It all comes back to this

Having been away yesterday on family business I was denied my weekly ritual of watching Prime Minister’s Question from the comfort of my favourite armchair and consequently only learned of the Government U-turn over the Budget’s intended hike in NI contributions for the self-employed from a random notification received on my smartphone. Overnight I then caught up with the gruesome details by internet-hopping around the broadsheet websites.

There’s no doubt that – on the scale of political cock-ups – this was a big ‘un and all the more enjoyable for that.

I wish I had been watching the BBC’s Daily Politics coverage of PMQ’s to watch the moment when Rory Stewart, the international development minister, who had drawn the short straw in appearing on the programme to defend the Budget proposal, was quietly informed with relish by Andrew Neil live on air of the newsflash that the Government has just announced the retreat and then felt obliged to say how relieved he was that this volte-face had happened.

Watching politicians making a Grade A horlickses and then trying to cover up the fact they’ve made a complete U-turn by seeking to hoodwink the public into thinking that it was all a pre-arranged move in furtherance of a well-thought out plan that was still in working order, when in fact we all know it was a classic ‘on the hoof’ botch-up job designed to minimise the political damage they’d inflicted upon themselves, gives those of us with a cynical approach to these things a quiet sense of grim satisfaction.

Not because they’ve made a bog-up per se, but because it only goes to reinforce the fundamental theme that politics (and all that goes with it) is just a game.

Forget principles, what’s ‘right’, what’s good for the country, or good for the economy of the world, or even the future of human civilisation – the ‘truth’ of the matter for our lords and masters is that it’s all about ‘being in politics’, i.e. getting nominated as a candidate, hopefully getting elected (whether to a local county council or as an MP), getting to hob-knob around in Parliament perhaps and thereby perhaps becoming part of the Establishment.

And then perhaps for the talented and lucky few, the chance to ‘get into power’, become a minister or more, and ‘leave a mark on the world’. And be important, get paid for doing it, get a gong perhaps and end up with healthy pension – possibly even a seat in the House of Lords – all paid for by a grateful nation of taxpayers.

The only mystifying aspect is that anyone is ever surprised at any of it.

Let’s take a tour around some of the facts and myths.

That the Labour Party government of Tony Blair deliberately opened the floodgates of untrammelled immigration in the hope of filing up the country with grateful low-end foreign workers who would thereafter ensure that Labour would rule forever.

That the dastardly Tory-proposed ‘reform’ to equalise all constituencies as 50,000 electors was a devious device designed to ensure that they – rather than Labour – became the natural party of government for the next thirty years.

That Labour’s stunning loss in the recent Copeland by election in Cumbria (where the nuclear industry is king) was directly caused by Jeremy Corbyn’s well-known antipathy to nuclear power.

That in Gordon Brown’s days of yore (remember them?) Labour seemingly felt obliged to counter George Osborne’s new much-heralded, and popular – that’s the important bit – announcement that the threshold for inheritance tax would be raised to £1 million by a new Tory government by announcing that Labour would do likewise.

What’s my point in all this – what is the common thread?

Just that for all the research by experts in every relevant discipline, focus group-testing, policy- wonk committees and sheer sweat produced in developing new policy ideas, the real goal is not so much what will work or make things better, but what will gain votes for the party that cobbling them together as a package to present to the UK electorate at the next election.

For (you see) the challenge is never quite whether or not you can come up with a superior policy to your political opponents, but whether you can, on the one hand, retain your current political support and, on the other, find ways in which you can bring in more tax with which to funds things and/or, even more importantly, attract new support.

Why did anyone think that Surrey County Council, which – following a new Government push-down (“deal with your local social care crises by increasing your council tax”) policy – was planning a referendum on its plan to raise council tax by 15%, suddenly received some grubby deal from the Government in February to receive sufficient funding that they wouldn’t have either have a referendum or indeed raise such huge amounts of local tax?

Because they didn’t want to frighten or antagonise the horses, of course!

(The ‘horses’ being local, grass-root, solid Tory voters).

Lastly, to finish with, mention has already been made in the Rust of the stupendous own goal scored by the House of Lords in letting the cameras in to make a three-part documentary about its members and what it actually does (BBC2’s Meet The Lords).

The conceit – totally ill-founded, of course – which so often afflicts even intelligent and sensible people in all walks of life and organisations, is that (by letting them see what really goes on) the public will immediately be convinced of how valuable, important and cost-efficient it all is.

When in fact – at least 7 times out of 10 – quite the opposite impression will be given.

It seems that as usual the Rust leads the way.

Here’s a link to a review of Meet The Lords by eminent broadcaster and former equal opportunities guru Trevor Phillips that appears today upon the website of the – DAILY MAIL