This is Martin Bright's article on how the British left might ape Obama's triumph.
It's mightily depressing because Bright seems to think that a few potentiall popular policy ideas are the same as a credible policy platform and political philosophy, and far too many people with me on the left will rush to agree.
And as if unilateral disarmament is a new and credible idea. In the right context, I think it is goer, but that context involves a proper rethink about the UK's strategic posture (see previous post). And I also oppose ID cards, but simply cancelling them isn't a counter terrorism strategy.
The tragedy is that the financial crisis and Obama's triumph provides a unique moment in which the British left could re conceptualise itself and break free from the stale arguments of the past. Instead we get a list of half-baked policy ideas presented as a coherent philosophy.
Thursday 20 November 2008
Punching at any weight
These are the thoughts of former UK Ambassador to Russia, Rodric Braithwaite, on UK foreign policy developments over the past two decades.
As a sometime employee of the FCO, I always enjoy reading the (often self justifying thoughts) of former senior officers of the British Diplomatic Service. Rodric Braithwaite's article does not disappoint. As if he, as mere very senior ambassador and Chairman of the JIC in the early 1990s, could have had any influence on, or responsibility for, UK foreign policy over the past 2 decades?
That having been said, I suppose that it would be churlish not to rejoice over a repentant sinner, though I for one wish he was a little more repentant still. He correctly identifies a key fault (the belief that the UK can and should punch above its weight in international affairs) that has bedevilled post-1945 UK foreign policy. Yet he doesn't present a coherent alternative.
Ministers are in a tricky position. On one hand there are the obvious realities that Britain is not the force that it once was in world affairs. Yet on the other ministers are supported by a national security and foreign policy structure that was designed in the immediate post war period when Britain still played a leading role in the world and reflects that understanding of Britain's role. And, inexplicably, Britain still has the second biggest defence budget on the planet (only behind the US).
I think it is time that we had a proper review of all this, so we can decide what are real national interests are in the 21st century and how those should be reflected in our national security structures and strategy. Perhaps a Royal Commission briefed to research these issues with no sacred cows would be a way forward?
As a sometime employee of the FCO, I always enjoy reading the (often self justifying thoughts) of former senior officers of the British Diplomatic Service. Rodric Braithwaite's article does not disappoint. As if he, as mere very senior ambassador and Chairman of the JIC in the early 1990s, could have had any influence on, or responsibility for, UK foreign policy over the past 2 decades?
That having been said, I suppose that it would be churlish not to rejoice over a repentant sinner, though I for one wish he was a little more repentant still. He correctly identifies a key fault (the belief that the UK can and should punch above its weight in international affairs) that has bedevilled post-1945 UK foreign policy. Yet he doesn't present a coherent alternative.
Ministers are in a tricky position. On one hand there are the obvious realities that Britain is not the force that it once was in world affairs. Yet on the other ministers are supported by a national security and foreign policy structure that was designed in the immediate post war period when Britain still played a leading role in the world and reflects that understanding of Britain's role. And, inexplicably, Britain still has the second biggest defence budget on the planet (only behind the US).
I think it is time that we had a proper review of all this, so we can decide what are real national interests are in the 21st century and how those should be reflected in our national security structures and strategy. Perhaps a Royal Commission briefed to research these issues with no sacred cows would be a way forward?
Travelling without a computer... thought from abraod
I am travelling at the moment and do not have my laptop and, unbelievably, cannot update my blog from the computer that I do have access to. Not sure why and don't understand the locals when they explain why! I am relying on paper media in order to keep up to date. A couple of things have caught my attention and have blogged on the separately. They are slightly out of date but hope they are interesting, nevertheless.
Monday 3 November 2008
So will tomorrow be a replay of '92 or '97?
Tomorrow the longest and, arguably, the most thrilling election campaign in my lifetime will end. The final few weeks have not matched the campaign's early promise, not least because the McCain people decided to run a traditional 'culture wars' campaign full of name-calling and fear-mongering rather than debating the issues. His choice of running mate didn't help either. Just imagine if there had been a proper debate about the economy, the social fissures in the US (and the rest of the West), etc.... oh well, I suppose there is always next time.
What is going to happen tomorrow? All the signs (or to be more precise all the polls) indicate a healthy Obama victory. But as any Brit with a reasonable political memory knows, polls can be wrong, especially at the last minute. The 1992 UK election is the most famous example of inaccurate polling - right until midnight at the end of polling day we thought we would have Labour government. We didn't - the Conservatives got back in against all expectations and all normal political convention.
Could the same happen tomorrow in the US? Of course it could but I don't see that factors that caused the '92 UK upset in '08 US race.
Most Britons, including some Labour people, had real doubts about then-Labour leader Neil Kinnock. Those doubts were reinforced by several missteps in the Labour campaign, notably the Jennifer's ear affairs, and Kinnock's bizarre behaviour at the over the top pre-victory victory rally in Sheffield. Sure, many Americans have doubts about Obama, but those with the strongest doubts (for whatever reason) were never going to vote for him.
Similarly, one of the greatest failures of the McCain campaign (and one of the greatest successes of the Obama campaign) has been their inability to distance McCain from Bush, thereby damaging McCain's claim to represent change. Back in '92 the Tories managed to blunt Labour's rallying cry about change by changing their leader 18 months earlier. The republicans have not been able to pull off the same trick.
Instead of '92, I think the '97 UK election is a better model for understanding what will happen in the US tomorrow.
The 1997 UK election was also a bad moment for the pollsters. They got the result right, but did not come close to predicting the scale of the Labour victory. Could something similar happen tomorrow in the US? Given that one poll is giving Obama a 11% lead today and they (almost) all give him a comfortable victory in the electoral college, that is unlikely. But if Obama does pull off a big win tomorrow, the UK's experience in '97 could give his team an insight in how he should govern in the early stages of his presidency.
One of the most striking features of the '97 election was its aftermath. Even those who had not voted for the government (which was a majority of the population) wished it well and hoped that it would offer a new start for the UK. My favourite statistic from that period was the opinion poll in which a vastly greater proportion of the population claimed to have voted Labour than actually did! This gave Labour enormous scope for reform, some of which they did not exploit to the full.
I suspect that Obama will enjoy a similar honeymoon, and perhaps even enjoy even greater public good will given the problems the US is facing at the moment. He should use it to focus like a laser on his main priorities and notch up some solid achievements early on. The people will be with him and the other side will be in disarray.
That last point is hardly controversial. The future of America's conservative movement looks bleak, even if McCain pulls off a win tomorrow. Its previous intellectual vigor has been replaced by anti-intellectual laziness. It looks tired and most of its sacred gods have been exposed as false idols in recent years (Iraq, the financial crisis, etc.)
Assuming Obama does win tomorrow it is easy to imagine the American right following the same trajectory as the British Conservative Party after 1997, which is to say that it will convince itself that the reason it lost is because it was not right-wing enough, flog that horse for a decade and then come back to the centre, where elections are won and sensible ideas and policies are born.
1992 or 1997? We'll know in 48 hours which it will be.
What is going to happen tomorrow? All the signs (or to be more precise all the polls) indicate a healthy Obama victory. But as any Brit with a reasonable political memory knows, polls can be wrong, especially at the last minute. The 1992 UK election is the most famous example of inaccurate polling - right until midnight at the end of polling day we thought we would have Labour government. We didn't - the Conservatives got back in against all expectations and all normal political convention.
Could the same happen tomorrow in the US? Of course it could but I don't see that factors that caused the '92 UK upset in '08 US race.
Most Britons, including some Labour people, had real doubts about then-Labour leader Neil Kinnock. Those doubts were reinforced by several missteps in the Labour campaign, notably the Jennifer's ear affairs, and Kinnock's bizarre behaviour at the over the top pre-victory victory rally in Sheffield. Sure, many Americans have doubts about Obama, but those with the strongest doubts (for whatever reason) were never going to vote for him.
Similarly, one of the greatest failures of the McCain campaign (and one of the greatest successes of the Obama campaign) has been their inability to distance McCain from Bush, thereby damaging McCain's claim to represent change. Back in '92 the Tories managed to blunt Labour's rallying cry about change by changing their leader 18 months earlier. The republicans have not been able to pull off the same trick.
Instead of '92, I think the '97 UK election is a better model for understanding what will happen in the US tomorrow.
The 1997 UK election was also a bad moment for the pollsters. They got the result right, but did not come close to predicting the scale of the Labour victory. Could something similar happen tomorrow in the US? Given that one poll is giving Obama a 11% lead today and they (almost) all give him a comfortable victory in the electoral college, that is unlikely. But if Obama does pull off a big win tomorrow, the UK's experience in '97 could give his team an insight in how he should govern in the early stages of his presidency.
One of the most striking features of the '97 election was its aftermath. Even those who had not voted for the government (which was a majority of the population) wished it well and hoped that it would offer a new start for the UK. My favourite statistic from that period was the opinion poll in which a vastly greater proportion of the population claimed to have voted Labour than actually did! This gave Labour enormous scope for reform, some of which they did not exploit to the full.
I suspect that Obama will enjoy a similar honeymoon, and perhaps even enjoy even greater public good will given the problems the US is facing at the moment. He should use it to focus like a laser on his main priorities and notch up some solid achievements early on. The people will be with him and the other side will be in disarray.
That last point is hardly controversial. The future of America's conservative movement looks bleak, even if McCain pulls off a win tomorrow. Its previous intellectual vigor has been replaced by anti-intellectual laziness. It looks tired and most of its sacred gods have been exposed as false idols in recent years (Iraq, the financial crisis, etc.)
Assuming Obama does win tomorrow it is easy to imagine the American right following the same trajectory as the British Conservative Party after 1997, which is to say that it will convince itself that the reason it lost is because it was not right-wing enough, flog that horse for a decade and then come back to the centre, where elections are won and sensible ideas and policies are born.
1992 or 1997? We'll know in 48 hours which it will be.
Honest Dave
The underlying message of David Cameron's article on the BBC in today's Sun seems to be that he is the only thing between Auntie and a pack of rabidly anti-BBC Tories.
It's good to see a little honesty from Dave. Many of us have long suspected that he is the (only) moderate in the all-new moderate Conservative Party.
I don't doubt that Dave has changed, but by his own admission the rest of his party remains as extreme as they were in the days of Hague, IDS and Howard. You only have to listen to Osborne, Duncan and Fox (to name just a few) to realise they are far from reformed. Should the Tories win, Cameron will face a huge task keeping them in check.
It's good to see a little honesty from Dave. Many of us have long suspected that he is the (only) moderate in the all-new moderate Conservative Party.
I don't doubt that Dave has changed, but by his own admission the rest of his party remains as extreme as they were in the days of Hague, IDS and Howard. You only have to listen to Osborne, Duncan and Fox (to name just a few) to realise they are far from reformed. Should the Tories win, Cameron will face a huge task keeping them in check.
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