Why the bullying mob of today's politics makes me pleased I'm retiring next year

Many readers will know I'm retiring from the council - from politics - in May next year. There are lots of reasons for this (the main one being my wife saying, when asked what she was doing today, "what part of retired don't you understand?"). But another reason is that, while politics has always been unpleasant - check out Gillray's cartoons if you think this a new thing - we are now in an age where the culture of the bully is triumphant. Most importantly, the target of the bullies is now the personal and private not the public and political. It's noteworthy that the very first response of the Labour Party to the Conservatives selecting Shaun Bailey, a working-class black Londoner, as their candidate for Mayor of London is to construct a personal attack - not about policies but a trawl through Twitter to find something, anything, that puts Bailey in a bad light. We can be sure that somewhere in Labour HQ (or City Hall) there's somebody tasked with digging dirt about Bailey - not just daft things he might have said but a trawl through the sewers looking for people who'll have some hard to dismiss story.

Looking over the pond at the recent US Senate hearings for Brett Kavanaugh we see the end game of this bullying culture. A process supposed to examine professional suitability, qualification and experience hijacked by a process of politically-driven character assassination. An assassination sweetly wrapped up in a candy coating of women's rights, "me too" and concerns about historic sexual abuse. It may be that I am a cynic but, while I understand why three decades ago, many accusations of sexual assault wouldn't get the serious response from the police they get today, I can't understand why the allegation was presented to a newspaper and a democratic member of congress not to an authority able to investigate, arrest and make charges?

It may be that all the accusations here are true (and please can we stop with the entirely faith-based "I believe the woman" nonsense) but it still reminds us that all of us - and especially politicians on the right - will be subject to this sort of bullying examination. I note the justifications from hangers on to the bullying mobs braying for blood - "structural oppression", "listening to victims", "privilege". Some of it - "privileged white men roaring themselves puce" - is almost poetic. But none of it hides the jarring reality that this is not about justice, indeed it is quite the opposite - justice is set aside because of who the target is (rich, right-wing, male). The very identity of the target is enough to justify ignoring the normal rules of decency and law - they are right wing therefore they are, in the eyes of the righteous mob, sinners to be destroyed - "In every restaurant, shop, office, corridor and street" as The Guardian's Caitlin Moran Tweeted echoing John McDonnell's call to violence:

He told the Unite the Resistance rally that elected Conservative MPs should be targeted because they are “social criminals”.

Mr McDonnell added: “I want to be in a situation where no Tory MP, no Tory or MP, no Coalition minister can travel anywhere in the country or show their face anywhere in public without being challenged by direct action.”

I wish my colleagues looking to fight elections against this sort of mob all the very best against people who propose strikes and violence if the public vote the wrong way and who believe that vile personal attacks are the way to conduct political debate. I look in awe as women like Kate Andrews rise above bigoted, unpleasant personal attacks and I wonder how long it will be before one of these baying mobs gets their way as some young right-wing politician kills themself. The unremitting negativity of the language, the personal attacks, the refusal to debate other than in terms of insult, the waving of identity rights as a way to close down debate - a putrid stew of nastiness designed to make it impossible for people to set out a case for conservatism.

If we want good people to go into politics, we've got to stop this grisly pantomime because right now all it leaves is triumphalist bullies waving the heads of defeated opponents on sticks. I know there's always been a gladiatorial element in politics but it was, most of the time, conducted on the basis of ideas, policies and debate not on shouting down, banning or closing off that debate while attacking the opponent on the basis of something they said after five pints when they were seventeen. Nobody survives that sort of attack and politics is made the worse for it, where once there was a sense that we served the folk who elect us there is now just a bear pit watched by that blood-speckled mob high on the pornography of violence.

And away from that pit there's another world, one of ordinary people bemused by the sheer unpleasantness of it all. For some it is simply reframed as another branch of the entertainment business but for many its why they think so little of politics and politicians - "they're all the same", "crooks", "only in it for themselves", "not interested in us". I've heard these comments all my life, my wife gets angry when people say them in my presence, and I know they don't apply to most politicians, especially local politicians, but the spectacle of character assassination, name-calling and personal attack, egged on by that mob, makes it easy to see why people say these things.

So, with apologies for the slightly ranting nature of this, I think you'll understand why I'm pleased I leave politics in a few months time. And to those conservatives still active or wanting to get involved - especially in national politics - stand up for what you believe, speak clearly, ignore the bullies and don't let the mob win.

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Bonus quote of the day - a H L Mencken classic...

Via Cafe Hayek:

The loud, preposterous moral crusades that so endlessly rock the republic – against the rum demon, against Sunday baseball, against Sunday moving-pictures, against dancing, against fornication, against the cigarette, against all things sinful and charming – these astounding Methodist jehads offer fat clinical material to the student of mobocracy. In the long run, nearly all of them must succeed, for the mob is eternally virtuous, and the only thing necessary to get it in favor of some new and super-oppressive law is to convince it that that law will be distasteful to the minority that it envies and hates.

Yep.

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We have to risk the mob's fury to earn the right to govern the mob

Fear of the mob was a constant feature of politics in past times and that mob was not always either informed or edifying. But it mattered because it's wrath could and did challenge the decisions of governments - especially when those decisions seemed unjustified:

Wilkes was expelled from Parliament in February 1769, on the grounds that he was an outlaw when he was returned. He was re-elected by his Middlesex constituents in the same month, only to be expelled and re-elected in March. In April, after his expulsion and another re-election, Parliament declared his opponent, Henry Luttrell, to be the winner. In defiance Wilkes was elected an alderman of London in 1769, using his supporters' group, the Society for the Supporters of the Bill of Rights, for his campaign. Wilkes eventually succeeded in convincing Parliament to expunge the resolution barring him from sitting.

I don’t agree with much of the deficit-denying, there-must-be-no-cuts-of-any-sort rhetoric that dominates much of the on-line dialogue around local government decisions about budgets during this cycle. However, as I’ve made clear before, I really don’t agree with the officious control of who can or cannot report, take pictures, tweet, blog or generally pass comment on what we get up to as councillors. After all – as I point out frequently to colleagues – if parliament can broadcast all its proceedings, surely a local council can let someone take a few photos?

We could cite example after example of local councils getting all heavy-handed over reporting rights – in Bradford we even threw out the local paper’s photographer! But some of the focus has been on the strange way in which Barnet Council acted. Presumably this was a response to some of the problems experienced at Lewisham and Lambeth – I’m not sure but the whole thing seemed rather over-the-top and largely unnecessary. And the justification seems frankly ridiculous:

“The current advice according to the constitution does not allow filming in the council chamber.  I’ve not had a chance to have discussions about it with any of our group.  Can you imagine how chaotic it would be if the whole public gallery was trying to film it?”

Now, for the benefit of the uninitiated, the “constitution” to which Barnet’s leader refers is that of the Council. This is the rather grandiose title now appended to what used to be standing orders, regulations on financial conduct and advisory matters such as conduct of meetings. Now it seems to me that, even if Barnet Council’s standing orders do restrict the use of cameras, the Council Meeting can if it chooses suspend any or all elements of its standing orders relating to the conduct of meetings. By way of illustration, Bradford Council – at its recent budget meeting – suspended the standing order relating to the length of speeches thereby allowing each party group leader to speak for ten minutes.

Barnet – or any other Council could easily accommodate photography or filming of proceeding should that be the wish of members. Yet these councils choose not to – and in the case of Barnet the aim is to limit coverage:

“The only thing we will do is consider responsible media requests, and they are the only thing we would allow at this stage. If we had a request, I would expect an officer to approach me about it.  I do not think we would consider a request from bloggers. Only respectable media would be considered.”

In the end this is both a minor matter – the debate and decisions of council meetings are on the public record – and a major concern – decisions affecting the public should be made in public and the public should have the broadest possible opportunity to witness those proceedings.  So when one blogger – Kate Belgrave - says this I have to agree:

Lynne Hillan's attempt to keep the public out last Tuesday seemed to me...as good a reason as any to make sure the public got in. I turned up with the equivalent of a small television station in my bag: a camera, two phones, a laptop and a couple of alternate-provider dongles. I wasn't the only one – the long queue outside Hendon town hall lit up in the gloom like a nightclub as people prepared their cameras and phones for action.

We should not be keeping people out – that is a negation of openness and democracy. Too often Councillors seem to take the view that any audience can only be a source of trouble and that is to be avoided! For my part I’ll fight my corner and make the case for what I believe to be the right thing – and if Kate and her mates want to heckle me, that’s fine. I’d rather that than make decisions behind some sterile authoritarian protection constructed from fear of the mob.

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