Since the coalition got together two and a half weeks ago, David Laws has been praised as a 'talented politician' and has been widely tipped to be the next big thing. There's something curious about the media in that certain phrases and wisdoms become established without anyone knowing (or even asking) why.
This talented politician has since been involved in a post-expenses scandal whereby he has been claiming 40 grand (over a number of years) to pay his secret male partner...it all sounds a bit dated.
Since the media are currently enamoured with the Lib-Con coalition, the reaction to his resignation (surely the only possible outcome) has been hugely bizarre. It's as if David Laws has somehow been wronged. The government, so we are told, is losing a hugely talented individual with a glittering career ahead of him (it's so easy to churn out these cliches...I'm doing it in a stream of consciousness as I sip a cup of tea on a rainy Sunday morning).
There are several points to make in this respect:
Firstly, the reactions are in stark contrast to the reactions to the expenses scandal last year. Jacqui Smith's £10 claim for her husbands porn was met with such incredible indignation as if it constituted some constitutional crisis. There were plenty of other examples of over the top reactions; two others that come to mind were Menzies Campbell slightly high bill for food expenditure and Chris Huhne's trouser press. With the exception of a few clearly criminal offences, the expenses scandal was an anti-democratic media frenzy during which people utterly lost any perspective.
What's interesting is that David Laws' talent has embezzled 40k, which probably makes up about 100 trouser presses and 8,000 porn films for Jacqui Smith's husband. Yet last year's claims were an outrage, whereas Laws' claim is a personal tragedy. Brecht's saying about banks and debt comes to mind, only with a slight variation (a millionaire embezzles a lot of money and it becomes a tragedy).
Then there's the diversion towards his hidden sexuality. While this is, on a personal level, a little sad, it doesn't and shouldn't concern the public, and in any case the link between claiming 40k and hiding one's sexuality is utterly unclear and in fact nonsensical (though it's accepted uncritically in the media).
Now, finally, there's the whole trope of David Laws being talented. Is he? Here's his story: He takes the classical route of public school education followed by Cambridge and then becomes an investment banker, then VP and MD at JP Morgan. He was also head of US Dollar and Sterling Treasuries at Barclays de Zoete Wedd (wiki) from 1992 onwards.
So Laws has a firm rooting in neoliberal practices and processes. But there's more still: In 2004 he co-edited the infamous Orange Book - a neoliberal blueprint for a new generation of Liberal Democrats who began to follow a similar path the neoliberal extremists in Germany (FDP). Contributions to this book were made by the Sainted Vince Cable, Nick Clegg, Ed Davey, Susan Kramer, Chris Huhne and others. In short most of those who are now in positions of power. A Coincidence? Absolutely not. Clegg, Laws, Cable, Huhne and others plotted to turn the Liberal Democrats into a neoliberal party and succeeded (while stabbing Kennedy and others in the back on the way). One might even argue that David Laws is probably more to the right than David Cameron is.
I had an inkling before the election that this marriage might take place (this orange book business has been nagging me since it first gained prominence in 2005), but now the deal's been done, it's so obvious: The coalition is not that far-fetched. It's the ultimate neoliberal coalition. Add to that the 55% needed in the house to call a new election and it looks like this stranglehold on British politics is set to continue.
In any case, having made millions out of that very rotten neoliberal system that has caused these, Laws then has the gall to announce public spending cuts (and would have continued to do so had this revelation not emerged) while pocketing 40k off the tax payer. But the media outrage is muted. Instead, they bemoan the passing of a 'talented' politician.
It can only be hoped that such 'talented' individuals like David Laws (talented means: neoliberal doctrinaires) continue to fall by the wayside, though judging by the media fawning and lovey-dovey towards this coalition, it might just be a short lived joy.
14 comments:
Hi Olching
As you know, like you I was one of the few people (on CiF) who thought that the expenses scandal involved some hysterical over-reactions and was underpinned by an anti-politics and anti-democrracy agenda. And from that point of view I completely agree that the discussion of Laws is a marked contrast, whilst also showing that the agenda of the likes of the Telegraph remains as it was.
On the wider politics of the coalition, frankly, I got it wrong. I was sure that if there was a hung parliament there would be a LIB-Lab coalition - as indeed there might have been had the arithemetic been a bit different and had there not been the extraordinary press offensive against the bare possibility in the days after the election. Whether that would have led to a led neo-liberalised politics is another matter, given New Labour's record - but there were some signs in the dog days of the last government that some in Labour had recognized the error of their ways.
Instead, the Lib-Cob coalition is more clearly neo-lib than ever - even the (to me) welcome sidelining of the Tory Europhiles and social traditionalists can really be read as a consolidation of that. Of course it is easy to see why Laws appealed to neo-lib Tories: he is in every respect but one inseparable in his politics from them. That one dimension - which now explains the puzzle of why he didn't become a Tory politician in the first place - is his sexuality.
Peter G.
Hi Peter,
Yes, I think it's a neat narrative that has emerged regarding the expenses saga.
I think most people got it wrong (myself included really; I only had an inkling and a deep distrust of the orange bookers, and happily didn't vote for them).
I have a similar impression to yours: Towards the end of Brown's PM-ship, there seemed to be a reversal of some of the more drastic neoliberal measures. I suppose it's no coincidence that the anti-Brown media frenzy really took off as a result of this.
He was fine (by media and city standards) as long as he was doing neoliberalism (as chancellor), but once he reassessed, they turned on him.
On Laws: The less we see of him the better. This is a really nice moment to see such a doctrinaire fall on his sword. Of course it doesn't solve the wider problem, but still, a great moment to remember.
His sexuality is probably the only thing that kept him away from the Tory Party, I think you are right. And by the way, Laws' handling of this case has most likely done homosexuals a huge disservice, because he's presenting his sexuality as a 'problem' to the public, and thus everyone is talking about his 'difficulties' but not about his ideology or the rank hypocrisy he has shown.
Good riddance to the bastard!
"he co-edited the infamous Orange Book.."
Wow. "Liberal Democrats promote liberalism in "Party lives up to name" shocker!" (unlike so-called "Conservatives" and "Labourites", I might add!).
And yes the relatively sympathetic treatment Laws has received compared to those involved in last year's expenses "scandal" does smack of double-standards, but I think this can be attributed in the main to the goodwill being extended to an incoming government, as opposed to the ill-will extended to a tired and unpopular one (remember how Blair got off rather lightly in the Ecclestone affair after all those years of "Tory Sleaze"?).
His sexuality has no doubt got him more sympathy than you would normally expect in episode of this kind, but I don't think that the contention that if he hadn't been gay he would have been a Tory really holds up (except as a means to make it easier to despise him in a "He's a Tory really! Yah! Boo!" kind of way, of course!).
(Is "Peter" "PeterGuillam?" If so then I have to say that I watched "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" on DVD recently and in so doing I twigged where your user name came from. Up until then I thought it was your real name. Doh!)
Hello Olching,
just come across your blog for the first time. A very good article, expanding on what you had argued on a couple of CiF threads.
Where you say:
It can only be hoped that such 'talented' individuals like David Laws (talented means: neoliberal doctrinaires) continue to fall by the wayside, though judging by the media fawning and lovey-dovey towards this coalition, it might just be a short lived joy.
is key for me in terms of the post political landscape of Westminster. Like Mandelson and his Frank Sinatra-like comebacks, British Politics is now an ethics free zone.
It doesn't matter that what Laws committed was an enormous breach of regulations and trust in terms of his ministerial post combined with breathtaking hypocrisy, he'll be back as Clegg and Cameron have virtually said anyway.
In the soft focus world of neo-liberalist managerialism, breaches of political ethics and trust are of much less consequence than "are you on message and will you deliver on this message?" summed up in Thatcher's 80's mantra:
is he one of us?
Hi olching - sorry about Laws but perspective calls:
"As a result of this life-threatening and violent activity, naval forces employed riot dispersal means, including live fire."
WTF?????
Hi PatD
Yes, this is Peter Guillam and, yes, the name comes from Le Carre.
The point about 'party lives up to name shock horror' is surely that out of the many diverse strands of liberalism, the orange bookers chose to promulgate a very particular, neo-liberal strand at odds with some/many in their party (indeed, that was its purpose - to shift the party towards neo-liberalism). And of course don't forget that the LDs were formed in part from the incorporation of elements of the SDP and to that extent, too, the orange book liberals were effecting a significant shift in their party's positioning.
On the new government being cut some slack because it is new (cf New Labour/Ecclestone), well it isn't quite the same thing. Pre-97 the sleaze scandals had been very much 'Tory sleaze' and in that sense, yes, the new government got cut some slack. But the expenses scandal was not associated with any particular party - at least in principle - and so there is no particular reason why the new government should be treated differently to the old.
But in any case, my view, and I think Olching's, of the scandal was that it was primarily animated by a populist anti-politicians sentiment and - leaving to one side the relatively kinder ride Laws has got - that sentiment is clearly alive and kicking at the DT, who are now gunning for Danny Alexander. They speak for, and to, a particular sentiment on the right of the Tory party that, bizarrely from my perspective, sees the Coalition as 'left-wing' - the kind of view exemplified by people like Simon Heffer, Melanie Phillips, Norman Tebbitt and so on who seem to regard as illegitimate any government other than one of the far right (I don't mean in the BNP sense) - the danger in the process is that they encourage a view that all parliamentary government is illegitimate. There is a very nasty end game there and I think it may not be too long before we hear the same kinds of voices that were raised in the 1970s, questioning the legitimacy of the democratic state and looking to the military to restore order. Of course those were fairly marginal voices at that time, but 40 years on if we get the kind of economic depression and social dislocation that, without wanting to be too Cassandra-like - I can see coming in the next few years then those voices may become considerably more influential.
Hi Pat,
PeterG has more or less answered some of the points you raised.
I would add perhaps that the sympathy accorded him is not merely because of his sexuality (which - as mentioned - I see as more problematic, since he has now presented homosexuality as a 'problem' in public life) but because of his proximity to the city, media, and neoliberalism.
To some an extent there is always a feeling of a 'new' beginning under a new government (even Brown enjoyed it for about three months), but as Peter points out, this is a cross-party issue, and the LibDems have presented themselves as whiter than white (Laws explicitly so - least expenses claimed in Somerset & Dorset!).
As for liberalism, well neoliberalism is a particular brand of neoliberalism (and a very illiberal one at that), so the orange book revolution has been a marked shift to the right for the LibDems (just look around: all the left-liberal voices (the Dems) are marginalised and rarely get a look-in: Kennedy, Tether, Campbell etc).
@13thDuke:
Welcome here.
Yes, and that question works across all parties. It's like the chairmen of football clubs; the history is irrelevant, what matters is the managerialism (Peter Kenyon is the ultimate neoliberal in that respect - a switch from Man Utd to Chelsea; or worse still: Adam Crozier. Laws, Blair, Cameron, Clegg, Purnell they could have equally ended up in different political parties).
@parallax:
I know, it's incredible. The worst thing is that nothing will come of this. Even if we allow for a bit of context, the fact is that this happened on international waters and looks like an execution commando. It's truly sickening, particularly since there were Holocaust survivors on that ship (and may be among the dead, who knows...and if they are then they will have to be turned into terrorists subsequently...so much for Israel's alleged custodianship of the Holocaust).
@PeterG:
Yes, we shared that view on the anti-democratic frenzy surrounding the expenses scandal. There were some cases were outright fraud had been committed, but in many cases it was a matter of whipping up a frenzy over too many sandwiches.
Your reference to the pro-military 'patriotism' of the 1970s is quite something. I hadn't thought that far ahead, but it's a truly worrying thought. I was thinking more along the lines of oligarchies (in the media) de facto undermining and channelling the democratic process (happening to some limited extent already), but that thought hadn't occurred to me.
Peter, Olching
I actually agree with you that the whole expenses scandal was largely bound up with a somewhat worrying trend towards a cynical anti-politics in general and I said as much at the time. Which is why a disagree with you in your assessment of the motivation behind the relative leniency being accorded to Laws, which strikes me as well, cynical anti-politics on your part, if you don't mind me saying so.
Regarding Liberalism, don't forget that "nasty" neo-liberalism and "nice" social liberalism are both predicated on the same underling notion that man's interests are best served by granting him the maximum of autonomy over his own affairs (whether they be economic or social). In this respect, the "gay banker" would probably represent the epitome of what it means to be progressive, modern and liberal in this day and age.
Peter is correct though is noting the fomenting dissatisfaction among right wing politicians and commentators. Whether or not you see the new government as "left-wing" or "right-wing" depends of course your perspective of where the centre lies, as I'm sure you'll concede. I think Cameron is quite comfortable with the current arrangement, as it puts him in the "centre" of the coalition (rather than on the left of his own party). If the coalition proves successful, it would be quite easy to imagine a formal merger of the Tories and Lib Dems (with maybe a few New Labourites jumping aboard) which would be the "natural" party of government to preside over the Liberal consensus. This would lead right-wing Tories to split off and form their own party and push Labour to the left. Both of these would be largely unelectable during "normal" times, leaving them both secretly wishing for the kind of breakdown Peter was alluding to, giving them the chance to impose their authoritarianism/radicalism (delete as appropriate), which they would never have for as long as life is proceeding as normal....
Pat:
Which is why a disagree with you in your assessment of the motivation behind the relative leniency being accorded to Laws, which strikes me as well, cynical anti-politics on your part, if you don't mind me saying so.
Well, there needs to be some kind of explanation, has there not? I think the suggestion that he's cosy with the city and neoliberal-friendly media sounds about right.
In any case, his position as prime cutter makes his claims look rather more problematic than, say, that of Jacqui Smith's £10 or Chris Huhne's trouser press (see: not even a party political point).
The fact that Laws has played on his image of the whiter-than-white poster-boy means he deserves all he gets.
I do agree that there's a wider agenda at play here, and the 'revelations' regarding Danny Alexander clearly highlight the anti-democratic nature of this frenzy.
But in Laws case, it was absolutely right (and the rather tepid fervour with which the Telegraph and others treated him suggests that he was their least favourite kill for all the reasons mentioned above).
Your point on social liberalism is neat, but I'm not sure I completely buy it. After all, social liberalism is also about the social - i.e. not the individual. In Laws' case, clearly, he believed his individual liberty trumped social liberty.
Finally, the perspective. No, it can only be interpreted as right-wing. People like Phillips or Tebbitt might see it as not enough right-wing, but there notion of it being left-wing is disingenuous (a bit like calling Obama a socialist - those who call him that know he isn't, but it's a good way of discrediting him; I think similar tactics are being used here by the lunatic fringe of the Tory Party - ostensibly the centre ground of UKIP).
Finally, without real hard evidence, I suspect the majority of voters voted for a centre-left kind of politics and not for the Lib-Con style neoliberalism (the LibDems have been ever so cunning in that respect - pretending to be one thing and then revealing the opposite - although all the pointers were there already, of course).
If it's successful, well yes, then it might shift the ground. But I cannot foresee this neoliberal madness as being beneficial to the majority of British voters (or non-voters).
So all that ought to happen is that the Lib voters turn Tory while the Dem voters turn Labour (and I think suspect are Dems than Libs that have voted for them...).
PatD
On your point about the shared basis of economic and social liberalism (and hence your criticism of the argument that the orange book championship of economic liberalism does not entail an elevation of one particular version of liberalism): I agree that some liberals would take this view. But they do not necessarily go together. Yes, both are based on the notion of autonomous pursuit of self-interest, to my mind a highly problematic notion (but that is wider debate) the problems of which become apparent even for liberals when they try to run economic and social liberalism together. An obvious example is that whereas X being a homosexual does not impinge in any real way upon Y’s ability to be a heterosexual, X’s wealth can more easily be seen to impinge on Y’s poverty. So although some liberals would indeed espouse the connection you suggest, others are committed to social liberalism whilst being at least suspicious of economic liberalism – in the present day LDs Kennedy and Hughes would both be examples, I suppose. There are equally, but more often within the Tory party, those who are socially illiberal whilst being economically liberal – this, in fact, was more or less Thatcher’s position, and accounts in large part for the incoherence of Thatcherism as a political ideology since it fails to recognize how economic liberalism corrodes traditional social values – the critique that ‘Red Tory’ Philip Blond makes of Thatcherism, in fact.
But the more important point is that not all Liberalism is defined by the negative conception of liberty you are referring to – there has always been a strand which has advocated positive liberty and in many cases seen this in terms of the enabling role of the state. Historically examples would include Joseph Chamberlain, Keynes, Lloyd George, Beveridge, and gave rise to much of the state welfare and economic management systems of the 20th century as a result of this conception of Liberalism.
So I still think it is reasonable to see the orange bookers as having promulgated a very particular version of Liberalism and it is this version which, by and large, is driving the LDs present coalition with the Tories.
Good piece.
My only quibble would be putting the word talent in inverted commas.
Being wrong, bad or even evil does not mean that someone cannot be talented.
It is all about how the talent is put to use.
Brilliant my a*se.
All you had to do to get a first in economics in any British university in the 1980s was spout neoliberal dogma, say a few nasty things about the state, do a few schoolboy equations, bung in a few references to Hayek and Friedman and Hey Presto!
- questionnaire
Peter, you say:
"Yes, both are based on the notion of autonomous pursuit of self-interest, to my mind a highly problematic notion"
I agree with that and this may explain why I find "socialists" more congenial than "liberals" (there - I've said it!). That said, there remains a big problem with notions such as "positive" liberty, and "greater good", in that they need a consensus to agree on in what these positive freedoms actually consist, which after all is what led JS Mill to abandon Utilitarianism in favour of a philosophy based on negative freedoms and the "harm" principle, (another problematic notion in itself, of course), and I would maintain that a political philosophy based on "positive" freedoms owe more to "social democracy" than they do to Liberalism. In this respect, I feel that the "Orange Book" crowd fall squarely within the Liberal tradition, and criticisms of their "illiberality" don't really hold up.
Re: Thatcherism. Now, Maggie may have been a social conservative at heart, and she may have believed, naively, and somewhat vaguely, that a return to laissez faire economics would have dragged "Victorian" morality trailing in its wake, but I don't think this was a particularly big issue for her, nor for most of her followers (who were, for the most part, and this point needs emphasising, radical liberals, and not conservatives), and I think that this is borne out by the evidence. (Was Britain more socially conservative in 1997 that it was in 1979? I really don’t think so...).
PatD
OK, well then we aren't going to get anywhere if you take the position that advocates of positive liberty are not, by definition, liberals. But that does mean, as per my previous post, that the likes of Keynes, Beveridge and Lloyd George have to be ruled out of the Liberal pantheon.
So far as Thatcher is concerned I owuld say that her linkage of laissez-faire economics and 'Victorian' morality was central to here creed (see Joel Krieger, Regan, Thatcher and the Politics of Decline - sorry don't have full reference to hand). And your point about Britain being less socially conservative in 1997 than it had been in 1979 is exactly what I meant by the incoherence of Thatcherism: the promotion of economic liberalism necessarily proved corrosive of social traditionalism.
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