Trusting the People
Lots of people on the 'left' of politics like to demonise the Tories, as if they all want to send children back up chimneys again and water the workers' beer, just for fun.
But Daniel Finkelstein is someone I would have over to dinner anytime because is unafraid to laugh at himself and fellow politicians without being nasty or offensive.
I missed the 'clanger' dropped by Labour's John McTernan in the post-budget debate and I agree with the 'Fink's' observation that John is a thoroughly decent chap.
Yet his comment about not being able to trust people with their own money was a blunder of epic proportions, the kind of thing that politicians say when they think no one is listening such as the time during the last general election campaign when Gordon Brown describe a female voter, pensioner Gillian Duffy, as "a bigoted woman"
And that didn't end too well for Labour either.
Notebook
One of my most comforting pieces of self-deception is that I’ve really learnt my lesson. I’ve made some stupid, naive political errors but if I were still in that line of work I wouldn’t have made the same mistakes. I am so much wiser now. And tougher.
Which is what makes “Pronoungate” so depressing.
After the Budget the Conservative Party chairman distributed an advertisement on social media promoting the cuts in bingo tax and beer duty as measures that would “help hardworking people do more of the things they enjoy”.
And it, erm, caused a bit of a fuss. Apparently it was patronising. And the use of the word “they” was described by a left-wing columnist, who extracted an entire column out of it, as “the fatal pronoun”.
I was asked about it on television and realised, with a terrible sinking feeling, that if I had still been working in Conservative HQ, I’d have signed it off.
“We’d like to do this ad on bingo and beer.” Mmm, yes, whatever, sounds fine, go ahead Damien with an “e”. “Do you think it’s all right to say ‘they’ about hardworking people, Danny?” Pardon? Oh, I see what you mean. Yes, yes, who is going to care about that? We can hardly say we are going to help hard-working people do more of what “we” want, can we?
I am still as hopeless as ever.
A bit of a clanger
At least this was only theoretical incompetence. Incompetence I would have displayed if I had the opportunity. This can’t be said about the incident with John McTernan.
John is a former adviser to Tony Blair and very sharp indeed. But he stumbled slightly after the Budget when trying to explain his view of the Chancellor’s new pension policy. “You cannot trust people to spend their own money wisely,” he said, in the process of making a bigger, more complicated point.
This statement has become something of a story, picked up by astute political journalists. I missed it entirely.
A failure of political observation that would have been perfectly understandable if he hadn’t said it on live television with me sitting right beside him. More than theoretical incompetence.
Generation gap
I did slightly better appearing at the London School of Economics, as part of the celebrations for the opening of a new student centre. By which I mean that I didn’t knock over my glass of water or fall off my chair.
The head of the student union, Jay Stoll, had dug up articles I had written in the student newspaper when I was there in the early 1980s. In one of them I had argued that it would be a good idea if the union spent less time sending stupid letters to foreign governments advising them what to do and more time trying to get the sandwiches right in the student coffee bar.
Jay said he laughed when he read that, because he had only that day been instructed by his members to send a letter to Vladimir Putin, urging him not to invade Crimea. Nothing changes, he said.
It does, I replied. When I was a student, the union would have sent a letter to Putin encouraging him to invade Crimea.
Double finking
My brother appeared before the Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology this week and I went along for support.
Professor Finkelstein and I look and sound exactly like each other, and I was seated right behind him, sitting up a little straighter each time his name was mentioned.
So afterwards I was a bit surprised when a member of the committee asked why I had attended. “To support my brother,” I said. “Really?” he replied. “Which one was he?”
One of my most comforting pieces of self-deception is that I’ve really learnt my lesson. I’ve made some stupid, naive political errors but if I were still in that line of work I wouldn’t have made the same mistakes. I am so much wiser now. And tougher.
Which is what makes “Pronoungate” so depressing.
After the Budget the Conservative Party chairman distributed an advertisement on social media promoting the cuts in bingo tax and beer duty as measures that would “help hardworking people do more of the things they enjoy”.
And it, erm, caused a bit of a fuss. Apparently it was patronising. And the use of the word “they” was described by a left-wing columnist, who extracted an entire column out of it, as “the fatal pronoun”.
I was asked about it on television and realised, with a terrible sinking feeling, that if I had still been working in Conservative HQ, I’d have signed it off.
“We’d like to do this ad on bingo and beer.” Mmm, yes, whatever, sounds fine, go ahead Damien with an “e”. “Do you think it’s all right to say ‘they’ about hardworking people, Danny?” Pardon? Oh, I see what you mean. Yes, yes, who is going to care about that? We can hardly say we are going to help hard-working people do more of what “we” want, can we?
I am still as hopeless as ever.
A bit of a clanger
At least this was only theoretical incompetence. Incompetence I would have displayed if I had the opportunity. This can’t be said about the incident with John McTernan.
John is a former adviser to Tony Blair and very sharp indeed. But he stumbled slightly after the Budget when trying to explain his view of the Chancellor’s new pension policy. “You cannot trust people to spend their own money wisely,” he said, in the process of making a bigger, more complicated point.
This statement has become something of a story, picked up by astute political journalists. I missed it entirely.
A failure of political observation that would have been perfectly understandable if he hadn’t said it on live television with me sitting right beside him. More than theoretical incompetence.
Generation gap
I did slightly better appearing at the London School of Economics, as part of the celebrations for the opening of a new student centre. By which I mean that I didn’t knock over my glass of water or fall off my chair.
The head of the student union, Jay Stoll, had dug up articles I had written in the student newspaper when I was there in the early 1980s. In one of them I had argued that it would be a good idea if the union spent less time sending stupid letters to foreign governments advising them what to do and more time trying to get the sandwiches right in the student coffee bar.
Jay said he laughed when he read that, because he had only that day been instructed by his members to send a letter to Vladimir Putin, urging him not to invade Crimea. Nothing changes, he said.
It does, I replied. When I was a student, the union would have sent a letter to Putin encouraging him to invade Crimea.
Double finking
My brother appeared before the Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology this week and I went along for support.
Professor Finkelstein and I look and sound exactly like each other, and I was seated right behind him, sitting up a little straighter each time his name was mentioned.
So afterwards I was a bit surprised when a member of the committee asked why I had attended. “To support my brother,” I said. “Really?” he replied. “Which one was he?”
