One thing of which we can all often be
guilty is a failure to understand a different point of view. It’s easy enough to
understand why – but things which are ‘obvious’ to one person are not so to
everyone else. But however normal it might be, it’s something which politicians
in particular need to be careful about. The current Prime Minister is not only
not careful about it, he doesn’t even seem to understand that it can be a
problem.
There is no doubt that the boost to ‘defence’
spending announced
yesterday will be popular amongst Anglo-British nationalists, and there is also
no doubt that there are significant numbers of people in Wales (although
perhaps rather less so in Scotland) who fit into that category and will be
delighted. But in presenting it as an example of the strength and power of ‘the
union’, Johnson seems to have completely missed the point that not everyone
thinks that way. Worse, his claim
that “If there is one policy that strengthens the UK in every possible
sense, it is building more ships for the Royal Navy” is based on an
assumption about attitudes to the UK’s grandiose notions which rather overlooks
the fact that his target audience isn’t those who are already convinced about
the union, but those who are not. And in his usual inept and bumbling fashion,
he fails to understand that for those opposed to UK military aggrandisement and
adventurism, his announcement will weaken rather than strengthen his case -
independence offers a way out of excessive and outdated militarism.
Still, shooting himself in the foot by not
understanding that not everyone is going to swell with pride at the
announcement of further investment in technology to kill and maim is at one
with his cloth-eared approach to most other issues.
There was one phrase in his speech which was
worrying to say the least. In talking about modernising the armed forces and giving
them new weaponry, skills, and techniques, he said
that in the future “…the prizes will go to the swiftest and most agile
nations, not necessarily the biggest”. I struggle to assign any meaning to
that, and particularly the use of the word ‘prizes’, which does not imply that
he sees military power as being a route to extracting something from less powerful
or less well-armed states in the world by use, or by threat of use, of force. I
suppose we were warned from the outset that the Brexiteers wanted to see
Britain as a ‘buccaneering’ (i.e. pirate) state, although many of us assumed
that they just meant that they wanted the UK to be a state which declined to
follow the rules by which others live.
It’s not mere coincidence that the amount
of extra military expenditure bears a similarity to the amount which they have
been briefing that they intend to cut from overseas aid. That’s another
indication of an intention to switch directly from the use of ‘soft’ power to
the use of ‘hard’ power; the commitment to spending 0.7% of GDP on aid put the
UK among the leading aid givers in the world, and it was in 2015 (under a
Conservative-led government, curiously enough) that the UK became
the first G7 country to enshrine that commitment in law. The Brexit project has
always been about an attempt to turn back the clock, to return to an imagined
golden age in which Britannia both ruled the waves and waived the rules. This
latest announcement looks like another step along that path, but the assumption
that the rest of the world will allow, or can be coerced into allowing, the UK
to do what it wants – which was more or less the case in the days of empire - is yet another example of failure to understand that not everyone else shares
their view of the world - and in this case spectacularly so.
Inconsistent and incoherent are inadequate
words to describe announcing a hopelessly overhyped and underfunded ‘green
revolution’ one day and a commitment to an increase in spending on armaments
the next. If the government was run using logic and reason, that much would be
obvious, but then a government guided by logic and reason wouldn’t have put the UK
where it is today.
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2 comments:
2 statements that sum it up neatly
"Inconsistent and incoherent are inadequate words to describe announcing a hopelessly overhyped and underfunded ‘green revolution’ one day and a commitment to an increase in spending on armaments the next."
"independence offers a way out of excessive and outdated militarism."
As of overhyped and underfunded I'm not sure about that as the prospective green revolution lacks any kind of definition. If recent performance is any kind of guide it will be a scammer's paradise as likes of the odious Monbiot turn up to rewild Wales whether we like it or not. Pollution is largely a metropolitan problem. Wasteful city dwellers wanting to retain their lifestyles and trappings bt displacing their pain and inconvenience onto others. My answer to them is summed up in a common 2 word expletive.
I have never supported ring-fencing lines in any budget and Westminster has a rule that no current administration should pass laws that bind future administrations – very wise as it protects law makers from ‘government from the grave’.
There is a mechanism that prevents chaotic swings between administrations and adds a degree of continuity and that is the monarch, who by the grace of God sets out in their coronation what values they and their governments will defend and makes a contract with her subjects. This in a way is a type of ‘written constitution’ but in human form apart from the fact she is plugged into a higher relationship with the Anglican Christian God than those who she reigns over – you could not make this up ,but there it is
Foreign aid and defence, have these ‘ring-fenced targets’ and are rife with mis- spending over the years and of course with the aid budget it was Spliff Cameron that introduce this law – God how I miss him ,but need I say more.
I could not see Brother Corbyn accepting a defence spend target, if he became PM and neither a Britain First Tory accepting the aid budget, so they become political footballs and much damage is done to both.
I have found that the best budgets, address financial realities/scenarios and are free of constraints handed down to them from te past.
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