Shades of Brown

As you probably know if you are reading this, I am the singer and guitar player in a pop band. Consequently, I find it hard to find a justification for writing about politics. I feel fine with economics as it is at the heart of pop music; fine with religion for similar reasons. I feel fine attacking the postmodern theories of the intellectual elite because plenty of half-baked pop musicians have ineptly deployed them and I feel entitled to reply. I feel fine, also, attacking shallow anti-americanism, programmeless anti-globalism and silly adolescent brands of socialism because these too are the playthings of dilletante pop musicians.

Where I stumble is attempting to write about real politics where people stand for elections and make changes in that thin band of policy that actually affects people. Why should my opinion on such things be worth knowing about? I don’t know. I suspect they aren’t. But, all the same, for one blog only, I shall tell you what I think about the Prime Minister and then we can all move on.

I fucking hate the Prime Minister.

I say this as a dyed-in-the-wool labour party supporter. I discovered that I was one of those while voting in 2005 and finding out that any notions of voting otherwise were simply inconcievable. My Dad is a union lawyer, I’ve been to parties with Neil Kinnock and funerals with John Prescott, My heart welled with glee when Stephen Twigg won Portillo’s seat in ‘97 and it shrank with dismay when he lost it to David Burrowes in 2005. I dislike Tories, even the ones I like, because they are Tories and that’s how it is.

More than that, I am (in the short term at least) New Labour. Eventually I should like to see the abolition of menial work, the abandoning of all borders and the universal application of mechanised of welfare divorcing a basic level of free living from economic participation maximising liberty while encouraging scientific innovation – but, for now, I believe in equality and protection for members of involuntary minorities; I believe that there are market solutions for many social problems but that society is obliged to maintain a basic living standard for all; I believe in a strong transatlantic alliance, I believe that human rights are universal and worth defending; I believe in coming to terms with the transformations that were the result of Thatcher’s cruelties and ploughing on with a tweaked mixed economy… In other words, until Bob ushers in the age of Slack, I am of the Blairite, third-way, centre-left.

I believe, also, that a Tory victory at the next election will hurt people. There is a pernicious myth that the two main parties are basically the same. This is not true, but - even if it were the case that the leaders of both believed and acted identically - there is no end of difference between a man who, when forced to compromise to please his base, makes concessions to Trade Unions, Peaceniks and Liberty and a man who would do the same for little-Englanders, Daily Mail readers and racists. There is a gap and the recession is widening it. You probably do not fall into that gap, but millions do and a Tory government will hurt them while you glibly pontificate on how the parties are identical.

Gordon Brown though. Ugh.

It was obvious all along. The nonsense about abolishing boom and bust. The ineptness of his spin. The sulkiness. The facial tics. The airless speeches. The smirking pretence at contentment. The self-satisfied promotion of a ludicrous ‘iron-chancellor’ image… He is the living embodiment of the Peter Principle which sees managers promoted to the level of their own incompetence.

It was never at all relevant that he was ‘competent’ anyway. There are a great many people who are competent waiting to be employed. The man does not understand the British people. He does not understand the we are a nation of skiving chancers who like to be told that we are hard working – not a nation of hard working people. He does not get that we are increasingly connected by the internet, media and its currencies and that we do not know anybody else who would call her ‘Jane’ Goody. He doesn’t understand that poorly delivered, badly written jokes about Peter Mandelson getting doused in custard are fine for Peter Mandelson but beneath an elected prime minister and head of government. The man cannot lead.

People used to criticise spin, but spin was not the problem. Good spin can inspire, can enable democracy, can broaden understanding. Good spin is Henry V at agincourt, Obama’s oratorical tours of wheatfields and aircraft carriers, Kennedy’s inaugural, men on the moon. Bad spin was always the problem – weasly and obvious, seeking to distort rather than present. Brown is horribly spun and hopelessly unspinnable. He appears contemptuous, dishonest and small. He is unlikeable and cannot be made to appear otherwise.

The job of Prime Minister is not to tinker and control but to communicate an agenda and steer its passage. Brown can’t do either and he will lose the next election because of it. The labour party must act now, as it should have months ago. Ditch him. Pick a successor. Call an election. Lose it. Let the Tories mismanage the recession for five years and then take the country back. There really is no other choice.

I shall go back to fiddling with effects pedals now.