The sweet smell of success
Monday, May 16, 2005

British politics is dead.

Imagine a cinema theatre. The place is empty but for two figures sitting in the middle of the front row. One of the figures is the glassy-eyed, grinning corpse of Marlon Brando. Around his neck Marlon has a dog lead. Holding the other end of the lead is an equally glassy-eyed and grinning Ben Affleck. Flickering on the screen is an endless retrospective of Affleck's films. Every time the screen-Affleck utters a line of the cod-profound platitudes that pass for dialogue these days or initiates a retina-scorching explosion, the watching-Affleck squeals with delight and pulls on Marlon's lead. "Did you see that, Marlon?" Marlon nods. "Wow, I'm the greatest, aren't I Marlon?" Marlon nods. At the back of the cinema the projectionist, his sobs unheard above the explosions and hackneyed wisecrackery on the screen, weeps over movie reel cans marked "The Godfather", "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "On The Waterfront".

Golden ages exist only in people's heads and lazy writers' columns but surely even the most grounded, glass-half-full, be-here-now optimist would admit that the life has left British politics. Where are the big ideas, the massive intellects, the fierce ideological battles? With more money seemingly in thinktanks and punditry, the science of how we are governed has withered and died, the last fluids of debate having long since escaped from its slack sphincter.

In his book, Pretty Straight Guys, Nick Cohen tells of a clash of pre- and post-mortem public servants:

In the summer of 1996, Blair invited Roy Hattersley to address a seminar for 90 promising New Labour MPs... Hattersley's Jurassic views weren't in favour, but the leadership was aware of how little experience of government Labour politicians had after almost two decades out of power. He lectured MPs on how they must master their briefs and win the respect of civil servants. He warned them that in government they must be prepared for any crisis the media seized on...

As he warmed to his theme, the blood went to his head and he went too far. Mere managerial ability was all very well, he continued, but it wasn't enough. As Labour politicians they needed to remember that their democratic socialist principles would be their true and constant guides. There was no point in having politicians if all that was required was good managers. There were technocrats outside Parliament who could manage departments better than any MP. Politicians were elected because they had a clear view of how the world should go which they applied to whatever opportunities or misfortunes befell them in office. Without ideology, they would preside over an aimless mush of an administration. In years to come, people would look back and ask what the point of them had been.

His audience were disgusted. It hadn't heard anything as crude in years. Young politicians, led by Geoff Hoon, heckled the eminent Hattersley with bellows of "What's wrong with being a good manager?", "What's wrong with managerialism?"

Hattersley was too taken aback to notice that the seminar was sponsored by the experts in modern management from Arthur Andersen. New Labour was following Andersen. Or perhaps Andersen was following New Labour. By the end, it was difficult to tell the difference between the two.

And so, last Thursday, giving the still-farting corpse of the British body politic another kick, Tony Blair appointed Patricia Hewitt - former Director of Research for Andersen Consulting - as Secretary of State for Health.

(A few years ago I worked on a large IT project that was overseen by a pre-scandal Andersen Consulting. Andersen's tendrils had dug so deep into the host company and its systems you'd never have dug them out with any ease or without any damage. The consultants were invariably young, often lacking somewhat in personality, but driven. There was an aspect to Andersen's recruitment of these young people which I found almost sinister - cult-like even. Once signed up, they were moved to work on projects away from their home towns. Finding themselves in a strange city, knowing nobody else - the thinking went - they could only mix and socialise with, and form relationships with, their own kind.)

No doubt Hewitt is regarded as a safe pair of hands at Health. I'd have more time for her if she didn't speak like she's repeatedly explaining to a brain-damaged child why he can't have an ice cream. She's typical of the bunch we've got running the country right now, having completely jettisoned any intellectual baggage (if she ever had any). Not for nothing did I and my colleagues on that IT project refer to the Andersen Consultants (sometimes to their faces) as Androids.

As far as the big issues like healthcare provision go, the debate is over. Men with the messianic glint of Blair or the almost comedic vanity of "Dr" John Reid, for all their talk, aren't interested in debate or the cut 'n' thrust of the exchange of ideas. Policy is doled out from on high without the merest caress of debate - ideological, intellectual or pub - like a army camp cook slapping down the semolina. Some policies, of course, don't even reach the statute books. Remember the proposal to allow the police to frogmarch drunks to cashpoints so that they could pay spot fines? Or votes for 16 year-olds? Or the Street Spitoon Wardens who would stamp out the phlegm and chewing gum menace? (I made the last one up on the fly to disguise the fact I've run out of ideas and have space to fill. It's a useful tool.) Like an aged uncle's flatulence after a Sunday roast, these blue-sky ideas hang around just long enough to offend everybody before wafting away on the breeze.

Hell, Hazel Blears' idea to put minor offenders in orange boiler suits had a shelf life of about 3.5 seconds. Geoff Hoon on Sky News yesterday, furiously back-pedalling on behalf of the Government, said Blears had been "thinking aloud".

Thinking aloud. She gave an interview to a journalist and said, "hmmm, just riffing here, but how about making young offenders visible from space?" I've said this before about New labour policy formulation but it's like that episode of Alan Partridge where he desperately pitches ideas in order to get his job at the BBC back ("Monkey Tennis? Arm Wrestling with Chaz and Dave? Intercity Sumo?"). I want to make people who don't clean up their dog's shit and put it in a plastic bag be forced to pick it up with their bare hands, put it in their pocket and then eat a cream cake before they wash their hands but I'd keep that to myself if I was a Government minister.

But whether it's Iraq, anti-social behaviour, terrorism, school meals or whatever, this administration, preferring the path of least resistance, will always take the easy rather than the right (or at least more considered) option.

Being a much more anodyne figure than Blair or Reid, Patricia Hewitt escapes this particular charge by use of the "only following orders" defence - she's the continuity candidate not a new broom. Although not an ideas person, she's got one or two new wheezes. She said, in an almost Pavlovian response to prove she'd heard Blair's election victory speech, that she wants to "listen and learn". The New Labour keep-saying-it-until-it-goes-in schtick is over-familiar now, but it's still horribly satisfying and fascinating to regard the contempt in which those of us still paying attention are held.

Hewitt also has the now familiar New Labour taste for rebranding, nuancing and misdirection. Note her new, almost pathological, aversion to the word "private". Old Labourites will be relieved to hear that the private sector will no longer be providing resources for the NHS. The "Independent" sector will be taking up the slack, so sleep easier true believers.

Now, I'm not the first to say it, but the New Labour project was built as a vehicle purely for getting the party elected. It's an election winning machine. But, rather like the invasion of Iraq, there seems to have been very little planning for what was to come afterwards. Yes, yes, I know about tax credits, the minimum wage and other things that keep your middle class cockles warm at night. If you don't have to live on them you should also fall down on your knees and thank Tony every night.

Eight years in power and the hot political debate fostered by New Labour in the last five days has been what young people and convicts should or should not be wearing. I'm also not the first by a long shot to say that globalisation, privatisation and other factors have led to a contraction of the State but, Jesus, is this what we're reduced to? Ideology, big ideas and debate have been burnt in the wicker men of electoral success, eye-catching "initiatives" and bending over for the right-wing press. Why else the assault on the "dissaffected" from the likes of David Blunkett? Nip that indulgent chit-chat in the bud double-quick, says Dave, it'll clog the gears of the Electo-tron 2009.

How else to explain the rise of Hewitt and her ilk? What other reason for the ascent of a man like Geoff Hoon, an infuriatingly dim specimen so lacking in empathy and human feeling, the maxim "as warm as an autistic serial killer" was coined with him in mind. Just now.

But then, in whose interest is it to acknowledge the sad passing of politics? Not the politicians (obviously) or the beneficiaries of the subsidiary industries - newspaper owners, columnists, lobby correspondents and, yes, bloggers. But surely, as when an old man dies alone and abandoned in his house, the neighbours are noticing the smell? The whole shebang is starting to resemble a remake of A Weekend At Bernie's with a script by Michael Dobbs.


14 Comments:

On May 16, 2005 9:31 PM, Blogger Phil said...

A few years ago I worked on a large IT project that was overseen by a pre-scandal Andersen Consulting. Andersen's tendrils had dug so deep into the host company and its systems you'd never have dug them out with any ease or without any damage.

From what I've heard Accenture (as they now are) still operate on these lines. You'd think that for a consultancy to advise its client to create a lot of new management posts, then fill half of them with its own consultants on long-term contracts, would be illegal - or at least contrary to the terms of any conceivable consultancy job - but not so, apparently.

I want to make people who don't clean up their dog's shit and put it in a plastic bag be forced to pick it up with their bare hands, put it in their pocket and then eat a cream cake before they wash their hands but I'd keep that to myself if I was a Government minister.

You do live in Brighton, don't you?

(Hove, I mean. Sorry.)  


On May 17, 2005 12:54 AM, Anonymous ringverse said...

Brilliant.  


On May 17, 2005 8:24 AM, Anonymous Fred said...

An excellent rant. But WTF can we do about it (short of a Dynasty style recasting ploy)? It's knowledge of this powerlessness of the governed that encourages the bastards to new levels of vacuousness.  


On May 17, 2005 9:46 AM, Blogger Andrew said...

I'm inclined to think we get the politics we deserve. We're hypocrites. We want low taxes and world class public services, paid for by everyone else. We want our kids to run wild and free, take risks and enjoy life, but everyone else's to be disciplined and well behaved. The media just fosters this culture, and the rise of managerialism amongst the professionalised political class means they think they can solve any problem, no matter how small, with more government. We get exactly what we deserve for abdicating responsibility and rationality about our lives.

And incidentally, I know a couple of Accenture consultants. Your description is spookily accurate. God knows how that company survives... (although lots of government subsidy obviously helps.)  


On May 17, 2005 10:20 AM, Blogger snooo said...

You're just being self-indulgent

- David Blunkett  


On May 17, 2005 10:35 AM, Blogger Aidan Boustred said...

You put your finger on exactly what irritates me about Patricia Hewitt  


On May 17, 2005 11:10 AM, Blogger Scaryduck said...

"I've listened and learned" is the new "let's draw a line under it and move on" with the arrogance turned down.

Nothing has - or will - change with New Labour as the forthcoming ID Card "debate" will prove.  


On May 17, 2005 12:31 PM, Blogger dearieme said...

The longer she's been gone, the more highly I think of Mrs T.  


On May 17, 2005 1:41 PM, Blogger Dave Heasman said...

"A few years ago I worked on a large IT project that was overseen by a pre-scandal Andersen Consulting..."

Me too. At a large Regional Health Authority. The Androids had been shipped off to Chicago and given a 3-week intensive COBOL course, then sold to the RHA for about £400 per day.
Using a rather good 4GL, using their COBOL skills, they contrived to totally fuck it up from top to bottom. But they got "6 months high-pressure development" onto the CVs of 20 recruits.  


On May 17, 2005 3:26 PM, Anonymous Stephen C said...

I'd have more time for her if she didn't speak like she's repeatedly explaining to a brain-damaged child why he can't have an ice cream

Perfecto. Spot on. I've never liked the woman. There's something just too.. well... thin about her.  


On May 22, 2005 1:38 PM, Blogger Snafu said...

I was bemused when she (Patricia Hewitt) cried on behalf of Rover workers on national TV!! Who was peeling the onions in the background?  


On May 23, 2005 4:07 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

There are no ideological battles in our politics now, true, but you're quite wrong to think that this government, that New Labour, is lacking in ideology. To still be pushing Thatcherism after over two decades of failure, and when polling on economic issues indicates the electorate is further to the left than it has been since the 1960s, requires a remarkably degree of ideological dogmatism.  


On May 23, 2005 10:20 AM, Blogger Allan Scullion said...

I'd have more time for her if she didn't speak like she's repeatedly explaining to a brain-damaged child why he can't have an ice cream.

Ouch! Hit the nail right on the head there. She is the living embodiment of sickly sweet empathy.  


On May 24, 2005 8:32 AM, Blogger Turbulent Cleric said...

Brilliant article about the value free apology of a party that is New Labour. They are but cookoos inhabiting a nest for which they care not but are happy to manipulate.

Re the annoying Mrs Hewitt, wasn't she the one time head of The National Council for Civil liberties yet now nesting in the most authoritarian government for many years. Say what you like, she wears her principles very lightly indeed.  


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