They just keep on digging

Tweet There’s a detailed analysis of the results of the election in Catalunya on Syniadau.  In essence the parties in favour of UDI won a majority of the seats but not of the votes; although if the votes of the pro-independence but anti-UDI parties are added in, there’s a small but clear pro-independence majority, even if there remains disagreement as to how it should be achieved.

The reaction of the Spanish central government has been disappointing, even if hardly unexpected – Spain is an indivisible whole and no change can ever be contemplated.  Formally, the judiciary and the executive in Spain are entirely separate, and the government deny any involvement in judicial decisions, but the announcement that the leader of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas, is to be charged and tried for organising last November’s ‘illegal’ referendum has come within days of the election results.  It may just be coincidence, but it doesn’t look that way.

The Spanish government’s position has been clear throughout.  The law about the unity of Spain (which dates from the days of Franco) is part of the constitution of Spain.  It is unchallengeable and irrevocable.  There can be no referendum on independence, nor can parties use an election victory on an independence platform to claim a mandate.  All routes forward are blocked, legally and for ever.

There are echoes there, albeit centuries later, of the way a small country much closer to home was incorporated “henceforth and for ever” into its larger neighbour; and the same problems arise.  Nothing, in the context of humanity, can ever be ‘for ever’; change is an essential element of human culture.  The rich and the powerful have always pretended that they can fix things in a certain way and keep them like that in perpetuity – but they simply can’t.  It’s an attitude which depends, ultimately, on the fiction that power belongs to the centre, not to the people.

In Spain, the view of the centre is based on an axiomatic statement that Spain is a nation and Catalonia is a region of that nation – a region with its own language and history, to be sure, but no more than a region nevertheless.  From that perspective, Catalans who believe otherwise are simply wrong.  But the fact that that that would still be ‘true’, even if every last one of them voted for pro-independence parties, underlines that such a position is ultimately unsustainable in a modern democracy, because there is no way of maintaining it against the will of the people other than by the use of force.

In the short term, I don’t doubt that the Spanish government will continue to use all the legal powers it can muster to resist and disrupt the independence movement.  That includes the use of criminal proceedings against people who dare to take a different view and try to pursue their objectives in a peaceful and democratic fashion.  But it’s ultimately counter-productive.  Winning a court case here or there might look like a victory at the time, but it simply builds the momentum for the change which now seems to be inevitable.

Could a more enlightened approach have built a negotiated settlement which led to more autonomy within a continued Spanish state?  Possibly.  Just as including a third option on the ballot paper in Scotland might have seriously blunted the independence movement there.  But that goes to the heart of the reason why the centralists will ultimately fail.  They only seem capable of taking a short term view.  Today’s victory is always enough, and they’ll worry about tomorrow’s battle when it comes.  The Catalans have always been playing a much longer term game.  And the end game is now approaching.

How long is long enough?

Tweet One of the leaders of the Conservatives in Wales has told us this week that five years is too long a term for the National Assembly.  But Andrew Davies hasn’t, as far as I can see, enlightened us as to how long the term should be.  Perhaps he hasn’t made his mind up on that one yet.  Or perhaps Stephen Crabb simply hasn’t told him the right answer yet.

It’s true, of course, that the extension from the previous norm of 4 years to the new one of 5 was more accidental than intentional, as an unthought-through consequence of the decision (by his own party) to move to fixed term parliaments for the UK, and the perceived need to avoid holding elections on the same date.  He’s not arguing with that decision, it appears, even though the effect of a move to a fixed term at Westminster has probably increased the average length of a Westminster parliament from around 4 to 5.  And he doesn’t seem to be arguing that the elections should, after all, be held on the same day.

I wouldn’t object to a shorter term, as it happens.  After all, from what I remember of history, ‘annual parliaments’ was a core demand of the Chartists.  Now that would be a neat way of keeping them on their toes, and getting rid of some of them a bit more rapidly.  It’s an entirely honorable demand to make – but something tells me that it isn’t what he means.

My real questions are:

(a)  how do we decide how long the term should be – he’s come up with a negative with no real justification to back it up and no argument for any alternative; and

(b)  why, if the issue is relevant for the Assembly, it isn’t also relevant for the Westminster and European parliaments.  What’s the difference?

It would be nice to be able to believe that he and his party see the Assembly as being the most important level of government; so important that we need to vote on its membership more often.  I rather suspect, though, that he’s coming at it from the opposite perspective.

Supporting British jobs

Tweet There seem to be few people in Wales supporting the construction of the HS2 rail link, most of them preferring to argue that Wales should have its share of the money and use it for other purposes.  I disagree – not because I expect Wales to get any benefit from HS2 itself, but because, unless we are going to prevent people from travelling at all, the alternative to better and faster rail links is more runways and aeroplanes.  So I’d prefer to see Wales making the case for HS4 (we’ve already missed the boat for HS3 which is likely to serve Scotland) so that we become part of the high speed network rather than whinging on the side-lines.  And the only way that HS3 and HS4 will happen if they are treated as part of a UK network rather than seeing the three projects as entirely self-contained.

Where I find myself more in line with mainstream opinion in Wales is with the idea that infrastructure projects (of which HS2 is one) are a good way of boosting a flagging economy, and that investing in them can create economic growth and jobs, as well as boosting skills and knowledge in the economy.  It was in that context that I was astounded to see that on his trade mission to China, the Chancellor has urged Chinese firms to bid for construction contracts on the project.

‘Scope creep’ is one of those things which can all too easily happen on any project, but for it to lead to the mission becoming the opposite of the original intention is a rare achievement.  Osborne went to China to drum up business for British companies, with the stated aim of China becoming the second biggest customer for British companies.  There is currently a significant gap between the level of the UK's exports to China (at around £16.7 billion), and imports from China (t around £37.6 billion) - see Figure 2 here, so his aim of increasing UK exports to China is a wholly reasonable one.   But, instead of that, he’s ended up trying to drum up business for Chinese companies in the UK.  Even if the Chinese companies would employ local workers to carry out the work, the profits (and the tax on them) would still end up being syphoned out the UK economy rather than reinvested here.

It’s another take on being ‘business-friendly’ I suppose – it’s just other countries’ businesses that he’s supporting.

All power to the Crabbs

Tweet The report published yesterday by Richard Wyn Jones and Alan Trench on the content of the new Wales Bill was damning.  An exercise which started out with the stated intention of clarifying and improving the devolution settlement in Wales, and moving to a situation which would be more workable than the present one, looks likely to turn out achieving almost exactly the opposite – adding to the confusion and even potentially rolling back devolution in some areas.

But perhaps the key word in the above paragraph is ‘stated’; sadly, it’s not always the case that the purpose stated explicitly by a minister is actually the real reason for the action proposed.  In what looked almost like a throwaway remark in response to the report – in the very last line of the Western Mail’s coverage of the news – was this sentence from a ‘Welsh Office spokeswoman’: “The Secretary of State has made clear that under no circumstances will he publish legislation that creates a pathway to independence”.  It clearly suggests that the real motivation here has less to do with the effective working of the devolution arrangements than it is with the fear of longer term aspirations, and the need to prevent their realisation.

‘Preventing any move towards independence at all costs’ is, of course, an entirely valid position for a die-hard unionist like Stephen Crabb to take.  And personally, I welcome the fact that he’s trying to achieve his aim in this fashion – not because I agree with his aim, but because I find it harder to think of a more cack-handed way of trying to achieve it.  With unionists like this, who needs nationalists?

It confuses process and structure with aspiration, and assumes that aspiration can be killed off by simply ensuring that the process and structure are ‘right’ for maintaining the status quo, and ‘wrong’ for moving away from it.  The parallel which immediately jumped into my mind was with Catalunya, where the Spanish government is trying to depend on laws made by the former dictator to prevent any move towards independence by simply closing all avenues that might lead to it, rather than engaging in an argument about its merits.  The result is that they are indeed making the path difficult but they are increasing the determination of those who want to take it.

And that’s the point, or it would be if there was a serious movement for independence in Wales.  Those who want to counter moves towards independence need to address the aspiration; they need to convince people that it’s the wrong thing for their country.  Simply trying to ensure that it remains unachievable in practice is ultimately counter-productive; it’s the battle of ideas that needs to be won, not the battle of structures.

Following this approach is even worse from his standpoint – because he’s actually winning that battle of ideas at present (even if that’s largely because the case for the other side isn’t being made).  He doesn’t need to keep banging on about preventing independence, because so few are arguing for it.  Being driven by a need to prevent something that so few of us are asking for merely puts that thing on the agenda in a way that its alleged proponents are failing to do.

So – all power to his elbow.  Let’s have more like him.

Frogs and princes

Tweet As a follow-on from yesterday’s comment about governments and business-friendliness, there’s another aspect about the way in which governments help businesses which means that they don’t always do the right thing.  Government ministers absolutely adore a good photo op, and it it’s associated with ‘creating jobs’ (or at a push merely ‘saving jobs’), so much the better.

As a result, much of the state aid to industry goes to larger companies with lots of employees: the bigger the better is almost the case, since more jobs can be ‘saved’ that way and the photo ops are better too.  But the biggest companies are often also the most ‘successful’ in terms of output and turnover, and therefore the ones which could probably most easily obtain additional funding on commercial terms.

Governments are also afraid of being associated with ‘failure’ – here in Wales, for instance, the opposition parties (the Tories in particular are guilty –“With almost a company a week shedding jobs – after previously obtaining a business grant – Labour ministers have clear questions to answer”, although not exclusively) are quick enough to criticise the government when any company which has received government funding goes belly-up.  This can lead to a degree of caution when providing aid to smaller, less well-established companies – which are often the ones which would struggle to obtain commercial finance.

But here’s the thing – anyone involved in start-ups and innovative products knows only too well that failure is frequently the result.  Governments have to be willing to kiss an awful lot of frogs before they find a handsome prince, and oppositions will seek the headlines every time a frog fails to turn into a prince.  Doing the investing at arm’s length, through an executive agency or a government-sponsored investment bank doesn’t get them off the hook either; the opposition parties will still blame the government of the day for exercising inadequate controls.

Is there a way out, which allows government to take more risks in the hope that the rewards of the few successes will more than make up for the failures?  I suspect that the answer is “not without more mature politics”, where parties stop trying to pretend to be business-friendly and do more to understand the way investment in businesses actually works.  That doesn’t mean not applying proper scrutiny to ensure that the decisions being taken are sensible and aligned with a transparent strategy, but it does mean not assuming that the strategy is failing just because many companies turn out to be frogs.  It means judging governments not on the individual decisions being made, but on the overall success of the programme.  I won’t hold my breath.  Headlines are too easy to come by.

Are businesses really business-friendly?

Tweet Politicians and parties often try to out-do each other as to which can be the most business-friendly.  And each party criticises the others for not being sufficiently business-friendly.  I wonder, though, what they mean, because there is a huge, and not generally understood, difference between being friendly to business in the generic sense and being friendly to existing businesses in the specific.

What I mean by that is that businesses, once established, will always seek to ensure that the environment in which they operate is the one which is most favourable to their interests.  Whether that be in terms of tax breaks, employment legislation, health and safety or environmental protection, they will lobby for the regime which most protects their interests.  And most politicians seem to see being business-friendly as doing what these lobbyists request and gaining their support and endorsement (and potentially, funding for themselves?).

But ‘business’ in the generic goes much wider than that.  It is an essential element of the capitalist system that some businesses will fail.  Creative destruction of some businesses as a result of innovation and change is one of the essential economic drivers.  Preserving ‘what-is’ in aspic, and supporting the continuation of existing businesses in the face of new challenges is potentially inimical to the interests of ‘business’ more generally.  The only reason that this isn’t a great deal more obvious is because economic (and political) power is wielded by existing businesses; those which haven’t even been imagined yet are, by definition, powerless and unable to lobby.

Sometimes, it may well be that those things which existing businesses lobby for would also benefit the businesses of the future; but that’s more by accident than design.  They’re really only pursuing their own narrow interests, even if they try and make it sound otherwise.  In that sense, even existing businesses themselves aren’t always business-friendly in the more generic sense.

Am I saying that business isn’t important?  Of course not; under the current economic system, it’s an essential driver of employment and economic activity.  But what I am arguing is that creating a climate which fosters that is not at all the same thing as assisting current businesses to carry on doing what they’re doing – assistance which may even, at times, prevent or delay innovation and change.  Yet that's often what politicians mean when they talk about supporting business.  In truth, their claims need to be scrutinised a lot more closely to understand whether that simply means that they’re supporting existing vested interests.

On bended knee

Tweet When I read last week that it was a requirement of membership of the Privy Council that members kneel before the monarch in order to pledge their undying loyalty, the first question that crossed my mind was why on earth such a requirement still exists in 2015.  And the second was – given that I know or have met several members of the Privy Council over the years – did all these people really do that?

It says a lot about the prevailing norms in UK politics that the first question which seems to have occurred to journalists was neither of those, but “Will Corbyn do it?”, with the implicit threat that he’ll be branded a hypocrite if he does and some sort of beyond-the-pale traitor if he doesn’t.  It’s not a very grown-up response.

It illustrates the way in which the media, as part of the establishment, perpetuate what is rather than ask what might be.  The existence of this arcane remnant of a bygone age is taken as a given, as is the requirement for compliance.  I don’t know whether Corbyn will be brave enough to have the courage of his convictions and refuse.  I’d think the better of him if he did, but I’m fully expecting to be disappointed.  And I’ll admit to more than a little disappointment that others have not refused in the past.

The existence of this body is a relic, of course.  It has some formal functions, but largely because parliament has never fully asserted its authority and taken these vestigial responsibilities away from the sovereign.  The argument for Corbyn – or the leader of any opposition party – becoming a member is that it enables him to be briefed confidentially “on privy council terms”.  The truth of that is open to challenge in the light of briefings coming from a hopelessly out-of-control intelligence service that they wouldn’t tell him anything anyway, even if he became their boss.  But even if it were true, it’s based on an assumption that someone who has kneeled before the monarch and sworn a solemn oath can then be trusted more than someone who hasn’t.

Such touching faith in the value of a promise may be another of those great British values which Cameron keeps banging on about.  Or maybe just another example of the total inability of those who rule the UK to let go of the past.

A safe opposition

Tweet It’s touching to see how concerned so many Conservatives are about the need to have an effective and credible opposition.  Or it would be if they really meant what they are saying.  The MP for Monmouth, in the wake of the Corbyn victory, expressed his concern about the possible new direction of the Labour Party, saying “… there has to be a reasonably strong centre-left party in any democracy…”.

I think that what he really means is that the best way to ensure the predominance of Conservative ideology is to ensure that the main opposition party broadly accepts everything that the Conservatives say.  Conversely, an opposition party which says something different creates a real danger that people might start to understand that there really is an alternative to the Labour-Tory consensus of recent decades.

Cameron was a bit more honest, when he said about questions such as nationalisation and Trident “These are arguments I thought we had dealt with…” – i.e., that Labour has long accepted the Tory position.  It’s easy to see why he would prefer to have both the two main potential parties of government broadly in agreement on most issues.  It helps to legitimise the prevailing ideology, and ensure that people have no credible electoral option to vote for anything other than minor change.

Anything that challenges any part of that consensus, rather than simply falling into it to be seen as being ‘electable’, represents a move away from the two-faction one-party state which the UK has effectively become.  It remains to be seen, though, whether that move will be as large or as sustained as its supporters claim.  I’m still sceptical.

No real signs of an earthquake as yet...

Tweet Last week, Plaid told us that they want to ‘deprive Labour of power over health and education’.  I can’t disagree with that as an aim, although in itself it’s a very negative statement which needs to be backed up by a positive programme outlining what would be different under Plaid.  There’s no question that the record of Labour in both fields has been badly wanting but however frustrating that record might be from the perspective of opposition politicians, merely removing Labour is an inadequate aim in itself.  And as an aim, it differs hardly at all from what the Tories have been saying, which only serves to underline the inadequacy of the negative.  Health and Education need more than a change of the men and women at the top if performance is to improve.

I can also understand why Plaid don’t want to get into debate about who might do what and with whom after the election, preferring to concentrate on putting their own message across rather than speculating about deals and arrangements once the dust has settled.  I’d be saying the same thing.  But that won’t stop me or anyone else from thinking aloud about just what the process might be if Labour is to be deprived of control over these two important fields – and that demands giving some thought to potential electoral outcomes.

The most credible scenario, given current polling data, under which Labour would have no control over either of these policy fields would be an agreement between all the ‘non-Labour’ parties in the Assembly to come to some sort of arrangement under which one or more of the parties formed a coalition and the others agreed, as a minimum, not to bring the government down.  But Plaid have already – very definitively – ruled that one out.  So what does that leave?

There are currently four parties represented in the Assembly.  At present, it looks extremely likely that they will be joined by a significant UKIP group, and it is at least possible that there will be a Green Party AM or two as well.  Given that any sort of Plaid-Tory arrangement has been ruled out, there are only two possible arrangements of parties which could lead to the formation of a viable government after next May.  The first is if the Tories, UKIP, and Lib Dems between them manage to get a total of around 30 seats; and the other is if Labour, Plaid, the Green Party and the Lib Dems manage to get to the same total (scenarios which include the possibility that any one party in either grouping has enough seats to form a government alone, even if that were to be a minority government with tacit support from at least one other party).  (The Lib Dems are assumed to be flexible enough to jump either way, even if they only have one member left.)

Under the first of those scenarios, Labour would, obviously, be deprived of power over both Health and Education (as well as everything else!).  Under the second, they would only be deprived of both if they were to be the junior partner in a coalition, with the senior partner well ahead of them in votes and seats.  These are, after all, the two most important areas of policy over which the Assembly has control, and it’s just not credible that the largest coalition partner would cede control over both.  Indeed, they’d only be likely to cede control over even one of them if there were to be a rough parity of seats between the partners.  On current polling trends, the likeliest result, even if Plaid were to be a part of the government, would probably leave Labour in charge of both.  (And that also means that Plaid’s participation in such a government would be in direct contradiction to what they said that they wanted to achieve – sadly, the Tory accusation of hypocrisy isn’t as far wide of the mark as I’d like to believe.)

Neither of the two scenarios which would lead to a change of control over health and education seem remotely likely on present trends.  It’s a depressing prospect, which serves only to underline quite how big an earthquake we need in Welsh politics if we’re going to see real change.

Hypocrisy trumps honesty

Tweet One of the things that came through loud and clear from Corbyn during the leadership election was that he doesn’t do personal.  He really doesn’t seem to care that much what people think of him at a personal level, and he wants to talk policy rather than personality.  It is, I suspect, a significant part of what won the election for him.

In the light of that, what can we make of the frenzied reaction of the press to him refusing to sing ‘God save the Queen’, and attacking his mode of dress?  Three things, it seems to me.

Firstly, his political opponents – including, or perhaps even especially, those in his own party – are deeply uncomfortable with discussing policy.  There are probably several reasons for this – including that they’re not used to thinking in terms of policy, and much more accustomed to voting as they’re told, and that they are probably (and rightly) afraid of losing any intelligent argument around policy.

Secondly, it makes for easier headlines.  There’s a lot less work involved in writing a press release or tweeting a negative and highly personal attack than there is in preparing a serious response to policy; and what passes for journalism finds it easier to write big screaming headlines in response.

But thirdly, and most importantly, there’s a less obvious effect at play, and that is an attempt to impose, or at least reinforce, the boundaries within which politics is conducted.  And that includes preventing or suppressing any serious debate about policy which might expose the fact that there are alternatives.   There’s a mindset at work for which ‘being different’ is inherently dangerous, even if the differences are not as great as they're portrayed. 

Corbyn could, of course, simply compromise and fall in with convention, which is what I’m sure many of his so-called colleagues will be urging him to do.  Hypocritical, of course, but it’s what they seem to want.  I doubt that it will make much difference – they’ll only find more and more things to criticise unless and until he’s brought completely back into line.  And parts of the media are not averse to making things up if it suits their agenda.

But for me, there’s something very sad about a political culture which would find complete and obvious hypocrisy more acceptable than honesty and consistency.  That, though, is the Labour-Tory consensus in which we live.