A Question of Image

Not quite the finished article

I'd got half way through writing up my thoughts on the CSR/PBR in the commons today before an urgent call to action left it half-complete, but as far as I'm concerned Shane Greer has summed it up pretty well.

George Osborne performed pretty well today, but if I didn't follow these things as closely as I do I'd have to award the trophy, with as much enthusiasm as John Howard handed over the 2003 Rugby World Cup to Martin Johnson, to Darling. Macroeconomic announcements are my Achilles heel. I understand them after time and consideration, and the fundamentals are not that hard to grapple with, but in the few minutes at the dispatch box statements like these are the political equivalent of a skid-pan, being so easy to spin.

Osbourne did nothing wrong whatsoever. His positions, as far as I'm concerned with a a few hours' consideration were correct. In many ways his rhetoric was better, but overall, to be perfectly honest Darling did a better job. If I knew nothing outside that one debate I would have seen a strong governing party and a weak opposition grasping at straws. This is not the case, and initial media reaction seems to indicate the magnitude of Brown's cock up is coming home to roost in reactions to the exchanges, but this is not something that can be relied on to continue.

Greer highlights the key issues. I might take issue with the prominence of who sits near the main speaker; the management of front bench seating arrangements has always seemed a bit 'plastic' to me from NuLab, but then I watch probably more than a hundred times more Commons' coverage than most even being unattached to any party machinery, and I accept the fact that I am atypical.

On Osborne, in my opinion Shane is spot on. It was a very good performance in so many ways, yet for someone who is the closest in age to myself in the shadow cabinet he seemed young beyond his years. Yet he is good and spoke sense, and he should not be replaced on these trivial grounds. The Conservatives should not allow his opponents to do a 'Hague' on him, and allow minuscule issues of presentation to damage the public image of someone who has so much to offer.

I don't like the spin and image making, but the correlation that Shane makes about what Thatcher did presentation-wise is very apt. Thatcher took a few gibes from the voice coaching, but the overall effect was a huge win. I hate to say it, and for me Osborne is doing a good job as he is, but then it's not me he's selling to.

There are, in some small ways, issues of presentation where the Conservatives need to hold their nose and follow the concensus. For me, this is one.

People in Glass Houses...

Get your own house in order

Some times a message will carry no authority simply because those delivering it have lost all credibility on the subject if they had any in the first place. The last couple of days have featured several cases in point.

Jack Straw's damascene conversion to the cause of protecting those who intervene in criminal situations from prosecution is a good case in point. It is truly an act of rank hypocrisy to try and milk political capital from an issue where his party have claimed so long that opponents where simply following a populist agenda, and no change was required.

This particular case has been well covered elsewhere, as have the other cases of Labour espousing yet more of former Conservative policies that they once ridiculed, so I'll take aim at another authoritarian, centralising body, with a tendency to treat everyone like children, the Roman Catholic Church.

MSNBC had this wonderful story today:

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican on Thursday lamented the lack of women in leadership positions in the tourism industry and called for equal work and pay for women in the sector.

...

[Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone] called for governments, tour companies, agencies and organizations like the World Tourism Organization to dedicate money and other resources to protect women’s rights and allow them to advance professionally.

“One must work for an effective equality in the rights of women, guaranteeing them parity in work ... and the corresponding equal salary,” he wrote.

Source: MSNBC

Considering the position of the Vatican, as an employer, on equality of opportunity for women, Cardinal Betone may have missed a valuable opportunity to keep his mouth shut.

Darwin doesn't need the help

There are, of course, other cases where a message is right, but it simply doesn't need saying as it sometimes gives some form of succour to those who promote the opposite point of view.

Probably the most persistent culprit in this regard has to be the CRE, whose obsession with attempting to find racism in every facet of British life has left them largely discredited, even before Trevor Phillips' rather worrying suggestion that history be rewritten to make it more 'inclusive' even to the extent of including a fictitious contribution of Islam to the defeat of the Spanish Armada.

Almost everyone accepts that racism is a terrible thing, but by making ridiculous contributions like this, and by their attempts to attach the stain of racism to anyone who differs in the very slightest way from their own agenda, they distract from those very serious cases which do still exist and brings an unhealthy reputation to a worthy cause.

On a slightly more trivial level, I was interested to see the latest flurry of political activity at the European level, albeit from the Council of Europe, now fundamentally just a human rights watchdog, rather than more irritating issuer of politically correct half-wittedness, the EU.

Again from MSNBC:

The Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly will debate a resolution saying attacks on the theory of evolution were rooted "in forms of religious extremism" and amounted to a dangerous assault on science and human rights.

The resolution, on the agenda for October 4, says European schools should "resist presentation of creationist ideas in any discipline other than religion." It describes the "intelligent design" argument as an updated version of creationism.

Source: MSNBC

Now I come from a genetics background, have no religious convictions and think that creationism and its partner in crime, the ironically named intelligent design, are pretty ludicrous theories.

Is there any form of human rights issue at stake though? Let's be honest, it's simply a bit of pointless political posturing. No school would seriously consider mentioning these concepts outside of a religion lesson. The works of Darwin and his successors can stand confidently on their own merits without any help from politicians who probably at heart are simply having a bit of a dig at the US were, sadly, these views carry more undeserved weight.

Sometimes the best thing politicians can do is to do nothing, but sadly this would go against their every instinct.

Dashed Hopes

Only a temporary reprieve

How my spirits soared when I saw the headline "Celebrity Big Brother Axed" on the SkyNews website. Sadly the title soon changed to "Celebrity Big Brother 2008 Axed" and it transpired that the nightmare is scheduled to return after a year's hiatus; I suppose it would only have been a single drop gone from the ocean of mindless reality TV programming, but I guess every little helps.

Sadly I'm sure the public's addiction to such mind-numbing crap will continue unabated for some time to come, as will the broadcaster's willingness to fill the gaps in the schedules that the ever increasing bandwidth available to them creates. Every year brings it's own fresh crop of 'Celebrity X, Y and Z' and each year X, Y and Z become either more bizarre or more anodyne.

What I really struggle to think of is any case of a broadcaster whose increasing range of channels has brought with it any real increase in total quality output, other than those that have opted basically to have a re-runs channel. I've even had to go and check that ITV4 is actually available on Freeview because of upcoming Rugby World Cup coverage, so disinterested have I become in its ilk.