It was not until one year after the documentary that Corbyn saw a rise in his favourability ratings during Labour’s 2017 election campaign. However, despite this increase in Corbyn’s popularity, <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/political-monitor-satisfaction-ratings-1997-present">never more than 44%</a> of the public ever had a favourable view of his leadership. </p>
<p>At the 2017 election, Labour’s performance surpassed expectations, but Labour couldn’t overcome Corbyn’s <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/12/23/their-own-words-why-voters-abandoned-labour">unpopularity amongst the electorate</a> during the party’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/boris-johnsons-big-election-victory-academics-on-what-it-means-for-the-uk-and-brexit-128850">historic 2019 defeat</a>.</p>
<h2>Keir Starmer</h2>
<p>Starmer suffers from similar problems to his predecessors, aside from Blair. He’s struggled to identify a core narrative or <a href="https://theconversation.com/keir-starmers-political-brand-captain-hindsight-or-admiral-foresight-156017">brand</a> with accusations that his leadership is both “<a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-923X.12997">Corbynism with the breaks on</a>” and “<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-57233736">Blairite</a>”. </p>
<p>Starmer’s opinion poll ratings are also poor. In April 2021, Starmer had a <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/political-monitor-satisfaction-ratings-1997-present">-10% satisfaction rating</a>. While in May <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/05/11/keir-starmers-ratings-plummet-after-poor-local-ele">YouGov</a> reported that 60% of the population had a negative opinion of him.</p>
<p>Starmer <a href="https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/blog/2020/07/06/the-modernisation-of-the-labour-party-1979-97-and-some-early-parallels-with-keir-starmers-leadership/">inherited</a> a party that his predecessors had pulled into a multitude of different directions, with no central, continuous narrative – across four consecutive general election defeats. Following his party’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/english-local-elections-2021-how-to-really-read-the-results-160127">disastrous showing in May 2021</a>, Starmer needs to begin his modernisation project to definitively show that his party has changed to recapture the support of its former voters. Based on the experiences of Kinnock, Miliband and Corbyn, any fly-on-the-wall piece must be combined with a clear and definitive narrative change paired with solid policy to regain the trust of the British electorate.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161480/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Massey is a Senior Lecturer in History and Politics at Teesside University and a Labour Party Councillor at Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council.</span></em></p>From Kinnnock to Corbyn, the documentaries haven’t always been the most successfulChristopher Massey, Senior Lecturer in History and Politics, Teesside UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1282582019-12-05T11:41:15Z2019-12-05T11:41:15ZA global downturn looks likely, yet it’s being totally ignored in the UK election<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305186/original/file-20191204-70184-sx1ro0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Drive carefully. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/ng-interactive/2015/apr/29/the-austerity-delusion">gabriel12</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For all the marked policy differences between the different parties in the UK election, they share a common blindspot. They all seem to assume that the UK is the sole determiner of its economic fate. There is nothing in the party manifestos about how they would respond to the very real threat of another major downturn. </p>
<p>The IMF is <a href="https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/Issues/2019/10/01/world-economic-outlook-october-2019">predicting that</a> this year will have been the worst for the global economy since 2009, and sees little room for improvement next year. Moody’s, the credit ratings agency, is similarly <a href="https://www.fxstreet.com/news/moodys-global-economy-will-remain-fragile-in-2020-as-risks-to-credit-conditions-rise-201911190559">bearish</a>, saying that “recession risks are building” thanks <a href="https://theconversation.com/buckle-up-for-turbulence-why-a-global-debt-crisis-looks-very-hard-to-avoid-127260">in particular</a> to the US-China trade war. Or there’s the UN’s trade and development arm, which <a href="http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-09/26/c_138422700.htm">sees a</a> 2020 recession as a “clear and present danger”. </p>
<p>Others, such as Goldman Sachs, are being <a href="https://www.goldmansachs.com/insights/pages/global-outlook-2020.html">more optimistic</a>, but the silence from the UK’s political parties is still remarkable – not to mention the media. Whether it’s the <a href="https://vote.conservatives.com/our-plan">Conservatives</a> with their plan to “get Brexit done” or <a href="https://labour.org.uk/manifesto/">Labour’s</a> “time for real change”, the whole political establishment seems to be singing from the same hymn sheet. They seem to believe they can pursue their various agendas as if the global economy will remain stable and growing. </p>
<h2>Elections past</h2>
<p>In previous elections, we have seen both the Left and Right use recessions for political gain. Indeed, in the later years of the 20th century, British politics was largely defined by how the Conservatives and Labour took political advantage of economic crises. </p>
<p>Starting in 1979, Margaret Thatcher <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/apr/08/margaret-thatcher-transform-britain-economy">used the</a> effects of <a href="https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/postwarera/1970s-america/a/stagflation-and-the-oil-crisis">global economic stagnation</a> to call for nothing short of a free-market economic revolution. Less than 20 years later, Tony Blair drew on the poor economic performance of the reigning Tory government, which had been linked to the recession of the early 1990s, to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/1998/sep/22/labour.comment">demand</a> a “third way” for British politics – albeit the rhetoric turned out to be more dramatic than what New Labour did in office. </p>
<p>When the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/2008-financial-crisis-10-year-anniversary-51201">2007-08 financial crisis</a> loomed large over British politics, the Conservatives used it as an opportunity to promote <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/austerity-past-present-and-future/">economic austerity</a>. Right at the start of the party’s <a href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:wl2kLBAHmHAJ:https://www.conservatives.com/%7E/media/Files/Manifesto2010+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk">2010 election manifesto</a>, David Cameron’s message said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Today the challenges facing Britain are immense. Our economy is overwhelmed by debt, our social fabric is frayed and our political system has betrayed the people.
But these problems can be overcome if we pull together and work together. If we remember that we are all in this together.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The results of austerity turned out to be seismic, of course: it <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2019/feb/26/uk-income-inequality-benefits-income-ons">increased</a> UK inequality and poverty, which in turn catalysed the <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/did-austerity-cause-brexit/">Brexit victory</a> and a <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-labour-leadership-crisis-labour-party-membership-surge-100000-new-members-a7122271.html">genuinely progressive movement</a> for social democracy in the Labour party. This makes it all the more surprising that politicians are paying such little attention to the prospect of an economic downturn of similar proportions – particularly with the <a href="https://www.bankrate.com/uk/mortgages/bank-of-england-base-rate/">Bank of England base rate</a> already too low to leave much room to stimulate demand. </p>
<h2>The recovery trap</h2>
<p>Politicians should be learning the critical lessons for how their predecessors addressed the previous global crash. <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/14781150903169067">Directly after</a> the events of 2007-08, political leaders and commentators from across the ideological spectrum were saying a “<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB125720159912223873">paradigm shift</a>” was urgently required. This would have involved moving the economic orthodoxy away from efficient markets and deregulation towards something that paid more attention to overall debt levels and inequality. </p>
<p>In the proceeding decade, however, the policies of those in power have been more about rescuing the status quo than recrafting a broken economic system. Uncovered documents revealed, for instance, that much of Barack Obama’s incoming administration in 2008 was <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/137798/important-wikileaks-revelation-isnt-hillary-clinton">suggested by</a> an executive at Citibank. This perhaps helps to explain why the bailouts were <a href="https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/the-obamanauts">focused on</a> saving Wall Street rather than Main Street, while the likes of the UK followed suit. </p>
<p>Either way, this response typifies how economic crises tend to promote an understandable but dangerous focus on “recovery”. These are built on widespread desires to return to a golden age of stability, nostalgically embracing the past. In the UK in 2010, for instance, Labour’s proposals <a href="http://www.cpa.org.uk/cpa_documents/TheLabourPartyManifesto-2010.pdf">sought to</a> return the country to its recently lost economic prosperity, while the Conservatives harkened back even further to a time of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/ng-interactive/2015/apr/29/the-austerity-delusion">common sacrifice</a> rooted in the national unity of World War II. </p>
<p>The problem with a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14759551.2014.897347">crisis narrative</a> is that it is inherently conservative – focused on saving the current order rather than radically improving it. In the midst of the 2019 UK election, the same issues are bubbling just under the surface. Yet the parties are turning a blind eye to economic realities and looking backwards at the same time.</p>
<p>They want to return us to an age when the UK controlled its own economic destiny through renewing the nation’s sovereignty: the Conservatives promising to make the UK free and independent to negotiate its own trade deals, or Labour promising to build 21st century socialism in one country. </p>
<p>In truth, both ideas are fantasies in an interconnected global economy. The same could be said of calls from the likes of the Lib Dems to simply remain in the EU, thereby continuing to support a status quo that serves the few at the expense of the many. Perhaps all these approaches are about trying to create a sense of control in a globalised world and international market that feels increasingly uncontrollable.</p>
<p>All the same, the parties should be honest with the British people and prepare them for how little power any single nation has within a competitive and often extremely predatory international marketplace. </p>
<p>At the very least, politicians should be debating how best the country can prepare for a potential economic downturn. As I have <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783319765013">argued elsewhere</a>, a truly transformational set of policy proposals would be outlining innovative ways to work with other governments and social movements to try and turn such downturns into a thing of the past. Instead, the electorate are being offered something comforting but ultimately delusional. Much of it will probably matter very little in another economic crisis. It is very strange to watch this prospect being completely ignored during the election. </p>
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/the-daily-newsletter-2?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKGE2019&utm_content=GEBannerB">Click here to subscribe to our newsletter if you believe this election should be all about the facts.</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/128258/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Bloom does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The next two years look dangerous for the economy. You wouldn’t know it from UK party manifestos.Peter Bloom, Professor of Management, University of EssexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1202732019-07-30T12:37:38Z2019-07-30T12:37:38ZThe difference between ‘left’ and ‘liberal’ – and why voters need to know<p><strong>Editor’s Note: This article was written and published in 2019, when Joe Biden was contending for the Democratic nomination</strong></p>
<p>According to press <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/06/28/736800868/5-takeaways-from-night-2-of-the-democratic-debate">accounts</a>, all of the Democratic contenders taking the stage this week rank on a spectrum of more or less “liberal.”</p>
<p>They don’t. </p>
<p>While most are liberal, two or three are leftist, not liberal. It’s important that voters start distinguishing between those terms because the primary presents them a stark choice between the two. </p>
<p>Leftism and liberalism are distinct political categories with different histories. Understanding the problem of fusing them requires a quick tour of British history from around 1845 to 1980 with just a few stops along the way to the U.S. in 2019.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286117/original/file-20190729-43114-1d8ilkr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286117/original/file-20190729-43114-1d8ilkr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286117/original/file-20190729-43114-1d8ilkr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286117/original/file-20190729-43114-1d8ilkr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286117/original/file-20190729-43114-1d8ilkr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286117/original/file-20190729-43114-1d8ilkr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286117/original/file-20190729-43114-1d8ilkr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher called for a return to William Gladstone and Adam Smith’s liberalism.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/mpiGP-346969/78fd51be738a4a35942a6fd9eb86407a/1/0">346969Globe Photos/MediaPunch /IPX</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Liberalism</h2>
<p><a href="https://history.case.edu/faculty/john-broich/">I teach</a> my British history students that liberalism as a party platform <a href="https://global.oup.com/ushe/product/a-new-history-of-britain-since-1688-9780199846504?cc=us&lang=en&">dates from 1840s</a> England, when a group of politicians proposed a set of ideas very different from their Tory and Whig colleagues. </p>
<p>The Tories were the party of Crown and countryside, while the Whigs tended to favor merchant interests over aristocratic landowners. Neither party fit our notions of “left” or “right.” </p>
<p>By the 1840s, neither fit the needs of industrializing Britain, either, according to the new liberal thinkers. England’s population was booming, while people were leaving the farm for the factory and bitterly poor living conditions <a href="https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/manchester-in-the-19th-century">in cities</a>. Could industrial capitalism work for everyone, the liberals asked, not just industrialists? </p>
<p>These liberal newcomers, people like <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300038804/richard-cobden">Richard Cobden</a> and <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/democracy-and-religion/AA12659B0017A054E02A85283CA30193">William Gladstone</a>, seized on ideas like those in Scottish economist Adam Smith’s “<a href="https://www.adamsmith.org/the-wealth-of-nations">Wealth of Nations</a>” for answers. </p>
<p>For example, they embraced Smith’s idea that industrial wealth could create prosperity beyond just capitalist owners. They figured that when new factories opened, capitalists bought widgets and hired workers to use them. The workers would have spending money, the theory went, and demand new goods. In response, another capitalist would build a factory to provide these consumer goods and factory widgets, in a virtuous cycle.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/free-trade-nation-9780199567324?cc=us&lang=en&">idea was</a> that if you got the cycle going fast enough through free trade rules and low taxes – in those days usually raised during wartime, so wars had to be avoided – the value of a worker would go up while the price of goods would go down. </p>
<p>The main role of government for Britain’s new Liberal Party, then, was just keeping the wheels of commerce greased and staying out of the way. </p>
<p>The new Liberals ultimately replaced the Whigs and led the British government off-and-on for the next 70 years, all the way to World War I. More important, their theories about small government were often predominant across party lines.</p>
<p>That changed somewhere around the turn of the 20th century, when a new party, the Labour Party, arose arguing that the Liberals were not willing to do what was needed to help the struggling. </p>
<p>For generations, hands-off liberalism had allowed poverty to persist, said people like Scottish M.P. <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/etudesecossaises/153">Kier Hardie</a>. Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” tended to hand industrialists big payoffs while handing workers scarcely enough to keep them upright on the factory floor. That left “the poor,” <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/from-serfdom-to-socialism/oclc/5746097">Hardie said</a>, “to struggle for existence unaided by the State.” </p>
<p>The new Labour Party <a href="https://www.historytoday.com/archive/history-labour-party">replaced</a> the Liberal Party from roughly the mid 1920s, introducing policies that Americans would today consider “leftist.” </p>
<p>Britain’s Labour Party steadily <a href="http://election2017.ifs.org.uk/bns/bn25.pdf">expanded</a> income taxes from the later 1940s onward, created disability insurance and old age pensions, and after World War II oversaw the creation of the National Health Service, providing free health care for all. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286131/original/file-20190729-43130-gprocy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286131/original/file-20190729-43130-gprocy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/286131/original/file-20190729-43130-gprocy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286131/original/file-20190729-43130-gprocy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286131/original/file-20190729-43130-gprocy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286131/original/file-20190729-43130-gprocy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286131/original/file-20190729-43130-gprocy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/286131/original/file-20190729-43130-gprocy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Social Security Act, Aug. 14, 1935.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3c23278/">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The left</h2>
<p>The trend of economic interventionism quickly caught on in the United States. In 1932, Democratic presidential candidate Franklin Roosevelt defeated the more liberal Republican Herbert Hoover by promising a massive government stimulus package that would address the Depression’s wreckage: <a href="https://www.archives.gov/research/alic/reference/new-deal.html">The New Deal</a>.</p>
<p>Broadly speaking, this expansion of government-run social welfare programs, a hallmark of the left, continued through World War II and the next 40 years or so. Even Republicans began to see a larger role for government. Dwight Eisenhower embraced some New Deal policies, expanding Social Security and supporting low-income housing, while Richard Nixon <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=SwVeAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT264&dq=richard+nixon+expand+child+welfare&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjs4L7w2NXjAhWZVc0KHcDpBrwQ6AEIPTAD#v=onepage&q=guaranteed%20annual%20income%20and%20significant%20job&f=false">tried to expand</a> federal support for child welfare.</p>
<p>The anti-left backlash came in the late 1970s. Proponents of a return to economic liberalism included University of Chicago economists <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/books/review/Schuessler-t.html">Friedrich Hayek</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/13/weekinreview/13goodman.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FFriedman%2C%20Milton&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=29&pgtype=collection">Milton Friedman</a>. </p>
<p>By 1980, President Ronald Reagan <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1981/09/30/business/reagan-talk-to-world-bank-and-imf.html">was arguing</a> for unfettered capitalism. He wanted to unleash the “<a href="https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-before-joint-session-the-oklahoma-state-legislature-oklahoma-city">magic of the market</a>.” In this, Reagan was following Adam Smith’s belief in an <a href="https://www.adamsmith.org/adam-smith-quotes/">invisible hand</a>, the supposedly natural power of market demands to sort out the economy and, implicitly, society. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.dw.com/en/the-reagan-thatcher-revolution/a-16732731-0">Reagan – like his British counterpart Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher</a> – reduced taxes on the wealthy, fought unions, shrunk the social safety net and privatized national utilities and industries. </p>
<p>This return to liberal ideas, generally called “<a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/9827.html">neoliberalism</a>,” crossed party lines in the late 20th century, with U.S. President Bill Clinton’s “New Democrats” and U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair’s “New Labour” adopting them beginning in the mid-1990s. </p>
<p>Sensing voters approved of Reagan’s liberal policies, Clinton, a Democrat, <a href="https://www.history.com/news/clinton-1990s-welfare-reform-facts">campaigned on</a> reducing welfare and <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/08/clinton-signs-nafta-into-law-dec-8-1993-1040789">completed</a> George H.W. Bush’s North American Free Trade Agreement. </p>
<p>Britain’s Tony Blair, meanwhile, dragged the formerly leftist Labour Party toward the liberal, campaigned to “modernize” in his words, the U.K.’s welfare system. </p>
<p>“I believe Margaret Thatcher’s emphasis on enterprise was right,” he <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1996/06/the-paradoxical-case-of-tony-blair/376602/">said</a> in 1996. “[P]eople don’t want an overbearing state.”</p>
<h2>Liberals and the left now</h2>
<p>Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is squarely <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/08/joe-biden-neoliberal-democrat-conservative-lobbying">liberal in the mode of the Clintons</a>. He was a supporter of NAFTA and championed the market-based Affordable Care Act over <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/27/biden-urges-building-on-obamacare-instead-of-adopting-medicare-for-all.html">universal health care</a>.</p>
<p>Other major contenders remain a bit of a mystery on where they stand on the liberal-left divide. Some <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/12/us/politics/kamala-harris-democrats.html">observers thought</a> Kamala Harris avoided tipping her hat in her recent biography; while Pete Buttigieg is also hard to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/16/pete-buttigieg-democrats-flavour-month">pin down</a>. </p>
<p>Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are left-leaning. They’re <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/436033-sanders-youre-damn-right-health-insurance-companies-should-be-eliminated">both</a> in favor of a national health insurance, and <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/18/elizabeth-warren-wall-street-2020-1421826">call for</a> an end to private health insurance to make the system work. They’re <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/22/elizabeth-warren-use-wealth-tax-to-wipe-out-college-debt-and-pay-tuition.html">both</a> for tax changes that would take more income from the wealthy <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bernie-sanderss-estate-tax-plan-would-reduce-the-federal-debt-and-help-even-the-playing-field/2019/02/03/61c41caa-266b-11e9-90cd-dedb0c92dc17_story.html?utm_term=.984deaa8bc4f">in order to</a> bolster Social Security and other welfare. They’re <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/elizabeth-warren-proposes-replacing-payday-lenders-with-the-post-office-ed9d53dab947/">both</a> for greater regulations on the banking and lending industry and the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/10/bernie-sanders-lets-turn-post-offices-into-banks/411589/">creation of</a> post office banking. </p>
<p>Voters need to understand the fundamental differences between liberalism and leftism. It’s the difference between a candidate who believes capitalism, with just a little refereeing, will eventually provide what working people need, versus a candidate who believes serious intervention in the capitalist economy is necessary.</p>
<p>[ <em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120273/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Broich does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Democratic presidential candidates share many ideas and opinions. What they don’t share, writes one historian, is the label ‘liberal.’John Broich, Associate Professor, Case Western Reserve UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1144312019-03-31T19:12:13Z2019-03-31T19:12:13ZIf we want students to feel safe at school, we can’t encourage teachers to spot potential extremists<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/266658/original/file-20190331-71021-19hvfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Programs to counter violent extremism in schools tend to stigmatise a particular group of children.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">from shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the wake of the Christchurch terrorist attack, former <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47698084">UK Prime Minister</a>, Tony Blair told a global education forum extremism should be treated as a global problem like climate change. He said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>there should be an international agreement to put teaching against extremism into education systems around the world.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Following terrorist attacks, it’s understandable politicians want to come up with quick, tangible measures to prevent other incidents and to tackle the problem at what is seen to be its core. There is merit in Blair saying challenging prejudice “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47698084">needs to begin at an early age</a>” (in schools). But we must also be cautious when promoting kneejerk responses to complex issues, particularly when it involves the welfare and future of children.</p>
<p>Governments have been reaching into schools to try to nip violent extremism in the bud for some time. The <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/cve-programs-resource-page">Obama administration announced</a> a Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) program in 2014. This aimed to deter US residents from joining violent extremist groups by bringing community and religious leaders together with law enforcement, health professionals, teachers, and social service employees. </p>
<p>This program has since come <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/publications/Brennan%20Center%20CVE%20Report.pdf">under scrutiny</a> for focusing on, and stigmatising, the Muslim community. When we consider that the proportion of fatalities from terrorist attacks committed by nationalist groups, including the one in Christchurch, is increasing, <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2018-12-05/global-terrorism-deaths-down-globally-right-wing-terror-on-rise">and deaths from attacks by Islamic militants are in decline</a>, there is clearly potential for these programs to be misdirected.</p>
<p>Programs like these have also been introduced without adequate evidence for their effectiveness. Delivering a program that hasn’t been properly evaluated could make the underlying issues worse. It could ultimately increase youth vulnerabilities (rather than resilience) to radicalisation, and other antisocial behaviours. </p>
<h2>‘Spot a radical’ in school</h2>
<p>Schools often become an easy focal point. The rationale for a CVE program is getting onto the threat before it starts, or capturing it if it has already begun to grow. Often this has meant CVE school programs mainly teach staff how to “spot a radical” and report them to government and remedial channels.</p>
<p>But identifying the key components for preventing and addressing radicalisation towards violent extremism in schools <a href="http://vuir.vu.edu.au/33275/">remains under-researched</a>. It’s fraught with negative consequences – such as further marginalising and stigmatising vulnerable students – if not delivered cautiously and sensitively.</p>
<p>The UK government, for instance, has faced significant difficulties when connecting CVE initiatives to schools. In 2016, the UK teachers’ union backed a motion to reject the government’s counter-radicalisation strategy, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/mar/28/teachers-nut-back-motion-calling-prevent-strategy-radicalisation-scrapped?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Facebook">Prevent</a>. This obliged teachers to refer to police pupils they suspected of engaging in some sort of terrorist activity or radical behaviour. The union claimed Prevent <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/feb/03/prevent-strategy-sowing-mistrust-fear-muslim-communities">targeted Muslim students</a>. </p>
<p>Data certainly supports such concerns. Between 2007 and 2010, 67% of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/04/prevent-hate-muslims-schools-terrorism-teachers-reject">referrals under the program</a> were Muslims. Between 2012 and 2013, that figure was 57.4%. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-need-to-stop-conflating-islam-with-terrorism-114073">We need to stop conflating Islam with terrorism</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>One <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.2304/gsch.2014.4.2.115">study argued</a> such programs undermine the dignity of many Muslim children, which has a significant effect on the “mental health and emotional well-being of Muslim children and young people and their families”. </p>
<p>The toolkit given to teachers under the Prevent strategy was said to contain <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/publications/Brennan%20Center%20CVE%20Report.pdf">poorly constructed definitions of “extremism” and “radicalisation”</a>. These then shaped and informed equally problematic CVE practices that appeared to be directed at Muslim students. </p>
<p>The toolkit was therefore seen as extending the UK’s monitoring capabilities into classrooms, which can inhibit Muslim children’s ability to become <a href="http://www.unesco.org/education/tlsf/mods/theme_b/interact/mod07task03/appendix.htm">active and equal members</a> of society.</p>
<p>This can contribute to a young Muslim person’s sense of isolation, marginalisation and alienation, as well as potentially reinforcing and perpetuating racism and Islamophobia in schools.</p>
<h2>What about Australia?</h2>
<p>The Australian government has largely modelled its CVE strategies on the UK’s, even though there has been no empirical evidence to support their effectiveness. This has translated to several school programs that focus specifically on CVE. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://education.nsw.gov.au/student-wellbeing/whole-school-approach/school-communities-working-together">NSW program</a>, for example, is conducted online and was designed primarily to educate teachers about violent extremism. It encourages teachers to promote awareness of CVE and develop family and school environments that promote resilience among youth. </p>
<p>It also <a href="https://education.nsw.gov.au/student-wellbeing/whole-school-approach/media/documents/School-Communities-working-together-fact-sheet_parents_carers.pdf">encourages parents</a> to be cyber-aware, to encourage open and honest communication at home, and to model positive behaviour. </p>
<p>Another program runs in Western Australian schools, where teachers and support staff are <a href="https://www.education.wa.edu.au/countering-violent-extremism">trained to identify changes</a> in the behaviour of all at-risk students, assess potential concerns, and provide appropriate support when needed. If a concern is raised about a student, the level of risk is assessed and follow-up action is provided.</p>
<p>A few years ago, the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-24/radicalisation-schools-kit-teachers-questioned-by-muslim-parent/6803250">federal government sent out toolkits to the nation’s schools</a>. This enables teachers and other frontline workers to identify students who might be at risk of radicalisation and intervene as early as possible. Follow-up training courses have been provided to teachers to educate them about radicalisation and risk factors in students. </p>
<p>Outside these specific program, there is little public information about how many students have been identified as at-risk or reported to police and government agencies. Most of the work is being conducted under government confidentiality. </p>
<p>There is also little data available to evaluate these initiatives. But I know first-hand of cases in which students have been falsely reported to police. One particular case significantly affected the student’s school grades, resulting in him missing out on a university placement, as well as creating issues around his identity and sense of belonging. </p>
<p>I will not speculate on what would have happened if there hadn’t been a supportive family and community network around him.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/want-a-safer-world-for-your-children-teach-them-about-diverse-religions-and-worldviews-113025">Want a safer world for your children? Teach them about diverse religions and worldviews</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>It is paramount that any program developed to protect young people from radicalisation does not contribute to the underlying issues that make young people vulnerable to it. Research shows <a href="http://www2.pitt.edu/%7Eadlab/People%20pics%20and%20links/Publications%20page/Predictors%20and%20Consequences%20of%20School%20Connectedness.pdf">school connectedness and belonging</a>, and student-teacher relationships are critical aspects of a school environment that impact on the well-being of its students. It is crucial the development of CVE programs does not disrupt the relationships schools and teachers have with students and families.</p>
<p>CVE and national security have very little place in schools. If any new programs are to be introduced, they must be sensitive to these relationships and be very cautious not to damage individual, family or community connectedness with schools.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/114431/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Clarke Jones does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>We don’t know the exact path towards radicalisation, so giving teachers signs to look for is dangerous.Clarke Jones, Research Fellow, Research School of Psychology, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1101172019-01-22T16:31:52Z2019-01-22T16:31:52ZBrexit: the last time MPs were given indicative votes to break a deadlock, they failed<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254911/original/file-20190122-100288-19v7u7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Deadlocked. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pajor Pawel/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>One of the many ironies thrown up in the course of Brexit has been just how controversial attempts by parliament – the UK’s supreme constitutional authority – to take back control have been.</p>
<p>First, MPs insisted on holding a “<a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2018/16/section/13/enacted">meaningful vote</a>” on the government’s draft Brexit deal. Then they insisted that the prime minister must return to parliament within three days with a new plan after they <a href="https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2019-01-09/debates/19010974000003/BUSINESSOFTHEHOUSE(SECTION13(1)(B)OFTHEEUROPEANUNION(WITHDRAWAL)ACT2018)(NO2)">voted that deal down</a>. Throughout, parliament’s role has been, equally controversially, championed in the House of Commons by a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-parliaments-46810616">singular speaker</a>, who set a new precedent by allowing MPs to vote on an amendment to the business motion of the day. </p>
<p>A range of options has now been mooted to help break the deadlock, including a <a href="https://www.peoples-vote.uk/">second referendum</a>, a <a href="https://citizensassembly.co.uk/brexit/about/">citizens’ assembly</a>, and even a quasi-government of <a href="https://www.nickboles.co.uk/news/stopping-no-deal-brexit">select committee chairs</a>. Another, put down in <a href="https://twitter.com/hilarybennmp/status/1087448796269821954">an amendment</a> by the Labour MP Hilary Benn, is a unique means of seeking to establish consensus by testing the will of MPs in an “all-options” debate: an <a href="https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainers/indicative-votes">indicative vote</a>. </p>
<p>This process gives MPs the chance to vote on a series of non-binding resolutions on different outcomes to a particular issue. In the case of Brexit, that <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/exiting-the-european-union-committee/news-parliament-2017/progress-negotiations-withdrawal-agreement-report-published-17-19/">might mean</a> voting for no deal, or for the government to re-negotiate the deal to achieve a specific outcome, or for a second referendum.</p>
<p>The very notion of an indicative vote had never been uttered in parliament before 1997. Then, just as now, it was suggested – although not ultimately used – as a way of resolving the innate tensions surrounding a referendum: then, the question had been whether to establish a <a href="https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/1997-11-24/debates/1da67482-cedb-47b6-8b95-d36e9b8a7d58/Referendum#648">Greater London Authority</a>. In 2000 and 2002 indicative votes were employed early on in the tortuous consultative process in parliament of a matter which, much like Brexit, inflamed significant sections of the public: <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200102/cmhansrd/vo020318/debtext/20318-19.htm">fox hunting</a>.</p>
<p>In such generally unprecedented times as this, there’s only one real precedent. In 2003 a novel recourse was intended for an ancient conundrum: reform of the House of Lords. This was a gridlocked issue where there was no obvious solution, and where the cabinet was divided between groups of ministers who strongly preferred one option, and, equally strongly, opposed others.</p>
<h2>Lords reform</h2>
<p>Membership of the House of Lords remained essentially unreformed and largely based on birthright until 1997, when the “New Labour” government sought to reflect “New Britain”, including making the upper chamber “more democratic and representative”. Parliament duly passed, in the main, Labour’s manifesto <a href="http://www.labour-party.org.uk/manifestos/1997/1997-labour-manifesto.shtml">promise</a> to end the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the Lords. As a compromise, and selected by their peers, <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1999/34/section/2">92 were spared</a>. </p>
<p>At the next general election, Labour <a href="http://www.politicsresources.net/area/uk/e01/man/lab/ENG2.pdf">promised</a> to remove the remaining hereditary peers to make the House of Lords “more representative and democratic”. But deciding on what should happen once hereditary peers were removed proved difficult, defeating both a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/a-house-for-the-future-royal-commission-on-the-reform-of-the-house-of-lords">Royal Commission</a> and the government. A committee of both houses <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt200102/jtselect/jtholref/151/15102.htm">settled</a> on seven options, including a fully appointed and fully elected House of Lords, and a range of hybrid chambers with different percentages of elected and appointed peers. MPs were invited to give their view of these options in a series of indicative votes in early <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200203/cmhansrd/vo030204/debtext/30204-08.htm">February 2003</a>.</p>
<p>In the ensuing muddle, MPs voted tactically as well as on principle, with some <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/feb/05/uk.houseofcommons1">virtue-signalling</a> by voting for an option which they knew would not prevail. The prime minister, Tony Blair, preferred an appointed chamber and was opposed to an elected chamber. The official position of the official opposition, suitably enough, was the opposite.</p>
<p>In the end, all the propositions were <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2725769.stm">defeated</a>. In their diaries, Blair’s official spokesman, Alistair Campbell, called it a <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Diaries_Volume_5_Outside_Inside_2003_200.html?id=bWHlDAAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y">“debacle”</a>, and the chairman of the Conservatives’ backbench 1922 committee, Michael Spicer, noted the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Spicer_Diaries.html?id=FJG7pwAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">“result is chaos”</a>. </p>
<p>Subsequent efforts to resolve the issue in 2007 were similarly unsuccessful. This meant that, in the kind of one-could-not-make-it-up situation that takes place almost daily today, the only democratic element of the House of Lords was, and remains, the <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/offices/lords/house-of-lords-external-communications/by-elections/">hereditary peers</a>.</p>
<h2>Left with the status quo</h2>
<p>Supporters of indicative votes to break the parliamentary Brexit deadlock hope that they could tentatively establish something of a consensus among MPs, each of whom had, after all, been elected by their constituents. If they were freed from the constraints of party discipline, MPs could vote based on their judgement.</p>
<p>The attempted Lords reform of 2003 offers only a <a href="https://twitter.com/CommonsProcCom/status/1074641776365973504">loose precedent</a> for the current situation. <a href="https://constitution-unit.com/tag/indicative-vote/">Indicative votes</a> are certainly no panacea. Each of the motions on which MPs would vote would be amendable, and which amendments would be chosen would doubtless be the objects of <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/01/10/bercow-causes-fury-over-brexit">further controversy</a>. The inevitably protracted parliamentary process may also merely lead MPs back to the current impasse – and given that MPs would be able to support more than one option, more than one option might command a majority. </p>
<p>To add to the uncertainties, the government need not be bound by the settled will of parliament, even if there were one, and Downing Street <a href="https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/foreign-affairs/brexit/news/100616/downing-street-say-no-plans-votes-brexit-alternatives">has already distanced itself from such a vote</a>. </p>
<p>The principal difference between indicative votes in 2003 and 2019 is that in 2003 the issue in question, for all its longevity, aroused no great public interest and had not been subject to the muddying consequences of a referendum. The principal similarity may be that in both cases there was a majority for nothing, and the eventual outcome pleased nobody. If the government provides time for indicative votes to take place, Brexiters will at least hope one precedent is not followed: in 2003 the equivalent of “remain” – that is, the status quo – was not offered as an option, but in the absence of any agreement on an alternative, “remain” is what came to pass.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110117/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Farr does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The problem with giving MPs indicative votes on a variety of options is the result is unlikely to please anybody.Martin Farr, Senior Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary British History, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1074572018-11-22T16:31:08Z2018-11-22T16:31:08ZWhat is populism – and why is it so hard to define?<p>We live in a moment in which the word <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/series/the-new-populism">“populism”</a> is never far from the lips of politicians (although oh so rarely of the populist politicians themselves). We hear the word repeated over and over, but once we try to get a handle on what it actually means, confusion abounds. There are a few good reasons for this difficulty of understanding but, at the same time, the burgeoning academic community writing on populism has increasingly forged a consensus around at least the core features of the concept.</p>
<p>The first reason for the conceptual confusion is that words don’t neatly map onto their referents. There is a struggle over the meaning of key political terms and the predominant use of populism in politics and the media is derogatory. Established politicians and journalists dismiss populism as an aberrant infant intruding into and disrupting political normality.</p>
<p>Because populists don’t understand politics, according to this establishment view, the populist intrusion will be temporary. Voters will inevitably return to their senses and see through the seductive but hollow musings of this infantile intruder. This is why the signifier “populism” tends to be used by establishment figures – such as former British prime minister <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/tony-blair-6417">Tony Blair</a> and former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg. And what they intend to signify by that word is that the public should reject populism. They are the anti-populists but, again, you don’t tend to hear those accused of being populist – <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/nigel-farage-5524">Nigel Farage</a> or Donald Trump, for instance – labelling themselves as such.</p>
<p>Invoking Blair and Clegg brings us to the second reason for populism’s conceptual confusion. Historically, populism has not been a permanent political phenomenon. It comes in waves. It disappears and reappears, usually coinciding with crisis (whether real or declared). What matters is the people have to feel that crisis, have to recognise that the crisis designated by the interloping populist performer is upon us. And this time the crisis is also a crisis of the worldview that the likes of Blair and Clegg brought into being. When in power, Blair regularly likened the version of globalisation New Labour fostered as a force of nature. As sure as night follows day, globalisation was upon us, and the only valid response was to find a way to work within this unstoppable force.</p>
<p>Nationalism began to rise in Europe several decades back. It came in response to the establishment, consolidation and growth of the EU, and the decline of the continent encapsulated by decolonisation and the end of empires. Initially it was a trickle, but it grew inexorably throughout this century. Populists began to rail against postnational institutions such as the EU and UN and against international treaties that attempt to bind all nations (relating to climate change and other environmental factors). Globalisation no longer seems quite as inevitable as Blair claimed.</p>
<h2>Rejecting the ‘elites’</h2>
<p>In this shift from Blair’s globalisation to the reassertion of nationalism, something happened to the people. This is one of the most heavily contested concepts in politics, but under the calm of Blair’s rule, the people were viewed as one – both rulers and ruled got along with one another. Blair was declared the “man of the people” and he thought his popularity resulted from his being “a normal guy”. This is not how populists treat the people. For populists, the seamless harmony between the people and their rulers no longer holds. The people have been betrayed. A gulf has opened up between the people and the elites. Instead of unity, they have entered a conflictual relationship.</p>
<p>And it is this understanding of populism – the people pitched against elites – that has now become widespread among the academic community. But this is a somewhat limited or minimal presentation of what populism is, and once academics start expanding on it, they quickly start to disagree.</p>
<p>The most contentious issue is over whether populism is an ideology as Cas Mudde, the most quoted commentator on contemporary populism <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/populism-a-very-short-introduction-9780190234874?cc=gb&lang=en&">claims</a>. This would align populism with other political ideologies, such as liberalism, socialism and conservatism.</p>
<p>Yet liberalism has core identifiable features – the centrality of the individual (and not the people), human rights, the separation (and limitation) of <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/liberalism-a-very-short-introduction-9780199670437?q=liberalism%20a%20very%20short%20introduction&lang=en&cc=gb">powers</a>. Populism does not have these.</p>
<p>Moffitt <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=25175">suggests</a> populism is better understood as a style. It’s a manner or practice of doing politics. You identify (or declare) a crisis, invoke the people against elites, and so on. And because it is more of a style of politics than an ideology with content, there are several variants of it, most notably of the left and right. Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain are perhaps the most obvious left variants emerging in the aftermath of 2008 – although both Corbynism (far more than Jeremy Corbyn himself) and Bernie Saunders share certain affinities.</p>
<p>It is the right, however, especially in Europe and now the US under Trump, that is very much in the ascendancy. The right has proved highly effective at mobilising the national people against not only “the swamp” in Washington or Brussels, but also against those these elites are deemed to represent and protect: migrants primarily, but also other minority interests.</p>
<p>This is the final complicating factor about populism: alongside the people and the elites, there is a third group against which populists will direct their ire – migrants usually for the right; financial elites for the left. The success of right populists mobilising against the dual combination of Brussels elites and migrants (or minorities) explains why Viktor Orban is in power in Hungary, Matteo Salvini in Italy, and European politics continues to be profoundly influenced by Farage, Marine Le Pen, Geert Wilders – and plenty more besides.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107457/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andy Knott does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s a slippery concept but academics have reached agreement on some of its fundamental elements.Andy Knott, Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities, University of Brighton, University of BrightonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1069542018-11-22T11:28:35Z2018-11-22T11:28:35ZChild obesity is linked to deprivation, so why do poor parents still cop the blame?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246834/original/file-20181122-182068-1q9exjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.worldobesity.org/resources/image-bank/girl-running-in-woods-as-parents-watch">World Obesity Federation.</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Childhood obesity has <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(17)32129-3/fulltext">risen ten-fold</a> over the past 40 years. In the UK, roughly 30% of children are overweight or obese. Obesity rates <a href="https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/6/1/e008693">are much higher</a> among children living in deprived communities. In England, there is a clear trend: the wealthier a child’s family is, <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ijpo.12287">the more likely</a> the child is to be a healthy weight. And those who are a healthy weight during childhood <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jpubhealth/advance-article/doi/10.1093/pubmed/fdy139/5071828">are much more likely</a> to be a healthy weight in adolescence. </p>
<p>In 2006, then Labour leader and prime minister <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/5215548.stm">Tony Blair argued</a> that many public health problems, including obesity, can be solved by getting people to change their lifestyles. But strong evidence from <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/jul/20/politics.society1">behavioural economics research</a> and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091743513000698">weight-loss trials</a> shows that advocating personal responsibility is destined to fail in the long-term. </p>
<p>The fact remains that behavioural interventions alone – such as the NHS <a href="https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/5-a-day-what-counts/">five a day</a> and <a href="https://www.nhs.uk/Change4life/">Change4Life</a> campaigns – do little to address child obesity across society, because healthy food is <a href="https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/POST-PN-0522">not always easily accessible</a>. In fact, these types of approaches <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1403494816686711">widen socioeconomic health inequalities</a>. Findings from <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/12/2612">my latest research</a> drive this home: childhood obesity rates in Liverpool – one of England’s <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/housing/articles/townsandcitiesanalysisenglandandwalesmarch2016/2016-03-18">most deprived cities</a> – increased by up to 3% between 2006 and 2012. </p>
<h2>Lessons from Liverpool</h2>
<p>For our study, we analysed data from the <a href="https://digital.nhs.uk/services/national-child-measurement-programme/">National Child Measurement Program</a> (NCMP), which measures the height and weight of children within state schools across England. We examined the data of 25,905 children aged four to five years and 24,220 children aged ten to 11 years, recorded between 2006 and 2012, in order to track changes in childhood obesity and socioeconomic health inequalities over time. </p>
<iframe src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/L6zrC/1/" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" width="100%" height="300"></iframe>
<p>Liverpool is the sixth largest city in England, and up until 2016 it was ranked as the nation’s most deprived, with over 90% of Liverpool’s 470,000 population living in areas of high deprivation. Across the six-year duration of the study, children who lived in deprived communities became overweight or obese at a greater rate than children living in less deprived communities. </p>
<p>As public health and other services across England continue to have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/23/liverpool-tory-cuts-city-benefits-poorest">their funding cut</a> by central government, it’s more important than ever that the nation takes a new approach to tackling child obesity, and reduce inequalities linked with poor health. </p>
<h2>A better way</h2>
<p>For too long, behavioural interventions have been used to prompt people – especially parents – to take responsibility for individual instances of child obesity. For example, the national social marketing campaign <a href="https://www.nhs.uk/change4life/">Change4Life</a> aims to prevent child obesity, by educating and informing families about the benefits of being physically active and eating healthily. And the NCMP <a href="https://theconversation.com/sending-parents-letters-to-fight-childhood-obesity-doesnt-work-104624">informs parents if their child is overweight</a> by means of a letter, reinforcing the idea that it’s the parent’s responsibility to address their child’s weight. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, little attention is paid to the policies or the social and environmental conditions which also shape healthy (or unhealthy) behaviours. Research points to inequality as <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/00333549141291S206?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori:rid:crossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%3dpubmed">a primary factor</a> which prevents people from making healthy choices. For example, many <a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/325/7361/436">deprived communities</a> are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/oct/12/more-than-a-million-uk-residents-live-in-food-deserts-says-study">“food deserts”</a>, where affordable or high-quality fresh food is hard to come by. </p>
<p>Deprived communities also have <a href="https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/6/1/e008693">few opportunities</a> for physical activity, and typically live in areas where there are lots of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/dec/01/schoolchildren-poor-areas-exposed-fast-food-takeaways">fast food outlets</a>. If we take Liverpool as an example, the city now houses over 600 fast food outlets – a figure which has risen by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/ng-interactive/2017/jul/25/fast-food-england-how-many-takeaways-are-near-you">roughly 10%</a> since 2014. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246835/original/file-20181122-182056-1kmuhd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246835/original/file-20181122-182056-1kmuhd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246835/original/file-20181122-182056-1kmuhd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246835/original/file-20181122-182056-1kmuhd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246835/original/file-20181122-182056-1kmuhd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246835/original/file-20181122-182056-1kmuhd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246835/original/file-20181122-182056-1kmuhd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Too great a temptation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/this-second-time-her-life-two-313494050?src=EKDWbpDWJm7ThKPfL9ON_g-1-31">Shutterstock.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There is <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jpubhealth/advance-article/doi/10.1093/pubmed/fdy048/4953439">quite a lot</a> of evidence <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jpubhealth/article/40/2/237/4098863">showing that</a> children are more likely to be overweight or obese if there are fast food outlets near their home or school. To reduce access and remove temptation, some councils in England <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/apr/23/ministers-urged-to-ban-fast-food-outlets-from-opening-near-schools">have suggested</a> banning fast food outlets within 400 metres of schools. But councils’ hands are tied, as they dont’t have the powers to stop new takeaway outlets being built. </p>
<p>People are the product of their environment, and in modern society, the default choice for many people is the unhealthy choice – and for some, the only choice as eating healthy has been shown to be <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29198220">more expensive</a>. To address this major problem, government policies need to address public health priorities. The healthy choice needs to be just as easy as the unhealthy choice, and there needs to be a level playing field, in terms of the accessibility and pricing of decent food. </p>
<p>Placing the responsibility on children and families, without changing their economic and physical environment, will do little to tackle health inequality and reduce weight-related health problems in society. Instead, the government needs to step in and, through policy, create communities which promote and enhance healthy choices and lifestyles. Only this will ensure that the default choice for most people is the healthy choice.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106954/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rob Noonan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s time to stop shifting responsibility onto individuals, and start supporting deprived communities to live healthy lifestyles.Rob Noonan, Senior Lecturer in Physical Education and Children's Physical Activity, Edge Hill UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/994282018-07-05T18:18:47Z2018-07-05T18:18:47ZA Chequers history: the country palace of British prime ministers<p>In a mansion set in 1,000 acres of English countryside, the British prime minister Theresa May will chair a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-44672879">crisis meeting of her cabinet</a> on July 6 in the latest attempt to reach agreement on Brexit. It will take at least all day and its consequences may be felt much longer.</p>
<p>The venue, a two-hour drive from Downing Street in the county of Buckinghamshire, has been the country residence of every prime minister since <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/history/past-prime-ministers/david-lloyd-george">David Lloyd George</a> in the early 20th century. Despite being at the centre of British government and its dramas for a century, very few members of the public have ever seen it. Rather like the office of prime minister itself, as one former premier, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/history/past-prime-ministers/herbert-henry-asquith">Herbert Asquith</a>, put it, Chequers “is what the holder chooses and is able to make of it”. </p>
<p>For <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/history/past-prime-ministers/margaret-thatcher">Margaret Thatcher</a> in her 11-year term from 1979 to 1990: “Downing Street and <a href="https://www.margaretthatcher.org/search?dt=0&w=chequers&searchtype=and&t=0&&ps=500">Chequers</a> were the twin centres of my personal and professional life.”</p>
<p>Chequers was given to the nation by <a href="https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp19577/arthur-hamilton-lee-1st-viscount-lee-of-fareham">Sir Arthur Lee</a>, an MP and minister during and after World War I. The <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo5/7-8/55/contents">Chequers Estate Act 1917</a> created a trust allowing prime ministers use of the mansion on the ironically egalitarian assumption that they would not necessarily have their own country estate. It states: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is not possible to foresee or foretell from what classes or conditions of life the future wielders of power in this country will be drawn.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Lee renovated Chequers and filled it with fine art, furniture, and relics including Napoleon’s dispatch case, Elizabeth I’s ring, and Nelson’s pocket watch, as well as providing an endowment of £100,000 for its upkeep. <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo5/7-8/55/schedule">The Act</a> believed – or hoped – that “the better the health of our rulers the more sanely will they rule”.</p>
<p>One of three “<a href="http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN03367/SN03367.pdf">grace-and-favour</a>” country homes of senior British ministers, Chequers provides one of the conventions of the British system: a new prime minister ensures it remains available to his or her predecessor immediately after their loss of office, and their departure from 10 Downing Street. The solicitude of the gesture is perhaps counteracted by the fact that it also provides a final reminder of what else they have lost. “I do not think,” Thatcher wrote, “anyone has stayed long at Chequers without falling in love with it.”</p>
<h2>A place for reflection</h2>
<p>It was at Chequers in December 1923 that one of May’s predecessors, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/history/past-prime-ministers/stanley-baldwin">Stanley Baldwin</a>, decided to stay on after he had lost the Conservatives’ majority in his own unnecessary general election. It was also there exactly two years later that he fashioned a solution – as it was thought – to the Northern Ireland border question.</p>
<p>It was walking in the grounds in September 1939 that <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/history/past-prime-ministers/neville-chamberlain">Neville Chamberlain</a> felt on the verge of a nervous breakdown in the aftermath of the <a href="http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/cabinet-office-100/the-munich-pact/">Munich Pact</a>. During the war that Munich failed to prevent, Winston Churchill regularly broadcast from there. Anthony Eden was at Chequers as foreign secretary in June 1941 when news arrived of Germany invading Russia, and was there as prime minister in October 1956 when he had the bright idea of inviting <a href="http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/cabinet-office-100/the-suez-crisis/">Israel to invade Egypt</a>.</p>
<p>It was at Chequers in March 1970 that Labour prime minister <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/history/past-prime-ministers/harold-wilson">Harold Wilson’s</a> inner cabinet decided to call an early general election; the outcome meant that it was the Conservative leader, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33772016">Edward Heath</a>, who got to show US president Richard Nixon around <a href="https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/virtuallibrary/photo-gallery-images/37-whpo-4655-27a-a.jpg">with the Queen</a>. (Nixon visited twice, and had his own, infamous, affinity with the name, if not the <a href="http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/richardnixoncheckers.html">spelling</a>.) </p>
<p>Both the Bush presidents, senior and junior, and Bill Clinton also visited, as it’s likely will the incumbent US president, Donald Trump, later in July – when the remoteness and security of the house will be of <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-britain-trump/theresa-may-to-urge-trump-to-avoid-london-protests-during-uk-visit-the-sun-idUSKCN1IS0VG">particular appeal</a>.</p>
<h2>Necessary tranquillity</h2>
<p>The beginning of the end of the Cold War might be said to have begun at Chequers in <a href="https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/109181">December 1984</a> when Thatcher welcomed Mikhail Gorbachev. Ten years later, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/history/past-prime-ministers/john-major">John Major</a> entertained Gorbachev’s successor, Boris Yeltsin, who proceeded to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/may/20/3">drink the place dry</a>. It was at Chequers, the month before her death, that Princess Diana met <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/history/past-prime-ministers/tony-blair">Tony Blair</a>, secretly, as Prince William swam with Blair’s children in the pool which had been built by Heath in 1973.</p>
<p>Love of this stately home was held to be an example of one reason for the “<a href="https://www.ncl.ac.uk/press/articles/archive/2015/11/labourslonghistoryofrebellionandbetrayal/">great betrayal</a>” perpetrated by the first Labour prime minister, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/history/past-prime-ministers/james-ramsay-macdonald">Ramsay MacDonald</a>. The illegitimate son of a Scottish ploughman was deemed by critics to be preoccupied with gaining the approval – or <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2006/nov/03/past.patrickbarkham">more</a> – of English high society. </p>
<p>Baldwin spent every weekend he could there during his three terms in the 1920s and 30s. Despite having his own <a href="https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/chartwell">country house</a>, Churchill was fond of it. Heath was, too – and in time acquired one of his <a href="https://www.arundells.org/">own</a>. Wilson liked it much more than did his wife, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p009y18k">Mary</a>, whereas Major’s wife, Norma, was so affected that she wrote a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00949ws">book</a> about it.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/history/past-prime-ministers/clement-attlee">Clement Attlee</a> hosted children’s parties in the house; <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/history/past-prime-ministers/james-callaghan">James Callaghan</a> and Thatcher spent their Christmases there (separately). In September 1998 Blair’s official spokesman <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007swm3">Alistair Campbell</a> saw the appeal of the residence for his boss: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>He spent most of the day just sitting out in the garden, surrounded by papers, taking an occasional phone call, the <a href="http://www.wrens.org.uk/">Wrens</a> who work there serving him tea whenever he wanted it. The food was good and the atmosphere relaxed.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>One witness <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?redir_esc=y&id=03QOu3FZBXsC&q=Gordon+would+greet+you+in+a+full#v=snippet&q=Gordon%20would%20greet%20you%20in%20a%20full&f=false">noted</a> how Chequers revealed the tonal shift from the premierships of <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/history/past-prime-ministers/gordon-brown">Gordon Brown</a> to <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/adacde38-a367-11e1-988e-00144feabdc0">David Cameron</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Gordon would greet you in a full carriage-built suit and then go round the children’s table asking them what they were reading. Dave wore jeans and a casual shirt and looked as if he’d lived there all his life.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The July summit is not the first time a prime minister has convened an all-day meeting “<a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo5/7-8/55/schedule">in the high and pure air of the Chiltern hills</a>” to try to determine an unsettled Britain’s place in the world. On another summer’s day in June 1959, just over two years after a divisive national event – Suez – provoked existential angst about decline, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/history/past-prime-ministers/harold-macmillan">Harold Macmillan</a> held a top-secret summit at the house. It produced what it hoped would be a blueprint for a Britain trying to find a way of balancing the US and Europe. It <a href="https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1991/jan/28/cabinet-papers-1960-future-policy-study">concluded</a>: “Whatever happens we must not find ourselves in the position of having to make a final choice between the two sides of the Atlantic.” Chequers awaits another “conclusion”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/99428/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Farr does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As Chequers places host to a crucial Brexit cabinet meeting, a look back at how British prime ministers repeatedly fell in love with their country home.Martin Farr, Senior Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary British History, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/987382018-06-28T14:34:39Z2018-06-28T14:34:39ZFrom alternative facts to tender age shelters – how euphemisms become political weapons of mass distraction<p>The recent images of children in cages provided yet another reason to throw your head into your hands over America’s inhumane treatment of immigrants. So – for most of us – it was a great relief to hear that Donald Trump eventually gave into pressure and signed an executive order to stop enforcing the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/20/babies-and-toddlers-sent-to-tender-age-shelters-under-trump-separations">laws mandating the separation of children</a> from their parents. But there are still many hundreds of young people detained in the euphemistically termed “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/shortcuts/2018/jun/20/tender-age-shelters-a-new-way-to-describe-the-kidnapping-of-children">tender age shelters</a>” – in reality, prisons for children and toddlers. </p>
<p>Who comes up with these terms? They are not fooling anyone – especially as “tender” and “shelters” have completely different meanings to what is, in fact, the enforced separation of children who are then held in cages. That’s the trouble with euphemisms – they can enrich language, but in the hands of politicians they can be strategically used to mislead and disguise brutal practices, concepts and ideas. Euphemisms – or what are known in some quarters as “<a href="https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/weasel-words.html">weasel words</a>” – are used to conceal the truth of unpalatable situations or practises so that they are easier for the public to accept. </p>
<p>Who can forget “collateral damage” – or rather the incidental deaths and injuries of unintended and non-combatant victims? The euphemism - from the Latin word <em>collateralis</em>, which means “together with” – was adopted by the US military in the mid-20th century to describe the unintentional deaths that occurred “together with” the targeting of legitimate targets. The term was <a href="https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/97000.html">first used in the 1961 article</a> “Dispersal, Deterrence, and Damage” by Nobel Prize-winning economist D.C. Schelling. He argued that weapons could be designed and deployed in such a way as to avoid collateral damage and thus control the war.</p>
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<h2>Aristotelian ‘logos’</h2>
<p>Historically, euphemisms are part of the rhetorical speech styles (from the Greek <em>rhêtorikê</em>) associated with the oratory skills necessary for political speeches, where persuasion is primarily the intended effect. Rhetoric can be defined as the “art of discourse” or, more precisely, the “art of persuasive discourse”. It is the ability to persuade an audience mostly through linguistic strategies.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225118/original/file-20180627-112607-y0hxjh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225118/original/file-20180627-112607-y0hxjh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225118/original/file-20180627-112607-y0hxjh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225118/original/file-20180627-112607-y0hxjh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225118/original/file-20180627-112607-y0hxjh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1009&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225118/original/file-20180627-112607-y0hxjh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1009&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225118/original/file-20180627-112607-y0hxjh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1009&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bust of Aristotle: Roman copy after a Greek bronze original by Lysippos.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This style of speaking dates back to classical times and to Aristotle and his concept of “logos” or how audiences are persuaded by the reasoning contained in an argument conveyed by the speech. “Logos” represents what Aristotle called one of the three “modes of proof” – along with “ethos” (which relates to the speaker’s personality and the audience believing that the speaker is trustworthy and honest) and “pathos” (where persuasion is evoked through emotions, brought on by engagement and empathy). </p>
<h2>Newspeak</h2>
<p>According to Orwell in <a href="http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit">his 1946 essay</a> “Politics and the English Language”, the use of euphemisms also helps to avoid the mental images that more direct language would conjure up. Take, for example, the ambiguous language of “doublethink” and “newspeak” in Orwell’s dystopian 1948 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called <em>pacification</em> … Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Euphemisms are not just limited to politician-speak, they are very much part of everyday communication and can be found in abundance when dealing with taboo subjects. They help us to politely navigate our way around talk of death, sex, sexual orientation and genitalia. Expressions such as “<a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9248.1990.tb00566.x">economical with the truth</a> (read "lies”) and “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-2337,00.html">tired and emotional</a>” (read “drunk”) are now so embedded into our vernacular that no-one pauses to think twice about these indirect word choices. But, for politicians, weasel words are an integral part of the rhetorical toolkit – a style of spoken or written language that functions to persuade.</p>
<h2>Alternative facts</h2>
<p>It didn’t take long for the Trump administration to wheel out one of the more ridiculous euphemisms of recent times. The day after Trump’s inauguration, the counsellor to the US president, Kellyanne Conway, came up with the much-derided “alternative facts” to counter accusations that the then White House press secretary Sean Spicer had lied about the crowd size at Trump’s inauguration. </p>
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<p>Politicians of all stripes quickly come to realise how useful it can be to soften the impact of unpopular actions with some carefully chosen weasel words. Former UK prime minister Tony Blair was a great user of euphemisms in his political discourse. Many examples can be found in his interviews and speeches in 2003 to justify the Second Gulf War on Iraq, for example. He spoke of the “liberation of Iraq” (meaning occupation), “peace-keeping” (meaning war) and these could only be achieved by “removing Saddam” (meaning his death rather than forcing him from a position of power).</p>
<p>A decade earlier, the slaughter, torture and imprisonment of Bosnian Muslims in Serbia was described as “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/ethnic-cleansing">ethnic cleansing</a>” when there is nothing purifying about these war crimes. </p>
<p>The US government’s “<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11723189">enhanced interrogation techniques</a>” is another example of strategic word choices to disguise systematic torture. When he was US president, Barack Obama tended to avoid using the word “war”, preferring to use words such as “effort”, “process”, “fight” and “campaign” to describe the military action against ISIS, Iraq and Syria as it lessens the violence that war connotes.</p>
<p>Euphemisms have become part of political discourse that intentionally obscures, misleads or distracts audiences from unpleasant truths. Unfortunately, this is what politicians do with language and this is how they win support for otherwise unpalatable policies.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98738/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marina Lambrou does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Why don’t politicians just say what they mean? Because we might not like it.Marina Lambrou, Associate Professor in English Language and Linguistics, Kingston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.