Brown and Labour's Canutist fallacy

Labour have, yesterday with the Queens speech, confirmed their intention of campaigning for themselves and not governing up to the general election.

Amongst the most obscene tricks they are trying to pull off are the raft of "Canute Laws", which command reality to behave as they wish it to in the future.

• A Law can guarantee cancer treatment in a short period of time, when 12 years of a Labour government can't.
• A Law can abolish child poverty, when 12 years of a Labour government can't.
• A Law will reduce green house gas emissions, when 12 years of a Labour government can't.
• A Law can guarantee a good education, when 12 years of a Labour government can't.
• A Law can guarantee a reduced deficit, when 12 years of a Labour government couldn't.
  

Now I have to agree with Labour that they have failed on all these points, but the way they are desperately trying to put them right reveals the reason for their failure.

Labour believes in the narrative. They think if they say so then it is so. ( And attitude that helps explain the gutless kowtowing of their membership and MPs to "the right thing to do" edicts from their unelected leadership cabal).

This worked well for them as an opposition and when they were trying to just campaign not govern in the early Blair years. But its now a handicap as reality can no longer be ignore, spun or bullied into silence.

Reality is just a mystery to them. They don't understand why things haven't got better because their delusions refuse to allow them to consider the reasons.

This would all be a cause for pity if they weren't hurting and ruining so many peoples lives due to their dysfunctions.

Canute couldn't stop the tide because he commanded it and Labour can't change the country because they command it to.

The difference is that Canute was trying to make this point, and Labour never learnt it.

PS I'm not saying these things can't be done. But because Labour refuse to accept the nature of reality they are unable to find the ways to do them, which is why we need a Conservative government.

Update: Jeff Randall on a similar theme for the Fiscal Responsibility act. ( Jeff I suspect the reason fro Brown's act is to try to copy the Conservatives Fiscal Responsibility office idea and to make sure it doesn't sound radical in the coming election. )

National snake oil plan (aka broadband )

So the narrative continues .....

Labour are trying to sound all "white heat of technology" like with a commitment to more broadband. A load of guff from Brown about Britain and communications industries ( yes it might have started off here , but its now all done over sears in the US and China. GEC Marconi were the last last here, and now they have gone). Replaced by, in the minds of Labour ministers, creative industries where the people Guardinista's meet at parties work.

Just like Labour's plan to provide online porn to less well of kids by getting the tax payer to fund their own kids and disadvantaged kids laptops, this is just guff.

Perhaps they are thinking of all those trenches that will have to be dug for fiber optic cable employing young jobless people ? I have news for them - in the road my mother lives on in Essex the road has been dug up for months. Why ? Because they can't get the employees - the young people they get take lots of time to get trained, but then find it too hard to be outside all day doing physical work - even though they are lucky to get that.

Who will dig the holes then, clearly the Poles and newly arriving soon Romanians and Bulgarians.

What was announced was more reviews, and more guff.

But then doing something was never the intention. Changing the headlines from Economic doom and gloom and trying to pretend there is something that government can do was.

Typical New Labour - reaching for the bottle of snake oil narrative again...

Fantasy narratives - failing economy

The video of a clip with Tony NcNulty ( Employment minister apparently ) below was highlighted else where at the time, but I've just re-watched it and I think it tells us something important about the current Labour regime.

If you've never seen it before watch it then I'll carry on my point below:



Firstly I have to say I have had the same experience as Tony McNulty's having here with a boss who was a cross between Jeremy Paxman and Alan Sugar. It a mistake you only ever make once, and if your still in employment afterwards you make damn sure your on top of your facts there after.

Tony McNulty is normally a much more assured media performer. But Paxo's right - as employment minister he should have known those details. It rather leaves two possible interpretations:
1) He's not doing his job and should resign.
2) He was not closely involved in the preparation of the announcement and is having to clear up the mess. ( If I were a minister who had been so sidelined I would raise hell and demand assurances that such a thing would never happen again and if I didn't get them resign. )

But now combine this botched announcement with the spin on the graduate internships the government has announced. It proudly used the names of Barclay's and Microsoft - and yet a day latter we discover that neither company will do anything different from what it has done in the past ( ie no new places - just allowing the government to put a cover sheet on their own actions and try to sell it as a new initiative ).

This is the government of the media grid. Establishing the narrative, but neglecting the facts on the ground. Spin before and over truth. Perhaps we should all castigate ourselves that this still shocks us after almost eleven years of Labour.

But worse is to come. The McNulty interview and especially the attention to Rolls Royce with Brown's expensive campaigning on the taxpayers expense visits. We are about to get a reheated version of "the white heat of technology" ploy that Wilson tried to pull on the electorate.

The new jobs will be in green technology, computers etc and from the way he speaks its clear he view it as governments role to bring this about. Or at least it will be the narrative to be used to full the government media matrix's for the next few months.

The reality will of course be very different.

The government doesn't know what its doing. They are making it up as they go along, and anyway what they are really thinking about is how to coble together a narrative that can hold together long enough to get themselves re-elected. As the interview above makes all too terribly clear.

Further: As if to make my point for me - see this quote attributed to an article by Peter Mandelson over on the Daily Dolly:

"Voters know that it is right to plan and invest for the upturn: ensuring that future jobs and growth come from new innovations in areas such as environmental technology, high-tech manufacturing and the creative industries. I am glad that, at least when it comes to the latter, the Labour party itself is now moving to the forefront of new media and online campaigning."

You see the combination of the "White heat of technology" ploy combined with their real interests - not will it work - but can it be used to win an election.

We know government is bad at picking winners (see 1970's), and also that recessions perform an important role in realigning capital to more productive areas. Government interference guarantees the economy will learn little and come out weakened.

The irony of Gordon Brown's economic crash

If New Labour ( 'the project' to its supporters in the media and especially the BBC ) stood for anything it was 'the narrative'.

In 1997 they ensured that a negative label of 'sleaze' attached itself to the Conservative party - even through any wrong doing was just a few individuals ( and has been buried in examples of Labour sleaze since ).

Tony Blair had an election schedule with time to 'emote' for the camera every day.

In contrast to the 'mean' Tories with New Labour things would only get better as we all skipped along the road ( yellow brick of course ) to New Britain.

Labour had changed - revoking clause 4 (which they are implementing just now anyway - but hey who remembers that ?). Just to make sure Gordon Brown and prudence were going to follow Tory spending plans initially (of course that would logically be mean and nasty like the Tories - but nobody cared about consistency. Asking questions like that just showed how you didn't get modernising and were a Tory dinosaur. It also meant that Labour could latter boast about reducing debt - although forgetting to tell people it was with Tory plans ).

The Narrative mattered. It was how to get to votes who never read the small print, espcially fickel floating voters. New Labour types get most worried that they don't have a narrative any more. And whilst they sound like carbon copies of each other due to their central media training they all need a script - since what they used to spout had nothing to do with why they got into politics or what they used to believe.

How strange that now the economic challange is the narrative they are about to flunk it.

The death spiral of the UK economy may have been triggered by the credit crisis, but its being fueled by a crisis of confidence as people (and especially foreign investors) start to wonder how over a trillion pounds of personal debt will get paid back as job losses mount and house prices drop by up to 40%. They also question what the real government debt is - PFI, the banks, public pensions etc.

Any company that finds any cash fall on it like a starving man, because the bank won't be providing much more. Individuals are likely to come to the same conclusion - and the economic recession will deepen (BBC types note this means the same thing as you New Labour narrative about the 'Downturn' ). So when they see any more from 'tax cuts' they will hoard it(the New Labour word for save - shortly when it becomes apparent this isn't working).

What panic measures like New Labour's tomorrow (which are surrounded by lies and straight to your face/camera denials of the truth - like "this isn't a gamble" and "international experts recommend this" - they don't, only for countries without the earth shattering deficiet that Gordon Brown ghas run up with his own arrogance and vanity on our behalf can take those measures without considerable risk ) do is spook the hurd. Confidence is further lost and the downward spiral is reinforced.

Thats why the government behaving with restraint and responsibility would have been right - it would have promoted confidence in the narrative. Now thats bankable irony.