Operation Poster Boy
To my mind it's very easy to come to the aid of someone like Nigel Farage because in a strategic sense the UKIP leader is not a threat, politically speaking, to someone like Owen Jones.
But if you were really serious about playing the ball and not the man, what Owen should have been saying is that the persistent 'monstering' of David Cameron, the Tory Party leader and Prime Minister, should also be out of bounds.
Because a young person is not responsible for where they went to school (Eton or otherwise) or, arguably, for the all too predictable mistakes of youth which drive most parents insane, for some time at least.
Yet the 'left' and commentators like Owen Jones are only too happy, when it suits them, to ridicule David Cameron routinely over his privileged background which is not a political argument, of course, but a cynical attempt to play the man and not the ball.
Operation Get Nigel Farage is politics of the lowest form
It sticks in the craw to defend the Ukip leader from the latest smear campaign, but if we want to rid Britain of this toxic approach, we must
By Owen Jones
Ukip leader Nigel Farage gives a press conference at the party's 2014 spring conference. Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images
There are still 382 days before the Queen dissolves parliament, but Operation Get Farage is revving into action. Splashing allegations that he had a "mistress" across the Daily Mail and BBC news bulletins are being justified in the public interest, of course. The former Ukip MEP Nikki Sinclaire exploited the European parliament's immunity from libel law to throw the revelations to a slavering media pack. Farage was fuelling unemployment, she cheekily suggested, by employing both his wife and "former mistress Annabelle Fuller", a suggestion passionately contested by Farage and Fuller.
You don't have to be a fan of Nigel Farage to object to this style of politics. It's personal, lowest common denominator, play-the-man-not-the-ball nonsense, beloved by the likes of Tory spin doctor Lynton Crosby. By all means attack the hypocrisy of a party that rails against the "EU gravy train" while milking its expenses: in 2012, for example, Ukip MEPs claimed nearly £800,000 EU expenses and allowances. Opponents of the state often have the least scruples about taking from it, and given generous donations to the party from Ukip MEPs, it could be justifiably claimed that this virulently Eurosceptic-party is partly EU-funded. But let's not pretend this is anything other than an excuse to discredit Farage via his private life, accompanied with nudge-nudge wink-wink stories about his "womanising" from former colleagues.
It won't work, and will almost certainly be counterproductive. Ukip thrives as an anti-establishment party. How they have achieved it is pretty baffling: Farage's background as a public school-educated former banker hardly distinguishes him from other political leaders, and the Ukip leader has appeared on BBC's Question Time more than any other British politician. But Farage's conscious deviation from the script of how a professional politician is supposed to speak and behave endears him to voters bored of on-message Westminster clones. Voters are more likely to forgive his foibles than they are other politicians'; they can even add to his appeal. The establishment appearing to close ranks will surely help cement Ukip's insurgent image.
But whether it works or not is besides the point. It smacks of the beginning of a re-run of the sort of campaign waged against Nick Clegg in the run-up to the 2010 election. I could barely have less respect for the Liberal Democrat party, a cynical bunch of political opportunists who helped trash what little faith in politics many of the first-time young voters Clegg inspired had. But before election day, the rightwing media decided that there must be a Tory majority government, and the short-lived Cleggmania – when he enjoyed headlines suggesting he was almost as popular as Winston Churchill – was seen as a block on it. He had to be personally discredited. "Nick Clegg in Nazi slur on Britain" was one Daily Mail headline, outrageously misrepresenting a Guardian piece he had written years before. "Is there ANYTHING British about Lib Dem Nick Clegg?" screeched the Mail on Sunday because, among other things, he had a Spanish wife and Dutch mother. Donations that were already in the public domain were portrayed as somehow sinister, and so on.
Today, it is Ukip that are seen as an obstacle to Tory ambitions of a majority at the election, and that's why Get Farage is rolling. You don't have to have any sympathy with Ukip to object to this Crosbyisation of British politics, or the constant distraction from debating political issues in favour of character assassination. To only object when the left is targeted – for example, the Daily Mail's attack on Ed Miliband's father as the "man who hated Britain" – would be insincere and unprincipled. British politics has to be purged of this toxic approach.
That does not mean the personal characteristics of politicians can never be scrutinised if outright hypocrisy is involved. In the 1990s, John Major's Tories invited scrutiny of their complex private lives when they unleashed their "back to basics" family values campaign. Homophobes with a predilection for sleeping with members of the same sex are asking for it, as are politicians who bash benefit recipients while, say, using state expenses to heat their stables.
For those of us who want Ukip defeated politically, we need a different approach. Ukip is an unwieldy coalition that can be unpicked. Its leaders are rightwing libertarians who are passionate about withdrawing from the EU, but for many Ukip voters, the EU isn't even a top three concern, and on economic issues such as public ownership of rail and energy, they are firmly on the left. In our grim national so-called debate about immigrants, Farage may as well have become minister for immigration, and even he has attacked policies such as the Tories' "racist van" for being nasty. It is the insecurities driving the anti-immigration backlash that have to be addressed, such as a lack of affordable housing or secure, well-paid jobs.
But that political debate is the last thing Farage's baiters want. They promote the Ukip-isation of British politics while attempting to crush anything that gets in the way of the Conservative party's electoral plans. It may stick in the craw to defend Farage from these kind of attacks. But if we want a political debate that is honest, clean and about policies rather than personalities, the test is not defending those we agree with from personal attack, but those we bitterly oppose.
Owen Jones is a 'poster boy' for the left these days and he comments on just about every issue under the sun, but in this recent column for the Independent Owen sets out his views on Scottish independence.
Except that he doesn't - in fact Owen says hardly anything about the pros and cons of Scotland becoming an independent country and, instead, accuses the SNP of preparing to hand big business a 'mighty cheque'.
Which is odd because there is a great need to tackle the huge economic imbalance that exists in the UK - to encourage business investment in places other than London and the south east of England - and whether you do that by Scotland offering a lower rate of corporation tax or by some other financial incentive the end result is largely the same.
So what kind of dumb criticism is that to make of the Scottish Government - because big business and governments of all political persuasions has always operated in this way.
The alternative of a loose federation, as Owen describes his dream, is just that - a fantasy - because there are plenty of Labour and Tory MPs at Westminster who are implacably opposed to a further devolution of power to the Scottish Parliament, and areas of England such as Yorkshire and Humber have already rejected proposals for regional government.
And just the other day the Scottish newspapers reported on Labour politicians (some of whom were briefing journalists anonymously) on their resolute opposition to devolving the responsibility for income tax to the Scottish Parliament.
All of which means that Owen Jones doesn't really know what he's talking which, if you ask me, is true on other matters as well.
Owen Jones: What a fairer Scotland would look like
Despite its progressive rhetoric, the SNP would hand big business a mighty cheque
Here’s a column I said I’d never write. The debate about Scotland’s future is one, of course, that the Scottish people alone have to determine, and there are enough London-based English journalists sticking their oar in as it is. But, as the September referendum on independence approaches, it is becoming impossible to ignore, and the implications involve all of us.
I have my own personal reasons for an interest: most of my family live and work north of the Border, and I spent two years of my childhood in Falkirk. In March 1990, my family went to the great Glasgow anti-poll tax march, just one visible expression of seething anger at a Westminster government that Scots did not vote for.
Scotland has changed dramatically. It was once a True Blue stronghold: more than half of Scots voted for the Tory sister party, the Unionists, in the 1950s. But as the grip of religious sectarianism weakened, and de-industrialisation hammered entire communities, Toryism imploded. By the early 1990s, the number of manufacturing jobs left in Glasgow was just a third of the number two decades earlier. A labour movement that once promoted at least some sense of solidarity across Britain’s internal boundaries began to disintegrate.
The disappointments of the New Labour era only compounded a sense of alienation. The Scottish National Party, under Alex Salmond, has – at least in rhetoric – skilfully captured a social-democratic space that was all but abandoned. No wonder nationalism has filled the void. If northern England had a national identity, it too would undoubtedly have a thriving movement in support of independence.
Although the No crowd still have the edge, recent polling suggests the Yes vote is chomping away at its lead. It is poorer Scots – those who have the least stake in modern Britain – who are more likely to advocate independence. Whether separation would improve their living standards is a debate to be had, but a cross next to Yes seems like the ultimate rejection of the status quo.
With independence at least a distinct possibility, corporate interests are warning Scots not to vote the wrong way. Bob Dudley, BP’s chief executive, said this week that his company would face higher costs and that “all businesses have a concern”. The much-loved financial lobby is warning it will have to pay more, too. It it looks like it should be filed under “Likely To Backfire”: an anti-Establishment mood, that is certainly not unique to Scotland, will not be cured by the Establishment appearing to close ranks.
The question is, what would a new Scotland look like? Despite its progressive rhetoric, the SNP would hand big business a mighty cheque in the form of cuts to corporation tax that would out-Osborne the current Tory Chancellor. That could well provoke a Dutch auction on corporation tax with the rump of Britain.
But others in the Yes camp are keen to emphasise that the SNP does not have a monopoly over the independence cause. The Radical Independence Campaign promotes a Scotland that would break away from the free-market status quo. More than 1,000 delegates attended its conference last year, with speakers ranging from representatives from trade unions to Oxfam. They are keen to emphasise their internationalist credentials. “A Yes vote opens up an opportunity for wider and deeper social change, and we are supporting a Yes vote for those reasons,” the RIC’s Jonathon Shafi tells me.
The non-Scottish left panic that secession would saddle them with an eternity of Conservative governments. It comes across as electoral colonialism, that Scottish territory must be preserved because of its left-leaning voting fodder. But the relative weight of the Tory core vote would undoubtedly grow, and Scotland itself may find itself economically dependent on an England whose political centre of gravity has shifted rightwards.
For some – not all – of the Yes camp, support for independence seems to be born out of a sense that the Union is the source of social ills. But it is neo-liberal dogma – which, to varying degrees, has swept practically all industrialised countries – that has given us a low-wage, low-rights, insecure workforce, privatised utilities and services, and a housing crisis. It would be striking, but rather unlikely, if, in the era of globalisation, a small, independent nation managed to break from this without building an outward-looking movement first.
There is something inescapably sad about this situation. Scottish nationalism is one symptom of the tragic decline of a type of politics: of movements based on shared economic interests – of people who really “are all in it together” – rather than national identity, striving to win concessions from those above. The NHS, the welfare state, workers’ rights: all of these gains – now under attack – were won through the joint effort of ordinary Scots, Welsh and English people. But it is just a symptom, and the reality is, for now, as uncomfortable as it is inescapable.
An alternative, of course, would be a loose federation, with the English regions granted substantial autonomy, too, breaking the hegemony of Westminster across the islands. Movements for a living wage, decent housing, publicly run and accountable services and workers’ rights would unite shopworkers in Glasgow with call centre workers in Manchester and Cardiff.
Operation Get Nigel Farage is politics of the lowest form
It sticks in the craw to defend the Ukip leader from the latest smear campaign, but if we want to rid Britain of this toxic approach, we must
By Owen Jones
Ukip leader Nigel Farage gives a press conference at the party's 2014 spring conference. Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images
There are still 382 days before the Queen dissolves parliament, but Operation Get Farage is revving into action. Splashing allegations that he had a "mistress" across the Daily Mail and BBC news bulletins are being justified in the public interest, of course. The former Ukip MEP Nikki Sinclaire exploited the European parliament's immunity from libel law to throw the revelations to a slavering media pack. Farage was fuelling unemployment, she cheekily suggested, by employing both his wife and "former mistress Annabelle Fuller", a suggestion passionately contested by Farage and Fuller.
You don't have to be a fan of Nigel Farage to object to this style of politics. It's personal, lowest common denominator, play-the-man-not-the-ball nonsense, beloved by the likes of Tory spin doctor Lynton Crosby. By all means attack the hypocrisy of a party that rails against the "EU gravy train" while milking its expenses: in 2012, for example, Ukip MEPs claimed nearly £800,000 EU expenses and allowances. Opponents of the state often have the least scruples about taking from it, and given generous donations to the party from Ukip MEPs, it could be justifiably claimed that this virulently Eurosceptic-party is partly EU-funded. But let's not pretend this is anything other than an excuse to discredit Farage via his private life, accompanied with nudge-nudge wink-wink stories about his "womanising" from former colleagues.
It won't work, and will almost certainly be counterproductive. Ukip thrives as an anti-establishment party. How they have achieved it is pretty baffling: Farage's background as a public school-educated former banker hardly distinguishes him from other political leaders, and the Ukip leader has appeared on BBC's Question Time more than any other British politician. But Farage's conscious deviation from the script of how a professional politician is supposed to speak and behave endears him to voters bored of on-message Westminster clones. Voters are more likely to forgive his foibles than they are other politicians'; they can even add to his appeal. The establishment appearing to close ranks will surely help cement Ukip's insurgent image.
But whether it works or not is besides the point. It smacks of the beginning of a re-run of the sort of campaign waged against Nick Clegg in the run-up to the 2010 election. I could barely have less respect for the Liberal Democrat party, a cynical bunch of political opportunists who helped trash what little faith in politics many of the first-time young voters Clegg inspired had. But before election day, the rightwing media decided that there must be a Tory majority government, and the short-lived Cleggmania – when he enjoyed headlines suggesting he was almost as popular as Winston Churchill – was seen as a block on it. He had to be personally discredited. "Nick Clegg in Nazi slur on Britain" was one Daily Mail headline, outrageously misrepresenting a Guardian piece he had written years before. "Is there ANYTHING British about Lib Dem Nick Clegg?" screeched the Mail on Sunday because, among other things, he had a Spanish wife and Dutch mother. Donations that were already in the public domain were portrayed as somehow sinister, and so on.
Today, it is Ukip that are seen as an obstacle to Tory ambitions of a majority at the election, and that's why Get Farage is rolling. You don't have to have any sympathy with Ukip to object to this Crosbyisation of British politics, or the constant distraction from debating political issues in favour of character assassination. To only object when the left is targeted – for example, the Daily Mail's attack on Ed Miliband's father as the "man who hated Britain" – would be insincere and unprincipled. British politics has to be purged of this toxic approach.
That does not mean the personal characteristics of politicians can never be scrutinised if outright hypocrisy is involved. In the 1990s, John Major's Tories invited scrutiny of their complex private lives when they unleashed their "back to basics" family values campaign. Homophobes with a predilection for sleeping with members of the same sex are asking for it, as are politicians who bash benefit recipients while, say, using state expenses to heat their stables.
For those of us who want Ukip defeated politically, we need a different approach. Ukip is an unwieldy coalition that can be unpicked. Its leaders are rightwing libertarians who are passionate about withdrawing from the EU, but for many Ukip voters, the EU isn't even a top three concern, and on economic issues such as public ownership of rail and energy, they are firmly on the left. In our grim national so-called debate about immigrants, Farage may as well have become minister for immigration, and even he has attacked policies such as the Tories' "racist van" for being nasty. It is the insecurities driving the anti-immigration backlash that have to be addressed, such as a lack of affordable housing or secure, well-paid jobs.
But that political debate is the last thing Farage's baiters want. They promote the Ukip-isation of British politics while attempting to crush anything that gets in the way of the Conservative party's electoral plans. It may stick in the craw to defend Farage from these kind of attacks. But if we want a political debate that is honest, clean and about policies rather than personalities, the test is not defending those we agree with from personal attack, but those we bitterly oppose.
Poster Boy Politics (12 February 2014)
Owen Jones is a 'poster boy' for the left these days and he comments on just about every issue under the sun, but in this recent column for the Independent Owen sets out his views on Scottish independence.
Except that he doesn't - in fact Owen says hardly anything about the pros and cons of Scotland becoming an independent country and, instead, accuses the SNP of preparing to hand big business a 'mighty cheque'.
Which is odd because there is a great need to tackle the huge economic imbalance that exists in the UK - to encourage business investment in places other than London and the south east of England - and whether you do that by Scotland offering a lower rate of corporation tax or by some other financial incentive the end result is largely the same.
So what kind of dumb criticism is that to make of the Scottish Government - because big business and governments of all political persuasions has always operated in this way.
The alternative of a loose federation, as Owen describes his dream, is just that - a fantasy - because there are plenty of Labour and Tory MPs at Westminster who are implacably opposed to a further devolution of power to the Scottish Parliament, and areas of England such as Yorkshire and Humber have already rejected proposals for regional government.
And just the other day the Scottish newspapers reported on Labour politicians (some of whom were briefing journalists anonymously) on their resolute opposition to devolving the responsibility for income tax to the Scottish Parliament.
All of which means that Owen Jones doesn't really know what he's talking which, if you ask me, is true on other matters as well.
Owen Jones: What a fairer Scotland would look like
Despite its progressive rhetoric, the SNP would hand big business a mighty cheque
Here’s a column I said I’d never write. The debate about Scotland’s future is one, of course, that the Scottish people alone have to determine, and there are enough London-based English journalists sticking their oar in as it is. But, as the September referendum on independence approaches, it is becoming impossible to ignore, and the implications involve all of us.
I have my own personal reasons for an interest: most of my family live and work north of the Border, and I spent two years of my childhood in Falkirk. In March 1990, my family went to the great Glasgow anti-poll tax march, just one visible expression of seething anger at a Westminster government that Scots did not vote for.
Scotland has changed dramatically. It was once a True Blue stronghold: more than half of Scots voted for the Tory sister party, the Unionists, in the 1950s. But as the grip of religious sectarianism weakened, and de-industrialisation hammered entire communities, Toryism imploded. By the early 1990s, the number of manufacturing jobs left in Glasgow was just a third of the number two decades earlier. A labour movement that once promoted at least some sense of solidarity across Britain’s internal boundaries began to disintegrate.
The disappointments of the New Labour era only compounded a sense of alienation. The Scottish National Party, under Alex Salmond, has – at least in rhetoric – skilfully captured a social-democratic space that was all but abandoned. No wonder nationalism has filled the void. If northern England had a national identity, it too would undoubtedly have a thriving movement in support of independence.
Although the No crowd still have the edge, recent polling suggests the Yes vote is chomping away at its lead. It is poorer Scots – those who have the least stake in modern Britain – who are more likely to advocate independence. Whether separation would improve their living standards is a debate to be had, but a cross next to Yes seems like the ultimate rejection of the status quo.
With independence at least a distinct possibility, corporate interests are warning Scots not to vote the wrong way. Bob Dudley, BP’s chief executive, said this week that his company would face higher costs and that “all businesses have a concern”. The much-loved financial lobby is warning it will have to pay more, too. It it looks like it should be filed under “Likely To Backfire”: an anti-Establishment mood, that is certainly not unique to Scotland, will not be cured by the Establishment appearing to close ranks.
The question is, what would a new Scotland look like? Despite its progressive rhetoric, the SNP would hand big business a mighty cheque in the form of cuts to corporation tax that would out-Osborne the current Tory Chancellor. That could well provoke a Dutch auction on corporation tax with the rump of Britain.
But others in the Yes camp are keen to emphasise that the SNP does not have a monopoly over the independence cause. The Radical Independence Campaign promotes a Scotland that would break away from the free-market status quo. More than 1,000 delegates attended its conference last year, with speakers ranging from representatives from trade unions to Oxfam. They are keen to emphasise their internationalist credentials. “A Yes vote opens up an opportunity for wider and deeper social change, and we are supporting a Yes vote for those reasons,” the RIC’s Jonathon Shafi tells me.
The non-Scottish left panic that secession would saddle them with an eternity of Conservative governments. It comes across as electoral colonialism, that Scottish territory must be preserved because of its left-leaning voting fodder. But the relative weight of the Tory core vote would undoubtedly grow, and Scotland itself may find itself economically dependent on an England whose political centre of gravity has shifted rightwards.
For some – not all – of the Yes camp, support for independence seems to be born out of a sense that the Union is the source of social ills. But it is neo-liberal dogma – which, to varying degrees, has swept practically all industrialised countries – that has given us a low-wage, low-rights, insecure workforce, privatised utilities and services, and a housing crisis. It would be striking, but rather unlikely, if, in the era of globalisation, a small, independent nation managed to break from this without building an outward-looking movement first.
There is something inescapably sad about this situation. Scottish nationalism is one symptom of the tragic decline of a type of politics: of movements based on shared economic interests – of people who really “are all in it together” – rather than national identity, striving to win concessions from those above. The NHS, the welfare state, workers’ rights: all of these gains – now under attack – were won through the joint effort of ordinary Scots, Welsh and English people. But it is just a symptom, and the reality is, for now, as uncomfortable as it is inescapable.
An alternative, of course, would be a loose federation, with the English regions granted substantial autonomy, too, breaking the hegemony of Westminster across the islands. Movements for a living wage, decent housing, publicly run and accountable services and workers’ rights would unite shopworkers in Glasgow with call centre workers in Manchester and Cardiff.
An old dream, yes. But still one worth fighting for.
