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.

Learning the Lessons

Not too many of these available

Even as someone who is just a Conservative inclined voter rather than a card carrying member of the party, one of the best results from a good conference has been the sound of silence on some fronts.

Where were the defections, give or take a couple of councillors going in both directions? Where was the pointless mumbling into the beard about grammar schools? Where were the battles of EU policy? I'm sure there was a little going on in the fringe, but like 99% of the country I know little of what went on at these events, other than the drinking which has been well covered elsewhere, and the bulk of the media were fed enough substantial fare from the main stage to care.

Hopefully those that caused so much damage in the last couple of months are feeling a little ashamed of themselves, and those that may have been considering taking similar lines themselves will be thinking again.

Great, some of the opinion poll damage has been undone, but what might the numbers have been without some of the mindless point scoring. Was the Brown bounce really down to anything that inspirational that the dour one did? Personally, I very much doubt it - even most of his supporters tended to stick to 'solid' rather than 'scintillating'. Would this have damaged a Conservative party where it was prior to the pre-grammar school row even half so badly? I really can't imagine it would have done, but 'solid' will damage 'squabbling'.

Much of it, looking back in retrospect, seems to have been more a case of how some of the debate was conducted, rather than the fact that there was a debate, and as I hope that some people have learned this lesson, as I want to see the back of this appalling government.

When I reflected on the conference season, I'd forgotten one small moment that I found very positive from Blackpool. I've never understood why Ken Clarke gets such high approval ratings from the public, as nice a gentleman as he seems to be, and to be honest I didn't think his speech was especially significant either in terms of presentation or substance. He did though do one thing; he mentioned the 'E' word. I can't remember exactly what he said on Europe, but in those few words, the way he said it clearly conveyed 'Yes my views are not prevailing, I wish it was different, but this is still a party where on pretty much everything else I find my natural home, and the one I want to succeed'.

Cameron, and his front bench team have played a get out of jail free card, that required a lot of hard work, brilliance, and a little luck from Brown's ineptness in recent weeks to wield. Hopefully the the rapid fall and rise of Conservative fortunes will make it clear that while there will always be principled disagreements within a party, the way in which these are aired, if they are aired, can make the difference between a 'debate' and a 'split'. It is not always the media who make this distinction, sometimes they do just report what they see.

Currently the Conservatives are on the front foot, but it might just take the media to jump on one insignificant party figure, expressing a difference from party policy no larger than exists in any party of intelligent people, and expressing it in the wrong way for the good work to be undone.

The 'public word of advice' line that has been often used in recent months is not a helpful one. I'm sure Cameron welcomes advice, that he listens and considers its merits, but as last week proved he doesn't actually need it.

Into the Confessional

The art of the possible

I've done a hundred or more surveys where I am forced to try and categorise what I do for a living, and nobody seems to have the right radio-buttoned answer. It's hardly surprising because it takes me about five minutes to explain it face to face with someone I haven't met before. I guess the closest bite-sized answer would be the somewhat discredited term 'Management Consultant' rather than something more focused on the world of IT where most of the day to day grind comes from.

In my defence I would say that although most of what I do ultimately has a result involving more computer systems, I've used what influence I have to nip ill advised and ultimately unprofitable 'good ideas' in the bud at least as often as I have promoted the use of the latest 'sexy' technology to my own business' gain. Other than in the shortest of terms it has been the right approach to take.

I was struck today by the similarity of the position of senior politicians, especially those in opposition, with the announcement of David Cameron's ideas for voluntary 'Citizen Service' for 16 year olds.

It seemed to contain all the right buzz words, and touched on an area where there is almost universal acknowledgment of the need for action. For all that, I was surprised by the level of support from some of my favourite areas of the blogosphere, most noticeably Iain Dale who termed it a policy 'Everyone can Unite Behind'.

To an extent I believe Iain, one of the most rational and erudite commentators you could ever wish to listen to is right. It is certainly a message that will appeal to the broadest possible church that the Conservative party can ever hope to appeal to. It is also possible that the appeal may go even further, given that the best of stinging attack from the government was:

Cabinet Office Minister Ed Miliband said the Tory proposals were "neither costed nor funded".

Source: BBC News

Neither "costed nor funded". Mmm, there's a formula we've seen before that basically means "that will be in our manifesto too and we'll just quibble over the balance sheet, and may drop that 'voluntary' bit too."

The problem is though, and I hate to use a buzzword myself, is that one of the most valuable skills of a good consultant is to really understand how the proposal sounds to the 'stakeholders', and to really put yourself in their shoes, view it throug their eyes. Ok, 16 year olds do not have the vote yet, and perhaps electoral maths comes first, but they can still make the difference between good policy and a costly failure from which no party can withdraw without loosing face.

Frankly, I suspect that the vast majority of 16 year olds to whom Cameron's concept will appeal are already doing a Duke of Edinburgh award or something of equal merit. To reemphasise the great value of such schemes is a good thing and well deserved, to assume that you can market the idea to a vast new audience of willing teenagers is something else entirely. To assume that, for those not already engaged in good works, you can take another six weeks out of someone of that age's life 'for the greater good', at a time when every moment of freedom seems precious, and think that it will breed anything but resentment towards those that demand the sacrifice of them would be, in most cases I think, naive.

There's a simple mathematical fact in play here. Mr Cameron is 40 years old, just a few years older than myself. We've also both had 3 years of Oxbridge with relatively short official terms and a lot of leisure time that we may or (in my case at least) may not have used constructively (in a socially responsible sense). We've both had a range of experience in the workplace which, if Mr Cameron was anything like myself, did put me in a position where, regardless of other sources of income, at least when younger, I would have been, and to an extent was, able to take make a little time for some personally enriching experiences; you could even, with no hint of criticism intended, say that Cameron's Rwandan experiences, which I think was a fantastic idea, fall into this category as were my own travels in India.

The problem is that even at my age, let alone Mr Cameron's, the time we have devoted to such activities represents a relatively small fraction of the truly free time that life has afforded us. Six weeks overlapping a year crammed with the pressures of exams would seem like a lifetime to those just becoming accustomed to some degree of control of their lives outside the prescribed requirements of the educational system.

Presented as one option, for the willing and enthusiastic, the existing schemes are fantastic. For such models to become the clear state mandated norm can only cause resentment whether a Tory carrot or Labour stick is used.

I'm sorry to be so negative about what is most certainly a well intended proposal, and I have a deep attachment to some of the underlying philosophy. That said, I must swim against the tide as I feel this was one of the weakest proposals in what should have been a very good week in Conservative policy announcements were it not for certain acts of petty vandalism.

Blessings in Disguise

Not an ideal blogging platform

There can't be many worse places to 'pen' a blog entry from than a crowded carriage on a Silverlink train service, sitting next to a Lock-Knee sufferer, but frankly I don't really have a lot else to do other than look at the scenery that wasn't all that inspiring the first of the thousand time I saw it. Apologies for the spelling!

I had to leave home before I got to see any of the firestorm that Quentin Davies, MP for Grantham and Stamford, crossing the floor from the Conservatives to NuLab will have ignited on most of the blogs I read.

As it happens I don't really care all that much. One less Davies/Davis in the ranks of Conservative MPs should make life a bit less confusing and the loss of a Quentin can only be a good thing for their modernisation.

I don't think much of his rationale for the move will really strike that much a chord with the people of Grantham, or the nation as a whole. He appears dissatisfied with Cameron's EU policy, by which I presume he means the call for a referendum on the 'Amending Treaty'; if so he, if polls are to believed, is setting himself at odds with well over 80% of the population. I always hoped that Cameron would allow individual Conservatives to stand on a pro-Treaty platform, but had also hoped that most Tory MPs, in some ways especially the more visionary side of the pro-EU element, would see the need to take this issue to the people to lance the festering boil of the UK's attitude to Europe.

I suppose there is an outside chance that he is driven by seeing 'representative' democracy as some kind of Shibboleth to be worshipped despite the damage it will almost certainly inflict on his own cause in the long term, so I guess you could have this one down as a bizarre point of principle. This cannot be said of one of his other justifications, that the Conservatives are now too media and PR obsessed, an assertion that can only make him look ridiculous. For Christ's sake man, you are joining NuLab who have surpassed even themselves in these arts over the last couple of weeks. Now the Lib Dems, the argument might have held water in their case as they seem to have lost the plot entirely in these regards, but NuLab? Nah.

As it happens I do have some sympathy for Mr Davies' position against an immediate inquiry into the conduct of the Iraq war, but even that's evaporated having seen the childish ad hominem nature of his attacks on Cameron in the late edition I've just picked up. They are not the words of someone suffering a late life crisis of conscience, but of an embittered man being bettered by a younger generation and seeking a more old-style paternalistic, authoritarian home. Quite what his new friends will make of his attitude to gay rights, ID cards, anti-terrorism laws and the hunting ban, I really wouldn't like to guess, as Mr Davies conscience, as evidenced by his voting record, appears to lead him in very different directions to themselves.

I know all the arguments against an MP resigning upon changing party but, like most people I suspect, I don't buy them, regardless of the nature of the political metamorphosis. Some people vote for the man, I'm pretty sure many, many more vote for the party. It's the old representative democracy thing again. It's a fine concept, but one that people will only have faith in as long as they have trust in the promised basic tenets which will underpin the way the member performs his duty as representative. Sorry Mr Davies, for most people that comes down to party and manifesto.

I'm actually glad leading Conservatives didn't engage in this particular debate as it would have seemed weak and churlish, but at some less heated moment we need to consider a new convention to govern such situations if faith in the political system is to be maintained.

I won't be as unkind as doubtless others will have been this evening, though I do hope Mr Davies does prove the adage of political careers always ending in failure, and that anyone considering him for cosy jobs on some board or quango has some thought for the merits of honesty and loyalty. He may consider himself to be acting out of principle, but he is deceiving even himself if so, he' s just another self-serving piece of shit.

I don't even feel that sorry for the Conservative party, they are well off without him, the only sympathy I can feel is for those will have inevitably worked so hard at a local level with the man, believing that they were striving for the victory of a man of integrity; one they could trust. The feeling of betrayal must be overwhelming.